Episode 2

A 21 Day Follow Through Challenge

I'm back! This is Rick Lewis. If you've listened to the first episode of The Follow Through Formula Podcast, you already know that I've leapt into podcasting completely on the spur of the moment, so I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I uploaded the first episode and submitted it to iTunes. Everyone was saying it took two or three days, but give it a few weeks, to be sure. And my iTunes podcast was approved in about 38 hours, so I took that as a very positive sign that this is meant to be, even though after recording my first podcast, I had major podcasters remorse. 

If you don’t know what podcaster’s remorse is, it's the same as buyer's remorse—you jump in, you commit to the thing, and then you go, What have I done? But I am back, and here's my plan for The Follow Through Formula Podcast.

 This podcast is designed to help you to act on what matters most for you, especially to act on things that you really care about but have not taken any action on because you've been doubting or you might be anxious or fearful about taking this step, but it's still there in your mind. And maybe it's been there for years and years and years, or maybe you have a new idea for some action you want to take, and yet you haven't been able to get into motion. 

This podcast is designed to support you to get that momentum and start acting. And what better way to help you than by demonstrating it myself? By leaping into something that scares me that I don't know how to do yet and committing to it. My idea is that I am going to record one podcast every day for the next 21 days, and I invite you to join me in this challenge by identifing something that you've been wanting to move toward, and to take some kind of action in that direction every day as well for the next 21 days. 

Now, I know that sounds like a tall order. Maybe your mind is instantly saying I'm too busy, I’m not ready for that. But what I want you to do is consider the power of taking some kind of action, no matter how small. Identify your overall goal and then break out a small portion of movement toward it. If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of taking action toward what you want to do, then just make the action smaller. Make it as small as you want. And commit to taking some small step in that direction.

You might want to be making music, either professionally or just recreationally, to start a band or participate in some kind of jam sessions somewhere. Maybe you're an artist and you want to sell your art, or you just want to be making more art and giving it away. Maybe you make food, or you love feeding people. It could be anything you love. If you love getting people together for events, but because of covid, you can't do it right now, do it online. Perhaps you'd like to be a counselor. Perhaps you want to be a coach of some kind, teach a sport. Maybe you want to cut people's hair or you love walking dogs. Maybe you want to write a Children's book or do graphic design or you love to garden. Whatever it is that you know gives you joy to do, find some way to get in motion around it.

Whether you want to do it just as a hobby or volunteering your time, or if you want to make money doing that thing, whatever it is that you're drawn toward, my invitation to you is to take some kind of step every day for the next 21 days right along with me.

 Now what's going happen when you get in motion is that it will have a spillover effect. Those little actions that you take are literally going to have a neurochemical effect in your body, in the physiology of your brain chemistry. When you take action, no matter how small, towards something that is desirable to you, it literally shifts the way you think and the way you feel. 

There are chemical neurotransmitters that get secreted when our brain tells us we are moving in a right direction. Even a small step in the right direction sends a signal to the brain that produces dopamine, a key neurochemical producing a sense of reward.  

On this subject you can listen to a fantastic podcast, the Rich Roll podcast, and look up the episode with Dr Andrew Huberman. The take-away from this podcast is that behavior always comes first when you're looking at making a change in your life. Most people try to reverse this, trying to back into a change by thinking their way into it and changing the way they feel about doing the thing they imagine doing. Dr Huberman is describing how the brain is not designed to work that way. Instead, the brain is designed to work so that when you take action, the brain starts to reorder itself around the action you're taking, and to reinforce action that feels right and good and in alignment with who you actually are. 

So that's what this challenge is based on. If you start taking action in a wanted direction, you will begin to change everything about the way you think and feel about that domain and in your life. No matter how small the action, you'll be getting your body in motion and triggering the brain chemistry you need to make more of the choices you want to make, to take more action, which produces more of those chemicals, and so on.

What I'm building is a community platform that surrounds a course called The Follow Through Formula Course. My intention is to bring on board a maximum of 100 people for this course. Together we are going are going to use the tools, the research, and the resources that I have gathered over the last 10 years to support people in passionate pursuit of what they love. 

This is what I've been doing pretty much all day, every day for the last decade, giving speaking presentations at corporate and association events. I have been on probably over 400 business trips in the last 10 to 15 years hired by corporations and associations to come speak to them about personal and professional development. I always tailor my material to what it is they're most interested in empowering in their people, whether that's teamwork or leadership or critical thinking or innovation or integrity. 

I've studied many different facets of personal and professional growth in delivering these keynotes and doing it in my own unique fashion, which is very theatrical. If you want to see what I do as a speaker, which is very unique and has a lot of humor and comedy and theater involved in it, you can go to ricklewis.co. That's my speaking website and you can see a video there that gives you a taste. I won't describe it here, but you can go see the surprise way I enter the lives of attendees at corporate events. 

I'm bringing all of that under the Life Leap banner at gamesforconfidence.com and offering it in The Follow Through Formula Course. I'm going to bring in 100 people just to start. And once we're inside of that platform we are going to support the heck out of each other to pursue a specific goal that we have. 

Especially for any of you who are facing a big life leap. You might be facing an involuntary life leap if you just lost your job or you had to move or, God forbid, you've lost your home or you're having a big health concern or there's been a big shift in your relationship life. Maybe you're just deciding you want to make a leap. It's not mandatory, but you just feel it's time. You might be thinking, “I don't have forever to get to this thing I want to do,” whether it's starting a business or one of the other things I named that you might love to do. We'll all be able to gather together in the course, and we're going to train and coach and cheerlead and guide each other to go after this tangible goal. 

In the process, what we're going to do is learn the follow through formula system. This system includes a number of tools and inner competencies that you're going to learn to develop so that, when the course is over, you're going to be able to apply this same formula to any small or big leap you need to make in your life in the future forevermore.

In addition you can have continued access to this course and access to ongoing support by remaining a member of this community for a small monthly fee and that includes ongoing access to my presence in the community.

So this is the first of 21 days. I had an introductory episode, and episode two will be the first of 21. So, I've got another 20 episodes to go, and the course is going to launch the day after the last episode.

And I invite you to join me in the challenge of taking one small action each day with me for the next 20 days in the direction of any goal you choose. No matter what it is, or even if it switches along the way, these small actions will produce deep changes that allow you to follow through on what is most important to you.

You will be able to follow along here and you'll be able to hear about my progress and my challenges and all the days where I might be stuck and have podcasters block, and the tools I use to move through. You are not alone. All humans who do good work and wonderful things have to face the challenge of feeling anxious and maybe scared and hesitant to move forward with something that's new.

I'll be back tomorrow with Episode three and we'll keep moving forward. I've got a fun story. I'm going to tell you about the very first time I ever street performed, which was a dream of mine. When I was a young man, I fell in love with the idea of going out and doing circus skills on the street, being a circus comedian juggler and making money from donations right into my hat! I'm going to tell you the story of the very first time that I street performed, which I think you will very much enjoy. It’s actually pretty embarrassing, but it's very funny, too, and it ends well so you can look forward to that tomorrow. 

Please leave a review If you're already liking what you're hearing, and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss one day on this journey through the 21 day epic voyage I'm taking right up to the opening of The Follow Through Formula Course under the Life Leap banner at gamesforconfidence.com.

Thanks for listening. And if one day, whoever you are, we get to meet or talk in person, I would love it. 

Game on!