Ep. 127: The Courage to Live - The Courage to be Perfect

 In this episode, Josh and Jenna talk about how perfectionism shows up in leadership, work, marriage, and parenting, and why it often creates fear, burnout, and hesitation instead of excellence. They explore how the pressure to never make mistakes can hurt both individuals and teams, and why growth, resilience, and strong leadership come from learning through imperfection, not chasing flawless performance. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to the Courage to Live Podcast. My name is Josh Bitsko, and I'm a retired police captain with 24 years of experience out of Las Vegas. Currently, I travel the country and I teach people about courage, leadership, and resilience. So in today's podcast, I did a short podcast on this a while ago, but I really think there's a lot that we can expand on. Um also I am joined by my wife and co-host Jenna, who I forgot to introduce.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hi. I was just sitting over here like with a cute, cutie little smile.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Yeah, I felt the look. Um so yes, we are going to talk about perfection. Like I was not perfect in that moment when I didn't introduce my co-host. How rude of me.

unknown 0:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Um, but before we get that, I I was actually this week was able to speak at the Imron Security and Safety Summit at Allegiant Stadium. If you haven't been to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

It's a Raider Stadium.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

It is the Raider Stadium. Yes. And um, where I presented was at one end of the stadium. I'm standing on a stage behind me is the field, uh and the entire, like all the seats, which you know, there was nobody in at the time in the seats area, uh, but you know, they had chairs in front of me where I was speaking, huge windows, so you could see all of the strip. And part of what I talked about was, you know, kind of debriefing. It was a safety, like active shooter safety summit. So I spoke on the one October shooting and talked about what happened there, which I've done a lot of times. Uh, this was the first time I could do it where I was literally staring at the Mandalay Bay the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah. That was I don't want to use the word creepy. I don't know the word to describe it.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Yeah, it was it was almost surreal. I actually I I used it to like, hey, that is the wing that you guys, if you turn around, can see is where the suspect was shooting out of. Um, I wanted to address it because it was making me feel a kind of way. Like I could, I could feel some things because I was staring at that as I was talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Um was it distracting?

SPEAKER_03 2:14

A little bit.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

A little bit. I could feel a couple times like my you know, blood pressure was up a little bit, just staring at it while I was talking. So I think I've talked about that before, how you know, feeling a body reaction in certain locations based on some of the things that I've been through. And that's the first time that's happened while I'm actually presenting and talking about that specific thing too. Um, so it was it was definitely interesting.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah, you did well though.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Well, I appreciate that. And it was it was a good conference, it was a lot, it was a definitely a different crowd. Um, it was, you know, well, heavily civilian, you know, security. We had a lot of good conversations. Uh it was actually really cool. I had a a young kid come up to me and he's like, Hey, my grandpa wanted me to come introduce myself to you. I'm like, Oh, who, you know, who's your grandpa? Well, his grandpa worked with my dad for years in narcotics at Las Vegas Metro. And he's like, No, he just he said he worked with your dad, and he was really, you know, um, he really liked your dad. And I just thought it was a cool, you know, I love hearing things about that, like about my dad and having those kind of interactions. It puts some positive, you know, spin on things, I think, when that happens. So well, what we're gonna talk about today is actually something I struggled with um throughout most of my life. It's that need to be perfect. Struggled, struggle struggle still currently still.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Okay, I was like, yeah, I think it's it's still a current struggle.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Yeah, it's that desire to be perfect, and it's something I've had to fight against, especially when I got into a leadership position. And I'll explain that. But you know, when you when you have this drive to be perfect, everything you do professionally in your personal life, you know, you don't want to make mistakes. And when you do, it it you can almost not stop thinking about it. You can't stop ruminating about it. Like I can think times as a new patrol officer, I would handle a call wrong, and then at two in the morning, I'd be like awake thinking about, oh, I made that mistake and now I'm not perfect. And everybody could everybody's gonna think I'm a bad cop. And I would just really like almost spiral over a small, honest mistake. And I think throughout you know the course of your life, as you you know, you you have more responsibilities, responsibilities outside of just yourself, and you step into a leadership role. If you still have that same drive to always be perfect, it will really impact your team. So I think we'll talk about you know that you know, what it looks like in in your career, what it looks like in your personal life, and then what how it impacts leaders as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Um I would say maybe let's start personal life, talk about how it what it looks like in leadership and then how it can impact well personal life, how it impacts you, leadership, how it impacts you, and maybe some ways to mitigate it.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Yeah. So like in your personal life, it shows up in well, I want to be seen as the perfect parent, or I want to be seen as the perfect spouse. Like, you know, and here's the thing when you have a baby or you know, toddlers, it's pretty easy to be perfect. Like, I mean, really, I mean, you're still gonna make mistakes, you're gonna get frustrated, not change a diaper in chant in time, but they don't know. Like, you know, so but you want to do, you know, you think, okay, if I'm not buying the best food, or you know, I think for women, a lot of women shame themselves if they can't breastfeed or all of these things. You know, you have that desire to be perfect as you know, starting just as a parent. But then as it gets as kids get older, it just gets so much more complicated. Like you have all of these decisions, you want to raise functioning adults. Teenagers are very challenging, I think, to raise at times.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Their problems aren't that they don't want macaroni and cheese for lunch. The problems are, you know, drugs, alcohol, pornography, uh motivating them to stay in school and get good grades. Um, so the the problems are actual life problems with a underdeveloped brain.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Well, yeah. And you still have that they don't want mac and cheese for lunch problems as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah. Um, well they're telling you that they don't consider you their mom.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Yeah. Well, even still though, I mean, let's not even go yet all the way to those huge problems. It's I don't want to play this sport anymore. But I love this sport, but I don't like this team currently. And we can see long term, like, I don't want you to quit something you love because of where you're at currently.

unknown 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

But then, you know, you're also, but I understand what it's like when you're on a team with, you know, people that don't you you don't feel connected with or you don't think they like you or whatever. So you have to make a decision, and it's like, how do I I want to make the right decision? I want to make the perfect decision. It's hard to be perfect in an imperfect world. Meaning when you're faced with a lot of decisions as they get more complicated, even in your personal life, it is difficult to like no no both answers can be right and both answers can be wrong. And you might not know until you make the decision.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Well, and that I I don't think perfectionism comes from nowhere. I mean sociologist in me, that that comes from your environment, right? From the time you're a child, not to like knock parents or anything, but like the perfectionism does come from somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Well, yeah, so when you're raised that you can't get anything below a 95% on any of your gray uh grades, then you're gonna have, oh, if if I'm not perfect, then I'm gonna feel shame. And I think perfection is rooted in shame.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

It is, yes, and it is I I think the way to avoid shame is perfectionism, right? And shame is a really hard emotion to feel. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Yeah, and it and it weaves its way into so many different things in your life. It's even perfection, wanting to be perfect is being a spouse. And if, you know, let's say you have a spouse that's bringing up a concern or an issue, that means you're not perfect, and that means you feel shame, and then that can lead to being defensive or causing issues in a relationship. And you know, I think that those are very real things. I know I've experienced, I know you've experienced as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I haven't, sweetie, because you're perfect.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

So are you?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

So okay, well, so we're not talking from experience here.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Um, but gross.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

That's like get a room.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, no, but I do think that there are that drive for being perfect can impact you know, romantic relationships, relationships is with your kids, friendships, if you because there it is intrinsically linked of being perfect and being able to accept criticism. So, or even you know, and I'm not I'm not saying criticism, criticism often has a negative con connotation to it, but the mere fact that I'm feeling criticized means I'm not perfect. Now I'm feeling shame and I want to avoid that emotion. So now I'm going to either not accept any kind of anybody, even they're coming from a good place trying to help me. Hey, you're making the wrong choice. Um and then that impacts relationships because if I have the courage to tell you, hey, I don't either this is affecting our relationship, or hey, I'm helping you because I can see you're you're going down the wrong path or you're doing something wrong, but it's coming from a place of like love or we're friends or I care about you, and then you totally shut me down, then I'm never gonna do that again.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Like I don't wanna No, it's just you just people and the friendship at that point.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Because that's easier than you know, admitting you were wrong or admitting you're not perfect. Yeah, which then translates into your job and careers, especially in leadership, which I think is I don't think it's talked about enough or a lot. And I do think that it impacts leadership greatly on multiple different levels. It impacts the actual leader if you're striving for perfection, and it impacts your bosses when they are also only looking for perfection, right? So it there's kind of like a double-edged sword there.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Yeah, and so let's go down to like the operator, the line level employee um you know, impact of wanting to be perfect is perfection breeds indecision because I can tell you is in the different, even different careers I've had and things jobs I've worked after Metro and things that I've done, it's like you're faced with a decision, and most decisions aren't black and white. And in policing, it's definitely not. There's very few decisions that are like, okay, I have to do this or I'm completely wrong. You know, that's what discretion is. But if you have to, if you're if you're putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect, and I've seen this, I've seen this on leaders in tactical operations, I've seen it just in, you know, administrative decisions. If I have to be perfect and I can't make a mistake, then I'm gonna sit there and overthink what I need to do in that situation. And so then that that the mistake you're making is by not making a decision. And then things go south and operations fail, business deals fail, whatever it is, because you hesitated to make a decision because you've had to be perfect and you had to make the right decision. And so many people I encountered throughout my career that wouldn't make decisions, it was rooted in that. They had to be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Well, yeah, it's it also creates a culture of fear. You don't, like you're you're saying, you don't want to make a decision for fear of making the wrong one and getting in trouble or you know, not being able to get promoted or or whatever the case may be. And we both worked in that environment. It was my environment, my entire career.

unknown 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Like there were no, you could not make a mistake, which is not humanly possible. Um, and if you did, it was the biggest problem in the world, which really stifles growth.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Well, yeah, because you're not willing to make risks. And that transitions into okay, as a leader, if you have to be perfect, well, you are leading a team of five, 10, 15 people, we're all humans and are going to make mistakes. And so what I've seen happens for leaders that have that drive to be perfect is they, well, number one, criticize and blow up when it puts somebody who makes a mistake. Because you just can't do that. You know, you have to be perfect is what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Especially if they're getting criticized and blown up from the people above them.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Yeah, it starts from the top of an organization. It's an organizational culture of needing to be perfect. Um, but you know, if you're if you're in a leadership position, you feel like you have to be perfect all the time, then it leads to that, to overreacting to mistakes or micromanaging. Like I'm gonna micromanage everything you do because I can't make a mistake, which means you can't make a mistake. And again, both of those things inhibit growth. It inhibits employees from taking risks, and not the bad kind of risks, but the good kind of risks. And I've talked about that before.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Like and it also stifles creativity.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Correct. And so if you're not willing to take risks and you're not willing to do those things, then you're not going to grow, become a better employee, potentially promote, become a leader. Or when you do, you're gonna mirror those behaviors that you saw in that leader. And then again, and if that leader is not taking risks, then you're going to have even more, you know, you're gonna have even more lack of creativity. And because I remember when I was a new sergeant, I had it was actually my dad told me when somebody comes to you wanting to do something, meaning an operation, or they wanted, hey, let's try and get a search warrant for this, your first answer should be yes until it gets to no. Because that's how they learn. I remember I was okay, so I'm gonna date myself a little bit, but we used to have you didn't with 9-11 on the last podcast. But because now we all have GPS devices in our hands on our phones. But then if you wanted to track a car or track somebody, you had you had to put a GPS tracker on a car. And the law had just changed like two weeks before this to where you needed a warrant to do that. Because before you could throw a GPS tracker on a magnet underneath the car and then you could track it and get all that data. And so nobody at the police department had done a GPS warrant yet. And we're just a PSU team, meaning we were in a station handling like street level crimes and whatnot. And my one of my guys comes to me and is like, hey, I want to do this search warrant and put a GPS tracker on a car. And I remember thinking, like, nobody's done that before. But yes, okay, let's let's try it. And we we we messed it up. Like it was it was uh an administrative thing after the fact that we were able to fix before the case, but it was initially when I got the call on it, it was a bigger thing than it was. Um, but everybody learned, and we learned, and I learned, and even the agency learned of things to now as we create this policy for this law change. But you have to be able to, you know, take that risk and risk being imperfect and risk making a mistake. But that's how you combat that in that, you know, as a leader. And we'll get into more ways that you combat that, you know, can combat that that need to be perfect, but there's so many ways that it can impact a leader.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Um well, and it it just impacts the organization as a whole, right? There's no there's no way for a person all the way up to an organization, there's no way to become resilient. There's no way to encourage growth, there's no way to um I guess that's what I'm trying to say, have a resilient organization when literally no one can make a mistake and you're afraid to make a mistake, and you're and like you said, that comes from the very top. And there's going to be times, yes, that people make mistakes because they are human. Sometimes those mistakes are going to be costly. Sometimes those mistakes result in litigation, sometimes they result in you know, not policing like a bad image for your brand, whatever it may be. But I know that I I as an analyst was not allowed to make mistakes. And I know that it I suffered greatly, and I was able to grow because I was able to find mentors and you know do get creative and kind of how I operated and was able to grow in that way. But I'll tell you, like then as a leader, I never wanted my people to feel the way that I felt when I made a mistake. I mean, it was, you know, the whole department was over because of me because I messed up one number or whatever. You know what I mean? So I never wanted people to feel that way. And so I their mistakes were always mine, right? And so they were allowed to make mistakes because it never came back on them and because you chilled them from it.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

And the other side of that, whether you're a leader or an employee, even if you're not making mistakes, but you're always trying to be perfect, and we talk about resilience. How do you feel literally all the time under that stress of trying to be perfect? Whether it's self-imposed or imposed by a leader, yeah. It's exhausting. Yeah, I was gonna say hell, but yeah, well, you eventually become burnt out because it takes so much mental energy to always try to be perfect. And that's some of the times in my life when I've been most burnt out, whether it was striving to be perfect in my personal life, whether it was striving to be perfect as a leader or as my job, it it just wears you out and exhausts you mentally faster than if you just can navigate mistakes, treat them for what they are, is how you learn and know, okay, what what's going to happen rather than the catastrophic thinking of I'm gonna get fired, I'm going to lose you know my livelihood because I forgot to give someone back their driver's license rather than just call them and drive it to their house and give it to them. You know, it's those little things, but that those little mistakes don't seem so little when you're always having to be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

So how do if you're in a leadership position, how do you mitigate that when the culture is a culture based out of fear where you're not allowed to make a mistake?

SPEAKER_03 19:48

I think the biggest thing is if you are confident enough to know, okay, if you make a mistake, like what's the worst that's gonna happen? Like, okay, you have an age, I'm gonna get yelled at, or maybe even get like a write-up, but it's not gonna negatively impact your career, then that's something that you have to take on um for your people. That's part of leadership. I mean, like I I I it was funny, I was meeting with a friend who had worked for me years ago, and he brought up a like a situation that we did this big search warrant on the strip, recovered like 40,000 pills, and it was great. And what he didn't know is I got my ass chewed from my boss because I didn't make the proper notifications that we were doing this big operation on the strip because we didn't work on the strip, we were working another area command, but I just we had intel that there were this was going on. But my team was riding high because they, you know, they did they we got a search warrant, we got all that, and then I'm in the lieutenant's office getting just literally dressed down for not me because that lieutenant got chewed out because the captain got chewed out all the way up, like you were talking about, rather than say, hey, they did a great job and got all these drugs off the off the streets. That how many people could have overdosed on this, and how you know how many lives would have been ruined by this amount of pills. Um, so what I went to after I got chewed out, I went back to my team. I'm like, hey, we did a great job. Like, this is awesome. I just didn't tell him it's been freaking 16 years since that happened, 15 years, and he just found out that happened. He's a lieutenant now and all that. But so I think there's ways that you can shield your team and shoulder it as a leader. Like, I I I'm making I'm making more money, I have more responsibility, I have more, you know, whatever comes with leadership in your organization or job, whatever it is, um, I can I can take it and not pass it down every time. And and so being able to message things the right way, like, hey guys, like let's say for you, you have analysts that are working for you, you're a manager, and you just got hey, didn't you even read this report? The math was wrong on this one line. So, you know, crime was down 15% instead of 10%, but it looked like we don't know what we're doing. Okay. But then you get to message that in a way rather than you can you turn around and chew out the person that made that mistake or your whole team. You know, you can do what a good leader is supposed to. You can stop that chain as a leader and say and and coach them. Like, you know, bring instead of, you know, I see leaders do this all the time, right? Because they don't like conflict, they just talk to the whole team or yell at the whole team. You know, bring the person in like bring the whole person in. I'm going to um, you know, hey, this was a mistake that was made. It's not career ending, it's not a big deal at all. Um, but here's how we can prevent it in the future. This happened to me before. This is what I did to make sure. This is a process I did to review those things so it doesn't happen again and coach them. And, you know, if it keeps happening, then you have to start holding somebody accountable. But you can break that chain of perfection and shame and all of that with you and whatever your role is. And guess what? It also doesn't feel good because you know that wasn't my mistake. Uh, you know, they know my expectations and failed. But again, that comes with that comes with the that's the difference between a leader and a supervisor. A leader, you know, and a boss is leaders are able to coach and make other people better through that process. And we've talked about organizational betrayal and what that does to you when you feel like I made one, I did uh 99 things right and I messed this one thing up, and that's the thing that everybody's focusing on. Whereas, no, I'm a leader and I know people I have humans that work for me and I'm a human, and mistakes are going to be made. We're just not gonna let it happen again. So the other part of that too, though, is you know, if if it's you that are striving for that perfection, it's really taking a look at yourself and finding where that's coming from, that what the shame is associated with that, and how you can push past it to reframe your mistakes as you know, learning opportunities. It doesn't mean you're a bad human because you made a mistake, it just means you are a human. And and that can be what you know through therapy, through self-reflection, whatever that is. If you feel that drive to be perfect, trying to process through that and understanding that you don't have to be perfect to be successful. You don't have to be perfect to be a good spouse, you don't have to be a perfect to be a good parent, you don't have to be perfect to be a good employee, and you don't have to be perfect to be a good leader. Um, you just have to try, you just have to put in the effort and you have to constantly work on improving yourself. And how do you improve yourself if you don't make mistakes or you don't accept those mistakes so they don't happen again? I remember even going to like jujitsu, like I remember every tournament I've done that I lost, why I lost, and I worked to not make that one mistake happen again. One percent better each day. So, you know, but really doing some self-reset reflection and figuring out where that came from.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Do you feel like self-care helps with that? Or no?

SPEAKER_03 25:03

I think that yes, there there is you are more than just an employee, you're more than just a spouse, you're more than just a parent. So if you're working on yourself, then you have more space, you're more resilient to make a mistake and then be able to push through it without you know everybody else around you paying for it when you make a mistake. So well, I appreciate you guys listening today. Um, if you like the podcast, I talk about a lot of the same things in the book, uh, The Courage to Live. It's available on Amazon. And if you, like I said, enjoyed what we talked about, leave a review, subscribe, uh, share it with a friend. And I really appreciate you spending time with us today.