Thomas Curran | The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough

Srini: Thomas, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you have a new book out called The Perfection Trap, which I found out about through Wave Your

Thomas Curran: Oh gosh, my ,I grew up in a so my experiences at high school were very much rooted in the kind of humdrum of small town life. We were kids of working people. Parents would do. My, my parents for instance, were a receptionist. My mom was a receptionist, but dad was a construction worker and that was typical for the type of people at, worked at the parents of the kids I used to hang around with, used to do.

And we were very rambunctious, I suppose you could say. A little bit naughty. We 'cause like it's just a small town that I have is it's fun, but it's also, there's not a great deal to do. I guess we, I would say that we weren't particularly academically ambitious. But we had fun. And anyway it's been a kind of a rollercoaster journey to where I am. A lot of luck along the way. A lot of hard work for sure. And I, one of the great things about having that kind of upbringing, I think is it does give you a different

Of the world, perhaps than most people in my orbit. And I think that's helped me crystallize my ideas particularly around the social forces that weigh on perfectionism. So I, in some ways it was a disadvantage, but in other ways I think it was also an advantage.

Srini: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up the social forces of perfectionism because

Thomas Curran: The thing is

Srini: how did

Thomas Curran: is I've just so lucky I've be, I, there's so many sliding doors, moments in my life where I'd have ended up in a different place.

Srini: which you described

Thomas Curran: If you were to simulate my life a thousand times, I'd probably end up here in, maybe one or two of those simulations, like it's out of I guess anyone's expectations.

My, my parents for instance, they just cannot believe I have this book out. It's almost overwhelming that their son is, is on tv. He is doing these things on radio, he is writing this book. This was stuff that you just never would've expected and I never would've expected either. I've just ha I think I've worked really hard.

That's the first thing to say. And you can't do, you can't get here without working hard. So you have to, I'm very clear about hard work being a very important. Part of success, but also I've been so lucky to, there's been so many moments along the way, like a just even coming through at the right time. We came through and Tony Blair was leader of the of the uk prime Minister of the uk. And he had this Big education driver just like Obama did in the us. So he, you're pumping so much money into the education system so that kids like me were able to go to university. You know what, if I'd come through the system three or four years later, that money was taken away and I wouldn't be here. That's, that's just a small example, but there's so many other examples of that along the way where, just meeting the right people at the right time, coming through the education system, when people And the university system, when professors who were interested in the area of like motivation and perfectionism were at the same place that I was then, getting selected to go to do a PhD and then from there doing my postdoc and from the postdoc, I would say the journey got a lot smoother. So once you're in the system, you can really focus and you can get to where you want to be. But getting into that position was a lot of hard work, but also a lot of luck.

Srini: Yeah. I'm all too familiar with this. My dad's a college professor, , I understand it. He just retired. He just retired after 30 years. But I've lived what you're talking about. One thing that I wonder, I, if I remember correctly, you mentioned that the town that you grew up in also has changed quite a bit over time, but I wonder

Thomas Curran: Yeah, I think in those sort of communities growing up,

Srini: of,

Thomas Curran: I've always been an anxious kid

Srini: have enough

Thomas Curran: I write in the book about my own perfectionism because I think it's really help helped me formulate my own ideas what this.

I concept of perfectionism is. But I've always been an anxious kid, so there's always, I think there's always been a bit of perfectionism in there. But it really wasn't until I got into the, I guess I you could call it in in quotes, the middle class world. The world of hyper professional competence maximization competition to, move ahead get the credentials, get the best posts, get the best jobs in the best universities.

All of this kind of very hierarchical rat race. That was when that kind of in those kind of anxieties have really started to be amplified and have an impact on on my life. And it's really the kind of switching between the two worlds, which has give, has given me a really, a really interesting and important insight into what perfectionism is and where it comes from.

Because I still felt like even, growing up you still feel those pressures. And even if they weren't academic pressures you still feel living in a consumer culture. People who have the best trainers, the best outfits, who have could afford the best mobile phones and the latest gadgets, that was a, that was a, that's still a form of perfectionism, sense.

They need to update and improve our lives all the time. And I felt, intensely self-conscious about not having those things. There's, it doesn't have to be like perfectionism that comes through like this kind of academic. Professional push, which we often associate perfectionism with, but actually perfectionism can come from just broader consumer culture and feeling like we don't have or possess enough. And these kind of experiences living through this world, observing these these things. And also introspecting on my feelings as a a younger person like growing up into the world, which kind of projects at us, all these ideals of who we should be, who we could be, what we need to have. Is really, was really like, I think gave me a really interesting and perhaps unique perspective, on perfectionism. And as I say, it's the years I've tried to look, take those experiences and formalize and so to speak in a kind of, in a kind of perspective or theory on what perfectionism is and importantly where perfectionism comes from.

Srini: Speaking of where it comes from, I wanna bring back a clip from an old conversation I had with William Dershowitz. 'cause I was looking through our archives and I thought about this and I thought it would be very relevant to our conversation. Take a listen.

mediaboard_sounds: Where did self-worth come from? Ultimately, it comes from the feeling that your parents love you and that you're worthy of that love. So achievement becomes the prerequisite of self-worth. You can't just love yourself because your parents don't just love you. They love you because you get the A. So this creates a cycle. These parents may have grown up like this to begin with, maybe they didn't, but then they parent this way and it creates a cycle where, So you get that A, and your parents approve of you. Your parents love you, you get the A minus and they're like, what happened to the other three points? And suddenly you're out in the outer darkness.

And mommy and daddy don't love me now. By the time you get to high school, certainly college, but this can persist. You said 37. It can persist. I think it can persist your entire life. I know people like this. Mommy and daddy may no longer be a visible part of the equation, but you have a psyche that's structured as a kind of oscillation between she, what the author, what she calls grandiosity, the feeling like you're the greatest person in the world, and objection, the feeling that you're worthless.

Srini: Let's talk about parenting in the context

What you just heard as well as

Thomas Curran: Yeah could I great conversation and a lovely crystallization there of what's called conditionally regarding parenting if We hitch our regard, our love affection for our offspring on their achievements, then that can impact on a sense of fragile and Contingent self-esteem contingent upon achievement, right?

If we get an A, a perfect a we feel like we're worth something. But if we don't, then we feel like we've let other people down. And what this can lead to is a, is an overvaluation. I. Of the outcome, an overvaluation of the grade or the praise and an undervaluation of ourselves, and that psychology is crucial to understanding the development of perfectionism and certainly, Undoubtedly that can come through the intermittent response to our needs as young people.

So that's to say parents intermittently giving praise and with hardening praise, and we haven't done something well. But I would also say it's not just parents. Parents, it's good gonna be really, I'm trying to be in my book. I'm trying to like be as empathetic and compassionate as I can because I think in the modern world we have to push young people. We have to withhold that kind of unqualified approval for their achievements. We have to keep them on tiptoes to a certain extent to keep doing More and achieving more because these things matter for their life chances. Back in the sixties, seventies when the economy was growing at healthy rates, there was a burgeon in middle class, and when the American economy did well, the American people did well. The intense pressure on people to excel all the time. Was not really there. People carved out their own passions and did things that they that matched their skillsets and they were re really were rewarded for that. The middle class was very big and growing. We don't live in that world anymore. Middle class is shrinking, being hollowed out. Social mobility is in reverse. And if you're a parent looking out into the world, you're gonna have to push your kids because now they really, they don't just need to excel in school. They need to excel in college, and then they need to excel in their internships, to excel in their jobs, which is ultimately what will allow them to live the type of lives that their parents lived.

Parents see that. They know that, and These kind of ways and forms of parenting, pushing people.

to excel un withholding, unqualified approval on the expectation of more. It's just a natural, inevitable, normal way to parent in today's economy. However, We have to be aware that the psychological implication of that type of parenting is perfectionism and perfectionistic beliefs about ourselves. And the way that we view ourselves in relation to other people and the way that we view ourselves in relation to our achievements. These, the, there is definitely a connection but I don't think it's the parent's fault, if that makes sense.

Srini: Yeah, no, it makes complete sense. So I wanna do this kind of out of order just because you've brought up education. I know that you are an educator and you're also an educator at what is arguably an elite institution. And when you talk about the fact that education is this,

Thomas Curran: Yeah. This is this is one of the chapters in my brother. I think it's gonna draw a lot of criticism as well as a lot of praise. It's gonna polarize, essentially,

Srini: both know, it's not,

Thomas Curran: but, growing

up in a poor, from a poor background gives you a certain

Srini: a meritocracy, we'd be lying to

Thomas Curran: on meritocracy that might clash with perhaps other people's perspectives. And that's because the problem with meritocracy. 'cause a meritocracy is not in, in and of itself a bad thing. Where it becomes problematic is when you fuse meritocracy with inequality and in a system like ours where inequality is at levels that we haven't seen, since the Victorian era or the, we're almost going back to psocratic times in terms of inequality in some western nations when you have such severe inequality, And you have an economy in a society that lionizes meritocracy, i e hard work, this kind of idea of the American dream, at some point, the two just aren't. There's gonna be a massive disconnect. There's gonna be a massive disconnect between what we're told. I e you live in a meritocracy, you can make it under your own steam and are the reality of our economic situation, which is essentially we're working our butts off. But we don't feel like we're being rewarded with the types of things that we're told we should be rewarded with. That's to say, a good job a career a home and a stable financial position from which we can raise a family if you're a young person. In this economy right now, working really hard, you are finding that you're unable to do those things.

You can't buy a house. Your job is insecure and unstable and in many cases casualized, a lot of people now working in the gig economy. But if they're not working in the gig economy, they're freelance. So the sense of permanence is really stability is low houses are unaffordable, and that means that we're delaying adulthood. In order to find, a period in their life where we're stable enough to be able to have children and raise them. So this is the issue. When you fuse meritocracy this kind of promise of the good life based on hard work with an economy that's not providing us with the. Basic necessities of life, certainly until we're far older than our parents, then you then that's a, that, that's not a meritocracy anymore. We all we have really is inequality. And. I think that psych, there's a, the psychological impact of that is, is perfectionism is a sense that I have to do more.

I have to keep going. I have to essentially sacrifice, my current circumstances and wellbeing just to have the same quality of life than my parents did. That's, that's really hard for young people. And so that's one of the reasons I think Meritocracy is having a major impact on young people's perfection. That's correct.

Srini: Yeah. You teach at the London School of Economics, correct? And l ss e is arguably one of the most elite institutions in the world. I only know this 'cause I went to business school.

Thomas Curran: So

Srini: wonder how

Thomas Curran: th this is why I brought up my background because, I can s

Srini: group of

Thomas Curran: from outpost as a prof at what's called a Russell Group Institution. So that's this equivalent of the Ivy League in the us.

Srini: Issues of perfectionism, how would you change it?

Thomas Curran: I was really shocked by the level of tension, anxiety, worry that It was presented to me among young people. They are really bound with tension. They've come through a really grueling selection process in the school in their schooling. They've excelled. They've made it to the to the very top right. And now they find themselves in an elite institution and they're competing amongst people right at the top end of the academic distribution. Talk about a pressure cooker for these young people and they've been conditioned their whole lives to believe that, meritocracy is akin to natural selection. And so really they, they have this strong and burning desire to excel, to prove themselves, to work hard, to justify not just their place at university, but also the high and excessively high grades that they expect. Themselves to get much higher than other people and see very competitive tendencies among students. Now that's having an impact. And we know that for all the data, if you look at all of the data in college campuses, particularly elite ones, young people are really suffering. They're really struggling.

Sonya Ulus work has shown that kids from more affluent backgrounds are struggling with mental health. Problems. In some cases, in excess of of kids further down the social strata, which is really surprising, but makes sense when you think about the pressures that these young people are under co college campus data shows that young people are reporting levels of being overwhelmed that have just spiked in the last 10 years.

And, if you don't have to, you only have to, sit in

,

your office and hold office hours every week to know that young people are really feeling the strain. And some of them I've seen students that can't even open their grade book 'cause they're worried about, the grade and how that's gonna impact on their future. So there's huge amount of tension, huge amount of pressure, and like coming from a different world and then seeing this is whoa. Like even the people who win in a meritocracy lose. Of the intense and unrelenting pressure that they're under just to sustain that level of excellence that they're expected to sustain. And I think at some point we have to ask ourselves how much pressure is too much? Like at what point are we gonna accept that the intense and unrelenting strain that we're putting young people under is breaking them? And so really I think this really means we need to have a frank and honest conversation about our education system, about a broader and how we want to, and how we want to organize because I think I.

Put, and there's nothing wrong with a meritocracy, as I mentioned, but a meritocracy f to high-end growing inequality creates the circuit. The situation that we have today, I think we have to address inequality. On the one hand, we have to bring our society back in line to where it was all throughout the fifties, sixties, and seventies. And on top of that, we need to open up the education system. Education really is, the The way that we get social mobility motoring in the country. It's the, it is the escape hatch out of poverty, but we need to make it accessible to everyone. We need everybody to be able to a good quality education, which means funding their education system properly, which means training teachers. Adequately. And giving them the resources they need to be inspirational teachers, but also it?

means allowing young people to follow their own passions and pursue their own interests and not force them into a very narrow set of elite professions like law, medicine and finance. All those things are important and if kids wanna go into those professions, that's absolutely fine And.

no problem with that at all.

But there are other things that are really important to society, nursing. For instance social workers psychologists builders, construction workers, plumbers, you could, the list goes on. All of these things are equally important to society. And if that's what young people want to do, and that's their passion, we should allow them to follow that passion.

And also their allow for their contributions to society through those passions to be rewarded in line with their contribution. And I think, Addressing inequality will help that, but also properly resourcing our school system would also help that. And I noted of a couple of other things in the book around how schooling should work and the pressure I releasing pressure, by reducing standardized testing allowing students to play, create, and. Almost like you could, this kind of Finn education system, which really allows young people, particularly early, early years to just play, create and not worry about outcomes and testing and all the rest of it. I think those things are also important, but, at a broad, at a broader level, I really do think it's important we properly resource the educ system and make sure that each child has an opportunity for a good education.

Srini: I appreciate that you brought up the sort of law medicine, finance path. I was a Berkeley undergrad and it's funny, like I always tried to describe, I was like, what are the four paths out of Berkeley? It's law, medicine, finance, or, go work at a company and get an M B A, which is like management consulting.

And it's, it always stunned me that,

Thomas Curran: Yeah, that, And that's, that is unfortunately like today, if you want to have a good standard of living,

Srini: with

Thomas Curran: those are the kind of four main professions. Maybe you can add tech into that cluster. But really those are your options. , If you want to move into the middle and upper classes, Then you're really gonna have to go into those professions because anything else isn't gonna get you there.

And.

fine, lots of people love doing those things

and there's nothing wrong with that, but other people who will have a skill set that's matched to doing other things, some people are much more creative, they work with their hands and they're very good at working at their hands, but, , they might look at the pay and salaries that goes

Construction workers people who, carpenters

metal work, whatever it might be.

This kind of traditional craftsman like professions and think even though that's maybe matches my skillset and something that I really like and want to do. I'm not necessarily gonna be able to live standard of, the standard of living that maybe my parents become accustomed to unless I move into another area and do something else. It is, it's really about opening up. The opening up people's options and make and that come, again, that comes back to inequality. If we have a lopsided economy that provides all of the resources and rewards to a very narrow set of professions then of course you're gonna get people funneling into those professions. But if you are able to, if you are able to provide a broader middle class, then there's going to be a lot more work and a lot more money and a lot more remuneration for a much broader repertoire of skills and passions. So it comes down to equality essentially.

Srini: Yeah. Let's talk about the three

Thomas Curran: Okay, so we'll start with types of perfectionism, So there are three types of perfectionism and in many decades of work clinicians and researchers have taught to perfectionistic people.

Srini: some of the modern

Thomas Curran: And they've arrived at these kind of core elements.

Srini: well.

Thomas Curran: Now, what you, we think about when you think about perfectionism is this kind of self set, high goals, high self expectations it's inner drive, to be perfect. Now, that's one form of perfectionism and it's called self-oriented perfectionism. Self-oriented perfectionists are really, or common, like quintessential over drivers and they can be very self-critical when they haven't met their excessively high standards. But we know perfectionism is way more than just that kind of inner drive. We, and we know it's way more because when you talk to perfectionist people, they'll tell you that it isn't just. Perfectionism coming from within, but there's also social elements that are important, and one of those social elements is the perception that other people expect me to be perfect. So you'll see perfectionist people tell you a lot that you know out there in the big wide world, there are people watching me and they're waiting to pounce on any mistake or shortcoming. That I might, encounter or make. And so that element of perfection is called socially prescribed perfectionism, the sense that, everyone and all around me expects me to be perfect. And then there's perfectionism turned outwards onto other people. I. So perfectionistic people won't just have this kind of high inner drive to be perfect. They won't just feel that other people expect 'em to be perfect, but they'll also turn those expectations outwards onto other people. So if there's a, if someone in your social environment or in your team at work has done a substandard performance, for instance, you're gonna let them know that's just not good enough. And so the other oriented perfectionist is someone that It's has high standards for other people and can be quite punitive when they haven't met those high standards. And so those are the four core elements of perfectionism that we know exist within perfectionistic people. And they can exist to varying degrees.

Some people can be high and self-oriented and maybe lower and other oriented. Some people can be high over and low in self, some people higher social, et cetera, et cetera. We measure them on a spectrum that runs between one and seven. 'cause we measure them on a paper and pencil questionnaire and. Everybody has their own sort of constellation. And that's also one of the most interesting things about perfectionism that, no one size fits all different perfectionistic people have different perfectionistic traits. And so those are the kind of core elements of perfectionism. And we've studied this now for about 35 years and what we're finding is that all three of these elements of perfectionism are rising. So that's to say more people are a scoring higher on the spectrums of each of these elements. But it's socially prescribed perfectionism, which is rising at the fastest rate about 40% increase since 1989. And, The reason that's happening, we think is many different reasons, but social media almost certainly is having a huge impact on those social expectations for perfection. The kind of 24 7 bombardment of images of perfect lives and lifestyles is creating a sense that everyone and all around me is perfect, and that therefore I must be perfect too. But it's not just social media, it's amplifying those perceptions. We've just talked about the education system and how unrelenting it can be. The workplace is extremely tough right now. As it's become more insecure. This idea of hustling, grinding has become an important part of our kind of working identities, and that's undoubtedly weighing on our perfectionism and also parental change in parental practices too. Around having high and excessive expectations for young people because those things are really important when it comes to their life chances. So socially prescribed perfectionism is the one we're really worried about, and there are many reasons why it's rising. I.

Srini: Yeah. Let's talk about the reasons you know, why it's rising. You pointed out to some of them, but I think the other thing that really struck

Thomas Curran: Yeah, that's the most fascinating thing about perfectionism. So when we

Srini: and achievement

Thomas Curran: so one of the things

that, and even believe this, so one of the things that most people think is, okay, we know that perfectionism has impacts on our mental health. We know that, but at the same time,

Srini: would.

Thomas Curran: Surely, all the drive and excessive standards that perfectly people place themselves under are going to give us some kind of success.

They're gonna make us more likely to succeed. And we thought that too. But you actually look at the data, what's remarkable is the relationship between infection informants is really weak. And in some cases non-existent. That kind of perplexed us. And so we needed to un unpack that a little bit.

Why is that happening? And we arrived at two theories. Now, the first theory is, rooted in a sense that essentially, or rooted in the idea that perfectionism, Does indeed push us to to work, but it's to work too hard. And so what essentially we're doing is we're pushing us to the point of, optimal performance, but then we're not stopping there. keep going and we work harder. And each, unit of return to our. Additional effort that we put in becomes diminishing, and then we reach a point where actually now every additional unit of effort that we put into our work is now creating inverse returns because we're tired, we've sacrificed areas of our lives that are rejuvenating, like exercise, good diet time with friends. And essentially what we're doing is we're just burning out. And we know that burnout is not at all conducive to performance. That's the first reason we think perfection is when a weak relationship performance. But there's another more interesting reason. And the second reason is that perfectionistic people, yes, they do work hard.

So if we put perfectionist people in the lab, right? And we say, here's a task. So we use sport. 'cause sport's a really interesting microcosm of a sort of, competitive life in the modern economy. And we set them a task. We say, okay, you've gotta cover a certain amount of distance in a certain amount of time. And we say, away you go, you'll see perfectionistic people work so hard to meet that goal, 'cause they really wanna achieve. And then if you say to them at the end of all that effort, oh no, unfortunately you failed. Like you didn't meet it. So no matter how hard they worked, you didn't achieve the goal. Their response to that will be high levels of shame, high levels of guilt, high levels of embarrassment, because essentially, they've exposed some inner a weakness that they're trying to conceal, right? That's bad enough. But then if you say, okay, have another go, they do something really interesting. So on the second attempt, after the first failure, their effort will drop off a cliff. They just won't try the second time round. Whereas non perfectionistic people, what they tend to do, if you tell 'em they fail and then ask 'em to do it again they just maintain their effort. In some cases that it even increases perfectionistic.

People just withhold they withdrawal because in their mind you can't fail at something that you didn't try at. And what they're doing here is a self preservation. They know the intense emotions of failure. They know how hard they are and how intense they are, and so they don't want to, they'll do anything they can to avoid them, so they're just withhold. Now, complete avoidance. You tend to see imp perfectionist people a lot, but often it's the case that you can't withdraw yourself from activities, particularly if you work, as bosses to please deadlines to meet. So they do the next best thing, which is procrastinate, and so they Put off things.

They they do a, they take breaks. They go on the Netflix binge, they scroll through social media, whatever it might be to avoid the intense emotions that are associated with doing something complex, with doing something difficult. Until, of course, the passage of time forces into action, in which case the work's coming in late, it's getting sloppy. It wasn't as good a quality as it would've been if we'd been able to apply ourselves. Across the, us more time to apply ourselves properly to the task. So yes, perfectionists, burnout, and that's why they don't perform. But they also engage in self-sabotaging behaviors like avoidance and procrastination, which also impacts on their performances.

So it's all pain. That's to say a lot of mental distress for no gain. And that's probably the biggest I guess take home message really from my book.

Srini: Yeah. Let's talk about the role of aspirational media because one of the things that you say is that we're bombarded with self-made can-do fantasies in which we're told we should endure, even embrace struggle and strife if we're going to succeed. Visit any bookstore and browse the self-help section.

You'll find hundreds of titles promising to give you the power of positive thinking or make you more resilient. Life coaches fill social media platforms with the same messaging. Wake up, it's time to grind, push through the pain. Nothing worth having comes easy and. The reason that in particular caught my attention was because I produce aspirational media for a living.

And to the point where I had a listener, and I've shared this before, who actually emailed me once, and I actually empathized with him. He said, I have to, I've had to stop listening to your show because the people are amazing and they all make me feel worthless about my life. And I was like, yeah, I can relate.

And I remember my mentor had told me once, he said, your bar for

Thomas Curran: I mean it's very in, in mo so

Srini: skewed because you see the

Thomas Curran: in modern, in the modern world. Like you'll be bombarded with this sort all the time.

Srini: The role of

Thomas Curran: see a lot of, it in the motivational corners Instagram or YouTube where there's a kind of lionization, a celebration of the unicorn achiever. And you'll get a lot of podcasts that will have these kind of really high achieving CEOs or athletes or creatives who, are basically discussing, what their secret source is to success. Now the problem with that is that this.

is a very highly selective sample. That's to say these are people that have made it through some kind of selection process, and the things that they're advocating are really the things that millions and millions of other people have done. But for some reason they didn't make it past that selection process. That could be because, they were just unfortunate that the breaks didn't break for them at the right time. It might be because they were, they had a health. Event that meant they couldn't continue in a certain career.

That might

have be a period of grief and stress that really set them back. It could be just, born

,

into the wrong community or the wrong or go or went to the wrong school. There's all sorts of factors outside of the individual. That mean even if we do all the things that we're told we should do to maximize, and, to optimal performance, marginal gains, all of these sorts of things, we can do all of them and still not make it through factors that are no fault of our own.

That's just fate, and fate's. Nothing personal. But by putting these people on a pedestal, And listening to their experiences, we make it personal because what we're saying is that if you did all these things and you still didn't make it, then that's your fault. That, for some reason there's

something deficient or or of. There's something about you that meant that you didn't make it over the line, and that is a really difficult message. And I think that's the message that perhaps is being echoed by your listener there. And I'm trying, what I'm trying to say in the book is that's applicable to perfectionism too, because I think one of the reasons why we think perfectionism is the secret to success. Even though, as I've just explained it isn't, is because when we look at high achievers, you'll often hear them talk about their perfectionism as being, part of that driving force moving forward. And we think, okay, if perfection is, if they're a perfectionist and they made it to the top, then that must mean that if perfectionism is good, right? But as I mentioned, that ignores the many hundreds of millions of people who also got perfectionistic tendencies, but didn't quite make it to the top. Who who are pushing themselves, sacrificing themselves. Encountering a lot of mental distress without the kind of commemorative plaque or the Grammy or the Olympic medal to show for it. This is essentially what's called in the academic literacy

survivorship, Bias. And I think if you really wanna understand success, I think it's important.

We don't just talk to the people that win, but you also talk to the people that didn't quite make it because their reasons for not quite making it are just as important. If you wanna understand success than the reasons that the people who did make it give us. There's an idea for a podcast There's tell to the people that didn't quite make it. 'cause I think we would get a better, i a more rounded idea of what high performance looks like. Exactly.

Exactly.

Srini: I,

Yeah. I mean if I were to sum up what you just said in a blog post, it would be that survivorship bias makes us blind to context. Yeah. I think that's so overlooked in all self-improvement. Like I always, I always tell people when I've had people come and, ask me to coach them on things.

I'm like, look, I need to preface this by telling you that everything I'm telling

Thomas Curran: Yeah, and don't get me wrong a lot of this information that these people give us is really useful. I am advocate of hard work because hard work has propelled me to where I am. wrong, all of these things are important,

Srini: all of it off,

Thomas Curran: That would be an incomplete picture of why I am where I am, if I just was to focus on what I did myself, because it would discount all the factors beyond my control, which also led me to where I am. And without those two, without the outside forces. The inside forces don't get me there. Can you see what I'm saying? So we have to consider context exactly what you said when we're trying to understand success. 'cause it's super, super important. And often we don't necessarily caveat those anecdotes with that kind of disclaimer, but there are also factors here.

Srini: Yeah. One of the things that you say is the very fabric of modern society is woven from our discontent. Magnifying the many imperfections that advertisers have manufactured into existence is how we've always kept in an always expanding state of supercharged consumption. And how by extension, our economy is kept in an always expanding.

State of supercharged growth. And I read that. And so I started, I've been working on this book for my nine month old nephew, which is basically a life advice book that he's the only person I'll ever read and I'm you gonna give it to him when he is 18. But after reading that, I said, you're surrounded by all these wildly ambitious people and one of the hidden dangers of this is something called the disease of more.

And it's not something any doctor can diagnose you with, but there's a point at which the diminishing returns of . Relentless ambition kick in and what nobody tells you about this disease, that if you measure your life with the metric of more you'll never feel like you have due and most

Thomas Curran: That's

Srini: And that was my

Thomas Curran: You're absolutely right. The disease of more is a, is pervasive right now.

Srini: is effectively just playing

Thomas Curran: It, I think one of, as writing the book is writing the book can be really clarifying because I had these ideas tossing around in my mind about, how we live in this world that always demands of us something extra all the time. That no matter where we are in life, we have to continually trade our present happiness for the promise of something else. Something more. There's always another product to buy, a productivity hack to discover a self-improvement project. To embark on. And then finally we will feel happy content. But it never happens because if it were to happen, if everybody found the secret to inner contentment and happiness, Then the whole economy breaks down like the implications would be catastrophic.

If we stop consuming, if we work a little bit less 'cause we're happy in, in, in our lives being good enough, then that means businesses close jobs are lost and there's a. Recession and we know what happens when we enter into recession. As I began thinking about these concepts, it became evident to me.

It was an epiphany moment, almost quite profound that actually, this economy requires us to exist in a state of quasi discontent. Because if we didn't. It simply wouldn't work. And we would find ourselves in significant problems and significant struggles. And that for me was one of, for me is one of the driving, if you want to really get into the root of the social forces that are weighing on perfectionism.

That is one of, that is probably the biggest one. The sense that we must always be searching and desiring for more. 'cause we live in an economy that needs us to do those things. Now your question is how do. How do you escape that?

Srini: Yeah

Thomas Curran: exactly. But the, I'm not the first to wrestle with these things. This has been,

Srini: that's such a has

Thomas Curran: intellectual discussion throughout the ages

Srini: so, like how do you

Thomas Curran: in, modern post-industrial capitalist societies. Many people writing about this by the way,

Srini: would fall apart, that's

Thomas Curran: wrestling with these issues.

This is nothing new, but I suppose what is new is how Omnipresent those forces are in our lives, particularly the advent of social media Now, look I think first of, first and foremost, if we can recognize that's the most important first step, just to be able to gain awareness that actually, you know what, this isn't our fault, right?

The way that we feel in terms of our sense of needing to do more, our sense of lack, our sense of deficit is culturally conditioned and conditioned by force is far from us and far from our control is actually a really liberating. Epiphany because it takes a lot of personal strain for the way that for our inattention that's to say, this idea, why can't I snap out of this?

Why do I always feel like this? Why is it that I try and do all these, self-help positive thinking life hacks, and yet I'm still feeling this way? 'cause you're supposed to feel this way and that's okay. Like it isn't your fault that this is the economy and society that you live in. And just gaining awareness of that and releasing that pressure, I think is extremely liberating just in, in and of itself. And then beyond that, once we've recognized that these forces. Exist and we've recognized them and we can see them, then we can try to navigate life in a way that allows us to separate ourselves from the relent, from that kind of relentless grind for more to accept that actually it's okay if we slow down. Actually, it's okay if, we don't need to continually update our lives and lifestyles all the time. Look, okay, it's great to have something new. We, I like to buy the latest gadgets as much as everyone else does, but, do I need to spend my whole life trying to update my life and lifestyle in relation to other people? For status and a sense of, social superiority. Absolutely not. And these things are kind, we're told we should. These are the things I think we need to try to, if we possibly can release self-compassion I think is also important in this context. You know what we're often told, we must go in on ourselves.

If we don't appear perfect or we don't, or we don't have the same type of life or lifestyle as other people, we need to blame ourselves and try to do more kind to ourselves is a, is like taking a sledgehammer to perfectionism is something that's very uncomfortable in this culture, but nevertheless so important.

So whenever we hit setbacks, whenever we feel a little bit less than other people, it's really important to take ourselves aside, look at how much we've achieved, look at where we've come and be kind to ourselves. Choose kindness over castigation. So I think, there are certain things we can do.

There are other things I've talked about in the book around self-acceptance and embracing failure and embracing vulnerability that I think are also really important. But really for me, it's this acknowledgement that actually, no, this isn't our fault. There's a broader context, which I think is really liberating.

Srini: Yeah I had Ryan Holiday here and I think that Ryan at this point, arguably is one of the most successful writers of his generation. And I think that there was something he said to me in our conversation that really struck me about achievement. And he told me, he said, He, he said, you'd think that people would look at my life and that I wake up, every single day and, I'm happy. And I've gotten to, have basically this career that most people could only dream of. And he said, but the thing is, he said, nobody ever actually does that. He said, because he said basically you start out with, this idea that, okay, what's gonna make me feel like enough is basically that I've, Hit a home run and he's no.

Then this is how he summed up. He's they make it to first base, they hit a single and they go, that was great, but like hitting a home run. That's what it is. Then they hit a home run and they say, no, it's a grand slam. And it's no, it's a grand slam in the World Series. And basically then it's like the biggest contract in baseball.

And what he said is he, you can see how this belief drives a lot of accomplishment because instead of ever being happy, people keep going. And he said, if this didn't happen, Elon Musk would have stopped at PayPal and we wouldn't have Tesla. And He said, the thing that I think struck me most was that it's

Thomas Curran: Yeah. And I think there's a lot of truth to that.

Srini: achievement,

Thomas Curran: I think there's a lot of truth that on the individual level, that this is really damaging psychologically,

Srini: this hill,

Thomas Curran: but in the aggregate with everybody working And consuming at these frantic levels, that we have a growing economy that provides jobs and lifts standard of living. I don't, I think it's. That's absolutely correct. What I would say though is we have to under, we have to reckon with something really important and that's the, our understanding of how economies work is. Is fine.

This idea that it has to grow all the time is fine and clearly it's taken industrialized economies, from, so far and quality of life and standardized so far that now we live in an era of abundance that we've solved the scarcity problem that a lot of developing countries are still wrestling with.

We, we've solved that problem. And so I guess the dilemma for us is okay, how do we land the plane? We is it the case that we're gonna have to continue indefinitely expanding our economy just to maintain the standard of living that we already have? And at what point are we gonna accept that, we have an economy that's large enough, that's strong enough, that's stable enough that provides a degree of abundance, that means that everybody has a good enough quality of life and that we can. We can work in a kind of, almost a stasis, as I say, we can enjoy the abundance that we've accrued through all of those collective efforts to bring us to this to this point in time. And that's the big thing to wrestle with, not just for our own loaves and to find, the, our generation, future generations can enjoy that abundance, right?

That we can actually enjoy free time. Technological innovation and all of the and all of the goodies that come with it. How do we find a place where we can, we can be content with that, not just for ourselves, right? Because, we clearly mental health struggles are on the rise, and they're linked to, this kind of desire and need for more, but also for the planet.

We can't indefinitely expand our economy without also pushing through ecological boundaries that mean we're gonna hasten the impact of climate change. Whilst I agree a hundred percent. That in the aggregate, these kind of perfectionistic beliefs have pushed our economy forward. I think it's we are going to have to sooner rather than later wrestle with the growth problem and ask ourselves how we can live inside an economy that doesn't need to grow all the time. Not just for our own welfare, but also for the planet's welfare. That is a such an important. Problem that we need to grasp. And by the way, we're not going to do it through renewable sources of energy only. We are going to need to work out how we can live inside economies that have low or even no growth, and we can live contend inside them. Yes, it is true, but I think we need to start to think about how we can move towards a good enough. Standard of life and that means a good enough economy. I don't profess to have the answers, but I think it is a problem we need to wrestle with. Sorry, I just missed that question.

Srini: I think that makes such a thought provoking and beautiful way to wrap up our conversation.

Thomas Curran: Somebody has something unmistakable. Oh, goodness me. That's a really,

Srini: at the unmistakable

Thomas Curran: Good question.

Srini: makes somebody or something

Thomas Curran: I think it's what makes somebody unmistakable, in particularly the nowadays, is

an ability to just accept.

Srini: makes somebody, or something

Thomas Curran: Themselves for who they are and be able to live life contentedly not needing to prove themselves or please other people. These people are really rare in modern society, but when you glimpse at somebody, when you meet somebody who's able to do that it's so liberating 'cause the kind of spontaneous joy. That they ex that exudes from them, from just being able to live inside themselves of all of themselves and all of their feelings is, so powerful. And actually I'm very jealous of those sorts of people. And so tho you know, those are people who are unmistakable?

to me. I've met a few of them in my lifetime, and I've always been, I've always been very envious and I've always gravitated towards them. And it's certainly a way of life that I myself am striving for. Okay, so my website is tom keran.com. Tom's

spelled t H O m, a n dot com. you can find me on LinkedIn at Tom

Srini: insights with our listeners.

Thomas Curran: Koran

Srini: can people find

Thomas Curran: or Twitter on Curran.

Srini: that you're up to?

Beautiful. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that. Amazing. You were absolutely fantastic.

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