The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough by Thomas Curran

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

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

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends, gentlemen, ladies, children, people of all ages. Welcome to the big podcast, Circus Tech in the Sky, where we have the most amazing minds,

brilliant thinkers, brightest people, and none of them are me. We have an amazing gentleman on the show. We're going to be talking about his latest book that's just coming out. And we're going to be talking about the pursuit of perfection or maybe the pursuit of meh, whatever. We'll get into his book and everything that goes into it. And I think it will be illuminating in your mind at expanding it on maybe how to be more happy in life. And so basically, if you don't want to be more happy in life, this probably isn't the show for you, but you should listen to the full show if you do want to be happy in life.

And I'm sure you want your friends, neighbors, relatives, and dogs and cats to be happy as well, because they're just better to be around. And, uh, it makes Thanksgiving dinner go so much easier.

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gentleman and mind on the show he's the author of the newest book that's just come out uh august 8 2023 the perfection trap embracing the power of good enough you know not everyone can be me thomas curran is on the show with us today did i I get that last name right, Thomas? You did, Chris. And can I just say, what an introduction. I know. I'm super pumped now. That's what we do on the show, baby. We super pump.

So Thomas is an amazing gentleman. He is the associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioral Science at the London School of Economics. He is a world-leading expert on perfectionism so is he perfect or perfectionism or we'll find out he has written for the harvard business review featuring the new scientists and his work has been covered by publications including the guardian telegraph wall street journal and ariana huffington's thrive global campaign there you go in 2018 he gave a TED Med talk entitled, Our Dangerous Obsession with Perfection is Getting Worse,

and now he's here to talk to us about his latest book. Welcome to the show, Thomas. How are you? Thank you, Chris. Very well. There you go. Thank you for coming. We certainly appreciate it.

Give us a.com. It's wherever you want people to stalk you on the interwebs. Okay, so my website is tomcurran.com it's tom spelled t-h-o-m it's curran spelled c-u-r-r-a-n.com uh you can find me on twitter tom t-h-o-m underscore curran c-u-r-r-a-n or i'm on linkedin thomas hyphen curran there you go so what motivated you want to write this book well i've just been doing a lot of research in this area for about a decade now. I sparked my interest really from a kind of personal experience with perfectionism. Struggled with it for a lot of my early life, putting a lot of pressure on myself, finding that I was turning into a bit of an obsessive when it came to work and play and all sorts of areas of my life.

And it was having an impact on my mental health. So I thought, I wouldn't be interesting. You know, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Maybe we can look at some research in the area of perfectionism. Wasn't a great deal there. So that was where it started. There you go. So you've entitled the book entitled you've the book is entitled with the title uh the perfection trap why is the seeking perfection a trap well perfection is is by definition an impossible goal right so um for those who's tried it's going to be forever beyond the possible uh it's often nebulous we can't really define it it's i suppose it's like a bottomless pit right you just deplete this in its pursuit and and i feel like thinking about like chasing the horizon

so you know the closer you get the further it gets away and this is this kind of trap that we will find ourselves in when we're pursuing something that's just impossible to attain so that's really the perfection trap there you go and so why is this an issue for us i mean it seems like you know there might be a lot of people that strive for perfection. We kind of see this Instagram world we talked about earlier in the green room where, you know, everyone tries to present themselves as perfect. You know, we have these influencers that, you know, buy these fake sets of private planes and rent cars for the day and take pictures of them. And there's this fake persona that we seem to be building out of PR and everybody kind of buys it, especially here in America,

where everyone's like, Oh, that guy must really be a millionaire. And you know, like, seriously, I'm not even kidding you. I've had coaches that I thought were killing it. And they were talking about their big people they were doing. And two of them that i know of were actually finally came out and told everyone they were living out of their car for the past couple years i'm not even kidding you um and yet they'd been faking it and i felt really betrayed i never given them money but i believe they were successful why are these guys so successful because some of their stuff is crap but you know we live in this i i think there might be something about millennials and Gen Z where they adopted this. I think millennials it was.

They adopted this fake it till you make it attitude when they took this like a little too far. What do you think about that? Well, it's funny because, you know, living inside a culture, right, we scarcely recognize its absurdities, right, because we're just consumed and surrounded by it and if perfection is everywhere and you see perfection everywhere you know you're gonna think that it's your responsibility to be perfect too it's a bit like um you know uh lance armstrong when the old adobe scandal blew up and he told oak for winfrey that you know he did it because everyone else was doing it right like so how we behave even if it's unhealthy right even if it's something that's imperiling our health like this kind of impossible pursuit of perfection, if everyone else is doing it, Chris, then of course we're going to respond to try to do it ourselves. And I think that's just what happens right now in modern culture, where we've kind of got ourselves in this echo chamber, this sort of arms race where everyone is perfect.

And so we expect ourselves to be perfect too and and i you know i don't know what's to clarify on that topic was that a cop-out that he was doing because i don't think everyone's juicing on the on the french uh tour or whatever it is i think at the time like it was pretty widespread yeah i think it's generally generally accepted that most of the peloton um had uh had been uh had some help um yeah pretty you know not everyone there were like some valiant examples who stayed off but then they got nowhere near the top right so in order to in order to win you kind of had to do it he kind of took more um so what creates this culture of perfection, fear of missing out, fear of not being, you know, is it a peer pressure? Is it just a societal pressure?

Is it a keeping up with the Joneses, you know, that's real big here in America? Why is this such a big deal for us? Why can't we, you know, why couldn't you just named your book The Perfection Trap trap embracing the good power of yeah man whatever well okay i'll give you a really profound answer to this the reason why we do this is because if we don't the implications for our economy would be quite catastrophic because think about it like this right the economy spins on an axis of consumption right we need to consume more goods and services because that creates jobs which consume more goods and services because that creates jobs which creates more goods and services creates jobs and so on and so on right this is how the uh

capitalist growth-based economies work and they've worked remarkably well but what we're seeing at the moment is kind of is kind of almost the end point of this process where essentially everybody has to really feel a sense of discontent has to need to try to improve their lives have more do better be more productive because essentially without those behaviors our economy would collapse and so really i think if you want to get at the root of this it's this kind of focus and um almost kind of morbid dependency that our economy has on growth and at all costs and I think what we're seeing in in young people at the moment is really a natural response to that where you know they're told all the time through advertisers social media schools colleges whatever it might

be you need something more you need to do more you need to be more you need to have more you need to work more you need to consume more right and I think that they're really just internalizing that as an precious to be perfect and i think that's what we're seeing um now we can get more granular about you know how that's expressed in the specific areas but like the root i think i think that's where it's coming from there you go hi voksters voss here with a little station break hope you're enjoying the show so far we'll resume here in a second uh i'd like to invite you to come to my

coaching speaking and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff, with over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO. And be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. So in the book, do you address why we have these, these, uh, obsessions and, uh, maybe how to resolve them or square them

in our mind to maybe be a little more healthy. You know, I mean, one thing I did for years is I was so busy pursuing, you know, success and money and building companies that I really didn't take care of myself or my happiness, my health. I let my health suffer. I let, you know, being present in my world with my, with the people I loved suffered, you know, being present in my world with the people I loved suffered. You know, everything was like, I'm working on perfection. I'll fix all this other shit later. Yeah, I think if we're always searching for the next thing, we never can exist in the moment. And what you said there is absolutely right.

You know, the route to happiness is to really try and let go of all those societal pressures. So obviously acknowledge them and, you know, we're going to succumb often and, you know, and sometimes actually it's fine. You know, if you want to consume, you'll buy a nice car. That's all. You know, if it makes you happy, great, you know, do it. Why not? Sure. But you can't let it completely take over your life.

I think that's the thing. You know, you have to kind of have some separation between, you know to do more striving to be better but also appreciating that in this moment that you're enough like what you have right now is means that you're enough and that's that's you know that's a beautiful thing to understand and it doesn't mean that you can't want to do more it just means that you can accept and appreciate and have gratitude for the things that you do have in this moment and that's a really thing to do in this culture but it is the way to happiness yeah i think people see it is it well i'll ask you i is is the problem that people see it as black and white you're either striving for

specs for perfection and being a go-getter and and whatever it all costs or if you're if you're if your person is like has gratitude and like okay i'm good enough as i am and i'm a great person and i'm going to strive to be better and improve myself in the ways that i want to improve myself um and some people see that as like well you're you're not chasing the dream you're not making white that we they have we're not finding the gray area of like and you can still do both yeah like well i think the thing is and that you're not making white that we have. We were not finding the gray area of like, you know, you can still do both. Yeah. Like,

well, I think the thing is in that you're not making something of yourself. You're not making something of yourself, man. You got to make something of yourself. Who doesn't want to make something of themselves? And I think, you know,

this pressure at all times to continue to, uh, you know, break new ground, work hard, prove ourselves every day that you know we're worth something in this world and being worth something having loads of stuff working really hard grinding hustling whatever it might be uh i think i think that's those are those are really life pressures

that's how we feel all the time i feel that all the time i'm sure your listeners do too uh it's quite natural it's quite normal um but, you know, you don't throw the baby out of the bath for it. It's not about saying, okay, well, did you with that kind of, you know, that kind of sense of striving. What it's about is trying to understand that that is, that is not the be all and end all. That is not, should not consume your whole identity. Your life should not be wrapped in more, bigger, better and proven to other people all the time that you're worth something. It, you know, it should really be about, like you said, this kind of inner sense of contentment that, well, I'm going to try.

I'm going to work hard. I'm going to try and be the best that I can be. And I know there's going to slip up and I know I'm going to fail, but that's okay. Life's a bit of a jagged path and it's okay. So you've got to approach your life with a bit more serenity. And I think sometimes it's really difficult, as I said, in this culture. Definitely, especially in american culture uh you know i don't know how much you have the instagram going on over there i know you have a guy pretending to be king or something over there

i don't know there was a queen and then there's like some new guy and and then every now and then you guys uh i i i think i've been impressed you, you guys have stuck with a prime minister now for at least over a month. So that's going good for you. So you guys are pretending to be a country over there. So nothing's real. Like it doesn't. It isn't happening. I'm in the Truman Show.

Like what's happening in the UK and the monarchy and the prime? Like that's just a fiction and there's some kind of detachment because at this moment it can't be real. It can't be real. It's, you know, it's interesting. It's interesting to watch and I'm sure we are too, but you know, like, we don't care.

We're just America. But no, we, in America we have a real big thing with, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, keeping up with the joneses keeping up with the neighbors you know the neighbor gets a boat we got to get a boat you know um i know a lot of people who have this sincere drive and belief that they can be elon musk and they don't realize how narrow and rare and what a lottery hit that is to, to get a perfect run.

And, and most times they don't even understand that, you know, people like him and, and others that succeed usually grew up with, you know, money, family,

money, power, um, and, and a good seed. And, and a lot of times they just got fucking incredibly lucky. Uh,

you know, I mean, and, and, but they still have this delusion and this drive that i will be on must someday i had that same sort of thing i thought i was going to be a multi-millionaire you know it there's a famous line from fight club where we're you know we're i don't know if you've ever seen the movie Fight Club, but there's a line in it where Brad Pitt says the line, we're a generation of men who were raised thinking that we're all going to be rock stars and millionaires

told this by advertisers, movies, television, and we're finding out that we got lied to and we're not very happy about it. And I think it's worse with this new generation because social media can be such a fakery you know it's so fake uh everything you know i think a comedian said once that that when archaeologists dig up our society from years from now because god knows it's not going to survive this space um they're gonna go holy shit the whole society smiled 100 of the time because

all their pictures show them fucking smiling and perfect filters and you know they have this filter thing now uh on tiktok where you know i can if i put the filter on i probably look like a victoria's secret model like it can make any woman any person look like a victoria's secret model like and like they're 20 again and it's just like the ultimate catfishing. And there are, and most, all of them are using some sort of filter thing,

even in my dating pools. And you're just like, you're just like, you can't trust anything anymore, but it's just, just striving for perfection and having this image. And you know, everyone's a brand now,

I think is a big problem too. I mean, basically you're a brand now. So if you're on Instagram, if you're on a dating, everything is a brand. so you're a brand and you're pushing your brand your brand has to be perfect if you want to succeed and you have to get the perfect followers and blah blah but there's a madness to it that's just extraordinary and i think highly unhealthy because i i think at some point most people become deluded that they are as great as

they think they are or they imagine that they're presenting on social media yeah i mean this is that was that was a great synopsis by the way of american culture and i would say that this is the economy working exactly how it's supposed to work you know like this idea that you know we need more we must do more we have to project more and that we must be competing all the time of everyone and all around us and i'll tell you about to the point you were making about uh expectations for success and these kind of high profile business people because that's really interesting kind of follows this kind of idea of meritocracy that you know if you work hard you put the effort in you're going to get to the top

now what's really interesting in america and in the uk um 60s 70s in the post-war you know the new deal post-war consensus there was capacity and slack in the economy you know you had baby boom generation coming through um there was uh healthy rates of growth year on year people could move up the social ladder and they did there was a burgeoning middle class inequality was the lowest it's been and people did get richer they did ascend they did lift themselves up from the bootstraps however we still have the same folklore today but a completely different economy and what young people are seeing right now is they're hearing that you know look if you just do this you can be you you can have a good life you can be rich and all the rest of it. But actually that's being met with a stone cold reality of an economy that just isn't giving them anywhere near

as much opportunity and potential as has been previous generations. Psychologically, can you imagine that for young people, right? That's really tough. They're working really hard, but they can't get a house because housing is too expensive, especially in the big cities, right? They have to extend time when they're having their family because they now need two incomes, right? They don't need rather than one.

It's how it used to be, right? So there's a constant strain and stress, but even though they're putting so much into this world, they're not getting the same amount back. And this is massively weighing on their perfectionism, their identities as kind of, you know, embrace the grind set. You've got to hustle. My identity, I basically treat myself like an asset to be traded on the job market floor right i don't

have a career anymore i just jump from gig to gig to gig to gig and i hustle and grind um and this is just a completely like whole new world of ever increasing expectations, pressures, and young people, and everyone actually, but young people in particular, are internalizing these pressures, the pressure to be perfect. And I don't think we can blame them. There you go. You know, I think, you know, you mentioned our economy and how it works. Well, let's get this other way first.

So do we just need to eliminate the word perfection and say we're driving to be better striving to be better we want more we're striving to more but you know this madness of being perfect like i know people that they have tried to turn every bit of you know the the toilet paper has to be in the right place and it has to be you know perfectly whatever and then the the paper towels have to be there and nothing can be in a place everything has to be you know i've had friends that are really adhd and so if you go to their house you take their pictures and you just just squeak them a notch or whatever the word is you just twist them a notch it will drive them mad.

Like you'll literally see them go spend an hour putting that thing back to balance and not realizing that you fuck with them. You know, I'm evil. What can I say? I learned it from some friends. But, you know, I've had friends. I mean, you can't have a spot on the

thing i've had girlfriends that if you spill just a minuscule amount of whatever on the counter and you you haven't cleaned it up in the first five seconds that it's spilt you know oh my god the world's gonna end it's a nuclear this catastrophe you know it's it's an emotional crisis and there are men and women there are people that operate that way do we do we need to take you know just this whole madness of perfection and just be like i don't know you got to be like uh who's that jack handy guy or whatever from snl where you look in the mirror and you go i'm good enough that people like me yeah like i think it's it's so true i struggle with it i mean i i am i've had struggled with perfectionism pretty much all my adult life so you know it's not easy to let it go when your whole life you feel like it's the one thing holding you up but everything and all

around you seems to be collapsing your perfectionism is one thing pushing you forward it's making you successful and all the rest of it. So, you know, letting something like that go, something as important as that to you go, is really difficult. But I can only tell you from my own experience that if you're able to just take a step back, let life in a little bit, let life happen to you a little bit, rather than trying to happen all the time in the world, accept that you are fallible, that I'm exhaustible, that I am going to age and decay and get wrinkles and gray hairs and all the time in the world accept that you were fallible that i'm exhaustible that i am going to age and decay and get wrinkles and gray hairs and all the rest of it and this is normal and this is natural and this is just you know this is the life course uh of all living beings including humans by the way and in america we try and push past that as much as we possibly can don't do that try just embrace that common humanity because you will feel so rejuvenated and find so much solace in the acceptance that we are just fallible human beings.

So that's the biggest thing, I think, for us all to remember. And you address in the book, I think, the fallout from this. People who have abject burnout, depression. And you mentioned in the book we we're record levels of that, which we are welcome to America. Everyone's on Prozac here. Uh, talk to us a little about that and how that's,

how this drive contributes to that and why people might be struggling right now. Cause there's probably somebody out there going, I'm about losing my mind here. Yeah. I mean, America is the world champion of all things. Good and good.

And not so good uh if it's if there's an extreme it'll be in america and and what we're seeing is is exactly as you said you know like high and rising levels of perfectionism in response to the things we talked about you know young people feeling those pressures um and that's really what my research raised to prominence on the back of really this kind of finding that young people and interestingly, social perfection. We call it social prescribed perfectionism. This is a sense that other people expect me to be perfect. Right.

So, you know, then they're watching me and they're judging me. This element of perfection is really, really taking off and we're on an exponential curve. Right. So we're really we're really flying now with this one. And that's kind of worrying because um that's the most extreme form of perfectionism it's most highly correlated with significant mental distress so if you didn't want to see any form of perfectionism growing it would have been that one but that is the one that's going on i know that men and women have two different drives

or well everything is a drive to propagation of the species but women have a drive to uh you know use their beauty agency to look better. They buy all the makeup. It drives our economy, what women buy. I think they control most of the money and buying power in America. I think it's like 80 or 90%.

If they're married, they're usually the one doing the buying and stuff. Women buy a lot of stuff. They buy stuff for the women buy a lot of stuff. I mean, they, they, they consume a lot, they take, they buy stuff for the household, they buy stuff for makeup. Um, you know, they're usually, they're usually taking care of all that stuff. Um, and, but, but they're also working on their agency, their beauty agency. You know, they, I've asked people, I'm like, if you're married, why are you putting makeup on every day and going out? Um, so, you

know, they're really focused on that and how they present. For men, we have a different agency where our world looks at us from what resources we provide and what we contribute. We're not beauty objects. Have you seen me lately? You look great. Thank you. You're looking great. Flattery will get you.

I go to the gym now, so it's good. But we're not worth a lot as men in our younger years. We have to build a great job, build a good career, get a good income going. It takes us longer to do things because we have to build things. We're not born into beauty. And so we don't really hit our peak value to society until about 45, 55, because that's when our peak earning is. We're looked to be pride or protectors. So in women's hypergamy, they want us to earn more than they do. And so they're looking for a guy who's got this going on.

And I had this problem when I was young. I mean, when I was a junior or sophomore in school, I wanted to date fellow sophomore girls. Well, they weren't interested in that. They wanted to date the guy with the car, the senior, you know, the guys who's, uh, you know, going and doing stuff in life and having fun. And they didn't want to date the guys, you know, coming up. And so men are on this journey where we're trying to build this life, build this resource, you know, give that signaling, if you will, to women that, hey, I got it going on and I'm going places in my life.

I'm buying a nice car and blah, blah, blah. And women look for that. I mean, there are dating pools where we're like, okay, what's your job? What's your college? What's your income? I mean, how good of a provider are you going to be? That's how it works. And then women are doing their thing to buy

and it really drives our economy because everyone's buying shit like you know i mean i meet people that it's like hey i bought another purse for 10 grand some fashion person i'm like how many of these do you have i have about you know 20 or 50 of them i'm like jesus christ at one point like do you you know i've had girlfriends where I go in the closet and I'm like Every closet in this home is filled With your clothes going back to the 60s And 70s or something I'm old what can I say and so

Basically I'm like You're never going to wear any of this stuff You know and women are By nature harvesters You know it's It all comes down to caveman stuff. So hunter, gather, it's all that shit going on. So men are hunters.

We go out and hunt stuff down and all that good stuff. So it's interesting how it all drives our economy. At what point do we say, hey, man, just calm the fuck down? And I mean, is that just going to kill our economy? Is it going to crash if we all just collectively one day go, we got enough shit. Quit ordering shit on Amazon all the time. Yeah, it's funny. Like you say, we're 100 garers.

I think for me, like, you know, the modern equivalent of that is, can you back in a lorry driver? Or do you have to get your dad to go and do it? I come from a small town, so this is our vocabulary. Now I'm in a middle-class world. If I try and back in the lorry driver, he's like, go and get your dad. He'll do it. Don't need this. Wow.

So now I feel quite emancipcipated sometimes being in a different world from where my working class roots where everyone's like you know all the rest of it so it's funny you say that because there's definitely that goes on uh now your question was was this a you know is this kind of is this is this is it is the economy like is it driving what we're seeing and i think that's absolutely true i think women definitely are targeted a lot by uh consumerism by advertising and for the reasons that you stated and so you know we don't see any differences in perfection across men and women which is interesting but certainly they are definitely way more targeted than men when it comes to like appearance how does she look how does she behave or the rest of it and so you know the interaction of their perfectionism with that world can create

a lot of distress and worries about you know how they look and self-presentational concerns um and and all of those things you know we see way higher levels in women than we do in men and so i think you know it's certainly true that that's the case and this is why you know there is a big drive among young women now to try to kind of push back on that a little bit be you know just kind of be real movement show our authentic selves all the rest of it i mean we've got a long way to go uh don't get me wrong but nevertheless like there seems to be some kind of counterculture going on at the moment which um i think is is quite good news um when it comes to males yeah you know we we are we are still you know bombarded with other expectations and i would say actually in more recent years we too have been a little bit you

know exposed to somebody's more image-based ideas particularly younger men you know you've got to look a certain way you've got to have that sculptured body you've got to go to the gym and you've got to eat the right foods and you you got to have the right skin regime and all the rest of it like so i think it's coming for men a little bit um but we you know it is true to say that we're not quite this it's not quite as um as vociferous as it is for young it's getting there there's these tiktok ads they've had about men's skin and facial skin and like stuff that they can use for their skin and i'm like what the fuck is going on uh you know your skin looks great chris i want to know what your skin regime is uh i don't know i i don't know take a shower every couple days or something there you go um

but i do go to the gym i mean that helps but helps. But I don't know. I've been kind of blessed. But with my health and stuff, I don't know. I don't have that perfect skin. I got crow's feet or crow's wrinkles or eyes or whatever the hell I call them. I got a little bit of turkey neck going from losing weight. But, no, it's interesting to me. So what's the best way? And people need to read your book, of course, to's interesting to me. So what's the best way? And people need to read your book, of course,

learn more about this. But is gratitude kind of, gratitude was one thing I kind of learned by having gratitude. It helped me actually get more because it helped me kind of say, there's enough, I'm whole, I'm present. And how can I improve myself? And actually, instead of trying to chase what the advertisers show me,

because I learned a long time ago being in the advertising business, when advertisers show something in, say, Vogue, they show a woman in a beautiful dress, and there's a guy who's always kind of behind her. The guy's always secondary in the advertising. And so the women will look at that and go, I want that dress. I want to be as beautiful as that woman there.

And the guy looks at the girl and goes, I want that girl. So I got to dress like that guy in the background with the suit and tux or, you know, whatever the hell he's wearing to get that girl. And that's how we think women, women aren't like, I want to get that guy.

So I got to get that, you know, get that dress. They're just like, I want to get that dress. So I got to get that, you know, get that dress. They're just like, I want to get that dress. So they're beautiful. Um, and so it's interesting that drive that goes in behind it. Um, I don't, I, you know, if, yeah, I, I, there's a certain point where you just go, Hey man, just choose what you want to do.

So like I choose to, I go to the gym, I work out, I eat a really healthy diet. I eat beets, broccoli. What else is on my daily regimen? I go sit out in the sun 20 minutes a day for vitamin D. There's Brussels sprouts. There's a whole diet thing that I have now that's very salad and farm friendly. In fact, I get raw milk from the milk store and local farms. I get all my salad and my fruits and vegetables. But I focus on what I want.

What I'm trying to say is I'm not busy with the Vogue stuff and the crap that gets fed to me. Hey, do you want better skin? Drink Coke and snort it. I don't know. Whatever. Right? You know, I just i just yeah bullshit with all that you know fuck you with your little advertisements there and i see what i see

what angle you're playing at me and so i just kind of focus on what i want to do and things that make me better and i'm not only competing with anybody on it i'm actually competing with myself really when it comes down to it like when i go to the gym i'm not trying to look like you know the liver king because i'd have to take roids for that what i'm competing with myself really when it comes down to it like when i go to the gym i'm not trying to look like you know the liver king because i'd have to take roids for that what i'm competing with is against myself and i'm like can i do an extra five pounds today you know that sort of thing and move up in those increments yeah well does that help air absolutely like those are life-enhancing experiences right they're they're things that you know you uh you get a sense of mastery from like yeah you know i'm getting fitter so that's that's you know that's really good i'm

every time i go i'm getting a little bit stronger i'm feeling healthier because it's flushing endorphins through my body i'm feeling more alive i'm feeling more vital i can concentrate better um you know i'm looking after myself in terms of my diet. So, you know, my digestive system is working a bit better and I'm feeling like, you know, that's having an impact on all sorts of things. Uh, we know gut health is so important to mental health and physical health. So, you know, all of these things, you know, they have like a compounding impact, right? Like each one on their own might seem, you know, just the kind of another lifestyle thing. But if you add them all together, you get, uh, you know, know you get such a an immense sense of purpose and and i suppose health now that's

very different to you know what most of those things that we're talking about by the way are free you can do that for no cost obviously you're going to pay for the gym membership you know you get to buy your groceries or whatever but you know on the whole you go out in the sun that doesn't cost you anything you know you go for a run doesn't cost you anything you know what's really curious is a lot of these things don't really cost a great deal and they bring so much to our lives and yet you know that thirty thousand dollar handbag or whatever it costs the world and yet what is it what does it do beyond that kind of five minute hit of happiness right it just then it evaporates and it's gone as if it didn't exist in the first place so i you know you're absolutely right it's really about

finding things in your life that fulfill you things that make you healthier and happier and and trying as much as you can to avoid the lure of being lured back into those kind of quick hits those kind of dopamine hits that's like i've got to buy this i feel better and now i now i feel shitty again so like that's that's the biggest that's hard as i say i've keep saying this but it's an important point because in this culture, you're bombarded with those pressures. But if you can just sit back and focus on other things that are much more life-enhancing,

then you are going to feel a little bit. There you go. It makes all the difference in the world. And it's interesting. I'll talk to people and they'll buy stuff, and I'll be like, that doesn't really make you more attractive, especially with men. Like, we don't care.

You know, I'll see these women. They pay for these Louis Vuitton or, you know, Christian, whatever. I clearly have no fashion sense or care. But, you know, you'll hear they spend like thousands on a shoe. And you're just like, as men, we really don't care. Like, we just don't care like we just don't care no like there's no woman i've ever met and been like you know you're really hot and you're really a cool person and have a great personality and everything's put together on you but i that's those shoes that's yeah it's not gonna work you know that dress no it's not gonna work never happens never happens

but uh so you know i i think we need to have more gratitude we need more basic stuff i think maybe we need to take control of what we want as opposed to you know the bullshit sold us for advertising because jesus if you went out and bought every bullshit item that's been offered that will make your life better you know you're still going to be unhappy yeah i mean we could you that's the whole point is economy right it can never be enough because if it was enough right think about it right if it was enough and we stopped consuming and everybody felt a sense of purpose and happiness then people are going to lose their jobs very very in very short order right the advertiser is going to lose the job the person who delivers the goods to the shop is going to lose their job the person that sells is going

to lose their job so you're going to see this quick downward cascade of the whole economy if we don't have these feelings so this is why you know i'll go back to this point about it being quite profound but you know it's it is the case that we have to trade our present happiness for something more in order to keep the whole show on the road and and we have to keep doing that and and people that are able to step away from that i have some admiration because it's so tough because there's so much bombardment and pressure going on um but you know this is just the way the economy works and this is how it is and you know i think if we can appreciate that understand that and try as hard as we can to find purpose within that society that's the route to happiness but as i said just want to be clear right like it doesn't mean you have to kind of completely rid yourself of all

these trappings of modern life like sometimes it's fine if you want to get a rolex no problem like if that makes you feel good like do but do it for the right reasons you know they do exactly sense of accomplishment, you know, it's like, okay, I worked really hard. I got this paycheck. I'm going to treat myself.

Right. And that's the, it's a fulfillment. Like it's, it's, it's reward for the hard work, not just because you wanted to like show it off or whatever. Right.

So it's, it's, you know, I'm not completely anti-capitalist at all. Uh, I think, you know, it's absolutely the right thing for people to

want nice things in their lives but i'm just saying you know we have to understand that there's also a bigger picture and the bigger picture is that the way we feel is because we kind of have to feel it yeah and and we have huge amounts of depression in fact they've shown that especially young women uh that are in their uh teens and stuff looking at Instagram and seeing this perfect world, this fake presentation, the pressure that they put on themselves is even more extraordinary. And it's very hard.

So basically what you're saying is we need to be like Saturday Night Live's Stuart Smalley, which is Al Franken back in the day, who became center, where we just say, I'm good enough, i'm smart enough and doggone it people like me we we need to yeah like um the advertiser is not going to be very pleased uh and sooner or later the president's gonna have a few problems with that too but but but but but you know if you want to be happy absolutely that kind of acceptance and i think

actually you know what like here's the thing economies are already slowing down anyway right aging populations overhang of debt the global era of globalization is coming to an end where goods were just imported on the cheap right that's getting more expensive to do that now so we're this is why we're seeing inflation by the way this is one of the reasons not just because of these geopolitical issues and and so i think what we have to do is now. So this is why we're seeing inflation, by the way. It's one of the reasons, not just because of these geopolitical issues. And so I think what we have to do is kind of see this as a bit of an opportunity, right? Like we're getting this secular stagnation and it's really freaking people out. It's like, oh my God, like how do we get more growth? This is, you know, but actually why can't we learn to kind of try and exist and live within an economy where we have abundance?

And, you know, we kind of live in a kind of sustainable, almost circular economy where sometimes GDP will go up. That's great. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes it will stay flat. That's also fine. We can, you know, we can tolerate that. We don't always have to grow all the time.

You know, we live in an era of abundance. We've kind of solved the scarcity problem through economic growth. So it's been worth it. But now we have to understand how we're going to land the plane. And I think sometimes, like, you know, it's okay for us to take these challenges of, like, we don't always have to organize our economy in this way. Sometimes we can, like, take a step back. We can figure it's good enough. And actually, maybe that should be the target for policymakers moving forward.

I don't know. There you go. Have you ever. Last question. Have you ever studied the minimalist movement? I think there's some guys who did a book that are really popular on a podcast about the minimalist. Have you ever studied those folks, and what are your thoughts on them? I've heard of the movement.

I would kind of say I've done too much research into them, but I get the principles, going back to basics. Enough is plenty and all that sort of thing. I can get on board with it. Again, I'm not sure if i myself would be able to go the extreme live inside a box kind of thing uh but nevertheless like you know that i would say there's some value value to that and i'm sure you'd be interested to know like what it's like psychologically and how those you know how do those people feel free do they feel liberated i think it'd be an interesting experiment.

They kind of focus on kind of what you talk about. They kind of talk, they focus on buying what they want, not overextending themselves, paying cash. You know, you need to buy a couch. Okay, there you go. You got a couch.

You don't need to be buying another one next week and one next year. And you, you know, a couch. You don't need to be buying another one next week and one next year. And, and, and you, you, you, you know, do you really need the range Rover? You know, the land Rover or whatever. Do you really need the Mercedes Benz? I mean, if you want to buy one, like you say, you know, if you want to buy a Rolex or you want to buy a Mercedes, buy one. But, you know, I, I lived my life too, too when i became successful where i was buying everything and it was the old line from fight club again where it was like we buy things to impress people that don't give a shit you know what i mean i was buying bmws and houses and and all this stuff and

throwing parties at my house to impress people and people would just be like yeah whatever and uh you know i i would even date people that would be like why do you have to have a big house in a you know in the canyon and the and you know the bmws i'll be like well i grew up poor and i'm doing this i'm doing this to kind of heal what i thought was a wound but i also you know i thought i was impressing people and then after a while i'm like no one really gives a fuck. And they don't care. You know? So true.

So true. So why am I breaking my, you know, craziness? And we see these, we see these people here, you know, the prices of cars went through the roof here in America. I'm sure that maybe they did over on your end of the pond. They did, yeah. And we see these young people that half their income is going towards a car it's one of the reasons they can't buy a house it shows they've got like 1500 to 2000 a month car payments yeah and and you're like man just buy like a used old car man

you don't need to have the 2023 fucking whatever man like like you know you just need something to get you from a to z you know in my day and age you bought a car to impress chicks yeah but you know but you bought a muscle car or something you didn't buy like i don't know a kia i'll fight people in our kia audience it's a very metric car i'm never getting laid anyway no no i i certainly i mean look i do you know what when you what you said there like completely resonates with me like i grew up poor too and i spent my whole life really trying to compensate or overcompensate for that uh young adulthood one of the reasons that, you know, I suffered with perfectionism was because I was trying to lift myself above all

these middle-class kids who I just felt was so much better, so much articulate, I had so much going for them. And I, you know, I drove myself crazy, um, because you know,

this insecurity, like this inferiority that I felt deep inside of me that I just needed to, uh, soothe. Um, and I get it, like I totally get it. And, but you know, I've kind of feel like I've had the epiphany that you've had. It's just, you know, it's, it's doesn't get you, it doesn't make you any happier. And at the end of the day, like you don't really get anywhere anyway. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's a hopeless quest. So

just try and be happy. That's amazing. And you, you mentioned about, you know, trying to keep up with your friends who appear to be successful. I think one of the problems we have in, in, in our culture is we see people on the outside on what they're presenting. And we don't see the internal fucking horror show.

That's probably going on there. Like we had a gentleman, a Maricio, I forget his last name, but he's married to one of those beverly hills housewives beverly hills chicks and and women love that show and it just looks like all the women are just rolling in money and stuff and lately we've been finding out they're all bankrupt and going to jail for not paying their taxes and stuff um they're not really all that and you know

he he was married for i think it's 27 years or something and you know he came on the show he's really gracious and uh you know it talks about his marriage and and yeah i love and you know so great he's getting divorced now right and i think she's running off with i think another woman or something and whatever the rumors are and so you don't see like you see these people on the presented you don't know what sort of horror show might be going on their personal life yeah and that's only exacerbated social media right because social media is given the perfect platform for us to create uh perfect lives and lifestyles in the way that we want of us to see but what goes on underneath is uh obviously not not that reality and that by the way that's really psychologically problematic because it creates a very deep disconnect between who we want the perfect person in our minds either

we want other people to see and the imperfect person we really are right and that creates a lot of conflict a lot of anxiety or attention because all the time we're faking it fake it till you make it right we started the show like you know all the time you're going for like faking the perfect life knowing deep down that you are not this perfect person you're predicting and trying to disguise this imperfect person everywhere you go psychologically that's really probably one of the reasons we're seeing many of these issues of anxiety depression is because of this alienation self-alienation the sense that we're not with ourselves we're trying to be somebody else somebody perfect and i think social media has a lot to say

about this but it's it's definitely a societal problem there you go well everyone should order your book up and read about it give us your.com so people can find you on the interweb sir it's tom the current so thomcrran.com there you go thank you very much thomas for coming the show we really appreciate it thank you for having me chris there you go. Thank you very much, Thomas, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Chris. There you go. And folks, not everyone can be perfect like me. I mean, there's only been two of us in the history of the world, and we know what they did with the first guy was perfect. And I don't know, they're still working on building something out for me, evidently, from what I hear.

The Perfection Trap. You can order wherever fine books are sold. Embracing the power of good enough. Or in my case, whatever. So there you go. It's available August 8th, 2023, wherever fine books are sold. Order it up. Learn to have a healthier mindset to this stuff, people.

Have some balance and gratitude in life. Enjoy the ride. One of the things we didn't talk about, I'll throw this in here on the show, last end of the show, fuck it. One of the problems I had in my youth, in my early life, adult life, was basically enjoying the journey. Because I was always after the goal. And people would be like, Chris, it's not about the goal. It's about enjoying the journey.

Take some time to look around. Take some time to enjoy yourself. That's what I'm telling you. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other, stay safe, and we'll see you guys.