Avoid The Perfection Trap | Thomas Curran

30:21It's something that's completely subjective and someone might give it a low score and say, I don't like that piece of art. And someone might actually love that piece of art. So those are like the dichotomy that we struggle with internally in the company and reflecting in our upbringing. There is a lot of difference there. Absolutely. I mean, it's so interesting. You both share divergent experiences there. I mean, you're absolutely right, AJ. Quantity, metrics, these are like kryptonite to perfectionism because there is an objective 100 % and the problem is that anything short of that, which by the way, 99 % of the time, we will probably get somewhere short of that.

31:00It's very unlikely that in every single assessment we're going to absolutely nail, which leads to a lot of disappointments. And if the only thing that matters is the perfect test score, then the life is going to be quite disappointing most of the time. And the problem is with perfectionism, even if you do get 100 % there's always going to be another test around the corner right so it's not even if you can enjoy it yeah it's not even if you can enjoy that because and in anything you put more pressure on yourself because the better you do now the better you're expected to do the next time right so it's it's exhausting to to live like that but it certainly instills a perfection a perfectionistic kind of thinking uh which absolutely can carry through we see it's in the literature all the time high pressurized high expecting the environments is are strongly correlated with later life perfections.

31:49I would say, though, there's an interesting second piece to this, and that's genetics. And we know that perfection is about 34 % genetic, just like any other personality characteristic. So we have to be a bit cowboy, because it could be that our parents' perfectionism is what's driving the behaviors, which then is what we're interpreting as the parenting practices. They're actually just come through genetics, right? So Johnny described an environment that potentially wasn't as perfectionistic as AJ, but that may be because your parents didn't have as much perfectionism and therefore they passed on less perfectionism.

32:25And so can you see the intergenerational transmission isn't just about socialization, but it's also about genetics. And we have to be aware of that because why that's important is that I think there's something comforting about all this in that because there's this limited control that we have over the way we turn out. My mom is a classic perfectionist. And the reason why I have these anxieties, I think, is because of that. I think my past on through my mother's line. And I don't know. I think there's something quite comforting about that. Like, you know, these feelings that I feel at some level aren't my fault and I can take a lot of solace in that.

33:00Now, nevertheless, having said all that, there is no doubt that there is a socialization piece. This is a 34 % leaves a lot for the environment to explain. So your question was, what do we do? Well, I think the answer to that is in a bit about what I've already said about recognizing perfectionism is the issue, but also recognizing that there's nothing wrong inherently with wanting to do better, right? Wanting to grow. The growth mindset, for example, is part of your upbringing, AJ, right? You know, keep doing better, keep learning, keep developing, and improving all the rest of it. Nothing wrong with that at all.

33:33But we have to recognize that abundance, enoughness is antithetical to growth, right? Once we reach a point, so basically we cannot be, we cannot feel abundant. We cannot feel complete. We cannot feel enough under conditions of growth because growth requires scarcity. It requires lack. It requires us being in some way less than all the time for us to have something to improve upon. and so I think what's really important is we recognize yes growth is important but to a point all right and we have to recognize that we get to a point in our career in our lives where we've done remarkable things where we succeeded where we've reached the goals that we set ourselves and then it has to switch where's the meaning where's the purpose where's the why now okay I've climbed the ladder I've done the hard yards I'm gonna be living in complete misery for the rest of my life If I'll continue to keep pushing myself more and more and more, I need to recognize that it's not always about growth.

34:31Sometimes we can level off, right? Sometimes we can reach a point of stasis that we're comfortable with. And then we can pursue what I think brings us a lot of joy. You know, what is the meaning in our work? What are we trying to leave in the world for other people to use and appreciate and learn from? What's our bigger purpose? So I think that would be my main message. I don't think there's anything wrong, particularly in the early stages of learning, of pushing ourselves a little bit and wanting to develop. But we also, as human beings, have to recognize there are limits to the amount that we can grow.

35:03And sometimes we have done really well. We need to enjoy that and think on a bit of a higher plane. So that's kind of where I am with that. Yeah, it's funny looking back at my upbringing. So, you know, one of my things after school was to just seek a little break mentally, emotionally and as an introvert. And I would say, just let me relax a little while. And that was very frustrating to my dad. So he actually made me a t-shirt that said, just let me relax a while. And I got to wear that t-shirt growing up because it became a moment for him to scold me, chide me to go back to schoolwork, go back to learning, go back to growing in that capacity.

35:45And of course, now hearing that, that there's a piece to genetic, there's a piece to the socialization. I'm concerned as potentially becoming a parent, how is that going to show up in the way that I choose to raise my kids? And I'm curious, recognizing that about your mom and your genetics, how you approach potentially passing on that perfectionism. Yeah, I think you've got to break the intergenerational chain at some point and recognize that, look, you've got to think a bit smarter. Just zoom out. All the data that's coming through now, for example, are on the four-day work week, which is staggering, that you actually get more productivity for less time invested.

36:25Why? Because more doesn't always mean better. You know, it's like there's a zone of declining and diminishing returns to every unit of extra effort that we put in beyond a certain threshold because we're sacrificing vitalizing activities, time of friends, time of our family, you know, rest, good diet and sleep. You know, all these things are so so important to productivity at work and if we just keep pushing us more and more and more we'll find these are actually perform worse in the long run so I think we just need to think a bit smarter than this kind of just pure work ethic work ethic work ethic and so for for our children I think the message really is that you know it's important to work hard there's something intrinsically satisfying about working and getting somewhere you know achieving growing and all the rest of it.

37:10Those things are really important priorities to instill. But at the same time, it's really so important for parents to be consistent in the way that they treat their children in terms of love and affection. So when they have done well, praise the effort, use that as a reinforcement for the learning and development and growth that they've invested themselves in. But when they haven't quite done so well, let's say they haven't nailed that test and they're really disappointed this is where you know parenting comes into action um and i think a good parenting that has the right values would treat kids in exactly the same way right give them a hug tell them it's fine you know this is an indictment on you doesn't say anything about how much your teacher likes you how much your parents love you or whatever it's just one disappointing test result of many other test results that you're gonna get right so it and And it may not have just suited your skill set on that particular day, or maybe you just had a bad night's sleep, but it's fine.

38:05You know, we love you anyway. And that consistency of approval is so, so, so important. Because when you start to subtly defer approval on the expectation of more, bigger, better, and higher performance, then what that teaches young people is they're only really worth something as a person when they've succeeded. And that when they have failed, that's something that says something about them. and that is the that is the short path to perfection so consistency of level approval is so so important nothing wrong with having high standards but you have to be consistent when they've done well when they haven't done quite so well this treatment is the same and finally just quickly to say this because I think it's so so important kids are very impressionable creatures so if we do have perfectionism you carry that into into the parenting domain that That could also, you know, they might learn those anxious behaviors or the aversion to failure.

38:58So humanize failure, humanize mistakes. If you've had a bad day, let them know, talk around the dinner table, laugh about it, make a joke about it, normalize these experiences. So, so important. Young people see that. And that is also a good way to stop affections and creeping in. It's a big point because children model everything. They will model your behaviors. They will model how you deal with conflict. They will model how you interact with other people. A lot of it, it's not even on a conscious level. They're just absorbing and it's all imprinting on them. So those conversations about those behaviors are going to be incredibly important.

39:45And specifically, even being able to laugh at those behaviors at the dinner table so that those children know that it's okay to laugh at these behaviors because perfectionism isn't the best way to go. And that they are going to come up short and that that's okay. I think it's also about, I mean, the thing is a failure. So interesting. thing we we have aversion to it in in modern society because of the consequences of slipping up or making mistakes especially in an age of social media can be blown up all over the place like i understand the fear but it's kind of crazy because failure is just regression to the mean like we're gonna fail way more than we succeed it's like it's 49 of the 50 people that take up wimbledon are gonna lose a game it's the same at a tour de france you know we've had 249 and 250 are not going to win the general classification.

40:42Like most people will at some stage for sure. And so that's why it's so important to praise, reward the times we do succeed because those are really, really crucial parts of learning praise for a child, but also at the same time, not over catastrophize in those moments of failure because they are not objective catastrophes. They're just having a bad day. And I think that messaging is so important and if young people will listen, they will learn. And hopefully that will kind of mitigate that fear of failure that a lot of young people are experiencing these days. Well, we've certainly talked a lot about social media on this show, the impact that it has, the comparison-driven highlight reels that create this fun house mirror around us on every platform.

41:26And it just seems like in order now to even get visibility, you have to have larger and larger feats of success. And another part of that social media experience, again, is there is a scoreboard. So it's quantified. It's measurable. How many likes am I getting? How many friends and followers am I adding? So there's that added degree of comparison beyond just the imagery and the videos that we're seeing and consuming, but then also the way social media ranks, force ranks us with leaderboard and scoring. The internet doesn't forget either. Your friends might forget that you fell down a few stairs and laughed it off when you guys went out for drinks.

42:01But that clip of that is now living on the internet. recognizing all the downsides of perfectionism, what do you recommend we do in our approach to technology and engaging in the digital world, which seems to be so likely to cause a lot of this perfectionism, frustration, fear, failure comparison? Well, you know, it's curious you bring that up because I'm old enough to remember the very start of social media. Facebook was a college campus social networking tool. and I was one of the first users to take it up in the very beginning and it's funny you mentioned goofing up and all that sort of stuff because that was what it was for I just remember we would have nights out as college students, of course you do things that college students do people would take photos and the next morning you'd log on with trepidation of what you'd been tagged in because that was the whole point of it it was about cementing offline relationships documenting offline scrapes and capers that you would have with your friends, right?

43:06And so it's interesting to bring that up because today it's almost the reverse, right? We log on in trepidation of what we haven't been tagged in. Like as if we don't matter or we're not recognized that people aren't giving us fire emojis or mentions or shares and all the rest of it. It's a completely different tool to what it used to be. But I think there's something, the answer lies in that difference because I think if we can reconnect of what it was originally devised for, right, to cement offline relationships, bring people to give around common interests, grow communities, then it's an incredibly powerful tool, not just in the workplace, not just in our social world, in our family, friends, relationships, and all the rest of it.

43:46It has so much power to do such tremendous good, but it isn't used for that. It's an advertising device, right? And it's used to create an aura of discontent into which captures our attention and spending because that's where the revenues are. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. That's just the company doing what they should be doing in this economy. But I think it's important for the user to recognize that and to try to take it back to what it used to be. I do see signs of that, by the way, in young people's interaction with social media. They're posting less, interestingly, and they're also using the messaging feature more, right, to communicate with each other.

44:19I think there are some signs that we're turning in the right direction with that. So it's not about throwing the baby off the board. It's not about saying, let's just get rid of the platforms, let's ban them whatever i actually think there's tremendous power but it's about using them for the right reasons and that goes for social media just as it does for ai and all the other technologies are coming down the road well i can certainly remember back then we weren't thinking that our future employers were going to do a social media audit of who we are even before we get in the room or our interviewer ask us some questions about our social media presence.

44:58And not to mention default settings were private to people you knew, right? So anything that was being shared was not posted publicly. Whereas now in order for them to capture our attention, everything is set to public to gain as much time on these apps as humanly possible. And I know for myself, I've posted less, and in turn, I've logged on less, and I focus more on the in-person connection versus substituting it with the digital. I think it's a much bigger ask to post more of my flops and failures on social, recognizing some of the comments, et cetera, we see and feel from just being a public figure online.

45:39It is very interesting to see generationally how they're now approaching Gen Z, Gen Alpha is approaching these online experiences. Whereas we were first to be introduced to it, excited to post everything. Now we're seeing this reversion back to more privacy, concern about what is going to live online forever. Yeah, I think we were catnip, weren't we? For ripe for this kind of, I don't call it exploitation, it's not as aggressive as that. But I think you're right. We were captured in it. We were excited and we wanted to post all of ourselves and all of our lives. And I think Gen Z are coming through and going, I'm not sure actually whether that's quite the right approach.

46:22And they're taking, I think, a slightly, I would say, healthier approach to it, which is great. I think that's how these things will change from the ground up. So it's nice to see that. Well, think about it. They have to deal with that in school. I didn't have to go to junior high dreading what social media was going to say about me and the following me around from school to home into my digital life, where now they have to carry that around them as much as their backpack. It's never going away. And they're constantly connected. They learned much earlier the importance of that where that wasn't in our lives at that time, certainly not mine as a Gen Xer.

47:05Yeah, I 100 % agree. I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're absolutely right. Yeah, there is more awareness just because they're the first generation, I suppose, still growing up, just immersed in it. So, of course, they're going to be more educated than we were coming through. Exactly. Looking at the title of the book, The Perfection Trap, are there signs and signals for us to recognize that we're falling into this trap? We talked a lot about how it can help us. We've also talked a lot about how it can hurt us. So how do we recognize that it's actually a trap? And what can we start to do after that to get our way out of this trap?

47:43Perfectionists are really harshly self-critical when they've messed up and made mistakes. That's because it's revealed to the world what they deep down are trying to hide, which is an exhaustible, fallible human being. underneath the surface. But there's also an important second piece to this, that perfectionists, when they have succeeded, as was kind of alluded to earlier, they can enjoy that success because the better they do, the better they're expected to do. So there's a very fleeting satisfaction from success that they feel because it's the next thing and the next thing. And if you feel caught in that bind, which is essentially the perfection trap, right, between trying to avoid failure so that people don't see your shameful, imperfect interiors, but at the same time find it really difficult to enjoy any success, then that's perfectionism, right?

48:34That's the trap that we're locked inside. It's an unwinnable game because no matter what happens, you're always going to feel discontented. And as I mentioned, and I keep mentioning it, but it's so important. First of all, I have to recognize, it goes back to what Johnny was alluding to at the beginning, You know, this is a culturally acceptable trait. This is something that I think we celebrate. We have to turn our back on that myth. It isn't something that pushes us forward. The data is very clear. It's not linked to success. And at the same time, it carries all of these difficult mental health complaints that are associated with being bound in this trap, this unwinnable game.

49:10and once we've done that we can start to think about living a little bit differently about chasing abundance in our lives about chasing enoughness I'll call it you know the uh my subtitle of my book was very much inspired by a psychologist Carl Rogers's quote he said I am good enough if only I would be allowed to be so openly that's the challenge it's about opening ourselves up to the world imperfections and all being brave enough and vulnerable enough to show up and make mistakes and do things badly, just to suck at stuff essentially, and go through the discomfort and the anxiety and the worry that that's going to engender because it's going to engender loads of it.

49:51And while we're feeling those things to be kind to ourselves, vulnerability and self-compassion is so important in turning the back of perfectionism. So when we make mistakes, it's so important to be kind and important to be kind to other people as well when they've made mistakes. and this isn't going to be a linear process you know showing up being vulnerable uh making mistakes being self-compassionate learning developing growing same rinse repeat going to encounter lots of setbacks we're going to put the mask of perfection back on and then we're going to feel bad about ourselves for not trying harder you know to break free from this and all the while we have to we have to just know that the journey is the most important thing we live in a society it's probably going to make us put on the mask of perfection way more than we'd like to but that's okay.

50:33The point is that we're addressing it, that we're recognizing it's a problem, we're trying to live differently. And over time, you become more comfortable, you feel in yourself a sense of abundance, a sense of completeness, a sense of good enoughness. And you experience the joy that comes with that in those moments. And this isn't about living in a complete state of ecstasy, but it's about encountering more of that joy on never increasing basis. That's the purpose of trying to turn it back on perfectionism and become more self-aware and self-accepting. So those are the things I would recommend.

51:08And if you can apply them in your own eyes, then it's like taking a sledgehammer to perfection. Yeah, I think going along with that, obviously, it's easy to celebrate our successes, to look at those victories and give ourselves a pat on the back. I think it's also important to give ourselves a pat on the back for all the failures and setbacks we've been through. And sometimes just self-reflection. I failed tests, I didn't get good grades in certain subjects, and I'm still here. And I'm still going at it with that growth mindset. I think oftentimes if we just reflect on our wins, again, it creates that trap that we're talking about where then we try to avoid failure at all turns.

51:46And sometimes that avoiding failure can actually lead to procrastination. And I know that's one of the reason that some of our clients join our coaching programs and work with us is because that state of procrastination has had them so stuck and so far away from the growth mindset that they aspire to that they can't get themselves out of it. Learning, growing, that's difficult. It's messy. So those mistakes are going to happen. And it's not comfortable to do that around friends because their friends have a certain picture of them that they don't want to shatter, or at least those expectations that they have put on themselves that they think from their friends.

52:25But for our clients, once they're in an accountability group where they're learning and outside of that comfort zone with lots of others, they're happy to share the mistakes they're making and the progress that they're making because they're surrounded by people who are outside of their comfort zone. And in any group, we're going to have a certain small percentage of doers who are going to try to advance themselves or engage in things that they are passionate about. There's going to be maybe 10 % more of that group who see those people taking action, who are going to engage with those people because they're interested in that.

53:09They don't know how to get started. Somebody is. They're going to help out. But the rest of that group, the 90 % of that group is sitting in the stands, afraid to participate, afraid to get anything started for whatever their fear that they have to deal with. But now in the accountability group, everyone is in the arena. Everyone is participating. Everyone is making those mistakes. And in fact, they feel guilty not participating and not making those mistakes. And they are encouraged then to put their best foot forward into the abyss to grow. And I know in reading the book, I think maybe even for some members of our audience, they don't recognize the link between procrastination and perfectionism.

53:55So if you can unpack that a little bit, I think that'd be super helpful for those who are falling into the procrastination trap. Yeah, and that's so interesting because you're absolutely right. Perfectionists fear failure to such an extent that they'll sabotage their chances of success. The primary motive is to avoid the failure. Success is secondary. It's much more important to save face. And it's really interesting you say that about even with family. We have this idea in our mind's eye of what people expect us to look like or appear like or perform like. And we don't want that image to be shattered.

54:31And that's true. We don't. But it's in those moments where that image is shattered that we realize something very important. And that's this. that that image was nothing more than a prop for our self-esteem and a fragile prop at that that when that image is shattered for whatever reason whether we made a mistake whether we screwed up whether it just didn't pan out the way we planned because sometimes it's out of our control too by the way if things don't go well we realize something remarkably important about ourselves and if we can in that moment reflect and actually let those feelings in that's when we can start to become emboldened to make those mistakes again, right?

55:11To put ourselves in the, I suppose, uncomfortable position of maybe failing or maybe making a mistake on an ever more regular basis because we realize that that image is nothing more than a fragile prop. So I think that's so important. And like you say, emboldening people to do that is so important. And again, it goes back to this primary motive for the perfectionist to avoid failure. And we see this time and time in the lab. And we love to create situations of failure. One, because failure is normal, natural, happens a lot in everyday life. But two, because something remarkable happens when you put infections in a situation, challenge of failure, which is why it's so interesting to look at it in the lab.

55:51So we give people cognitive tasks, puzzles. We might give them athletic tasks, like race against each other on a cycling activity, for example. And what we'll do is no matter how well they perform on that task, we'll all tell them that they failed. right, to meet a goal or they were the last of all competitors, right, is a bit annoying, but it does elicit a response. And the response is what tells us about the perfectionistic mindset and their emotional and behavioral responses to that difficulty. And two things happen that I think are really remarkable. The perfectionist people, people that score high in perfectionism, when they encounter that failure, their shame spikes way more than the shame spikes from people who are non-perfectionistic.

56:33And shame is a self-conscious emotion that basically tells us we're rubbish, that we've failed, it's something that's an indictment on us. They feel a lot of guilt, so they worry about how it's looked to other people and whether other people still find them a worthwhile human being. But also their pride in themselves declines, plummets. But it's not just emotional responses that are interesting, it's also behavioral. Because if you suddenly say to them, but don't worry about all of that failure, it's okay, hey, you can redeem yourself because you can have another go. On the second attempt after the first failure, perfectionist people will remove themselves completely.

57:09They'll just take themselves out of the activity. Their effort will plummet, especially on athletic tasks. We do this in the lab time and time again, right? They just don't try on the second attempt because the intensity of those emotions was so fierce. They don't want to feel that again. They don't want to give all themselves and still feel even shit about themselves, right? So they just give up. They just withdraw. And that's not just about complete withdrawal. It's also, that's the same mechanism that's occurring when it comes to procrastination too. It's an anxiety management technique that they know this is challenging.

57:40They know this is super, super hard. And the anxiety in that moment is so tough to deal with head on that we just take ourselves away, right? Distract, do something else for that brief moment to take ourselves away from that activity. But of course, even though in that moment, we're not damaged by those emotions, we are in the course of time damaged by them to an even greater extent. So obviously it's a non-optimal coping mechanism, but it's the one that perfectionist people use a lot because the primary motive is to avoid failure. So procrastination is a scourge for the perfectionist, and it's so simple to recognize what's going on underneath, and it's always that aversion to failure.

58:17So embracing failure, embracing the idea that we're going to make mistakes is so important when it comes to pulling through perfection. Recognizing your own perfectionism, what have you done personally to bring the good enough mindset into your life and into practice first of all i has to this is the first thing to say here is that um i'm fairly uh privileged position because i've climbed the academic ladder so in my profession i've gone as high as you probably could go i'm at a russell group institution as associate prof i'll probably be a full professor soon this is equivalent to the ivy league for american listeners i have the privilege of being able to step off the gas now and focus on things that bring me purpose and meaning which is what I'm doing and that's and that is helping me come through my own perfectionism it's helping me realize and gain a sense of satisfaction in my accomplishments I could never do that it was I was unable to singly do that a few years ago but just being able to kind of take a more philosophical outlook on life and realize that if you said to me at 19 this is where you'd be it would have just blown my mind and I think sometimes you have to hold on to that you have to realize that we can do remarkable things and we have done remarkable things and and at what point do you go okay I need to stop putting myself through the ringer for more and more and realize that in this moment what I've done is is is way beyond what I thought I was capable of and so what's my motivation now you know where can I gain joy in this existence well it's flipping the meaning of what I'm doing on its head from this idea of scarcity that I lack something and I have to keep going to a mindset of abundance and plenty where I realized that I have these skills I have these capabilities and now my focus is on using them for a bigger purpose basically embracing the vocation of what I'm doing leaving something into in the world for other people to use and appreciate and enjoy and whether people like it whether people hate whether people are indifferent about it doesn't matter what matters is that you are creating something for other people to use and that doesn't just have to be a book or a ted talk or whatever we do as academics in the workplace you know it could be a project it could be a tool it could be a product that is you'd strongly believe is it will bring joy to people's life will enhance people's lives that's the motivation and once you can make that flip then it isn't about any more and more and more it's about learning to feel content in in uh in in what we are doing and and having left something in the world for other people to use that's the satisfaction that's the pride rather than the recognition from other people which is what drives perfections so for me in my own life that's the kind of practices that I've tried to employ um tried to see my my job and my life more as a vocation and throw my and throw my more of myself into outside activities community and with my family those are really important things but I go back to the caveat I made at the start.

1:01:14I'm in a very privileged position where I can do these things because I've made it over a certain threshold which means it doesn't matter now. I've got probation. I'm going to be a full prof. I've met my career goals. And so for those people coming up, I would say there is still caution in perfectionism. I would not embrace it to a full extent but I would also say that hard work, striving, conscientiousness and growth are really, really important. And yes, it may be a bit uncomfortable, but recognize that there will be a point where you will meet your goals. And at that stage, it's important to recognize that more and more and more growth is the way to discontent and misery.

1:01:56And that at some point to recognize our achievements and strive for a higher purpose instead. So that's the advice. Thank you for that. It's a beautiful place to end it and wrap things up. Where can our audience find out more about the perfection trap and the work that you do? So if you Google Thomas Curran, The Perfection Trap, you will be given a list of links to my website, social media accounts, and also links to buy the book if you so wish. So that's probably the best way to do it. And if you do pick up a copy, I'd love to hear from readers. So please do let me know what you think. Thank you for joining us, Thomas.

1:02:29Thank you for having me.

1:02:39Johnny, we have an exciting bit of feedback from our X Factor member, Nate. Nate writes, I just had an amazing meeting. I've been at an impasse with a seller on what would be the biggest deal of my life. And we've negotiated for months through a broker. He asked to meet me in person without the broker. Now I spent the last two hours barely talking business. I connected with him on where we grew up, work ethic, raising kids, being a landlord, financing, and everything except the package of properties. Then he asked what terms we were looking for. And I was honest with him. Originally, I thought we would have had to put 2 million down on this project.

1:03:13Now I have him going back to his partners with a deal where they cover our down payment and we buy 2 million plus worth of property with no money down. Don't know if we'll get the deal, but I think this guy wants to adopt me at this point. I used everything I've learned in the X Factor Accelerator on this guy to build rapport. I know he wants to work with me now. The rest is just making math work on both sides. AJ, I love waking up every day and reading all of the posts at our accountability group. It is stuff like that that fires me up. Absolutely. And here's the best part about it. So often we find ourselves in this situation where a little vulnerability and rapport building can go such a long way in creating many opportunities in our life, not just real estate deals.

1:03:59If you listen this far, my guess it's because you want more out of life and you are ready to make 2024 your best year yet. If that's the case, then join us, the Art of Charm team, and listeners just like you who are experiencing breakthrough conversations, supercharging their confidence, and growing an incredible network inside our world-famous X Factor Accelerator program. The X Factor Accelerator is our mentorship program where high-achieving, like-minded people meet, strategize, and unlock your hidden X Factor to make sure that you get the most out of life's opportunities and unlock those doors keeping you from success.

1:04:32Weekly implementation sessions with opportunities to practice your conversation skills, rapport building, supercharging your charisma through powerful communication, and finally, unlock the charm to attract the right people into your life. Imagine what you can accomplish with coaching and mentorship with the Art of Charm. What are you waiting for? Join us today at unlockyourxfactor.com. All right, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. If you got value out of this episode, head to your favorite podcast player and rate and review us. We hope you have an epic week.

1:05:32But I remember you Oh yeah I remember you You remember But I found it a wrong way