Toxic Bosses, Perfectionism, And Healing At Work with Susan Schmitt Winchester

0:00Hi, I'm Maura Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever. Today I'm going to bring you one of our most downloaded and one of my most favorite episodes from our archives. It's a classic. The Anxious Achiever has been at it for a long time. We have over 300 episodes. And honestly, they're all still more relevant than ever. You may hear details in this episode that remind you it's from another time, but I guarantee that the advice you get will be as crisp and meaningful and the stories as resonant as before. If you have a favorite episode of the show, let me know. I'd love to air it again or even re-record it for you fresh.

0:47Enjoy this classic Anxious Achiever episode.

0:54Perfection. Something I've always struggled with. That little voice inside my head that looks at the work I've just spent painstaking hours on and says, it's not good enough. No one will care about reading this. This won't make an impact. This doesn't make any sense. In times of stress, it can get even worse. The need to be perfect. Sometimes perfectionism feels like procrastination are actually not doing a good job because the stakes seem so high, right? I can never get it right. So why bother trying? Well, Susan Schmidt Winchester returns to the show today to talk about what she's learned about perfectionism in her own life and the lives of others.

1:35She explains where some of these people-pleasing, self-doubting ways come from and shares her patented actionable interventions we can take to change the ways we talk to ourself and the way we work. So Susan, you tell a story about a boss a long time ago who had a sign on her desk that she could flip, and one sign of it said Glinda the Good Witch, and the other one said Wicked Witch of the West. It was a statue. Each side of the statue, one sign, if you looked at it, it was Glinda the Good Witch. You flipped it around. It was the Wicked Witch of the West. I mean, it was a dang statue. That's, I don't even know what the words are.

2:19That's amazing. She flipped it based on her mood. What a terrible leadership, you know, act. It's just either you go into her office and you relax or you're immediately on pins and needles. And she took something away from you in a really nasty way. Yeah. Give us why that was such a sort of crucible moment for you and how, in retrospect, you realize it relates to your perfectionism. Right. Wow. Yes, this was sort of a startling wake-up moment in one of my early career jobs. I don't want to say which company or anything like that, but I had been given a manager job. So I was a new manager. I had a team of five people, and one of the first projects that we were asked to work on was completely revamping the organization's performance management system.

3:12And because I wanted to prove myself to my new boss, which was what I believed I needed to do to gain her validation of me. I, you know, did everything I could to make this project a huge success. I had some really talented people working with me on it. And we had completed the project within the time and under the budget. And one day, she called me into her office. And basically, you know, I sat down. And she said, I want to let you know that your team has been awarded the President's Award of Excellence, which was a big deal. Very prestigious in this organization. And I knew it came with a cash award.

3:52I didn't know how much money it was. But I knew there was money involved. and I had a ton of student loans at the time. So I see a really appealing. And she proceeded to tell me that, however, she said, I'm not going to give you the award. And I just remember thinking, what? I was mystified. And she was, you could tell her energy was off. She, the Wicked Witch was looking at me. She was, she seemed angry. There was just an angry edge about her. And I said, well, I don't understand. Why can you help me understand? and she wouldn't give me an explanation. I was the leader of the team. And I remember her just basically waving me off, you know, just basically, no, we're done.

4:33You know, so I left her office really confused. And I didn't think it was fair. I mean, I had a sense of what's fair and what's not fair. So not just you, but for your team. Well, yeah, but my team was getting the award. I wasn't going to get it. It was just you. I was the only one who wasn't getting the award. Oh. yes the team was going to get the award they were all going to get the cash award not me and so I walked out of her office like well that's weird what's going on so as I I you know the next day I thought well I got to find out what's wrong what did I do wrong because you know as perfectionists something must be wrong I must have done something wrong otherwise why would I not be getting this recognition that the rest of the team is so I remember I went into her boss's office.

5:19Now, looking back on that moment, I probably would have handled it differently today, knowing how the political dynamics work in companies. I would have not probably done this. I might have done it a different way. But I went into his office and I just basically said, I don't understand why I'm not getting the award. He had no idea. He's like, I have no idea. I'll have to look into it. Well, within a short amount of time, I get called back into my boss's office. and it was really clear she was very angry and I sat down and as soon as I sat down in the wooden chair she started screaming yelling full-blown rage how dare you who do you think you are how do you who do you think you are questioning my decision and I remember I remember it if it was yesterday my whole body was shaking I felt frozen talk about fight flight and freeze I was frozen with hot tears streaming down my face, feeling like I deserve this.

6:19I clearly screwed up. I did something wrong. She's right. How dare I go to her boss? And, you know, in that moment, I didn't think about it then, but now it really was like the moment when I was afraid of my dad's yelling and screaming, his rage, which was unpredictable in the family system. And my sister and I would want to run away. We'd run upstairs to the bedroom and get underneath the bed with our little dog Dodger as we could hear him downstairs screaming at my mom. And that's how I felt. I felt frozen, afraid, frightened. What's happening here? Everything just stood still. And I don't even remember how it ended, but I walked out of her office feeling obliterated that I was going to have to quit, which I did within probably three months.

7:05I resigned, went back to a different company. and you know in that moment I was completely unconscious to the effects of my experience as a little girl growing up in my family system you know because when she was yelling and screaming I felt like I deserved it I had created it I was bad and clearly not good enough I had disappointed her I had enraged her never dawned on me that her behavior was totally out of line for a vice president in a very prestigious organization, I blamed myself and beat myself up that I had failed. You know, I think that's the other thing about being a perfectionist is the fear of failure is immense.

7:49Because if we fail, if we have disappointed someone, if we had made someone angry, then it's our fault. And it just validates our own sense of our beliefs about ourselves that we're not good enough. And because us perfectionists associate so much value to the task, that if the task isn't going well, that means that we're not enough. And so the perfectionism manifests in a way where we're constantly feeling on eggshells. We constantly feel like we have to prove ourselves. And, you know, if you look at that cumulative behavior over a lifetime of a career, It's not surprising that so many people have health issues, turn to alcohol like I did, shopping, gambling, porn, whatever, to try to avoid all those fears of not being enough.

8:42My first bumper car moment. After that experience, did you go and repeat the behavior at your next job? Absolutely. I mean, that's right. You want to be like, no, I never did. But you went and repeat. No, because I was unconscious to how much my past was dictating my behavior at work. I was completely unaware of my belief system around believing that everybody else got to decide if I was good enough, my beliefs about myself, my interpretations of other people, particularly those in authority, especially if they were displeased about something, as well as my own reactions and responses, which manifested as being a people pleaser.

9:22and on a perfectionist, which as you and I both know in the corporate world, those behaviors are wildly rewarded because people will, you know, do everything they can to overachieve in the hopes of securing that external validation, not realizing that actually that's my job. I'm the one that gets to decide my value. It's not dependent on other people. But yes, those patterns showed up for me for 30 of my 36 years. It's embarrassing to say that, but it's true. You know, I don't really like admitting that, but it fueled my success. You know, the past definitely fueled my success, but it comes at a cost.

10:03It comes at a cost physically, emotionally, mentally, your relationship with other people, your relationship with yourself. There's so many costs associated with living a life and a career that way. You know, it's funny. I'm going through this so much now. I'm writing a new book for leaders who are, let's say, neurodistinct. Leaders who have ADHD or have bipolar like me or have chronic anxiety or on the autism spectrum who have very different brains but are very ambitious professionals. This is sort of the next step from The Anxious Achiever from all the work I did talking to people. And I am so scared of my own shadow when it comes to this book.

10:47I'm scared of being shamed. I'm scared of being told that I have no reason. How dare I write this book? My book and Martha Finney, my co-author knows this, it almost didn't get published because I was afraid. I was afraid of judgment. I was afraid of criticism. I was afraid of family members being really angry with me because of the story about my dad that I share. And I told Martha, we're not publishing the book. Oh, geez. And Martha, thank God for Martha. She's the woman of brilliant ideas. She recommended I spend some time with a woman named Celine DaCosta, who has become my coach. She's so good.

11:26And Celine had a New Year's Day special to do a one-on-one 90-minute intensive with her. And it was about your story. But I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. But what I will say was the essence of that session that she helped me to clarify was while I had a lot of fear of personal and professional judgment, my purpose for writing the book, my why, was way bigger than my fear. And we talked through a couple of the things that I was most worried about and just came up with a plan. Okay, so if this happened, what would you do? But the biggest piece, the biggest breakthrough, was the realization that my why for writing Healing at Work was to really wake people up.

12:11people like me who are maybe wildly successful in their career, but exhausted and constantly on the burnout spectrum to understand that a lot of that is fueled from our past and that there are ways that, and I'll talk about the transformation process in a minute and how to leverage the workplace to do that, but we don't have to live what I eventually called the unconscious wounded career path for our whole lives. Instead, we can step onto the conscious healing career path, which is the process of the transformation so i just wanted to point that out that you may be feeling like you know you should be writing this book but your fear i'm sure is much smaller than your reason for wanting to write it sorry that baby crying oh you know i just think so many of us are still looking for that pat on the head and the thing that I have learned in my sort of, I call it my three years in the wilderness since I sold my company, you know, when you have a job or you have a company that is at a certain level that you can sort of show up and run it, you can enact your wounded patterns, but they're comfortable, they're habits, right?

13:30How many days did you show up at work and do the same old, and you just were like, that's just how life is. Yeah. Suck it up. Suck it up. But when you disrupt that. So with me, I sold my company, it ended badly. I got fired a year in from my earn out. I was on my own. That was in May of 2022. I've been trying to heal from the unconscious wounded path, but also sort of trying to break through on some really new stuff. And, And so it feels really scary. It can be so scary at times of like, who said this was a good idea? Yeah, I completely understand that. I really can relate. And I really appreciate your vulnerability and sharing the emotion behind some of the thinking.

14:20And, you know, it's just one of the things about us, you know, as perfectionists is that we do keep pushing forward. and you're a woman with a great desire to help support other people, to have a better life and a better experience in their careers and their personal lives. And your purpose for wanting to write it, I can hear it when you're talking about it, how much it means to you, how much it personally connects with your own story. And I believe that's a gift from God, that he's guiding us to take the risks, to break through our fears, to be courageous, and to stand in whatever it is that we are creating.

15:02And I'm always really clear with people. I'm not a mental health expert. I'm not a therapist or anything like that. But I am a career and workplace expert. And I have a lot of experience of working with very successful, achieving, overachieving perfectionists. And, you know, I've worked with a lot of very amazingly talented, gifted people. They're extremely complex over my 36-year career. So it gives me an insight that a lot of people don't have, just like you with the work that you're doing. And the investment you've made in yourself to become certified in the whole world of trauma. and enabling what I think is the beginning of a major movement to help bring this level of consciousness into companies, into leaders so that they understand that there is an even better way to lead our companies and our cultures going forward.

15:56It doesn't have to be the way it's been for so many years. That facilitates and fuels most of us that come from these past with these unconscious, unhealthy patterns, really. So how do we get on the path? Well, I think the first step is just appreciating that, you know, we've endured and overcome a lot of things. And again, you know, it's hard to think about managing a change and a transformation with this because our perfectionism has fueled so much of our success. And, you know, both career wise as well as financially, etc. etc. However, I think that the workplace, and this is the beauty of Healing at Work book that Martha and I wrote, is that we can actually use the workplace as our own laboratory for emotional healing.

16:42And people always like, well, what are you talking about? Usually the workplace is an origin of stress, not a place of healing. But hear me out, because it's really powerful, and it really works. In those moments when we get emotionally upset at work, when someone has wound us up, You know, some people call it being triggered or hooked or activated. Those are the moments that usually send this into this visual I have. It's almost like a spiral into a pit of painful emotion. My pit of painful emotion was a lot of anxiety, worry, fear. You know, it was just this constant rumination of what did I do right or wrong today?

17:19And usually it was, what did you do wrong? You know, so these things happen all the time. The workplace is full of what Martha and I call bumper car moments. when we either crash into somebody, they crash into us, and sometimes we don't even realize that we're causing these effects on one another. The way I describe it in the book is that each day we go into work, we're bringing our today adult professional self reality, as well as our child past reality. So we're bringing kind of all that with us. A lot of it's unconscious. And every other single person we're working with is doing the same thing.

17:53So we're constantly colliding into one another like bumper cars at the fair. And rather than letting those moments sort of overtake us, keeping us spinning in that fight, flight, and freeze, when we start to look at them as, oh, that's a bumper car moment. I just crashed into my boss or, you know, this person just said something to me in a meeting and I feel like they've crashed into me and I've gotten upset because now I suddenly feel small or stupid or whatever it is. those are the moments of the greatest opportunity to start deprogramming and rewiring the neural pathways in our brain because most of the time we just go into the state of emotional pain but actually if we could say okay that's a bumper car moment what's going on right now this is the difference between staying on the unconscious wounded path where i felt like i was spiraling down every single day every night doing my own little performance review of myself and it never was going well.

18:51And rather than going into that pit, and actually this is terrible, but I used to name my, I didn't call them bumper car moments back then, but it was either an IOD, an issue of the day. So I'd go home and ruminate for a day, but then I'd be okay. Where an IOW was, that was an issue, a bumper car moment that actually affected me for an entire week. IOM was like a whole month. I was worried about it, stressed about it. And then the IOC was an issue of a career where I thought I was going to get fired. I mean, I named my triggers. How triggered am I? How emotionally charged has this made me go? And you know, it doesn't have to be that way.

19:29That's the unconscious window career path. Instead, as soon as a bumper car moment happens, you go, okay, step number one, this is my very simple rapid power reclaim. So how you reclaim your moment. And step number one is you have to create choice. And what I mean by that is that if you don't kind of catch yourself and go, I'm not going to spiral into this pit of painful emotion today. I am instead going to create choice. And the biggest way we can create choices, we have to be respectful of what's going on in our body. Our body's feeling all that energy of feeling whatever, not good enough, stupid, I screwed up, they're going to hate me, I'm going to get fired.

20:08But when we stay stuck in that, we have no choice. We just go into this spiral, you know, motion downward. And then like me, you know, Chardonnay was my best friend. I'd buy a bottle of Chardonnay basically every other night and use that to take the edge off all those painful emotions. Creating choice is recognizing that your body, you know, the book, The Body Keeps the Score, which talks about how things that happened to us a long time ago that caused strong emotional responses in our system, our nervous system, in our brain, are still part of who we are. And that the part of the brain, the emotional part of the brain, which is the fight, collider, freeze place, the amygdala, is the storage of memories of emotions.

20:53But it has no memory of the time. It doesn't acknowledge that, oh, when you were five years old, your dad was screaming at you. it doesn't store that but it just stores oh someone's mad at you or you perceive them to be mad and therefore you need to go into fight flight or freeze and so to create choice it's it's moving the energy out and there's lots of practices somatic practices i like just you know my my coach linda costa taught me sound movement and breath and it could be as simple as screaming into a pillow just to get the energy of being upset out of my body and when you get it out of your body, your whole body sort of feels relief.

21:30Like, oh, okay, now actually I'm able to move to step number two, which requires the prefrontal cortex to become activated, which is that center of the brain that is the executive decision-making problem solver. When you're stuck in that adrenaline of emotional turmoil, you can't get into a state of how do I make good decisions about how I respond. so that's creating choices getting there step two then is okay what am i going to do to elevate my action i am not going to go into people pleasing tap dancing now i am going to do something differently an elevated action might be you know i'm going to go talk to my boss to clarify the expectations for this project because as a perfectionist i'm thinking i gotta write a 50 page report and maybe for a one-page summary you know so you take an elevated higher functioning adult step to elevate your action rather than going into the automatic unconscious pit of pain.

22:29I just want to zero in on this for a second, because I think this is the most important part, right, is to sort of unhook the habit. Yeah. You know, we all know, especially those of us who are anxious achievers, we get into that perfectionist mode, we're impulsive, the anxious part of our brain takes over, and the anxious part of our brain is very efficient, very efficient, it's very focused. It will get the job done, but it will do a job that may not be the assignment. Correct. Or the expectation. Or the expectation. We always overthink it. You know, I remember one time my CEO at Rockwell said, Susan, I would really like to know how many hours per year do we give people training or development?

23:10And all of a sudden my brain went into, what? But we had SAP, but it only captures some of the data. And in my head, I had this four-month project already built. I'm going to have to call every HR leader around the world. They're going to have to do a survey of all their managers because managers sometimes do things we don't know about. And I was overwhelmed and near tears that I wasn't going to be able to deliver this for my boss. And all I did was, and I didn't realize it then, but I did take an elevated action, even though I was pretty activated, that there's no way I can do this. I'm never going to meet his expectations.

23:44I went back to him and I said, okay, before I start working on this project, first of all, what do you need it for? Right. We need this for the board of directors, shareholders. What do you need it for? No, I'd really like to have a data point in case I get asked this question in an all employee meeting. Oh, okay. And I basically said, look, there's two different paths I can take here. You know, we don't have a system that captures all this. So I could go about a very in-depth analysis that's going to take a lot of time and will require HR support from all over the world. I gave him a whole view of what it was going to take.

24:18Or I could talk to a few key HR leaders running big groups and get their input about it and then come back to you with an educated estimate and send you an email. He said, oh, the second's fine, right? So we create these, you know, images that we have to give them the very best product. It's got to be 100 % accurate. It's got to be validated around the world. Well, actually, he just needed to have a general answer in case it ever came up in an employee meeting. But that, again, it's like, okay, that's an elevated action. Go clarify or go check an assumption out with somebody. You know, in that meeting, you looked at me, you know, the impact was it felt disapproving, but I'm not sure if that was what you intended to send to me or not.

24:59Was that what you intended? Oh, well, no, actually, I didn't even realize I looked at you that way. You know, we often misread and misassume all kinds of things. Right. And those of us who show up basically as pin cushions every day to be stabbed. I mean, it's just like stab me. Oh, what? What are you talking about? I didn't even notice. I know. I know. I was just re-listening to our book on Audible because I haven't listened to it for a while. And there's one statement in there where it says something to the effect of, We are basically recruiting different people in our workplace unconsciously to be a part of our own play.

25:36And they don't even know they're being recruited. They don't even know that they've, you know, quote, activated our emotional response, causing us to feel a lot of stress. You know, so this idea of, you know, I had no idea I was recruiting all these people into my story of I'm not good enough. They actually had no idea. Aren't you worried about their own? They are. I know. It's absolutely true. It's just, it's so fascinating, all of the stories we make up. One of the other things in the book that I was reminded of as I listened to it is this whole idea is the next time you feel emotionally triggered, this is an elevated action, by the way, ask yourself, am I sure?

26:15Am I sure my boss is angry with me or maybe he's or she's just having a bad day? That's another rather than immediately spiraling onto the unconscious, wounded path into misery. like oh well you know am I sure that my colleagues intentionally left me out of a meeting you know maybe they thought that it was unnecessary for me to attend maybe I'll go check that out and you start elevating your action and you start to release you know the hooks of the desire to have you know have this need for everybody to validate us I mean I have a similar framework which is notice name and understand your anxiety it's like noticing it yes I'm getting that feeling again.

26:57I'm making the six month plan in my head. Name it. I love that. I love it. I'm anxious. I'm doing it. I'm being and then understand it, which is the twofold, which is like, this is something I do. Yep. Work on it in therapy, like go deep. But also the understand is like, understand the assignment. Like exactly point. Yep. And then step three of the transformation is celebrate and integrate. When we actually change what we do, we elevate our action rather than flying into that pit of misery, then it's important to take time out to celebrate it. And it can be as simple as I remember one time I had elevated my action preparing for a big strategy review meeting.

27:43and I was really proud of myself. And so I just went outdoors in the sun. It was a summer day. It was June. There was a beautiful blue sky and I just stood there and breathed and I felt the breeze on my face and I could hear the birds chirping and I felt really proud of myself. And when we celebrate, it's actually bringing forward application of all the positive psychology research that says when we focus on positive things, it improves the quality of our life and actually decreases depression. And the act of celebrating is also a reinforcement to our brain to start rewiring those neural pathways so we aren't constantly sliding down that old unconscious path.

28:28The more we create choice, elevate action, and then celebrate, the more we begin to integrate a new way of experiencing ourselves in the workplaces. And that repetition of integrating through celebration is such a powerful element of changing our natural nervous system response rate to whatever's going on to us around us at work. And it's simple. And honestly, the three-step process can be quick. It can be, you know, you talked about the physiological symptoms are the first indicator that you're in the middle of a bumper car moment. That's your tell, that's your tell. It feels like an elephant sitting on my chest and I can't breathe.

29:07And they're like, okay, oh, okay. I'm having a moment, a bumper car moment. What do I got to do about it? I got to get that out of my body. I'm going to elevate my action. And then I'm going to celebrate that and integrate it into my identity. And it's just practice. Practice. I still get triggered. I mean, I'm human. But I spend a lot less time in the valley of misery than I used to. Now it's much more like, okay, I can eliminate. Well, I'm officially retired from corporate now. I can eliminate issue of a career. And so the issue of the day, I don't even use that language anymore. It's like, oh, it's an opportunity.

29:41I just got triggered. It's an opportunity for me to practice calming this part of my brain so that I don't keep having these automatic unconscious responses that are uncomfortable, that upset me. I'm, as you know, I'm a big fan of ACT therapy. I'm not a therapist, just a lay person, but pretty experienced one by this point. I have been practicing, this happened to me the other day where I get very triggered and not just triggered because sometimes, you know, I don't want to minimize this. Like sometimes when we're triggered, it is a hint that there is something deeper. It's not always, oh, this is an old childhood pattern.

30:20Let's move on. I was very upset the other day. I got some feedback on my book idea that was real. So yes, I was triggered. All of my issues that we talked about before at an 11, but there was a real thorny thing underneath it, which is like, Maura, you have to solve this. You have to. So you have to work through the anxiety that's blocking the solution so you can get to a clear head, elevate action. And the only way through was to actually sit and cry. And I had like not a panic attack, but I had an anxiety attack. Yeah. And have this sort of strength to sort of be like, you have to feel this.

31:01You're not going to move through this. Yep. That's creating choice. That's right. Right. It's recognizing the body needs to process this emotional impact. And for you, it's anxiety. Anxiety is definitely one of mine as well, for sure. Yeah. And then when you did, you probably felt better. Well, I felt like I had the energy to think about the problem. Yes. Yep. And I had a big unlock, actually. I really sort of, it worked for me. It doesn't always work. You know, I think, I think part of, part of when, when these old triggers get their hooks in us, we, we may have some learned helplessness around it.

31:42And so we become that five-year-old who can't help herself anymore. Because when you're five, you can't say, daddy, stop. No, no, that's true. That's true. I am just smiling because I just finished another book. I've listened to it twice, another recommendation from my coach. And actually she said something to me one day that was like, what? The book is called Existential Kink. And the author's first name is Carolyn. I'm not going to remember her last name right now. But one day I was in a coaching session and I was anxious about something. And my coach said, do you know that you're addicted to anxiety?

32:20And I'm like, I never thought of that. I never thought about that. What do you mean addicted to it? And she shared this book with me. And it's fascinating because what it basically says, and you started getting at it with your comment a minute ago about your anxiety attack, is that there are certain states that become very familiar to us. And a lot of it's through the things that we dealt with when we were growing up. But what the author is really saying is that there is an element of that state that actually unconsciously you highly value because it's giving you something. It's giving you benefits.

32:57In your case, it was, well, you know, if I have to work through this problem, I have to be accountable. I have to solve it. Nobody else is going to solve it for me. And so staying in a state of anxiety keeps you from that clarity of what do I need to do to be able to move through this? And the author talks about having is wanting. So whatever you're having or experiencing, you actually want. And until you get to that deeper level of understanding the unconscious positives that you're getting from some of these stressful emotional states, only then are you able to start to appreciate and start to relax and being able to let go of some of those behaviors.

33:37I mean, I think anxiety is a huge mother of invention for a lot of us. And we do use it constructively, even though it feels terrible, like, you know, to your point as a lifelong perfectionist, you know, perfectionism is anxiety. You can make, you can move mountains. You can. There's no question about it. But there's also a cost. There's a huge cost. But what this author is saying is that actually there's, I'm not articulating as well as I'd like to, but there's this essence of the cost that we also get benefit from. The things that I found myself saying more often than I actually realized was, well, I'm confused.

34:18I'm confused. Okay. Well, what is it about confusion? What are you getting from confusion? What do you, you know, so basically it was, well, if I'm confused and it's somebody else's fault, you know, I can put the accountability on the other person rather than me taking accountability. You know, so I'm like, oh, I never even thought about that. Now I'm like, I'm never saying I'm confused again. I love that. It's like a completely different way of thinking about yourself and the world and your relationship with the world. And so good. I'll probably listen to it a third time. I mean, it's really interesting.

34:51She's, you know, I mean, there's some kink related to some of the messaging. But the essence of what she's talking about, I just think is really, it was really valuable to me to think about. She's got several different exercises. I'm not going to do it justice. But, you know, so if there's something you don't like, you have to start asking yourself, what am I getting from this? And I was driving myself to a horse show in the last couple of weekends and started thinking about my riding. I'm like, you know, it's just I get so mad at myself when I make a mistake in the ring. I just want to beat myself up and judge myself.

35:25And so I'm driving along and I'm sort of mimicking some of her language. But it was like, I love screwing up in the horse show ring. I love it because then I'm not going to win. And therefore, people will still like me and they won't think I'm better than them. I mean, I was going into this whole thing about what am I getting from all this beating myself? Well, you know what? If I beat myself up, nobody else feels like they have to beat myself up. So I'm avoiding being beaten up by other people. Yes. Right. Because when I'm stuck, one of the things that I wrote in The Anxious Achiever, which is a line that I really like, is that perfectionism is brittle.

36:03oh yeah it is rigid and we all know that growth and leadership is flexible it's expansive perfectionism is that narrow well i'm gonna screw up but as long as i do it x y and z you know i know what will happen right and people will think people will like me and it'll all be okay. It's that rigidness, right? Versus the like, I don't know. Maybe I'll screw up. Maybe people will hate me. But I'll be okay. But I'm going to try. Yep. When we're perfectionistic, we don't try. Yeah, we push. We push. It's different. I like that a lot. It is very different. I always think of to horses, we both love horses, you know, the horse has blinders on because it can only see what's in front of it.

36:56Yeah. And well, the other piece about perfectionism that's certainly true for me is if I'm not perfect, then I face fear of failure. Yeah. And I will then be nothing. I'm just having this memory. This goes back many, many years. Another amazing woman, Lee Weinraub, has got a cool company called Mind in Motion. She walks with people. She's a therapist. Oh, wow. So basically, she came to a horse show and she said, I want you to go into the ring and screw up over every jump. And I want you to do this for like the next 10 horse shows. Just go in and screw up every jump. And then I want you to come out of the ring and I want everybody who knows and loves you, I want you to imagine them all just hugging you because it doesn't matter whether you screwed up a jump or not because they still love you.

37:39talk about a rigid grasp on your whole system that really causes you to not perform from an athletic standpoint as effectively as you need to a you're not breathing so your brain's getting no oxygen but it's sort of the same idea like you know how do you help people how do you help yourself manage the fear of failure and of being nothing you know the fear for me it was a fear of getting in trouble if I failed at something. You know, so I think there's a whole other component of recognizing that perfectionism is about image management. It's about managing fear of failure. It's, I love your, your concept that it's fragile.

38:23It feels so accurate. It's like we could break at any moment. Somebody looks at us wrong and we're immediately devastated. That's that unconscious wounded career path is realizing that that's a part of who we are, appreciating that part of us because it kept us safe in some respect when we were little, or at least gave us a sense of safety and security, but also appreciate that we can do it differently now that we're adults. We have choice. We do. Maintaining and focusing on how do I stay in my highest functioning adult self rather than my wounded me driving the bus, that then becomes really key.

39:01And Rapid Power We Claim helps you to do that. It really does. I also want to throw a plug in here for listeners for internal family systems work and parts therapy, you know, where you really can find that part of yourself. Yes. I often say that there's a middle schooler in every one of us somewhere, you know. But even more seriously than that, there is probably a lot of us. We have so many parts and some are wounded and some are strong and they all have their role, right? They do. That's a whole other discussion of how family, their family role we played growing up, how that shows up at work.

39:38Oh, my God. Yes. The hero, the scapegoat, the comedian or the comic, you know, the lost child. We all show up at work in such similar costumes. It's crazy. Wherever you go, there you are, as my beloved therapist used to say. So I want to end here. Yeah. You know, now you're coaching, you're working with executives. I am. What would you do if someone said to you, but this is how I know how to be successful? What if I change my behavior and I'm not successful anymore? Well, I think that's a normal reaction. In fact, the first time I went through a major assessment at Kellogg's, one of the outcomes was I was super high on perfectionism.

40:23I know that's shocking. And I remember thinking, oh, excellent. I'm good at perfectionism. That's why I'm so good at what I do. I remember the consultant, a guy named Ken Wright, who I still work with, he said, no, no, no, you're not understanding. Perfectionism is not healthy for you. And while it might be working for you now, it will stop working for you in the future. And I completely disregarded his comment. I'm like, well, my perfectionism is part of who I am. That's why I'm successful. And I blew it off. I mean, I really did. But I remember some of his other words, he said. He said, the problem with perfectionism is that you define yourself based on what you do rather than who you are.

41:04And you can basically focus on managing the perfectionism and focus on being achievement oriented, which is all about defining yourself based on who you are and still doing great work. When you're stuck in perfectionism, it's like you said, it's like a brittle shell. and ultimately the cost of perfectionism is significant you know the cost of distraction and rumination the cost of using unhealthy self-soothing habits the cost of constantly beating yourself up and going into states of anxiety and depression there are a lot of costs that come with hanging on to the perfectionism like it's the only thing you have to be successful but if you start to shift to all right how do I start detaching who I am from what I do I'm still going to do great work.

41:53But I'm letting you get much better asking for clarity about what's the desired outcome. You know, how much time do you need me to do it? If you need me to do these three priorities, I'm going to need to push one back. Are you good with that? So you start learning how to navigate and negotiate your work so that it's not leading you to show up in the state of perfectionism. And then also giving lots of tools to people who are managing the perfectionism. So one of the tools is a simple tool called QQTR, which stands for quality, quantity, time, and resources, which perfectionists think if they get an assignment, they've got to do it to the, you know, the hundredth degree.

42:30But if you then start to negotiate with your boss or your colleague or whoever it is you're doing the work for, okay, you want me to do this project? You know, again, kind of my example with my former CEO, what's the quality, level of quality? Do you need it to be exact or can it be an estimate? The quantity, you know, do you need this to be a one-page summary? Are you looking for a 30-page report, a presentation? You know, what are you looking for? Time, how much time do I have? Every leader is going to say, well, I need it. I need it by next week. Okay, I can do that. But if I do that, I'm going to have to push back this other priority.

43:03Are you okay with that? Okay, you're not okay with that. Then I'm going to need some more resources. And so you just start to negotiate so that you're not killing yourself on every project. Another simple tool is the four D's. This was a really game changer for me is anytime I get an assignment, I always assumed I had to do it. But actually, that's not necessarily the case. I'm working with one leader right now, and we're really looking at how strong there's your team and how much can you delegate. So the four D's are you have to ask yourself, am I supposed to do this? Am I supposed to delegate it?

43:37Can I defer it? Or could I dump it? I had one colleague at Kellogg's years ago, Frank Hargrove. I love the guy. And he would say, you know, Susan, I get emails from people all the time with requests. I print them. I put them in a drawer. I don't do anything with them until someone calls me three times. Talk about deferring. I mean, that was great. He was an expert king at deferring. If it was important to somebody, they would follow up and then he would take action. The QQTR is really powerful. And then the four ADs is also really powerful. So starting to give people techniques for managing the perfectionism in healthier ways.

44:13Yeah. That's what I've been doing. There's lots of other techniques, but those are a couple. I love it. And most important, as you said before, is just to start asking some questions. Really? Ask yourself questions. Ask the other person. You know, just giving it some space. I'll just end with this. Some of the most powerful advice I ever got was from Buffy Purcell. who's a, she's a money manager, but she talks a lot about our emotional attachment with money. And we were talking about money and anxiety and how, you know, imagine you get a letter from the IRS. No one wants a letter from the IRS.

44:47If you have money anxiety, what's your first inclination? I'll just write the check, please. I don't want to get out, right? Like, and she said, you know, what I tell my clients with money and is you actually don't have to do anything right away, which is such a radical notion to those of us or you know your friend frank would be fine with it if someone said your boss asked you to do this you got a letter from the irs and you don't have to what no i have to stop everything yeah do you no you don't we just perfectionist ever think about negotiating the terms of the assignment we just always assume it's going to be at the you know perfectionism level.

45:27Not always the case. It's managing our own nervous system's response to how do I step up and negotiate? How do I manage this? It's really getting focused on, okay, how do I manage this with the rapid power reclaim? How do I step into this? How do I not get overwhelmed by this?

45:48That's it for this week's show. If you like the show, Follow us and tell your friends. And please leave us a review. It really helps the anxious achiever get found by people just waiting for our content. I'm your host, Maura Aarons-Mele. Lots more to come in the next episode.

46:21Thank you.