Episode 3

Welcome to the third episode of The Follow Through Formula Podcast. This is Rick Lewis. I have committed to 21 of these podcast episodes, which has really got my attention! It felt inspiring in the moment, during the last episode, when I said that I am going to do this for 21 days in a row, because I can be an example of what it looks like to follow through. But I almost didn't make it today. I'll tell you why. 

It is the evening now, and I had a lot going on today. I have many things to do to prepare for this commitment and to launch The Follow Through Formula Course on November 1st. So, I’ve had a long productive day, and I thought, “Well, I'll just do my podcast session after dinner.” 

My plan was that after a nice dinner with the family I would roll right into my podcast. Now, family dinners in my house aren't always the smoothest part of the day. When you have kids, that's kind of the way it goes. So, by the end of dinner, I was not feeling inspired. I guess what I wasn't feeling was that I'm a good example of the kind of person who should go talk to people to motivate them and inspire them. 

Kind of like imposter syndrome. When you've committed to something and it requires you to follow through at regular intervals, it's very likely that one of those regular intervals are going to land at a time when you're not feeling you're up to the task, you're not feeling qualified for the task. So tonight, after the way I was responding to the challenges of dinner, I was not feeling qualified. I came downstairs here and I'm like, “Okay, What have I got to say about follow through?” 

And what I have to say today is that I'm here. I'm following through. 

If I walk into Episode three trying to pretend that I'm some kind of got-it-all-together person who has no trouble following through and I've got all these wisdom bombs to lay on you, that's just not gonna fly under the circumstances. Instead, you're getting the real deal. This is me, on this day, following through with where I'm at. I did promise you I would share in this episode the story of the very first time that I street performed. And I did mention it was a little bit of an embarrassing story, but I'm going to tell the story anyway, because also, as I mentioned yesterday, it does have a good ending.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was living in an intentional community of artists and spirituals seekers. For a while after the end of high school and during my early college years, I had done musical theater and clowning. I had learned circus skills, acrobatics, unicycling, juggling, and magic. I had put aside my love of performing during this period of intentional spiritual seeking, but when it came time to leave this community, I was trying to decide what I wanted to do next. I started thinking that I wanted to go back to these roots of my love for performing. 

I used to watch this couple, Shields and Yarnell, who had a TV show at this time (I'm really dating myself here!). They were pantomime artists, highly talented physical comedians and athletes, and I was very impressed by them. And I had heard that they came from a background of street performing on Pier 49, which was a famous spot for street performing in San Francisco. I looked up some information about them and some stories, and I think I might have even seen some video footage of one of them doing the street performing.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, I would love to do that!” There was something about the dynamic of seeing someone go out in public, unrehearsed, unannounced, unplanned, set up in the middle of a pedestrian area and begin presenting and performing in such a way that a crowd would gather around them, and present a narrative of skits or entertaining scenes and build that crowd to the extent that by the end there's this big crowd surrounding this performer, who then puts out his hat and asks for donations. 

That just seemed like pure magic to me. 

So, I decided that my next step was to go street perform. While I was still living in community, I started working on my very first street performance. I spent months building up a repertoire of skits and magic and some juggling routines and acrobatics. I was very, very diligent and dedicated to creating this really engaging street show. 

I was living outside of the city of Portland, Oregon, and I used to drive into town every now and then just to be in the atmosphere of the city. There's a center point in downtown Portland called Pioneer Courthouse Square. It is this really neat little plaza with stone steps leading up away from the center in a three-quarter round amphitheater style. Exhibits and festivals and performances are staged there. During the week at lunchtime when the weather's nice, a lot of people empty out of the office buildings and take their break on the steps in this amphitheater. My idea was to perform my routine there. I decided I would go on a nice day in the middle of the week and perform my show right at that time when the steps were full of people. 

I planned out my whole routine. I was working with a character called Pockets the Clown. I had this very colorful costume with a vest that, not surprisingly, had pockets in it filled with little magic tricks and juggling balls, and I would perform in full white face. So, when I was ready, I got all made up in white face, put on my Pockets the Clown character costume, and after these months of practicing, I went to Pioneer Courthouse Square. I parked my car and I walked up to the square, which is surrounded by some trees, and I got close to the square and I saw that, indeed, the steps were full of people, maybe 150 people sitting on these tiered steps that surrounded the plaza area. And I froze. 

I had done lots of theater up to that point, but never a public show like this.

Just walking out in the middle of these people and starting my show that I had never done in public before! I was so nervous and scared that I stood behind a tree, knees trembling, sweating. I was behind that tree for maybe 45 minutes. I would take a little step toward the center and then I would come back. I would take another breath. My diaphragm was sort of quivering, and I really, really didn't want to go out and do this thing. 

But I also knew that if I didn't follow through with what I planned to do, the ramifications of that were going to be a kind of shrinking that would be even more difficult to come back from in the future. And since another part of me really had a vision about this and really wanted to do it, I just thought, Okay, I've got to do this. I've gotta follow through. It doesn't matter how nervous you are or how much you're dreading this, you just got to go do it. So, I step out from behind the tree. 

I had a little bag of props in one hand and I had a boom box in the other hand and I was in full white face and this colorful costume. I strutted out into the middle of the plaza. I put my prop bag down and the boombox down, and I started my music. My biggest fear about performing in public was that I would forget the order of the routines that I had planned, that I'd get too nervous and wouldn't know what to do. But I had practiced a lot. I had run through the whole series of routines many times over. So when I set the prop bag down and started the music, I went right into the first routine. 

It was a combination of pantomime skits, juggling, acrobatics, and magic tricks. I started into it, and as soon as my body was in motion I wasn't stuck in my head anymore, it loosened me up. It freed up my mind because I was focused on completing the physical skills, and one thing just led to another. There was no problem moving from one thing to the next, and I wasn't having any hitches or any trouble, flowing right through the whole sequence of what I had planned. It was feeling really good. 

I was in the middle of this unfolding thing and watching, thinking, “Wow, isn't that fascinating? I almost didn't get out here to do this, but now that I'm out and actually in motion, this feels great!” I was going from routine to routine, enjoying the flow of it, and the getting over of all of this dread, the getting in motion and showing myself that I could actually do this. It felt like a total victory.

About 10 or 12 minutes into my routine, I realized that I was so involved with it that I hadn't even looked up to check in with the audience at all. So I looked up. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but definitely some kind of resonance between what I was feeling internally and what kind of effect that would be creating outside. But I looked up and what I saw was that not a single person of the 150 to 200 people that were gathered on those steps had stopped doing whatever they were doing before I got there to give me even the slightest bit of attention. There were people eating their lunch, chatting with each other. There was a woman knitting. There were people reading books. Somebody else was, you know, maybe journaling.

I'm standing there in that moment and physiologically what swept up my body from my toes to the top of my head was shame. I felt totally ashamed that I had stepped out and had the hubris to say, “I'm gonna entertain you! Look at me!” and then have absolutely nobody respond. It made me feel smaller than smaller than small. And huge at the same time. I felt like I was about 20 ft tall in the middle of that space, so exposed. I was so revealed and unveiled, my heart was pounding in my chest, my cheeks were burning bright red. I stood there for a moment, then reached down quickly to grab my prop bag and my boom box, because the thought that I had at that point was, “I'm getting out of here!”

I picked up these two items and I was getting ready to leave. And then another thought occurred to me. “This is as bad as it can get. It can't get any worse than this.” 

I kind of checked in again. I was like, “Well, nobody's bothering me. You know, no one's throwing their lunch at me, actually.” 

Yes, they were ignoring me. Here I was. I wanted to go because I felt ashamed. But what was stopping me from completing what I went there to do? The answer was, of course, nothing. So, I put down my prop bag and I put down the music box and I started the music again. I went right back to where I was in my performance, and I actually finished the whole thing. Still to absolutely no response. No attention from anyone in the audience. 

But in re-entering the flow of the performance I actually got back into that place where I was enjoying what I was doing. I discovered a reference point for being able to do something that I enjoyed. Yes, I would have liked others to enjoy it as well, but it was not essential to my enjoyment of this activity. To get that reference point and to finish that performance changed something inside of me. 

When I was done, I turned off the music, I picked up my prop case and the music box again, having fully finished, and I took a big, deep bow in front of this crowd, and I left the plaza.

That experience of follow through—despite the dread at the beginning, despite the intense shame that I felt in the middle when it didn't get the response I was hoping for, but going ahead with it anyway, to prove to myself that I could live through that, that I could emotionally survive not getting the approval of an audience of other people—was huge. It was a huge turning point for me.

A short time after that, I moved to Vancouver, BC. There's a place in Vancouver called Granville Island Public Market, which in the mid-eighties and through the mid-nineties was a hot spot for street performing. And I actually turned out to be one of the founding members of Granville Island becoming a sort of street performing mecca. I continued to perform there regularly, and eventually was making a very good living just from street shows and the donations I would get in my hat. That period of time for me, going out every day and just setting up and offering something to people that they would then pay me for afterwards in cash, was one of the most wonderful, fulfilling times of my whole life. It was really ecstatic to be able to work and live that way, doing something I love to do so much and learn how to bring a lot of joy to people through it. But it didn't start that way. It took time to not suck at that particular job. 

So, in terms of follow through, it's important to remember that the only thing we control is our efforts and it's our efforts over time that make a difference. It is our efforts when we follow through that bring us learning and capacities that we just can't predict ahead of time. 

We don't know what we're going to get when we follow through, but when we commit to following through, what we know is that we open a doorway and on the other side of that doorway there are different gifts that are given at different times.

But the door doesn't open without the commitment, without the follow through, especially when we're following through in a challenging circumstance. When we're up against something inside of us, which is saying you can't do this, you're not capable or you're not qualified or you're not in the right mood or you don't feel like it. When we follow through under those circumstances, we become a person who can make a commitment who can speak their word and be able to follow through on it. 

That is a very significant point of transformation. Even if we do that only a little bit but we do it over and over, we’re gradually transforming something having to do with our integrity, meaning how integrated all the different parts of us are that often behave in a warring fashion with each other. I think one thing in this moment and then a few hours later I think something else, and my behavior flip flops back and forth between different warring characters or personalities inside of me. But when I follow through, I develop the ability to be present, integrated, regardless of what inner character gets provoked inside of me. The person who follows through becomes the voice of inner mastery, one character who can make a commitment and follow through with it. 

This evening, one part of me was saying, “Let's just skip it.” Had I not made the commitment to do a podcast every day, I wouldn't be here right now. I would not have followed through. And yet here I am. I've shared a story with you, which hopefully is useful in some way. And we have now completed Episode three!

My question to you is, What did you do between yesterday and today? Did you take some small action on behalf of something important to you that you usually ignore? If you did, fantastic! If a part of you said I'm going to do it and then you didn't, ask yourself what might have stopped you? I leave you with the same invitation for today as I will for each of these 21 days: to take one small action a day based on your goal. Thank you for listening. I’m Rick Lewis and I'll be back again tomorrow with whatever shows up. Game on!