October 10, 2023 • 47 mins
Ever feel like you're stuck in a race towards perfection, only to find it's an impossible finish line? Are you terrified of failure, thinking it's a sign of weakness rather than a stepping stone? Well, you're not alone, and we're here to change that mindset.
In this enlightening discussion, we reveal the three forms perfectionism can take. And yes, we discuss our battles with perfectionism, unveiling its impact on our sense of self-worth, and how we've learned to find grace in our own imperfections.
Finally, we debunk the myth that perfectionism is a sign of strength. Instead, we champion the growth mindset, acknowledging that it’s through our mistakes and setbacks that we truly learn and grow.
We share our stories of transformation, and how we learned to embrace our failures and use them as a springboard for growth. We've gone through this journey, and we're here to guide you through yours. So let’s get started, let's learn to embrace our shortcomings and celebrate our growth.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn
1) How perfectionism contributes to the fear of failure,
2) The root causes of perfectionism and the fear of failure; and
3) What we can do to overcome perfectionism and embrace failure
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nola Boea (00:00):
Whether it's at work, in our relationships or
learning a new technology skillor whatever.
It's fair to say that the vastmajority of us would rather
avoid failure, which may be whythose well-known mantras often
used by business leaders,entrepreneurs and coaches, such
as fail fast, fail often andfailure is good.
(00:20):
It lets us learn from ourmistakes, feel more like
platitudes than meaningfultruths, and that's in part
because there's often adisconnect between what we say
and what we do.
Case in point studies show thatthe vast majority of C-suite
executives, business owners andemployees actually live by the
adage that failure is not anoption.
(00:40):
But consider this what if therewards of leaning into our
failures outweighed thedownsides?
What if it led to our longevity, personal and professional
growth and life satisfaction?
Then would you be willing tolearn how to embrace failure and
possibly even thrive on it?
Stick around, friend, as weexplore why avoiding failure may
(01:03):
be holding you back fromsuccess and the steps you can
take to learn how to embrace it.
Lori Vajda (01:10):
Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the
gap between knowledge and actionby providing you with helpful
information, tips and tools fromentrepreneurs and other experts
so you can quickly and easilyjump start your side business.
We're your hosts.
I'm Lori Vajda, and this is myNola, Boea.
Hi Nola, hey Lori.
(01:31):
So, Nola, given today's topic,do you embrace failure or do you
find it difficult?
Let's be honest here Mostadults don't like the feeling of
failure, so maybe a better wayto frame that question is how do
you respond when somethingdoesn't go as planned or you
don't get the outcome that youwere hoping for?
Nola Boea (01:51):
Well, it depends.
I want to say that, for themost part, I'm probably okay and
maybe break myself a little bitor might feel a little
embarrassed.
There are times, though, that,if I've really put my all into
something, just like with totalfocus and zen abandonment if
there is such thing and then itfails, I will just like ball.
Lori Vajda (02:14):
Oh, you really get emotionally connected to
something.
Nola Boea (02:18):
I don't do it very often.
In fact, I don't do it veryoften for that reason, because I
guess there is something aboutdetachment You're not being
attached to the outcome.
I won't say I'm not attached tothe outcome, but I have learned
to try not to be so well.
No, I haven't.
There are some things where I'mjust emotionally attached to
what I'm doing and I just try sohard, and especially if I've
(02:40):
struggled really hard to get itdone.
And then let me just say it'sbeen many, many years since I've
done something like that, andactually bald, but it has
happened.
For the most part I am able togrant myself some grace.
Lori Vajda (02:52):
I think your experience of some things are
just more personal to us ormaybe more aligned with how
we're connected to it.
Like I take a lot of pride inmy work and when something
totally doesn't go the way theclient intended and I thought I
was on the right page, I do takethat far more personally than I
(03:13):
should, so I can reallyunderstand where you're coming
from.
As a matter of fact, as you'retalking about it, I'm thinking
while I may not have cried, Ihave definitely come close to it
because maybe there's a littlebit of shame to it, it could be.
Nola Boea (03:27):
I think you nailed it when you said pride, and I
think especially we'recopywriters.
So, unless you have a reallysuper thick skin every now and
then, if you really do takepride in what you're doing,
whatever you're writing, if youtake it personally, maybe it's a
subject matter, like with methat I've been known to do that
on occasion it's like I lovethis subject matter, I'm just
going to throw myself into itand then they rip it apart and
(03:49):
it's like but so maybe it's anoccupational hazard.
That might be true.
Generally speaking, though, Ithink most adults will find
embracing failure hard, andBrene Brown has a great quote
about this.
She said when perfectionism isdriving us, shame is riding
(04:11):
shotgun and fear is thatannoying backseat driver.
Lori Vajda (04:15):
I can so relate.
First of all, I love BreneBrown, her books.
I listened to them and shereads her books.
So when I say she really helpedme, I feel like her voice was
literally in my ear and itreally did have an impact on me.
And she's right about thatwhole shame kind of riding
shotgun.
It is that underlying feelingthat happens when you put pride
(04:41):
into your work.
This is your career, you'veworked hard, you went to school
or you put the years and thededication into it.
There's a lot of truth to whatshe said.
Nola Boea (04:50):
You're right.
I love this quote and eventhough it mentions perfectionism
, I think as adults, we all havethat desire to carry out our
tasks correctly.
You talked about professionalpride.
Yeah, we want to stay away fromerrors, we want to avoid
embarrassing ourselves, andthese are all behaviors and
traits that could fall into thegeneral heading of aiming for
(05:10):
perfection, and it's totallysomething I can relate to.
Lori Vajda (05:13):
I totally agree with you.
In fact and this is my ownconfession I was interested in
this topic because I wanted toexplore it, because I'm having a
challenge, I keep puttingsomething off and I wanted to
understand why this is happeningand where the cause is.
But before I share my story, Iwant to let you listen, or know
(05:34):
that we're really covering thistopic in three points.
We're looking at howperfectionism, or even the idea
of perfectionism, contributes toour fear of failure, the root
causes of perfectionism, and howdo you overcome or move past it
so that you can embrace failure, cool.
(05:55):
So, with that being said,here's my confession that I'm
putting out there because, asanother semi quote of Brene
Brown, if you share your story,you own your narrative.
So I'm going to own it.
You go, girl, thank you.
So basically, I, as I mentioned,have been working on something
(06:16):
and I've been procrastinating,and the honest truth is I've
procrastinated a little morethan a year.
I take steps, I move forward.
It doesn't turn out the waythat I envision it, it doesn't
come natural, it doesn't comeeasy.
I put it aside, I do moreresearch, I start to work on it,
I do some editing.
I've even sought out mentoring,thinking, if I got a clear
(06:38):
understanding, and all of thathasn't gotten me any farther
along in the process.
The longer I've put it off, theharder it has been to get back
in and embrace it, becausethere's a disconnect between my
heart and my head.
My head has this logicalapproach, but my emotions keep
welling up and all I can now seeis I've procrastinated, I have
(07:03):
failed and I'm not gettingcloser to the end result.
So I wanted to explore it and Ithought, if I'm suffering from
this, there are probably otherpeople out there, other
listeners, people who havethought about starting a side
business, taking their skills,maybe doing coaching or
consulting or trainings andthey're faced with I've never
(07:26):
done it before.
What do I need to do?
What do I need to learn?
And the more they learn, theeasier it is to get absorbed in
the learning and not the doing.
So I thought maybe this wouldring a bell for some of our
listeners as well, and it wouldalso help me understand what's
really going on.
Nola Boea (07:44):
So you get to be our guinea pig as we walk through
this.
Lori Vajda (07:48):
Yes, pretty much.
Yeah, you're gonna poke holesand challenge me and I'm going
to explore what's going on.
Yeah, Cool.
Nola Boea (07:56):
Well, let me ask you this first question, Laurie.
So you've been doing a lot ofresearch and you do more
research.
Do you think that doing thatincessant research is a behavior
that is related toperfectionism?
Lori Vajda (08:11):
I think that's a great question, especially
because I don't consider myselfa type A personality.
If you asked me if I consideredmyself a perfectionist, I would
say no.
But then I thought maybe Idon't really understand what
perfectionism is because, like Isaid, I want this task to be
done correctly, I want to do itright the first time, and so I
(08:32):
keep spending a lot of time init.
So it drove me to look atvarious perspectives that have
been studied on perfectionism,and one of them that I came up
with was from two psychologists,paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett, I
believe, and they describedthree forms of perfectionism.
The first one is self oriented.
This is when someone demandsperfection from themselves.
(08:55):
Number two is other oriented,and that's when somebody demands
perfection from other people,so not themselves, but others.
And then there's the sociallyprescribed perfectionist, and
that's when someone feelspressure from other people out
there.
Whether it's real or not, theyfeel the pressure to be perfect
(09:17):
themselves.
Nola Boea (09:18):
Do any of those definitions resonate with you?
Lori Vajda (09:22):
Yeah, so I really immediately identified, at least
in this situation, with theself oriented perfectionism, in
part because the assignment thatI've been procrastinating on is
writing email funnels for abusiness venture that you and I
have been working on.
It's about cold emails, warmemails, getting people to
(09:47):
respond.
It's sales copy and that's myAchilles heel.
The ability to sell is where Iget very panicky.
I think I should do itperfectly.
It doesn't come naturally to me, although when I'm talking
about something that I love, Ican naturally get into it, but I
have, I don't think of sellingin quite the same way.
(10:09):
So my desire to get the messageperfect to attract our target
audience it's really giving methis idea.
That self oriented, thatexpectation I have for myself is
the one that resonated with me.
Nola Boea (10:25):
Can you relate to it?
It does.
You and I are both reallycapable women.
Right, I think we both have alevel of perfectionism.
Lori Vajda (10:33):
A healthy sense is what I would have said.
You're right, we want to do agood job.
Well, we'll see about that.
Nola Boea (10:42):
But my point is, when you have anxiety, when it gets
to the point where you'reanxious about doing it right,
that can definitely put a damperon progress.
I know it does for me, at leastwith certain projects.
Okay, and I can definitelyrelate to the definitions of
perfectionism given by these twopsychologists, which one of
(11:02):
those resonated with you thestrongest.
Lori Vajda (11:05):
It has to be only one, no.
But let's start with one.
Nola Boea (11:10):
Okay, so I do relate to the self perfectionism
because I do hold myself tothese ultra professional
standards which I also impose onothers, which, yes, yes,
listener.
Maybe that's the other part ofit.
Lori Vajda (11:26):
Sometimes I'll write out a sentence and Nola will
come back and she will make surethat it is grammatically
correct and I will think isn'tthe essence there.
Nola Boea (11:35):
So I can relate so for me they go hand in hand.
I can also relate to beingpraised as a kid for getting
things just perfect, so I endedup kind of feeling this pressure
to continue to meet thoseexpectations.
I think it's just this naturaldesire to keep that praise
(11:56):
coming.
I'm sure some kind ofpsychologist could really go
much deeper with that, but Iwould say that probably falls
under socially prescribedperfectionism right, oh my God.
Lori Vajda (12:07):
So like you have all three I was feeling I did say
don't make me pick one, you didyou did so.
Nola Boea (12:14):
I'd like to share another definition, though, of
perfectionism.
This one's by Dr.
He's the author of the book thePursuit of Perfect.
He says perfectionism's likethis First, it's about the
rejection of painful emotions,in other words, it's the desire
to experience positive emotionslike a constant high.
The second is it's a rejectionof failure, not accepting that
(12:39):
life actually has ups and downs.
And the third is the rejectionof success, meaning you're
putting success out of reach.
Here it means that nothing'sgood enough, so every success is
immediately dismissed.
It's automatically poo-pooedbecause it's just not perfect or
because something more orbetter can be attained.
(13:00):
So I thought those were prettyinteresting as well.
Lori Vajda (13:03):
Yeah, to me what's really interesting about them is
that when we think ofperfection, we think of being
perfect, yet he focuses on whatyou're rejecting, which seems
counterintuitive, although whatyou're saying leads me to think
about myself procrastination, soI'm rejecting and that's the
(13:24):
procrastination.
But I also think about.
You often hear kids that arereally brilliant, who are
underachievers, and I wonder ifthat's kind of a similar bent to
that.
I don't know if it applies.
It would be great to interviewthem.
The psychologist who came upwith the rejection kind of model
.
I definitely think it'sinteresting.
Nola Boea (13:45):
Well, I did have to pause and wrap my brain around
those definitions, because inthe end, what he's saying is
chasing the positive meansrejecting the negative, which in
itself can be a negative, right, yeah, and confusing too, yeah,
exactly.
So to add to this perfectiondefinition list, and recognizing
(14:08):
that there really is no oneright definition, here's a third
one.
In this definition,psychologists refer to adaptive
perfectionism and maladaptiveperfectionism.
So adaptive perfectionism iswhen you strive for higher and
higher standards, and it'sreally more about working hard
and making sure things are donewell, just competing with
(14:30):
yourself.
Lori Vajda (14:30):
Oh, yeah, I've got a great example of that.
During COVID I was not able togo out golfing and part of that
was I was also recovering fromcancer.
It had been like almost threeand a half years since I had
held a golf club maybe fouryears and I had the opportunity
over the summer to go out andgolf for the very first time and
(14:51):
we played 18 holes and I saidthe first nine were all practice
, like I hadn't swung at all.
This was all about getting afeel, getting familiar with my
clubs, everything.
The second nine I had actuallybeen able to hit the ball.
I could see some improvement.
So I practiced for nine holesand then I played for nine holes
(15:16):
, but the second time we wentout to golf that nine holes was
an improvement.
So for me golf is.
I know people have mixedfeelings about it, but for me
I'm always competing againstmyself.
Am I hitting it farther?
Am I hitting it more accurately?
I'm still a novice in the gameitself, but I really like it
because it's all about megetting a little bit better and
(15:38):
a little bit better and a littlebit better.
Nola Boea (15:41):
I think that's a great example and it's healthy
attitude, as long as you're notberating yourself for screwing
up and knowing that, okay, thisis practice.
Now compare that to maladaptiveperfectionism.
That's when you haveunrealistic expectations of
success.
People like this have to be thebest at everything, and that's
(16:01):
why having this kind ofmaladaptive perfectionism can
lead to unrealistic expectationsand painful emotions and with
this, the fear of failure canbecome so emotionally
debilitating that it leads toother unhealthy thinking and
behavior.
For example, think about thestudent who will do whatever it
(16:21):
takes to get top scores, or, onthe flip side if I can't be the
best student, then why bothertrying and having pitiful grades
?
Lori Vajda (16:30):
It reminds me of a college professor that I really
loved in psychology and I wentback to visit him after I had
graduated and he was talkingabout how the student body had
really changed and he gave anexample of having a student who
had never had a B at all.
And she came in and she justwas mounting this argument of
(16:51):
why her grade should not be a B,it should be an A.
She even had her parents callthe professor At that time.
I asked him what did you do?
And he said I told her, and Itold her parents.
You can thank me later.
Awesome, he was nice and I'mnot changing the grade.
She didn't earn it, she didn'tdeserve it.
She got her B.
(17:12):
This is how she's going tolearn how to accept that not
everything is going to be an A.
Yeah, you can thank me forteaching this to her at this
time in her life so she doesn'thave to deal with it painfully
later in life.
We both cracked up about it,but he was absolutely right.
Nola Boea (17:31):
That actually makes sense.
I can kind of relate to thiswhole maladaptive perfectionism
thing in that.
Yeah, so you can add that to mylist of perfectionist
malfunctions.
And this one it just made methink back to when I was in
junior high.
So I was given a clarinet by mydad and I liked the clarinet
(17:53):
and the saxophone and I gotprivate lessons.
So by the time I was in juniorhigh band I was the best in the
wind section.
What's a wind section?
That's not like a gas section,is it?
Well, it depends on what theyhad for lunch, but it's the
clarinet, saxophone, oboe,things like that.
Oh, so I was the first chairclarinet player.
I was played in the jazz bandas, I guess, an eighth grader
(18:16):
going into the high school,ninth grade.
The band director would comefrom the high school, which
happened to be next door, smalltown, and you had to try out for
band in high school and basedon your tryouts you would know
whether you got into beginningband, intermediate band or
concert band.
Typically, freshmen got intobeginning intermediate.
I was probably the onlyfreshman that got into concert
(18:39):
band straight from junior highschool and I thought that was
great.
I was the best, I was thewinner until I showed up and I
was not the first chair.
I had to walk all the way pastall these people and sit in the
very last chair and you knowwhat?
It was no longer gratifying.
I no longer had that sense ofI'm the best and I will always
(19:01):
be the best, and it's really sad.
I lost all motivation to be inthe band and I kind of quit.
Lori Vajda (19:08):
Oh well, your story is sad.
On the other hand, I never knewthis about you so.
I didn't know that you couldplay multiple instruments.
I am way impressed.
Nola Boea (19:18):
Oh well, I played those after I quit piano.
Lori Vajda (19:25):
You could be your own band.
Nola Boea (19:28):
That would be really sad.
Well, continuing on that kindof maladaptive perfectionism.
It means that you're neverreally satisfied with your
accomplishments and you quicklydiscard anything that's not
absolutely flawless, and peoplewith this may experience fear,
(19:49):
failure or anxiety orunhappiness.
I do have another example.
Okay, you had talked about thestudent who made their parents
call.
I did not go to that extreme,however.
It might have been a freshman,maybe sophomore, in university
and I had a double major inaccounting and economics,
carrying a 4.0, and had thislife plan to get a job at a big
(20:14):
four accounting firm and getinto their Japan office Cause I
was also taking Japaneselanguage.
Lori Vajda (20:21):
I didn't know that either.
Nola Boea (20:23):
Wow, and I had this all planned out because these
accounting firms people scrambleto get into them.
They will only take the creamof the crop.
I even got a scholarship for alittle bit and then I got my
first.
B was a difficult course andokay, I earned the B and I was
absolutely devastated, Not justbecause I expected an A, but I
(20:46):
was devastated because this oneB keeps me from qualifying for
my dream job.
Now retrospect, I'm really gladI did not become an accountant.
Lori Vajda (20:56):
Good point.
Sometimes not being perfecttakes you down a different path.
But I can relate to your gradestory because I had left college
and when I returned to collegeI had a toddler and I was
working to get my grades.
It really meant a lot to me.
I wanted the honors badge.
(21:16):
So I worked really, really hardto prove to myself that my
coming back was a good decision.
And not only was it a gooddecision, but I was smart.
I hadn't always felt that way,but I wanted to prove to myself
that I could do that Well.
I had been doing really wellactually, and I was making the
honor roll deans list.
(21:37):
It was great.
But then I got pregnant asecond time and during that
period it was the semesterbefore graduation, before we
finished, and I thought I'mgoing to take extra classes
because I wanted the secondsemester to be easier, since I
would be graduating in Augustand I would be delivering in
September.
So I wanted to load up front sothat I could have an easier
(22:01):
time.
The GPA I forget exactly whatyou needed to have in order to
get honors.
I think it was something likeyou needed a 3.87, something
like that.
And that semester that I hadfront loaded.
I had gotten a B.
That semester, I think I had a.
It was like a 3.85.
That's good, yes, however, andthe final semester had a 4.0.
(22:24):
But what they did is they tookyour GPA from the semester
before you graduate and if youmet the number, you got honors.
If you didn't, you didn'treceive honors.
So I had like a 3.85.
You needed a 3.87.
So I didn't get honors.
And on top of that, the lastsemester, I had a 4.0.
(22:48):
But it didn't matter.
I didn't qualify and I took it.
Personally, I was devastatedbecause it had a psychological
impact for me.
Nola Boea (22:57):
Because you really did earn it and you didn't get
it and it was nothing you couldcontrol that was sad, I know.
So you say it had an impact onyou.
In what way?
Lori Vajda (23:06):
Well, I think because I had worked so hard.
To me there was a connectionbetween my self-worth and, at
that time, the GPA.
Nola Boea (23:16):
Oh yeah.
Lori Vajda (23:17):
Later it would be my self-worth and my evaluations
in my job.
How well did I perform?
I just continued to bring otherpeople's opinion into the mix
and that's how I saw myself andthat's where I was striving.
So I think I carry that with me.
(23:38):
I mean, I have otherexperiences from that in the
workplace that I thinkcontribute to a little bit of
what you're talking about here.
Nola Boea (23:47):
That makes complete sense.
So, listener, if you arewondering if you might be a
maladaptive perfectionist, maybeyou can kind of relate to one
of our stories.
I'm just going to give you alist of 10 actions and behaviors
that might give you anindication that you might be a
maladaptive perfectionist.
So, number one you have high,unrealistic goals.
(24:09):
Number two you give up on tasksif you feel that you can't be
the best or you can't be thewinner.
Number three you view mistakesas failures and conceal them
from others.
Number four use an excessiveamount of time planning or
redoing work to make it perfectSound familiar.
Number five you don't like totake risks unless you're sure a
(24:33):
successful outcome is guaranteed.
Number six you are overlyconcerned with what other people
think about you and believethat if your flaws are exposed
you will be rejected.
Number seven you don't handlecriticism or feedback very well.
Number eight you applyunrealistic standards to your
(24:55):
colleagues and you're overlycritical of their work.
Number nine if things don't goaccording to plan, you can feel
stressed and anxious.
And number 10, you find itdifficult to delegate tasks to
others.
Can you see yourself in any ofthese activities?
Omg.
Lori Vajda (25:16):
Let me just say that when I had looked at that list
I thought, oh, there's a few andthat's not a problem.
But as we've been having thisdiscussion and I've shared some
personal stories, I realizedthat a lot more on that list I
can relate to and at the sametime I have the adaptive.
You know, I gave my golf story.
(25:36):
So it makes me wonder if insome parts of your life you can
have adaptive perfectionism andin maybe other areas you might
be more maladaptive.
And I think for myself, inalmost every area I would say I
have an adaptive attitude.
But when it comes to work,which is where my pride is, I
(26:01):
think I might be maladaptive.
What about you?
Do any of these resonate withyou?
Nola Boea (26:07):
I think you have a good point because I think in a
lot of aspects I have a healthyattitude.
But when I do think about myprofessional life maybe it's not
just my professional life Iwould say I am kind of pricked
when I read eight, nine and even10.
So I have gotten a lot better.
(26:27):
So the stories I told you werein the past and I really have
matured a lot since then.
But I still think number eightI do expect a level of
professionalism from mycolleagues and I do feel anxious
if things don't go according toplan Number 10, I actually also
find it difficult to delegatetasks to others, especially
(26:48):
colleagues, because they're notgoing to do it as good as I am
going to do it.
And if they do do it, I have toput my stamp on it.
Lori Vajda (26:55):
But you know what?
I think you've hit a reallyimportant part.
I mean, there's a lot in thatlist that I can relate to.
I wish I couldn't relate to,but I can and I think it's about
when you recognize that.
Here's where some of mydeficiencies are.
What do you do?
How do you understand it?
Where does that come from,right?
(27:16):
So one of the things when I wasagain looking at the research,
I was thinking all right, how doyou change your outlook on this
?
And that led me down a rabbithole that looked at the
difference between a growthmindset and a fixed mindset.
I think we often think of growthmindset, so I would describe
(27:37):
myself as a lifelong learnerdefinitely a growth mindset, but
clearly there are behaviorsthat we do that we may not even
be aware of.
That actually put us into thefixed mindset.
And let me give you someexamples.
You will often hear olderadults, mature adults, talk
(27:58):
about asking their child ortheir grandchild to teach them,
or not even to teach them, thetechnology or a certain app
They'll assign it to them to dobecause they don't want to learn
it, and that kind of is reallyaligns with a fixed mindset.
Think about people whotypically will do the easier
(28:22):
work and give the harder work tosomeone else, so they're not
challenging themselves.
They might tell themselves thatthat person can do it quicker
or that person is better at it,but really they're not
developing the muscle to do itbetter, to get better at it, to
learn.
So here's kind of a table of agrowth mindset and we're going
(28:44):
to compare that to a fixedmindset.
In a growth mindset you reallyembrace learning and see
mistakes as an opportunity tolearn from them.
In a fixed mindset you'rereally doing almost everything
you can to avoid making amistake or other people seeing
that you've made a mistake.
In a growth mindset you adaptan attitude.
(29:06):
Learning is a process and I'mnot going to give up until I at
least understand it to do itwell enough, whereas in a fixed
mindset you're willing todelegate it or give up before
you even start because you'reoverwhelmed at learning and
you're overwhelmed at thethought that somebody else who's
teaching you knows how to do itbetter than you are and you've
(29:30):
reached this age or this levelin your career and you don't
want to give up, looking likethe subject matter expert.
In a growth mindset you reallyquestion is this my best work
and you see it as an opportunityto do reedits or revisions.
And in the fixed mindset, yousay this is good enough and
(29:53):
you're willing to leave it as itis.
In a fixed mindset you think ofI know best, I'm the expert,
whereas in a growth mindset,feedback is valuable.
Every little bit of informationcan help you do it a little bit
better, can take you a littlebit farther.
In a fixed mindset, you look atit as I'll never be good at
(30:17):
that or I'm not smart at thatskill set, so why should I even
try?
And in a growth mindset, youreally understand and embrace
that practice leads toimprovement.
So if you're thinking toyourself, does stepping out of
my comfort zone excite me ordoes it make me fearful?
(30:37):
It'll let you know.
Growth mindset, fixed mindset,does the thought of making a
mistake bring up some anxietywithin you?
That's probably more related toa fixed mindset.
If you're thinking to yourself,I'm not good at technology, I'm
not good at math, then you'reprobably leaning towards a fixed
(30:59):
mindset versus a growth mindset.
Now, from my perspective, Ithink that this whole thing that
sent me down, wanting toexplore what was happening, is
again work related, and I findthat much to my embarrassment,
here I am leaning towards thefixed mindset, and it's an
(31:21):
uncomfortable feeling, so muchso that I want to be like the
rest of my life where I embracethe mistakes.
If I make a recipe and it fails, we either throw it out, we eat
it as is around the good partsand leave the bad parts, and I
just know that next time I'llimprove it, because now I know
what to do different.
But when it comes to work, Ithink I have a lot of growing to
(31:44):
do.
Nola Boea (31:45):
Well, recognizing you have the problem is the first
step.
Lori Vajda (31:48):
Yeah, that's what they say.
Nola Boea (31:51):
Actually, I'm really proud of you to even admit that,
and for that I think you mightactually have a little growth
mindset there.
Lori Vajda (31:59):
Aw, yay, I'm leaning , I'm growing.
Nola Boea (32:04):
You mentioned this, that this can happen when you
have past experiences thatreally affect your psyche, for
lack of a better word.
Especially work related, whichmakes complete sense that this
is now coming out in your workin general, for our listeners
and other aspects of life.
It's these kinds of seeds,whether we're talking about
(32:25):
growth, mindset, fixed man set,adaptive, maladaptive,
perfectionism or failure.
Those are seeds that getplanted from past experiences,
whether adult, young adult orearly childhood, and it usually
happens without us ever beingaware of it.
There are ways to at least dosome personal exploration to try
(32:46):
to uncover on earth what thoseseeds or those roots might have
been.
Why don't we use your situationas example?
I'm going to just list a fewthings that you might do to do
that on our thing.
So the first thing is to lookfor the source.
What experience, what peoplemight have done this?
(33:10):
Has there been a judgment or amajor disapproval?
If you maybe identify thatsource, now think about how does
that play out.
This experience happened.
So what emotional responsescame from that and still come
from that?
Is it anger?
Do you freeze?
Do you get defensive?
(33:31):
And then the other thing to askyourself is where does that
emotion manifest in the body?
So when you're in thatsituation or dealing with these
choices, do you feel it in yourstomach?
Do you get that nod in your gut, do you feel short of breath?
How does that manifest?
Lori Vajda (33:50):
So the fact that we looked at this and I recognized
that it was work related iswhere my maladaptive
perfectionism really shines.
You're talking about this andwe shared some examples from
school and I think that theseeds were planted in early
(34:10):
childhood.
I was not a good student, Ididn't have good study habits, I
didn't come from an environmentthat supported that.
I wasn't a lot of reading.
Matter of fact, they thoughtthat I had a reading difficulty,
so they put me in a summerschool program.
It turned out I didn't have areading challenge, I just wasn't
reading, and so that wholemindset around not being a good
(34:35):
learner planted a seed.
And then in college I had areally rough start, so rough
that I was asked to reconsidermy priorities and when I came
back I was very motivated.
I was internally motivated, notexternally motivated.
So that intrinsic motivation Ireally channeled and the
(34:58):
feedback that I got for being agood student when I returned
really continued to incentivizeme to get better and better and
better, which is my story aroundthe GPA and why those honors
were so important.
Well, later, I think, thatwhole thing around education
just switched over to my field,my career, and I moved from
(35:24):
getting feedback from professorsto feedback from colleagues and
from bosses, and I think thatwhen I am faced with doing
something that is in mywheelhouse, I put a lot of
pressure on myself to deliverthe best that I can deliver,
whether it's to a client or tomyself, and with a client, I
(35:48):
think this isn't in theirwheelhouse.
So doing the best that I can doin delivering something I'm
proud of they're very happy with, but I'm not satisfied when I'm
doing it for myself.
So I think it's rooted there.
Nola Boea (36:02):
That is fascinating.
Do you feel emotions and doesthat manifest in your body?
It?
Lori Vajda (36:10):
does I get stomach pains?
I probably don't do deepbreathing during that stress.
In that case, I've had to learnhow to develop a deep breathing
practice, and meditation hasreally helped with that.
Otherwise, I do very shallowbreathing.
I know that I have muscletension in my upper shoulders,
but I also have it through myback.
(36:30):
So I think when I'm reallyfocused on something, my body
does not relax into it.
It gets very stiff, and I thinkthose muscle tensions happen a
lot there as well.
And then I have an inner voicethat is very critical, so
something that doesn't lookright.
(36:50):
Or if somebody points out myerror, instead of just saying,
hey, thanks for pointing thatout, I look at it as oh, I
should have known better, oh, Ishould have caught that, oh, I
should have.
And so I have a lot of shoulds,that my inner critic comes out
a lot and hangs around a lot.
Nola Boea (37:07):
I'm reminded of one of our podcast guest quote.
I'm not sure it's original, butshe said it recently.
Our guest Nikki Oden shouldingon yourself.
Lori Vajda (37:17):
Yes, now that I've put it out there, I mean, in
some respects this has been aneye-opening process.
Going through this, saying itout loud, owning my narrative,
really gives me an opportunityto see that there are things
that I can do.
Now, I wanna say, to embracefailure but really To reframe it
(37:38):
.
That is one of our firstsuggestions, which is Reframe
the experience rather than seeit is something you've said or
done as a failure.
Think of it as an exercise orstepping stone or a lesson
learned, because if you break itdown and think about is, when
(37:58):
you're building something, itcomes with directions.
You have step one, step two,step three.
You can't just get to the end,you have to build it.
If I slow things down and seethis as a lesson, a small step
forward, and that I'm justlearning and as I move, I can
then revamp.
There's a wonderful book calledthe creative act and in there
(38:23):
what he says is that you cantake a step forward, but if you
find your stuck at the next step, go on to the following step
and keep going, because whatends up happening is you're
filling in like the missingblanks.
Right, you're moving With theeasier stuff for the stuff that
comes more natural to you andthat can help inform the place
(38:45):
that you're stuck, which tendsto be not only important but
helpful.
The next thing that you wannado is, when you make a mistake,
look at it and ask yourself,well, what did I learn?
And write that down.
That becomes really important.
So not only Did you reframe itas I'm learning and taking steps
(39:07):
to move forward, but I can nowevaluate that I learned
something from the mistake thatI made.
And by writing it down, you'rekeeping a record of that.
That can accelerate the processright, because you catch the
mistake and then you recognizewhat you've learned from it.
And so now, when you continueon, your less likely to make
that same mistake again.
(39:27):
And the final technique thatyou wanna do is for those
successes, acknowledge it andcelebrate it.
We often wait until the veryend, until something is complete
, to reward ourselves, but if wethink about it as one step
forward, one step forward, onestep forward, those are
(39:48):
individual acknowledgements andindividual celebrations.
You can give yourself a verybig celebration at the end, but
give yourself a little reward asyou're going through each step.
Nola Boea (39:59):
I love that.
I have a suggestion.
That is what I've called theexperiment.
So sounds intriguing.
Yeah, what you do is whenyou're faced with this new task
or goal, about to do something.
Instead of taking it soseriously, just consider it an
experiment.
You're playing in a sandbox.
Don't think of it as this thingthat you absolutely have to do,
(40:21):
right, the first time.
You're going to see this as awork in progress and you know
that the more you do it, thebetter you get.
But you're not so attached toit being absolutely perfect,
because you know when it's anexperiment, when you're just
playing, you can't predict theoutcome.
You know that you're gonna belearning, you'll be improving,
(40:41):
but there is really no good orbad.
There's no right or wrong.
Now you do have to finish thegoal.
You do want to do your best,but it does not have to be so
Ridgidly perfect that you beatyourself up.
Just think of it as a creativeexperiment.
You get to play and enjoy thelearning process.
Lori Vajda (41:03):
You know what this reminds me of?
Two things.
The first one is when I was incollege and we had to do
experiments.
Literally, we had to do surveysand studies, so it was all
around statistics and the ideain there is you start with a
hypothesis, you're not attachedto the outcome, you don't know
yet what's going to happen.
(41:24):
You're doing experiments to seewhat the result is.
An often you learn somethingfrom it, which is where people
come up with their theories,because they tested it out.
They weren't attached to theoutcome, but they reported With
a detachment that they own theexperiment, but they didn't own
the outcome.
(41:44):
Interesting, they werediscovering it.
That was not the first one.
The second thing that came tomind was my extended family.
I have aunts that are verycreative, very talented cousins,
artistic.
So I saw myself is not havingany of that talent.
Well, as an adult, a communitycenter was offering Get familiar
(42:05):
with the arts, and so youenrolled in six little mini
classes and each one of themtaught you something different.
I remember going into learningwith pencils.
I was learning shading,painting, ceramic.
Here's what I didn't know.
I assumed that you justnaturally had the talent, but
when I went into the class, theinstructors broke things down
(42:29):
into smaller steps and gave usthe perspective to build off our
art piece.
I was so proud of what I wasable to do once they showed us
how to do it that all I keptthinking as why didn't I do this
when I was in high school orcollege?
There was nothing to be afraidof.
(42:51):
They broke it down, I did it.
They broke the next step down,I did it, and when I was done, I
took pictures.
I carry them in my phone andthis is probably 10 years ago,
maybe a little bit more, becauseI'm so proud of what it looks
like.
Well, our third suggestion is afour step process.
(43:12):
The first is to embrace yourpast.
You can't change it, but youcan think about it differently.
So if you had a teacher or aparent or relative that kind of
planted that seat of doubt andinsecurity in you, now that
you're an adult you can stepback and really see that their
intention was to help you.
Their method was misguided.
(43:34):
In other words, it really isn'tyou, it's them.
I like that.
This next step in that is youreally want to flip the script?
Are you familiar with the Yaleprofessor, laura Santos?
I'm not.
Well, she is known for havingone of the most popular courses
offered in Yale, and it's thehappiness class.
(43:56):
Okay, I actually did it online.
It's a great, great class, butshe has this quote so that you
can be objective in looking atfailure.
Her quote is one of the bestways of doing that, of getting
better over time is to actuallyexperience failure, to
experience the consequences ofmessing up.
(44:16):
She goes on to say that's whatallows us to learn more about
how to do things better in thefuture.
And when you take her class,one of the things that is
pointed out is you can'tunderstand what perfect looks
like until you understand whatfailure looks like.
Wow, because you're only seeingone side.
You need those two extremes inorder to understand what good or
(44:40):
good enough or poor and failinglooks like.
So, from that standpoint, whenyou flip the script, you have a
better sense of what's workingand what's not working.
But you only have that if youcan embrace both.
That's brilliant, yeah, thethird step in this is to
transform your pain into power,and in that way you're gonna
(45:03):
feel when those insecuritiescome up, when you are stepping
into something new, when you getthe stomach ache or the
headache or the critical tapestarts playing in your head and
instead of shutting down orsaying I can't experience that,
instead think of it like yourefer to the playground.
Welcome to the party, welcome,judge Judy, my inner critic.
(45:28):
Welcome to my party today.
Acknowledge it and thencontinue to move forward.
And the fourth step in here,which I think is really
important, is to practice selfcare.
To do that, you have torecognize the small achievement.
You can't rewrite the past,that's for sure, but you can
adapt into and expand yourgrowth mindset and when you can
(45:51):
do that, you will find that youare living with more joy, you
are having a healthier lifestyle, and you will find that you've
done all the things that wetalked about previously here and
embrace failure for what it isjust an opportunity for learning
something new love that.
Nola Boea (46:13):
Well, listener, we know that embracing your failure
takes time and practice andwill continue to revisit this
topic and provide you with moretools for your toolbox in the
future.
And while there really is noreason to actively seek out
failure, you win.
Your frustrations is learning.
Opportunities can help you findsilver linings in those moments
.
Lori Vajda (46:33):
I love the silver lining in those moments.
That's really great, nola.
Well, listener, we hope theideas and thoughts we've shared
here today have sparked yourinterest, curiosity and
willingness to embrace failureso you can get excited about
learning from your mistakes aswell as your setbacks.
Doing so will not only enhanceyour growth mindset.
(46:54):
It can empower you to take on anew career, a new challenge and
maybe even become a first timeentrepreneur in the second half
of your vibrant life.
Be sure to stick around to thevery end of this podcast for a
fun little surprise.
Nola Boea (47:09):
If you found the information we've shared helpful
and want more tools, tips andinspiration delivered to your
inbox, sign up for news.
You can use over on our website, sticky brand lab dot com, and
remember small steps, bigeffects.
If you found the informationwe've shared helpful and want
more tools, tips and in Inspence.
(47:29):
In spence.
Lori Vajda (47:34):
In spence.
Nola Boea (47:38):
If you found the information Choked up.
Whether it's at work, in our relationships or
learning a new technology skillor whatever.
It's fair to say that the vastmajority of us would rather
avoid failure, which may be whythose well-known mantras often
used by business leaders,entrepreneurs and coaches, such
as fail fast, fail often andfailure is good.
(00:20):
It lets us learn from ourmistakes, feel more like
platitudes than meaningfultruths, and that's in part
because there's often adisconnect between what we say
and what we do.
Case in point studies show thatthe vast majority of C-suite
executives, business owners andemployees actually live by the
adage that failure is not anoption.
(00:40):
But consider this what if therewards of leaning into our
failures outweighed thedownsides?
What if it led to our longevity, personal and professional
growth and life satisfaction?
Then would you be willing tolearn how to embrace failure and
possibly even thrive on it?
Stick around, friend, as weexplore why avoiding failure may
(01:03):
be holding you back fromsuccess and the steps you can
take to learn how to embrace it.
Lori Vajda (01:10):
Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the
gap between knowledge and actionby providing you with helpful
information, tips and tools fromentrepreneurs and other experts
so you can quickly and easilyjump start your side business.
We're your hosts.
I'm Lori Vajda, and this is myNola, Boea.
Hi Nola, hey Lori.
(01:31):
So, Nola, given today's topic,do you embrace failure or do you
find it difficult?
Let's be honest here Mostadults don't like the feeling of
failure, so maybe a better wayto frame that question is how do
you respond when somethingdoesn't go as planned or you
don't get the outcome that youwere hoping for?
Nola Boea (01:51):
Well, it depends.
I want to say that, for themost part, I'm probably okay and
maybe break myself a little bitor might feel a little
embarrassed.
There are times, though, that,if I've really put my all into
something, just like with totalfocus and zen abandonment if
there is such thing and then itfails, I will just like ball.
Lori Vajda (02:14):
Oh, you really get emotionally connected to
something.
Nola Boea (02:18):
I don't do it very often.
In fact, I don't do it veryoften for that reason, because I
guess there is something aboutdetachment You're not being
attached to the outcome.
I won't say I'm not attached tothe outcome, but I have learned
to try not to be so well.
No, I haven't.
There are some things where I'mjust emotionally attached to
what I'm doing and I just try sohard, and especially if I've
(02:40):
struggled really hard to get itdone.
And then let me just say it'sbeen many, many years since I've
done something like that, andactually bald, but it has
happened.
For the most part I am able togrant myself some grace.
Lori Vajda (02:52):
I think your experience of some things are
just more personal to us ormaybe more aligned with how
we're connected to it.
Like I take a lot of pride inmy work and when something
totally doesn't go the way theclient intended and I thought I
was on the right page, I do takethat far more personally than I
(03:13):
should, so I can reallyunderstand where you're coming
from.
As a matter of fact, as you'retalking about it, I'm thinking
while I may not have cried, Ihave definitely come close to it
because maybe there's a littlebit of shame to it, it could be.
Nola Boea (03:27):
I think you nailed it when you said pride, and I
think especially we'recopywriters.
So, unless you have a reallysuper thick skin every now and
then, if you really do takepride in what you're doing,
whatever you're writing, if youtake it personally, maybe it's a
subject matter, like with methat I've been known to do that
on occasion it's like I lovethis subject matter, I'm just
going to throw myself into itand then they rip it apart and
(03:49):
it's like but so maybe it's anoccupational hazard.
That might be true.
Generally speaking, though, Ithink most adults will find
embracing failure hard, andBrene Brown has a great quote
about this.
She said when perfectionism isdriving us, shame is riding
(04:11):
shotgun and fear is thatannoying backseat driver.
Lori Vajda (04:15):
I can so relate.
First of all, I love BreneBrown, her books.
I listened to them and shereads her books.
So when I say she really helpedme, I feel like her voice was
literally in my ear and itreally did have an impact on me.
And she's right about thatwhole shame kind of riding
shotgun.
It is that underlying feelingthat happens when you put pride
(04:41):
into your work.
This is your career, you'veworked hard, you went to school
or you put the years and thededication into it.
There's a lot of truth to whatshe said.
Nola Boea (04:50):
You're right.
I love this quote and eventhough it mentions perfectionism
, I think as adults, we all havethat desire to carry out our
tasks correctly.
You talked about professionalpride.
Yeah, we want to stay away fromerrors, we want to avoid
embarrassing ourselves, andthese are all behaviors and
traits that could fall into thegeneral heading of aiming for
(05:10):
perfection, and it's totallysomething I can relate to.
Lori Vajda (05:13):
I totally agree with you.
In fact and this is my ownconfession I was interested in
this topic because I wanted toexplore it, because I'm having a
challenge, I keep puttingsomething off and I wanted to
understand why this is happeningand where the cause is.
But before I share my story, Iwant to let you listen, or know
(05:34):
that we're really covering thistopic in three points.
We're looking at howperfectionism, or even the idea
of perfectionism, contributes toour fear of failure, the root
causes of perfectionism, and howdo you overcome or move past it
so that you can embrace failure, cool.
(05:55):
So, with that being said,here's my confession that I'm
putting out there because, asanother semi quote of Brene
Brown, if you share your story,you own your narrative.
So I'm going to own it.
You go, girl, thank you.
So basically, I, as I mentioned,have been working on something
(06:16):
and I've been procrastinating,and the honest truth is I've
procrastinated a little morethan a year.
I take steps, I move forward.
It doesn't turn out the waythat I envision it, it doesn't
come natural, it doesn't comeeasy.
I put it aside, I do moreresearch, I start to work on it,
I do some editing.
I've even sought out mentoring,thinking, if I got a clear
(06:38):
understanding, and all of thathasn't gotten me any farther
along in the process.
The longer I've put it off, theharder it has been to get back
in and embrace it, becausethere's a disconnect between my
heart and my head.
My head has this logicalapproach, but my emotions keep
welling up and all I can now seeis I've procrastinated, I have
(07:03):
failed and I'm not gettingcloser to the end result.
So I wanted to explore it and Ithought, if I'm suffering from
this, there are probably otherpeople out there, other
listeners, people who havethought about starting a side
business, taking their skills,maybe doing coaching or
consulting or trainings andthey're faced with I've never
(07:26):
done it before.
What do I need to do?
What do I need to learn?
And the more they learn, theeasier it is to get absorbed in
the learning and not the doing.
So I thought maybe this wouldring a bell for some of our
listeners as well, and it wouldalso help me understand what's
really going on.
Nola Boea (07:44):
So you get to be our guinea pig as we walk through
this.
Lori Vajda (07:48):
Yes, pretty much.
Yeah, you're gonna poke holesand challenge me and I'm going
to explore what's going on.
Yeah, Cool.
Nola Boea (07:56):
Well, let me ask you this first question, Laurie.
So you've been doing a lot ofresearch and you do more
research.
Do you think that doing thatincessant research is a behavior
that is related toperfectionism?
Lori Vajda (08:11):
I think that's a great question, especially
because I don't consider myselfa type A personality.
If you asked me if I consideredmyself a perfectionist, I would
say no.
But then I thought maybe Idon't really understand what
perfectionism is because, like Isaid, I want this task to be
done correctly, I want to do itright the first time, and so I
(08:32):
keep spending a lot of time init.
So it drove me to look atvarious perspectives that have
been studied on perfectionism,and one of them that I came up
with was from two psychologists,paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett, I
believe, and they describedthree forms of perfectionism.
The first one is self oriented.
This is when someone demandsperfection from themselves.
(08:55):
Number two is other oriented,and that's when somebody demands
perfection from other people,so not themselves, but others.
And then there's the sociallyprescribed perfectionist, and
that's when someone feelspressure from other people out
there.
Whether it's real or not, theyfeel the pressure to be perfect
(09:17):
themselves.
Nola Boea (09:18):
Do any of those definitions resonate with you?
Lori Vajda (09:22):
Yeah, so I really immediately identified, at least
in this situation, with theself oriented perfectionism, in
part because the assignment thatI've been procrastinating on is
writing email funnels for abusiness venture that you and I
have been working on.
It's about cold emails, warmemails, getting people to
(09:47):
respond.
It's sales copy and that's myAchilles heel.
The ability to sell is where Iget very panicky.
I think I should do itperfectly.
It doesn't come naturally to me, although when I'm talking
about something that I love, Ican naturally get into it, but I
have, I don't think of sellingin quite the same way.
(10:09):
So my desire to get the messageperfect to attract our target
audience it's really giving methis idea.
That self oriented, thatexpectation I have for myself is
the one that resonated with me.
Nola Boea (10:25):
Can you relate to it?
It does.
You and I are both reallycapable women.
Right, I think we both have alevel of perfectionism.
Lori Vajda (10:33):
A healthy sense is what I would have said.
You're right, we want to do agood job.
Well, we'll see about that.
Nola Boea (10:42):
But my point is, when you have anxiety, when it gets
to the point where you'reanxious about doing it right,
that can definitely put a damperon progress.
I know it does for me, at leastwith certain projects.
Okay, and I can definitelyrelate to the definitions of
perfectionism given by these twopsychologists, which one of
(11:02):
those resonated with you thestrongest.
Lori Vajda (11:05):
It has to be only one, no.
But let's start with one.
Nola Boea (11:10):
Okay, so I do relate to the self perfectionism
because I do hold myself tothese ultra professional
standards which I also impose onothers, which, yes, yes,
listener.
Maybe that's the other part ofit.
Lori Vajda (11:26):
Sometimes I'll write out a sentence and Nola will
come back and she will make surethat it is grammatically
correct and I will think isn'tthe essence there.
Nola Boea (11:35):
So I can relate so for me they go hand in hand.
I can also relate to beingpraised as a kid for getting
things just perfect, so I endedup kind of feeling this pressure
to continue to meet thoseexpectations.
I think it's just this naturaldesire to keep that praise
(11:56):
coming.
I'm sure some kind ofpsychologist could really go
much deeper with that, but Iwould say that probably falls
under socially prescribedperfectionism right, oh my God.
Lori Vajda (12:07):
So like you have all three I was feeling I did say
don't make me pick one, you didyou did so.
Nola Boea (12:14):
I'd like to share another definition, though, of
perfectionism.
This one's by Dr.
He's the author of the book thePursuit of Perfect.
He says perfectionism's likethis First, it's about the
rejection of painful emotions,in other words, it's the desire
to experience positive emotionslike a constant high.
The second is it's a rejectionof failure, not accepting that
(12:39):
life actually has ups and downs.
And the third is the rejectionof success, meaning you're
putting success out of reach.
Here it means that nothing'sgood enough, so every success is
immediately dismissed.
It's automatically poo-pooedbecause it's just not perfect or
because something more orbetter can be attained.
(13:00):
So I thought those were prettyinteresting as well.
Lori Vajda (13:03):
Yeah, to me what's really interesting about them is
that when we think ofperfection, we think of being
perfect, yet he focuses on whatyou're rejecting, which seems
counterintuitive, although whatyou're saying leads me to think
about myself procrastination, soI'm rejecting and that's the
(13:24):
procrastination.
But I also think about.
You often hear kids that arereally brilliant, who are
underachievers, and I wonder ifthat's kind of a similar bent to
that.
I don't know if it applies.
It would be great to interviewthem.
The psychologist who came upwith the rejection kind of model
.
I definitely think it'sinteresting.
Nola Boea (13:45):
Well, I did have to pause and wrap my brain around
those definitions, because inthe end, what he's saying is
chasing the positive meansrejecting the negative, which in
itself can be a negative, right, yeah, and confusing too, yeah,
exactly.
So to add to this perfectiondefinition list, and recognizing
(14:08):
that there really is no oneright definition, here's a third
one.
In this definition,psychologists refer to adaptive
perfectionism and maladaptiveperfectionism.
So adaptive perfectionism iswhen you strive for higher and
higher standards, and it'sreally more about working hard
and making sure things are donewell, just competing with
(14:30):
yourself.
Lori Vajda (14:30):
Oh, yeah, I've got a great example of that.
During COVID I was not able togo out golfing and part of that
was I was also recovering fromcancer.
It had been like almost threeand a half years since I had
held a golf club maybe fouryears and I had the opportunity
over the summer to go out andgolf for the very first time and
(14:51):
we played 18 holes and I saidthe first nine were all practice
, like I hadn't swung at all.
This was all about getting afeel, getting familiar with my
clubs, everything.
The second nine I had actuallybeen able to hit the ball.
I could see some improvement.
So I practiced for nine holesand then I played for nine holes
(15:16):
, but the second time we wentout to golf that nine holes was
an improvement.
So for me golf is.
I know people have mixedfeelings about it, but for me
I'm always competing againstmyself.
Am I hitting it farther?
Am I hitting it more accurately?
I'm still a novice in the gameitself, but I really like it
because it's all about megetting a little bit better and
(15:38):
a little bit better and a littlebit better.
Nola Boea (15:41):
I think that's a great example and it's healthy
attitude, as long as you're notberating yourself for screwing
up and knowing that, okay, thisis practice.
Now compare that to maladaptiveperfectionism.
That's when you haveunrealistic expectations of
success.
People like this have to be thebest at everything, and that's
(16:01):
why having this kind ofmaladaptive perfectionism can
lead to unrealistic expectationsand painful emotions and with
this, the fear of failure canbecome so emotionally
debilitating that it leads toother unhealthy thinking and
behavior.
For example, think about thestudent who will do whatever it
(16:21):
takes to get top scores, or, onthe flip side if I can't be the
best student, then why bothertrying and having pitiful grades
?
Lori Vajda (16:30):
It reminds me of a college professor that I really
loved in psychology and I wentback to visit him after I had
graduated and he was talkingabout how the student body had
really changed and he gave anexample of having a student who
had never had a B at all.
And she came in and she justwas mounting this argument of
(16:51):
why her grade should not be a B,it should be an A.
She even had her parents callthe professor At that time.
I asked him what did you do?
And he said I told her, and Itold her parents.
You can thank me later.
Awesome, he was nice and I'mnot changing the grade.
She didn't earn it, she didn'tdeserve it.
She got her B.
(17:12):
This is how she's going tolearn how to accept that not
everything is going to be an A.
Yeah, you can thank me forteaching this to her at this
time in her life so she doesn'thave to deal with it painfully
later in life.
We both cracked up about it,but he was absolutely right.
Nola Boea (17:31):
That actually makes sense.
I can kind of relate to thiswhole maladaptive perfectionism
thing in that.
Yeah, so you can add that to mylist of perfectionist
malfunctions.
And this one it just made methink back to when I was in
junior high.
So I was given a clarinet by mydad and I liked the clarinet
(17:53):
and the saxophone and I gotprivate lessons.
So by the time I was in juniorhigh band I was the best in the
wind section.
What's a wind section?
That's not like a gas section,is it?
Well, it depends on what theyhad for lunch, but it's the
clarinet, saxophone, oboe,things like that.
Oh, so I was the first chairclarinet player.
I was played in the jazz bandas, I guess, an eighth grader
(18:16):
going into the high school,ninth grade.
The band director would comefrom the high school, which
happened to be next door, smalltown, and you had to try out for
band in high school and basedon your tryouts you would know
whether you got into beginningband, intermediate band or
concert band.
Typically, freshmen got intobeginning intermediate.
I was probably the onlyfreshman that got into concert
(18:39):
band straight from junior highschool and I thought that was
great.
I was the best, I was thewinner until I showed up and I
was not the first chair.
I had to walk all the way pastall these people and sit in the
very last chair and you knowwhat?
It was no longer gratifying.
I no longer had that sense ofI'm the best and I will always
(19:01):
be the best, and it's really sad.
I lost all motivation to be inthe band and I kind of quit.
Lori Vajda (19:08):
Oh well, your story is sad.
On the other hand, I never knewthis about you so.
I didn't know that you couldplay multiple instruments.
I am way impressed.
Nola Boea (19:18):
Oh well, I played those after I quit piano.
Lori Vajda (19:25):
You could be your own band.
Nola Boea (19:28):
That would be really sad.
Well, continuing on that kindof maladaptive perfectionism.
It means that you're neverreally satisfied with your
accomplishments and you quicklydiscard anything that's not
absolutely flawless, and peoplewith this may experience fear,
(19:49):
failure or anxiety orunhappiness.
I do have another example.
Okay, you had talked about thestudent who made their parents
call.
I did not go to that extreme,however.
It might have been a freshman,maybe sophomore, in university
and I had a double major inaccounting and economics,
carrying a 4.0, and had thislife plan to get a job at a big
(20:14):
four accounting firm and getinto their Japan office Cause I
was also taking Japaneselanguage.
Lori Vajda (20:21):
I didn't know that either.
Nola Boea (20:23):
Wow, and I had this all planned out because these
accounting firms people scrambleto get into them.
They will only take the creamof the crop.
I even got a scholarship for alittle bit and then I got my
first.
B was a difficult course andokay, I earned the B and I was
absolutely devastated, Not justbecause I expected an A, but I
(20:46):
was devastated because this oneB keeps me from qualifying for
my dream job.
Now retrospect, I'm really gladI did not become an accountant.
Lori Vajda (20:56):
Good point.
Sometimes not being perfecttakes you down a different path.
But I can relate to your gradestory because I had left college
and when I returned to collegeI had a toddler and I was
working to get my grades.
It really meant a lot to me.
I wanted the honors badge.
(21:16):
So I worked really, really hardto prove to myself that my
coming back was a good decision.
And not only was it a gooddecision, but I was smart.
I hadn't always felt that way,but I wanted to prove to myself
that I could do that Well.
I had been doing really wellactually, and I was making the
honor roll deans list.
(21:37):
It was great.
But then I got pregnant asecond time and during that
period it was the semesterbefore graduation, before we
finished, and I thought I'mgoing to take extra classes
because I wanted the secondsemester to be easier, since I
would be graduating in Augustand I would be delivering in
September.
So I wanted to load up front sothat I could have an easier
(22:01):
time.
The GPA I forget exactly whatyou needed to have in order to
get honors.
I think it was something likeyou needed a 3.87, something
like that.
And that semester that I hadfront loaded.
I had gotten a B.
That semester, I think I had a.
It was like a 3.85.
That's good, yes, however, andthe final semester had a 4.0.
(22:24):
But what they did is they tookyour GPA from the semester
before you graduate and if youmet the number, you got honors.
If you didn't, you didn'treceive honors.
So I had like a 3.85.
You needed a 3.87.
So I didn't get honors.
And on top of that, the lastsemester, I had a 4.0.
(22:48):
But it didn't matter.
I didn't qualify and I took it.
Personally, I was devastatedbecause it had a psychological
impact for me.
Nola Boea (22:57):
Because you really did earn it and you didn't get
it and it was nothing you couldcontrol that was sad, I know.
So you say it had an impact onyou.
In what way?
Lori Vajda (23:06):
Well, I think because I had worked so hard.
To me there was a connectionbetween my self-worth and, at
that time, the GPA.
Nola Boea (23:16):
Oh yeah.
Lori Vajda (23:17):
Later it would be my self-worth and my evaluations
in my job.
How well did I perform?
I just continued to bring otherpeople's opinion into the mix
and that's how I saw myself andthat's where I was striving.
So I think I carry that with me.
(23:38):
I mean, I have otherexperiences from that in the
workplace that I thinkcontribute to a little bit of
what you're talking about here.
Nola Boea (23:47):
That makes complete sense.
So, listener, if you arewondering if you might be a
maladaptive perfectionist, maybeyou can kind of relate to one
of our stories.
I'm just going to give you alist of 10 actions and behaviors
that might give you anindication that you might be a
maladaptive perfectionist.
So, number one you have high,unrealistic goals.
(24:09):
Number two you give up on tasksif you feel that you can't be
the best or you can't be thewinner.
Number three you view mistakesas failures and conceal them
from others.
Number four use an excessiveamount of time planning or
redoing work to make it perfectSound familiar.
Number five you don't like totake risks unless you're sure a
(24:33):
successful outcome is guaranteed.
Number six you are overlyconcerned with what other people
think about you and believethat if your flaws are exposed
you will be rejected.
Number seven you don't handlecriticism or feedback very well.
Number eight you applyunrealistic standards to your
(24:55):
colleagues and you're overlycritical of their work.
Number nine if things don't goaccording to plan, you can feel
stressed and anxious.
And number 10, you find itdifficult to delegate tasks to
others.
Can you see yourself in any ofthese activities?
Omg.
Lori Vajda (25:16):
Let me just say that when I had looked at that list
I thought, oh, there's a few andthat's not a problem.
But as we've been having thisdiscussion and I've shared some
personal stories, I realizedthat a lot more on that list I
can relate to and at the sametime I have the adaptive.
You know, I gave my golf story.
(25:36):
So it makes me wonder if insome parts of your life you can
have adaptive perfectionism andin maybe other areas you might
be more maladaptive.
And I think for myself, inalmost every area I would say I
have an adaptive attitude.
But when it comes to work,which is where my pride is, I
(26:01):
think I might be maladaptive.
What about you?
Do any of these resonate withyou?
Nola Boea (26:07):
I think you have a good point because I think in a
lot of aspects I have a healthyattitude.
But when I do think about myprofessional life maybe it's not
just my professional life Iwould say I am kind of pricked
when I read eight, nine and even10.
So I have gotten a lot better.
(26:27):
So the stories I told you werein the past and I really have
matured a lot since then.
But I still think number eightI do expect a level of
professionalism from mycolleagues and I do feel anxious
if things don't go according toplan Number 10, I actually also
find it difficult to delegatetasks to others, especially
(26:48):
colleagues, because they're notgoing to do it as good as I am
going to do it.
And if they do do it, I have toput my stamp on it.
Lori Vajda (26:55):
But you know what?
I think you've hit a reallyimportant part.
I mean, there's a lot in thatlist that I can relate to.
I wish I couldn't relate to,but I can and I think it's about
when you recognize that.
Here's where some of mydeficiencies are.
What do you do?
How do you understand it?
Where does that come from,right?
(27:16):
So one of the things when I wasagain looking at the research,
I was thinking all right, how doyou change your outlook on this
?
And that led me down a rabbithole that looked at the
difference between a growthmindset and a fixed mindset.
I think we often think of growthmindset, so I would describe
(27:37):
myself as a lifelong learnerdefinitely a growth mindset, but
clearly there are behaviorsthat we do that we may not even
be aware of.
That actually put us into thefixed mindset.
And let me give you someexamples.
You will often hear olderadults, mature adults, talk
(27:58):
about asking their child ortheir grandchild to teach them,
or not even to teach them, thetechnology or a certain app
They'll assign it to them to dobecause they don't want to learn
it, and that kind of is reallyaligns with a fixed mindset.
Think about people whotypically will do the easier
(28:22):
work and give the harder work tosomeone else, so they're not
challenging themselves.
They might tell themselves thatthat person can do it quicker
or that person is better at it,but really they're not
developing the muscle to do itbetter, to get better at it, to
learn.
So here's kind of a table of agrowth mindset and we're going
(28:44):
to compare that to a fixedmindset.
In a growth mindset you reallyembrace learning and see
mistakes as an opportunity tolearn from them.
In a fixed mindset you'rereally doing almost everything
you can to avoid making amistake or other people seeing
that you've made a mistake.
In a growth mindset you adaptan attitude.
(29:06):
Learning is a process and I'mnot going to give up until I at
least understand it to do itwell enough, whereas in a fixed
mindset you're willing todelegate it or give up before
you even start because you'reoverwhelmed at learning and
you're overwhelmed at thethought that somebody else who's
teaching you knows how to do itbetter than you are and you've
(29:30):
reached this age or this levelin your career and you don't
want to give up, looking likethe subject matter expert.
In a growth mindset you reallyquestion is this my best work
and you see it as an opportunityto do reedits or revisions.
And in the fixed mindset, yousay this is good enough and
(29:53):
you're willing to leave it as itis.
In a fixed mindset you think ofI know best, I'm the expert,
whereas in a growth mindset,feedback is valuable.
Every little bit of informationcan help you do it a little bit
better, can take you a littlebit farther.
In a fixed mindset, you look atit as I'll never be good at
(30:17):
that or I'm not smart at thatskill set, so why should I even
try?
And in a growth mindset, youreally understand and embrace
that practice leads toimprovement.
So if you're thinking toyourself, does stepping out of
my comfort zone excite me ordoes it make me fearful?
(30:37):
It'll let you know.
Growth mindset, fixed mindset,does the thought of making a
mistake bring up some anxietywithin you?
That's probably more related toa fixed mindset.
If you're thinking to yourself,I'm not good at technology, I'm
not good at math, then you'reprobably leaning towards a fixed
(30:59):
mindset versus a growth mindset.
Now, from my perspective, Ithink that this whole thing that
sent me down, wanting toexplore what was happening, is
again work related, and I findthat much to my embarrassment,
here I am leaning towards thefixed mindset, and it's an
(31:21):
uncomfortable feeling, so muchso that I want to be like the
rest of my life where I embracethe mistakes.
If I make a recipe and it fails, we either throw it out, we eat
it as is around the good partsand leave the bad parts, and I
just know that next time I'llimprove it, because now I know
what to do different.
But when it comes to work, Ithink I have a lot of growing to
(31:44):
do.
Nola Boea (31:45):
Well, recognizing you have the problem is the first
step.
Lori Vajda (31:48):
Yeah, that's what they say.
Nola Boea (31:51):
Actually, I'm really proud of you to even admit that,
and for that I think you mightactually have a little growth
mindset there.
Lori Vajda (31:59):
Aw, yay, I'm leaning , I'm growing.
Nola Boea (32:04):
You mentioned this, that this can happen when you
have past experiences thatreally affect your psyche, for
lack of a better word.
Especially work related, whichmakes complete sense that this
is now coming out in your workin general, for our listeners
and other aspects of life.
It's these kinds of seeds,whether we're talking about
(32:25):
growth, mindset, fixed man set,adaptive, maladaptive,
perfectionism or failure.
Those are seeds that getplanted from past experiences,
whether adult, young adult orearly childhood, and it usually
happens without us ever beingaware of it.
There are ways to at least dosome personal exploration to try
(32:46):
to uncover on earth what thoseseeds or those roots might have
been.
Why don't we use your situationas example?
I'm going to just list a fewthings that you might do to do
that on our thing.
So the first thing is to lookfor the source.
What experience, what peoplemight have done this?
(33:10):
Has there been a judgment or amajor disapproval?
If you maybe identify thatsource, now think about how does
that play out.
This experience happened.
So what emotional responsescame from that and still come
from that?
Is it anger?
Do you freeze?
Do you get defensive?
(33:31):
And then the other thing to askyourself is where does that
emotion manifest in the body?
So when you're in thatsituation or dealing with these
choices, do you feel it in yourstomach?
Do you get that nod in your gut, do you feel short of breath?
How does that manifest?
Lori Vajda (33:50):
So the fact that we looked at this and I recognized
that it was work related iswhere my maladaptive
perfectionism really shines.
You're talking about this andwe shared some examples from
school and I think that theseeds were planted in early
(34:10):
childhood.
I was not a good student, Ididn't have good study habits, I
didn't come from an environmentthat supported that.
I wasn't a lot of reading.
Matter of fact, they thoughtthat I had a reading difficulty,
so they put me in a summerschool program.
It turned out I didn't have areading challenge, I just wasn't
reading, and so that wholemindset around not being a good
(34:35):
learner planted a seed.
And then in college I had areally rough start, so rough
that I was asked to reconsidermy priorities and when I came
back I was very motivated.
I was internally motivated, notexternally motivated.
So that intrinsic motivation Ireally channeled and the
(34:58):
feedback that I got for being agood student when I returned
really continued to incentivizeme to get better and better and
better, which is my story aroundthe GPA and why those honors
were so important.
Well, later, I think, thatwhole thing around education
just switched over to my field,my career, and I moved from
(35:24):
getting feedback from professorsto feedback from colleagues and
from bosses, and I think thatwhen I am faced with doing
something that is in mywheelhouse, I put a lot of
pressure on myself to deliverthe best that I can deliver,
whether it's to a client or tomyself, and with a client, I
(35:48):
think this isn't in theirwheelhouse.
So doing the best that I can doin delivering something I'm
proud of they're very happy with, but I'm not satisfied when I'm
doing it for myself.
So I think it's rooted there.
Nola Boea (36:02):
That is fascinating.
Do you feel emotions and doesthat manifest in your body?
It?
Lori Vajda (36:10):
does I get stomach pains?
I probably don't do deepbreathing during that stress.
In that case, I've had to learnhow to develop a deep breathing
practice, and meditation hasreally helped with that.
Otherwise, I do very shallowbreathing.
I know that I have muscletension in my upper shoulders,
but I also have it through myback.
(36:30):
So I think when I'm reallyfocused on something, my body
does not relax into it.
It gets very stiff, and I thinkthose muscle tensions happen a
lot there as well.
And then I have an inner voicethat is very critical, so
something that doesn't lookright.
(36:50):
Or if somebody points out myerror, instead of just saying,
hey, thanks for pointing thatout, I look at it as oh, I
should have known better, oh, Ishould have caught that, oh, I
should have.
And so I have a lot of shoulds,that my inner critic comes out
a lot and hangs around a lot.
Nola Boea (37:07):
I'm reminded of one of our podcast guest quote.
I'm not sure it's original, butshe said it recently.
Our guest Nikki Oden shouldingon yourself.
Lori Vajda (37:17):
Yes, now that I've put it out there, I mean, in
some respects this has been aneye-opening process.
Going through this, saying itout loud, owning my narrative,
really gives me an opportunityto see that there are things
that I can do.
Now, I wanna say, to embracefailure but really To reframe it
(37:38):
.
That is one of our firstsuggestions, which is Reframe
the experience rather than seeit is something you've said or
done as a failure.
Think of it as an exercise orstepping stone or a lesson
learned, because if you break itdown and think about is, when
(37:58):
you're building something, itcomes with directions.
You have step one, step two,step three.
You can't just get to the end,you have to build it.
If I slow things down and seethis as a lesson, a small step
forward, and that I'm justlearning and as I move, I can
then revamp.
There's a wonderful book calledthe creative act and in there
(38:23):
what he says is that you cantake a step forward, but if you
find your stuck at the next step, go on to the following step
and keep going, because whatends up happening is you're
filling in like the missingblanks.
Right, you're moving With theeasier stuff for the stuff that
comes more natural to you andthat can help inform the place
(38:45):
that you're stuck, which tendsto be not only important but
helpful.
The next thing that you wannado is, when you make a mistake,
look at it and ask yourself,well, what did I learn?
And write that down.
That becomes really important.
So not only Did you reframe itas I'm learning and taking steps
(39:07):
to move forward, but I can nowevaluate that I learned
something from the mistake thatI made.
And by writing it down, you'rekeeping a record of that.
That can accelerate the processright, because you catch the
mistake and then you recognizewhat you've learned from it.
And so now, when you continueon, your less likely to make
that same mistake again.
(39:27):
And the final technique thatyou wanna do is for those
successes, acknowledge it andcelebrate it.
We often wait until the veryend, until something is complete
, to reward ourselves, but if wethink about it as one step
forward, one step forward, onestep forward, those are
(39:48):
individual acknowledgements andindividual celebrations.
You can give yourself a verybig celebration at the end, but
give yourself a little reward asyou're going through each step.
Nola Boea (39:59):
I love that.
I have a suggestion.
That is what I've called theexperiment.
So sounds intriguing.
Yeah, what you do is whenyou're faced with this new task
or goal, about to do something.
Instead of taking it soseriously, just consider it an
experiment.
You're playing in a sandbox.
Don't think of it as this thingthat you absolutely have to do,
(40:21):
right, the first time.
You're going to see this as awork in progress and you know
that the more you do it, thebetter you get.
But you're not so attached toit being absolutely perfect,
because you know when it's anexperiment, when you're just
playing, you can't predict theoutcome.
You know that you're gonna belearning, you'll be improving,
(40:41):
but there is really no good orbad.
There's no right or wrong.
Now you do have to finish thegoal.
You do want to do your best,but it does not have to be so
Ridgidly perfect that you beatyourself up.
Just think of it as a creativeexperiment.
You get to play and enjoy thelearning process.
Lori Vajda (41:03):
You know what this reminds me of?
Two things.
The first one is when I was incollege and we had to do
experiments.
Literally, we had to do surveysand studies, so it was all
around statistics and the ideain there is you start with a
hypothesis, you're not attachedto the outcome, you don't know
yet what's going to happen.
(41:24):
You're doing experiments to seewhat the result is.
An often you learn somethingfrom it, which is where people
come up with their theories,because they tested it out.
They weren't attached to theoutcome, but they reported With
a detachment that they own theexperiment, but they didn't own
the outcome.
(41:44):
Interesting, they werediscovering it.
That was not the first one.
The second thing that came tomind was my extended family.
I have aunts that are verycreative, very talented cousins,
artistic.
So I saw myself is not havingany of that talent.
Well, as an adult, a communitycenter was offering Get familiar
(42:05):
with the arts, and so youenrolled in six little mini
classes and each one of themtaught you something different.
I remember going into learningwith pencils.
I was learning shading,painting, ceramic.
Here's what I didn't know.
I assumed that you justnaturally had the talent, but
when I went into the class, theinstructors broke things down
(42:29):
into smaller steps and gave usthe perspective to build off our
art piece.
I was so proud of what I wasable to do once they showed us
how to do it that all I keptthinking as why didn't I do this
when I was in high school orcollege?
There was nothing to be afraidof.
(42:51):
They broke it down, I did it.
They broke the next step down,I did it, and when I was done, I
took pictures.
I carry them in my phone andthis is probably 10 years ago,
maybe a little bit more, becauseI'm so proud of what it looks
like.
Well, our third suggestion is afour step process.
(43:12):
The first is to embrace yourpast.
You can't change it, but youcan think about it differently.
So if you had a teacher or aparent or relative that kind of
planted that seat of doubt andinsecurity in you, now that
you're an adult you can stepback and really see that their
intention was to help you.
Their method was misguided.
(43:34):
In other words, it really isn'tyou, it's them.
I like that.
This next step in that is youreally want to flip the script?
Are you familiar with the Yaleprofessor, laura Santos?
I'm not.
Well, she is known for havingone of the most popular courses
offered in Yale, and it's thehappiness class.
(43:56):
Okay, I actually did it online.
It's a great, great class, butshe has this quote so that you
can be objective in looking atfailure.
Her quote is one of the bestways of doing that, of getting
better over time is to actuallyexperience failure, to
experience the consequences ofmessing up.
(44:16):
She goes on to say that's whatallows us to learn more about
how to do things better in thefuture.
And when you take her class,one of the things that is
pointed out is you can'tunderstand what perfect looks
like until you understand whatfailure looks like.
Wow, because you're only seeingone side.
You need those two extremes inorder to understand what good or
(44:40):
good enough or poor and failinglooks like.
So, from that standpoint, whenyou flip the script, you have a
better sense of what's workingand what's not working.
But you only have that if youcan embrace both.
That's brilliant, yeah, thethird step in this is to
transform your pain into power,and in that way you're gonna
(45:03):
feel when those insecuritiescome up, when you are stepping
into something new, when you getthe stomach ache or the
headache or the critical tapestarts playing in your head and
instead of shutting down orsaying I can't experience that,
instead think of it like yourefer to the playground.
Welcome to the party, welcome,judge Judy, my inner critic.
(45:28):
Welcome to my party today.
Acknowledge it and thencontinue to move forward.
And the fourth step in here,which I think is really
important, is to practice selfcare.
To do that, you have torecognize the small achievement.
You can't rewrite the past,that's for sure, but you can
adapt into and expand yourgrowth mindset and when you can
(45:51):
do that, you will find that youare living with more joy, you
are having a healthier lifestyle, and you will find that you've
done all the things that wetalked about previously here and
embrace failure for what it isjust an opportunity for learning
something new love that.
Nola Boea (46:13):
Well, listener, we know that embracing your failure
takes time and practice andwill continue to revisit this
topic and provide you with moretools for your toolbox in the
future.
And while there really is noreason to actively seek out
failure, you win.
Your frustrations is learning.
Opportunities can help you findsilver linings in those moments
.
Lori Vajda (46:33):
I love the silver lining in those moments.
That's really great, nola.
Well, listener, we hope theideas and thoughts we've shared
here today have sparked yourinterest, curiosity and
willingness to embrace failureso you can get excited about
learning from your mistakes aswell as your setbacks.
Doing so will not only enhanceyour growth mindset.
(46:54):
It can empower you to take on anew career, a new challenge and
maybe even become a first timeentrepreneur in the second half
of your vibrant life.
Be sure to stick around to thevery end of this podcast for a
fun little surprise.
Nola Boea (47:09):
If you found the information we've shared helpful
and want more tools, tips andinspiration delivered to your
inbox, sign up for news.
You can use over on our website, sticky brand lab dot com, and
remember small steps, bigeffects.
If you found the informationwe've shared helpful and want
more tools, tips and in Inspence.
(47:29):
In spence.
Lori Vajda (47:34):
In spence.
Nola Boea (47:38):
If you found the information Choked up.
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