918: Your Perfectionism Is Costing You Money (Here's the Escape Plan)

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2:10Your ideal client is Googling her problem at 2am desperate for an answer. Let that sink in. She does not care if your Instagram grid is perfectly cohesive. She cares if you can help her sleep through the night again, or grow her revenue, or save her marriage, or help her kids eat vegetables. Like, nobody cares about your perfect. I'm Jenna Kutcher, and I help you trade hustle for purpose and build a business that gives you the life you actually want to live. From a$300 Craigslist camera to a seven-figure business I run from home, I've learned that success isn't just about what you do, it's about how you live.

2:49Here, you'll get strategies that work, systems that give you your time back, and steps that turn your effort into results and impact. If you're ready for clarity, confidence, and a business that feels as good as it looks, you're in the right place. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Hi, it's me. And I want today's episode to feel almost like a letter to you. the person who has a Google Doc full of brilliant ideas, a camera roll full of content that maybe you'll post later, and heart full of dreams that you're not quite ready to share. And I'll be the first to admit you do not need my permission.

3:34But if you're feeling like you need it, this episode can be your permission slip. I almost want it to be like a wake up call. It's me gently grabbing you by the shoulders and saying, the world doesn't need another perfect thing. The world doesn't need another perfect thing. What it needs is your imperfect, messy, beautiful, generous contribution. And I need to tell you something that might sting a little bit. Your perfectionism, it isn't protecting your reputation. It is attempting to protect your ego. And the reality of that is that it's costing you real money, real impact, and real progress towards the life that you say that you want, the life that you actually want.

4:23So today, it's my goal to make that end. Here is the escape plan to help you choose progress over perfection once and for all. I want you to consider this right now, like right in this moment right now, someone is sitting on a business idea and they are waiting for the quote, perfect moment. While someone else just spent three weeks perfecting a logo for a business that they haven't launched. Someone else is storing super helpful content in their drafts folder. Someone else is rewriting the same email for the fourth time instead of hitting send. Maybe that someone is you. Now, here's what I've learned after building my business over the last decade.

5:09At the heart of it, and this took me a long time to learn, perfectionism is selfish. Every single minute you spend polishing something that could have already been helping someone else is a minute you're withholding value from the people you claim to want to serve. And every hour you spend perfecting is an hour that you're not spending leaning in, learning from real feedback, being in community with your people. Every delayed launch is revenue, literally walking straight out your door. And so today, together, we're going to get over the perfection trap. Okay? At least we're going to commit to it, commit to trying.

5:51So first, there's this thing that I do not think entrepreneurs think about enough. And it should be something that you think about every single day. and that is the perfectionism task. Like I don't think that we actually connect the dots that our desire to be perfect is actually costing us and it's an expensive cost. And so when I think about perfectionism, I often associate it and I connect the dots in my busy brain. I connect the dots between perfectionism and procrastination. I think perfectionism is just a fancy form of procrastination. But what's interesting is, is that if we can understand that, we can see that we often don't take it a step further and see that there is a literal cost to it.

6:43Let me break down the three main taxes that you are quote paying by using your perfection to hold you back. Okay, so first is the time tax. Okay, the time tax. So what does this look like? Okay, I have a friend who I have gone on vacation with the last two years. So we have spent an entire week together. And in the last two years, she has told me about this course that she wants to create. Now she has been through crazy things in her life. She has navigated grief and pain. She has walked this insane road and she is like a beacon of light to so many women. And my sweet friend, I'm not going to say her name, but if she listens to this, she'll know I'm talking about her.

7:27She has had this outline just sitting in her drafts folder for two years. She has not taken any action. She has not put anything out there. She's not even left a breadcrumb for her audience to consider that more resources are going to be available for them. Now, in the same two years that she's been sitting on it, I have watched other people launch courses from scratch that have not just changed their life, like financially, has changed the lives of the people they've created it for. I have watched so many successful creators. I've watched my friend Jennifer launch a course about dahlias. I have watched a friend launch a course about how to get your child to go to the bathroom.

8:08I mean, I've watched so many different people launch offers. And so the time tax is incredibly real, where not only are you holding yourself back from getting the results that you desire, but you're also withholding helpful information from the people that you say that you care deeply about. The time tax is so incredibly real. And for me, this one hurts the most because I have been saying this for years, time is my currency. We can go out and we can make more money, but we can never get back our time. And so the time tax is something that you have to consider. And you have to see that your perfectionism is making you waste precious time.

8:53And it is also holding you back from making the impact with the time that you have in this life. The second tax is the opportunity tax. Okay. Let me tell you a quick story. So when COVID hit and the world started shutting down, as a leader, I had to make some really big decisions. And I decided, okay, we are going to lean into this. We're going to pivot fast. We knew that small businesses were going from a mode of thriving and living in this external world to straight up survival mode. How are we going to survive this? How long is this going to be? What is this going to look like? And so immediately I jumped into action.

9:33I started creating resources to help business owners adapt to the new way of the world. And I started creating these like micro offers that were insanely affordable or free that were helpful. And that were these things that people could put to work immediately. The opportunity tax is, is that if you are slow to take action, or if you let your perfectionism hold you back, you miss out on opportunities to step in, to serve, to make an impact and to make an income. Okay. So you have to be able to imperfectly move quickly. Like that's like the only way to say it, or you will miss opportunities. There are probably opportunities you've already missed because you haven't put yourself or your work out there.

10:16And the last tax is the confidence tax. And here's what I'm going to say, the longer you wait, the more that you convince yourself, you're just not ready. Okay. This happens all the time. I mean, you can see it. Like imagine this picture with me here. I was a diver. I was a collegiate diver. And every once in a while, the swimmers from the other side of the pool would swim over to the diving well and they'd climb up the three meter or the 10 meter platform and they would just stand there. And if anybody stood at the edge too long, I knew they weren't going to do it. It's like they let themselves marinate in their fear long enough to simply not jump.

10:59The people who just got up there, they said, oh, this is scary. And they jumped. They were successful, right? We've all seen it. And so the longer you wait, the more you convince yourself you're not ready. But here's the truth. You're probably not afraid of failure. You're more likely afraid of being judged while you learn publicly. And even while you succeed. I mean, the fact of the matter is a lot of women are afraid to become successful. And so what's interesting is, is that I have seen this over and over and over again. there are two sides of the coin here. You're either afraid to like publicly fail or be seen learning publicly, or you're equally afraid of like, well, what if I do become successful?

11:48What if people do start watching me? What if people do see that this is something real? Like, and both sides of those are scary. Yeah. But if you just sit there and think about all the what ifs, you will absolutely convince yourself to not put that thing out into the world. I mean, the reality of what's really happening here is you think that you're worried about strangers on the internet judging your work, but I'm going to assume after working with thousands of entrepreneurs, you're probably worried about what the people in your life, I'm talking about like the ones who supposedly love you and support you.

12:22You're probably more worried about what those people will think when you start showing up bigger and bolder and more successful than before. and so I get it like success comes with growth and it can be scary to think about like what if I outgrow my current circle or what if my success makes other people feel less or maybe what if people see me and it's like I'm just too much right these are all things but these are real taxes that you are paying every single day you let your perfectionism win the time tax the opportunity tax, the confident tax, you're paying, you're paying dividends. So let's talk about what do we do?

13:02Where do we go from here? Like, I don't expect us to overcome a lifelong dedication to being perfect. But I do think that we have the opportunity right now to shift beliefs. When I first came up with this idea for my episode, I started outlining, I just went ham Because I just have so many thoughts about perfectionism. And I sent it over to my producer, Christy, and she looked at it and she goes, whoa, this is like really good. This is actionable. And I said, well, what did you think I was going to give you? She's like, I don't know. It just sounded kind of fluffy, but no, we're going in. And you know what?

13:38I think I feel even more passionate about this because I am a recovering perfectionist and raising daughters. I can already see the ways the world tells us that we have to be better and we have to be perfect. And I want to unwire that for us, for them and for our inner child. So here are four truths that I think we have to learn how to accept. But before I tell you those, I want to tell you about this episode of Bluey. So in our family, every single night before bed, so we'll eat dinner. We often go outside. We play with the chickens. We go to the garden and then we sit down and each kid gets to pick one Bluey episode.

14:15So each Bluey episode is like eight minutes long. We have watched all of them probably five times at this point. We can recite them. We know their names. But there is this episode and the episode is called Perfect. And in this episode, Bluey is making a Father's Day card for her dad. And she is just absolutely determined for it to be flawless. And so she starts a card and she draws it. And anytime she notices even just a tiny mistake, like a line out of place or a shape that doesn't look quite right. She gets so frustrated, like mad at herself, right? And so she ends up having this pile of like adorable cards.

14:57Like any parent would die to get what Bluey has created. And instead of giving those cards to him, she rips them up, she crumples them, she tosses them aside. And I mean, honestly, some of those cards were so good, but they never even saw the light of day. Like not even like ending up in that random box in your closet type of day. And so I think so many of us can relate to this of like so many of us have amazing ideas sitting in the digital trash can right now, right? And here's what I've realized. Our perfectionism isn't really about standards. I think a lot of it is conditioning. There are so many small constant reminders that we're either too much or we're not enough or we're both of those things all at the same time, right?

15:41And so the four beliefs that helped to shift things for me, I want to share those. And I need you to not just hear them, but I want for you to like, if you are in a safe place to do this, close your eyes and really just listen to them. And sometimes my therapist makes me do this, but like, imagine what young version of you needed to hear and believe these things. Like for me, it's always like my eight-year-old self. this podcast is brought to you by mercury banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money okay i remember in the early days of my entrepreneurship journey clients would literally mail me checks and then i would have to drive all the way to the bank to deposit them it took me literal years to make things go digital and i am ashamed to admit i still have a filing cabinet with paper contracts because i'm way too afraid to throw them away but that's the beauty of growth, right?

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17:16Like those underwire digs, the straps that leave marks on your shoulders, spending half of your day readjusting everything. I thought that was just life. But then I kept hearing about the Skims fits everybody collection everywhere and I finally gave in and I tried it and I totally get the hype now. The fabric is ridiculously soft and stretchy but not in that cheap way where it loses its shape. It literally feels like it was made for your body specifically and I'm not even kidding when I say I forget I'm wearing anything half the time. It is one of those things where you don't realize how uncomfortable you've been until you finally experience what comfortable actually feels like.

17:54Now trust me on this one, you just need to try it. Shop Skims fits everybody collection at skims.com. Once you place your order, make sure to let them know we sent you. Just select podcast in the survey and choose a gold digger podcast in the dropdown menu that follows. So the first belief is this, the people holding you back, they're not strangers. It's probably your inner circle. I think this one is probably one of the hardest pills to swallow as an entrepreneur. I mean, it's easy for us to like blame random strangers on the internet for things. But I feel and I still think about this to this day.

18:36It's far more easy to be worried about like your cousin's eye roll at Thanksgiving dinner when you talk about your business or, you know, your aunt who is all over Facebook and what she thinks about your quote little hobby. It's those people in our lives that really can hold us back. Maybe you're worried about like your college friends who like look at you and think like, who is she to do that? Or maybe they think you've gotten too big for your britches. Here's what I need you to hear. The people whose opinions you are afraid of, guess what? They are people who will never write your checks. They're probably not your customers.

19:13They're not meant to be your audience, they're not meant to be impacted by what you're doing. I recently heard Alex Hermose say something that stuck with me and I'm paraphrasing it here, but he kind of said, stop trying to appease the people who are never going to pay you anyway. And I feel like lately I've gotten a little bit more bold in the way that I'm speaking and what I'm sharing online. After hearing that quote, I was like, yeah, yeah. Why, why am I trying to like serve people that are not the people I'm creating for? And why am I worried about what those people think? I mean, have you ever held back from posting something because you were worried about like what one specific person would think?

19:55Is that just me? Like you can literally picture a specific human in your life seeing that post and rolling their eyeballs. That person, guess what? They probably just scrolled past your last five posts without even thinking about them, without even noticing them, right? We are like drinking out of fire hoses when it comes to content these days. nobody is paying as close attention to you and your life as you are okay and and that should give you like that should make you feel good like everyone imagine everyone looking into a microscope and on the slide where you put like the petri things can you tell i'm not like a science person everyone is looking down into their own lens and inspecting their own life and their posts and their ideas and their content and all these things we are all so head down in our own lives we are not spending a lot of time looking at, inspecting, judging other people.

20:47At least if you're busy and you're aiming to do good in the world, you're not doing that. And so if you remember that like everyone is looking at their own life, our microscope is on our lives. Theirs is on theirs. Just do you, just do you. The second belief is, is that you have to understand this. This is so huge. Your customers, they don't want perfect. They want solutions. Okay. While you're agonizing over whether your font is quote professional enough, your ideal client is Googling her problem at 2am desperate for an answer. Let that sink in. She does not care if your Instagram grid is perfectly cohesive.

21:24She cares if you can help her sleep through the night again or grow her revenue or save her marriage or help her kids eat vegetables. Like nobody cares about your perfect. They don't care about your perfect. They care about their problem. Like think about the last time you desperately needed help with something. Like did you care if the person helping you had the perfect website or that their grid was perfectly cohesive or did you just want your problem solved, right? Nobody cares about your perfect. They care about their problem. Solve it. That's all you got to do. Mindset shift number three is this.

22:02Hiding your learning process is robbing others of hope. and I'd argue that it's robbing you of results. When you only show the polished final product, you make everyone else feel like they're behind. And you also launch something amazing that you've probably been working on so hard behind the scenes to an audience who wasn't delivered breadcrumbs. They didn't even know anything was coming. And all of a sudden, it's like you sit down and you expect a piece of popcorn and a Thanksgiving feast is in front of you. you're not ready for that. No, you're not ready for that. And so if you are hiding your learning process, if you are not letting people in to the iterating, to the ideas, to what you're learning, when you share things like your mistakes and your pivots and your figure it out as you go moments, you give other people permission to start messy too.

22:53And you start to pique their curiosity. Like, what is she up to over there? What's she doing? I'm so curious. What is this going to become? This is fascinating, right? Look at any influencer or entrepreneur you admire. The content that probably made you feel most connected to them was probably not their perfect content, like their highlight reel, right? It's probably where they opened up about something or they shared their behind the scenes struggles or they were honest about something or they let you into a really intimate moment of their life, right? Hiding your learning process is robbing others of hope.

23:29It is robbing you of the ability to plant seeds that will become a harvest. And it's making nobody win and nobody ready for what you truly have to offer. The last mindset shift is this, and this is the best. Waiting for perfect is really just your fear wearing a business suit. Here's what I mean by this. You tell yourself you're trying to make something perfect, but here's what I'll argue. You're not actually trying to make it perfect. you're trying to make it criticism proof. And I will tell you this right now, nothing is criticism proof, especially in the world we live in. Every single day you don't launch or don't publish or don't put something out there is a day that somebody else does.

24:18And every week you spend perfecting is a week that you could have been getting real feedback from real humans that you are creating for. Imperfect action beats perfect inaction every single time. That should be on my gravestone. Like imperfect action actually makes things happen. Right now, someone with a worse idea than yours, with less experience than you, with fewer resources than you have just launched a thing while you were editing, while you were thinking, they're out there earning. Okay. And so here's what happens when you start to recognize all of these things that maybe the people holding you back are in strangers.

25:00They're your inner circle that your customers don't want perfect. They want solutions that hiding your learning process is robbing others of hope and robbing you of results. And that waiting for perfect is just fear dressed up in a business suit. Here's what happens when you believe them. You stop asking, is this good enough? and you start asking, will this help somebody? You stop editing your Instagram captions for 30 minutes and you start posting them in three. You stop planning your dream business and you start building it. Because the hard truth is this, the version of you that is waiting for perfect is never going to feel ready.

25:38She's never going to feel ready. But the version of you that chooses progress over perfection, she's already changing lives. So now that we've shifted our beliefs, here's where we get really tactical. Okay. So how do we actually escape the perfectionism trap and start taking consistent action? So I'm kind of calling this our escape route. And this is essentially taking us from paralysis into action. Okay. Here's something that I've learned about myself. And I have watched so many successful entrepreneurs. And so this isn't just for me. This is for like every successful entrepreneur I know. We are probably the least perfect people.

26:18We are not naturally perfect people. We are people who hit deadlines. We're people who follow through. We are people who commit to doing the reps. We are people who commit to consistency. And once you start to get into a rhythm and you adopt the identity of being somebody who simply shows up, it becomes a lot easier to do it. You stop being someone who thinks about doing things and you start being someone who does the thing. And the shift happens when you realize that your reputation, it's not meant to be built on perfection. It is built on reliability. Okay. People trust you because you show up, not because everything you create is flawless.

27:04Like I have had a slogan, at least in my head, sometimes in my Instagram bio of like imperfectly leading women. Like that is all I can commit to. I have made so many mistakes. I have made public mistakes. I've made private mistakes. I have messed up so many times. I have typos. I have hit send and forgot to link the email. I mean, there are a million ways I am one of the most imperfect leaders out there. But guess what? I am reliable. I show up on this podcast. I show up when I say I will. I've blogged every single week since I launched my business over 15 years ago, right? I am reliable. Like you can trust on me to show up.