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Perfectionism: Is It a Mental Illness? A Therapist Explains · RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: Your perfectionism is much more motivated by fear and anxiety rather than love and passion.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Psychotherapist Mark Azulay joins us to explore how perfectionism creates unseen barriers and how to overcome the pressure to be perfect.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: People fail all the time.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like people fail more often than they succeed, right?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like learning how to deal with failure and building resiliency rather than just like, oh, we're just going to ignore all that failure.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to push it to the side and we're only going to give you the cookies when you uh when you succeed.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Does perfectionism cause depression?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Recoverable.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Terry McGuire.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are answering your top questions about perfectionism and how the relentless drive to be flawless often masks real mental health conditions and physical burnout.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Joined by licensed therapist Mark Azule, we'll explore how high standards can turn toxic and how to break free from the all or nothing trap without losing your edge.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you and welcome back.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, happy to be back on the show.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to having this discussion because I think that there are a lot of people we talked last week about men's mental health.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that a lot of people of all genders deal with perfectionism.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's not gender-specific.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Perfectionism is a very common thing.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: I would say, even it's it's I think it's culture specific.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like Western culture is just like one always driving perfectionism and rewarding it.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: So you kind of get that interesting kind of double-sided sword there.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to avoid something that's being idolized by society.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to start just as we did last episode with the lightning round of myth or fact questions to reflect high search volumes on both perfectionism and mental health.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: So Mark, myth or fact.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Perfectionism is the secret engine behind performance and career success.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: But I I I think like real career success is motivated by like values and you know, a reward that matters to you and impact and legacy.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think if you are, you know, making a lot of money in your perfectionism, um, you're not successful because you're probably miserable, right?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: So like you have a lot of the the external things, but internally you're you're dying on the inside.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I wouldn't call that success.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Procrastination is just a lack of discipline or poor time management.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: No, uh, I would say that that is a myth.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: There's it's not, you can't think your way out of it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Often procrastination is overthinking anyway.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're trying to outthink a thinking issue, right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's like, you know, using a very cognitive treatment for something like anxiety, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: You can't outthink a thinking disorder.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: You have to like outfeel it, you have to outact it, you have to outperform it, you have to do other ways of of of working on it to actually heal and improve from it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, you can't just think your way into doing something different.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: In men, perfectionism actually looks like hyper-organization and neatness.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, fact.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think externally, sure.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like I think a perfectionist from the outside looks extremely successful and they have all their docs and a room and everything together.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: But ever inside is what we're focusing on here, right?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Inside, they're they're a mess, you know.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they're living in a in a kind of prison of self-hatred and criticism.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because when this came up in the search, it said myth that male perfectionism doesn't look clean, it looks like rage, gym obsession, and overwork.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think so.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, because I I think those things are seen as success.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like a gym obsession.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: If you have a dude who's like goes to the gym all the time and is jacked and has a great body, I think most people would look at that guy and be like, man, he's really got something figured out.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Or if he's overworking and he's like spending all these late hours and like getting a lot of stuff done and bringing a lot of income for his family, most people would be like, Yeah, that person's very successful.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: Killing it, killing it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like they don't often look under the hood and and see, like, okay, what is really going on with this person, you know.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Having high standards is the exact same thing as being a perfectionist.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Myth.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, having high standards is great.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: I I encourage people to build high standards about the things that are important to them.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, yes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Perfectionism means you have impossible standards for everything, you know, versus like having high standards for a few important things, like maybe who your life partner is, maybe for you know what you're doing as a dad, maybe for a couple of hobbies, maybe for your job, right?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then finding good enough for everything else.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oftentimes, people with high standards, if they are willing to put in the work to do it, which I, you know, we help them do, right?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: They have a very successful, meaningful life because they're you're really investing in the things that they care about.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Most perfectionists actually don't do a lot because they're frozen in thought.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're frozen.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: They're never, they're never able to really like finish anything or never able to rest, or never, never able to, you know, have real legacy and impact because they're always going, going, going, going, going, going.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: And then because of that, they feel very empty from the inside.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: So people with high standards tend to actually get more done that means something to them.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas perfectionists, you know, they'll they'll get a lot done, but none of it means anything.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: How uh when would you stop if you're trying to be perfect?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because there isn't even such a thing.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Never, right?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I mean, that like like that's the idea, right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think people that are per truly perfectionists either don't do, don't don't ever start because they know that they're never gonna attain it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: So like why even start?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the procrastination type thing, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, or to your point, they're just like running a race, but the the the finish line just keeps moving further and further away.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: So they never stop, so they never feel accomplished.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: They never they never like get there, you know?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: So they end up just burning out oftentimes.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or get to move on to the next thing because now that's done.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: They kind of move to the next like shiny object, you know.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Perfectionism is strictly mental and does not affect your physical body.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's uh that's a myth.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: It definitely affects your physical body, you know.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oftentimes like overcommitting to something or, you know, uh neglecting other parts of your life are gonna have massive side effects, right?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, also, you know, we we've talked about before, I'm sure people have talked in your show about how stress is extremely physical, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: So it looks like body tension, it looks like gastrointestinal upset, it looks like lack of sleep, it looks like fluctuations in in blood levels or hormonal levels, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's it's pretty well known now that like there is a dramatic connection between living in a state of chronic stress um and physical health.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: If someone lets go of their perfectionism, they will lose their edge and become lazy.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I would say that is a myth, but I think a lot of people believe that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people believe that.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: Where like that is the only thing keeping them going.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: I work mainly with men.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: So some of my metaphors are gonna be male-coded, but I think women can feel similarly.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Where a lot of people feel like they're, yeah, that they're ultimately inherently a lazy person.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: And the only thing that gets them moving is like the stick, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like whipping themselves through self-criticism and self-hatred and this perfectionist thing that we're gonna dive into here.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of a nuanced answer because it it works.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: It does work, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like these people that have used this as a strategy, it worked for parts of their lives and it got them where they're going.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: The problem is that it doesn't work all the time.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: And especially when you get into the high-performing jobs, things like leadership, for instance, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: So much of the work is emotional and relational that like just whipping yourself with self-criticism really doesn't work.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: No, you know, you need those carrots, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: You can't just do all stick, right?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: You need to be connected to things like we're saying before, like motivation, passion, values, interests, shared camaraderie, right?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: These things are what makes a good leader is someone that's able to instill those in a team rather than just like whipping everyone just like they whip themselves.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um, so all to say is like it works for a time, but it is not the only solution, and it becomes counterproductive uh at certain levels of success.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact, perfectionism acts as an armor that protects you from rejection and judgment.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yes, I would say that as a fact.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's it's great from other things too, but I think it can protect you from those things where oftentimes when we see a perfectionism is that it is a coping and control mechanism rather than a motivational mechanism, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's a way to deal with anxiety, to deal with rejection, to deal with feeling out of control, to deal with, you know, feeling like your identity is being threatened because you're trying to just like perfect and control.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: And if everything is perfect, then I will be loved, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Or be accepted or feel powerful or be enough or find love, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's often these like kind of deeper motivators that are fueling it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's not really about the thing.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is that really about the outcome?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's where you know you talked about high standards.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think high standards are about a true love for the craft and wanting to be good at a craft um or be good at your work or whatever it is.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: But perfectionism is much more motivated by fear and anxiety rather than love and passion.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Perfection is a permanent personality trait that you're simply born with.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, no.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think that's like big time myth.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you look at kids like I have a little baby right now, she's not a perfectionist at all.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like she just like throws her food everywhere and like, you know, she's totally okay with like being imperfect and like just stumbling her way through the world and rolling around and you know, smearing mud on the walls.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like she's she loves, you know, she's there's like I don't think anyone's born with that.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think, you know, and we'll get into it.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think our culture creates that.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I think certain families and upbringing create that and like train kids into that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't think it's biological at all.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you have been trained into perfectionism, can you unlearn it?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can you change?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: You you can definitely change.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it requires the hard work of psychotherapy, you know?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think it requires like getting to that root cause and having those difficult conversations with people.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oftentimes that's your parents, which can be really challenging.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, even if you're an older individual and your parents are, you know, elderly, sometimes it's still going back and trying to fix some of those wounds and figure out some of that stuff.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think it takes a lot of, you know, cognitive and behavioral like retraining of your brain, like truly kind of going to the gym for your brain and interrupting those patterns over and over again, building those reps so you can kind of unwire your brain from it.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I will say, you know, in some ways it will probably always be there.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: You might still have that voice, that critic voice, but it won't, that voice will not have as much power over you.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: You'll be able to like calm it down and be like, hey, you know, take a step back.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like you'll have much more control over that part of you, but that part might still flare up from time to time.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Strict, non-negotiable daily routines are what build true resilience.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh myth.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think non-negotiables is where I would probably like have objection with that.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think if you have strict non-negotiable routines, you're just an asshole.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Because like, how can you can't be in a relationship with anybody, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: You you can't you can't deal with the messiness and and the fluidity that is life if all your routines are strict and non-negotiable.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think routines are great.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people benefit from from routines.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: I think the the human animal loves routines and predictability.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: And those are all, there's a lot of really healthy ones.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I love my routines, but if they're strict and non-negotiable, then you're just really hard to be around.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was just not expecting you to say that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Myth or fact.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: High functioning anxiety and perfectionism are two separate issues.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think they can be, but probably for this episode we'll focus on them being the same.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I would say that is a myth.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because oftentimes anxiety and perfectionism are tied together, where I was saying before, perfectionism is fueled by fear and control, a need to control rather, um, rather than being fueled by passion and and interest.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now we get to the longer questions.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you can let it fly.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: The number one searched question is no surprise.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It is, what is perfectionism?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so perfectionism is, like I was saying before, it is an anxiety and fear-fueled behavioral coping strategy.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: So let me break some of that down.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: The question would be like, okay, what are you coping from?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And people are often coping from feeling, you know, in inadequate, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: Feeling less than, um, feeling weak, feeling like they are unlovable, feeling like they are not enough, not good enough, right?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: Not worthy enough.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: And these are all different things, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: They're it's like, it's like feeling this like deep sense of that you are not worthy or that you don't belong on planet Earth, which is a horrible thing to feel.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of people feel that.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people feel like they're not good enough to be alive and that they have to constantly be proving themselves over and over and over again, you know?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: And perfectionism is a way to do that where you're constantly proving yourself to everybody all the time, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: You have this idea that, like, if I am exceptional, if I make X amount of dollars, if I my body looks a certain way, if I'm able to, you know, do a triple backflip, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like whatever the thing is, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: All that kind of goes down to then I will be acceptable.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Then I will have a right to exist.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that is such a deep, deep wound, you know, because because you probably can't do those things.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: So until you people think that until they can do those things, until they've reached that level, they're not, they don't even have a right to exist.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: So they're constantly striving and they're constantly pushing and they're constantly trying and trying and trying and trying and trying to get something that is probably impossible, you know?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that you can't follow your dreams.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like that's we're talking about high standards.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can do a few things really well.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: And the human animal is is made to specialize, you know.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: So like we are we we can be we're super adaptable and we're designed to like kind of really get good at a few things to be part of a larger society.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: So that's great.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: But if you're trying to be all things to all people and be perfect, yeah, that's that's that's impossible, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: So that so living in perfectionism means that you're constantly living in this kind of self-hatred world, you know, and trying to control yourself and everybody else.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: And by everyone else, I mean the reaction to you, you're trying to try to get them to react to you in a certain way, in a praise, right?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: And that is such a narrow band of existence that if that doesn't go right, yeah, oftentimes people end up lashing out or shutting down, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: Harming themselves or others, right, in in many different ways.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you described perfectionism and the causes behind it as a deep wound.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: What in your experience as a therapist do you think most often causes that wound?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I think a lot of it, especially in like the generations that I'm talking with now.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: So we're talking about millennials and gen Xers, that's mainly what I work with.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's like a lack of emotional parenting, of emotionally literate parenting, you know.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think a lot of it also is like Western culture.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: And those things are kind of designed together, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: Because the way that we parent is is heavily based on our culture.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so what do I mean by that?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: What I mean by that is I think this idea of, you know, Western and certainly American exceptionalism, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: That we reward exceptional people.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: And again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: But I think when I talk about lack of emotional literacy, these exceptional people, we don't see their journey.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: We don't see their struggles, we don't see their failures, we don't see all these things.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: We just see the outcome.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: And you have parents and people that are all trying to get to that outcome and they don't know what it takes to really get there, you know?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then they're seeing, it's especially in the age of social media, they're seeing those paragon outcomes across every domain you can think of.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: All the time.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: So you kind of get this inherent belief that you should be a paragon, you should be an exceptional person in every domain of your life.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, the example that I bring up with the algorithm, I talk about my clients is, you know, I'm into fitness.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: I like do crossfit and stuff, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: And like I, you know, as I got into that, the algorithm started showing me like the most jacked dudes imaginable, right?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like doing the craziest stuff, doing all kinds of crazy gymnastic moves and lifting crazy shit and moving, lifting up trucks and dragging planes.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, damn.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I am a loser.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a loser.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do anything.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm doing the freaking uh it's in CrossFit's called MRX, which is um the masters, it's 50 plus uh level, you know.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm I'm right now I'm equal to like a competition grade 55 plus uh man.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, uh, which is great.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: Congratulations.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's that's a that's a big one for me.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm getting all this feed, so you know, luckily I'm a therapist, so I'm I'm insulated to it, but I'm just like laughing at just how crazy the stuff I'm seeing.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, take that data point.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: Nine months ago, I had a daughter, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: So now now I'm a new dad.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: My feed knows about that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe they just are seeing I'm looking for baby stuff online, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: So now not only am I getting the jacked guys, I'm getting the jacked dads.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh so not only is the dude ripped.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: No excuse.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: No excuse.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: He's also like doing burpees over the baby, right?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: He's like running up mounds with the baby strapped.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: I saw one dude of a dude like paragliding with a baby on his chest.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I don't think that's very safe, but that's pretty cool.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, so it's like no matter what you do, you're getting fed these people that do it better than you.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Constantly.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And what I tell my clients is like, like, it's awesome that they do it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to begrudge them.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: These people have probably put in a lot of work to be able to do these things, but that is their job.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that is their only thing that they do is not just do it, but also present it in a way that makes it even look larger than life.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, doing like these stunts and and things online, right?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: And like they probably struggle in other areas of their life.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: They're just not openly talking about it.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I think our culture is like rewarding these people, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, when I talk to younger uh guys out there, younger, younger people out there, ask them what they want to be.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: More and more they want to be YouTubers and they want to be influencers, right?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: That they want to be these people, which again, I mean, they like they live cool lives, but it's like the they're that is like the paragon, is like these people that are able to do these crazy things and and have these like crazy outcomes.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that's just not realistic for most people.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's just not gonna happen.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so you have the culture that that's rewarding that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: You have parents that are rewarding outcomes, you know, where they're saying like you have to be best, you have to get into this school, you have to get into these, you know, top sports teams, you have to get straight A's.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like everything is about performance and performance and getting better and like becoming the best all the time.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: So of course kids are gonna be perfectionists.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Another question is perfectionism a mental illness?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think a mental illness is a tough one.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: I I like I I think there's like a there's a spectrum there.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think extreme perfectionism, severe perfectionism, like we're saying before, is highly correlated, if not synonymous, with anxiety, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a mental illness, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: Which would require something like a meta a medication treatment, right?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: Or a more intensive course of therapy.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: But I do think perfectionism is a spectrum.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: And we're talking about the culture stuff before.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think most people have some version of it, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: There's some version of like linking performance with worthiness.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: So is that a mental illness for everybody?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it is a kind of like glitch, right, in our brains, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: It is a connection that doesn't need to be there and a connection that I think causes a lot of mental suffering uh for people that have that installed in their brain.
• 19:45
  unknown: Right.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're looking at perfectionism, anxiety, which you brought up, and OCD, which are connected and related.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think they all can be.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you look at OCD, that often, again, I mean, there's there's there's biological correlates to OCD, where basically the brain, we can see with uh functional uh MRI, the brain literally gets stuck in loops.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it it it's not just like, you know, you you have like a quirk, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: Or just stop it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the neurons are wiring in a in an almost cyclical pattern where this person is trapped by their OCD.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: So when you talk about someone that is that is a traditional OCD person, there's you know, either checkers or cleaners.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a checker is somebody who needs to make sure all the doors are locked and windows are locked before going to bed.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, when it becomes a mental illness, like again, that's probably a good thing to do, especially if you live in like an urban environment or something, right, where there's like danger.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: But like you, the other person with OCD will continuously do that pattern because their brain can't complete the loop.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: It can't move on, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: And cleaners the other day where they're constantly cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and then there's always some kind of mess, right?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that that's that's a severe mental illness.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't say that's perfectionism, right?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like, I like I think that is like a brain glitch that requires, you know, a different type of intervention.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: That person is not like getting value out of um being really good at locking their home, right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: Or being really good at cleaning their kitchen, right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: That person is like suffering and is trapped in their brain.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um, I think a perfectionist person, like they are they're relating their value with their ability to perform.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of the main thing.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I think when you talk about anxiety, the third part you brought up, that often is closer to perfectionism, you know, because when they're not feeling valuable from the performance, they're often feeling anxious, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: They're often feeling like afraid and concerned and scared and worried about what they're people thinking and worried about when they're gonna fail or they're trying to take accountability for everything.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: But it's not from a again, mental illness brain loop thing.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's from a a desire to to control and to feel loved.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: The feel loved is the that's the one.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a sad part.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's the one.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You used the word trapped, and on Reddit, they often refer to perfectionism as a cage of pressure.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it is another trap.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: It it is another trap for for sure, you know.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, bec but again, like the the other, it's like it's not a biological neurological trap to like OCD, but it is a trap of like, like we're saying, to To feel loved, you know, and back to kind of that one is, you know, again, if if the parents are always rewarding these, these outcomes, and oftentimes, I guess in say in the previous question, um, with that is like oftentimes parents, understandably, when they're raising a kid, they're going to treat the kid better when the kid is succeeding.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: And what I mean by that is they're gonna be happier, nicer, jokier, they're gonna be better mood, right?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because your kid is not suffering, your kid's struggling.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like it, it's normal, right?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: But the kid sees that as like, okay, if I'm performing, then my parents are happy and they don't yell at me as much or whatever, right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or the house feels better.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: It could be something almost as vague as that, right?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because kids are, especially younger kids, are they're vibe-based creatures, right?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: They don't have language, they're just feeling how the house feels, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: So it feels it feels nicer to live here when I'm performing, right?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: And when I'm not performing, like my parents are upset and they're angry and they're short with each other, and the house feels worse.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so if you're if a kid is getting that message over and over again on that kind of like, you know, subconscious level, they're learning that, like, no, okay, in order for my life to be okay and my house to feel safe and to feel loved, I need to be constantly performing over and over again.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And again, I don't want to blame parents.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of therapists blame parents for everything.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I think that what I just talked about is really natural, right?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if you don't do psychological work, if you just are kind of on the default operating mode, of course you're gonna feel nicer when things are going well and worse when things are going bad.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it takes a level of leveling up your parenting, whether through psychotherapy or coaching or or groups or whatever, to try to like change that.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: So when things are going bad, you're still working to project love towards your child, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: You're still focusing on the things that are going well in your child's life.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: You are still with them during those tough moments.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: And that requires for the parent to be psychologically strong and grounded themselves.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: So they can step into those difficult moments with their children instead of like rejecting them when their kids are in that way.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like, oh, you're upset, I don't want to deal with you, come back when you feel better.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, how many times we heard that, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: Or like, go to your room, right?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's too much for me as a parent.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I need to get the kid out of here, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: Versus like, hey, let me sit down, be in this temper tantrum with the kid, which is uncomfortable.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: Sucks, but at least you're with them connected and you're not training them that they are unacceptable when they're having a bad time, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: Or when they've made a mistake or when they're failing, because kids fail all the time.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: People fail all the time.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like people fail more often than they succeed, right?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like learning how to deal with failure and building resiliency rather than just like, oh, we're just gonna ignore all that failure.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna push it to the side and we're only going to give you the cookies when you uh when you succeed.
• 24:56
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• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Does perfectionism cause depression?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: I think perfectionism can cause depression for sure.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so when I see depression, I I mean a whole nother topic.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: I know something that you know a lot about, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Is like depression isn't sadness.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know, depression is shut down, it's numbness.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: The way I talk about it with a lot of the people I work with is that it's like almost being a zombie.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's like kind of like a walking death.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like it, it's it's void, it's nothing.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, sadness is great, grief is great.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like those are important things to feel as a human, but depression is like you are, it's like a black hole.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: So all that to say is I think a lot of people that are stuck in that perfectionist trap, that are constantly striving underneath it will feel that nothingness.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're performing for other people.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a lot of people, especially the high performing perfectionists, which we're talking about, like they feel enslaved almost to their job, to their family, to the expectations of people, whether it's real or imagined, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: They they they they're doing everything for everybody else and they've lost touch with themselves, you know, and they're spending all of their energy, all their psychic, emotional, you know, material energy is going externally, it's going outwards into the world to try to get a reaction, to get love and adoration from others that they've like left themselves empty.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a metaphor that I often talk about is like, you know, castle in a kingdom, right?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like you spend all your castle's money and gold and treasure building like the awesomest, coolest set of walls around the castle.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: And the walls look really, you know, clean and pristine, and they're, you know, really defensible and they're really high and they're impressive.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: And everyone from outside is like, man, that castle's incredible.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like who built that?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: But you go inside and it's just a wasteland.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like like there's a cows are dying and the people are starving.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, the the actual place where you live is like a little shack, right?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like all the all the money went to the walls.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think perfections often feel that way, where like all their resources are going to the external facade.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: And and internally they can feel really depressed and empty and and just yeah, that that kind of void idea.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and often perfectionists, the things that they are accomplishing are stuff that other people are praising them for, yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Which is external, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: The external locust of control, which we talk about um in in psychotherapy, versus the internal, which is not stuff that they're interested in.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so they've kind of lost connections with their own interests because oftentimes the things that people are interested in are not always rewarded.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like if you're into like a hobby, you know, like I like painting, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm never gonna make money for my painting.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm not that good at it, but I enjoy it.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like that's something that like I do just for me.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: But if I only care about what other people think, I'm gonna let that hobby and that interest just go to the side and never uh never really connect with who I am and and things that I care about.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it has to be so much harder to stop something that is being externally validated.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and I think that is, I mean, there's so many.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Carl Jung talks about this a lot, you know, kind of famous psychoanalyst.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like so much of the confronting the shadow, which is what we're talking about, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's like kind of like dealing with these kind of deeper issues, means that you have to feel the thing that you've been avoiding to feel.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: So the idea here is that in order to be a perfectionist, to unhook from trying to please everyone that's being constantly rewarded, yep, you have to disappoint them.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: You actually have to do the thing that you're afraid of doing, which is failing publicly, you know, which might mean, you know, to make it practically like telling somebody at work no or changing your job, you know, or telling your spouse.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: I see this with you know a lot of the men that I work with saying, like, hey, you know, like I know we have an incredible house and an incredible life, but like I need to change my job, and that means that we're gonna be living at like a lower income bracket.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's hard.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's so hard to do, right?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: To like slow the train that's been like just going, going, going nonstop.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Even if doing that is what's gonna lead to you being a happier person and a better partner and a better father and a better all things in your example.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it is the thing that's gonna do it.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: Feel better, yes.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like you've you've failed, it feels uh which it is.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, right, like the whole perfectionist thing is built around never having that conversation.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, literally.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then you have to have that conversation, and it will make you a happy, better spouse and partner and father, and all that stuff and live longer, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it'll do it, but you have to take like the medicine first.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and the medicine tastes real bad.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Real bad.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um might make you sick.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's gonna get worse before it gets better, and it will often be worse for longer than you want to be.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking years, especially if you're really high performing and that train's moving real fast.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: It can take a while to slow it down, but it but it will get better.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: This question addresses one of the most common lived complaints.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: How does perfectionism show up as procrastination?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so um, great question.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: Basically, procrastination is the kind of other side of the coin of perfectionism, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: We we've been talking a lot about these people who are trapped in action and doing and constantly moving, right?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's high performing perfectionism.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: Procrastination is the other side, which is the person that just doesn't do anything, you know.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: They they they the bar is so high and they're aware of their perfectionism in a way, they're like, I'm never gonna get there, I'm never gonna feel rewarded, I'm never going to like get it right.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: So why even do it?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so that person's going to avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: And then at some point, you know, like it's gonna get so scary and anxious enough that they just like do something.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like if you use like a I don't know, someone writing a paper for school or something, they'll they'll write a paper and they'll like get a C plus or a B minus.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then they're disappointed.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: And they're kind of stuck in that same loop.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: But with procrastination, it kind of keeps the demon of perfectionism alive because if you have this behavioral pattern where you're like doing nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and then you do at the last minute and you don't do as well, you still have that excuse of like, well, you know, if I did it right, if I did it the perfect way, if I did it, if I wrote the paper when it was assigned three weeks ago, then I would have gotten a hundred percent, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Then I would have totally aced it.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: So it kind of like fuels that same idea that like you're kind of an unrealized genius, you know, right?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: That that like I could have done better.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not great, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because that that leaves this idea of it leaves the door open that like if only things were perfect, then I will get what I want.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: You see procrastination, you know, certainly with young adults, but it continues throughout life for for many, many people.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that fantasy is a thing that like keeps them stuck on the on the loop, you know.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um a little bit of a tangent.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: But when I think about perfectionism, I I went to a um my master's degree was actually in Buddhist psychology.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: I went to a school called Naropa um in uh Boulder, which is the Buddhist university.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: So the the Buddhist idea of perfectionism is really interesting um of being perfect.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: They have this idea that kind of translates roughly from Sanskrit into um basic goodness.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: And what Buddhism says is that because it exists, it is perfect.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: And like be like that's it.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's like that simple, right?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's real, it's perfect.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: This is perfect because it's it's here and it's not here.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: And and I like that idea because everything else, everything else, all this kind of like thoughts, expectations, fantasies, desires, like all that from Buddhism's perspective is just delusion.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like meant that's that that's their version of mental illness.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like all the stuff that's happening in our brain is fake because it's not real.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: So the idea is that like your life is perfect as it is because it is.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there isn't, as far as we know, right?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: We can't go to another reality, we can't transport to it, we can't time travel, we can't shift to another multiverse.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we're here, we're here in this reality, and therefore it's perfect.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's the shift that we're hoping that these people get um that I try to live by and I hope to you know instill in my clients is like life as it is is perfect because there's no other alternative.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, again, if you're living in that procrastination, if you're living in that world of, oh, I could have done better, I could have done this, I could have done that, I could have done that, like all that is delusion.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: All that is fake.
• 33:43
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's it's not perfect.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's just you you just made it up, you know.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Other common searches focus on treatment, specifically asking how do I overcome perfectionism and what can happen if I do not make changes.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the first of those we'll start with the second one.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't if you don't make changes, you're gonna live a life of anxiety, pain, depression, and you're gonna hate your life.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: And when you die, you're gonna feel like you never did anything worthwhile.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that sucks.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: So let's let's uh let's figure out what to do about it, right?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, please.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: So what I see with a lot of perfectionist people, um, they often have a deep insecurity.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: There's often something, and if you're if you're listening and you're perfectionists, there's probably something that immediately came to your mind, right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's that you're overweight and you've never dealt with your weight, right?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's that you've never been in a loving relationship, you know.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's something really bad and shitty happened to you when you were growing up and you've never really worked on that and you've never talked to the people responsible or had any kind of closure, right?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe you've lost somebody who you really cared about when you grew up.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, maybe, you know, maybe your career is not now where it needs to be.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: You're not making enough money and you look at the bank account and it's just negative over and over and over again.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: There often is a real issue.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: But what perfectionists will do and what humans will do is instead of confronting that real issue, which is real scary, we're gonna do the same thing we're already doing, but harder.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: Double down.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Double down on the like double down on your strengths instead of focusing on the weaknesses.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: So for instance, you know, again, kind of a common example with with some men is like you have a guy who's like very, very successful, makes a lot of money.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: He's got the car, he's got the boat, he's got like an awesome house, right?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: But he's been divorced like four times and he's overweight.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: And instead of going to therapy to help with the relational skills, uh, that probably led to the divorce, or going to the gym and confronting the fact that, man, I'm really out of shape and this is gonna take like years to get back in shape.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: You have those core insecurities, and he's trying to feed it by just doing work more, by getting more money, more status, more boats, more, more of everything, more vacations, you know, whatever, right?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: Thinking that that is going to fill the hole.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: But the example that I use, the metaphor is with guys, it's like, you know, you have this bucket and your bucket has holes in it, and the holes is like, okay, I'm out of weight.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: I I don't feel loved, I don't have a long relationship, I wanted kids, but didn't have them.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: No matter how much money you pour into that bucket, it's still draining through those holes, you know?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: So the work is like confronting those real insecurities that you have.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: The first thing is admitting you have them, which is hard for a lot of people.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like, yeah, I'm I feel really behind in this one area, even though I'm even though I'm succeeding in all these other ones, this one that I'm behind in is the one that I actually really care about, the one that I really beat myself up about constantly, admitting that, and then actually getting help in that area.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, of course, we're talking psychotherapy podcasts.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's gonna be some of those areas are mental, but some of them are physical, right?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: Some of them are like I said, you gotta get your nutrition figured out.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta go to the gym, you gotta deal with this chronic disease that you've had, right?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: But like people, the humans, humans are really good at ignoring the scary stuff until it kicks us in the ass, you know, down the line.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_03: And again, focusing on the things that make us feel good, things that we're already good at.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: So I think successful perfectionism treatment is actually applying some of that high-performing perfectionism and work to those scary places and improving those, fixing the hole in the bucket.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: And you'll find that your need to feel loved and desired and to control everything will go down because that core insecurity is actually getting attended to rather than again just trying to put water into this bucket that already has holes in it.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: You're never gonna win that.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting shift because I would have thought that you were gonna say good enough is good enough.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: To chill out.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, to you're right.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kind of.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: I I I I don't really like that one because I I think like one, I think culturally, I think our our culture is extremely competitive.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and I don't like pathologizing ambition.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: But make sure that it's real ambition and make sure that you're actually taking care of the people that you love.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people have those things, they have a twisted version of them.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: Either they have their perfectionist form of ambition, or they just like keep going, going, going without any kind of real impact or meaning, you know, or they're paying for the people that they love, but they're not really taking care of them.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: They're not really connected with them emotionally, they're not really supporting them, they're not really being the people in their lives that that have that real legacy.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like, it's like the wires are crossed, you know?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Good intentions, but bad at execution.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I I don't think it's about just like chilling out.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: And if you tell someone who's a high-performing perfectionist just to chill out, like they're just gonna be like, you don't get it.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's just gonna bounce right off of them.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I find it's more effective to be like, let's take what you already good at, but actually apply to things you're really insecure about.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because true perfectionists, like I said, they they have those deep wounds, and those are what need to be healed.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then again, the symptoms, symptoms will go down as you actually fix what's causing the wound.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for explaining that.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: So a true perfectionist, to use your phrase, do most people know they are a perfectionist?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I I I think so.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, so there's in in psychology, there's kind of two ways of looking at mental disorders.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, one is called egosyntonic, which basically means that you don't know you have it.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's part of your identity, it's just who you are.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just anxious.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just anxious.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'm an anxious person, right?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the other one is ego dystonic, which means that it you realize that it's causing you pain.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think most perfectionists know that it's causing them pain.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: If if they if they look even just for a moment, I think most people will say, and you can even hear it in the way people talk, where they'll be like, Oh yeah, like I'm really, really busy.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like they're kind of like communicate how stressed they are when they're saying it, or like, I got so much things going on, like I'm not good at scheduling, like I'm just gonna like there's like there's like this like level of like you know, vibration.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think they're aware.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: I I think like they're aware that like wow, this isn't working for me, but they don't know how to stop.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, because they they feel like we're saying before, they feel like it's necessary.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: They feel like they have to keep improving, they have to uh, you know, provide for their families, right?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like that they are just they're on the treadmill, they know they're on the treadmill, they just don't know how to get off.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so I so I I think they they know it's an issue.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_03: They often often these people also know like how negative they are to themselves.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're aware that they hate themselves and and they are actively using that as a way to motivate themselves.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I that which is good, right?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the ego dystonic, right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: The things where you know it's a problem, that means you can fix it.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you're open to fixing it.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: And you're open to fixing it.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: And and and but you just don't know there's another way.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: So so the work of psychotherapy and the work of recovery is like saying, hey, there's another way to do this.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So when someone comes to you as a therapist, what do they come to you with?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Are they just like, I am exhausted, I am depleted, or is it I have to do everything perfectly and I think it's because I hate myself?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how much awareness do people come to your table with?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, usually the first one that you said, it's like it shows up as exhaustion, as depletion, um, as again, like lack of meaning, you know, as as depression.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, a lot of the people I work with will say things like, you know, I I got this big promotion at my job and I felt nothing.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think a lot of people will feel like they're they're so like, oh, I feel like I'm performing all the time, or I'm like fake all the time.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or maybe they had something happen.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I got a divorce and my spouse told me that they they like couldn't feel me.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: They like lost contact with me 10 years ago and they forgot, they didn't realize who I was.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: I they the connection died.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: Or I had a friend tell me that I was really fake and that really for some reason that really hurt me.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like you get messages from the world, you know, of this of these things happening.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, I I think that they don't really get the self-hatred.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: Usually that comes out later when you're talking about, okay, well, how do you motivate yourself?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: And they say someone's things like, oh, you know, you suck at this, you're bad at this, get better, blah, blah, blah.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, wow, you really hate yourself.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: And that's usually like the first kind of like click, that first like kind of like moment where they're like, oh, wow, you're right.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: I do really hate myself.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that then you get into kind of the deeper thing of like, you know, who hate you growing up, or like where did that voice come from?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then then you're off to the races with good old-fashioned psychotherapy stuff.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, usually it shows up as like burnout, exhaustion, irritability, um, lack of physical uh hygiene and and fitness, um, distancing yourself from others, that kind of thing.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when you say to someone you really hate yourself, what's that reaction?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's what you did.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, oh damn.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: I I mean, I I think like again, and this is my form, this is how I practice, is I'm very direct with people.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: Again, it comes from a place of love and and respect.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: But like when they're telling me like that voice, and they're like, you know, really role play.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: I have them role play like what their internal dialogue is like.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, yeah, you hate yourself.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: Usually they're they're taken aback, but then it settles in and they're like, you know, you're right.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like they they they get that.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the next step is again, like saying, like, where did that voice come from?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and it or why, right?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, so those are two ones, right?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: So where'd your voice come from?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: Something's like, oh yeah, that's my that's my mom's voice.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: My mom would always talk to my dad growing up.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like, so of course that's in there, right?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: Or why?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: Which is like, yeah, it's because I'm like overweight and I've never dealt with my weight, and that's a core insecurity that I have.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: And no matter what I do, I always think like, you know, I just got this promotion, right?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: I got, you know, another$100,000.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: But in my mind, I'm like, well, you're still like fat, so it doesn't matter.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and and that's the thing, is like people are trying to solve these the a real problem with something that doesn't solve the problem.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: Or or like, you know, you have so you have someone who's like, yeah, I got a big promotion, but my brain is telling me, like, yeah, but your kids don't talk to you anymore.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's like like those are the actual issues we need to work on on in therapy.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's not about getting less money, it's about fixing the hole in the bucket.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you keep saying the hole in the bucket.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why is CBT often the therapy that is recommended for dealing with perfectionism?
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And how would it fix the holes in the bucket?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: So I think CBT, I'm a depth psychotherapist.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: So so um when I'm talking about depth work, that's the hole in the bucket thing.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: Of like again, going deeper, figuring out what's happening and like healing those old wounds.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: I think CBT can reduce symptoms, but that's kind of what we're talking about before, which is like just kind of like think a little bit differently.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like chill out, right?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: To chill out is the CBT approach.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that can help with coping.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think that can help with the intensity of that internal voice, right?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: You can learn how to like recognize it.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: You can learn how to combat it.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: You can learn how to silence it.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like all that stuff is really critical.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_03: But I think until the hole is fixed, until whatever that deep wound is actually healed, you're going to be constantly fighting a battle with your perfectionist brain.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody needing therapy, realizing that they might need therapy might be a better way to put that.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: What do they ask for?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: What do they look for to find the kind of therapy you provide that fills those holes in the bucket?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think it depends on what they want, right?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: So like if they if they still want to like keep going at the same rate, I think CBT is great for that.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, of like, hey, help me keep the train running.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: And and I say that a little tongue in cheek, but I think for certain people, especially in their like call it 30s through 50s, and they have a lot of pressure, sometimes you need to keep the train running.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a shitty part of our society and economic reality, but like sometimes you just got to keep the train running to get to a new job, to get to a new divestment opportunity, to get somewhere.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like you just need to make sure that you just don't lose your shit.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that is completely valid.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I think CBT is really, really helpful for coping, right?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: Again, for make sure you don't lose your shit when people need you, right?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: If you want the deeper work, like we're saying before, that means taking the medicine, which means it's going to get worse before it gets better.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to be in a in a level of security and you have to have a support system around you, whether that's your family or your friends or a men's group or a therapy group, like that can support you because it's going to get worse.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you had that example of the person saying, like, hey, I need to quit my job, and that means we're making less money, which means we have to sell our house, we have to get rid of this extra car, and we have to move to like a different part of the town.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: You got to be pretty stable and supported to make those real meaningful changes in your life.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so to ask for a therapist, you could say, like, hey, do you do depth psychology is probably an easy way to ask you?
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: D-E-P-T-H-Y-L-I-D psychology.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you could ask for the you know the the therapy terms.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: I do psychoanalytic um and psychodynamic.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, those are the ways that I was trained and practice.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: So that would be deep.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: But again, like it will help you, but it's it's hard work.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard work.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing a conflict if somebody is a perfectionist, which likely means they're busy finding time for therapy would be a challenge.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: I uh yes, I think for most people that want to do the deeper work, it's after something bad has happened.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's true across the board for most psychotherapy, is that you know, talked about in the previous episode.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think people come to it too late, right?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: That they start the therapy work after their life has blown up, and it makes it way harder to recover.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: You can recover and you will recover, but I think the rock bottom thing is really true.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: And we talk about it a lot, obviously, you know, in recovery, but I think it's true for for basically everything.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think like most humans, most people need stuff to get really bad in order to create the space and the and the priority and the and the motivation to like make these fundamental changes.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, the person that, you know, probably comes for perfectionism is probably after the perfectionism has blown up some part of their life, you know, after they've gotten a divorce, after they've, you know, they've they've been using a substance like a stimulant and cocaine or whatever, right?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_03: To like keep going, or Adderall is really popular right now to keep going, going, going.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: And that has blown up and they've had horrible side effects.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_03: After uh I I work with you know a number of wealthy clients and some of their kids will cut them off, right?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, and and the that is extremely hurtful.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, right.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the and the wealthy parent is like, well, I did everything, you know, I did everything.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: I was a perfectionist, I gave them everything, right?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: And now my kid is telling me like all these things about how I was a bad parent, and I don't understand, I don't even really understand what they're saying because they're operating in a very financial logistical realm.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like that will be a motivator, you know, losing a job because they've been, they have so high their host has so high strung they lashed out at the wrong person at the wrong time and that was caught on camera and they lost their job or whatever, right?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: So, so like oftentimes it it does cause it it takes a collapse for people to rebuild.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I hope that you know, through my work and the work that you're doing and shows like this, like just go to therapy earlier.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like when you feel it's off, or when you're listening to a show like this and you're like, yeah, this could be me.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like just talk to somebody.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: So many people offer like free consultations, like it costs you nothing.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's like 30 minutes to talk on the phone.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like, just talk to somebody.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can just start doing this stuff, like, you know, a year or two even before the collapse, it's gonna not be as bad, and you're gonna get to that end goal and recover way faster than if it's like, you know, a couple of years truly of like damage control, and then you can start actually making change in your life, you know.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because I I hear what you're saying and I understand how much more productive and helpful and healthy it would be to start earlier.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I can see thinking, I'm working a 70-hour week, I don't have time for therapy.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a real, that's a real conundrum.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: Conundrum is the word I was looking for, yes.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, but but but it's like but it's like again, I think it's a cultural thing because look at how much our our culture in general spends on self-improvement.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_03: Self-improvement is is is one of the biggest industries out there, right?
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, people are constantly buying gym memberships and and supplements and courses and getting certifications and doing professional training and reading self-help books and you know, like uh buying crazy gym equipment for their home, right?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like there's like billions, if not trillions of dollars in self-help.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think that like therapy is like the bottom of that barrel.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's extremely effective and I think it works, but I think people inherently know.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's stigma, but I think that stigma is going down.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think people inherently know that like because it works, they're gonna have to make real change.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to really commit to it.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's really intimidating for a lot of people.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can't hang your clothes on it.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, can't just yeah, you can't buy the belt on and just like hang your clothes on it, right?
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: But like, but I think like people have the time and the money.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a it's a priority issue.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um, similarly, Laura.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, shit, like how many people go out?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's recovery podcasts.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_03: How many people spend, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a week on entertainment, on drinking and partying and clubbing, and that's like multiple hours every single week.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: If you spent one of those hours going to therapy for a fraction of the cost, you might actually figure out like what's going on with your life.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: For someone listening who thinks that maybe their high standards are actually perfectionism, what is the takeaway message and probably that that you want to leave them with from this episode?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean, really, it's it's a it's a gut check of if you have high standards, it means that you care about the thing.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: So again, I use the example of like an artist or a craftsperson, right?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_03: Someone who's really phenomenal at wood carving and furniture is going to have high standards for the work that they do.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: And they're going to enjoy doing it.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's the main point.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: They're going to enjoy trying to get better at that skill.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: They're going to enjoy the things that they make along the way, right?
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_03: They're going to enjoy reading content and watching YouTube and learning new techniques on how to really make like filigree on your, on your, you know, um uh table, right?
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's cool.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's a passion, that's a hobby, that's an interest.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think people that are really in that place of of true creation and and and building mastery is what I would call it, you know, from from our kind of pillars.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you're if you're building and pursuing mastery, it comes from a place of of love and passion and enjoyment.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: And the outcome is so less important than the process because you like doing it, right?
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_03: You feel relaxed when you're in your woodworking studio working on a new chair or a table, right?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: And you're giving your works away, not because like you want reward, but because you're just you know sharing it with the world.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's a beautiful thing.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like that that's great, right?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's high standard.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_03: High standards is something that you really invest in and care about and you enjoy the process of building.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_03: Perfectionism sucks.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: Perfectionism is like you don't even really care about the thing that you're doing.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: You care about the outcome.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_03: You care about like the praise and whether that's money or attention or love, or you know, we talked about that.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's only about that, but you don't really care about what you're doing.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: So underneath it, you're going to feel very empty, you're gonna feel very fake, you're gonna feel like you're just kind of like I said before, like you're like a slave to it.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta show up, you gotta do this meeting, you gotta make money, right?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's that kind of mentality, right?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: Or like, yeah, like I really need to perform uh at the gym because I don't want so-and-so to judge me.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's fear, you know?
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like, like the the the internal experience is so different, I think, between those two.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're having that negative experience, if it's fear, if it's anxiety, if it's judgment, if it's self-hatred, like you should probably talk to someone about that.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because you can still do great things, but doesn't have to be fueled by those negative experiences.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or damage you.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_03: Or yeah, damage you along the way.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh, you know, a um metaphor that that I use for a lot of people is the idea of uh, you know, like a rocket ship, right?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: So you have like the rocket booster, right, that runs on rocket fuel that is incredibly polluted, you know.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_03: But you sometimes you need that to like get you into space.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's like violent, it's loud, it discharges the napalm shit everywhere, like it's horrible, right?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_03: So it causes so much pollution in the environment.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: It gets you there, but it causes all that damage, right?
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_03: And for a lot of people, I think again, especially in our culture, you need that to get somewhere, to go from nothing to something.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_03: But at some point, you're in space, right?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_03: And when you're in space, you're floating and you can use things like renewable energy, right?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_03: You can, there's solar sails, right?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: You can move through the currents, you're you're running on solar panels and like little gentle boosters.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's beautiful, right?
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: So the idea for a lot of high performers out there is like you need to switch your fuel source, right?
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: You got to go from like the nasty rocket fuel to like a beautiful gliding in space on the solar winds, you know?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: And like you can still get there, you can still get to some really incredible places, but you don't have to pollute your body and pollute your relationships and destroy your life to make it happen.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: And how does someone who wants to learn more about perfectionism or last week's episode on men's mental health learn more about you and the work you do?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_03: So um I run a company called Men's Therapy Online.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, so our company is male-specific, both uh male providers and male clients.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, that's kind of our niche in the market.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_03: That being said, I'm certainly willing to talk to anybody, right, in whatever gender or orientation you belong to and connect you with.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: I have a bunch of colleagues that really specialize in perfectionism out there.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so if you go to our website, which is men's therapy.online, uh, you can check that out.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_03: You can book a call with me.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm happy to direct you to somebody um that would be a fit, or you can work with me or one of our providers.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, also on the website, we do have an online course called the Prison of Perfectionism.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you can just go check that out.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's free.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's like a series of videos and emails and and kind of like things that you can work through um to help like understand some of the things that we're talking about.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the the main idea of that course, which we talked about a little bit here, is the idea of like proving yourself to yourself.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of proving yourself to others, prove yourself to yourself.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_03: And the course will help walk you through ways to both identify what you actually care about and then give you some skills and techniques to actually get there so you can prove yourself to yourself and become the person that is lovable in your eyes instead of in the eyes of others.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_03: And that's easier said than done, but you know, we'll we'll help you get there.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great distinction.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate your uh expertise and you sharing it with us.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, happy to come on the show.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: This is a fun time.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we will be back next week with a deep dive into another behavioral health topic.