On this episode of In The Box Podcast we talked about if it made sense not to explore options, how to stop being a perfectionist, one tip on how to take initiative at work (and subsequently the difference between responsibility and authority), accepting that expectations will always get bigger of you and one thing I (Garth) would change about myself.
Episode 52: Exploring Your Options, Taking Initiative, Avoiding Perfectionism And More
Performance – What is one tip you have for those who need to accept they will always be performing at a higher level than before?
Exploring Options – Does it ever make sense to not explore your options?
Initiative – One tip on how to take initiative at work without overstepping our boundaries?
Perfection – How do you avoid being a perfectionist?
Bonus – If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
1) relationships are everything. They build and attract new business. They provide insight you would have not received (or you would have learned the hard way) had you not made the connection. You will know if you’re on the right track in work and life based on the praise from those you’ve connected with. Nothing is more energizing than an hour spent turning a stranger into a friend or an hour spent with someone better than you.
2) you must have a definition of what’s good enough. Too often we work toward perfection and either never ship the product or we ship it too late. When it comes to logos at Aly Asylum, they have to pass the tattoo test. “Would you tattoo this logo on your arm?” If the answer is yes, then it’s good enough. Ship it.
3) ignore the naysayers. It’s on you to establish a mental and emotional filter, to allow and accept personal and helpful feedback while shutting out the negative, the criticism, the feedback many will call “constructive.” It helps to surround yourself with people who have a sort of forwardness to their personality. They act as a reflection of how something is, not how something should be or isn’t.
Now let’s get on with the week, develop some relationships, ship something daily, and shun the trolls.
“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.” – Algernon
The Importance of Being Earnest is by far my favorite play. I’ve read it twice and quoted from it multiple times over in my writing. (Also bias in the sense Oscar Wilde is my favorite poet.) I was finally fortunate enough to see a live rendition of it last night, and the show reminded me what makes a play or any artform remarkable.
People never talk about perfection and if they do, they are lying.
From a three hour-long play, only two actors made one mistake each. They merely started a word and, half-way through, restarted the word. There was a millisecond moment they questioned whether the word they were saying was the right word or not.
Again, over the span of three hours and thousands of words, only two moments reminded the audience the actors are human, and those two moments make all the difference in a remarkable show and an unremarkable one.
Jugglers, Actors, Humans
The reason jugglers attract such a crowd is they are in a constant state of risk. Even the most professional jugglers in the world still drop what they are juggling. If jugglers were perfect, no one would be impressed. The same goes for a playwright. The same goes for any form of art.
Slight noticeable errors are what we all relate to; it’s part of being human. When a minimal error is made during an act, it reminds the audience just how difficult, incredible and remarkable the art you’re doing is. As Earnest would suggest, it is mixing pleasure and science.
If anything were perfect entertainment (pleasure), it would go without being talked about. People talk about great experiences, sure, but never perfect ones and if they do, they are lying. (Consider giving them dental floss and reminding them lying through their teeth doesn’t count as flossing.) When an error is made, science complements pleasure.
The universal relation of humans is we may all strive for perfection, but we will never reach it. Any reminder of this concept, say, a slip of a word during a three hour-long play is what makes art of any kind, remarkable.
Stay Positive & Do Something Remarkable, Anything Except Perfection
There are businesses, writers, artists that start when they still haven’t perfected their craft. They create crap art and develop sketchy business models. They write well but make countless grammatical and mechanical errors. But according to this chart, there’s no correlation of where you start in terms of a perfect craft to how successful you are down the line.
What about those who are perfect at their art when they start. What about those writers who practice in the shadows and refuse to come out until their novel is perfect? How about those businessmen and women who study model after model before they develop their “perfect” model. Is there any guarantee of success for them down the line? Nope.
Where you start doesn’t matter much down the line.* What matters is that you start.
Stay Positive & Go Start
*If you’re looking for a short-term investment or if you’re looking for a place to perfect your practice before you truly launch yourself, where you start matters very much.
If you haven’t heard of the term “satisficing,” then it’s time to listen closely. It’s much like “good enough” if you define that as “Good. Now, enough.”
There are two sides to satisficing.The first is on you, the content creator. Perfection with your product or service might be able to be accomplished from time-to-time, but not consistently and it’s not what your clients or customers want. Understanding your audience is the second side of satisficing.
Herbert Simon who coined the term “satisficing” maintained that “individuals do not seek to maximise their benefit from a particular course of action (since they cannot assimilate and digest all the information that would be needed to do such a thing). Not only can they not get access to all the information required, but even if they could, their minds would be unable to process it properly.”
In laymen’s terms, even if people notice perfection, they have difficulty interacting with it. Most of the time though, they don’t notice perfection. This leads to a series of questions you need to ask yourself.
Why spend time on creating perfection?
What does my audience expect?
What is the most my audience can or is willing to process?
Can I create more by satisficing than I can creating perfection? (obv.)
Two extra bits about this:
1. Having an idea (not a goal!) of what perfection is at the beginning of a project puts you in a great position to start working. Beware, you will end up hairless trying to follow all the way through with that idea. (Either it will take so long to reach that you bald or you pull all of your hair out trying to make it perfect.)
2. Acknowledge the Juggler’s Perfection. The businesses and freelancers who make the most are those who create something that’s imperfect, perfectly.
Stay Positive & Don’t Fall Out Of The Running By Trying For Perfection
I’ve had writers, teachers, and friends remind me that the first sentence of any writing (the attention grabber) is the most important sentence and needs to be perfect. I squirm when I hear people tell me the first sentence must be perfect because they talk as if there is only one perfect way to start.
There are thousands of great ways to start. My philosophy is to find one that is great and move on. Most changes I see writers make with their first sentence doesn’t make it better, it just changes it into another great one.
Artists, not just writers, spend so much time on perfecting that first sentence.
Make it great and move on.
Stay Positive & Chasing Perfection Is Time Not Well Spent
Garth E. Beyer
People don’t remember the first sentence anyway. They do, however, remember the story and the ending.
Why have they not made cereal bags that you can open without ripping the bag in half?
Or why have they not made spoons that prevent milk from trickling down your chin?
Because of some very important factors.
99% of the time, seeing someone trip is funny. So is watching someone try to open a bag of cereal or when milk trickles down their chin.
Broken things are remarkable, as in, worth talking about whether it’s bragging or complaining.
They let people connect with each other. Nothing says we’re perfect for marriage than knowing you both can’t open a bag of cereal without tearing the side of it.
It’s not just cereal. As long as the real thing – whether it’s cereal or your own invention – is great, the trouble getting there is worth it. Think about your art as a toy at the bottom of a cereal box. It sort-of sucks to get it. It’s not convenient, but it’s an accomplishable and sometimes entertaining challenge.
It gets people talking about the toy without actually talking about the toy. By having them share their stories about how they got the toy (and almost vomiting while finishing an entire box of cereal in one sitting), your “toy” becomes part of a real, emotional, personal memory.
This is why perfect art is worthless. You can’t have remarkable cereal without the bag.
Stay Positive & Your Art Is Never Just Art To Someone
