What Are You Waiting to Perfect? | EP 591

You have the idea. You've had it for a while. And something keeps it from moving. This episode is about what's actually underneath that, and why right now might be the most important moment to stop waiting for perfect and start moving. Full show notes, transcript, and chapters at sheilabotelho.com/591

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Transcript

What You Are Holding Back

Sheila 0:00

You had an idea, and somewhere in the process of building it, you started holding back the parts that feel most like you, the idea you haven't pitched, the offer you haven't launched, the book you've been writing in your head for years. Well, this episode is about what's underneath that and why now, more than any other moment I can think of, is the time to let it move. I've been doing this long enough to know the cost of waiting, and it's almost always higher than the cost of going first. Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sheila Botelho, and I believe true success is built from the inside out. So I was listening to Alicia Keys the other night, late, the way I love listening to music at night, when the house is still and I can actually be with the music. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's always on while I'm cooking, and frankly, it's on all day, different kinds of music, but when I can really soak in it is at night, sometimes with my earbuds in while everyone's sleeping. And I kept noticing how prolific she is, how many songs, how many moods, styles, iterations that she puts out. And people receive it and she keeps going and keeps growing, and the catalog just builds. And I started thinking about my own experience as a musician years ago. Because I wrote songs for years and I performed them. I loved that part. But before I'd let anyone hear something, I'd hold it, I'd refine it. I wanted it to be right. I wanted to feel ready. And there was always something to adjust. Just one more thing, and then I'm ready. Here is what I found that is so interesting, though. That when you're performing something live and you haven't recorded it yet, you can change it every single time. It can evolve in real time. The performance is the iteration. Again, I was listening, it so happened, to some live Alicia Keys. She has a bunch of them. And it wasn't until I went to actually record, though, that the stakes felt different to me. And that's when perfectionism really showed up. And I've been thinking about that in the context of everything I do now, especially this podcast, especially the book I started writing. And honestly, especially the moment that we're all in right now, as founders and as leaders, there's so much change. Every decision we make, we don't know where it's going to land. So that's what we're getting into today. What are you waiting to perfect? And what is it actually costing you? One of the best decisions that I ever made for my creative life was starting this podcast. It built an audience. Yeah. It's been great for the business. Uh-huh. And more than anything else, it completely rewired how I think about ideas. Because before the podcast, I'd have a thought and I'd want to fully develop it before I shared it. I wanted the whole picture, the beginning, the middle, the end. I don't know if that was my grade 10 English teacher, kind of still in my mind. Um, the nuance, I wanted it fully articulated, the framework named. I want the full case made. And what I've learned over 580 plus episodes, my goodness, we're episode 591 right now. Oh my goodness. Is that the best episodes that I've ever recorded are the ones where I had one solid idea and I trusted it to go somewhere. And just showed up and I started talking. The idea didn't need to be finished, it just needed to be something resonant within me that came from somewhere that I thought also would appeal to those who are listening. Because I figure if I'm having these thoughts, perhaps other people are too. So I can say something here, notice what resonates, notice what I left out, and then come back to it six episodes from now or six months from now with even more. There is always more to say, much to my family's chagrin. My ever-present questions and curiosity can be a lot sometimes. But there is always a next layer. The medium taught me that releasing an idea isn't giving it away. It's actually giving it room to grow. It's a starting point. And I want you to sit with that for a second. If you're someone who's been sitting on something, the idea that you're holding back because it's still forming, well, it might need an audience to finish forming. It might need to be in the world before you can actually see the rest of it clearly. That is actually how a lot of the best thinking happens. I want to share a bit about my book just for a minute, because I think it's relevant here in a way that I haven't fully understood myself until recently. So this book that I'm writing has been being written. Is that a thing? Has been being written for 13 years. Life has been writing it alongside of me. And some chapters needed to be lived before they could be told. And then they needed space to breathe. The wounds needed to scar over a bit, if you will. You know what I'm saying? And this past weekend of when you receive this, May 3rd, marks 13 years since my sister passed away from cancer. And I want to say that I've spoken openly about this before, right from the start, because it really matters to this story and the way the book is being written and why actually I do the work that I do. Because that period of my life, watching her go through what she went through in such a brief moment in time, sitting with the reality that you can do everything right and still face something that you didn't plan for, completely shifted how I understood health, capacity, and what we owe ourselves in terms of actually living the life that we say we want. And I'm sure, 100% sure, you have had your own version of that crossroads. The moment something happened or ended or shifted, and you came out of it knowing something that you didn't know before, knowing it in your body as much as in your head. And for me, it was also when I started blogging. Remember blogging? That's when I thought I need to actually do something differently with what I know and with what I've lived. And then I read Ariana Huffington's book, Thrive, and her story of hitting a wall at the height of her success and having to completely reckon with how she was living. And something in me recognized that. Like our stories are very different. And I understood, though, the moment that she described, the one where something cracks open, and you can either look away or you can walk through it. So I chose to walk through it. And I've been writing and recording from that place ever since. So the working title of the book is Leading from the Inside Out. Hello, very on brand, right? It's a good working title. I have other thoughts on an actual title, though. And it's being written actively right now. And if you're not part of the First Chapters Club yet, I want to invite you in. It's free, it's a behind-the-scenes reader community, and the founding 10 members get a podcast at spot here. And you'll be getting early access to a book that's been 13 years in the making and is finally ready to move. The link is in the show notes and in this description below. And here is a chapter of my story that I want to share more of. Around the time I was turning 50, I stepped into the SaaS space, which is software as a service. And of course, if you know me primarily as a business strategist and a podcast host and a background in wellness and sales, it might seem like a left turn. And in some ways, it really was. But it was one of the most important things that I've ever done, I believe, because it put me back in the seat of being a beginner, fully, completely. And there was so much to learn. I had to move fast, pivot faster, stay curious, not hard for me, and keep going, even when the discomfort was real. And fortunately, I had incredible guides and people leading the way in that space who taught me so much with so much grace. And what that experience gave me, I would not trade it for anything. Because it showed me how quickly I can actually move when I let go of needing to be the expert in the room. And it showed me that increasing your capacity comes from staying in contact with things that challenge you. It's about choosing the rooms where you're still growing and about being willing to be a student again, even especially even when you're already really good at what you do. And I came out of that chapter with a different relationship to motion, to iteration, to the idea of done being better than perfect in certain seasons. And I'm sure you've heard that saying before. And I think about that a lot now when I'm talking to founders who've been in their lane for a while, who've built something solid and who know their industry, who are honestly really experts at what they do. And these people also have an idea that they've been sitting on because it feels like starting over. And it feels scary. And I want to say something so clearly to you right now, if that's you. Starting again with everything you've already built behind you is a completely different thing than starting over. Feel that distinction. It's a very hopeful feeling, actually, when you really think about it. Because right now, the world we're actually in right now is shifting big time. You know this. We're in a moment where the pace of change is unlike anything most of us have navigated before. AI is reshaping industries, timelines, and honestly, the value proposition of ideas themselves. What's actually necessary? What do we really need? What do we want? What do consumers want? The window for certain kinds of contributions is moving. And the people who are going to have the most impact are the ones who are moving with it. So let's be grounded about this. And let's just think about it very clearly. Because I think it's important that we do. There has never been a better time to get your ideas into the world right now. What AI generates is frameworks, structures, information. Your actual perspective, though, your presence, your lived experience, your connection, your humanity is irreplaceable. Your lived experience with the specific combination of what you've been through, what you know, how you see, well, that has never been more valuable than it is right now. Because people right now are seeing a lot of different things coming out in front of them and wondering what's real and what isn't. So if you've been waiting for the right time, I want to offer you the possibility that this is it. The conditions for your specific contribution are more favorable than they've ever been. You have every tool imaginable to you at a very, very easy, good, easy to understand pace and price, even to start right where you are without needing to invest a whole lot. So the founder who moves forward with the thing that they've been sitting on right now, whatever it might be, the pivot, the idea that feels a little too big or a little too different. Well, that person is going to look back on this moment and be very glad they chose to move when they did. I know it can feel like a lot when fear is also in the room. I mean, let's face it, fear is always going to be in the room. It's going to be the fear of, should I do this? What happens if I do this? Or the fear of, what if I don't do this? Like it's just always going to be there. So you need to pick your fear. When the version of success you've been living with is solid enough that the next step feels genuinely risky, you're actually in a really good place. Because that's that's how it goes. So here's how I invite you to think about this. Get curious, get a little playful with it. What if it went better than you imagined? What if the thing you learned from trying it was exactly what your business needed to grow? What if the worst case scenario is just information? I always go back to the conversation I had with my naturopath when I was seeing him for just a routine little annual visit with my oldest son at the time, my only son. And he asked me if I was gonna have another child. And I was having such a great experience with my Dante. And I said, Oh, I don't know, everybody's saying, you know, oh, you got lucky. I don't know, the next one probably not gonna be so great. And he said to me words that I'm so forever grateful for. He said, Sheila, what if your next pregnancy and delivery and the whole experience of having another child is um is is better? That is an option. And I just love that man because I listened to that and I took that to heart. And I knew that anything is possible, right? Parents out there, we know. We just don't know what's gonna happen. I trusted it. And guess what? To this day, my 18-year-old Antoine joy of my life. Like it was easier, okay? Like in so many ways, so many ways. So I had two amazing situations, two amazing children come through, two amazing experiences of motherhood with these wonderful boys. It is possible for you, right? Let's focus on what we want. Let's not focus on what we fear. Let's see the fear, understand it, and have a little chat with it, and then say, hey, step aside, we're doing this. If you really feel like it's what you want to do. Because you get to be the one who decides to move. Or it's also your choice to wait and let the decision get made for you by circumstance, which is happening a lot in a lot of places right now. Right? Either way, something shifts. The question is whether you're the one holding the wheel. So let's come back to Alicia Keys for a second, because I just love that woman's music. And actually, I feel like she'd be pretty cool to hang out with. I mean, obviously, I don't know her personally, but I feel like she's pretty cool. What I love about artists who are prolific is that they've made a decision somewhere along the way that getting the work out matters more than protecting it from being imperfect. And the catalog that they build over time becomes something each individual song could never be on its own. They all connect with each other. It's a body of work. And I think about that with this podcast, all these episodes, like 591. Wow. Each one is part of something bigger. Together, they've become something, a body of thought, a consistent presence, a relationship with the people who listen. And thank you for listening. If you listen all the time, I really appreciate that you're here. And your ideas work the same way. The first version of the thing you put out isn't the final version, it's the beginning of a body of work that gets richer and more complete every time you add to it. And when I finally recorded my music, after all that holding back, after all that refining, I was in it completely. And I'm grateful for every moment of that process. And I also know now that the performing, the putting it out live, the iteration that happened in front of people, that was equally the work. Both were true at the same time. Your ideas can still be forming and also worth sharing simultaneously. They can be imperfect and still powerful. They just have to be yours and they have to move. So, what I want to leave you with today is this you have something that's been waiting for you to decide it's ready. Please consider that it might already be ready. That the version of ready you're holding out for is a moving target. And what's on the other side of moving forward might be exactly what you've been building toward, but you won't know until you take that step. So get curious about it. Take it easy, get playful. Ask yourself what moves forward if you let it move. And if you want to be part of the first chapters club, the early reader community for leading from the inside out, my book, come join us. The link is in the show notes or in the description below. Come be part of something that's been 13 years in the making and is finally ready to move. P.S. There will be an audiobook. It's gonna be written and audio. So thank you so much for spending this time with me. I hope your week is full of good momentum. And I'll see you on the next episode.