Missed Takes or Mistakes?

Perfectionism is rampant in our culture. The pressure to do things right, right now, has induced in us a fear of making mistakes. Ironically, that very aversion is what keeps us from doing things ‘right’. It’s a horrible incapacitating cycle that HAS to be broken.

Today, Maren & Stephanie talk about this ‘cycle’ we’ve caught in a fun and engaging way, laughing at their own mistakes (yes, Stephanie really did light a 90 year old man on fire). More than that, they bring perspective shifts AND multiple, tangible practices to the conversation so that we can all get to the benefits of the ‘missed takes’ in our lives.

If you want the quickest doorway to growth, you will love this podcast. Of course, you’ll need to be willing to let go of your self-judgment and perfectionism!

• 00:30 Perfectionism and mistakes
• 01:41 Apprenticeships - learning via mistakes
• 02:44 Impatience of our time
• 05:10 Conditioned blame and shame
• 08:32 Choice, freedom and change
• 12:09 A trick to respond instead of react
• 16:25 Trying out different ‘takes’
• 20:25 Fail often and as quickly as possible
• 21:16 ‘It’s all perfect’ exercise
• 22:22 Stephanie lights a man on fire
• 24:56 What we miss out on by avoiding mistakes

TRANSCRIPT

Watch on Youtube

LINKS

08:20 One and done, disposable society - Ep 119: Burdens to Blessings

08:49 Leading yourself - Ep 157: Inner Leadership: Awaken Your Potential 

20:40 Daniel Goodenough - Ep 67: Three Questions that Will Change Your Life

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Transcript

Stephanie Allen: 0:04

In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Maren Oslac: 0:10

Deep inside, you know, there's more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.

Stephanie Allen: 0:19

That's what we invite you to explore with us.

Maren Oslac: 0:22

We're your hosts,

Stephanie Allen: 0:23

Stephanie Allen and

Maren Oslac: 0:25

Maren Oslac. And this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 0:30

Yay! Hi, welcome to The Soulful Leader Podcast. This is Stephanie and I'm here with Maren. And today we're talking about mistakes, those dreaded mistakes, how we love and hate them. Actually, I don't know if we really love them, but you're gonna love them after we talk about them. Because mistakes can be such a great doorway for growth and understanding. But it really requires that we let go of the self judgment, we let go of the harshness and we have to practice really, really listening to what it is in our heart and literally letting go of the shoulda woulda, coulda ought to's.

Maren Oslac: 1:09

I think so much of it is related to this perfectionism thing that we have as culture, and that we've adopted personally. It's one thing to say the culture has it, right? Well, when the culture has it, that means that it's existing inside of me, too. And it does exist inside of me. I really do feel that perfectionism program of like, oh, I can't make a mistake. I have to be perfect.

Stephanie Allen: 1:34

Yeah, where did this ever happen that you had to do it like, perfect, right out of the, right out of the blocks.

Maren Oslac: 1:41

It is so interesting, because like when you think of original learning, which was passed down from generation to generation to generation, and there were guilds and people were taught through apprenticeships, not in massive schools, apprentices were not expected to have things perfect. Like, the reason that there was an apprenticeship is you learned a little bit at a time, and you were expected to make mistakes. And you were expected to learn from that. And that was, you learn the process of here's how learning happens is, you do it wrong, you learn how to do it, right, you do it better. Still not quite right. You'll learn how to do it. But you know, like, and so it was this, this constant evolution. This, you know, Carol Dweck calls it a growth mindset. And that growth mindset, somewhere along the line got, like, warped and we became a very fixed mindset society.

Stephanie Allen: 2:44

Well, I also wonder, too, if it isn't just, we want everything yesterday, like we're so impatient. You know, I remember the old times when internet first started, and someone would send you a picture over the dial up network, and like, you might as well go out and do your laundry and have supper and then come back, and maybe part of the picture showed up. I mean, that took a long time. But now it's not there and it literally, I don't even know the term of it, like less than a millisecond. We're impatient. And so when did like all of this happen? And when we're so impatient, there's no room for mistakes. There's no room for possibilities. There's no room for conversation. John Maxwell has a great way around leadership when you're talking about the apprentice and apprenticing, and as someone who said true leader leadership is, you know, I'm going to show you how I do it, you know, I've reached a certain level of mastery. So I'm going to show you how I do it, you're going to watch and you're going to ask questions, and then you're going to do it. And I'm going to watch and I'm going to ask you questions. And then they do it on their own, without you. And that doesn't just happen, like three times like, that may happen over an evolution of quite some time. Right? yeah

Maren Oslac: 3:57

So like, the way you make it sound is like, okay, I do it once and you watch, you do it once and I watch, and then whoop! You're on your own. True apprenticeship is not like that, like apprentices watch for years and years. And then they are You know, like, that doesn't mean that you're a watched for years for years and years. And then even the step after that there's actually two parts to the step after that, of you do it on your own. So you do it on your own and check in with me and bring it master now. Like you do it on your own and keep bringing it back and keep bringing it back. And then eventually you become a master. Now you're the one who's passing on the knowledge. Right? One of the things, my things, is my personal choices through my life is- I've always chosen to work with coaches who have coaches. So even at the point of mastery, there's still something to learn. And I think that's something that gets lost in the translation as if Oh, I've arrived. And it's like, oh, there's nothing to learn, you know,

Stephanie Allen: 5:10

Yeah, you get to this end in place. And yeah, like there's no grace, even when yourself, it's like, oh, I screwed up. And you know, reminds me of a story of my mum, my mum was a dancer when she was a little girl. And she did Highland dancing and we lived in Nova Scotia. There's a lot of the gathering of the clans, which is where the Highland dancers would get up, and they would do their dancing. And she was just a little girl at the time. And I think it was her first time actually dancing on stage for a competition. And she kept getting told to come back and do it again. And she thought she was making mistakes. And she's like, What is wrong with me? Why can't I get this right? And they would ask her again, do it again, do it again, do it. And I don't know how many times she had to do it again. And then finally, she won a medal. And she didn't realize that in the doing it again, was actually that she was progressing. She was actually elevating herself to the next group to do it again. And they kept picking her. And I when I think about that in the way of mistakes, and I think... isn't it interesting how sometimes we default to Oh my God, I screwed up, I made a mistake, just like my mother did dancing, instead of what if it was... No, actually, you are fine tuning. You are tweaking it and we like what we're seeing so far. And you're moving to the next stage, the next development to try it again, at an whole new level. And I think if we present that model a little bit differently, I think we'd be a lot kinder with ourselves and with each other. And it wasn't about a one and done.

Maren Oslac: 6:41

I think we'd have so much more joy in the process for one thing. And the other is where might it take us? Because how often do we stop doing something because we feel like we're bad at it. And there's an embarrassment and a shame and and I can't, I know I shouldn't. So we stop ourselves long before like, we would even know if we're actually good or not. Or if it makes brings us joy or not. Because we never got out of the shame part of it. We're in that, oh, I'm not good enough. I'm making mistakes.

Stephanie Allen: 7:17

And as long as we're in that shame part, and we think we're making mistakes, and we're failing horribly, there is no space for kindness or generosity or growth or connection and intimacy. I think of that in relationship when someone says, Look, how many times have I told you not to leave that dirty sink? You know, leave that thing, the dishes...

Maren Oslac: 7:37

Yeah, exactly. The socks on the floor!

Stephanie Allen: 7:41

And sometimes we take it personally and thinking like God, I've told you like, 10 times, and you know, then we take it personally, we say they're not listening to me. They don't care about me. And it's like, the other person is like, Damn, I'm frickin trying, and I'm a hot mess. And I have a hard time. Like, you know, my mind is everywhere. And I sometimes I forget, I'm so sorry, I'm really working on it. And it's like, instead of having this space of like, okay, well, what can we do to make this easier? Like, how can we set this up differently? And there's a growth opportunity. But I think because we're so conditioned that we have to be perfect right out of the get-go that there's no space for what ifs? Or can we work through this? Or I'm trying and I'm working with this. I think it's just so unfortunate that we're this one and done society. And we throw things out. Yeah, so easily. We talked about that in one of our other podcasts, like just the disposable. But I think we dispose of ourselves.

Maren Oslac: 8:32

We do. Yeah, I think that there's really a few layers to it. And two of those layers is how we treat somebody else, right? As leaders, that's one of the things that we talk about all the time, right, how we're treating those around us. And then you know, the podcast that we recently did about leading yourself, it's how do I treat myself like that? Because if I'm wanting to not treat somebody else like that, the first place that I need to look is I'm probably treating myself like that.

Stephanie Allen: 9:04

Oh my gosh, and that is the one that you actually can change the easiest and the most beautiful, and sometimes we distract ourselves with everything else, so that we don't even look at that part.

Maren Oslac: 9:13

Sometimes?(laughter)

Stephanie Allen: 9:14

Ok, most of the time. So interesting, you know, I had just gotten a text earlier today from a friend of mine who has gone for a new job. And, you know, it's funny, because he was really anxious about going to for this new job. And I said, Well, you know, what are you anxious about? Like, what, what's the worst thing that could happen? Like, you could actually get the job? Like, how could this be a better, you already have a job, so it's not like you're risking anything. It's like, well, you know, I don't want to lie. You know, being true is really important to me. It's it's a value to me, and I'm like, yeah, that is so great, you know, and I said so when we practice, you know, what could you say or what could you do? Anyway. The text that came today is like, oh my god, I'm almost sick to my stomach. I lied. And I said, What do you mean you lied? What did you say? And he kind of made up the story that instead of just saying, I have an appointment. Like, the company called and asked him to come in for an interview, and instead of just saying, I have an appointment to his employer, I have an appointment that I need to go early tomorrow. You know, he said well, I have a doctor's appointment, he made up all this other thing around a medical issue or whatever. And then as soon as he did it, he felt sick to his stomach. I'm kind of half laughing because I'm like, way to go, first of all way to go. I said, you know, you were really getting out of your comfort zone and you're going for a job and you're, you know, you're stepping up to something that is more true towards you. I said, but you panicked and didn't even know what to say. Yeah, and this is what happens, we default back to our old patterns. So it's not that we want to be perfect right out of the get-go. I'm not saying that. It's like to know what your default patterns are. This is the key, is the awareness. You know, without awareness, there's no choice, there's no freedom, there's no change. But the moment you're aware of something, if you are aware that you have a pattern of just you know, I say this a lot is that sometimes thoughts come in and go right out your mouth, before they've actually had a moment to kind of marinate and you're like, oh, shit, did I say that out loud? Right? You know, we have these moments, right? Well, if you're aware of that, then you can say okay, I'm aware that that happens with me, what can I do differently? How can I slow that process down? Like, maybe I need to talk it over with somebody or kind of like roleplay, or have some scenarios, or just even write it out, journal it out, like, take some process for yourself to kind of slow it down and distill it, because what you're doing and of course, it never is going to come out the way you have practiced it, by the way, that's the other part of it. But you've practiced it, which means at least it's now in the distilling and the marinating phase, rather than the, the reactive let's just throw that oil on the on the, you know, the gasoline on the fire, and let's explode this thing. It's like, that can be an old pattern that we want to change.

Maren Oslac: 12:03

You know, it's interesting, because one of the things that I... that's something that when I would get nervous, I would feel very... hmmm...what's the word like, justified if somebody would send me an email that like made me nervous, or that got me anxious, and I would want to respond, and instead, I would react. What I mean by that is like, I would fire off an email right back. And so what I started doing was I had a second email account that I never... it's, it's my spam email account, I never check it. It's, you know, it's the one I use for spam, for places that require, if they require an email address, and I don't want to give it, I give them that one. Because I never check it, right? So what I started doing was, I would fire off the response to my own email instead of to them. And then I would make myself wait an hour, or a day, or whatever it was, depending on how much I was worked up, right? Before I read it, and when I would go into the other email it, you know, I'm looking at it from a different perspective, because it's not my in my send file, it's in my, I received this. And I found that I really actually read it very differently, because it was something that I received. And I was like, what does it feel like to receive this?

Stephanie Allen: 13:33

That's a great practice!

Maren Oslac: 13:36

I can't think of any one of those that I did that I didn't completely rewrite, and go God I'm so glad I didn't send that.

Stephanie Allen: 13:45

I think this is such a great, a couple of good examples. One, the example of you know, we do tend to react, and then what comes out of us is really not what we like to say or what is really a deeper, kinder, more impactful thing.

Maren Oslac: 14:01

or even more a more authentic, like, thats not who I am,

Stephanie Allen: 14:06

It's not who you want to be. So it's like to allow yourself some space for a choice to really step into, well, you know, what kind of leader do I want to be? What kind of being do I want to be? And then allow yourself to be in the other person's shoes, so to speak, by receiving it and how did I receive that? How did I take that in? If that was coming from someone else? And then like, and again, you know, we're so conditioned to have instantaneous response. It's like, come on, I just texted you, why haven't you text me back? I'm waiting. I'm waiting. You know, and sometimes it does need to have that space of like, just give me some time. Give me some space here for a moment because I need to slow down to just really look at that. Now, sometimes people will say that, Oh, I just need time and space. And that's kind of their way of like getting off the hook so that they don't have to deal with it. But I think honestly if you really said, I do need some time and space to really give yourself a time limit, within that. Can I respond by tomorrow morning, or you know, next week? Whatever you need, but that you actually put a time limit on it, so that in that time you are actually practicing, really looking at it and speaking it or writing it or feeling it from a different, you know, from a different perspective.

Maren Oslac: 15:23

You know, the other thing that it would allow me to do is, you know, for example, your your client or your friend who wanted, you know, they fired off a response and then felt guilty about it, like, so I would fire off the response to myself, and then I would know what my feelings were about that. So I would have, the that's part of the reason that I waited an hour before, or day or you know, like I said before, I would go read it, because if I sent it and immediately read it, it's like, more justification for Yes, that's what, right? So I would actually take that hour and marinate in how did it feel to send that? And there would already be regrets of like, oh, well, maybe I should have said that differently, you know, hmm. And then when I would read it, then I would be in a different place, I'd be a different person than the person who wrote it. So I would get to experience both of those.

Stephanie Allen: 16:25

Great practices. And this is where you know, having a coach or having a friend or someone else to actually kind of witness it with you. And why I'm saying this is that you also need to be in choice of the type of person you're going to choose to witness it with you. If it's another person who's just going to be like, yeah, you deserve better than that. And that's what you should have said, and lalalallala, probably not such a good coach. But to have someone who's neutral, who's not invested in the outcome either way, that is actually invested in you becoming your, your more beautiful, extraordinary self, rather than just a reactive hot mess, which is where I have been many times in my life, too. I know this one. But again, coming back to mistakes, it's like, God, if you don't step out of your comfort zone, and you don't make mistakes, how will you ever evolve or grow. And then you know, you get older, your birth age gets older, but you actually still acting like you did when you were 7,8,9,10. This is not helpful, especially when you're, you're leading a family or a business or an organization of some sort, or it's or even just leading yourself and you want to grow and you want to have something different.

Maren Oslac: 17:34

You know, I I like the movie industry for this example of they have a little clapboard. And it's take one, take two, take three, take... right? And it's a missed take. That's all it is. So you missed the take. And that is standard when we make a movie, or when we do a TV show, or when we you know, It's like one of the things that many people talk about is like, wow, we did that in one take. There are those times in life where it's like, yeah, I got it the first time through, wow. Most of the time, we don't get it the first time through and that's okay. That means that we learned something like your friend, he learned that 'I don't want to do that.'

Stephanie Allen: 18:27

Yeah.

Maren Oslac: 18:27

And there's another option. Right?

Stephanie Allen: 18:30

So not to beat yourself up. Right? You know, it's like, okay, you just learned that you didn't want to do that. Right? Wait, that's a great learning. So what did you learn? And what could you do differently next time, not about a right wrong perfectionist, but like just a discovery? You know, that's why they even, when they do the mistakes in the movie, they go...Hey, let's try it from this angle, let's try from that angle, let's try you embodying, this kind of character rather than that character. Like, you get to try out some different things to see which one really resonates. Yeah.

Maren Oslac: 19:04

And imagine like, either a workforce or you know, even in your family, of this is the way of being. Of course, like we're experimenting this is a game, let's experiment. Let's play with it. And instead of, you know, I get it that there are high stakes and there are places to experiment and there are places where you don't experiment. Like if I'm going into surgery, I don't want the doctor going hey let's play! Let's experiment!

Stephanie Allen: 19:36

Oops, made a mistake. (laughter) There's an artery! Sorry about that.

Maren Oslac: 19:41

So and getting to that point so that you are the person who under pressure knows how to do that thing. That's years and years and years of mistakes. Michael Jordan has some amazing quote along those lines about all the the last minute shots that were put on him that he missed in order so that he could have the few that he actually made. That made all the difference in the world. It's training and it's training, making the mistakes. And that's life, right?

Stephanie Allen: 20:25

I think the hardest part is it when we give up, when we give up on ourselves, or we give up on another person, because they keep making mistakes, it's like, I think that's what sad, it's like, instead of saying, Okay, congratulations, you're making all kinds of mistakes, you know, like Daniel Goodenough one of our, one of our coaches ourselves, always says, you know, make lots of mistakes, and do them quickly

Maren Oslac: 20:47

fail often and as quickly as possible.

Stephanie Allen: 20:50

It's great. And it's like, I think if we had that kind of mindset, in our world, I think there'll be a lot, I think we have a lot more beauty in our lives, actually. And a lot more humor. Because I think, you know, when we can also laugh at ourselves, it's like, oh, my god, that was extraordinary. Oops. You know, and to be able to laugh, and and take it seriously, too, but not so seriously that we're beating ourselves up or another person. Yeah.

Maren Oslac: 21:16

Yeah. You know, I have another exercise that I had given to a client just the other day. And it kind of looks at it from a slightly different perspective of - what if all the things, the things that we consider mistakes, the things that we look back, and we have regrets, or maybe I did this, right, maybe I did it wrong, and we question ourselves, and what if it all was perfect? So that you were actually meant to become the person that you were today? For whatever purpose is coming next? And you wouldn't have, if you made a different choice? So when we look back on our lives, or look back on, you know, even last week, if like, what if actually, I was meant to make that decision? Or like, for example, your friend, what if I was meant to say that, so that I could learn so that I could become a different person, because sometime in the future, the maybe the near future, or the distant future, if I were to say that it would be really hurtful.

Stephanie Allen: 22:22

So that reminds me of a story that I have, a personal story that I have about making mistakes. When I was in China studying to be an acupuncturist. I was learning how to do cupping. And you take a...it almost looks like a mason jar, like a glass jar, and you basically dip the wand in alcohol and you light it on fire. Except for I didn't ring out the cotton ball and the rim of the cup also got on fire, which it doesn't. And I put it on the person which also had a lot of alcohol on the person. And I set the person on fire. Yeah, you laugh. But I literally broke down and I broke down. And I was horrified. I was horrified. The man was in his 90s. I was like, this is somebody's grandfather. I was like, Oh, I started to cry and cry and I cried uncontrollably. And of course, it's in China. So I can't speak Chinese. And this lovely man who I just set on fire, said, I'm just so grateful that you've come to learn my culture's medicine. And for the next two days, I couldn't go back to class because I was like, I can't go by class. I'm too ashamed. I made a huge boo boo. And so I went in. And my Chinese doctor said to me, she's like, so what did you learn? And I kind of gave a whole list of things that I learned and she said, you know what, you're never going to set another person on fire. No, I promise you I will never do. I was traumatized. I was traumatized. But you know, it's so interesting, because now and I love doing cupping now and I'm really great at it. But I learned so much from that mistake, that I that I'm a good mentor on showing other people what not to do. Don't do this. Here's what you want to do. Because if you don't, this could happen and I'm saving you a lot of. And that's that whole idea of the apprenticing you know and so God love that man that that sacrificed his body for me to set it on fire. Like I just I learned so much about burns, I learned so much about how to treat burns. I learned so much, God love him, I learned so much. And my heart broke wide open to be even more willing to learn. So I think you're right when you say about if we go back and we look at those mistakes, like how they are opening the doorway to some sort of mastery. And I've also heard that where you where you struggle the most in your life, whether it's finances whether it's relationships, whether it's health, whatever it might be, that's actually where your greatest gift and potential lies. And so if we avoid making mistakes, if we avoid stepping out of our comfort zone in those areas, then you will miss uncovering that gift that is buried within your soul. That's your true self.

Maren Oslac: 25:18

And it's so interesting, because those are probably the areas we avoid the most, we avoid trying to, like, Oh, I'm gonna make a mistake. I'm not gonna, like, I'm already bad at that. I'm horrible, it's a traumatic thing for me, I'm just going to avoid that, you know. So that's interesting. And thank you for sharing that story. Because it.. it's entertaining for me for one. And it illustrates perfectly of like, you know, the things that we think are mistakes when we can look at them, and tell a different story about them, and keep telling higher and higher versions of that story of like, you know what it was absolutely meant to be. And it created, it made me who I am today who's, and because I am who I am today, probably a lot of other people were not set on fire.

Stephanie Allen: 26:09

Exactly. Because not only do you learn from your own mistakes, you learn from other people's mistakes. I'll give you another funny example. I was on an airplane once and this woman went to the to the washroom, you know how bloody small those flipping bathrooms are on the airplane. And she had a dress on. And she came out of the bathroom and she had tucked her dress into her panties. Right? So like the long part behind you was now tucked up into her panties. So she's walking down the aisle, but her bare bum was basically showing. I'll tell you that traumatized me too. Because now every time I go to the bathroom, I'm like, okay, is my is my shirt stuck in my panties? I double check all the time. And so God love her for being, you know, the sacrificial lamb of like, you know, check twice before you leave the bathroom at the airport, anywhere. I just think we can learn so much from each other. And that we, you know, we're so, you know, caught up and trying to be perfect, and yet, it's our mistakes. And I mean, that's also where the humor lasts, too. I mean, like, the funny funny things that have happened in our lives are often there's been crazy ass mistakes that have turned into a great conversational pieces.

Maren Oslac: 27:19

They're fantastic. I mean, when you look at people who are writers, they're looking for this stuff, because we can't make it up.

Stephanie Allen: 27:29

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Maren Oslac: 27:31

So I love this. Looking at making mistakes

Stephanie Allen: 27:32

So give yourself permission to make some differently. I would love to hear your stories, our listeners, and you're out there. So you can share your stories with us on Facebook or on LinkedIn or at The Soulful Leaders. And I would love to hear where are some things in your life where at the time, you might have thought it was a wild mistakes. And you also give yourself permission to to laugh horrible mistake, and later you realized, Wow, I'm so glad that happened? I think we've had that conversation a couple of times. And, you know, with our perfectionist society the way that it is, it's so important that we keep revisiting this and and telling ourselves and telling each other, 'wait, this is important. We're meant to make mistakes.' We are meant to. at yourself and love yourself through that and say okay, what did I just learn from that? That was extraordinary. Yeah. Like, go for it!

Maren Oslac: 28:35

So much power. So much power there. Well, thank you. And thank you all for listening. Remember, you can And that wraps up another episode of The Soulful Leader find us at the TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com. You can find us on all your favorite platforms. And we would love it if you'd share this with with a friend with a colleague with somebody that you know that might be interested. So we'll see you all next week on The Soulful Leader Podcast. Podcast with your hosts Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com

Stephanie Allen: 29:26

Until next time...