Public Embarrassment Is Fuel
It was my first street performance
I was beet red with shame, and my intestines were practicing complicated boy-scout knots without my permission.
All because I was being completely ignored.
I’d just performed a clowning and circus routine that I finally found the courage to present to a public audience sitting on the tiered steps of Pioneer Square, downtown Portland.
Hundreds of office workers worshiped the noon sun there in summer months while enjoying sushi and baloney bag lunches. I’d targeted this spot for my first ever street performance. After months of private rehearsal I’d finally brought a practiced routine, neon costume, unicycle, Al Jerreau background music, and full clown make-up to this unsuspecting lunchtime crowd.
My fear of forgetting the order of my show had kept me awake the night before, and then kept me hiding behind a plum tree for an hour before braving the walk to the center of that square. But once I got started, my memory was sharp and the execution of my pantomime skits, magic tricks, and juggling stunts were impeccable. To my delight, each bit flowed effortlessly and flawlessly into the next.
In my intensity of focus—I had nearly forgotten there was an audience.
Finally remembering the crowd, I looked up, expecting to see happy, enthralled, and beaming faces. Instead, I discovered that not a single person in this sea of humanity had looked away from their takeout, novel, gossiping friend, or knitting to share even a shred of their attention with me, even out of pity.
My pride and enthusiasm immediately turned to shame.
A tsunami of humiliation took my self-esteem and swept it out to sea in this sudden moment of comprehension. I had just given a technically excellent performance to no one. Not even crickets had responded—which left me feeling like an utter failure.
Mortified, I grabbed my boombox and prop bag to escape and leave the nightmare behind, thinking:
This is as bad as it can get.
Ordinarily, that would be a depressing realization.
But instead, that notion unexpectedly dissolved my brewing trauma and left me surprisingly excited, because—if this is as bad as it can get—that means . . .
. . . it can’t get any worse!
Almost confused by a sudden surge of freedom, I looked up at the crowd again.
Yes, I was embarrassed, but I wasn’t getting booed, or pelted with rotten bananas.
Only ignored.
I also realized I’d been in a flow state, loving what I was doing, and that actually, I was completely free to continue.
Like a prisoner who discovers his cell door was never locked, I set my equipment back down and followed the impulse to resume my show. Reaching the end, I felt a personal sense of confidence and dignity—and then—I took a long slow bow in front of the oblivious crowd to conclude.
Never have I walked away from a defeat so upright and intact—energized by failure as a beginning, rather than an end.
Never have I walked away from a defeat so upright and intact—energized by failure as a beginning, rather than an end.
This was the opposite of every cultural message that had ever reached me through peers, family, school, tv, movies—that embarrassment is bad—maybe even fatal, and it was to be avoided at all costs.
The truth was, this public embarrassment liberated me.
These same routines that everyone ignored would eventually lead to a six-figure income on donations from street shows.
And thinking back on the number of occasions since then that I’ve blurted a joke that might not be funny, expressed my awkward swelling of affection to those I love, or published a piece of writing I was tempted to keep to myself—I’m grateful for that first street show failure.
Because I learned that the agony of my private, anticipated embarrassment, is incomparably worse than the actual experience of rejection.
This pivotal and fortunate experience encouraged me to try a lot of things since then—and while many of my experiments fail—I am lifted up, emboldened, sharpened, and guided by those failures, instead of slow-poisoned by hiding out in a dim corner of my fear.
And now I’m sharing my failure story, not because it’s comfortable, but because we’re all doubting ourselves behind our own plum tree, and someone has to walk into the clearing first.
Embarrassment is just the cover charge to the party of our humanness. Maybe you’ll help me to get the party started.
I love this piece Rick, both the story (I'm laughing at this whole scene) and the takeaway message. I feel like it's a simple but not easy thing to do, lean into the awkward, cringe, possible embarrassment and show up to do the thing you love even before others are there watching.
Actually, I was just relistening to an episode of Jay Shetty's podcast and they were talking about how he did a presentation to an empty room when he first started out. His guest commented that it's a sign that he was in alignment with the thing he was meant to do. I feel the same way about you and your projects!
"And now I’m sharing my failure story, not because it’s comfortable, but because we’re all doubting ourselves behind our own plum tree, and someone has to walk into the clearing first." Ah yes! We all have our own comfortable plum tree that we need to step out of.