Embrace Your Imperfections

Since expecting perfection leads to disappointment, why not use your imperfections to connect better with people? This reduces anxiety and builds interpersonal bridges.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
[ music].
Hi, this is Rob Sepich, andwelcome to Relaxing with Rob.
Do you have any friends who seemperfect, or at least pretty
close to it?
And if so, does that make themmore or less appealing to you?

(00:25):
And how happy do you think theyare?
I've worked individually withmore than 4,000 undergraduate
and graduate students, andhere's an observation.
Those students who seemed closeto perfection to the outside
world were often the ones whowere in the most emotional pain.
In episode 9,"A Cure forPerfectionism," I shared a way

(00:48):
out of your perfectionism that Ilearned from a really wise
psychologist.
And today I'd like to talk aboutthe benefits of embracing your
imperfections.
In the 2019 documentary"Pavarotti," we learned that
toward the end of the singer'scareer, people started
commenting on how his voice"wasn't what it once was." And

(01:11):
by the way, whose is?
At any rate, because of thislegend's incredible talent and
enduring fame, he was always inthe public eye.
And our expectations for hisvoice and his private life were
just not sustainable.
I really appreciated aninterview that the director Ron

(01:34):
Howard did with Bono about thisissue.
When Bono said, and I'mparaphrasing, that what people
were missing in their critiqueswas the fact that Luciano
Pavarotti brought more lifeexperiences with each small
crack in his voice.
These are what made himPavarotti.

(01:55):
This insight reminded me of theLeonard Cohen song"Anthem" when
he sings,"Ring your bells thatstill can ring.
/ Forget your perfect offering.
/ There is a crack ineverything.
/ That's how the light gets in."My daughter once gave me a

(02:16):
Groupon to a fancy health clubthat had, among other things,
Zumba classes.
And one of the instructors wasreally skilled.
In fact, it seemed like she didnot make mistakes.
And there was nothing I couldput my finger on, but it kind of
felt like she was just perfectand it was weirdly taking the
fun out of it.

(02:37):
I only figured this out when Iwas about to stop attending, and
she made a small mistake.
And it took her a few seconds toget back in sync with the song.
And she kind of smiled andapologized, and then continued.
And in a flash, suddenly I likedher.
She became human to me.
I think it's our imperfectionsthat make us human.

(03:01):
In grad school, I was such aperfectionist, and it was
totally out of fear of makingmistakes.
I figured I'd get discovered forthe imposter that I felt like I
was and that the department haddefinitely made a mistake in
admitting me.
And if they figured out thisdeception, I'd be kicked out and
destined to live the rest of mylife"in a van down by the

(03:24):
river." And the thing is, if Ifelt that as a privileged white
male in this culture, I can onlyimagine what many people from
marginalized populations feellike.
Well, my clinical supervisorsaid he felt that I needed to
start making some mistakes withmy clients, intentionally.

(03:45):
He didn't mean big ones, butjust little ones, you know,
saying things like, I'm sorry,I'm not understanding, or I'm
really confused here.
Could you just say more aboutthat?
The feedback was actually veryhelpful because when I started
doing things like that, I seemedto connect more effectively with
my clients.
So let's jump ahead many yearswhere I was no longer concerned

(04:08):
much with the imposter syndrome.
Because my deception apparentlyworked! My stress management
caper was a success! And I wasworking with a student referred
for public speaking anxiety, andI apparently made some statement
to her that this was something Ionce struggled with as well.
So we spent the session on whatI thought she could do to be

(04:30):
more successful at this.
A few months later, she wrote tome and told me about her public
speaking successes since thetime that we met.
And I was delighted to readabout this.
But she said that what helpedher the most was learning that I
had also struggled with fear ofpublic speaking.
And I thought,"Huh?

(04:50):
I don't remember saying anythingabout that!" But she said it
gave her hope that she couldimprove too.
And that prompted me to readresearch about self-disclosure
in counseling and how withcertain conditions it can be
really helpful.
And apparently the way Ipresented it met those
conditions of being brief andrelevant and so forth.

(05:13):
So from then on, whenever it wasappropriate and true, I started
making some mention of a similarconnection to the presenting
issues of my clients, and thisprobably humanized me to
students who were meeting withme for the first time.
It certainly took the pressureoff me to appear perfect, and it
was one of those ironies wherethe less perfect I appeared, the

(05:37):
more successful I became.
In June, 2010 Armando Galarragawas a pitcher for the Detroit
Tigers, and he pitched a nearlyperfect game.
He had no runs, no hits, noerrors for eight and two thirds
innings.
And then a ground ball with athrow to first was called"safe"

(05:58):
and a perfect game was spoiled.
The thing is, a replay latershowed that the runner should
have been called"out." Andhere's what a class act that Jim
Joyce, the first base umpirewas.
After the game, he went to theTigers clubhouse and asked if he
could speak to the pitcher.
And he apologized.

(06:20):
And as an equally big class act,when the pitcher was asked by a
reporter how he felt about thebotched call, he said,"Nobody's
perfect." Now, if you're amedical resident in let's say,
neurosurgery, please know that Iam not suggesting you botch an
operation or two just to"humanize yourself" to your

(06:44):
attending surgeon.
But for most of us in lots ofother situations, if you'd like
to embrace your imperfections,own them, just acknowledge them.
And this will not just reducesome of your anxiety.
I think it'll make you even moreappealing to others by becoming

(07:06):
more human.
And remember Leonard Cohen'sinsight that there is a crack in
everything, and that's how thelight gets in.
Thank you for listening, andwe'll talk again soon.
[music]