August 25, 2025 • 36 mins
Perfectionism might look like a strength on the surface, but it often hides burnout, procrastination, imposter syndrome, and toxic expectations that stall both leaders and teams.
In this episode of No More Mondays, I sit down with Dr. Greg Chasson, psychologist, professor, and award-winning author of Flawed: Why Perfectionism is a Challenge for Management, to explore the real impact of perfectionism on work and life.
What you’ll learn:
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The 3 types of perfectionism (self-oriented, socially prescribed, and other-oriented)
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How perfectionism shows up at work and why it can sabotage leadership
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Why procrastination is a hidden red flag for perfectionists
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The surprising positives (loyalty, honesty, attention to detail, drive) that leaders can harness
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Practical strategies to reduce perfectionism’s downsides without losing its benefits
👉 If perfectionism has you, or your team, stuck, this conversation will help you shift your mindset and create healthier, more productive environments.
📍 Show Notes & Links:
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Greg’s Book: Flawed: Why Perfectionism is a Challenge for Management
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Website: gregchasson.com
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Speaking & Workshops: Book Greg to bring this conversation to your organization
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Membership Community: Coming soon! A supportive space to balance wellness, productivity, and perfectionism
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Additional Resource: International OCD Foundation for clinical support if perfectionism or OCD is causing severe impairment
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angie (00:00):
Angie, good morning, everybody. This is Angie Callen,
(00:04):
your host of no more Mondayspodcast, the show where we
believe you can have a thrivingcareer or business and an
amazing life on your terms, andit's my job to bring you guests
who not only prove that fact,but help you work and live more
authentically for all of youlistening out in podcast land. I
do want to remind you that wecome to you live every Monday
(00:25):
morning via LinkedIn. So if youwant this conversation as fresh
as you can possibly get it, joinus on LinkedIn at 10am Mountain,
noon Eastern every Mondaymorning and today we're tabling
a biggie. Everybody,perfectionism, people pleasing,
fear of failure, impostersyndrome, heck, even fear of
(00:46):
success can all be attributed tothe need to be perfect. But
here's a giant news flash, noone is perfect. We are all
flawed, and today you're goingto hear from the guy who
literally wrote the book on thatfact. Greg chasin is a PhD
professor, psychologist andaward winning author of flawed
(01:07):
why perfectionism is a challengefor management. If you are sick
of getting or being stucksabotaging your productivity, or
just sick of being in your ownway, this is a conversation that
you need. So listen in, becauseGreg and I are going to rock
your world when it comes toperfectionism. So Greg, welcome
to no more Mondays.
Unknown (01:28):
Thank you for having me and good morning.
Angie (01:30):
Yes, I am this. I love this topic. I feel like there's
generational aspects thatcontribute to it. High
performers fall into theperfectionism trap, and while
there is good, a lot of times,it holds us back more than we
realize. And so I want to justkind of get right into it and
use the title as the book asinspiration. Why is
(01:50):
perfectionism such a challengefor management?
Unknown (01:54):
I think it's a great question to start with, because
it really helps to orientpeople. I think most people have
the assumption thatperfectionism is helpful or a
good traits. In fact, you see,you see, sort of the light
hearted joke around what is yourgreatest weakness, when you go
on a job interview and everyonespins their weakness and says
perfectionism because they thinkit's a strength, and they're not
(02:17):
fooling anyone at this point.But the problem is, is that
perfectionism is much morecomplicated than people realize,
and in fact, it can be verydebilitating for people, and it
can cause major issues forleadership. And I think that's
why this book can be sovaluable, and why perfectionism
needs to be a topic on people'sminds, because it can really
(02:40):
slow down productivity. It canreally get in the way of a
workplace. It can causeresentment. It can be a real
problem.
Angie (02:50):
And I think this is a very relevant conversation to
some of the shifts we're seeingin the workplace today. And that
movement from, or maybe, let'ssay, the demand of a movement
from what I would call theprevious kind of autocratic
environment that that, I wouldsay, perpetuated perfectionism
and into something that's alittle bit more collaborative,
putting people in seats wheretheir strengths are leveraged
(03:12):
and hopefully backing off someof what can very much be this,
this expectation or standard, ofwhich nobody else can reach. And
I'm sure that's something thatyou've seen as you've been out
researching and putting thisbook together, absolutely.
Unknown (03:25):
So when I'm talking to organizations, a lot of people,
a lot of leadership andemployees, think this is a me
problem, right? That this is aself oriented I need to do
something about this. But reallyit can be a cultural issue
within the teams and theorganization. So perfectionism
really has three major forces.One of them is self oriented,
(03:49):
where you develop your own highexpectations that are rigid and
unreasonable, right? That's whatseparates it from high achievers
and high expectations is thatit's rigid and flexible, and the
goals tend to be a bitunreasonable. When it's derived
from within the self. It's selforiented when it comes from the
world around you, such asperhaps the way models look on
(04:12):
magazines. That is calledsocially prescribed
perfectionism, where you feellike the society is pushing
those rigid standards on you.But then here's the wrinkle.
There's a third type that Ithink that you're highlighting,
that's called other orientedperfectionism, where you are
projecting standards that you'vederived onto other people, and
(04:36):
that can be extremely toxic. AndI think we've all been in
situations where people havethrusted their own ridiculously
high and rigid standards onother people, and what makes it
even more toxic is when thatbecomes about moral standards.
So if some perfectionismrevolves around morality and
being a good person, and ifyou're projecting moralistic
(04:58):
standards on other. People. Boy,can it look self righteous
Angie (05:03):
judgment zone. I am going to withstand a very big
compulsion to go into apolitical discussion around that
fact. However, this, I think,comes back to, if you are a
manager doing this, you are notserving your team in a great
way,
Unknown (05:23):
I would say not. I don't think it's serving you or
your team, and it does require alittle bit of insight in taking
a step back and understandingthat this is a form of
perfectionism, and people don'trecognize that this is a much
more nuanced topic than peoplegive credit.
Angie (05:39):
And that's why I like the fact that like, from a PhD
perspective, you've like indepth research to this, and I
want to talk more about itsroots. So where does
perfectionism come from? Whatcauses it? Why does it seem so
prevalent in our lives rightnow?
Unknown (05:54):
The answer is that we don't entirely know. We know
that there's a little bit ofnurture and a little bit of
nature, that they both gotogether in an interactive way.
We know that there aregenerational transmission of
perfectionistic tendencies,right? In other words,
grandparents and parents mightmodel perfectionistic behavior
and expectations that then getsopped up like a sponge by the
(06:16):
younger generation. We do seeacross generations. Some work by
Tom Curran has shown that,excuse me, that perfectionism is
increasing across thegenerations. So we are, in fact,
seeing something that you'redescribing. I do think we see it
in nature as I'm sorry, innurture as well. A lot of
cultural components, a lot oftoxic achievement, mentalities,
(06:39):
a lot of you know, pushing ourkids to do everything perfectly
and to do everythingcomprehensively. And I think
that that is playing a role aswell. And so where does it come
from? Definitely, biology playsa role. There's probably a
genetic component thatcorresponds to a personality
trait that we call neuroticism.It's really basically just an
(07:00):
anxious meant an anxiousdisposition. And I think that is
what tends to be genetic. Andthen that gets mixed in a
negative way with some of theseenvironmental ingredients, like
a toxic achievement culture andparents and grandparents that
might be modeling a certainbehavior to yield, you know, a
perfectionistic state,
Angie (07:22):
and then I'm gonna say, I'm gonna take that even one
step broader, that I would becurious to know how social media
has played a role in this,especially in that socially
prescribed kind of external,extrinsic factor of
perfectionism. Because we allknow what we're seeing on
Facebook is everybody presentingthe good and never presenting
(07:42):
the ugly. So it can give youthis perception that everybody's
lives are perfect, and so now wehave yet another standard to
meet. How have you seen thatcome into play?
Unknown (07:51):
Absolutely, I think social media is a huge platform
for perpetuating perfectionism,which is hard to say,
perpetuating perfectionism.
Angie (08:00):
Say that three times, perfectly, perfectly,
Unknown (08:04):
perfect. Yeah. So it's, I think, that these, it depends
on the platform, right? ButFacebook is in particular. We
don't tend to post things thatdon't look good for us.
LinkedIn, as much as I loveLinkedIn, not to bad mouth it,
but I think it's also a placewhere we put our best foot
forward from a careerstandpoint. And so I think that
(08:24):
social media is just is causingmore of the same, if not
exacerbating the issue. And
Angie (08:29):
what I find really interesting is I agree the
marketing 101, you're not gonna,you're not gonna market yourself
based on the skeletons in thecloset. And I'm not saying go
air them necessarily on apublic, you know, a public
platform, because that could domore harm than good in various
ways. But there is something tobe said about vulnerability as
the anecdote to perfectionism,absolutely
Unknown (08:52):
so a couple of things that I think about. There was a
recent movement where people inmy field that were doing
research and submitting grantsto the NIH were posting about
them not receiving the grant, orwhat we call not funded, which
means that you are in the bottom50% now, grants are funded at
five to 10% they are extremelychallenging to get through the
(09:13):
NIH and it is absolutely thenorm to apply for 10 grants and
get maybe one, if you're lucky,And but nobody ever posts about
the failure. So there was arecent movement that I saw on
social media for people to postall of the non funded projects.
And I was just sort of feelingliberated by that, but we just
don't see enough of that. Thisis like the no makeup pictures
(09:35):
on Insta or on Facebook. I thinkthat there is room for
vulnerability. It's just not themain drive that we see on these
on these platforms,
Angie (09:46):
the no makeup stuff is, I love that a bunch of people
trying to get funded for theirresearch on perfectionism are
showing the imperfections of thefunding process. I love it. And,
you know, we're starting to talkabout a little bit of a flip
side of the coin here. And.Yeah, and that is, there are
redeeming qualities ofperfectionism, and so we don't
want to sit here and just, youknow, beat this up like the the
(10:07):
printer on office spacenecessarily. What? What do we
have to gain through some of thepositives of perfectionism?
Unknown (10:14):
That's a great scene, by the way. Love it. The
Angie (10:17):
I just gave everyone a visual throwback to 1999 Love
Unknown (10:20):
it, love it, and the song playing in my head. So
yeah, there are tremendouslypositive qualities for people
with perfectionism. I do notwant this to be a witch hunt. In
fact, I would think thateliminating perfectionist from
your workplace is an awful idea.They bring some of the best
qualities to your workplace, andthis includes loyalty. Tend to
(10:43):
see a lot of loyalty. We see alot of honesty. Remember, we
talked about the moralismbefore, well, that can actually
have a good side to it, that wetend to see a little bit more of
an honest approach to things,really good attention to detail.
I'm firm believer that we needteams that have complimentary,
complimentary skills that notjust big picture thinkers, but
(11:05):
also detail oriented masters.Because we need all of this. We
need people that will keep aneye on the details. There's
nobody I would want on my teamlooking at the details more than
a perfectionist, right? Whereasa big picture thinkers, maybe a
perfectionist is not that wouldnot be their best role. And then
we have the hardest workingperson in the room, right?
(11:25):
They've doubled down, tripleddown, on everything that they've
done since they were a kid. Theyknow how to work hard, because
that's how they've gotten towhere they are. So they're the
most industrious person thatyou're going to find. And
lastly, the most positive traitsthat has a strong positive
correlation with perfectionismis conscientiousness. And so I
(11:47):
personally, if I had to pick oneingredient in a team member or
somebody that I lead, it wouldbe conscientiousness. This, you
know, the idea that someone isbeing thoughtful about what
they're doing is so critical forproductivity and innovation, and
frankly, just being a good teammember, I
Angie (12:05):
loved the I loved how you framed the hard worker, the
striver, in a positive way ofindustriousness. By the way, I
wanted to point that out. Andthe conscience of just like
being a human, is that that's abig platform for me right now,
is be a human. And so I want toconnect, I kind of want to
connect these two pieces thatwe're talking about, and maybe
put you on the spot of where orhow do we identify or operate in
(12:29):
the very small gray area betweenthe positives of loyalty,
honesty, attention to detail,industriousness and
consciousness and The flip sideof the coin that is overwork,
burnout, imposter syndrome,people pleasing, holding people
to a standard they're nevergoing to meet. How do we how do
we? Do we straddle that?
Unknown (12:51):
It's, it's a great question, and I don't know that
it's the the right question,because you don't it's not a
zero sum game. In reality, youcan minimize a lot of the damage
and things that perfectionismcauses without really
sacrificing a lot of thepositives. And so I think that's
a good message for people tounderstand, is that you don't
(13:12):
need to give up loyalty andhonesty and conscientiousness if
you're going to combat all thenegative stuff that comes with
perfectionism. So you reallycan't have it all right? You can
be the best worker in the room,and you can keep all those good
traits as well. And so I don'tknow that it's about finding
that middle ground. It's aboutidentifying the ways in which
you're being perfectionistic.And I have ways of identifying
(13:34):
that in the book, and it's acommon thing I go over when I
speak with organizations, like,how do you identify this, both
in terms of your workers andthen also in terms of the people
that you're trying to hire?Right? What do you look for? But
in reality, you can start to dothings, and there are strategies
for changing the culture fromthe top down in the
(13:56):
organization, as well as workingfrom the bottom up with
individuals that might struggle,specifically with perfectionism,
fear of failure, impostersyndrome, and so between top
down and bottom up processes,you can help somebody with
strategies for essentiallyminimizing the damage from
perfectionism and then graspingonto all the good stuff and
(14:17):
really leveraging it.
Angie (14:19):
I love what you said about this not being a zero sum
game, I'm going to equate thatto the fact that there is no
such thing as work life balance.There's an equilibrium that you
find, and you kind of find findways to cope, or keep checks and
balances of the negative inplace so that the positive
shine. And it sounds to me likea lot of that in this particular
(14:40):
topic is around the mentalaspect of it and the perspective
that we bring to either our ownperfectionism, our team's
perfectionism, or ourenvironment, right? Absolutely,
Unknown (14:50):
I think a lot of it is mindset. A lot of the book is
about changing and shiftingone's worldview. In fact, if you
end my book without having a.Shift in the way that you see
the world, not just work. Idon't know that I've done my
job, and the feedback I've beengetting about the book has been
very much that that this iscompletely flipped their idea
(15:13):
upside down of how to approachthe world. It's from
prioritizing and not gettingstuck in process paralysis to
not over focusing on rules atthe expense of the underlying
principles. There are ways ofapproaching goals and rigid
(15:35):
thinking in a way that canloosen those using approaches
that are a bit counterintuitive.I talk a lot in the book about
an approach based on my worldand research on exposure based
approaches to treatment, wherewe then apply that to the
workplace, doing exposure basedexercises like making mistakes
on purpose. And when I tellpeople that it kind of blows
(15:57):
their minds, like, What do youmean? Make mistakes on purpose?
I get making mistakes is okay,but you want me to actually make
them on
Angie (16:03):
purpose? Immersion therapy, everybody. Immersion
therapy,
Unknown (16:06):
yeah, you know, it's not like I'm having a heart
surgeon go in and put a lungwhere a heart should go. But
instead, we start small, and wework our way up. And you know,
you might send a typo in anemail. You might send this
message to Jim and receivablesinstead of Jim and accounting,
right? Or the thing that, ofcourse, I've never done, which
(16:29):
is forgot the attachments on anemail and had to reset, never,
never, and so
Angie (16:35):
or left or left something sitting in your outbox for a
week. And then somebody's like,Hey, where's the thing? And
you're like, oh, that thing. Ithought I sent a week ago.
Unknown (16:44):
Angie, don't ever do that. I know what a terrible
mistake I am useless. We all dothese things, but the
perfectionist catastrophizesthem and sees them as all or
none. This is awful. I'm aterrible person. I'm a terrible
worker. And so by doing theseexercises where you have them do
these little things inincreasingly difficult ways,
right? So send a typo to yourcolleague next. Once you've
(17:07):
mastered that, let's send a typoto your boss. Then let's send it
to the board of directors,right? So you could kind of
build on it over time. And whatthey learn is that they can
tolerate the mistake. They cantolerate the anxiety. It's not
as catastrophic as they thinkit's going to be. And I think
equally important, they learnthat they can, that they're not
(17:28):
going to crumble from theanxiety, right? That they're not
going to decompensate. It's a
Angie (17:32):
it's a little bit of like desensitization, and as you and
you realize that the world isn'tgoing to crumble because, you
know, you left, you know, a Toff the end of a word. And I
love where you're taking thisconversation, because I wanted
you said something earlierabout, like, some of the tips in
the book about how to identifyperfectionism and how to start
kind of attacking it. These arevery small things that you can
(17:56):
actually go try and do. And Iwanted to give some people. I
wanted to give people some ofthese practical tips. I want to
go further down this path. Iwant to I want to talk a little
bit, maybe before we talk aboutmore ways to start desensitizing
yourself of how to identify it.So going back to that idea that,
(18:18):
like in the book, you givepeople a framework to identify
it, but probably also identifyhow it shows up. What are some
simple ways that we could goevaluate that for ourselves?
Unknown (18:27):
Yeah, there are quick hacks, and then there are things
that are just more core to whatto a perfectionist presentation.
The core is just in flexibility,being unable to pivot when data
suggests otherwise. You know,sticking to a plan even if it's
not working right, and this sortof rigidity is a hallmark
(18:48):
feature of perfectionism, andthat's what separates it from
high expectations. You know,people with high expectations,
they're able to feel relativelyflexible and changing their
perspective if they get a 95instead of 100 on a test, they
don't feel like a failure,because they see that that was
quote, unquote good enough, andthey're feeling decent about it,
(19:10):
whereas a perfectionist is goingto feel very much in an all or
none rigid way that they failedand that's not good enough and
that They never perfectionistreally struggles to take praise
and positive feedback. Theymight dismiss it. They might not
believe it. And these are commonthings that you see in
perfectionism, and they are redflags for perfectionists. The
(19:33):
other thing that you can lookout for are just common, common
features, like the not justright feeling. We call them
njrs, or njre is not just right.Experiences the idea that you're
working at something until itfeels just right, and that
you're not done until it feelsthat way. It's sort of like a
threshold, a gut reactionthreshold. The problem is
sometimes it never comes, or itcomes way later than it than it
(19:55):
should. And so theperfectionist, because of that
rigidity, will keep. Workinguntil they get that feeling.
Whereas somebody that's not aperfectionist will say, well, it
doesn't feel right, but that'sokay. I'm going to stop. It's
good enough.
Angie (20:08):
So 8020 rule, everyone 8020 rule.
Unknown (20:13):
And so you look for these kinds of things. You look
for, you know, people who mighthold others to rigid standards
and expectations and become abit sanctimonious about how they
approach people and things. Youlook for people who are over
emphasizing and get stuck on therules, even if it undermines the
principle that drive thoserules. And I know that's
(20:34):
abstract, so let me give you areally stupid example. So
imagine you're at a communitypool. I know it's getting into
winter time, so this is a bit ofa fantasy at the moment, but
you're at a pool and a kid isdrowning in the deep end. Nobody
sees it, and you have to run tosave them, but you decide that
you can't run because you justate within 30 minutes of being
(20:57):
at the pool, and the rule on thesign says that you can't, but
what is the underlying principleof that rule? Well, public
safety, we don't want peoplepuking in the pool, right?
That's just not good for anybodyand so, but what is the problem?
Well, you just tried to preservepublic safety by not puking, but
(21:17):
you let a kid drown. Sobasically, the public safety
issue. You just threw that outthe window for this poor child.
And so you are at you are overemphasizing a rule at the
expense of the underlyingprinciple that drives that rule.
And I see this in a workplacesetting almost constantly.
People get hyper focused onthese rules, and it undermines
(21:41):
all sorts of principles andvalues that drive healthy
workplace.
Angie (21:47):
Yeah, like process. I will take that and apply that to
the workplace as process forprocess sake instead of process
for productivity sake. And thetendency personality tendencies
fall into one side or the other.I've definitely seen that where
some people want, like, a 57step rule that every single,
every single person follows, yetthe bigger picture thinkers that
(22:11):
are maybe more creative or likein the wild, wild west. But
there is a happy medium toachieve here.
Unknown (22:17):
There's a happy medium. And again, having multiple
people on a team can helpbalance that out. And I would
say all the extremes as you'realluding to, can be quite
problematic. And the book thatmy book focuses on the the
people who tend to gravitate alittle bit more towards the
extreme side of being overlysystematic and rule driven and
(22:37):
rigid, versus the wild, wildwest of nothing. Everything goes
nothing goes right, like, yeah.And so the book is not meant for
the extreme cases I see those inmy clinic at the University of
Chicago where I run a clinic,because it can get so severe
that people need to come gettreatment for it. But the book
is actually meant for everyone,sort of before that point. It's
(22:58):
for people that lean in thatdirection and need some
strategies and tips and theleaders that lead them, rather
than the people that need tocome to my clinic. Now, of
course, they're welcome to cometo my clinic, and if it's that
bad, I would advise people to doso. But there's a whole
bandwidth of people, a wholespectrum, that could benefit
from some of these, theseworldviews, and cutting
Angie (23:19):
it off at the pass is to your benefit. And if you're
sitting out there going, Thisdude has a clinic for
perfectionism, you would beshocked at how, how this can be
like the tip of an iceberg. Itcan spiral all the way to very
severe burnout, anxiety,depression and mental mental
health disorders that came fromis it what can often be self
(23:40):
imposed, if it's if it's yoursocial orientation, you know, or
I've seen this, I've seenworkplaces create toxic
workplaces create thisenvironment for people that just
holds them to a standard thatpsychologically, they can't,
they can't deal with. Don't beone of those people. If you're
in a leadership position, don'tbe them. It's,
Unknown (24:00):
it is very common, and it's, it's, and it's something
that you can work on right fromthe top down in the book I talk
about. And there are resourceson the on my website where you
can get some language to use,and things like employee
handbooks and on your website,because even the way you subtly
talk to people in the workplacecan really set up
perfectionistic expectations,even something as simple as
(24:21):
having a leaderboard in a salesoffice, right? Something like
that, can create perfectionisticmentalities and can create the
toxic domino effect that mightoccur. It's not to say that
highlighting good work is bad ingeneral, but there are things
that you can do to mitigate thedamage that comes from those
kinds of things, so top down andbottom up, bottom up right and
(24:45):
absolutely that this can getsevere to the point where, like,
let me just tell you one of theI did mention this earlier, and
I want to make sure I bring itup. One of the biggest red
flags, or signs ofperfectionism, is
procrastination. Yes. Yes,right? Because what happens is
that people push things offbecause they can't get it quite
right, that not right feeling,or they don't even start in the
(25:06):
first place because they'reworried that they're not going
to get it right. And so thingsget pushed off. And I have an
emphasis framework that I usewhere I have emphasis a,
emphasis B, and emphasis C,emphasis a means to give it your
all 110% like what you do, Angiefor every podcast, right? 110%
you give it your all. It'samazing, as close to perfect as
(25:28):
we can get. And then there'semphasis B, which is to just get
her done. Just get it done goodenough. It doesn't need to be
beautiful. Doesn't need to begarbage. And then there's
emphasis C, which is not to doit at all. And I'm agnostic to
judgment on this. There's a timeand place for all three. Yes,
right now, there's a time andplace for a if you're planning
(25:51):
for your wedding, or you'restudying for the LSATs to go to
law school, you might want toemphasis a the daylights out of
that good for you that should bebased on your values. Your
values should be your guide forwhat to emphasis a, what to
emphasis B, and what to emphasisC. There's a time and place for
emphasis C. People are like, Oh,well, you just ignore things. So
they say, Yeah, I do or delegatethem. I i never answer those,
(26:15):
those survey questions that thecustomer service satisfaction
surveys at the end of my call,me neither, and it's because I
my values, have chosen thatthat's not where I want to spend
my time. And so I've emphasizedthat, and I got to tell you,
once you've made that choice,and you have this framework to
help you do so, it's extremelyliberating, extremely
(26:36):
liberating. You've
Angie (26:36):
given yourself permission not to have to do everything in
a, I'm going to throw in asample B. If you're an
entrepreneur out there andyou're putting things out into
the market, that's a B, becauseyou don't want to toil and spend
that extra 20% of the timeperfecting something that isn't
going to be perfect anyway,because you're going to get
feedback that's going to iterateit and and that's where one of
(26:58):
the biggest traps ofperfectionism I see holding kind
of like business owners andentrepreneurs, entrepreneurs
back because they fear puttingthings out there. But I have to
go back to the fact that youbrought up procrastination,
because a few weeks ago, Iactually did a mastermind
session on procrastination, andone of the one of the guys,
comes in beforehand, and hegoes, I'm curious to see how
this goes, because I am verydisciplined and I don't
(27:19):
procrastinate. But then westarted talking about the
reasons we procrastinate, and hewas like, oh, that's Oh, I
actually do this because I'msuper Manning and trying to do
everything all at once, or Iwant to be the expert who knows
everything before I do all thethings, all of them funnel down
to some sort of perfectionisttrait, and if you're aware of
them, you can do something aboutit.
Unknown (27:40):
I agree. And I was bringing this back to
procrastination, because I thinkyou can see it in this
framework. What happens is thatperfectionist try to emphasis a,
everything. They try toemphasize a, everything. And
there's no discerning whatemphasis B tests should be. And
frankly, every most things inlife are best left to be
emphasis B, but people withperfectionism try to emphasis a
(28:02):
everything, and what happens isthat things turn into emphasis.
See, as a result, they getpushed off and never done. And
the problem is, it's not yourvalues choosing emphasis. See,
it's your perfectionism. And soit really is this pattern,
emphasis a to forced emphasis.See that that really is
procrastination. And so it'sthis common pattern that I think
(28:23):
is paralyzing for people,including entrepreneurs, who are
trying to launch a product. Iwork with entrepreneurs, and I
see this a lot. There's thisfear of failure, which is partly
what perfectionism is tied to,and they're wanting to perfect
something, but as you indicated,how often is the product you put
out there, never iterated on, Iwould say
Angie (28:43):
seven years later, mine are still being iterated on the
ABC thing. I don't know why thisjust popped in my head. My dad
was my high school math teacher,and he always used to say and Bs
are good grades. So in the ABCframework, Bs are good grades.
That said, I never got them. Ionly got A's because I was a
perfectionist. But I can alsotell you that you can recover
from it and find the happymedium between the A, B's and
(29:05):
C's, because I think, withouteven realizing it, that's
probably a framework I followsubconsciously. And so that's
another good message here is youcan begin to retrain your brain
if you're intrinsically creatingthis environment for yourself,
you can retrain your brain onhow you look at external
factors, and you can retrain howyou interact with others, if
(29:27):
you're projecting your standardson other people. Which brings me
to a tiny little thing I want toleave everyone with. I would
love to give everybody a tip onhow they can't one small thing
they can do to improve doesn'tfeel the right it doesn't feel
like the right word address eachof the three types of
(29:49):
perfectionism. So like a littletip if you find yourself being
self oriented, a little tip ifyou fall victim to the social
prescribed perfectionism, and alittle tip if you are projecting
on others.
Unknown (29:59):
Yeah. So for the self and the other oriented,
actually, this works for allthree of them. I'm happy to
break it down, but I would say avery concise thing to look out
for. If you want the biggestbang for your buck is to look
out for the should statement,the ought to must. There's a
famous psychologist, AlbertEllis, long since passed away,
(30:23):
but he used to say, Stop musterbaiting, M, U, S, T, right?
Because I love it. And thenthere was another psychologist,
Clayton barbo, who used to say,Stop shooting on yourself. I've
heard that one, yeah. And theidea is that should statements
set up these perfectionisticexpectations that are rigid and
excessive and all or none, andthey are coming from either you
(30:46):
or this perception of societythat is not really necessarily
backed up by reality. And theyare by far the most common but
debilitating compasses thatpeople use to go through their
day. And so if you're projectingthis onto other people, you're
projecting it onto yourself, oryou see it being projected being
projected onto you by society,and you see it as a should
(31:06):
statement that should be a clueto you. Just take a step back
and say, What are my valuestelling me? Where's my
flexibility here? What's reallyimportant?
Angie (31:15):
You don't have to wear this as a badge of honor. No,
definitely not. And I think weoftentimes do. And so here's my
summary for this episode. Greg,you ready? I'm ready
masturbating and shooting all ofyour all over yourself, and sure
as hell better not do it at thesame time, because you can have
(31:36):
it all, and you can leverage thepositive aspects of
perfectionism and keep thenegatives at bay, whether you're
controlling your own environmentor creating an environment for
everybody else. I I could, thiscould be a 12 hour episode,
because this is a topic I loveso much, because it just is. Its
(31:57):
awareness is a really big aspectof, I would say, addressing it
and improving our environmentsbecause of it, and Greg has
amazing resources out there, Iwould say, to build awareness,
identify and start recoveringfrom the perfectionist
tendencies. So Greg, tell uswhere we get to learn more from
(32:18):
you. I know you've got someexciting things coming out. So
plug it all, because everysingle one of you listening and
not listening needs it,
Unknown (32:24):
yeah? Thank you for the opportunity. So the book,
obviously, is a good place tostart. WW, dot flawed book.com,
which is a bit of a funny
Angie (32:32):
URL. It's kind of an amazing URL, yeah.
Unknown (32:35):
Then I have a lot of opportunities to speak to
organizations. If you see acultural issue here in your
organization and teams, and youwant a little bit of a shake up
and to flip that world upsidedown. I would love to come in
and to provide that messagingand programming. And then
lastly, I'm about to launch acommunity membership, a
membership community wherepeople are going to come and try
(32:57):
to find the balance betweenwellness and productivity and
perfectionism and anxiety willbe a big part of that. And so
Come get some support. This isnot a clinical thing. If you're
needing clinical services. Byyou know, by all means, please
check that out and you can, youknow, go to the international
(33:17):
OCD Foundation. We didn't talkabout this, but perfectionism
and OCD tend to go hand in hand.I ocdf.org, and look for
treatment providers. They have adatabase there, and those people
should be able to treatperfectionist, perfectionism
that's causing real distress andimpairment in terms of clinical
needs. But if you're not at thatlevel and you want some some
(33:38):
strategies, start with a book,have me come in and do some
speaking, or look into mymembership community, and feel
free to come to my website, Gregchasin.com, and and reach out to
me. I love hearing for people.
Angie (33:51):
I love what you said about the community being the we
can, we can, we can, beproductive in a healthy way. And
I think that really that's whatthis entire conversation is
about, is giving peoplepermission to do that,
empowering them to do that, andthen Greg's got a ton of wealth
of tools to help you out. And Ilove the rundown of kind of like
(34:12):
broad to specific that youprovided. This has been a
fantastic conversation, and Ithink very needed for everybody
out there to hear. So Iappreciate you so much for your
time sharing your knowledge andalso all the work you're doing
to build the knowledge andresources around this topic,
because we can be a muchhealthier and productive society
(34:33):
if we start really embracing alot of these topics, and I
appreciate everything you'redoing to support it.
Unknown (34:39):
I thank you so much for having me. I love spreading this
message, as you can tell, so I'mtrying to create a bit of a mini
movement around it. Then I let'sdo it. Yeah? We
Angie (34:46):
have a no more Mondays movement. So I would say, Let's
have the anti perfectionistmovement. But we need a sexier
name for it, because that's notperfect enough.
Unknown (34:53):
It is not perfect enough. I would give it a bee,
yeah, but maybe
Angie (34:57):
that, maybe that's what it should be, because bees are.
Good grades. Everyone. Great.Tessa, thank you so much for
joining me today on no moreMondays and again, sharing
everything that you're doing tocreate this movement that I
think is very relevant and willimprove lives. And I hope all of
you out there really takeeverything we talked about to
heart. And if you had a littlebit of an eyebrow raise
throughout here and somethingstruck a chord. Check out Greg's
(35:22):
book, his website and thecommunity He's launching,
because there is help out therefor recovering perfectionists
like me. So if you, if you'relooking for details on the
episodes, we will put the linksin the comments of the LinkedIn
live and get it up on no moreMondays. Dot info. If you want
to be able to link to everythingGreg mentioned, make sure you
(35:44):
follow him on LinkedIn. Followme on LinkedIn. If you listen to
this in podcast nation, leave usa review, because Greg and I are
amazing. And until next week,everybody, I hope you have a
great week. Keep perfection. Isperfectionism at bay. See, I
didn't even say it perfectly,and I will see you all next week
for another edition of no moreMondays podcast. Bye.
Angie, good morning, everybody. This is Angie Callen,
(00:04):
your host of no more Mondayspodcast, the show where we
believe you can have a thrivingcareer or business and an
amazing life on your terms, andit's my job to bring you guests
who not only prove that fact,but help you work and live more
authentically for all of youlistening out in podcast land. I
do want to remind you that wecome to you live every Monday
(00:25):
morning via LinkedIn. So if youwant this conversation as fresh
as you can possibly get it, joinus on LinkedIn at 10am Mountain,
noon Eastern every Mondaymorning and today we're tabling
a biggie. Everybody,perfectionism, people pleasing,
fear of failure, impostersyndrome, heck, even fear of
(00:46):
success can all be attributed tothe need to be perfect. But
here's a giant news flash, noone is perfect. We are all
flawed, and today you're goingto hear from the guy who
literally wrote the book on thatfact. Greg chasin is a PhD
professor, psychologist andaward winning author of flawed
(01:07):
why perfectionism is a challengefor management. If you are sick
of getting or being stucksabotaging your productivity, or
just sick of being in your ownway, this is a conversation that
you need. So listen in, becauseGreg and I are going to rock
your world when it comes toperfectionism. So Greg, welcome
to no more Mondays.
Unknown (01:28):
Thank you for having me and good morning.
Angie (01:30):
Yes, I am this. I love this topic. I feel like there's
generational aspects thatcontribute to it. High
performers fall into theperfectionism trap, and while
there is good, a lot of times,it holds us back more than we
realize. And so I want to justkind of get right into it and
use the title as the book asinspiration. Why is
(01:50):
perfectionism such a challengefor management?
Unknown (01:54):
I think it's a great question to start with, because
it really helps to orientpeople. I think most people have
the assumption thatperfectionism is helpful or a
good traits. In fact, you see,you see, sort of the light
hearted joke around what is yourgreatest weakness, when you go
on a job interview and everyonespins their weakness and says
perfectionism because they thinkit's a strength, and they're not
(02:17):
fooling anyone at this point.But the problem is, is that
perfectionism is much morecomplicated than people realize,
and in fact, it can be verydebilitating for people, and it
can cause major issues forleadership. And I think that's
why this book can be sovaluable, and why perfectionism
needs to be a topic on people'sminds, because it can really
(02:40):
slow down productivity. It canreally get in the way of a
workplace. It can causeresentment. It can be a real
problem.
Angie (02:50):
And I think this is a very relevant conversation to
some of the shifts we're seeingin the workplace today. And that
movement from, or maybe, let'ssay, the demand of a movement
from what I would call theprevious kind of autocratic
environment that that, I wouldsay, perpetuated perfectionism
and into something that's alittle bit more collaborative,
putting people in seats wheretheir strengths are leveraged
(03:12):
and hopefully backing off someof what can very much be this,
this expectation or standard, ofwhich nobody else can reach. And
I'm sure that's something thatyou've seen as you've been out
researching and putting thisbook together, absolutely.
Unknown (03:25):
So when I'm talking to organizations, a lot of people,
a lot of leadership andemployees, think this is a me
problem, right? That this is aself oriented I need to do
something about this. But reallyit can be a cultural issue
within the teams and theorganization. So perfectionism
really has three major forces.One of them is self oriented,
(03:49):
where you develop your own highexpectations that are rigid and
unreasonable, right? That's whatseparates it from high achievers
and high expectations is thatit's rigid and flexible, and the
goals tend to be a bitunreasonable. When it's derived
from within the self. It's selforiented when it comes from the
world around you, such asperhaps the way models look on
(04:12):
magazines. That is calledsocially prescribed
perfectionism, where you feellike the society is pushing
those rigid standards on you.But then here's the wrinkle.
There's a third type that Ithink that you're highlighting,
that's called other orientedperfectionism, where you are
projecting standards that you'vederived onto other people, and
(04:36):
that can be extremely toxic. AndI think we've all been in
situations where people havethrusted their own ridiculously
high and rigid standards onother people, and what makes it
even more toxic is when thatbecomes about moral standards.
So if some perfectionismrevolves around morality and
being a good person, and ifyou're projecting moralistic
(04:58):
standards on other. People. Boy,can it look self righteous
Angie (05:03):
judgment zone. I am going to withstand a very big
compulsion to go into apolitical discussion around that
fact. However, this, I think,comes back to, if you are a
manager doing this, you are notserving your team in a great
way,
Unknown (05:23):
I would say not. I don't think it's serving you or
your team, and it does require alittle bit of insight in taking
a step back and understandingthat this is a form of
perfectionism, and people don'trecognize that this is a much
more nuanced topic than peoplegive credit.
Angie (05:39):
And that's why I like the fact that like, from a PhD
perspective, you've like indepth research to this, and I
want to talk more about itsroots. So where does
perfectionism come from? Whatcauses it? Why does it seem so
prevalent in our lives rightnow?
Unknown (05:54):
The answer is that we don't entirely know. We know
that there's a little bit ofnurture and a little bit of
nature, that they both gotogether in an interactive way.
We know that there aregenerational transmission of
perfectionistic tendencies,right? In other words,
grandparents and parents mightmodel perfectionistic behavior
and expectations that then getsopped up like a sponge by the
(06:16):
younger generation. We do seeacross generations. Some work by
Tom Curran has shown that,excuse me, that perfectionism is
increasing across thegenerations. So we are, in fact,
seeing something that you'redescribing. I do think we see it
in nature as I'm sorry, innurture as well. A lot of
cultural components, a lot oftoxic achievement, mentalities,
(06:39):
a lot of you know, pushing ourkids to do everything perfectly
and to do everythingcomprehensively. And I think
that that is playing a role aswell. And so where does it come
from? Definitely, biology playsa role. There's probably a
genetic component thatcorresponds to a personality
trait that we call neuroticism.It's really basically just an
(07:00):
anxious meant an anxiousdisposition. And I think that is
what tends to be genetic. Andthen that gets mixed in a
negative way with some of theseenvironmental ingredients, like
a toxic achievement culture andparents and grandparents that
might be modeling a certainbehavior to yield, you know, a
perfectionistic state,
Angie (07:22):
and then I'm gonna say, I'm gonna take that even one
step broader, that I would becurious to know how social media
has played a role in this,especially in that socially
prescribed kind of external,extrinsic factor of
perfectionism. Because we allknow what we're seeing on
Facebook is everybody presentingthe good and never presenting
(07:42):
the ugly. So it can give youthis perception that everybody's
lives are perfect, and so now wehave yet another standard to
meet. How have you seen thatcome into play?
Unknown (07:51):
Absolutely, I think social media is a huge platform
for perpetuating perfectionism,which is hard to say,
perpetuating perfectionism.
Angie (08:00):
Say that three times, perfectly, perfectly,
Unknown (08:04):
perfect. Yeah. So it's, I think, that these, it depends
on the platform, right? ButFacebook is in particular. We
don't tend to post things thatdon't look good for us.
LinkedIn, as much as I loveLinkedIn, not to bad mouth it,
but I think it's also a placewhere we put our best foot
forward from a careerstandpoint. And so I think that
(08:24):
social media is just is causingmore of the same, if not
exacerbating the issue. And
Angie (08:29):
what I find really interesting is I agree the
marketing 101, you're not gonna,you're not gonna market yourself
based on the skeletons in thecloset. And I'm not saying go
air them necessarily on apublic, you know, a public
platform, because that could domore harm than good in various
ways. But there is something tobe said about vulnerability as
the anecdote to perfectionism,absolutely
Unknown (08:52):
so a couple of things that I think about. There was a
recent movement where people inmy field that were doing
research and submitting grantsto the NIH were posting about
them not receiving the grant, orwhat we call not funded, which
means that you are in the bottom50% now, grants are funded at
five to 10% they are extremelychallenging to get through the
(09:13):
NIH and it is absolutely thenorm to apply for 10 grants and
get maybe one, if you're lucky,And but nobody ever posts about
the failure. So there was arecent movement that I saw on
social media for people to postall of the non funded projects.
And I was just sort of feelingliberated by that, but we just
don't see enough of that. Thisis like the no makeup pictures
(09:35):
on Insta or on Facebook. I thinkthat there is room for
vulnerability. It's just not themain drive that we see on these
on these platforms,
Angie (09:46):
the no makeup stuff is, I love that a bunch of people
trying to get funded for theirresearch on perfectionism are
showing the imperfections of thefunding process. I love it. And,
you know, we're starting to talkabout a little bit of a flip
side of the coin here. And.Yeah, and that is, there are
redeeming qualities ofperfectionism, and so we don't
want to sit here and just, youknow, beat this up like the the
(10:07):
printer on office spacenecessarily. What? What do we
have to gain through some of thepositives of perfectionism?
Unknown (10:14):
That's a great scene, by the way. Love it. The
Angie (10:17):
I just gave everyone a visual throwback to 1999 Love
Unknown (10:20):
it, love it, and the song playing in my head. So
yeah, there are tremendouslypositive qualities for people
with perfectionism. I do notwant this to be a witch hunt. In
fact, I would think thateliminating perfectionist from
your workplace is an awful idea.They bring some of the best
qualities to your workplace, andthis includes loyalty. Tend to
(10:43):
see a lot of loyalty. We see alot of honesty. Remember, we
talked about the moralismbefore, well, that can actually
have a good side to it, that wetend to see a little bit more of
an honest approach to things,really good attention to detail.
I'm firm believer that we needteams that have complimentary,
complimentary skills that notjust big picture thinkers, but
(11:05):
also detail oriented masters.Because we need all of this. We
need people that will keep aneye on the details. There's
nobody I would want on my teamlooking at the details more than
a perfectionist, right? Whereasa big picture thinkers, maybe a
perfectionist is not that wouldnot be their best role. And then
we have the hardest workingperson in the room, right?
(11:25):
They've doubled down, tripleddown, on everything that they've
done since they were a kid. Theyknow how to work hard, because
that's how they've gotten towhere they are. So they're the
most industrious person thatyou're going to find. And
lastly, the most positive traitsthat has a strong positive
correlation with perfectionismis conscientiousness. And so I
(11:47):
personally, if I had to pick oneingredient in a team member or
somebody that I lead, it wouldbe conscientiousness. This, you
know, the idea that someone isbeing thoughtful about what
they're doing is so critical forproductivity and innovation, and
frankly, just being a good teammember, I
Angie (12:05):
loved the I loved how you framed the hard worker, the
striver, in a positive way ofindustriousness. By the way, I
wanted to point that out. Andthe conscience of just like
being a human, is that that's abig platform for me right now,
is be a human. And so I want toconnect, I kind of want to
connect these two pieces thatwe're talking about, and maybe
put you on the spot of where orhow do we identify or operate in
(12:29):
the very small gray area betweenthe positives of loyalty,
honesty, attention to detail,industriousness and
consciousness and The flip sideof the coin that is overwork,
burnout, imposter syndrome,people pleasing, holding people
to a standard they're nevergoing to meet. How do we how do
we? Do we straddle that?
Unknown (12:51):
It's, it's a great question, and I don't know that
it's the the right question,because you don't it's not a
zero sum game. In reality, youcan minimize a lot of the damage
and things that perfectionismcauses without really
sacrificing a lot of thepositives. And so I think that's
a good message for people tounderstand, is that you don't
(13:12):
need to give up loyalty andhonesty and conscientiousness if
you're going to combat all thenegative stuff that comes with
perfectionism. So you reallycan't have it all right? You can
be the best worker in the room,and you can keep all those good
traits as well. And so I don'tknow that it's about finding
that middle ground. It's aboutidentifying the ways in which
you're being perfectionistic.And I have ways of identifying
(13:34):
that in the book, and it's acommon thing I go over when I
speak with organizations, like,how do you identify this, both
in terms of your workers andthen also in terms of the people
that you're trying to hire?Right? What do you look for? But
in reality, you can start to dothings, and there are strategies
for changing the culture fromthe top down in the
(13:56):
organization, as well as workingfrom the bottom up with
individuals that might struggle,specifically with perfectionism,
fear of failure, impostersyndrome, and so between top
down and bottom up processes,you can help somebody with
strategies for essentiallyminimizing the damage from
perfectionism and then graspingonto all the good stuff and
(14:17):
really leveraging it.
Angie (14:19):
I love what you said about this not being a zero sum
game, I'm going to equate thatto the fact that there is no
such thing as work life balance.There's an equilibrium that you
find, and you kind of find findways to cope, or keep checks and
balances of the negative inplace so that the positive
shine. And it sounds to me likea lot of that in this particular
(14:40):
topic is around the mentalaspect of it and the perspective
that we bring to either our ownperfectionism, our team's
perfectionism, or ourenvironment, right? Absolutely,
Unknown (14:50):
I think a lot of it is mindset. A lot of the book is
about changing and shiftingone's worldview. In fact, if you
end my book without having a.Shift in the way that you see
the world, not just work. Idon't know that I've done my
job, and the feedback I've beengetting about the book has been
very much that that this iscompletely flipped their idea
(15:13):
upside down of how to approachthe world. It's from
prioritizing and not gettingstuck in process paralysis to
not over focusing on rules atthe expense of the underlying
principles. There are ways ofapproaching goals and rigid
(15:35):
thinking in a way that canloosen those using approaches
that are a bit counterintuitive.I talk a lot in the book about
an approach based on my worldand research on exposure based
approaches to treatment, wherewe then apply that to the
workplace, doing exposure basedexercises like making mistakes
on purpose. And when I tellpeople that it kind of blows
(15:57):
their minds, like, What do youmean? Make mistakes on purpose?
I get making mistakes is okay,but you want me to actually make
them on
Angie (16:03):
purpose? Immersion therapy, everybody. Immersion
therapy,
Unknown (16:06):
yeah, you know, it's not like I'm having a heart
surgeon go in and put a lungwhere a heart should go. But
instead, we start small, and wework our way up. And you know,
you might send a typo in anemail. You might send this
message to Jim and receivablesinstead of Jim and accounting,
right? Or the thing that, ofcourse, I've never done, which
(16:29):
is forgot the attachments on anemail and had to reset, never,
never, and so
Angie (16:35):
or left or left something sitting in your outbox for a
week. And then somebody's like,Hey, where's the thing? And
you're like, oh, that thing. Ithought I sent a week ago.
Unknown (16:44):
Angie, don't ever do that. I know what a terrible
mistake I am useless. We all dothese things, but the
perfectionist catastrophizesthem and sees them as all or
none. This is awful. I'm aterrible person. I'm a terrible
worker. And so by doing theseexercises where you have them do
these little things inincreasingly difficult ways,
right? So send a typo to yourcolleague next. Once you've
(17:07):
mastered that, let's send a typoto your boss. Then let's send it
to the board of directors,right? So you could kind of
build on it over time. And whatthey learn is that they can
tolerate the mistake. They cantolerate the anxiety. It's not
as catastrophic as they thinkit's going to be. And I think
equally important, they learnthat they can, that they're not
(17:28):
going to crumble from theanxiety, right? That they're not
going to decompensate. It's a
Angie (17:32):
it's a little bit of like desensitization, and as you and
you realize that the world isn'tgoing to crumble because, you
know, you left, you know, a Toff the end of a word. And I
love where you're taking thisconversation, because I wanted
you said something earlierabout, like, some of the tips in
the book about how to identifyperfectionism and how to start
kind of attacking it. These arevery small things that you can
(17:56):
actually go try and do. And Iwanted to give some people. I
wanted to give people some ofthese practical tips. I want to
go further down this path. Iwant to I want to talk a little
bit, maybe before we talk aboutmore ways to start desensitizing
yourself of how to identify it.So going back to that idea that,
(18:18):
like in the book, you givepeople a framework to identify
it, but probably also identifyhow it shows up. What are some
simple ways that we could goevaluate that for ourselves?
Unknown (18:27):
Yeah, there are quick hacks, and then there are things
that are just more core to whatto a perfectionist presentation.
The core is just in flexibility,being unable to pivot when data
suggests otherwise. You know,sticking to a plan even if it's
not working right, and this sortof rigidity is a hallmark
(18:48):
feature of perfectionism, andthat's what separates it from
high expectations. You know,people with high expectations,
they're able to feel relativelyflexible and changing their
perspective if they get a 95instead of 100 on a test, they
don't feel like a failure,because they see that that was
quote, unquote good enough, andthey're feeling decent about it,
(19:10):
whereas a perfectionist is goingto feel very much in an all or
none rigid way that they failedand that's not good enough and
that They never perfectionistreally struggles to take praise
and positive feedback. Theymight dismiss it. They might not
believe it. And these are commonthings that you see in
perfectionism, and they are redflags for perfectionists. The
(19:33):
other thing that you can lookout for are just common, common
features, like the not justright feeling. We call them
njrs, or njre is not just right.Experiences the idea that you're
working at something until itfeels just right, and that
you're not done until it feelsthat way. It's sort of like a
threshold, a gut reactionthreshold. The problem is
sometimes it never comes, or itcomes way later than it than it
(19:55):
should. And so theperfectionist, because of that
rigidity, will keep. Workinguntil they get that feeling.
Whereas somebody that's not aperfectionist will say, well, it
doesn't feel right, but that'sokay. I'm going to stop. It's
good enough.
Angie (20:08):
So 8020 rule, everyone 8020 rule.
Unknown (20:13):
And so you look for these kinds of things. You look
for, you know, people who mighthold others to rigid standards
and expectations and become abit sanctimonious about how they
approach people and things. Youlook for people who are over
emphasizing and get stuck on therules, even if it undermines the
principle that drive thoserules. And I know that's
(20:34):
abstract, so let me give you areally stupid example. So
imagine you're at a communitypool. I know it's getting into
winter time, so this is a bit ofa fantasy at the moment, but
you're at a pool and a kid isdrowning in the deep end. Nobody
sees it, and you have to run tosave them, but you decide that
you can't run because you justate within 30 minutes of being
(20:57):
at the pool, and the rule on thesign says that you can't, but
what is the underlying principleof that rule? Well, public
safety, we don't want peoplepuking in the pool, right?
That's just not good for anybodyand so, but what is the problem?
Well, you just tried to preservepublic safety by not puking, but
(21:17):
you let a kid drown. Sobasically, the public safety
issue. You just threw that outthe window for this poor child.
And so you are at you are overemphasizing a rule at the
expense of the underlyingprinciple that drives that rule.
And I see this in a workplacesetting almost constantly.
People get hyper focused onthese rules, and it undermines
(21:41):
all sorts of principles andvalues that drive healthy
workplace.
Angie (21:47):
Yeah, like process. I will take that and apply that to
the workplace as process forprocess sake instead of process
for productivity sake. And thetendency personality tendencies
fall into one side or the other.I've definitely seen that where
some people want, like, a 57step rule that every single,
every single person follows, yetthe bigger picture thinkers that
(22:11):
are maybe more creative or likein the wild, wild west. But
there is a happy medium toachieve here.
Unknown (22:17):
There's a happy medium. And again, having multiple
people on a team can helpbalance that out. And I would
say all the extremes as you'realluding to, can be quite
problematic. And the book thatmy book focuses on the the
people who tend to gravitate alittle bit more towards the
extreme side of being overlysystematic and rule driven and
(22:37):
rigid, versus the wild, wildwest of nothing. Everything goes
nothing goes right, like, yeah.And so the book is not meant for
the extreme cases I see those inmy clinic at the University of
Chicago where I run a clinic,because it can get so severe
that people need to come gettreatment for it. But the book
is actually meant for everyone,sort of before that point. It's
(22:58):
for people that lean in thatdirection and need some
strategies and tips and theleaders that lead them, rather
than the people that need tocome to my clinic. Now, of
course, they're welcome to cometo my clinic, and if it's that
bad, I would advise people to doso. But there's a whole
bandwidth of people, a wholespectrum, that could benefit
from some of these, theseworldviews, and cutting
Angie (23:19):
it off at the pass is to your benefit. And if you're
sitting out there going, Thisdude has a clinic for
perfectionism, you would beshocked at how, how this can be
like the tip of an iceberg. Itcan spiral all the way to very
severe burnout, anxiety,depression and mental mental
health disorders that came fromis it what can often be self
(23:40):
imposed, if it's if it's yoursocial orientation, you know, or
I've seen this, I've seenworkplaces create toxic
workplaces create thisenvironment for people that just
holds them to a standard thatpsychologically, they can't,
they can't deal with. Don't beone of those people. If you're
in a leadership position, don'tbe them. It's,
Unknown (24:00):
it is very common, and it's, it's, and it's something
that you can work on right fromthe top down in the book I talk
about. And there are resourceson the on my website where you
can get some language to use,and things like employee
handbooks and on your website,because even the way you subtly
talk to people in the workplacecan really set up
perfectionistic expectations,even something as simple as
(24:21):
having a leaderboard in a salesoffice, right? Something like
that, can create perfectionisticmentalities and can create the
toxic domino effect that mightoccur. It's not to say that
highlighting good work is bad ingeneral, but there are things
that you can do to mitigate thedamage that comes from those
kinds of things, so top down andbottom up, bottom up right and
(24:45):
absolutely that this can getsevere to the point where, like,
let me just tell you one of theI did mention this earlier, and
I want to make sure I bring itup. One of the biggest red
flags, or signs ofperfectionism, is
procrastination. Yes. Yes,right? Because what happens is
that people push things offbecause they can't get it quite
right, that not right feeling,or they don't even start in the
(25:06):
first place because they'reworried that they're not going
to get it right. And so thingsget pushed off. And I have an
emphasis framework that I usewhere I have emphasis a,
emphasis B, and emphasis C,emphasis a means to give it your
all 110% like what you do, Angiefor every podcast, right? 110%
you give it your all. It'samazing, as close to perfect as
(25:28):
we can get. And then there'semphasis B, which is to just get
her done. Just get it done goodenough. It doesn't need to be
beautiful. Doesn't need to begarbage. And then there's
emphasis C, which is not to doit at all. And I'm agnostic to
judgment on this. There's a timeand place for all three. Yes,
right now, there's a time andplace for a if you're planning
(25:51):
for your wedding, or you'restudying for the LSATs to go to
law school, you might want toemphasis a the daylights out of
that good for you that should bebased on your values. Your
values should be your guide forwhat to emphasis a, what to
emphasis B, and what to emphasisC. There's a time and place for
emphasis C. People are like, Oh,well, you just ignore things. So
they say, Yeah, I do or delegatethem. I i never answer those,
(26:15):
those survey questions that thecustomer service satisfaction
surveys at the end of my call,me neither, and it's because I
my values, have chosen thatthat's not where I want to spend
my time. And so I've emphasizedthat, and I got to tell you,
once you've made that choice,and you have this framework to
help you do so, it's extremelyliberating, extremely
(26:36):
liberating. You've
Angie (26:36):
given yourself permission not to have to do everything in
a, I'm going to throw in asample B. If you're an
entrepreneur out there andyou're putting things out into
the market, that's a B, becauseyou don't want to toil and spend
that extra 20% of the timeperfecting something that isn't
going to be perfect anyway,because you're going to get
feedback that's going to iterateit and and that's where one of
(26:58):
the biggest traps ofperfectionism I see holding kind
of like business owners andentrepreneurs, entrepreneurs
back because they fear puttingthings out there. But I have to
go back to the fact that youbrought up procrastination,
because a few weeks ago, Iactually did a mastermind
session on procrastination, andone of the one of the guys,
comes in beforehand, and hegoes, I'm curious to see how
this goes, because I am verydisciplined and I don't
(27:19):
procrastinate. But then westarted talking about the
reasons we procrastinate, and hewas like, oh, that's Oh, I
actually do this because I'msuper Manning and trying to do
everything all at once, or Iwant to be the expert who knows
everything before I do all thethings, all of them funnel down
to some sort of perfectionisttrait, and if you're aware of
them, you can do something aboutit.
Unknown (27:40):
I agree. And I was bringing this back to
procrastination, because I thinkyou can see it in this
framework. What happens is thatperfectionist try to emphasis a,
everything. They try toemphasize a, everything. And
there's no discerning whatemphasis B tests should be. And
frankly, every most things inlife are best left to be
emphasis B, but people withperfectionism try to emphasis a
(28:02):
everything, and what happens isthat things turn into emphasis.
See, as a result, they getpushed off and never done. And
the problem is, it's not yourvalues choosing emphasis. See,
it's your perfectionism. And soit really is this pattern,
emphasis a to forced emphasis.See that that really is
procrastination. And so it'sthis common pattern that I think
(28:23):
is paralyzing for people,including entrepreneurs, who are
trying to launch a product. Iwork with entrepreneurs, and I
see this a lot. There's thisfear of failure, which is partly
what perfectionism is tied to,and they're wanting to perfect
something, but as you indicated,how often is the product you put
out there, never iterated on, Iwould say
Angie (28:43):
seven years later, mine are still being iterated on the
ABC thing. I don't know why thisjust popped in my head. My dad
was my high school math teacher,and he always used to say and Bs
are good grades. So in the ABCframework, Bs are good grades.
That said, I never got them. Ionly got A's because I was a
perfectionist. But I can alsotell you that you can recover
from it and find the happymedium between the A, B's and
(29:05):
C's, because I think, withouteven realizing it, that's
probably a framework I followsubconsciously. And so that's
another good message here is youcan begin to retrain your brain
if you're intrinsically creatingthis environment for yourself,
you can retrain your brain onhow you look at external
factors, and you can retrain howyou interact with others, if
(29:27):
you're projecting your standardson other people. Which brings me
to a tiny little thing I want toleave everyone with. I would
love to give everybody a tip onhow they can't one small thing
they can do to improve doesn'tfeel the right it doesn't feel
like the right word address eachof the three types of
(29:49):
perfectionism. So like a littletip if you find yourself being
self oriented, a little tip ifyou fall victim to the social
prescribed perfectionism, and alittle tip if you are projecting
on others.
Unknown (29:59):
Yeah. So for the self and the other oriented,
actually, this works for allthree of them. I'm happy to
break it down, but I would say avery concise thing to look out
for. If you want the biggestbang for your buck is to look
out for the should statement,the ought to must. There's a
famous psychologist, AlbertEllis, long since passed away,
(30:23):
but he used to say, Stop musterbaiting, M, U, S, T, right?
Because I love it. And thenthere was another psychologist,
Clayton barbo, who used to say,Stop shooting on yourself. I've
heard that one, yeah. And theidea is that should statements
set up these perfectionisticexpectations that are rigid and
excessive and all or none, andthey are coming from either you
(30:46):
or this perception of societythat is not really necessarily
backed up by reality. And theyare by far the most common but
debilitating compasses thatpeople use to go through their
day. And so if you're projectingthis onto other people, you're
projecting it onto yourself, oryou see it being projected being
projected onto you by society,and you see it as a should
(31:06):
statement that should be a clueto you. Just take a step back
and say, What are my valuestelling me? Where's my
flexibility here? What's reallyimportant?
Angie (31:15):
You don't have to wear this as a badge of honor. No,
definitely not. And I think weoftentimes do. And so here's my
summary for this episode. Greg,you ready? I'm ready
masturbating and shooting all ofyour all over yourself, and sure
as hell better not do it at thesame time, because you can have
(31:36):
it all, and you can leverage thepositive aspects of
perfectionism and keep thenegatives at bay, whether you're
controlling your own environmentor creating an environment for
everybody else. I I could, thiscould be a 12 hour episode,
because this is a topic I loveso much, because it just is. Its
(31:57):
awareness is a really big aspectof, I would say, addressing it
and improving our environmentsbecause of it, and Greg has
amazing resources out there, Iwould say, to build awareness,
identify and start recoveringfrom the perfectionist
tendencies. So Greg, tell uswhere we get to learn more from
(32:18):
you. I know you've got someexciting things coming out. So
plug it all, because everysingle one of you listening and
not listening needs it,
Unknown (32:24):
yeah? Thank you for the opportunity. So the book,
obviously, is a good place tostart. WW, dot flawed book.com,
which is a bit of a funny
Angie (32:32):
URL. It's kind of an amazing URL, yeah.
Unknown (32:35):
Then I have a lot of opportunities to speak to
organizations. If you see acultural issue here in your
organization and teams, and youwant a little bit of a shake up
and to flip that world upsidedown. I would love to come in
and to provide that messagingand programming. And then
lastly, I'm about to launch acommunity membership, a
membership community wherepeople are going to come and try
(32:57):
to find the balance betweenwellness and productivity and
perfectionism and anxiety willbe a big part of that. And so
Come get some support. This isnot a clinical thing. If you're
needing clinical services. Byyou know, by all means, please
check that out and you can, youknow, go to the international
(33:17):
OCD Foundation. We didn't talkabout this, but perfectionism
and OCD tend to go hand in hand.I ocdf.org, and look for
treatment providers. They have adatabase there, and those people
should be able to treatperfectionist, perfectionism
that's causing real distress andimpairment in terms of clinical
needs. But if you're not at thatlevel and you want some some
(33:38):
strategies, start with a book,have me come in and do some
speaking, or look into mymembership community, and feel
free to come to my website, Gregchasin.com, and and reach out to
me. I love hearing for people.
Angie (33:51):
I love what you said about the community being the we
can, we can, we can, beproductive in a healthy way. And
I think that really that's whatthis entire conversation is
about, is giving peoplepermission to do that,
empowering them to do that, andthen Greg's got a ton of wealth
of tools to help you out. And Ilove the rundown of kind of like
(34:12):
broad to specific that youprovided. This has been a
fantastic conversation, and Ithink very needed for everybody
out there to hear. So Iappreciate you so much for your
time sharing your knowledge andalso all the work you're doing
to build the knowledge andresources around this topic,
because we can be a muchhealthier and productive society
(34:33):
if we start really embracing alot of these topics, and I
appreciate everything you'redoing to support it.
Unknown (34:39):
I thank you so much for having me. I love spreading this
message, as you can tell, so I'mtrying to create a bit of a mini
movement around it. Then I let'sdo it. Yeah? We
Angie (34:46):
have a no more Mondays movement. So I would say, Let's
have the anti perfectionistmovement. But we need a sexier
name for it, because that's notperfect enough.
Unknown (34:53):
It is not perfect enough. I would give it a bee,
yeah, but maybe
Angie (34:57):
that, maybe that's what it should be, because bees are.
Good grades. Everyone. Great.Tessa, thank you so much for
joining me today on no moreMondays and again, sharing
everything that you're doing tocreate this movement that I
think is very relevant and willimprove lives. And I hope all of
you out there really takeeverything we talked about to
heart. And if you had a littlebit of an eyebrow raise
throughout here and somethingstruck a chord. Check out Greg's
(35:22):
book, his website and thecommunity He's launching,
because there is help out therefor recovering perfectionists
like me. So if you, if you'relooking for details on the
episodes, we will put the linksin the comments of the LinkedIn
live and get it up on no moreMondays. Dot info. If you want
to be able to link to everythingGreg mentioned, make sure you
(35:44):
follow him on LinkedIn. Followme on LinkedIn. If you listen to
this in podcast nation, leave usa review, because Greg and I are
amazing. And until next week,everybody, I hope you have a
great week. Keep perfection. Isperfectionism at bay. See, I
didn't even say it perfectly,and I will see you all next week
for another edition of no moreMondays podcast. Bye.
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