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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and in our last few minutes today, a call in for those of you who consider yourselves perfectionists. Whose ears perked up when I said that word? If you consider yourself a perfectionist, I know that doesn't mean you consider yourself perfect, just the opposite maybe, that you are always struggling to be perfect because somehow you expect that of yourself, or maybe you expect it too much of others. If you are a perfectionist, how does that express in your life for better or worse? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.
Perfectionism often comes with a fear of failure, a fear of not being perfect. Fear, not just ambition. Let's share some stories of getting past fear of failure or the perfectionism that can drive it. Who has one? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We don't have a lot of time for this, so call right in and you'll get right on because we went long with Jonathan Capehart earlier and with the imam just there.
Why do I ask this today about perfectionism? We happen to see a column in The Atlantic by Arthur Brooks. He writes a regular feature called How to Build a Life that deals with various, maybe we call them pop psychology or just psychology topics. He cites a survey that showed 90% of CEOs admit fear of failure keeps them up at night more than any other concern. Brooks offered some good advice for dealing with a fear of failure that stops us from trying something we want to do, but fear that we're not going to do it perfectly.
He shares that it was, as he put it, scoring a perfect 10 in humiliation by falling off the stage on his way to the podium that helped him the most, that little embarrassing failure. Maybe Emma Stone will gain strength from having to go accept her Best Actress Oscar with a ripped dress. Who knows?
Tell us about a time that you took a risk and learned from it despite being a perfectionist or how perfectionism or fear of failing, driven by your perfectionism, may have stunted your growth. 212-433-WNYC as we often end the show on these more personal topics. This one is for you, perfectionist of the world. 212-433-9692, and we'll take your calls right after this.
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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We've got seven minutes for your stories about the challenges of being a perfectionist, and Mike in Ridgewood is going to start us off. Ridgewood, Queens, not New Jersey. Hi, Mike.
Mike: Hey. I've been making music under the name Duncecap for over 10 years now. What I've learned is you really want your product to be the best it can be. A lot of times that's inhibiting and has diminishing returns because if you spend so much time trying to make something perfect out of something that's inherently unique and imperfect, you're just going to hold yourself back trying to correct something that maybe doesn't need to be corrected. You can really learn from these growth moments. All you can really do is stay in the present and try to grow, and naturally, your product and you will become better.
Brian: Mike, thank you very much. Good start. Richard in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Richard.
Richard: Hello. I hope my story doesn't contradict Ridgewood, Queens. I'm a textbook perfectionist, and I believe in some behavior modification and deeply understanding the insecurities that maybe are behind my perfectionism, but I don't believe we could really extinguish that personal characteristic. Instead, my message which worked for me is to find hobbies and in my case, a career. I'm a gemologist and an antique jewelry dealer where a large degree of perfectionism is required, is called for.
Brian: Oh, because people are looking at the jewelry with a magnifying glass to look for any imperfection, right?
Richard: Yes, and I tend to use a 20-power glass over the standard 10-power. The real message is, my perfectionism is profitable and welcome, and well received in my line of business, but best of all when I go home, I'm not trying to make the house, the wife, the kids, the fish tank, the vacuum cleaner,-
Brian: [chuckles] Perfect.
Richard: -blowing leaves in the driveway so perfect.
Brian: Because you have a way to channel your perfectionism into your work. Really interesting. Also interesting, we're getting two calls from Texas. We rarely get calls from Texas, but let's see at least one of our Texas perfectionists has to say. Arthur in Corpus Christi you're on WNYC. Hi, Arthur.
Arthur: Hey, Brian. How're you doing? Thanks for taking my call. First-time caller, long-time listener. I love your show.
Brian: Thank you.
Arthur: I'm really excited to talk to you. I think you're wonderful. You brought up this topic about perfectionism, and I think I've been noticing it in my own life lately. I'm also an artist, and so I have a lot of things with composition. I'm always trying to get things to be in the right composition and right space and stuff like that.
I'm really good at doing that, but at the same time, I kind of, in myself, end up having these-- falling short of having this idea and it fell up all short with me. I end up having a little bit of depression and things like that. I think they're intertwined with this idea of trying to control all the time and this last [crosstalk].
Brian: Right, because no matter how well you do, even if you're doing very well, what you hold onto is the ways in which you weren't perfect and so you wind up critical of yourself. Is that what I'm hearing?
Arthur: Yes, pretty much. I'm not an expert with composition, but I'm really good at seeing things in a way that it's a good way to see them, but I myself, it's like I can see it in myself and I have all these shortcomings. Psychologically, it gets hard to deal with it.
Brian: Thank you for your openness, Arthur. What the heck? Gerald in South Texas, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gerald.
Gerald: Good morning. I'm teaching computer classes in a university and I've arrived at being a perfectionist for my homeworks. They actually have a syllabus policy that says when everything is present and everything is correct, then you get 100% credit, but until then, you get a 0%. They will find it shocking at first. I get a couple of objections, "Why can't I just take an 80% and go home?" My argument is that your boss will never say that your project is 80% done and let's move the next one.
Once they see it, then they appreciate it as a second chance, a third chance, and they have to fix it and resubmit. Then once they do, then they get it. There's an upside of finding it as a way to be better.
Brian: It's about completing a task. It's not like a test to see if you memorize 95 out of 100 things. It's completing a task in computer science, so you let them go back and go back and go back, but until it's perfect. Is that it?
Gerald: That's right. That's it, and then they retain better. These are all projects. I don't do quizzes at all anyway, so for making a project right, it's going to be like it will be when they work.
Brian: Gerald, thank you very much. Catherine in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Catherine.
Catherine: Hey, how's it going?
Brian: Good, but not perfect.
Catherine: [chuckles] Right. Never. I've been working in wine in the city for about 11 years at this point. One thing that I've found is almost universal throughout the industry is everyone feels like they're expected to be performing at 100%, have 100% recall all the time. Yet, the other flip side of that that's also rampant is imposter syndrome.
There are definitely a number of people that I've spoken with, and this is something that I have learned to deal with on my own as well where we have to be forgiving with ourselves at a certain point and just say, "I have worked as hard as I possibly can on understanding X, Y, and Z," and refocusing our efforts on things that are actually relevant and matter.
Brian: Perfectly stated. Since we can't improve on that, we will leave it there. We got a good number of calls in for a short segment.
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Brian: Thank you, perfectionists, for calling in. That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our national politics podcast.
Our intern this term is Ethlyn Daniel-Scherz. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Hope the show was good today. I think it was good today, but I'm going to go home and beat myself up for whatever I missed. Stay tuned for All Of It.
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