Hi everyone and welcome to our podcast In Good Company. I'm Nikola Tangyan, the CEO of the Norwegian Sorenwelfand and your host today. Today we are doing a bonus episode with a world leading expert on perfectionism. Why do we work so hard? Does it lead to better results? What is it due to the workplace? What is it due to us? Cheers! So a lot of people are just grinding away day and night, I always pursue perfection. Trying to get the perfect grades, perfect job, perfect partner.
I guess that sounds familiar for a lot of people. But what if I told you that this relentless quest for perfection is actually not just exhausting us? But it's also not making us perform any better. So to discuss this and other things really beasts got the world leading expert on perfectionism. Tom is currently welcome. Thank you very much, that's a lovely introduction. It's a great chat. Great. Now what is perfectionism?
Okay, so I guess the starting point for understanding perfectionism is really to get into the weeds of it a little bit. And understand where it begins. And perfectionism begins with a place of lack of a place of deficit. Of a feeling that we are not quite enough, not perfect enough. And from that starting point, what we're trying to do is perfectionist people is conceal, disguise, hide, to repair in some way what we know deep down to be an imperfect self.
So perfectionism is really about trying to overcome what we feel is deficit and lack through excessive effort. And excessive standards through trying to project into the world of perfect image of ourselves. You want other people to see perfect performances, perfect appearances. Because of that starting back. So in the book, which is by the way a fantastic book, the perfection draft, you all have to read it. You split perfectionism into three. It is the self oriented perfectionism.
I the kind of thing you course yourself. It's how you impose your perfectionism on other people and how in a way you make a lot of people miserable. And then the type of perfectionism that the society is imposing through you now also through social media. But if you start on the kind of self oriented perfectionism, what is that? Self oriented perfectionism is a burning need to be perfect and nothing but perfect.
And it comes with self critical tendencies when we haven't met those high and excessive standards. So when we have your like we fell short, we feel very self critical. We go in on ourselves. How could you be so stupid? What we think in sort of internal dialogue? Are you what are you born with it? So to send a yes, about 30 to 40% of self oriented perfectionism is inherited. So if you have perfectionistic parents, it's highly likely you'll probably carry some of those tendencies through yourself.
But that also leaves a lot for the environment to explain. So it's a mixture of both. And any geographical differences? In the French society, you saw that a speed train in Japan the last sort of 50 years, the average delay has been less than one second. Whilst in the I'm not going to say what happens to trains in the UK, but they are always on time. You know, in Switzerland everybody's on time. Everything works. You go to Spain, everybody's 15 minutes late, if not more.
Is it tighter geographies? Of course, there will be definite culture differences in perfectionism. We don't, again, this is a great thing about perfectionism in some ways as an academic, because the data is very limited. So there's a lot of opportunity to explore these research questions.
What we do know from the data that we've calculated is that if you look at self oriented perfectionism, for instance, that I, self-sert need and need to be perfect, well, that's really high in the US, for example. But not so high in European countries. So the kind of very individualistic focus of the US economy, you know, the kind of American dreams, so to speak, certainly is impacting on people's psychology, isn't terms of self-oriented, but less so in other areas.
So we do see some differences that are linked to culture. And there's a lot of grounds to suggest that this is a very culturally dependent trade. Certainly the basis of my book actually is perfectionism is a cultural phenomenon. So many more data, but I'd certainly say that there's strong links between cultural perfectionism. Thomas, can a perfectionist be married to a non-perfectionist? Oh. Because you tried, right?
Yeah. Well, I would say it would be tricky, not impossible, but I think there would be a lot of clashes, a lot of tensions perhaps, but that's not to say it couldn't be worked through. That's not to say that, you know, love is love at the end of the day, and but yeah, I would say it would be a challenge. For sure. Moving on to the second strand of the perfectionist model, what you call the other oriented perfectionism. So I, you are perfect and you expect everybody else to be perfect.
Yes. I'm not going to say that. Well, the other oriented perfectionism is really perfectionism turned outwards. I suppose it's what Freud would call projection, right? So you've got this idea of I'm boring myself over hot calls to be perfect. And I'm very so critical when I haven't met that high standard. So it's only fair that everyone around me is going to have to carry those same expectations, the same pressures with them, right?
This is just a moral question in the mind of the other oriented perfectionist. And we're just fine. And I'm sure we've all experienced an other oriented perfectionist, very high demands, car tolerates, substandard performances and let people know when they haven't performed up to their standard.
But it's not necessarily conducive to harmonious relationships, to a lot of relationships of other oriented perfectionism and interpersonal conflict, for example, in the workplace it can create tension, in personal relationships. It also can create dissatisfaction with expectations that we're placing on other people that are unrelenting. So yeah, it's an interesting form of perfectionism, probably the least while researched. But certainly exists.
We've all experienced it, I'm sure, and can have some negative impacts when it comes to relations. Well, isn't this kind of the description of the boss from hell? Yeah, I would say so.
Yeah, there's a lot of high-profile people who I would say have had other oriented perfectionist attendances, Steve Jobs, for instance, pioneering entrepreneur, turned apples for tunes around, clearly a hugely successful guy, but also an electionist-it person, and test them any from ex-colleagues who have described him as having exceptionally high standards and not been able to tolerate when things haven't gone quite to plan.
And that, of course, has had some good benefits, but it also had some negative effects in the workplace around that. But then I think that's important to bear in mind that other oriented perfectionism can drive in an organisation exceptionally high standards, but the culture of exceptionally high standards, but it does so by fear, by a sense that if we don't get it quite perfect, or we make a mistake, then it's going to come down on us like a ton of bricks.
And so I think, yes, overall, it's probably something that to be avoided. Well, I've seen some stats, which says that 70% of people who leave their jobs, they do it because of their immediate boss. Do you think there's a lot of this micro-management involved here? I think so. I mean, when people feel like they're under surveillance all the time, when if they make a mistake, there's going to be ramifications, sometimes quite severe, then that stops us from allowing ourselves to be wrong.
What does it do to you? Well, it creates a sense that, okay, well, we've got to do everything at 100%. We have to do everything perfectly, essentially, like every single job, every single email, every single project, every single presentation has to be absolutely nailed to the satisfaction of our bosses. And if we slip up, there's going to be problems. And of course, we are human beings, we're imperfect, we do make mistakes, we fall short. And that's the whole part of the learning process.
You know, nobody comes into a job, will it prove? And I think if you create a culture where mistakes are punished and people feel very fearful of failing, then you create a lot of reluctance to take risks, to be creative, to push the boundaries a little bit in terms of what's possible. And all of that, of course, is not conducive to high performance or harmonious relationship. So I have no, not doesn't surprise me that 75% of people leave because of their bosses. I think it's quite stifling.
And when we're in environments that allow us to flourish and take risks and take chances and fail, we feel a lot happier and more engaged. Moving on to the third part of the model, how the socially prescribed perfectionism, what is that? Social prescribed perfectionism is perfectionism that comes from the outside. So yes, perfectionists of people want to be perfect for their own end. And yes, sometimes they can reject those expectations onto others.
But also there's a sense in the perfectionist of people that other people have the same expectations that I have on myself for me. And where does that come from? Can come from the media people around us? Or it can just come from the environment more generally. It's just a lens through which we view the world, which tells us that everybody's watching. They expect flawless performances. And if I don't meet up to those higher and excessive expectations, then they're waiting to pounce.
And they're coming for me, they're going to criticize. And so socially prescribed perfectionism is perhaps the most extreme form of perfectionism in some ways. It's certainly got the strongest correlation with serious mental health issues. And I don't think there's any surprise there. If we're constantly feel like our under surveillance would be in watch, then we're going to go through the world, concealing, hiding, avoiding and feeling exceptionally self conscious.
A lot of shame, a lot of embarrassment, a lot of guilt when we have shown a chin in the armory. So socially prescribed perfectionism certainly is very live right now. What are you talking about? You talk about a perfectionist epidemic. Exactly. And this is the exact form of perfectionism that we're seeing rise really, really sharply. It's very widespread. It's on an exponential curve, which means it's rising very fast.
And we'll continue to rise even faster in the future if we don't do something about it. Seems to have started around 2005 now. What happened around that time? I don't know. That period was very successful. I don't know what happened. Yeah, there wasn't much going on in 2005, 677 was there? Then what happened? Clearly. There was big events around the mid-2000s. We all know what happened. Well, there was a lot of things going on. Of course, the economy crashed.
We entered into a quite deep recession. So opportunities to in-dored. Young people found it harder to get into the workplace. There was more competition for college places. So we start seeing acceleration of societal pressure, which makes life difficult. The response to the crisis, of course, was lower interest rates, money printing, which pushed asset prices higher, which means rents and property became more expensive. So young people found it more difficult to set up stability.
You also had technology start to take off at this time too. We had iPhone, for instance, so Apple released the iPhone in 2007. Don't you think that's the really main thing here? Yeah, I think so. There's no doubt about it that that date is significant in terms of social media platforms being transported into a live 24-7. No escape from limitless images of perfect lives of lifestyles that have been there. It's almost 24-7. What does social media do to us?
Social media creates a scrambled reality, a hyper reality, so to speak, where everybody is curating perfect lives and lives into which we feel like we have to conform, we have to match. What we see around us is this limitless aura of perfection.
We not only feel that that's desirable, that's how we should be living to, should be living, but also that it's eminently obtainable because everybody else seems to have this luxurious life and lifestyle, attractive, fit, healthy, productive and all the rest of it. And then if we don't match those excessive expectations, those warp expectations, there must be something wrong with us that somehow we must be floored, deficient, imperfect.
And of course that intensifies these perfectionist tendencies. So I've no doubt that social media is certainly a key piece to the rising social-obscrow perfectionism.
But as I write in my book, I think there are other broader macroeconomic factors which I think we also have to bear in mind when it comes to pressures on young people and those pressures being internalized as excessive and in order to survive in order to feel like they matter or have worth in that society is important to be perfect. And I think that's what we're seeing in the data.
Well, it seems to be, I mean, there are numbers and research showing the relationship between how much time you spend on social media and your level of happiness. And so you would have thought that there wasn't an element of that in there. Sure, sure. Yeah, there's a lot of research to show that social media can undermine happiness, particularly overuse of social media. The more time you're on there, the less happy you are, that's what the data seems to be suggesting.
But I think we have to also be very careful to straplate from that social media is universally bad. Like I think there are very, in live-ending parts of social media that we need to hold onto, you know, bringing about community, sharing interests, finding out news and bits of information that perhaps you wouldn't have had access to ordinarily. But these are really important things.
But there is certainly the comparative element of social media, you know, that very visual comparative element that I think is part of the problem. I've seen research lately, which seemed to indicate that, well, I mean, the results vary a bit, but everywhere from one in three to one in five of young people have psychological problems. How is that linked to perfectionism? Yeah, I mean, we have to be careful to extrapolate too much in the data, of course.
All I've done is done a big, white, you're very large piece of cohort analysis, which is showing that perfectionism is rising over time. And what I'm trying to do in the book is say that perhaps there's something underneath that trend, which tells us about these more observable outcomes that we're seeing in society.
I either links between perfectionism and depression, anxiety, eating disorders and all the rest of it, perhaps one of the reasons why we're seeing those things increase rise and perfection of rising lots that were those things. There's a circumstantial correlation. And I've, you know, I've talked about why those things are linked, but I think also we have to be very careful that there are lots of factors at play and I think perfectionism might be one of very many.
Now perfectionists rarely see help or go to therapy. Why is that? Because there's such an intent need to disguise hiding the base motive for perfectionist people is to avoid showing anything in the armory, to avoid failure, set back shortcomings. And they will avoid them to such an intense degree that they are happy to sabotage the chances of success. Right. The primary motive is not to be seen to slip up, not to be seen to be vulnerable.
And so, you know, when you move through the world with that focus and and and that priority, then of course when things go wrong, when you hit setbacks, which you will, when we encounter grief, heartbreak, things that are outside of our control. And if a global pandemic comes along and makes things really tough, the perfectionist tries to push through those things, tries to put their foot hard on the accelerator to try to use their perfectionism to overcome what's happening to them.
Well, of course, that's not a very good way to cope. It certainly doesn't allow us to slow down. It certainly doesn't allow us to seek help. And those things we know are really important in order to recover from those stressful events. So, perfectionist will be like anti-resilience in some ways. You know, it doesn't allow us to take setbacks and things that we can't control on the chin to, you know, absorb them, to let them in, to slow down when we need to.
It makes us push passies things and all costs and that cost can can be quite significant when it comes to our mental health. Just like in counter-duty, the thing here is that, or you say so in the book at least, that perfectionists are actually not doing better at school and they are not doing better in the workplace so they're not more successful generally. How come?
Well, there's a very interesting psychology among perfectionists and this is something that we didn't expect to see when we did our studies and yet it came back time and time again. And I've called it the perfectionistic paradox because what happens with perfectionist people is that whenever you tell them to do something for the first time, they'll put everything in of themselves into it.
So this is why you see hard work and persevere into society of perfectionism. You know, these people work harder, they work more hours. In fact, perfectionist probably correlates to things like work or wholves and for instance, we know they do these things. But the moment they encounter challenge is when you see something really interesting happen.
So perfectionist people, when you put them in a lab, you give them something to do and then at the end you say, okay, you didn't quite achieve success on this task, right? You failed basically. But it doesn't matter of another going, right? You can redeem yourself. And what happens is people who aren't very perfectionistic will not really change their effort on the second occasion.
In fact, they'll put a little bit more in. If I've actually just people do the opposite, they just completely withdraw themselves because they felt so ashamed and embarrassed of showing that weakness of not meeting that target that they will completely take themselves away. So they feel those feelings again. It's really an anxiety management technique in taking ourselves away from the anxiety to not feel this thing.
That's linked to avoidance, but it's also linked to things like procrastination too. That's why perfectionism is so strongly correlated procrastination. The avoidance of really difficult tasks to manage the anxiety of thinking that we might not succeed this time. That's not a tour of a conducive to performance. That's not conducive to creativity, it's not conducive to innovation.
That's what all things that companies and organisations really need today in a knowledge economy. So yes, I think one of the reasons why we don't see very strong links between perfectionism and performance is because perfectionism both focuses on avoiding failure rather than shooting for success.
What I think is really funny here is that we try, a little bit, we try to be perfect, but we just don't like perfect people. We don't, right? We like people who got failures. We actually trust people more when they admit mistakes than if they don't. And I just think that's really, really odd. Well, okay, I'll put that question to you in the, you've obviously had an esteemed career. Have you worked in organisations where that hasn't been the case?
That's to say that you felt under pressure to perform to a certain level and that mistakes have been punished and has that created a lot of anxiety and you, is it easier for you to work in places where vulnerability is allowed when mistakes are allowed? Absolutely, absolutely.
However, it places where it wasn't allowed and I was pretty miserable. Yeah. And why, but why were you miserable? Is it because you didn't like that culture and you wanted to get out of it or is because of the fear that those cultures are still about making mistakes? Or was it because it didn't create harmonious relationships? I think all the above. My commandagement doesn't sit well with me. If somebody tells me what to do, I would do the opposite.
It's probably also a dislike for authority. Being in the army didn't sit well with me either. Moving into this area, this perfectionism in the organisation. What is it due to a workplace? Well, Nick, I think that's a question for you as much as it is for me because I'm an academic. I mean, I can tell you about cultures and organisations and certain practices that firms have employed that have been successful in addressing these issues.
But I don't know what it's like to work in organisations on a day-to-day basis. So, maybe that's one for you. What do you think these kind of pressure dudes do? I think it's, I mean, on a one hand, you want to strive for excellence and do really good work. At the same time, you want to give people the opportunity to make mistakes and provide that kind of psychological safety, which is important for creativity and so on.
It's a, it's a finally balanced thing. But, you know, some companies, I think McKinsey has said that they hire insecure, overachievers. You know, kind of perfectionists. Yeah. I mean, look, there's no doubt that there is a, there is a certain degree of perfectionism that I can understand firms looking for. It, it wouldn't necessarily be the fear that's conducive to the performance, but the anxiety that goes underneath some of efficiency tends to be, can push people really far.
Like I speak from first in the experience in this, by the way, like, you know, I've considered myself to be a perfectionist, it's a person all throughout my 20s. I push myself, well, be on comfort in order to be where I am. But it came at great cost too. And while that's something that perhaps might be great for the organization or the firm, it is, it is the short road to burnout. I love the individual employees that carry those tendencies into the workplace because it's not sustainable.
You know, you can work even in weekends, you can put yourself to all sorts of intolerable pressures and intolerable pressures. And you can find at the end, and at the end of all of that, that whilst you may be ostensibly successful in your career, that there is something that is taken from you in terms of your mental health, in terms of your time with family friends and all the rest of it.
And so really, I think for me, it's about balance, it's about understanding that yes, there are elements of this mindset, if you'd like to want to call it that, that are conducive to high performance and can elevate people. But there are also elements that we need to be extremely cognizant to, um, stand down, to manage, to try to create environments that don't emphasize or amplify those tendencies.
And that's our challenge, I think. It's about trying to cultivate the excellence that you talk about. Whilst also making sure that it's sustainable and that people can come to a vitalised happy, rejuvenated, one of which we know are really important for that part. It's interesting. We, um, I recently spoke with the CEO of Adidas, and he talks about a burnout being a functional people, not being themselves trying to pretend they're somebody else.
And I think that's probably related to that as well. So it leads to a lot of, um, a lot of, a lot of burnouts. Now, I try to, um, advocate for bringing half-baked ideas, which is not easy to do if you're a perfectionist, I guess. Because he unknown, right? Like, there's, there's a certain, there's too much uncertainty there. Yeah. You don't know if it's going to work. It's highly likely to fail. That's going to be really tough to perfection.
And we also try to call things a pilot if we think it may not succeed. So for instance, the podcast, it was a pilot. Yeah. We didn't know whether it was going to fly. And to kind of take away the, to diminish the embarrassment in case he was a total failure, we called it, uh, we called it a pilot. So that's a pretty good way of doing it, I think. I think that's great. And also it calibrates expectations from the race start.
Yeah. You know, if you put too much pressure on something flying from the get-go, there are so much to the can't control about these things too. And I think it's really important to make sure that if we want something to be successful, that we have realistic expectations of everybody on the team. But can you, but can you think of a successful organization, which hasn't been perfectionist?
I can't think of a specific organization, but I know that a lot of organizations right now are wrestling with how to create cultures that are different to how they've been structured in the past. There's a kind of rank in young performance based outcomes and all the rest of it. I know Google experimented with a very radical idea to pay people to fail, to give people money for taking chances and failing. That's very radical, but what that instilled is a readiness for people to take chances.
And most of them aren't going to come off. But if one does, then that innovation could be the next multi-billion dollar technological tool. It could be green. Atten Bank is experimenting for four day weekend, sort of four day workweek in the UK. They're trying to figure out, can we get more from less? That's to say that yes, it sounds radical to take a day away from employees. But on those four days, are they more focused? Are they coming to work rejuvenated?
Are they coming to work with more productivity essentially? And seeing that in a lot of the experience of four day week, that it seems to be working. That's to say, you can get more for less. And that's one environment that I think sets the people that we value your work, but we also value free time. So what's the sweet spot here? What should we target? Because getting something 100% right is very, very expensive. And it takes the last 10% takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And it's tough.
So should we target like 90% good, 85% good, 80% good, what do you target? I mean it's really difficult to put a number on it because what is a single? There was 90% good. I think the best way to think about it is this. When you do any project at work, there's going to be hundreds of ways that are good enough. That's to say, hundreds of ways you can produce that project, that report, that is good enough.
That's to say that hits the targets that provides the client with what they needed and gives some value back to the organisation. Hundreds of ways that are good enough, but there is no perfect way because perfect isn't an impossible outcome. It can be iterating, you can be changing, you can be editing to the midnight. And all the while probably compromising the quality because you started to meddle with the things that were fine.
So it's really, really important to bear in mind, I think, in an organisation that just letting things go when it's of a level that fulfills what's expected, the criteria of what's needed, and the expectation of both the firm and the client. That's the good enough moment to go out and then move on to the next thing and then move on to the next thing. It's so so important to just having your mind and ability to let things out into the world.
Because that's the thing that stops perfectionist people succeeding. It's an inability to just let it go. They did what they procrastinate. They're over the schedule. And of course, this has massive knock on implications for the organisation. Can I ask you a question? You're going to ask me a question here about CEOs. And I'm really interested in that because I was like, oh, I've asked you that question, I won't be able to answer.
But do you think in your world that in order to be a CEO, like to get to the very, very top of what is a very elite profession that you have to have a little bit perfectionism? Because I don't sense in yourself that you have strong perfectionist tendencies, and here you are. So I'm wondering your take on this. Do you think it's necessary or do you think it's something you could do?
Well, you probably know that I'm not a perfectionist because you may have even read my dissertation which I wrote at the bottom of the LZ. You know what? I think it kind of helps not to be a perfectionist to be a CEO. Because in my mind, a CEO is about setting the direction, deciding which mountains to climb, and rally the troops. And I think the way to rally the troops is through motivation is not about, you know, micromanagement. I think it's really counterproductive.
And I also think, and this was something that Sam Altman said in the podcast we did with him, if you should not be too prescriptive in what you want people to achieve. You know, you don't want to have two specific targets. You want to tell them the task and then see what they come up with.
And that's an amazing thing. And I'll see it with our own organization that sometimes you give people a suggestion or a task, and they come up with something which is amazing and beyond what you would ever expect was possible. And so if you have two specific, two micromanaging, you would just destroy all that. You destroy people's creativity. You destroy the ownership of their work, and you take away the pleasure and, you know, a fun part of work.
That's interesting. That's really interesting. Yeah. And it's so important for someone like yourself to say that. Because I think right now we have a lay perception that you know you've got to push yourself to the end of the degree. And that you have to be relentlessly working in order to succeed. And actually what I hear you saying is that sometimes it isn't just about that almost unrelenting pursue.
Obviously you need the hard work, of course you do. But also so there's other aspects of getting to the top that all outside of that. In my own way, I think it's probably, I think it's kind of productive in another way as well. I think it's about in my mind managing an organization is about seeing the people. And it's about not seeing just the results of what they're doing, but just trying to see the person what makes the people tick, thrive.
When are they in the flow and try to make sure that they are in that situation as often as possible. Focus on the results and you know wanting perfect results. You will just not have time and not have the ability to work with work with them as people. I think it's very, very important. I think it's more important than ever before. Yeah. I'm just listening to my ears because it's really nice to hear somebody like yourself walking these times.
Because I think this is a bit of a paradigm shift that needs to occur. Actually you can get the focus really is on people. If you focus too much on productivity and profit margins and all the rest of it, then you can easily forget that there are people underneath those margins that are doing incredible work to make sure the company grows year on year on year.
You look after them, you know, you're going to make sure they're in a safe, comfortable environment where they can feel free to express themselves their ideas, take risks and the rest of it. You know, I think there's a counterculture occurring, but it's it's slow to take take off and it's really nice to hear someone like yourself really speaking in cloning terms for those kinds of areas of productivity if you want well being as opposed to just the bottom line.
Is there a link between extremely hard work and perfectionism? Do you have people who work extremely hard, you're not perfectionist? Yeah, they do work extremely hard, but again, it goes back to this paradox. They work extremely hard in certain circumstances. But you also have people who work extremely hard, you're not particularly perfectionistic. Yeah, of course. People are conscientious, people are diligent, people are meticulous, you know, work exceptionally hard.
Is it linked to grit in any way? Grit is an interesting, I like all Angela Duckworth is done with this with this aspect of character, purpose and perseverance. It's it's a very, I think it's been extremely helpful for a lot of people clearly she's the best selling off, but people seem to resonate with this topic and can see that being gritty, resilient, being able to push past, adversity, all these things are really positive
and it's a good thing for performance, but I would say also Nicolai everything in moderation, right, there are times when sometimes it's not smart to persevere, you know, if a project is going down if they're dead end, it's really important you actually know when to quit. No, when to stop and move on to something else as well. So it's like anything perfectionism is kind of achievements try and take into an extreme.
Right, and I think it's the challenge of people and organizations to find as you mentioned that sweeps but where's the sweet spot the moderation will be capturing that hard work and that perseverance, but we're also making sure that we're working smart to and that we're identifying what's working on the focusing and we're making sure we can identify issues, challenges, setbacks, mistakes and we can put them right, you know, that's the challenge everything in moderation.
So Tom, let's move on now to what to do about it. So let's now assume that I'm a perfectionist. How should I cope with it? Well, there are many different ways you can think about it from a personal perspective, also from an organization perspective. Let's talk about it from a personal first.
The key thing is to know that things aren't as bad as what you think they are in your mind. When we talk about the reluctance to let it go perfectionist find it difficult to let things go. They find it difficult to push us into challenging situations.
This is also an reason, by the way, for us to struggle to succeed in their careers because if they put themselves into a situation where they might be judged like presentations or for job promotions, they can't recoil from that because they don't. That fear is so paralyzing.
So it's so, so important to know that the consequences of what you're so in fear of, like the kind of that, that, that, that, that in perfect person that you're living in fear of, you try not to make sure that it doesn't get shattered.
It's really not as bad as you think. When you put yourself out there, when you let things go, when you do a bad presentation, you're going to get feedback and maybe it's not going to be very good. But actually let yourself go through those experiences. Be courageous in some ways to push yourself out there and do things a little bit out of your comfort zone because you'll find that actually it's okay.
Were you saying that, but how did you cope with that? I mean, you are a perfectionist. Do you manage to get through these kind of things easily? No, I don't. And, and I still struggle. But the key point to this is that you've got to do it anyway. Put in a book out into the world, for instance, it's the hardest thing to do.
You know, and the writing it is so triggering for your perfectionist because you want it to be bulletproof and you want it to go out in the world and you worry all the time about the feedback is going to come after you worry people are going to hate it. They're going to hate you. They're not going to like the book.
I put it out into the world. I tried to make it bulletproof possible. You know what Nick like? People still didn't like it. Right. Many people loved it. I loved it. Thank you Nick. I appreciate it. But some people didn't. And, and actually I thought that that was going to be a huge threat. Like I thought that that was going to be really difficult for me to, uh, to take.
But actually it isn't. And this is the point I'm trying to make. Like just put it out there. Like the most important thing is to get things done. And know that yes, it's not always going to go well. There is a good rule of thumb here. Even if you do something which is absolutely perfect and correct. 10% of people put a definition will not like it. But always that people not liking what you do.
100% you can't really good rule to have. You cannot please everyone. And there's always going to be bad feedbacks. It's also going to be criticism. And that's and actually you know it in many ways that's a sign that you've been brave enough to put something in the world for somebody to criticize. Like it's it's a reinforcement that this was a really difficult and important and achievement. And and but you can't experience those feelings unless you get it out there.
So it's really important to be a creator. It's very vulnerability. Push yourself forward for things that maybe ordinarily wouldn't push yourself forward for and learn through that experience. It's okay. You also talk about self-compassion. What do you what do you put in that? Well, that's an important component of being brave because you're going to encounter situations where things haven't gone quite so well.
If you are willing to put yourself out then what? So in those moments, you have to then be very clear to yourself. This is part and parcel of a learning process of a grace process. And that instead of going in those cells like your perfectionism would tell you to do how could you be so stupid? What were you thinking? You need to treat yourself with kindness all the time. Remind yourself that you are a fallible human being and that sometimes things are going to not go so well and that's okay.
This is just part and parcel of life. There's always next time. So you know, on top of being bold and courageous and vulnerable, you have to have all times be kind to yourself because you are going to hit setbacks and kindness is way better than Christ. What parts of perfectionism needs more work and more research? Those are part of the perfectionism. This is a very new area. I think the cultural stuff that you talked about earlier, we need way more on this.
I would love to do cross-cultural comparisons of perfectionism to see where where levels are higher or lower. I think that would be a fascinating research question. I think the relationship between perfectionism and performance that work is an important one also to try and unpack. A lot of meta analytical studies have shown zero relationship there, but I'd like to know why, why that is, what are the mechanisms?
Is it because perfection is procrastinating? Is it because perfection is tend to burn out or is it because they just don't deal with stress as a healthily as non-perfectionistic people? Yes, so those questions are still open and I'd love to do more work in that area. So cross-culturals, perfectionism in the workplace, I think these are really important areas of future work.
Thomas, it's been great to have you on the podcast. There is a Japanese aesthetic philosophy, which is called Varbi Sari, which is about the perfect, imperfect, to celebrate the flaws and the things which are not fantastic, perhaps that's where we need to go. This is a philosophy that teaches us something beautiful in the broken, in the fragile, in the chinks, the curves, and the harsh edges, and that life is finite.
We are exhaustible creatures and we're mere mortals at the end of the day, and there's something quite joyous about that, actually. Knowing those things is incredibly humanizing. I completely agree. I think this is a philosophy that has tremendous potential to help us through those difficult moments, knowing that that's just part and parcel of life.
Sometimes, with the way things happen and the way things occur is just fate and fate is nothing personal. We're just human beings. I think this is a nice lesson. Great, Lizard. Big thank you. BBQ, Kinechanic, and May Up Your Way.