A TLE Experience

For the past 2 months, I have been participating in one of our member’s monthly leadership coaching programs called Transformational Leadership Experience (TLE) and this past week I had my first ground-shaking, mind-blowing, game-changing experience as a result of the work we are doing together. I got called out by my lack of progress on being a perfectionist and saw first hand how my perfectionism can actually cause me to be less effective, reliable and trusted. My perfectionist standards of myself are that I will do what I say ~OR~ not do it at all. Black & White. No exceptions. Simple, right? WRONG!

This standard makes me look like a jerk when I apply it to the times when circumstances are out of my control. When life gets in the way or I have some human constraints of not being a superhero, I cannot allow myself to “do nothing” because the circumstances won’t allow for me to do exactly what I promised. I have to allow grey area where I do something to show my commitment even when that something isn’t exactly what I promised. Has this happened to you? Would it be helpful if I beared all to give you an example?

If it helps you, I am willing to go there.

Here’s how it showed up for me…

I am in the middle of something huge with World HeadQuarters. Yes, it is a business but my vision is so much bigger than that. I am trying to create a place where open-minded, creative, positive and innovative people can try new things, express themselves, embrace mistakes, encourage others and be courageous. I want them to do that by connecting with others and allowing me to connect them to the resources we are building around them. This is my inspiration. This is my “why” for taking the risk and for working as hard as I can each day. However, it is still a business. It is still a startup in its first 2 years of operations and cash flow is not always as predictable, reliable and abundant as the business needs right now. That is a fact, not a judgement of success or failure, just a fact and I as a human do not 100% control that. Therein lies the problem…

When the circumstances of the business that are out of my control do not allow me to keep the promises I made to pay an invoice by a certain date or move forward with an idea that I fully embraced (probably still do), my perfectionism told me to do it or DO NOTHING. I would frequently choose not to do anything and go into “waiting mode” which I learned is the last thing I should do. Through my experience in the TLE program, it was suggested that I try something new if I want to have a new result. It was suggested that I simply have an honest conversation with every person who was waiting to hear from me or waiting for payment. This was uncomfortable for me because my perfectionism was telling me that these people won’t care about my circumstances. They won’t want to hear that I can’t keep my promises, especially if I don’t have an answer as to exactly when the circumstances I don’t control will change. Man, was I wrong again!

People are kind. People understand. They have all been there too. People will surprise you with their willingness to help and their flexibility. As a matter of fact, I have some people still due phone calls and the calls are getting easier to make but I have already had generosity help me save almost $7,000 over the next six months. Money I would not have had and that would have lead to more unkept promises. My new found ability to simply make contact by the due date and make a promise for a future date resulted in generous offers I didn’t see coming. Honestly, those offers would never have come because I had not allowed people to see me as flawed and needing help. I had not given them a chance to be kind, compassionate or generous. I am so grateful for letting them in and for the opportunity to try something new.

And that’s my story.

What may seem incredibly simple to you or may seem obvious to some was hidden from my sight by my perfectionist goggles.

Thank you Mike Shereck & Sarah Crawford of TLE for helping me try on a new pair of goggles.