In this episode, Baylor discusses the pursuit of perfection. Using the example of imperfect yarn affecting the outcome of his friend’s blankets, Baylor encourages listeners to identify external factors that can impact their results and plan for contingencies to mitigate risks. Baylorquestions the pursuit of perfection and suggests redefining it from the perspective of those we serve. By focusing on whether our efforts are serving their intended purpose, we can find our own version of perfection and achieve our goals.
The Pursuit of Perfection [00:00:49] Discusses the pursuit of perfection and growth, and how external factors can affect the outcome of our efforts.
Identifying Yarns in Our Lives [00:02:21] Encourages listeners to identify the yarns in their lives, such as traffic or financial troubles, that can impact our results despite our best efforts.
Mitigating Risks [00:05:10] Explains the importance of planning for contingencies to mitigate the risks of the yarns in our lives, and not being caught off guard when things don’t go as planned.
The pursuit of perfection [00:05:46] Questions the meaning of perfection and encourages listeners to redefine it. He gives examples of how perfection can be subjective and suggests looking at it through the eyes of those we serve.
Dealing with mistakes [00:06:29] Baylor shares a personal story of forgetting what he was talking about during a speech and how He dealt with it. He encourages listeners to focus on the purpose of their actions and not beat themselves up over mistakes.
Redefining perfection [00:07:05] Baylor reiterates the importance of redefining perfection and focusing on whether our actions are serving their intended purpose. He encourages listeners to find contingencies and plan for external factors that may impact their results.
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TRANSCRIPTION
Speaker 0 (00:00:00) – You are now listening to Shark Theory. I’m your host, Baylor Barbe.
(00:00:08) – Hey, what’s up everybody? Hope you’re off to a great start as usual. Uh, I was talking to my friend Helen the other day. Um, she’s working full-time also finishing up nursing school. And I was talking to her, you talking about busy schedules and, and our respective careers. I was like, what are you doing Nick, your free time? Like, do you have free time? And uh, she said, yeah, you know, in my free time I like to make blankets. I was like, , what? Make blankets? She said, I said, yeah, tell me about that. She said, well, you know, I like to make blankets. And you know, the thing is, is every time I make one, it doesn’t turn out perfect like I wanted to. Some of the holes are different sizes and, and, and different things. I say, well, you know, why is that? And what she said kind of really stuck with me.
(00:00:49) – Cause I think it’s a parallel for a lot of us in our pursuit of perfection and pursuit of, uh, of growth. And she said, well, you know, the yarn is is not perfect, right? The yarn is, some of it’s more fluffy than others. Some of it’s a little bit thicker, so it’s never sized. Exactly correct. So though you do everything well, you don’t get a perfect result. And I just think that that is so true about all of us, right? How many times in life do we do our part? We give our absolute all to get something, to get a result that we want. And it just doesn’t work or doesn’t turn out how we thought it was gonna turn out. Now we blame ourselves and we, and we beat ourselves up. And when we say, I gotta get better, I gotta improve. But sometimes in life, it’s simply just the yarn, meaning it’s not you, right?
(00:01:34) – So how do we recognize what those, uh, areas of our life are, right? Because if we don’t, here’s the thing. Now I’m all about taking responsibility. I think it’s a, a great leadership, uh, skill to take responsibility when things go well, when things don’t go well. But here’s the thing, if you continue to take responsibility for factors that are outside of your control, simply because you didn’t think about those factors, you’re gonna drive yourself crazy. And when you drive yourself crazy, then doubt starts to creep in. And after a while you think, maybe I’m not capable. Maybe I’m not, uh, talented, maybe I’m not skilled. Maybe this isn’t for me. And so that’s the danger in not recognizing, uh, the, the yarns in your life, those outlying factors that can affect what you’re doing. So what you gotta do right now is think about an area where maybe you’re striving for perfection.
(00:02:21) – Maybe you’re striving for growth, but you’re not getting the result that you want based on the work that you’re putting in. Like, you know, you’re given your all, but you’re not getting the result. What are those yarns in your life? One of the best examples I’ve, I’ve heard of this is, uh, I was speaking in, uh, I can’t remember where I was speaking. I think it was in Phoenix. And, uh, we were talking about this topic of perfection. And this lady said, Hey, she raise her hand. She said, you know, in my free time I like to do pottery. And she said, sometimes you, you make the pottery. Well, you, you scope the clay, you put the glaze on it, and when you put it in the kiln, there’s a thing called the X factor. For some reason though, you’ve done everything right and you’ve done this a million times, sometimes the pot just cracks.
(00:03:05) – It’s just an X factor. It just is what it is. She said in pottery, you just understand sometimes that’s how it’s gonna be, right? And, and I think that’s true. We have to start looking at the areas of our life where we’re trying to really push, trying to really grow and things aren’t working. Sometimes it’s just something, right? Perhaps it’s the client, right? You’re trying so hard. You’ve done everything, you’ve overcome every objection to try to close the deal with the client. But you didn’t know, uh, the, the black swan, you didn’t know that they’re about to go bankrupt. You didn’t know that they’re going through some, some financial troubles. You didn’t know that they already had a prior agreement with somebody else. There’s things outside of your control, perhaps, you know, you’re in a business and you just can’t get the resources. You know, like when Covid happened and the shipping stopped and everything.
(00:03:45) – You know, there are things in life that are outside of your control. Now, I’m not saying that we have to go through life and start looking for reasons to make excuses. There is a big difference between making an excuse for why you’re not getting results and then taking responsibility for something that’s outside of your control. So spend a few minutes thinking about that. Like what is it? What is it? What are the potential, uh, areas of my life that are yarn? What are the things that even if I’m consistent, even if I go about it, like, like think about if you wake up every day and you leave your house at the exact same time to get to work, like one of the yarns would be traffic, right? Perhaps there’s a wreck, perhaps that there’s a parade, perhaps, that there’s something going on that they reroute, detour.
(00:04:25) – There are factors outside of your control, though. You’re consistent. You did everything else. You waked up, you brushed your teeth, you worked out, you did. It’s out of your control, right? And we have to understand that’s just how it is. So then when we have to ask ourself, and the reason that it’s important to identify what the yarns are in your life, right, is so that we can then mitigate the risk, right? Meaning what kind of contingency plan? Like we know, like, to get to work, you just gotta leave earlier, right? We know that, uh, in, in the sales game, it’s not good to try to just rely on one client. You know, you probably need to make a couple more phone calls or have a couple other things in the pipeline, right? We don’t put all our eggs in one basket. So when you know what the yarn, when you know that even if I’m consistent, this is a, a, a tangible thing that could go wrong, these are the, the, the bottlenecks of my deal.
(00:05:10) – We can start to plan for those. And when we plan for those, we’re not caught off guard when we plan for those. We’re not worried about the fact that, okay, yeah, I put all my eggs in one basket, I did everything right and it didn’t work out. We say, okay, cool. Well, well, I, I know what I can do now, right? And, and the same thing with Yara. You know, if you’re making a blanket, like, okay, yep, maybe this isn’t gonna turn out how I want, but here’s the thing. And the reason I’m getting at this, because so many people in a lot of my seminars and stuff talk about perfection and it’s not perfect. But I wanna ask you a question real quick. Like, you’ve probably been sitting there thinking about what you’re trying to do perfectly, but do you even know what that is?
(00:05:46) – Right? If I said, people say to, I wanna have a perfect day, or I wanna be perfect in my, uh, craft, what would that even mean? The problem is we’re seeking a level of perfection, but we don’t know what that is. Perhaps what we need to do more often than not is redefine what perfection is. If perfection’s what you’re seeking, re seeking, perhaps it looks different than that, right? Maybe that that blanket that you feel is imperfect is perfect to the, to the newborn or the, the kid or the child or the adult or whoever puts it on and stays warm. See, we have to quit looking at perfection through our own eyes and start looking at it to the through the eyes of the people that we serve, right? I, when I speak, I mess up a lot of words. There are times when I just literally can’t get a word out.
(00:06:29) – And I could sit there and beat myself up and say, oh, well you, you messed up. You, you, you, you had this one point. You forgot to say it. Uh, you told this story wrong. You gave away the punchline. I could do that. Or I could be thankful that people come to me and say, Hey, I loved what you did there. You know, one of the biggest mess up ever had end up being one of the strongest points I was speaking at on this really big stage. And I was walking back and forth across the stage, if you’ve ever heard me seen one of my speeches, you know, I don’t stay stationary and I get to the edge of this stage, and this is a probably like a 40 yard stage. And literally for the life of me, forgot what I was talking about, had no idea to this day what I was talking about.
(00:07:05) – So rather than panic, I simply walk back to the middle of the stage and say, Hey, sometimes in life you get to a different, to, to the end of a rope. Forget what you’re doing. You just go back and center yourself and start over. And that’s what I did, right? And afterward though, it was to me, I was like, oh my goodness, I can’t believe I forgot what I was talking about. This is a, I’m an idiot. People afterwards, like, man, I just love what you did there. So I said to say, we gotta quit looking at perfection in terms of what we want. Start saying like, is it serving the purpose that it’s intended for? Because to me, if it’s allowing you to get the result and it’s helping somebody with what you’re doing, then that in itself is the perfection we should seek. So have a great day. Find that yarn, find the contingencies, redefine what perfection is in shark theory.
