Episode 6

Welcome back to the follow through formula Podcast. This is Rick Lewis. We are in episode six of Rick Lewis flying by the absolute seat of his pants and figuring this thing out as he goes. And as if I'm not giving myself enough curveballs to deal with, I decided today I wanted to interview someone. This is someone who's a very good friend of mine and also very knowledgeable in the dynamics of human growth. His name is John Souza. He's a doctor, a certified marriage and family therapist.

He has all those initials after his name, a long string of credentials of which I don't have any, and you’ll know why when you hear him talk. I think I'm embarrassing him. I'm trying to throw him off. We were actually in the middle of a social call that we regularly have together and I said, hold on a second. I'm going to start recording this because I want to interview you for the podcast.

Usually, people who do lots of content, either YouTube or podcasting or whatever, they do this thing called batching. That is when you sit down and you knock out four or five episodes so you get a little ahead, and then you just queue them up and you let them run. I am not batching. I am recording each podcast on the day I’m posting it. I'm doing that because for these twenty-one days we're talking about follow through. If I have to manage my energy and my attention to be able to offer something of value every single day and then post it, that kind of replicates what it is I want to support you with, which is to move through your resistance to whatever your goal is, whatever it is that is most important to you.

If you want to move towards your aim, the idea of The Follow Through Formula is that every day you are moving that goal forward in some way however small. That requires some skills and competencies around attention management, energy management, mind management, and physical stamina. All of these things are a part of being able to do that. 

RL:  John Souza, welcome to my podcast; this surprise that I'm laying on you right now.

JS:  This is awesome. Thank you so much, Rick, for the invitation.

RL:  My pleasure. Here's my question for you. You and I had a conversation, maybe a week ago or a couple weeks ago. And we were both in the middle of making a big move. I'm moving from being a traveling speaker and entertainer to a new online e-commerce course creator, writer, and coach. You are pivoting in a different way. Tell us in your words what you're pivot is about.

JS:  Well, I have been a licensed doctor of marriage and family therapy for the past 15 years. I have been practicing as a clinician and teaching and supervising. I'm now moving into what was actually my previous career, my first career, if you will, which is being a musician. I'm not sure if the two will cross, I suspect at some point they will, because I'm not going to stop being a therapist, but I have to give my musician self some validity and some outlet that will sustain me not only spiritually and emotionally, but financially, too.

RL:  You're doing what most people would be up against if they decided to make a big life change, which is you have a current gig, you have a job that you need to keep doing, and you're having to develop something new at the same time. And so that's a big load.

And you mentioned to me something that just rocked me because it's not something that's really on my radar. What you mentioned is that in the process of trying to ramp up your new thing, you notice that you could lose track of your empathic nature, your empathic self. You have a family as so many of us do, you've got your wife and your daughter.

What I've been struggling with is there's this energy, a kind of very stereotypical male energy that is useful for going after something. I'm gonna take some risks. I'm gonna move forward. I'm gonna really put my energy and my focus behind this. And how do you do that while at the same time maintaining the sense of connection to other people? Whether it's family if you have immediate family, or if you're living alone it might be with friends or a social network or something like that. So talk to me about how we juggle these two things at the same time? Because I find it quite challenging.

JS:  Absolutely. As do I. And I want to offer that this idea of it being a male energy, certainly I think that's how it has been socialized. And there might be, due to more testosterone, more of that aggressiveness, if you will, in the male half of the species. But that is definitely present in women as well, um, so I want to be careful about too many generalizations there.

I would say if there's one thing that I found to be true, for example, my wife is equally if not more assertive and maybe even aggressive at times with her single singular focus, but she's just better able to balance that with relationship, and come out of it, whereas I'll get lost in it. And I will really struggle to detach from that singular focus and get to something like making dinner or tending to my daughter's homework. Whereas my wife, either because of genetics or socialization or the two together, can go into her place of focus, get a lot of work done and then still be aware of everything else that is going on.

And that phenomenon is actually supported by brain structure. There's a part of the brain that is responsible for diffuse awareness, and it tends to be smaller in men than in women. Women tend to have greater diffuse awareness, meaning that they are aware of what's going on around them; kind of taking it all in at once. Women on average tend to be better at this than men. So I call this—you know, in men it could be considered a disorder, a diffuse awareness disorder, so you could take the acronym, DAD.

RL:  Oh, no! Wow, that's deadly. Alright. So, DAD, so built right into dad. Is this automatic? Um, diffuse awareness disorder? That so fits my experience. It’s painful, but it fits my experience of coming out of a day of work. It could take me an hour or two to feel like I'm actually with my family because I've been so into a groove, a certain way of thinking and I'm still back there thinking about whether I loaded the podcast properly, and whether I checked this and that.

JS:  Women tend to have more connections between the hemispheres in the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects both hemispheres. So they are, on average, better able to have this balance, this brain balance.

RL:  So what are the solutions to this?

JS:  Yeah, I don't know what the answer is. One answer that I have employed has been learning to reduce the number of decisions that I have to make in a given day. Reducing that decision fatigue and something that you talk about one of your games for confidence, minimizing the amount of time you spend on decision making, limiting it to 15 seconds.

I can't tell you how many times we've been using that my household! Instead of the endless deliberation that just fatigues us, we recognize if we're deliberating that it's time to stop, make a decision and move forward, whatever the outcome. That’s been so helpful. Thank you!

And reducing decision fatigue by creating some structure around the things that I am responsible for, that relate to others in my family, has been incredibly helpful. For example, creating a menu. I can't stand having to improvise cooking. I'm not good at it. I was not raised as a chef. My wife was raised with world class cooks from India, and I suck. So I had to come up with a menu so I don't have to make it up and feel incompetent every week. I don't have to think about what I'm cooking on Tuesday because it's taco Tuesday and I know when I go grocery shopping on Sunday, I need to get enough chicken and taco seasoning and cheese and olives and guacamole for Taco Tuesday. 

 RL:  Let me guess what Wednesday is. It's gotta be something beginning with W, um, Worcestershire Wednesday?

JS:  Sorry. The alliteration stops a Taco Tuesday and Take-out Thursday.

RL:  Okay, Fish Friday?

JS:  No, no, no. It's pizza Friday. That’s the whole menu. I know there's the menu so I'm not thinking about it, I just know. And so, if I get lost in a project, you know, just like any creative endeavor, you know it takes it's a whole brain, whole body experience. Oftentimes, when you're doing it well, not unlike the process of play, right, you totally lose sense of time of self. You're doing it just for the sake of the thing itself. And, of course, it's easy to get lost. But I know that my daughter is going to be done with school around noon for lunch break. And so part of me just kind of keeps track of that time. It's about 11:30. I'm at a place where I could take a break. I'm going to pause here and go prepare this meal. And if I get back to the project, great. If I can't, that's okay, too. There's a little bit of acceptance to that.

This is a long term process. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon. I'm in this for the long haul. This pivot is a lifelong quest. So if I don't get to it today or this week, that's okay. I will get to it.

RL:  What are your biggest challenges with the pivot that you're in the middle of? What are the things that you most struggle with?

JS:  I'm so glad you asked, Rick, because I need some guidance here, my friend. The biggest challenge for me in my life when it comes to professional and maybe personal obligations is saying no. I have this real fear of saying no when I'm asked to do things. And lately in the last week, I have had three separate offers to teach marriage and family therapy.

One is to take on a clinical supervision group that meets every Friday morning six students at the university that I'm already a part of, teaching one class there. Another is to teach at my daughter's high school, an early college or AP Psychology course that I've taught there before. And then another is to become part of an emerging university that is based on practice based evidence. The guy who is developing it wants me to be part of the ground floor faculty.

RL:  So these aren't small opportunities! These are great opportunities that you're having.

JS:  As in, they're  going to take all of my music writing time and energy. That's my biggest fear, right? That I've created this situation which allows me just enough time to have some space in the morning to write music, to practice guitar, and to practice my social media campaigning. And you know, all that stuff that goes along with entrepreneurship. These other things are going to whittle away at that, and I know that. I feel it in my gut. But how do I say no?

I said yes to the clinical supervision groups. I thought, Well, that's actually pretty easy to do, and I do enjoy that. That's fun. I like teaching people and giving them support as they're learning to be a clinician. And it's early enough in the morning that I could get up, get it done and still have the rest of my day.

The teaching at my daughter's high school makes sense because I started teaching there before she entered high school, knowing that she might be able to be in one of my classes and that it would be an opportunity for me to show her that I'm involved in her life, in her world in some way.

The other university gig, the emerging university, I don't know about that one. It feels like too much right now, as much as I want to do it because it's everything I believe in.

RL:  What happens when you say No? I mean, I know the answer to this for me, what the fears are. But what are your fears about? If I say no, then…

JS:  Oh, then the feeling I have is…shame on me! One offer came to me via a recommendation from a colleague who is highly regarded in our field of marriage and family therapy. So, it's sort of like, I don't know, I mean, not quite Anthony Robbins, but somebody well known like that in the speaker self-help field saying, “Yes, I think Rick Lewis would be good for your thing.” You know, they call you and say, “Well, Anthony Robbins recommended you.” Right? How do I turn that down? And still…

RL:  Is the process of being able to turn such things down a matter of defining for yourself how much the music matters for you? Does it have to be big enough where our vision for what we want to do is big enough and strong enough that the other things may be tempting, but in the end, it doesn't win out over this aim we have?

There are a lot of reasons why it's hard to say no. One reason could be that the thing we want to move toward is not well-defined or well-delineated enough in us internally. That makes it hard to keep pursuing it.

Another reason would be, because we're social beings, we're afraid of the consequences of some kind of rejection or ostracization that might occur if we say no to people who are in our world and have offered us something.

JS:  I think that's right. Both of those are spot on. There is a sense of being ungrateful if I say no, being ostracized or sort of on the naughty list. If I say no, I’m missing opportunities, sort of FOMO, fear that I'm missing out on this great opportunity at this university to be a part of the ground up faculty.

It’s also just difficulty because of, like you said, the vision of being a musician. I was a musician for several years. I did this as my job. I traveled the country back in my early twenties. That's what I did. And it was a great lifestyle, but it was a very hard lifestyle, and I was very young and I didn't handle it very well. Which is why I had to leave it. I had to find a “real” job because I just wasn't focused enough or disciplined enough or mature enough to handle the business side and to really treat it like a career. I treated it like it was just all play. No work anyway.

So here I am now, and I have this established career in something that is considered legitimate and highly socially respected. It's a clear path forward. Just see clients, teach, supervise. Do that until the day you die. But there's this other part of me that feels really important, and I'd like to say that it actually has the capacity to be really good, too. In fact, I recorded about three songs in the last week.

And that's the other thing. The level of productivity when I play music. The level of productivity as a marriage and family therapist pales in comparison to my level of productivity as a musician. I am prolific when it comes to writing songs and recording stuff compared to what I've generated as a marriage and family therapist.

RL:  Yeah, it sure does seem like that. I don't know how we'd clinically assess that. But when you're doing something you love prolific-ness seems to be a natural outcome of it. And when you love something, you do it a lot, and when you do something a lot, you get good at it. And if the world needs anything, it needs people who are actually deeply competent and good at, if not have some mastery over, what they're doing.

Every once in a while, you run into somebody who clearly enjoys what they're doing and they're competent, they’re sharp, and they're super helpful. It makes my whole day when I run into people who are really good at what they're doing. And I think it's people who love what they're doing that wind up radiating that kind of mood to other people.

JS:  Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. I know that experience. I've had that before with people.

I also want to clarify another obstacle. I was talking with my wife this morning about this, and you said it in your podcast, too—I think it was the first one, actually—that there are all kinds of messages, what I would call “stinking thinking” around this pivot. Thinking I'm not that good as a musician. “There are people that are better. This isn't a real career. It's too late in my life. That time has passed.” All of those things that are absolute barriers to me just going for it and doing it.

It’s hard for me to even say it out loud. I think I have some skill, and I think I can write some pretty good music. But I'm not looking to be—I have to say this to my mom, “I'm not looking to be world famous or anything like that.” I just want to pay my mortgage, that's all. I just want to pay the bills. It's hard to say that out loud.

It's hard to claim that I want to be a musician or that I am musician. You know that kind of stuff because it feels so cliche. And especially at my age, 45. I'm imagining people saying, “This is just a midlife crisis.”

RL:  You are touching and all the things that get me so riled up about this topic because I think the thing that gets left out, and that's such a shame, is that when someone does what they love, it moves their energy in a way that begins to transform them and transforms other people around them.

When you are really lit up by what your attention is on, it creates a whole physiological and even a spiritual kind of alignment. Where you are attentive, you're attuned. You're noticing more your environment, you’re relating with people in a different way. You're affecting them in a different way. And by moving toward that thing that feels resonant with your essence, you begin to inhabit something that affects you and your whole environment.

When you put that into the mix as an ingredient, where you are that person who's lit up in your world, it completely changes what happens next. Instead, we often think, “Well, I can't move. No, I can't do this. I can't be a musician.” What you miss out on is that lighting up process, which opens doorways that you had no idea were even there for you. Like maybe you won't be a musician. But the process of you saying yes to being a musician is gonna open whatever is next.

It allows for a whole octave leap. It's another level of possibility that you're availing yourself of because you've opened your energy that way, and people respond to that. People are going to feel it. It’s possible even the opportunities that you're getting right now are related to your commitment.

A lot of people would argue with what I’m about to say, but I truly believe it, because I have had this happen many times. The universe or reality or whatever we want to call it has a subtle network of intelligence that operates outside of what we can track as cause and effect. So when we begin to move in certain ways and connect with ourselves more authentically and more deeply, it sends out a signal. I have no idea how that occurs—maybe it's pheromones or something. I don't know, but something happens. And then what starts coming back are opportunities, possibilities, relationships that just seem like they're coming out of the blue.

It's interesting that you're saying now you’re getting these opportunities coming to you suddenly right on the heels of committing to being a musician.

JS:  Yeah. There are so many ways that an observation of nature supports that idea that there are things that we can't see, which doesn't mean they're not there, it just means that we don't have the right tools to be able to see them. Over the years we've learned about, for example, how trees share nutrients with each other when they are in groves together. And we didn't really understand that until recently, where we could get a view small enough to see these little hairs on the roots and that these little creatures, micro-organisms, actually go from tree to tree transporting nutrients. We had no idea how that was working. So there are definitely things that are conducting all of us energetically that we just can't fully get right now.

I agree. It's no coincidence that these things were coming to me. In fact, it reminds me of conversations my daughter and I have been having over the last couple of months, since I really did commit to this musician path again. She said, “Dad, I noticed that a lot of the girls are treating you differently when we go out, like cashiers.” Now, I used to have long hair and, you know, I guess I was a good looking guy, but lately, since Covid started in March, I just let it go. I cut my hair and I’m growing this huge beard. I mean, it was like a mountain man, or a homeless bum—that’s what my wife says, but she hates the beard. But my daughter has noted that women are treating me differently. “They’re like flirting with you, Dad. What's going on with that?”

And I think it might have something to do with a different energy that I have for myself. As a musician, I've always had this sense of being able to walk a little taller because I had this thing in me that feels so congruent.

RL:  I think this is true for every human being, that there are things that are in our attention that we feel compelled to move toward, and when you move toward them, you are lining up in a way that makes you sit up straighter and your gaze is raised and you're meeting things as a different person. You can't make it go away that there are things that your body-mind-spirit complex wants you to attend to, and that if you don't, if you push them away and you ignore them, then in some ways you're going to suffer the effects of that.

JS:  Absolutely, absolutely. I have a clinical mentor of mine whose brother as a very accomplished musician, but he's also a biologist. Years ago this mentor told me about his brother not playing music anymore and the correlative weight gain that occurred. And when his brother started playing music again, he started to lose weight. And I have noticed that even for myself I just feel healthier. I don't even have to work out as much when I'm playing music more. I just naturally seem to be healthier.

RL:  The do what you love weight loss program! We have to market this right away. Well, John, we could go on and on and on, but I don't want to belabor the attention of my brand new podcast listeners. I'm so glad to be able to introduce you to these listeners because you and I talk all the time and I love our conversations. I so enjoy getting to explore these things with you. Thanks for letting me spring this on you and for just jumping in and being willing to be a player, speaking of music! And I think we'll probably do it again.

JS:  Thank you so much, Rick. Yeah. I always love our conversations.

RL:  And thank you all for listening. This has been episode six of The Follow Through Formula Podcast, an interview with John Souza, my good friend and soon to be millionaire world renowned musician.

JS:  Yes! Follow me on Instagram at The John Sojourn, or on Facebook, The John Sojourn. Or you could go to Band Camp or Soundcloud and find my music. The John Sojourn. 

RL:  Great! We got it! We will be there. We're gonna watch you rise to stardom.

Game on, everybody! Whatever you've got going, whatever you're sitting on or poised to put into motion, just take a small step. That’s my invitation to you. It could be anything. When you take action and move a little bit toward the thing that you can feel in your body is just wanting some attention, wanting a little traction, just take a small step. It is the continuity of efforts over time that makes the difference. So, take the leap, and we will be able to do it together. All right. Signing off for today.