63. Play, Positive Psychology, and A-Holes with Jeff Harry Part 2: Perfectionism and Play

 
 
 
 
 
 

Perfectionism is a Thief

When you think about the people and brands that have inspired you, they’ve all stood out. They’ve all been unique.

But on social media, there’s an energy of perfectionism and of fitting in.

How does perfectionism make us stand out? How does fitting in make us memorable? And how does that support the people witnessing us in feeling something?

When you make the leap and become more consistently visible, people love to tell you that perfectionism is the thief of joy and to just be yourself. But it’s always easier said than done.

Jeff Harry and India continue their conversation about why chasing perfection isn’t actually helping your image, how fear of getting it wrong begets perfectionism online, and why acknowledging your mistakes can actually deepen trust in you and your brand. Plus, Jeff shares an exercise to help you bring play back into your presence.

Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:

  • How showing up, experimenting and acknowledging your mistakes builds trust with your audience

  • Why we forget how to play 

  • An experiment to help you recover your own sense of play

Bringing Back Play 

Jeff Harry combines positive psychology and play to help teams and organizations navigate difficult conversations and assist individuals in addressing their biggest challenges through embracing a play-oriented approach to work. For his work, Jeff was selected by BambooHR & Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers of 2020 and has been featured in the NY Times, Mashable, Upworthy, & Shondaland. Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon, and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day.

Show Up and Make Mistakes

In her discussion with Jeff Harry on fear and perfectionism, India says that mistakes are more often experiments that give you data to work with.

And when your experiments do go awry and you say or do something hurtful or not in alignment with your values, “you have the opportunity to go back and apologize. And…I’ve seen firsthand that people have more respect for that than they do these brand bots…There’s so much room to draw a deeper connection with people through your experimentation and mistakes.”

Jeff agrees and adds that this is why he says play is the opposite of perfection. “The more we start trying to be perfect, the less we’re able to actually play and actually show up as our full self.”

He says showing up fully might mean getting rejected, but it might also attract the people who can’t see you when you’re holding up the facade of perfection.

He continues that the dichotomy of play and perfectionism is most apparent right now in the difference between how people post on TikTok versus Instagram. “There’s so many people that are just acting all weird on TikTok and they’re just being their strangest self. And that’s what makes it such a safe platform to play.”

On Instagram, he says that while people are trying to gain followers or influence, or be unique, “then why is everyone posting the same picture?”

On social media, he says we need to go back to “a place of caring, vulnerability, play, and experimentation. And be willing to look stupid, because the people that are willing to fail most are the people that are gonna be most successful.”

India adds that so many people say they want to stand out online, but they continue to do things to make themselves fit in, but showing up and playing, experimenting, and being imperfect is what is really going to call in your people. “And they’re there with you for the long haul, because they like the real humans behind your brand.”

What Makes You Come Alive?

When he’s encouraging people to experiment and play, Jeff says many people ask him how to do that because they don’t know how to play.

He offers an exercise he often gives to clients. He says reach out to five friends who know you well and ask them two questions, “What impact do I have on your life? [And] when have you seen me come most alive?”

He says the feedback you’ll receive on those questions from the people who know you best will show you how you play, when you’re most yourself, and it’s where you’ll get ideas that make you “nerve-cited” to post.

148,000 Nos

One of the reasons adults forget how to play, Jeff says, is because of the roughly 148,000 nos we hear by the time we’re eighteen, compared to the 8-10,000 times we hear yes. Adults “should” us. We have to ask permission for everything. And social media inundates us with information, and “most of that information being told to you is that you’re not enough.”

Jeff says it’s a rebellious, revolutionary act to play, because “you’re fighting all of these societal standards.”

He says we also have to remember that social media apps are designed like casino games to hold our attention, to keep scrolling, and to keep us looking for likes

“We're all going through this question of, why am I not feeling enough? And it's because there's been such propaganda to tell us we're not enough, when we're more than enough and we can kick ass right now!”

How Does Jeff Flaunt His Fire?

Jeff says that as a half-Vincentian, half-Filipino man, making videos is one of the ways he has processed much of the upheaval over the last few years.

“I would make videos challenging power structures, but I would use humor to do it.”

He continues, “the more I was able to create from a place of protest, that actually really helped me to actually get through and process a lot of this.”

He adds that while retreating to numbness is understandable, “if the numbing is not giving you joy after a while, if it’s not actually addressing the issue, then consider creating…I think a lot of the times we run to the numbness, but then we lose the magic of actually living and feeling all the feelings that make life worth living.”

As a final note, on the idea that someone is waiting for you to do you, so that they can do themselves, Jeff says “that is the ripple effect that you can have…Just do the thing that makes you come most alive, because someone is waiting for you to do it.”

Ready to dive deeper?

From Implicit To Explicit: Leading Through Your Values Masterclass is a framework to get clear on what matters to you as a human and how it informs the way you show up professionally.

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Flaunt Your Fire