#166 Breaking Free of the Rules — Rick Lewis on being a child actor, dropping out of college, being a professional juggler, street performing and a clowning, the corporate world as an outsider, breaking rules, parenting and how to reinvent yourself

[00:59] Paul: Welcome to The Pathless Path. I'm Paul Millerd, and in this podcast, we examine the invisible scripts that run our lives and dare to imagine new stories for work and life. Today, I'm excited to be talking with Rick Lewis. Uh, his short title is speaker, author, and consultant, but he is so much more than that. He's lived an adventurous life, a curious life, A Wandering Life, describes himself growing up as a socially anxious kid and now speaks in front of large audiences for a living. So excited to explore that transformation.

He's done a bunch of other stuff, including being a child actor, competitive sports, street performing, all sorts of things. I'm excited to explore that with him today. Welcome to the podcast, Rick.

[01:51] Rick Lewis: Thanks, Paul. Great to be here and great to get to finally meet you.

[01:55] Paul: We have so much to explore, but with all my guests, I like to start with the stories and scripts that you grew up with. Everyone has some scripts that sort of shape what they think about what they're supposed to be doing in adulthood as they get older, as they come of age. What are some of the stories and scripts that stand out that you grew up with?

[02:15] Rick Lewis: Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I grew up in a family that was remarkably drama-free, uh, at least on the surface. And what it took me years— and I, I've not thought— your question is just prompting me to dive into this, and I don't know if I've ever unpacked it this way for myself, so this will be interesting. But my parents are very kind, super supportive, encouraging individuals. So I grew up in an atmosphere where I was told, you can do whatever you want. You know, we believe in you, we support you.

They supported me to follow some very unusual paths of interests, including when I was in grade, you know, like junior high and high school, I did not go out with other kids. I didn't party. I had no interest in that. I was in my backyard learning how to juggle 5 balls and riding unicycle. And I had these strange passions that, and they just supported me to pursue the things that I was interested in, whatever those were. So on one hand, I got an incredible amount of support and license for being myself.

But in terms of, like, hidden scripts, my father, being raised as a '50s male, was not expressive. He was not, let's say, emotionally expressive. Very intelligent, very bright, articulate guy. Both my parents are. But the amount of emotional expression that was exchanged on the surface a kind of, I guess, emotional vulnerability, um, that I didn't see as much. And if there was tension, it was under the surface.

It was not talked about. There was no— there was no, let's slug this out and work through it and deepen our bond together because, you know, we're going to go through the conflict. I never saw that done. I had no clue about how to do it. And as a result, as someone, as a young person, I was very passionate about a lot of things. There's a lot I think I just stuffed because I just didn't know how to, I didn't know how to put it into a conversational atmosphere.

There was no modeling for that. So on one hand, I was really happy, thriving, expressive, but that the form of expression was in the realm of achievement, creativity, and performing, which I was very much supported to do. But when it came to just being me and just saying, hey, here's what I'm scared of, here's what I'm mad about, here's that— that was a realm that was, uh, my competency remained very low. And so as a result, I grew up navigating towards performance because that's what was working. I was good at it. I could make people laugh.

I could get people's attention. And I continued down that path and that thread its way through. I mean, everything I did, including child acting, you know, as, as a kid, 12, 13, actually like 10 through 12, 14, I had professional acting work. Commercials and also stage. I did a lot of athletics, excelled at the athletics, then became a street performer, did well there. But all of that success for years, up until even just recently, that script had me imprisoned in a place where the form of relationship and connection I could have with people had to do with performance and being on stage.

And it has been— so anyway, this is a big topic you've opened up. And literally, for me, it took decades and decades, pretty much up until the pandemic, till COVID, when I was home with no performance venue available to me. To just fall apart and realize I have been keeping myself walled off from the kind of human connection I really want, um, based on this, this script of you must perform and perform well and keep the rest hidden away. So there's, there's a start of a conversation about that.

[07:11] Paul: And this is why I'm really excited to talk to you because it's interesting to hear that coming from you. Like when I look at your path, I just think, oh wow, creative. Like he got to express himself so early. And like for me, performance was the corporate world. Like I was performing a role, I was acting in a certain role. And you come across these people all the time in your work.

But I look at, oh, what you were doing, oh, it must have been creative and expressive. But it seems you sort of got stuck in the same patterns of, okay, I am playing a role. Were you able to express your creativity in those performance roles?

[07:57] Rick Lewis: Well, for sure. There's a huge range of creative expression. And a lot of what I learned about myself, what I learned to overcome was fear of putting myself out in a certain way. I learned to be able to try things without knowing if they were going to work and had a huge number of wonderful things happen for me because I developed that as a competency. It's just that it was in a limited range, a limited realm in terms of like performance art and trying things in public and comedy and theater, all of that is where I was able to really push the envelope. But when it came to people actually seeing who I really am, just as a person, that remained unexplored.

[08:51] Paul: Yeah. So I definitely want to pull that out and explore that. I'd love to just go back to the childhood a bit. So you're doing all these things, child acting, sports, street performing. But you, you do go to college. Like, what was, where was your head at when you started college?

I know that that took a turn, but I'd love to hear, who were you when you stepped foot on college? What were you thinking about you would quote unquote do? Were you definitely headed in this performance path?

[09:23] Rick Lewis: Yeah. So, well, that was Webster University. And because at that point I wanted to be an actor, I, as I had grown up and done some professional theater and then got more into theater and had a whole group of friends, all of whom were like, this is it, we're going to be actors. This is our, this is our path. This is our goal. So there was a whole cohort of us that were pursuing that dream.

And when we hit the end of high school, all of us applied to some people to universities that had acting programs. Maybe most of them. Some, some of my friends went directly like, I'm going to New York and I'm going to start auditioning. Others were getting into acting programs, and that's what I did. I went to Webster University. It's where I applied.

They have a very competitive acting program, which I got into. I got accepted too. And but it was, it was another level of pressure chamber of, okay, you know, the pressure's on. This is where you're going to be really good and become a great actor and go on to do great things. And because the, the university was so competitive and so serious about producing professional actors, I, I really did not thrive there. In a way, it was great.

Like, oh my God, I get this incredible coaching and I learned some amazing things there from acting teachers. But the pressure was too much for me. I couldn't— I just couldn't— like, the whole pressure of auditioning and whether or not you got accepted or got to work or not. Did you make the cut? Like, Webster was— they took about 45 students, and then at year 2, they cut that in half. They just said goodbye to half of the class and said, you can't continue with the program.

[11:19] Paul: Wow. So did you drop out or you're technically like laid off from college?

[11:26] Rick Lewis: Exactly. It's super intense, super intense. So I developed such anxiety leading up to that point. And as it turned out, I got accepted, but I had already decided to leave the program before being accepted after the cut because I realized I'm just not cut out for this. I don't have the, the emotional constitution for auditions and the constant competitive nature of professional theater.

[11:59] Paul: So where did that take you from there?

[12:02] Rick Lewis: Back to Little Rock, Arkansas, where my family was from, living with my parents and my love of circus. And comedy and clowning is what I gravitated towards. So I actually became a professional clown in Little Rock, Arkansas. I started hiring myself out for birthday parties, and I opened my own business called the Juggling Center to teach juggling to people. That was my first go at a business.

[12:37] Paul: Did you look at yourself as an entrepreneur at that point, or was it just like, I have to make money, these are the things I have to do to support myself?

[12:45] Rick Lewis: I was always really entrepreneurial. I always had an entrepreneurial mindset and wanting to do things for myself, be in charge of my product and my delivery and services. And yeah, I'd always felt very entrepreneurial. And, but it did not occur to me in terms of being an entrepreneur. It never occurred to me to just do anything that would make money. That was not ever the, ever even an option for me.

I knew what I loved doing and I felt pretty hellbent on, I'm gonna find a way to do what I love doing rather than I, I never ever had a restaurant job. I never flipped burgers. I never— I've just— I've never— in fact, the only time I've ever been on anybody's payroll was when I got hired as an actor with the Broadway musical Barnum. Wow.

[13:44] Paul: So your, your sort of game you were setting up for yourself is, I want to make money from the thing itself that I actually want to do. However, I'm probably not going to make that much money. Was that sort of the story you were operating with?

[14:01] Rick Lewis: Pretty much, yeah.

[14:02] Paul: Where did that come from? I mean, I think at that time there was just less opportunity to do things online and sort of build these own things by yourself. But was that, that was just the, the people around you and it's just like, well, this is what you do.

[14:20] Rick Lewis: Well, yeah, online didn't exist at all. At that stage of my life. I mean, I'm 62, so, you know, backtrack that far and it's, that was not in the picture. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it was so much that I, I wasn't even thinking about money. Like we, I grew up in a middle-class home.

My parents are very frugal. I, I never had high needs in terms of, you know, all I needed to do was subsist. If I could figure out a way to support myself, and do what I love, that was the goal. And there was never a thought of, yeah, I just didn't have my, my sights weren't ever set on wealth or a need for material comfort.

[15:07] Paul: And did you have a community of similar-minded people around you at the time?

[15:11] Rick Lewis: Well, similar in the sense that those, you know, the, in high school and university, the people who wanted to work in the business of being some kind of performer or actor we were just bent on the end of being able to work in that industry, not being rich at it. It was really for the art of doing it. That was the prestige around it was that we would be doing that activity, not how much we'd be making from it.

[15:45] Paul: Yeah. I mean, this is something I think so much about. I mean, I know with the writing, you, you've taken the self-publish route as well with the book you eventually wrote further along your journey. But like, it feels like such a special thing for me that I actually just get to make money directly from writing because I love writing. It's, it's sort of mind-blowing to me because in my previous path, it was always you do this job to get the next job and you do this job to get the money. And like, you're sort of never directly aiming at the thing.

And I think aiming at the ends itself is a very underrated thing. But it's sort of like everyone thinks that's crazy now. Like, was that even the case then, or do you think, um, it was a little more of a conservative approach when you were growing up?

[16:41] Rick Lewis: In my limited lifetime, everyone has always thought that approach is crazy. Like, yeah, it was the same. It was very, very small percentage of people who, who were doing that. And people would just look at me, my parents' friends, and just kind of like, I was like from a different universe, um, the way I was going about things and what I was pursuing in terms of livelihood. Even my parents, who are very, you know, liberal and supportive, they just kind of shrug their shoulders. They're like, okay, you know, my dad would say, so how are you going to make a living?

Like you're juggling all the time or you're clowning. And I was like, I don't know, but I know without a doubt this is my path.

[17:31] Paul: How do you know? Like, what is that? Is that a feeling? Is that just like this matters so much? What is that?

[17:39] Rick Lewis: Joy, just, just absolute joy. Like when you have a, or a reference point for something that just totally brings you alive when you're doing it.

[17:50] Paul: I mean, you say this in your, um, yeah, coming alive over getting ahead is sort of how I frame it.

[17:57] Rick Lewis: That's it. And I, cause I just reread your book, which is just fabulous by the way. It's just, I so resonate. With your message here, but that's it. Coming alive over getting ahead. And, and somehow, I don't know how you, how you get that orientation, whether it comes through the way the modeling you have for your parents or your community, or you're just born with it.

But, um, there was never a question for me between those two things. I, I was never tempted to get ahead over do the thing that just made me feel alive.

[18:36] Paul: Yeah, the way I've put it to people is there is this state you can find that you feel so connected, so alive, that you stop worrying about the things you think you need to focus on. Yeah, but like, I don't know how to get there. Like, I don't know the recipe of how you like the second person you can get there. But knowing that that state exists should sort of drive you crazy and is like, I need to try stuff to try and find that state. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting to go back to something you said earlier, which is that your parents were like, you can be whatever you want to be.

And I think a lot of people do have parents when they are young kids that say these things to them. I heard this message. You can do whatever you want. Right. But then as you become an adult, you realize that nobody actually means that. What they mean is you can be whatever you want as long as you're sort of employed in the similar way as everyone else.

[19:44] Rick Lewis: Right. Yeah, I think that's very true. I don't think there's— I don't think there's generally an awareness of how incredibly corralled our attention is collectively as a culture into a very limited subset of activities, especially when it comes to occupation. And even when people think they're being very broad-minded or creative or open-minded, it's still about 3% of a 360-degree spectrum. And when you start getting outside that narrow band, you get pushback, emotional, psychological. And because our training, the way we're conditioned as we grow up, most of that pushback then comes internally.

We don't even see that it's necessarily external, that we've just inherited it through our upbringing of the culture, but it arises internally. And then you've got this inner war going on where your soul is like going, I have this idea, or I have this new direction. And yet there's a tremendous amount of internal resistance to pursuing that, I think.

[20:59] Paul: And so you, you were definitely outside the box with your path, but it sounds like you also sort of created your own prison in terms of what you were capable of for a while as well. And things seem to shift around the '08 financial crisis. Is this right?

[21:19] Rick Lewis: Yeah. Well, there were two big shifts. The '08 financial crisis was the first one, and then very similarly with COVID I mean, and both of them were economically induced, those crises, because in '09 I had been a comedian for like 15 years at that point and getting good work coming in just from referrals and word of mouth. And then in '09 when the economy tanked, that's the first thing that gets struck off of budgets for corporations. It's meetings and events, especially entertainment is entirely discretionary. So that went away instantly and, and my phone just stopped ringing altogether.

And my, my wife was 4 months pregnant. I had 2 teenagers already and zero income. And the bank account was just going in one direction. And interestingly, it was one of the only times I went, okay, I'm an adult now. I've got a family to support. I better go get a real job.

And, and my idea was, because I'd learned how to do web design for my own marketing for, for as a, as an entertainer, And so I started going to my little town and trying to sell websites to small mom-and-pop businesses. And I was successful. I started, you know, selling web design. I was building websites, $300, $500, just cobbling it off together for us to have food money. And I went to my wife after a few months and I said, honey, I, I think I figured this out. I'm, you know, this is working and I kind of like it.

You know, it's about communication and I think I could get better at this. I'm thinking of pivoting to become a web designer. And this was absolutely landmark for me, like, first time in my life ever I'd considered something like that. And I expected my wife to go, oh, honey, thank you so much. You're my hero. You're coming up with a way for us not to go bankrupt.

I, you know, thank you. I love you so much. I've been so scared. You know, she, her belly is out to here, you know, and she just looked at me after patiently listening to my pitch and she said, I absolutely forbid you to become a web designer. And she was adamant. She's like, what are you thinking?

That is not what you're on this planet for, you know, and she, We'd been together for 10 years at that point. And she knew, she was like, she was like, I see you, I know what you're about. And you know, she'd seen me in my element for years. And she's like, no, you're not doing that. You gotta figure out how to get your butt in gear and get back on stage.

[24:18] Paul: That's such a powerful story. I mean, I think I'm also lucky. I've been married, I think, almost 5 years now. But yeah, similar belief from my spouse. I think I've talked about getting a job a couple years ago, and she's like, I don't think that's you. But it's very powerful, um, to have that behind you.

And I, I think sometimes people will project, um, oh, don't you worry about this, that, all these things. And it's like actually the belief of people close to you can override a lot of those things.

[24:59] Rick Lewis: Absolutely.

[25:00] Paul: Do you have other people in your life that are sort of those believers for you, or is your wife one of the biggest ones?

[25:08] Rick Lewis: Well, I have a lot of those people now after doing a lot of work basically since the pandemic. I mean, since the recession in '09, that was my first big leap into— I mean, I'm a speaker now. I make a living speaking. Up until that recession, I not only did I not speak on stage, I was a silent physical comedian. I didn't talk at all. I made a career out of not revealing anything about myself personally.

That's how afraid I was of people seeing the real me. So outside of my talents, like the things I could do physically, juggling, acrobatics, the street performing, the athletics, that's what I allowed people to see. And so when I, I hit this point where my wife said, hey, you gotta figure out how to get back on stage. The reality was that I knew from the industry is the first thing they're gonna hire isn't entertainment. It's gonna be something that speaks to the ROI of the company. They're gonna want speakers, people who, people with thought leadership, people with ideas.

And I had seen a ton of this as an entertainer. I watched speakers before me and after me, and I'm like, okay. So that was where I really got challenged because I had had the thought, gosh, I've seen a lot. I'm a very— I love personal development, something I did privately, had a lot of thoughts about. And I kept thinking, gosh, I could probably speak, but I was too scared, so I never did. And so my hand was forced at that point.

And that's when I sat down to write the book. And that was a huge, huge turning point.

[27:08] Paul: So you, you sort of started out when you were younger to deal with your social anxiety of performing, to kind of break through that. And then it seems like at some point you sort of plateaued into creating your own cage for yourself.

[27:25] Rick Lewis: Yeah.

[27:27] Paul: It's interesting how that pattern seems to happen across so many domains, is that the sort of growth is aligned with what you're doing. You're going deeper. Into it. This is how it was for me in the corporate world. It was so expansive and explosive and then it just plateaued, but it sneaks up on you. And you can stay in that state for such a long time until you have these external shocks.

And do you do anything now to make sure you're not also constraining yourself now?

[28:02] Rick Lewis: Yeah, all the time. It has become over the years, especially the last 15 or 20. It's a constant process of interrupting patterns, trying new things, putting myself in uncomfortable situations, unfamiliar situations. And now that's where all the fun is. That's where the juice is. It's, it, it's not fun in the sense of, you know, in those moments where you're dreading saying yes to something.

But, but there's a particular feeling internally for me when I'm wanting to veer off the side of something and not meet it head on, there's a quality to my evasiveness internally that is an immediate cue to like, okay, I need to do this. I need to open myself up here. Yeah.

[28:58] Paul: Any recent examples of that?

[29:00] Rick Lewis: Sure. Actually, a good example is Rite of Passage. It was in my first cohort just a year ago. Or so. And, you know, David, you know, it's so, it's so interesting to me because anytime I get myself in a circumstance where someone else is the space holder or the authority, doesn't matter what the age discrepancy is, or that I immediately overlay this, that person is in charge, they're the authority, and I'm now need to be submissive and silent and in the background. And so it was actually in one of David's main sessions.

He was speaking, and Will, David's partner, opened up the floor for comments. And I had a question that I was holding internally. And the moment Will said, does anybody have any questions for David? My immediate entire bodily response, because there was like 300 people on the call, David speaking. My instinct was, oh my God, there's no way I can raise my hand right now. And the moment I had that thought, I went, shit, I have to do it.

I have to, because it's those moments where we peel off and defend our withdrawal that we shrink our lives. And especially for stuff like that where the, the actual, the actual consequence of failure is pretty much nothing. It's all internal. So those are the kind of instances where when they arise for me, I go, okay, you know, I don't want to, But it, but the, the result of not participating at that juncture is far too costly to everything I want in life and everything I want to convey and model for others if I don't participate. And, um, yeah, it, that, that incident actually turned into an article where the, the shiny dime was, uh, public embarrassment. No, private embarrassment is poison.

Public embarrassment is fuel.

[31:27] Paul: I love that. That's so good.

[31:29] Rick Lewis: That has become a really guiding motto for me. It's like, okay, if I allow myself to be silent and privately embarrassed, and then I'm falling asleep with my head on the pillow going, dang, I didn't do that thing. That is so much more hazardous than flailing in public and having, you know, people even criticize or judge or, or just ignore you.

[32:02] Paul: Yeah. This is something I feel so powerfully on my existing path is I've become much more in touch with the cost of inaction.

[32:12] Rick Lewis: Yeah.

[32:13] Paul: And realizing how much often it's a psychological tax. I thought about renaming this podcast from Reimagined Work to The Pathless Path Podcast for 4 months. So this was about a year and a half ago. And then the moment I did it, it was like obvious, right?

[32:33] Rick Lewis: Right. And bad. 4 months is like—

[32:38] Paul: well, that was after years of being on the path and like taking too long. So I've found it's a practice of continuing to step into this discomfort to make that quicker, but also just to feel out your intuition because sometimes that fear also has some wisdom about what not to do.

[33:00] Rick Lewis: Absolutely.

[33:01] Paul: Right? If they were like, does somebody want to volunteer to run Rite of Passage for 6 months? And you have some fear, tension coming up, like maybe that's just like a good sign that's not your path, right?

[33:15] Rick Lewis: Right.

[33:15] Paul: But the cost of raising your hand is so minimal that it's like you gotta get experiences like that so you can actually get more, more in touch with where, what you want and where you want to head.

[33:26] Rick Lewis: Well, there are so many instances where we can risk, and the consequence of our risk going wrong is low stakes. And the thing is, that inner mechanism that stops us from participating, it can't tell the difference between low-stakes consequences and high-stakes consequences. The level of fear is the same. So if you practice where the stakes are actually low, then you start getting a lot of feedback and you grow a lot of wisdom about, you know, because sometimes those will go wrong. You know, it's low stakes and you say yes, and then you're like, oh, Well, that was dumb. And, but there's no other way to learn, like to, to get the discrimination that you're talking about other than jumping in.

[34:16] Paul: This is a great transition to talking about your speaking because talking about making mistakes, you, you literally make this part of your performance of basically making a bunch of mistakes and sometimes they are sort of high stakes because you piss people off. So maybe you can tell people a little bit more about what you do and how you do that.

[34:43] Rick Lewis: Yeah. So it happened by accident. I was working as a comedian and I was scheduled to do a comedy show for 400 bankers at a corporate event. I was standing in the doorway of the kitchen waiting to be introduced because lunch was gonna be served. And then I was gonna wind up going on stage to do a comedy show. And I was standing in the kitchen and, um, I heard a shout and I turned around and I saw that one of the steaks— so all these lunches were plated on 400 plated lunches down the corridor on these Queen Marys in, in the, in the, uh, conference center, and one of the last remaining steaks had caught fire.

And I looked back, so someone was like running for a fire extinguisher and there was like 6 or 8 steaks left on the grill. And that little grease fire jumped to each one of the steaks and now all the row of steaks were on fire. So, you know, no big deal, but, you know, someone's running for a fire extinguisher, but before they can get back, it sets off the fire sprinkler system in the kitchen. So I'm standing there, and if you've never seen an industrial fire sprinkler system do its job, it is very intense. It doesn't mess around. It's very thorough.

So I'm standing there and within like 12 seconds, every one of those 400 lunches are completely destroyed because they're just like, just drenched with this deluge of water coming down. So I'm standing there going, oh my God, this totally sucks for this. You know, the event planner is running back. She's like, what's going on? She's panicking. She's making phone calls to local hotels trying to figure out where she can get food bussed in for these 400 people.

It's gonna be an extra hour wait. And I'm like, what can I do? And because of my background in improv comedy, dealing with unusual circumstances as a street performer, I looked right next to the door and there was a server apron hanging there. And I decided, oh, I'll throw on the server apron, I'll go out in the room and I'll pose as like an eccentric, incompetent server and we'll have a laugh and I'll fill in the time with some comedy. And so I put on that apron, I walked out, and I started being this inept, goofy, rude waiter. And the first table I went to, I'm pouring water from a height of like 3 feet, just trickling it into the glass, putting my arm right in front of people's face and figuring, you know, they're gonna— this is gonna be funny.

But instead of being funny, people are just getting pissed off with me. And so then I tried to make it more broad and exaggerated, but no matter what I did, people just got more and more upset, more and more irritated. And after about the 5th pass through the room, I walked back into the kitchen to get more props to play with. And the thought I had was, I think I've just discovered my life's purpose. It was so much fun to to just, like, mess with people that way. And eventually I did the comedy show.

The, the level of energy in, in the room, the release of people going, oh my God, we've been totally, you know, roused. It, it so added to the impact of the comedy show. I did that every single time ever since. And that was, you know, 20 years ago. I've now overfilled 150,000 water glasses since then, doing this routine as a waiter, a bad waiter, as the lead-in to the speaking gig.

[38:45] Paul: Yeah. And so I'd love to hear about how you formulated the ideas around this. So it sounds like you were doing that comedy thing a little longer and then you layered on some of the speaking. To it, which is pretty cool. So how did you sort of develop the story around that, the, the angle and how you frame things?

[39:10] Rick Lewis: Yeah. So I mean, the, the comedy thing lasted for— I was doing just the comedy show and the waiter routine lead into the comedy show. That was like maybe 3 or 4 years before 2009. So when 2009 hit and I sat down to write down my stories, and that was my— that was the lead-in for me to everything that happened in terms of thought leadership is my stories. I was like, when I sat down in front of the computer determined to write a book of some kind in 2009, it was like, I'm going to write down every single story I can think of or remember. From my years as a street performer, from the waiter, what happened with the waiter routine.

So it was writing down all these stories and looking at them from the perspective of what I knew were organizational issues, communication, leadership, innovation, productivity, integrity. These were all the things that were talked about ad nauseam over and over and over. In events. And I began to— first I wrote down all the stories and I went, how can these stories relate? How can they feed into learnings or lessons I could offer that fit in these buckets of organizational interests?

[40:42] Paul: Yeah. And you sort of have a unique angle of being an outsider, being able to communicate to the corporate world. I've still struggled to actually figure out about how my stuff maps to the corporate world. A lot of my stuff is about questioning the corporate world and potentially leaving. But I'm also just too close to that world and haven't really thought about engaging with it. But I think you're in such an interesting role as an outsider and observing these people over years of doing your different acts.

What are some of the things you sort of observed? You're almost like an anthropologist observing the corporate person as an outsider.

[41:30] Rick Lewis: Yeah, no, I've called myself an accidental sociologist through this process because having observed the behaviors as a fly on the wall in the corporate realm and just watched how people talk and behave and move, and especially under the theatrical stress of my bad waiter routine and how people are together culturally as a corporation in relationship to me. And it shifts from, um, in different parts of the country. So East Coast will respond differently to me than West Coast or to the South. And then certain types of industries, like what a group of engineers will do in relationship to me versus what a group of salespeople will do in relationship to a bad waiter. It's fascinating. It's totally fascinating to see the group mindsets, the group mind that pervades all of these different corporate atmospheres, for sure.

[42:34] Paul: So let me guess, the Northeast is a lot more stressed about what you're doing than on the West Coast.

[42:42] Rick Lewis: In your face. Like, they'll get right up and they'll come over to me like, what are you doing? What— you know, they, they want it. They want answers. They want to know what's happening, why I haven't been removed yet. Um, that's generally— that's much more the trend, especially, especially New England area.

West Coast is like, everyone is so laid back and so like, you know, I will wait and see and give the benefit of the doubt. Or, and when you get to Canada, it's even worse because, you know, Canada is the I'm sorry, you know, capital of the world. So, um, people wouldn't say, it's very English, you know, people wouldn't say anything here that, that like go behind the scenes to try and work things out.

[43:30] Paul: Wow. That, and so what, what are some of the big takeaways? Of what you're trying to communicate from this experience? I know a big thing is about sort of breaking the rules.

[43:43] Rick Lewis: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of, lot of levels to it, but the biggest takeaway, the thing that I most enjoy getting to share with corporate audiences is this hidden rule structure. So the book I wrote turned out to be, turned out to be called Seven Rules You Were Born to Break. And I didn't— the only reason I stumbled on that is because I first wrote down all the stories So many stories, like maybe 100 different stories. And then I just had to look at them. I mean, I literally spent 2 months, like, looking at them going, what is this? What, what are all these stories about?

Why is my attention drawn to these particular episodes over and above all the other things that have happened in my life? Why do I care? What is it saying? And it took me a, it took me a long time I was obsessed. My, my wife was just like, will you please get on with it? Just like publish the stories.

And I'm like, no, there's something. These mean something. There's a through line here that I have to find. And looking at all the stories, it's when I realized, oh, these are hidden rules that we follow in our culture. These are ways we behave that undermine personal and organizational excellence because we're unconsciously wed to obedience and this rule structure that nobody talks about, but everyone just follows. So that was huge.

Getting that piece, I was like, whoa, it's very marketable. It's got some sex appeal. It's like, oh, breaking rules because of course, that's a taboo sort of thing. But to have identified these underlying structures as rules we follow and then get to talk about breaking them, that had a lot of energy for me and really resonated just with myself. Like, I realized, oh, I'm a professional misbehaver. That's actually what I do, what I love to do, and what I do for a living.

And and finding that title, like realizing that's exactly who I am. And those two words articulate who I am, gave me an invaluable gift, which is the ability to articulate my, my value system.

[46:18] Paul: Yeah. And I, I totally resonate with that search for the through line. I have a very similar obsessive of like, how, how does this fit together? How do I, connect the dots. And I think this is an underrated thing because if you find something that feels true and real to you, you can be excited about it. And in terms of writing a book too, I think a thing people don't— they underestimate with a book is the potential of actually loving your message.

And if you love that message, you can continue to talk about it for years.

[46:54] Rick Lewis: Absolutely.

[46:55] Paul: This is why I didn't really do a launch, because I was like, well, I'm just going to keep talking about this. So it's either going to succeed over the long run or it's not going to succeed at all. Either way, I'm going to keep talking about it.

[47:07] Rick Lewis: I love that. And it totally comes through in your book. When I read your book, like, that passion, that joy. And I noticed you said in the book, like, this was not burden to write this. It was a joy. It just came out.

And God, do we need that. We need people in the world who are putting their attention on the direction the horse is already going internally and psychically for them, like being willing to sense what that thing is and move with it and serve it. Can't imagine how, if even a small percentage of people in the world were doing that, how it would shift everything that's happening for us globally as a human species.

[47:57] Paul: One of the early companies I worked for, I had this experience of doing work that was far beyond what I thought I was capable of. And so I experienced this at 23 years old, and then for the next 8 years, I worked for companies where I could not repeat that same experience and environment. And I think part of what just drove me to eventually quit was like, I was just so frustrated that everyone just accepted this, right? Like, how can you accept this? Like, I've done great work. We're all just saying, yeah, it's what you got to do.

[48:33] Rick Lewis: We—

[48:33] Paul: this is how the boss wants it. And it is all these rules. And even after quitting my job, I then have all the freedom, but then I have all the responsibility of then figuring it out, which is also hard because there's so many rules. Oh, you're supposed to do things this way. You're supposed to publish it this way. This is the best thing to do.

And it's like, it takes, it is so hard to just strip away. All those rules. Do you have practices or, or ways of sort of experiencing, like, I, I don't even have the words to describe what I'm trying to say right now. Like, maybe you can, maybe you can help me connect what I'm trying to, to say here.

[49:20] Rick Lewis: You mean, how do you relate to, as an individual, how do you, um, expand upon that competency of being able to fly under the radar of the rules and engage what's true for you?

[49:37] Paul: Well, I think you don't even know there are rules until you're looking back and realize you were following them for no reason. Right. So how do we find those edges?

[49:50] Rick Lewis: Well, I mean, the way— so the stuff I've been providing for people, and these are tools that I made up basically for myself that I use for myself. So the 7 rule model is most applicable to me. Like, that's what I went through and went, okay, here are the stories. And a lot of the stories in my book are ways that I followed the rules to my detriment and telling stories. So as a framework, and there's lots of models out there, you can use the Enneagram, you could use Myers-Briggs, you could use I mean, there's so many models where you can look and start to self-observe. And the first step is self-honesty of being willing to just go, okay, how do I really behave?

How do I really show up in certain circumstances? How am I really feeling internally? And if that feeling isn't of courage and bravery and generosity and expression, if the opposite of those things are happening, you can be pretty sure you're at the effect of some stop rules, which basically that's what these are. They're injunctions, they're social injunctions that exist in the fabric of our culture. And so the 7 rule model is just one way you could look at it. So that's what I offer in 7 Rules You Were Born to Break.

And a few years ago, I actually developed a quiz So you can actually take a quiz. It's about, takes you about 10 minutes and you go through it and you find out which rules you're already good at breaking and which rules you are actually following outside of your awareness. And, and so this is my passion right now is this is what I'm using in my corporate presentations is I put everybody in the audience through the quiz and I get 'em into dialogue and discussion about Okay, let's look at how you are actually following these rules. And they tell stories. And right now I'm developing a whole platform which has a set of exercises. So I've got 50 exercises for every one of those rules.

So someone who is rule-bound in the rule, for example, one of the rules is be normal, which is, okay, I gotta fit in. I can't, I can't be different. I can't stand out. I can't express my feelings because those are unique and authentic. Anyway, so I'm really into— I love models and systems for growth, and I've just always created them for myself. And this particular one is the one I use for myself.

I mean, I retake the test about every 3 months myself just to go, okay, where am I, where am I trending right now?

[52:45] Paul: Yeah. One, one way I know I'm leaning into challenging rules is when I sort of send people into cognitive dissonance. This happened to me this week. I listened to a podcast and somebody was giving away his book for free and I was like, that sounds fun. I put my book up for free and then people lost their minds.

[53:07] Rick Lewis: Right.

[53:09] Paul: I received like 5 or 6 messages that were like, why would you do this?

[53:14] Rick Lewis: Right.

[53:14] Paul: And you realize, like, I had already thought, thought through it. I had been thinking about it for a while. I bet this would be a fun experiment. I've made a lot of money from my book. I feel very blessed. But the rule in their head is you should always make money from a book.

[53:31] Rick Lewis: Yeah.

[53:33] Paul: And I actually met somebody once. I was I was, I gave her my book for free and she had a book too. And she goes, you're not charging? I'm like, no, I give these away for fun. This is what I love doing. She goes, I would never do that.

And her book is sitting right there in like her bag. And I'm like, okay.

[53:59] Rick Lewis: Wow. And she didn't reciprocate.

[54:02] Paul: No.

[54:03] Rick Lewis: Wow. That's fascinating. Yeah.

[54:06] Paul: Well, I was like, wow, she's, she's missing out on this expansive, larger connection and relationship opportunity. Right. And like, I'm more than happy to buy someone's book, but also like there are just these opportunities that will emerge from giving something away for free.

[54:26] Rick Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the things that's really drawn me to you and your work. And even like, you know, little things like at the bottom of your emails, your essays, you say, hey, I'm not paying attention to my subscriber count. If you want to unsubscribe, go ahead. I'm not even going to notice. And stuff like that I find is so like, it's those touches of expression of your value system and where your attention is and where it isn't that gives people traction with who you actually are.

It, it, it says a lot. And yeah, I'm very, very appreciative of those kinds of— I think those kind of tweaks and, and doing those things outside of the norm is what really helps people get a taste for who you are.

[55:21] Paul: Yeah, so this, and then I can sort of explain how I think about this. And I think this is a way to, to lean into who you are more. I noticed a couple things. I noticed one, I was cleaning up my inbox and I wanted to unsubscribe some, some people I liked and supported their work. I did not want to stop reading their stuff, but I wanted to unsubscribe from an email. And I was like, okay, I know for a fact some people follow unsubscribes and this is going to upset them.

[55:53] Rick Lewis: Right.

[55:54] Paul: Right. And I also get the unsubscribe alerts and have felt crappy when I've seen people unsubscribe. So it's like, okay, how, how can I take a different approach with that? And so I just put at the bottom of my email, I never will check unsubscribes. I don't know. I don't look at the subscriber list.

And one, it's a way to signal that I'm really just in this to play the long game with my writing. But two, it's basically like trying to find people like me who are like, oh, that's cool. And it's also an invitation to unsubscribe. Like, we all have too many emails. I do not want somebody to be subscribing to my email if there's other better stuff they could be reading.

[56:39] Rick Lewis: Well, there's so much in it. It's such an expression of generosity and a lack of desperation. And when somebody isn't desperate, then that's just attractive. It's a magnet for wanting to stay in relationship with that person.

[56:55] Paul: Yeah, and I think it's a hard thing to get to. I think a lot about how do I cultivate the feeling of enough?

[57:03] Rick Lewis: Yeah.

[57:05] Paul: And my idea of doing this after I quit my job was, well, how can I purposely try to make less money. And I probably haven't talked about this in a while, but in the first couple of years I said, well, what if I just don't work and don't try to make money? How will that feel? Turns out it feels terrible. And you feel like an idiot. But then while you're doing it, you're waking up and going about your days and you're like, oh, I'm actually having a pretty good day.

And it's not directly tied to income flowing in or anything like that. Oh, and I'm also like figuring out how to live on less. So this is pretty nice. And so that spirit is now with me now. But to be honest, I'm still struggling with this. Now I'm making money from writing.

It's like, well, I mean, am I an author now? Should I be writing more books? It's like, what, what limits or rules am I not thinking to break now? So, right. Yeah, this stuff never ends. And I think it's, it's so powerful what you're talking about.

And I look up to people like you who are further along ahead of me on the journey. And it's like, I think it's very inspirational how you reinvented yourself several times on your journey. And so how do you think about that? Like, especially as you, as you get older, like, how do you continually reinvent?

[58:38] Rick Lewis: Yeah, I mean, it's just too much in my system at this point to not reinvent. There's a particular feeling that is very telltale. I wouldn't even know how I'd describe it, but there's like an inner flatlining. You can feel it when I start to go, oh, I'm just— I'm comfortable.

[59:00] Paul: I'm—

[59:01] Rick Lewis: and, you know, it's really kind of gotten to that point with the corporate events. So I'm always doing something different. Every single keynote is— I've never done before because it's just, it's just not interesting to, to do something, you know, you can just repeat and works in a certain way. If I'm not growing and taking a risk in front of the room, I'm not actually conveying the most important thing I want to convey to corporate audiences, which is how do you fully stay alive to to your work all the time. And then that comes from being willing to reinvent. And it has nothing to do with looking back and going, oh, I've reinvented myself.

You know, you could reinvent yourself 20 times. It doesn't relieve the obligation if this is the life you want to reinvent again next month or next year when you find yourself in a groove that then becomes uh, kind of wrote.

[01:00:04] Paul: How have you thought about, uh, sharing these lessons with your kids over the years? And, uh, like, just thinking about being on an unconventional path and how that interplays with being a parent is something I'm very curious about. I'm at the beginning of my journey.

[01:00:25] Rick Lewis: Yeah, well, that's a huge, a huge subject.

[01:00:27] Paul: Yeah, that, that could be a whole podcast.

[01:00:30] Rick Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. Parenting, you know, parenting is such an incredibly humbling experience. And if it's not a humbling experience, then you're, you're not doing it right. Yeah.

[01:00:44] Paul: I think the, it's interesting you say that. I think one of the biggest shifts I've realized, I'm 10, 11 months into this, but I think I had this idea that it was like, you become a parent and then this parent is this fixed thing. And then like quickly, The first year, you're basically a new parent every week because it changes so rapidly. And that really is this constant unfolding and humbling experience.

[01:01:11] Rick Lewis: It never ends. As your kids grow, they're constantly evolving and in a different stage of life. You have to be a different person to serve them. And, you know, for a great measure of that time, you're going to fall down, you're going to miss it. And your kids are going to push you right up against things you never— you thought you successfully evaded from your own upbringing, things that push your buttons or you weren't comfortable with that you figure, okay, I'm past this now. I've created an adult life that's fashioned around the areas that I am comfortable.

And your kids show up and go, hey, here's— look at this. and your way of interacting with them, what they gravitate towards, their way of being will go back and ferret out every last one of those undealt with areas and make you look at it again. That's parenting. And, and if you're not open to that process, then what you wind up doing is shutting your kids down. In those particular areas that you're still uncomfortable with. And so it's like just the beginning of a whole entire growth phase that's, you know, I would not— I'm scared to think of who I would be without my kids, of who the kind of person I would have become without my kids.

[01:02:41] Paul: And what do they say about the kind of work and path you do?

[01:02:45] Rick Lewis: Well, they love it. They, they really— they find it very admirable, and they're very enlivened. They're enlivened by the fact this is what I do for a living, and I think it's really helped them inform— they're, they're all very much, um, none of them was looking for a conventional path themselves. And that's it.

[01:03:06] Paul: That's interesting. Me and Angie sort of assume that our child is is probably going to want to work in the corporate world to rebel against us.

[01:03:16] Rick Lewis: I mean, they might.

[01:03:17] Paul: Everyone's right, and everyone has their own path.

[01:03:21] Rick Lewis: But I think it's entirely possible someone could be raised by people like you and Angie and grow up and be a corporate employee and still be their own unique person, you know. Um, it's much more a function of your inner context than your outer environment, I think. And, you know, to raise kids consciously enough that they have some sense of themselves and they know at base they've been supported and honored to be authentic to themselves. What an incredible gift to your kids. It's what the world needs. And, you know, I think in the process of doing that for your kids, we recover ourselves as well.

It's, it's a whole, it's a whole realm of learning I had no idea existed.

[01:04:20] Paul: Yeah, it's, it's been a fun journey so far and I can't wait for the rest of it.

[01:04:27] Rick Lewis: Your daughter's so lucky that you are approaching parenting this way and leaving as much time and space for bonding with your kid and your family and That's just super fortunate. I'm inspired by your, your early life wisdom in that respect.

[01:04:47] Paul: I appreciate that. It's a learning journey, but I appreciate that because we're trying to be really intentional about that and it's different. We're breaking the rules. And I feel that too, which is why I sort of look to people like you as role models. So Thanks for paving the way ahead of me too. I wanted to ask you, I know many people around your age and the game for them was retirement.

Retirement was winning. That's the off-ramp. You could finally get some relief. You love what you're doing. And when I think about work in the future, I don't really care about retirement or 100% off-ramp. How are you thinking about like the next 10 years of your journey?

[01:05:38] Rick Lewis: Exercise, good diet, enough sleep so I can keep going as long as possible. That's pretty much it. I don't, I mean, I can't imagine why would you ever stop doing what you love doing? It just doesn't, I mean, you know, there's a certain reality to aging which is very sobering and and catches up with you and suddenly you're going, wow, I don't have the energy I used to have. I don't have the stamina. And, you know, doing what you love really slows that process down.

You, you, you, you keep a lot of energy and stamina and motivation when you're doing what you love. But the, the pure machinery element of it, you know, it's no, I can see the direction it's headed. You know, you see the writing on the wall. It's like, oh, okay. We're on the downward slope here. But I can't imagine just continuing in ways to serve however I can.

For me right now, that really looks like wanting to support and train and find people who can be ambassadors of authenticity on stage. I'd like to support people who want to speak, who have expertise and mastery in different domains. Because going back to your earlier comment about how corporations need outsiders, they need a fresh perspective. They're always looking for someone who can come in and speak to these core issues, but from a new and fresh angle. Because, you know, people tune out in corporations when the same manager says, okay, we're gonna talk about teamwork. Everyone just, you know, they, they go on, they go on autopilot.

So I would love to support at this stage, I'm looking to support people who are younger, who can do some version of what I've committed myself to doing, which is kind of be a disruptor in the corporate realm from the inside out by being authentic. Onstage just by being a real human in front of the— in the corporate environment.

[01:07:57] Paul: Yeah. And I mean, I've— I haven't done any speaking on my path. I actually did a little more speaking before I quit my job. What— what, like, advice would you give to someone like me in terms of if— if I were like, okay, I want to try to do speeches? Like, I don't know how to think about that. I know how to tell somebody how to get started writing and sharing ideas and potentially publish a book.

That's all like super obvious and simple to me. I have no idea what it even means to think about like speaking.

[01:08:36] Rick Lewis: Yeah, no, that's a great question. Well, I want to start a podcast called What Can I Say? And the podcast would be me interviewing someone like you and we walk through a conversation to get to the heart of what do you have to say that would line up with the corporate environment that would be valuable to them. So the first challenge you personally are going to face is that very few corporations are going to hire a guy to walk in and say, hey, you should quit your job and go question this and walk out now. Exactly. Exactly.

So, but your message is essentially just human empowerment, right? And there's definitely a way of offering that, of speaking to that in organizations that have an entrepreneurial culture. And more and more do these days. More and more organizations are gravitating towards this. They see the writing on the wall. They know they can't, you know, issue a blanket statement like, WebMD to like, you have to come back in the office now or else.

Oh my God.

[01:09:45] Paul: I just like, like that video is so bad.

[01:09:48] Rick Lewis: Mind-blowing.

[01:09:50] Paul: So you need to do a gig there. You should just outreach to the board or someone above that CEO and be like, you guys, I don't think they'd want me. No.

[01:10:02] Rick Lewis: But yeah, so, so there are ways that it's I love the challenge of this, of getting through under the corporate radar, getting permission to go inside of an organization and actually disrupt the pillars that make corporations as stifling as they are. So I'm really— my mission is to support people, not corporations. In order to do that, I have to convince the corporations that my being there is in their best interests. And, and what I love about that is it forces me to invent, innovate, and think, how can I make this a win for everybody? And it absolutely is. Your message about people being in touch with themselves and lining up with work that is resonant to their being, you know, for sure, that's, that's an advantage to everybody.

but it would take some finessing and some work and some theater for you to line it up in a way where, you know, a hiring committee would pull the trigger and say, yeah, let's have Paul Millerd come in.

[01:11:14] Paul: And yeah, it's, it's interesting. Like I'm, I'm thinking about myself as like a rogue undercover freelance consultant for like a day. And I'm just sort of doing what you're doing with the waitering, but with the work. Like, I know exactly what I'm doing. I know how to do high-quality work, but I'm sort of just like creating a ruckus. Yeah, you planted some seeds, so I'm going to think about this.

But yeah. And where, where can people find out more about that work? I think it's called Pivot to the Podium. Is that right?

[01:11:48] Rick Lewis: Yeah. Pivottothepodium.com. Yeah.

[01:11:51] Paul: And you're doing that through a paid Substack?

[01:11:54] Rick Lewis: I am. Yeah. So I've got a free weekly newsletter and then a paid tier. I, I just started it 6 months ago. So a lot of the stuff I've been, even some of the paid stuff, I've been letting people who are interested in to, you know, participate. I'm doing a lot of sessions.

I'm doing 1 or 2 open sessions a week, uh, for storytelling practice, giving prompts to people to have them just get their feet wet with speaking out loud to a small, safe group of people. That the intent is to create a space that has so much psychological safety and authenticity that it's a safe place for people to start with just using their voice. And, you know, I got a lot of writers showing up there and I'm, I'm, I'm so, there's so many brilliant, thoughtful people who are writing that I wish would take the leap to experimenting with speaking more because it's needed. It's really needed.

[01:12:58] Paul: Yeah, I think that what you're doing is so powerful because, yeah, a lot of writers are very solo independent, but they have weird, provocative, creative ideas.

[01:13:10] Rick Lewis: Yeah.

[01:13:11] Paul: And yeah, what's safe for me is basically to just keep writing. So yeah, looking to explore some of those edges in the future for me as well. Wanted to ask a few rapid-fire questions. So I wanted to start, you mentioned your ideal day is eating cereal in the middle of the day. What is your go-to cereal?

[01:13:36] Rick Lewis: Oh, it's granola. Yeah, it's some kind of granola.

[01:13:40] Paul: Nice.

[01:13:41] Rick Lewis: Yeah, right now it's a low— it's made by a local company here in Vancouver.

[01:13:44] Paul: So do you have a path role model?

[01:13:48] Rick Lewis: A path role model?

[01:13:49] Paul: You mean like, uh, yeah, somebody's journey who, who maybe you looked up to early in your career, people you're looking to now that you sort of want to follow their path.

[01:14:01] Rick Lewis: That's a good question. I mean, mostly in my growing up years, those were entertainers and performers, especially people who were physical comedians. Um, like Jim Carrey was a total hero. For me.

[01:14:15] Paul: Wow.

[01:14:15] Rick Lewis: Yeah. I mean, he's, he's around my age, so he wasn't like, he was ahead of me in The Path in terms of his success, certainly, you know, the, the visibility he got as a movie star. And, but just that kind of unhinged, I don't care what people think, um, creative, expressive comedy, that, that kind of thing, just, I find very inspiring.

[01:14:39] Paul: Any books or podcasts or any other sort of content that's inspired you in the last 3 months?

[01:14:47] Rick Lewis: Well, it's interesting because part of my writing group, Steven Pressfield, put out a new book. It's kind of like a compendium, a collection of his best stuff. And he put out this post somewhere. He said anybody who buys 10 of the box sets, I'll do a free, uh, call with you. And so I went to my writing group. I said, hey, let's all buy one of these and I'll ask him if he's willing to come speak to our group.

And so we did. And he said, sure. We had a, a, a half-hour call with Steven Pressfield, our writing group. And, um, so that to answer your question, what I went back to was War of Art. And that's been for me, Steven Pressfield, War of Art, That book is just like, I don't know where it came from. I don't even know if he relates to it as his best thing.

He doesn't. He talks more about his novels now. But to me, that book was like channeled from someplace that I could reread it once a month for the rest of my life. It feels like that core message around resistance and fear always being present and always being something you're going to have to grapple with. I am inspired by over and over again.

[01:16:08] Paul: Yeah, it's such a raw channel of just like pure creativity. It's so good. Like, if you do creative work, at some point you have to read The War of Art.

[01:16:20] Rick Lewis: Yep.

[01:16:21] Paul: That's beautiful. Where else, uh, can people learn about your journey? Um, maybe watch— so I Definitely recommend going to Rick's site and watching some of his highlight reels from his speeches. It's pretty entertaining. But where can people learn more? Where do you want to direct people to of your current work?

[01:16:41] Rick Lewis: Yeah, Pivot to the Podium is really where I'm putting all my energy and attention right now. That's where I'm telling more stories, talking not just about speaking, but about communication in general, communication, authenticity, that's really where my attention is right now. So if people want to get the stuff that's most alive for me, pivottothepodium.com and then ricklewis.co is my speaking site. So if anybody out there is looking for a speaker for a corporate event or knows of someone who is, that's where you can see like that highlight reel that you're talking about on there. And I also have a profile on Medium. I haven't been writing there for a while, and I intend to go back, but Medium's another place I've got some articles out.

[01:17:31] Paul: Fantastic. Well, it was a pleasure to deep dive into your story. I love what you're up to. I'm rooting for you. I hope you keep going, and thanks for chatting today, Rick.

[01:17:42] Rick Lewis: Absolutely my pleasure. Great to meet you, and I hope we can stay in touch. You're Your journey is co- and mutually inspiring to me.