Ep. 230 - Perfection (The Enemy of the Good)

A few weeks ago, Rob asked you what you wanted to hear about.

You spoke and he listened.

Today, we address the second of the top three topics the audience voted on.   

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Links:   

• Chad - @chadlismyname
• Men of Order
• Aquarian Anarchy on YouTube
• Learn new marketable skills through SkillShare: https://skl.sh/39OFNWN

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If you want to participate in a group chat with fellow audience members on a similar path, you can join the community on our Telegram chat group:  

• t.me/allaroundgrowth    

Subscribe to the All Around Growth Podcast channel for show updates ONLY:  

• https://t.me/allaroundgrowthpodcast  

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• How To Leave a Rating & Review in Apple Podcast App
  • This really *does* affect the algorithm...
  • ...as of recording in November 2021 - I would invite you to do this!
  • The podcast game is changing - help us with a rating and review!

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Have a Question or any feedback for Rob?

Send me an email at allaroundgrowth@gmail.com

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Notes:

Perfect is the enemy of good is an aphorism which in the English-speaking world is commonly attributed to Voltaire, who quoted an Italian proverb in his Dictionnaire philosophique in 1770: 

François-Marie Arouet (French: [fʁɑ̃swa maʁi aʁwɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire (/vɒlˈtɛər, voʊl-/;[5][6][7] also US: /vɔːl-/;[8][9] French: [vɔltɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church—as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.

Dialogue from the Telegram chat group from, Chad - @chadlismyname wrote:

 ~~~

 ...You never know who’s watching what you’re doing
Your consistency feeds whatever it is that your doing
Being afraid to show the world who you are because it’s not perfect yet
Not giving yourself credit
Not giving your potential audience credit
Put it out there
Give them a chance – give yourself a chance
If you wait until perfection – it’s going to be too late (sandbagging at neighboorhood courts)
Sucking , stumbling, tripping, making mistakes in front of an audience that loves you is much better than tripping in front of no one
  ~
 
 If you believe it – consistency is what people need
  They don’t need your perfection
 They need your content right now
 If you wait around you might lose some
 They’ll spread the word
 By the time the audience comes…the quality will be there

~~~

You are not me, and you don't share my hesitations about the All Around Growth podcast audience.

 I am not you, and I most certainly don't have the audience that you have.

 Who is your audience?

 Perhaps we are our own biggest, and most important audience.

  We need to learn how to get over perfection...

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello there everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Robbie, and I am your host. Today is Thursday, November 18th, 2021. This is episode number 230. I mistakenly referred to yesterday's episode as uh 228. But it was actually episode number 229, and today is episode number 230. The topic of today's show is perfection, the enemy of the good. And before we get into the dialogue on that, a little bit of backstory. Back on the 10th of November, I put out a poll on social media and a Telegram group on uh 10 different topics of what people might be interested in hearing. Perfection, the enemy of the good, the art of de-escalation, putting too much on your plate, standards, personal versus professional writing and autobiography, social media revisited, Alan Watts, Finance, Debt Freedom, Love and Passion, so that being a burden, and knowing when to quit something. And perfection uh yesterday we talked about putting too much on our plates and perfection, the enemy of the good, and knowing when to quit something, we're tied for second place. So today we're gonna talk about perfection, the enemy of the good. So as I was gathering my thoughts on this, you know, we've all we've all heard this, you know, this this this quote, perfection, the enemy of the good, but but what's up with that? What's behind that? So perfection is the enemy of the good, is an aphorism, which in the English-speaking world is commonly attributed to Voltaire, who quoted an Italian proverb in his dictionnaire philosophique in 1770. Alright, very good. So for those of us like myself who could use a little refresher, who is Voltaire? Francois Marie Arret, known by his nom de plum, Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Alright, I can get down with that. I mean, I had some familiarity with Voltaire, but I'll be honest with you guys. Uh Voltaire has not been on my reading list as of late. Perhaps he should be. Well, with a little bit of history, uh now we got a little history lesson on the on our show topic itself and who it's attributed to. You know, let's let's let's hit the road, let's get into it. And I this is a great topic because this is one that came directly from the chat in the Telegram group. And you are welcome to join it as well at t.me slash allaround growth. You don't have to install it on your phone, it's easily operable from your computer. So definitely check it out and join us in the chat. Talk about a number of things there, and this was one of them. You know, the the the idea of perfection. And I'm gonna give full credit to you know the bulk of this episode and dialogue coming from Chad. And um he wrote, you never know who's watching what you're doing. Your consistency feeds whatever it is that you're doing. Being afraid to show the world who you are because it's not perfect yet, not giving yourself credit, not giving your potential audience credit, you gotta put it out there. Give them a chance. Give yourself a chance. If you wait until perfection, it's going to be too late. You know, sandbagging the neighborhood courts. We were talking basketball references earlier for context. Sucking, stumbling, tripping, making mistakes in front of an audience that loves you is much better than tripping in front of no one. If you believe it, consistency is what people need. They don't need your perfection. They don't need your content, or they need your content right now. If you wait around, you might lose some. And they'll spread the word. By the time the audience comes, the quality will be there. Now, he was responding to to me directly as I was talking about some of my own hesitation with the podcast. And first of all, Chad, I appreciate that feedback, like I said, and I appreciate all of the feedback from the audience in general. It's it's this isn't just a place where you know I'm seeking feedback on the podcast. We're talking about all manner of things. And I'd like to try and tie in what Chad wrote to me and explain how that applies to anyone, really. For for it's relevant for any type of anything that we're working on in life. And I think it's applicable for anyone who truly wants to change. That is. Now you're not me, right? And you don't share my hesitations about the all-around growth podcast audience, much in the same way that I'm not you. And I most certainly don't have the audience that you have. So ask yourself, you know, who is your audience? Your family? Your peers? Your co-workers? The children on the school bus that you drive in the mornings and the afternoons? I don't know, you have an audience, right? So you're not a content creator? So what? You have an audience somewhere. Your blog doesn't have that many readers? So what? You've got an audience. You don't have children? So what? You are a part of your community. You know, we're all a part of our community, whether we want to be or not, whether we choose to actively seek to participate in it or not. People see you. Right? People watch you. But most of all, you see you. We are the ones that see ourselves more often than anyone in the world, and the only one that sees us more than ourselves is God, the infinite creator. So Chad said, again, if you believe it, consistency is what people need. They don't need your perfection, they need your content right now. They need you right now. Like your family doesn't need your perfection. Your family needs you right now. Your community needs you right now. You need you right now. I mean to we need to learn how to get get over this idea of perfection. It it becomes it becomes analysis, you know, we we we end up getting nothing done. Analysis paralysis. You know, we're stuck on trying to figure out how to do the one thing the best, but then when we get frustrated on the one thing, we change it up and we do another thing, and we're all we're oftentimes stuck in this in this loop of mediocrity, right? And you know, think about think about a moon orbiting a planet, or a planet orbiting the sun, or some some some cosmic body in orbit around another cosmic body. The orbital path of some kind of cosmic body can change, provided something happens that's strong enough, if you will, to interrupt it and cause that pattern to change. But ultimately the cosmic bodies, even if their orbital path change changes, they they end up moving in a different pattern. Okay, so I got a late start this morning because of the rain. And uh like the one big stop sign here is near the school, and generally I beat the traffic, but not today. And uh we want to we want we want to be slow and uh be safe on a rainy morning, so be patient. But anyways, orbital paths, whatever. Um we can change, we can repattern, and we need to learn how to get over this idea of perfection. And that that concept was something that came up in working through the 2022 goal setting workbook. And I believe, I'm not quite certain yet, that part of the reason we completed the workbook with a deadline of 48 days before the end of the year was so that we could have some time, 14 days specifically, to put them away, not look at them, and then revisit them. And that gives us, you know, about a month prior to the new year to most likely review, assess, analyze, adjust, and then prepare ourselves to execute accordingly on said goals for the 22 2022 year immediately upon the new year, if not before. Okay, so there's always room to change, right? There's always room to adjust and get these concepts closer to perfection, but unless we get the concepts going in the first place, unless we take action on these thoughts, we get nowhere and there's nothing to modify. Thoughts are worthless without action. So to conclude some of these thoughts of my own on consistency and perfection, I think that it's really important to be mindful of consistency instead of perfection. And one real quick personal experience I'll share it. Years ago, when I trained for and ran a marathon, it consisted of runs starting with a half a mile. You know, I was a fat guy. Couldn't do this, it took me six hours to run the marathon, but you know what? I did it. Over the past ten plus years, I've lost 90 freaking pounds. But when it comes to training for that marathon, even on those half-mile runs at the very beginning of a year-long training plan because you're such a badass. You gotta show up and you gotta do it, and you gotta shuffle, and you gotta trudge, and you gotta grind. It takes fucking grit, man. How bad do you want it? You either want it or you wanna stay where you are right now. So, you know, shout out to Chad for pointing out the the consistency again because that's really what's up. In time, day after day after day, you begin to make the progress that you see. I mean, who was it? That sculptor, right? He's got some quote about the the statue inside the marble, but I don't know, it's not coming to mind right now. And I gotta wrap this up because I'm just getting here and gotta get ready for a rainy day. So yeah, big shout out to Chad for providing a lot of dialogue for today's show. Big shout out to the rest of the audience for contributing as well. And Chad's doing some pretty awesome work in his own right, you know. I'll link to some of that in the show notes. But he is a writer and contributor for menoforder.com, which is an awesome, uh, awesome series of blogs. He's also a participant in a podcast on YouTube called Aquarian Anarchy, which is a fantastic show. I've seen several episodes, look forward to watching more. And also, one of the things that he turned me on to that I've got on the to-do list is to learn more marketable skills so I can continue my own personal growth and development, specifically with regard to my career, through Skillshare. So if you want to learn more, check out the show notes for links to everything that Chad is involved with, along with links to the All-Around Growth Telegram group. Because if you want to participate in a community of people like you listening to this with similar goals and whatnot, then join us on Telegram. You know, if you're on Telegram, don't want to participate in any chat groups, that's cool, I get it. You can subscribe to the broadcast channel, and in the show notes as well, there will also be a link to a brief one-minute video on how to leave a rating and review in the Apple Podcast app, which at this time we are still getting most of our listens to through. So even if you don't use any of the native Apple apps like I do, that video will help guide you to leave a rating and review in Apple because it really does help the algorithm and help expose people to the show, new listeners to the show. So if you like what you hear and you want to spread the word, I would encourage you to do that and help us out. Ultimately, if you want to spread the word, just share it on social media, go to the show notes, go to the website, all aroundgrowth.buzzsprout.com. Yes, I'm working on a legit website. Give me some time, guys. But do that, spread the word, and if you have any questions or feedback for me, you can send me an email at all aroundgrowth at gmail. Yes. Anyways, have a wonderful Thursday.