 So welcome to the show, Thomas, great to have you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for our chat. And what inspired you to write the perfection trap? Have you had your own struggles with perfectionism? Yeah, definitely. I think I'm a perfectionist. I meet all the criteria and I certainly score highly on the measures that we use. It's something that has certainly helped me in certain respects, right? It's driven me forward. It's made me successful, I suppose. But it also has a lot of baggage. And that baggage comes in the way of a lot of worry, brooding rumination about little mistakes. And over time, that can be quite exhausting. And certainly that was the case for me. I experienced a lot of mental struggles and burnout. And that was the moment when I realized, perhaps this is something that could be holding me back. Wanted to learn about more in my own life, but also in the life of other people too, because it was something I saw all around me. So that was the impetus to study a little bit more, do the research, try to find out what this thing is and what it does to us. So I did the TED Talk, did the book, and that's what I'm speaking to you. And what I loved about the book is there's so many great examples of really successful people, people we look up to, who outwardly feel and seem like they have it together, but internally they are perfectionists and driven by that perfectionism to success, but also dealing with the struggles and the downsides of that perfectionism. And you have this great example of Steve Jobs, who a lot of people look up to and meant success with Apple, but the people that worked with him, the people that loved him and relationships with him, they saw and felt all the downsides of his perfectionism. Yeah, absolutely. Jobs is a really interesting case study in perfectionism, extremely high achiever. I mean, there's no doubt about that. One of the most successful business people ever. However, despite all the innovations and building Apple's fortunes back up from where it was before he came, it was a story of a guy who's left a trail of destruction in his wake. A testimony of his colleagues is very vivid about his exceptionally high standards and how if he didn't meet them, that was a big problem. How he himself was never satisfied. It had to be better, it had to be improved. And so not only did that take a toll on himself, but it also took a toll on the people he worked with. So it's a very interesting case study in perfectionism. It's one way to do it, certainly. But I would note that it's not the only way to do it. But Jobs is an example of where perfectionism can certainly lead to exceptional performance. The term perfectionism seemed, when I was growing up, more of a compulsive, obsessive compulsive behavior of chasing that perfection, where now it seems as if it's almost normalized in our lives. We see this popping up many times. We certainly have had a few perfectionist experts on the show. So where do you see this going? And why do you think it has now went from a pathology to something that is more normalized in our everyday lives? That's a really great question, John. I think there's a lot to unpack there. It's a big question. And it's certainly true that if you go back through the decades and even centuries, written records of perfection and chasing perfection and the inherent dangers that come with it and how it can lead to quite an empty existence, where we never feel satisfied because there's always something more. But at the same time, when we slip up and make mistakes, we go in on ourselves. So a lot of popular fiction, poetry, philosophy through the ages is warned of the dangers of chasing perfection. And that was also the case even in recent history. I think not that long ago, even in living memory, we could look back to post-war consensus, the New Deal, the affluent society, where it was the middle classes, right? It was the average Joe that was celebrated. I think Flintstones, the Jetsons. It wasn't the perfect unicorn achievers. These were the heroes in that era. And that was because we lived in a different economy where we were growing the economy for the betterment of everybody. We're trying to lift people up through economic progress and the proceeds of the growth were shared, well, reasonably shared anyway. And that led to a great deal of lifting of people up the social hierarchy. I think today we have a very different society, very different economy. The apex of society is narrowed as we've focused on the winners. And the other people we platform these days, not the average Joe's, the CEO's, the sports stars, these are not impossible, of course, but improbably high achievers that we put on a pedestal and say, that's what we need to emulate. And I think that's why we're seeing today perfection turn into something that isn't the dangerous warning that we had in the past, but rather the desirable and obtainable ideal. Of course, it isn't those things. And it was an exhausting chase to try to meet what are exceptionally improbable outcomes. But nevertheless, that's what we celebrate. And I think that's why we see a lot of perfectionism these days. And we look at perfectionism in a positive light. And now unpacking perfectionism, you talk about three dimensions of perfectionism in the book that I think will add some great context for the audience to sort of self-assess. And I know there's a self-assessment in the book as well, but to really understand the different sides of perfectionism because I think we all kind of have preconceived notions of what you mean by perfectionism. And I was really inspired to learn the three dimensions and see myself in a couple of them. Yeah, that's the interesting thing about perfectionism really, there's a lot of nuance to it. And we know this because we've spoken to hundreds and hundreds of perfectionistic people, both in the clinical settings and also in community settings in general research. And what we find time and time again, is that perfectionism is a multi-dimensional characteristic. So it isn't just about high self-set standards and goals, just need to be perfect. That's one aspect of perfection. We call that self-oriented perfectionism comes from we've been sort of quintessential over-driver, I suppose, the workaholic you might think of in your mind's eye. It's more than that. It's more than self-set standards. It's got a social element too. I have perfectionism operates in a vacuum. And just as we expect ourselves to be perfect, we also think that other people have those same expectations of us too. So socially-described perfectionism, another aspect of perfectionism, which is the perception that we think other people expect us to be perfect and nothing but perfect. And when we slipped up, they're waiting to judge us negatively. And the third element of perfectionism, time and time again, in perfectionist people, it's not just high self-set goals. It's not just expectations of perfection we feel are placed on us, but it's also expectation of perfection that we put on other people. So I expect you to be perfect. And if you're not, I'm gonna let you know, right? That's only fair, because I expect myself to be perfect. So you're gonna need to be perfect too. So these three elements of perfection are really interesting. They each sit on spectrums and we can be high on self and maybe a little bit in the middle of social and maybe quite low on other and all sorts of different constellations. So there's no one size fits all, but perfectionism is a relational trait and as a consequence, there are important social elements to consider alongside those high self-set expectations. And I think going along with that, the internalized where you're looking at yourself and self-assessing perfectionism, we often feel, but when we encounter others who are striving because of how others judge them or because of how they feel others should be behaving and judging others around this perfection, that can be very difficult to encounter in social relationships or romantic relationships or in business settings. So when we look at not our self-prescribed or self-oriented, but instead we look at the social prescribed perfectionists, how do we actually manage those relationships when they're so closely tied to how they're perceived by others? And then also sometimes putting that judgment on us and in our actions and behaviors in our relationship. Yeah, and this is why the testimony you're going back to job is so interesting because Jobs' own perfectionism was projected outwards onto other people and although it created a climate of exceptional performance, it also created a climate of interpersonal hostility and disharmony. I think there's a balance to be struck. And if you are in a context of extreme standards and there's a sense and an aura of perfection that's expected upon you and there's a lot of other perfectionists in your team where there's a lot of people who are putting excessive standards onto you, I think it's really super important that instead of letting that run its course and create all sorts of problems later down the road that we get on top of it and we talk about it. And we actually break down those expectations and describe to people exactly why they're excessive and what our concerns are with these excessive goals in terms of the quality of the thing that we're creating whether it be a piece of code, whether it be a product, whether it be a new innovation, whatever it is. Part of this process is that things are going to need to get done. They can never be perfect. And so it's really important to have honest conversations about what's good enough. And I think if we can do that as teams we can break down those high and excessive standards. I think it can be more innovative, not less. And as I mentioned, Jobs' way of doing things is one way to do it, but it's not the only way. You can have the same high quality outcomes, but with much less competition stress and pressure and that's the balance we need to strike. I think those expectations are often not communicated outside of action. So I think of a lot of our clients who are nice guys and gals who enter into these covert contracts where they behave in a certain way, in their mind, the perfect way. They're seeking perfection in their relationships, how they show up, how they serve others, people pleasing, and in turn, they're often let down by others' behaviors when they have not actually communicated any expectations around what they want to see in that relationship. They've just behaved in a manner that they're hoping will be mirrored back to them, reflected back to them by their actions, and that lack of communication of expectations can lead to that harsh criticism of others and then in turn, criticism of yourself. Well, and also internal resentment as well, right? Because if you not express the expectations in the first place, then it's probably likely you're not gonna express the disapproval subsequent to that. And so you go in on yourself and start to resent, start to think these people are not working hard enough and they don't understand the process and what's needed and all the rest of it, you can really start to see how internalities can breed a lot of negative thoughts about the workplace and the team. So yeah, I mean, I couldn't be more emphasized that it's so important to have clear communication, both at the beginning and in the middle of the end. And we have to create cultures where that's encouraged, right? Where people feel safe to express what they think is necessary and needed within teams. And that is created for all sorts of ways, but the leadership has to lead by example in that respect and not only make it clear what's needed, but also when they've made mistakes or when we've hit setbacks or when things aren't going quite the plan that we talk about, that we're open about, even laugh and joke about it, so that our whole team comes with us and they themselves feel emboldened to speak up, to contribute, to share ideas. It's so, so important to have clear communication within the workplace, because that's the most efficient way to get things done. So if you've recognized that you struggle in communication of these expectations on that front, what are some of the first steps you can take, taking responsibility and then starting to break through that communication barrier that you've created? The very first thing, if you struggle with excessively high standards in your other perfectionistic mindset where it's got to be 100% perfect every single time, otherwise it won't go out, you've got to first recognize that's going to hold you back, that kind of thing is going to hold you back way more than it's going to push you forward, right? If that's a block and impediment to progress that way of thinking, that's the first thing. And tell yourself every single day that there are hundreds and hundreds of good enough ways to get this product out or this piece of code finished or whatever it is that you're doing in your workplace, but there is no one perfect way. So that instantly brings down that level of expectation to a point at which we feel more comfortable to let things go, even if it's not quite of a perfect level. And then the conversation becomes a different one with our colleagues and teams. It becomes, okay, why do we need this to be before we can let it go? And it's important to give your colleagues input into that process, what does the finished product look like and get an agreement, a consensus and then go about working on it. And so that for me is the most important thing. You've got to recognize first and foremost that phase when you're gonna block your progress way more than it's gonna push forward, relaxing those ambitions and making sure your whole team is involved in the decision making. And looking at it through the lens of social and romantic relationships, obviously when we talk about teams and workplaces, there's cultural impacts coming from leadership, there's hierarchy. But when we look at our social ties, our romantic ties, oftentimes we're putting this pressure on our partner, our friends, without even recognizing it. Again, through the covert contract where we have expectations, we're behaving in a certain manner and those expectations are just internal. And then when that person lets us down, doesn't show up or act or behave the way that we had expected, that self-judgment can turn in towards resentment towards the other person. So if you find yourself in that situation, what can you do to open those lines of communications on the social and romantic front to break free of that perfectionism that's holding you back from the social ties? Yeah, I mean, I think it's so important. I think this idea of it being covert is the issue. When everything is internalized and nothing is expressed outside of ourselves and in communication with the people who replace expectations on it, that isn't sustainable. And over the long run, you're gonna run into all sorts of difficulties, both within yourself, but also in the relationship. The most difficult thing with perfectionist people, and I myself have experienced this, is that we believe deeply that perfectionism is what marks us as a hyper-competent, hyper-functioning person. It's what gives us a sense of competence and identity. And so as a consequence, we don't feel internally that what we think and how we're approaching relationships is problematic. We don't see it that way, right? And that's why in the book, I really want to emphasize that that's the first step in turning the corner on this and recognizing that it's actually this way of thinking is the problem. It's not holding us up in the world. When everything feels like it's coming down and people dislike us and we move ourselves away from people because whenever we push ourselves in a social situation, we feel frightened or we might be criticized as a judge negatively. This creates a lot of social disconnection, a lot of loneliness. And then we resent people for that because they just don't understand us. When what we haven't recognized is that our perfectionism that's creating those problems in the first place. So I think it's so, so important for us to recognize first and foremost, perfectionism, the data is clear, it doesn't lead to high performance. So if you impose it on yourself and people in the workplace, you're not gonna do any better. It's related to social disconnection and loneliness and social disharmony. So if we take it into our relationship, it's also gonna create problems there. And thirdly, for ourselves, for our own mental health, it's highly correlated with problematic mental health because we've got low mood, depression and anxiety. And so it's not even good for us. So we have to be really clear. This is not an optimal way of thinking it's gonna create a lot of problems and all sorts of spheres of our lives. And so it's so important we turn our back on it. And as I mentioned, it's so, the first step is to recalibrate our expectation both on ourselves and on other people, whether they be in the workplace in our relationships. Recognize that people are imperfect. We live in an imperfect world. There's gonna be times when they piss us off. There's gonna be times when they don't meet us where we think they should meet us. And that's okay. That's whole part and parcel of being a human being, right? Everybody's fallible. We're all exhaustible and we all make mistakes. And once we can start to recognize that, we can start to see the common humanity and people around us in ourselves. And there's something incredibly liberating about that and something incredibly connecting about that because once we recognize we're imperfect, then we can start to interact and have relationships on a much deeper level. In the book, you brought up the multidimensional perfectionism scale. And I think that would be a lot of fun to discuss with our audience. For them, they're gonna want to investigate that for themselves. So if you'd like to discuss that for them. Yeah, so this is how we measure perfectionism. And this is how we measure almost all personality characteristics. Perfection is no different. What we'll do is we'll typically ask questions on a scale, that's kind of a questionnaire. So for self-oriented perfectionism, for instance, one of the items would be, I strive to be perfect in everything I do. Now, you can agree or disagree with that. You strongly agree, you'll score high on the scale. If you strongly disagree, you'll score low. And if you sort, yes, sometimes, yes, sometimes, no, you'll score somewhere in the middle. And for socially described perfectionism, we have items like, other people expect me to be perfect in nothing but perfect. Again, agree, disagree. For other oriented perfectionism, an example item might be, I expect nothing less than perfection from those around me. Right, again, agree, slightly disagree. And we aggregate the items that we ask on this questionnaire. And what we have is a sliding scale. So some people will be high on the spectrum. Some people will be low. Some people will be in the middle. This is the way, by the way, we should think about perfectionism, not as a black or white. Yes, you're a perfectionist. No, you're not a perfectionist, but are you more or less perfectionistic in these areas? And with that tool, we can do some really cool things. We can get a mean, which tells us, gives us some information about whether these things are changing, which is interesting information, but it also gives us a standard deviation, gives us some variance, which means we can look at to see how, how someone's higher on the scale of self-oriented, whether they are tend to be higher on their performance outcomes or relationship outcomes, whatever it might be. So this is a really useful tool. In my book, I provide some example items that people can have a go. Self-reflect on where they sit on those three elements of perfectionism. I don't encourage some self-reflection there because I think that's a really useful tool to see where we are on that spectrum, whether we're tending higher or lower. And if we're tending higher, the book explains more about what each of these are and we can apply those experiences in our own life to get a much better understanding of how perfectionistic we are. So I definitely encourage, if you do grab a hold of the book, to have a little go at that because I think it gives you a good idea of where you sit. And you talk about this idea that a lot of us are tied to our identity of being a perfectionist and we see examples of other people reaching success, Steve Jobs being one of them. We also may have experienced an upbringing that demanded that of us. So when I think to my own upbringing and this idea that you bring up in the book of good enough, that was unacceptable in my household. Like once I showed aptitude in school, good enough, a B, B plus was not acceptable at the dinner table. And meeting those expectations of my family to reach academic success became a big part of my identity and hardwired into the way that I approached everything. And I know Johnny smiling and laughing because a lot of times even within the company, I don't settle for good enough and it could lead to frustrations with other team members. So to those in the audience who have been steeped in this mindset of perfection based on how they were raised by their parents, siblings, and potentially through school as well, how can we start to take on this idea of good enough and actually find it acceptable when maybe you were raised in an environment where it was completely unacceptable to express good enough? Just for the humor's sake of this conversation, AJ is correct in my observations of a lot of aspects of the company, but I also had to reflect my kitchen table growing up as well. And I loathed school so much because at the time I was much more into skateboarding and music and I was obsessed with music even at a very early age. My dad played in bands growing up so that had taken my attention. And it got apparent to my dad that trying to nudge me into good grades wasn't going to work because I had completely checked out. So the conversation at our table was just like, listen, if you're getting seized, I'm good. I'm not gonna bother you, let's go. So of course, AJ, just speaking about that, I had to reflect and that's why I was laughing. But that's the thing about academics is it's often structured in a way that perfection is the goal and it is a measurable outcome. So you can get a perfect score. You can get 100, zero wrong. And all of my upbringing was geared around pursuing that 100 in any study or any subject that I encountered. And anything less was deemed not good enough and certainly unacceptable at the dinner table. Johnny's upbringing around creativity and art, that's a totally different dynamic where it's very hard to measure perfection in art. It's something that's completely subjective and someone might give it a low score and say, I don't like that piece of art and someone might actually love that piece of art. So those are like the dichotomy that we struggle with eternally in the company and reflecting in our upbringing. There is a lot of difference there. Absolutely. I mean, it's so interesting. You both shared divergent experiences there. I mean, you're absolutely right, AJ. Quantity, metrics. These are like kryptonite to perfectionism because there is an objective 100%. And the problem is that anything short of that, which by the way, 99% of the time we will probably get somewhere short of that. It's very unlikely that in every single assessment we're gonna, absolutely now, which leads to a lot of disappointments. And if the only thing that matters is the perfect test score, then the life is gonna be quite disappointing most of the time. And the problem is with perfectionism, even if you do get 100%, there's always gonna be another test around the corner, right? So it's not even if you can enjoy it. Yeah, it's not even if you can enjoy that because in anything, you put more pressure on yourself because the better you do now, the better you're expected to do the next time, right? So it's exhausting to live like that, but it certainly is still a perfectionistic kind of thinking which absolutely can carry through. We see this in literature all the time, high pressurized, high expecting environments is very strongly correlated with later life. I would say though, there's an interesting second piece to this and that's genetics. And we know that perfection is about 34% genetic just like any other personality characteristic. So we have to be a bit careful because it could be that our parents' perfectionism is what's driving the behaviors which then is what we're interpreting as the parent in practice is they're actually just come through genetics, right? So Johnny described there an environment that certainly wasn't as perfectionistic as AJ but that may be because your parents didn't have as much perfectionism and therefore they passed on this perfectionism. And so can you see the intergenerational transmission isn't just about socialization but it's also about genetics. And we have to be aware of that because why that's important is I think it's something comforting about all of this in that because there's this limited control that we have over the way we turn out, my mom is a classic perfectionist and the reason why I have these anxieties I think is because of that I think I passed on through my mother's line. And I don't know, I think it's something quite comforting about that. Like these feelings that I feel at some level aren't my fault and I can take a lot of solace in that. Now, nevertheless, having said all that there is no doubt that there is a socialization piece this and 34% leaves a lot for the environment to explain. So your question was what do we do? Well, I think the answer to that is in a bit about what I've already said about recognizing perfectionism is the issue, but also recognizing that there's nothing wrong inherently we wanted to do better, wanting to grow. The growth mindset, for example, is part of your upbringing, AJ, right? Keep doing better, keep learning, keep developing, improving, and all the rest of it. Nothing wrong with that at all, but we have to recognize that abundance, enoughness is antithetical to growth, right? Once we reach a point so basically we cannot feel abundant, we cannot feel complete, we cannot feel enough under conditions of growth because growth requires scarcity, it requires lack, it requires us being in some way less than all the time for us to have something to improve upon. And so I think what's really important is we recognize yes, growth is important, but to a point, right? And we have to recognize that we get to a point in our career and our lives where we've done remarkable things, where we've succeeded, where we've reached the goals that we set ourselves and then it has to switch. Where's the meaning? Where's the purpose? Where's the why now? Okay, I've climbed the ladder, I've done the hard yards, I'm gonna be living in complete misery for the rest of my life. I'll continue to keep pushing myself with more and more and more. I need to recognize that it's not always about growth. Sometimes we can level off, right? Sometimes we can reach a point of stasis that we're comfortable with and then we can pursue what I think brings us a lot of joy, you know? What is the meaning in our work? What are we trying to leave in the world of other people to use and appreciate and learn from? What's our bigger purpose? So I think that would be my main message. I don't think there's anything wrong, particularly in the early stages of learning of pushing ourselves a little bit and wanting to develop, but we also as human beings have to recognize there are limits to the amount that we can grow in. Sometimes we have done really well. We need to enjoy that and think on a bit of a higher plane. So that's kind of where I am with that. Yeah, it's funny looking back at my upbringing. So, you know, one of my things after school was to just seek a little break mentally, emotionally, and as an introvert. And I would say, just let me relax a little while. And that was very frustrating to my dad. So he actually made me a t-shirt that said, just let me relax a while. And I got to wear that t-shirt growing up because it became a moment for him to scold me, tried me to go back to school or go back to learning, go back to growing in that capacity. And of course, now hearing that, that there's a piece genetic and there's a piece to the socialization, I'm concerned as potentially becoming a parent, how is that going to show up in the way that I choose to raise my kids? And I'm curious, recognize that about your mom and your genetics, how you approach potentially passing on that perfectionism. Yeah, I think you've got to break the intergenerational chain at some point and recognize that you got to think a bit smarter. Just zoom out. All the data that's coming through now, for example, are on the four day work week, which is staggering that you actually get more productivity for less time invested. Why? Because more doesn't always mean better. There's a zone of declining and diminishing returns to every unit of extra effort that we put in beyond the center of threshold because we're sacrificing vitalizing activities, time in friends, time of our family, rest, good diet and sleep. All these things are so, so important to productivity at work. And if we just keep pushing us more and more and more, we'll find is actually perform worse in the long run. So I think we just need to think a bit smarter than this kind of just pure work ethic, work ethic, work ethic. And so for our children, I think the message really is that it's important to work hard. There's some things intrinsically satisfying about working and getting somewhere, achieving, growing and all the rest of it. Those things are really important priorities to instill. But at the same time, it's really so important for parents to be consistent in the way that they treat their children in terms of love and affection. So when they have done well, praise the effort, use that as a reinforcement for the learning and development and growth that they've invested themselves in. But when they haven't quite done so well, let's say they haven't nailed that test and they're really disappointed. This is where parenting comes into action. And I think a good parenting that has the right values would treat kids in exactly the same way, right? Give them a hug, tell them it's fine. This is an indictment on you. Doesn't say anything about how much your teacher likes you, how much your parents love you or whatever. It's just one disappointing test result. I have many other test results that you're gonna get. So it may not have just suited your skillset on that particular day. Or maybe you just said about nicely, but it's fine, we love you anyway. And that consistency of approval is so, so, so important. Because when you start to subtly defer approval on the expectation of more, bigger, better and higher performance, then what that teaches young people is not only really worth something as a person when they've succeeded and that when they have failed that there's that something that says something about them. And that is the short path to perfection. So consistency of level approval is so, so important. Nothing wrong with having high standards, but you have to be consistent when they've done well, when they haven't done quite so well, this treatment is the same. And finally just quickly to sign this because I think it's so, so important. Kids are very impressionable creatures. So if we do have perfectionism, we carry that into the parenting domain. That could also, you know, they might learn those anxious behaviors or the aversion to failure. So humanized failure, humanized mistakes. If you've had a bad day, let them know, talk around the dinner table, laugh about it, make a joke about it, normalize these experiences. So, so important young people see that. And that is also a good way to stop perfectionism creeping. It's a big point because children model everything. They will model your behaviors. They will model how you deal with conflict. They will model how you interact with other people. A lot of it, it's not even on a conscious level. They're just absorbing and it's all imprinting on them. So those conversations about those behaviors are gonna be incredibly important, specifically even being able to laugh at those behaviors at the dinner table so that those children know that it's okay to laugh at these behaviors because perfectionism isn't the best way to go and that they are going to come up short and that that's okay. I think it's also about, I mean, the thing is with failure is so interesting. We have a version in modern society because of the consequences of slipping up or making mistakes, especially in an age of social media can be blown up all over the place. Like I understand the fear, but it's kind of crazy because failure is just regression to the mean. Like we're gonna fail way more than we succeed. It's like it's 49 of the 50 people that take up Wimbledon are gonna lose a game. It's the same at the Tour de France, you know 249 and 250 are not gonna win the general classification. Like most people will at some stage for sure. And so that's why it's so important to praise, reward the times we do succeed because those are really, really crucial parts of learning praise for a child, but also at the same time, not over catastrophize in those moments of failure because they are not objective catastrophes are just about having a bad day. And I think that that messaging is so important. And that, you know, young people will listen, they will learn, and hopefully that will kind of mitigate that fear of failure that a lot of young people experience in these days. Well, we've certainly talked a lot about social media on the show, the impact that it has, the comparison driven highlight reels that create this fun house mirror around us, you know, on every platform. And it just seems like in order now to even get visibility, you have to have larger and larger feats of success. And another part of that social media experience again is there is a scoreboard. So it's quantified, it's measurable. How many likes am I getting? How many friends and followers am I adding? So there's that added degree of comparison beyond just the imagery and the videos that we're seeing and consuming, but then also the way social media ranks, force ranks us with leaderboard and scoring. The internet doesn't forget either. Your friends might forget that you fell down a few stairs and laughed it off when you guys went out for drinks, but that clip of that is now living on. Recognizing all the downsides of perfectionism, what do you recommend we do in our approach to technology and engaging in the digital world, which seems to be so likely to cause a lot of this perfectionism, frustration for your failure comparison? Well, you know, I was curious you bring that up because I remember, I'm old enough to remember the very start of social media. Facebook was a college campus social networking tool. And I was one of the first users to take it up in the very beginning. And it's funny you mentioned like, goofing up and all that sort of stuff because that was what it was for. Like I just remember we would have nights out as college students, of course you do things as college students do. People would take photos and the next morning you'd log on with trepidation of what you've been tagged in. Because that was the whole point of it. It was about cementing offline relationships, like documenting offline scrapes and cabers that you would have your friends, right? And so it's interesting to bring that up because today it's almost the reverse, right? We log on in trepidation of what we haven't been tagged in like as if we're like not, we don't matter or we're not recognized that people aren't given as far emojis or mentions or shares and all the rest of it. It's a completely different tool to what it used to be. And I think, but I think there's something, the answer lies in that difference because I think if we can reconnect to what it was originally devised for, right? To cement offline relationships, bring people to give our own common interests, grow communities, then it's an incredibly powerful tool not just in the workplace, not just in our social world, in our family, friends, relationships and all the rest of it. So much power to do such tremendous good, but it isn't used for that. It's an advertising device, right? And it's used to create an aura discontent into which captures our attention and spending because that's where the revenues are. Nothing wrong with that, by the way, that's just the company doing what they should be doing in this economy. But I think it's important for the user to recognize that and to try to take it back to what it used to be. And I do see signs of that, by the way in young people's interaction social media, they're posting less interestingly and they're also using the messaging feature more, right? To communicate with each other. I think there are some signs that we're turning in the right direction with that. So it's not about throwing the baby off the board, it's not about saying, let's just get rid of the platforms, let's ban them, whatever. I actually think there's tremendous power, but it's about using them for the right reasons. And that goes for social media, just as it does for AI and all the other technologies are coming down the road. Well, I can certainly remember back then we weren't thinking that our future employers were going to do a social media audit of who we are even before we get in the room or our interviewer ask us some questions about our social media presence. And not to mention default settings were private to people you knew, right? So anything that was being shared was not posted publicly, whereas now in order for them to capture our attention, everything is set to public to gain as much time on these apps as humanly possible. And I know for myself, I've posted less and in turn I've logged on less and I focus more on the in-person connection versus substituting it with the digital. I think it's a much bigger ask to post more of my flops and failures on social, recognizing some of the comments, et cetera we see and feel from just being a public figure online. It is very interesting to see generationally how they're now approaching Gen Z, Gen Alpha is approaching these online experiences whereas we were first to be introduced to it, excited to post everything. Now we're seeing this reversion back to more privacy concern about what is going to live online forever. Yeah, I think we were catnip, weren't we? For ripe for this kind of, I don't call it exploitation, it's not as aggressive as that, but I think you're right, we were captured in it, we were excited and we wanted to post all of ourselves and all of our lives. And I think Gen Z are coming through and going, oh, I'm not sure actually, but that's quite the right approach. And they're taking a, I think a slightly, I would say, healthier approach to it, and which is great. I think that's how these things will change from the ground up, so it's nice to see them. Well, think about it, they have to deal with that in school. I didn't have to go to junior high dreading what social media was going to say about me and the following me around from school to home into my digital life, where now they have to carry that around them as much as their backpack, right? It's never going away. And they're constantly connected. They learn much earlier the importance of that, where that wasn't in our lives at that time, certainly not mine as a Gen Xer. Yeah, I 100% agree. I hadn't thought about it that way, but it's you're absolutely right. Yeah, there is more awareness just because they're the first generation, I suppose, still growing up just immersed in it. So of course they're gonna be more educated than we were coming through. Yeah, exactly. Looking at the title of the book, The Perfection Trap, are there signs and signals for us to recognize that we're falling into this trap? You know, we talked a lot about how it can help us. We've also talked a lot about how it can hurt us. So how do we recognize that it's actually a trap and what can we start to do after that to get our way out of this trap? The Perfection is a really harshly self-critical when they've messed up and made mistakes. That's because it's revealed to the world what they deep down are trying to hide, which is an exhaustible fallible human being underneath the surface. But there's also an important second piece to this, the Perfection is when they have succeeded as it was kind of alluded to earlier. And they can't enjoy that success because the better they do, the better they're expected to do. So there's a very fleeting satisfaction from success that they feel because it's the next thing and the next thing. And if you feel caught in that bind, which is essentially the Perfection Trap, right? Between trying to avoid failure so that people don't see your shameful, imperfect interiors, but at the same time find it really difficult to enjoy any success, then that's Perfectionism, right? That's the trap that we're locked inside. It's an unwinnable game because no matter what happens, you're always gonna feel discontented. And as I mentioned, and I keep mentioning but these are so important. First of all, we have to recognize it goes back to what Johnny was alluding to at the beginning. This is a culturally acceptable trait. This is something that I think we celebrate. We have to turn our back on that myth. It isn't something that pushes us forward. Data is very clear. It's not linked to success. And at the same time, it carries all of these difficult mental health complaints that are associated with being bound in this trap, this unwinnable game. And once we've done that, we can start to think about living a little bit differently about chasing abundance in our lives, about chasing enoughness. I'll call it, you know, the car, my subtitle in my book was very much as bi-bug psychoanalyst, Carl Rogers' quote. He said, I am good enough if only I would be allowed to be so openly. That's the challenge. It's about opening ourselves up to the world, imperfections and all, being brave enough and vulnerable enough to show up and make mistakes and do things badly, just to suck at stuff essentially and go through the discomfort and the anxiety and the worry that that's gonna engender because it's gonna engender loads of it. And while we're feeling those things to be kind to ourselves, vulnerability and self-compassion is so important in turning our back on perfectionism. So we've made mistakes. It's so important to be kind and important to be kind to other people in the world when they've made mistakes. And this isn't gonna be a linear process. You know, showing up being vulnerable, making mistakes, being self-compassionate, learning, developing, growing, saying, rinse, repeat. Gonna encounter lots of setbacks. We're gonna put the mask perfection back on and then we're gonna feel bad about ourselves for not trying harder to break free from this. And all the while, we have to just know that the journey's the most important thing. We live in a society that's probably gonna make us, put on the mask of perfection way more than we'd like to, but that's okay. The point is that we're addressing it, that we're recognizing it's a problem we're trying to live differently. And over time, you become more comfortable. You feel in yourself a sense of abundance, a sense of completeness, a sense of good enoughness. And you experience the joy that comes with that in those moments. And this isn't about living in a complete state of ecstasy, but it's about encountering more of that joy on never increasing basis. That's the purpose of trying to turn it back on perfectionism and become more self-aware and self-accepting. So those are the things I would recommend. And if you can apply them in your allies, then you've taken a sledgehammer to perfection. Yeah, I think going along with that, obviously it's easy to celebrate our successes, to look at those victories and give ourselves a pat on the back. I think it's also important to give ourselves a pat on the back for all the failures and setbacks we've been through. And sometimes just self-reflection. I failed tests, I didn't get good grades in certain subjects and I'm still here. And I'm still going at it with that growth mindset. I think oftentimes if we just reflect on our wins, again, it creates that trap that we're talking about where then we try to avoid failure at all turns. And sometimes that avoiding failure can actually lead to procrastination. And I know that's one of the reason that some of our clients join our coaching programs and work with us is because that state of procrastination has had them so stuck and so far away from the growth mindset that they aspire to, that they can't get themselves out of it. Learning, growing, that's difficult. It's messy. So those mistakes are going to happen. And it's not comfortable to do that around friends because their friends have a certain picture of them that they don't want to shatter. Or at least those expectations that they have put on themselves that they think from their friends. But for our clients, once they're in an accountability group where they're learning and outside of that comfort zone with lots of others, they're happy to share the mistakes they're making and the progress that they're making because they're surrounded by people who are outside of their comfort zone. And in any group, we're gonna have a certain small percentage of doers who are going to try to advance themselves or engage in things that they are passionate about. There's gonna be maybe 10% more of that group who see those people taking action who are going to engage with those people because they're interested in that. They don't know how to get started. Somebody is, they're gonna help out. But the rest of that group, the 90% of that group is sitting in the stands afraid to participate, afraid to get anything started for whatever their fear that they have to deal with. But now in the accountability group, everyone is in the arena. Everyone is participating. Everyone is making those mistakes. And in fact, they feel guilty not participating and not making those mistakes. And they are encouraged then to put their best foot forward into the abyss to grow. And I know in reading the book, I think maybe even for some members of our audience, they don't recognize the link between procrastination and perfectionism. So if you can unpack that a little bit, I think that'd be super helpful for those who are falling into the procrastination trap. Yeah, and that's so interesting because you're absolutely right. Perfectionist fear failure to such an extent that they'll sabotage their chances of success. The primary motive is to avoid the failure. And success is secondary. It's much more important to save face. And it's really interesting you say that about even with family, like we have this idea in our mind's eye of what people expect us to look like or appear like a performer performing. And we don't want that image to be shattered. And that's true, we don't. But it's in those moments where that image is shattered that we realize something very important. And that's this, that image was nothing more than a prop for our self-esteem and a fragile prop of that. When that image is shattered for whatever reason, whether we made a mistake, whether we screwed up, whether it just didn't pan out the way we planned because sometimes it's out of our control too, by the way, if things don't go well. We realize something remarkably important about ourselves. And if we can in that moment reflect and actually let those feelings in, that's when we can start to become emboldened to make those mistakes again, right? To put ourselves in the, I suppose, uncomfortable position of maybe failing or maybe making a mistake on a never more regular basis because we realize that that image is nothing more than a fragile prop. So I think that's so important. And like you say, emboldening in people to do that is so important. And again, it goes back to this primary mode of perfectionist to avoid failure. And we see this time and time in the lab and we love to create situations of failure. One, because failure is normal and nature happens a lot in everyday life. But two, because something remarkable happens when you put perfectionist in a situation and challenge of failure, which is why it's so interesting to look at it in the lab. So we give people cognitive tasks, puzzles. We might give them athletic tasks like race against each other on a cycling activity. For example, and what we'll do is no matter how well they perform on that task, we'll all tell them that they failed to meet a goal or they were the last of all competitors, right? It's a bit annoying, but it does elicit a response. And the response is what tells us about the perfectionist mindset and their emotional and behavior responses to that difficulty. And two things happen that I think are really remarkable. The perfectionist people, people that score high in perfectionism, when they encounter that failure, they're shame spikes, way more than the shame spikes from people who are non-perfectionistic. And shame is a self-conscious emotion that basically tells us we're rubbish, that we've failed, it's something that's an indictment on us. They feel a lot of guilt, so they worry about how it's looked over people and whether other people that still find them are for worthwhile human being, but also they pride in themselves, declines, plummets. But it's not just emotional responses that are interesting, it's also behavioral. Because if you suddenly say to them, but don't worry about all of that failure, it's okay, you can redeem yourself because you can have another go. On the second attempt after the first failure, perfectionist people will remove themselves completely. They'll just take themselves out of the activity, their effort will plummet, especially on athletic tasks, we do this in the lab time and time again, right? Like they just don't try on the second attempt because the intensity of those emotions was so fierce, they don't want to feel that again. They don't want to give all themselves and still feel even shit about themselves, right? So they just give up, they just withdraw. And that's not just about complete withdrawal, it's also, that's the same mechanism that's occurring when it comes to procrastination too, it's an anxiety management technique that they know this is challenging, they know this is super, super hard, and the anxiety in that moment is so tough to deal with. Head on, they'll just take themselves away, right? Distract, do something else. For that brief moment, they take themselves away from that activity, but of course, even though in that moment we're not damaged by those emotions, we are in the course of time damaged by them to an even greater extent. So obviously it's a non-optimal coping mechanism, but it's the one that perfection people use a lot because the primary motive is to avoid failure. So procrastination is a scourge for the perfectionist and it's so simple to recognize what's going on underneath and it's always that aversion to failure. So embracing failure, embracing the idea that we're gonna make mistakes is so important when it comes to putting through perfection. Recognizing your own perfectionism, what have you done personally to bring the good enough mindset into your life and into practice? First of all, this is the first thing to say here is that I'm fairly privileged position because I've climbed the academic ladder. So in my profession, I've gone as high as you probably could go, I'm a Russell Groobie Institution as Associate Prof, I'll probably be a full professor soon. This is equivalent to the Ivy League for American Listeners. I have the privilege of being able to step off the gas now and focus on things that bring me purpose and meaning, which is what I'm doing. And that is helping me come through my own perfectionism. It's helping me realize and gain a sense of satisfaction in my accomplishments. I could never do that. I was unable to singly do that a few years ago, but just being able to kind of take more philosophical outlook on life and realize that if you said to me at 19, this is where you'd be, it would have just blind my mind. And I think sometimes you have to hold onto that. You have to realize that we can do remarkable things and we have done remarkable things. And at what point do you go, okay, I need to stop putting myself through the ringer for more and more and realize that in this moment, what I've done is way beyond what I thought I was capable of. And so what's my motivation now? Where can I gain joy in this existence? Well, it's flipping the meaning of what I'm doing on its head from this idea of scarcity that I lack something and I have to keep going to a mindset of abundance and plenty. But I realized that I have these skills, I have these capabilities. And now my focus is on using them for a bigger purpose, basically embracing the vocation of what I'm doing, leaving something in the world for other people to use and appreciate and enjoy. And whether people like it, whether people hate, whether people are indifferent about it, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you are creating something for other people to use. And that doesn't just have to be a book or a TED talk or whatever we do as academics in the workplace. It could be a project, it could be a tool, it could be a product that is huge, strongly believe is it will bring joy to people's life, will enhance people's lives. That's the motivation. And once you can make that flip, then it isn't about any more and more and more, it's about learning to feel content in what we are doing and having left something in the world for other people to use, that's the satisfaction, that's the pride, rather than the recognition from other people which is what drives perfection. So for me in my own life, that's the kind of practices that I've tried to employ, tried to see my job and my life more as a vocation and throw more of myself into outside activities of community and with my family. Those are really important things. But I go back to the caveat I made at the start. Yeah, I'm in a very privileged position where I can do these things because I've made it over a certain threshold which means it doesn't matter now, you know? I've got probation, I'm going to be a full pro. I've met my career goals. And so for those people coming up, I would say there is still caution in perfectionism. I would not embrace it to a full extent but I would also say that hard work, striving, conscientiousness and growth are really, really important. And yes, it may be a bit uncomfortable but recognize that there will be a point where you will meet your goals. And at that stage, it's important to recognize that more and more and more growth is the way to discontent and misery and that at some point to recognize our achievements and strive for a higher purpose instead. So that's the advice I would give you. Thank you for that. It's a beautiful place to end it and wrap things up. Work in our audience, find out more about the perfection trap and the work that you do. So if you Google Thomas Curran, the perfection trap, you will be given a list of links to my website, social media accounts and also links to buy the book if you so wish. So that's probably the best way to do it. And if you do pick up a copy, I'd love to hear from readers. So please do let me know what you think. Thank you for joining us, Thomas. Thank you for having me.