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This podcast was born from a belief that meaningful growth doesn’t happen overnight. The things that really matter—in life, business, art, relationships—often take time, patience, and unseen investment. And yet, we live in a culture that constantly pulls us toward immediacy: fast food, AI, and overnight success stories.
But the reality is:
Anything truly worth building usually takes time. Success doesn't arrive in an instant.
We take the time to ask our amazing guests, what are the things that are worth putting in the time and investing in, even if we don’t see results for a long time?
7. Perfectionism
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bamboo Method Podcast, investing in the unseen Today, me and Wade are sitting at the table. Yep. You moved from over there to over here. Yep. Welcome to this table.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's good to be at, uh, this table.
Speaker: Today we're gonna be talking about perfection.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Um, perfectionism. Yes. Yep. The, the thing that we all have a.
Um, probably some of a relationship with Yep. It could be a challenge. Uh, perfection, as we all know, can just get in the way of good things. Yeah. And if you're a business owner or a leader, creative or really just a human. A parent. Yes. A parent. Yep. The challenge is real. How do you ride that tension of, you know, fully prepping and having high expectations and pursuing excellence?
But not letting perfection get in the way.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And,
Speaker 2: um, because quality, quality matters, quality matters, details matter, the small things matter, but also there's definitely diminishing returns to that. Yeah. It hits a [00:01:00] certain point that messing with it anymore adjusting, fixing things actually starts making it worse.
Or at the very least, it's just prolonging the outcome of finishing something, shipping it.
Speaker: Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, you know, a real tension that we have to ride. In the world that we're creatives. Yep. But we're doing work for people and for businesses. Yeah. We do have like, we eventually have to ship it.
Yeah. It's creative,
Speaker 2: but it is work
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker 2: And it has to end sometime. We have to be finished at that at some point. Yeah.
Speaker: You have to be finished at some point. Yeah. Seth Go, talks about ship it. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of creatives struggle with that. Yeah, there's a, there's a ship date for us and
Speaker 2: by creatives.
We, we struggle with that a lot.
Speaker: Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We need a big sign in our office that says Ship it. Ship it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, ship it. Are you guys in shipping? No. It's like FedEx, right? Yeah. No,
Speaker: no. So Wade, what does that look like in, in your world? Uh, obviously you come from a big creative [00:02:00] background. You could talk a little bit about that, even just as a musician, but in the business world, how do you ride that tension?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I think, uh, in terms of managing perfection, I think the only way I've found to really be able to manage it are deadlines for me personally.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: Um, if I don't impose a deadline. It can be a real deadline. Like, you know, we need this video by this event. Like we're showing this video at an event.
That's a very, that's a hard deadline. You have to meet that. But there are other things. It's like, yeah, we need that video in the summer. We need you, whatever, uh, whatever it may be. Even in those cases, I still need to give myself a deadline.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: Because I can just keep tweaking and keep tweaking and maybe adjust the levels here.
And maybe what if there's a better clip for that? Mm-hmm. You know, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. I could do that into oblivion. Yeah. And never finish. And, but if I put a deadline in place, one, it just gives me structure. I, I, I don't [00:03:00] procrastinate Yeah. As much. There are other benefits like that, but the deadline is the only way I found to actually manage that perfectionism.
Mm. I have to have something to watch. By X day, I need to be 99% done by this day and I need to hit export and send it off by this day.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And sometimes, you know, I'm not perfect and I don't hit those deadlines, but having those deadlines in the first place. Or what actually can help get me there.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. What are, what are, uh, the things that play into the perfectionism?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh. Yeah. Um, what's the relationship with your mom like? Yeah. Or your, your dad. Uh,
Speaker: the joke's not about Wade's mom. No, let's be clear about that. Or his dad. Just
Speaker 2: psychology in general. Um. I think honestly it comes from a place of insecurity of like mm-hmm.
This piece of work, and I know we've talked about this before, but this piece of work, um, work can feel so personal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it can be a [00:04:00] reflection of me and, uh, you know, like if something is good or bad or wherever in between. That's a reflection of me as a person.
Speaker: Yeah. If you don't like my work, you don't like my work.
Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. And it can feel so personal. Oh yeah. Especially in creative fields and yeah. And so I think that's a big piece of that. Yeah. For me personally is just that insecurity of like, this work isn't good enough, I'm not good enough, you know, and those kind of interchange in my brain. Not wanting to disappoint people.
Uh, I never want to disappoint someone, especially if they're paying me. It's gotta be, you know? Yeah. I have to be perfect. Those would be the big ones for me would be disappointment, insecurity, stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, and I can identify with all that. I think, you know, for me, I think you hit on a lot of really powerful aspects to it.
That one, I think structure. So necessary.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Um, if we don't give ourselves structure in a lot of ways, there can be a big mess. Yeah. But if we give ourself [00:05:00] deadlines and we give, give ourself these expectations, expectations, some structure to operate in and external pressures that can move things forward, that helps a lot.
I think, um, having external perspective can be so helpful. Sure. Um, I know, you know, for me, many years I worked very siloed. Creative creativity is not meant to be a siloed thing. Yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. Um, so even when we just started sharing an office Yeah. It was huge. The amount of times I was like, wait, watch, this is awful.
Am I crazy? Yeah. Am I crazy? Like, it is not even done yet. Just tell me I'm going in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, that's in the right direction. Okay, good. And that outside perspective is just huge. Mm-hmm. Um, for, for knowing that it's like going in the right direction. And then I think the internal.
We battle that as a piece of that. And I think getting curious for me is like, yeah, there's a lot of narratives that go on of the, of I don't wanna let anyone down. And the fear of rejection.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker: And the idea that if I do this one thing [00:06:00] wrong and, and there's a reality that it may not be up to standard.
And I've, I've shipped plenty of videos. Yeah. And you to be ready
Speaker 2: to face that too. Yeah. They, they were not good
Speaker: enough Uhhuh. It is like, and there was some disappointment on the other end or misalignment. Or whatever would be, and the world did not explode. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you didn't have to retire or like find a new job or Yeah.
It's like my career move to a different town. Yeah.
Speaker: The career did not end. There's
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: In many different ways. There is recovery. Yeah. I can, I can edit again. Mm-hmm. We can do another pass, thank goodness. Yeah. Or, or you know, worst case scenario, like that relationship ends, it's like things continue.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and I haven't had anything that. Dramatic happen. Yeah. Have you
Speaker 2: ever had a project, I mean, something like that happen where it's like over? Not that I know of.
Speaker: No one's ever told me. You, you know, you screwed the pooch and we're done. Sure. I have had have you ever
Speaker 2: had a project fall through 'cause of something like that?
Speaker: Um, no. I mean, I've had, I've had people be [00:07:00] disappointed. Sure. Um, same like, yeah, this wasn't what we had hoped it would be. Mm-hmm. Um, but either we worked it out through like, okay, how do we get it to where it can be, you know, I'm, I'm, I wanna make sure that we get to a place that they're happy. And so it's like, okay, let's, let's figure how we can get there.
So it's just a communication, um, navigation. And I can't think of a time that we weren't able to get to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, but there may have been times that I. That I just didn't know about, you know? Sure. Um, and so that, that could be a real reality. Um, but it's, it's, uh, there's obviously a lot of that internal aspect, but once you get the repetition of shipping it and knowing like, oh, it's okay, world doesn't end because the world doesn't end one because, you know, it probably is good enough.
Sure. Many times. And if it's not, you're still good enough. Yeah. Like, that's okay. And you can get it there. And you can get it there. Yeah. Get it there. And. That is such a part of the process of getting it there. Mm-hmm. So I think that's the biggest hangup [00:08:00] that I've discovered is my fear of rejection. My fear of failure has gotten in the way of so much progress because then I just didn't ship it all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker: And I got in my head or I spent too much time, or I didn't take steps that I could have took. And I think that can be what gets in the way of a lot of us taking any steps in that direction or towards something that we want is that fear of failure. Yeah. So we don't even take a step at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like you, we can step towards that.
And in fact, I think failure is absolutely a part of the process. If we're trying to find a path, failure without failure, failure isn't an end. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think we often think success is finding the path without failure. That's so, Nope. It's, it's through failure. Through failure. Yeah. And, uh, it should maybe try to fail, you know, minimal amount of times.
Yeah. But sometimes. The most successful paths is because of the most failures.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fail forward.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm. And that's how we learn. I mean, the amount of times that I've learned from mistakes or just not doing something right. That's, that's how we learn.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You learn more from failure than from success.[00:09:00]
Speaker: Absolutely. I,
Speaker 2: uh, yeah. It's an interesting tension. 'cause if some, if you have a success, something goes really well, it, it feels great. But there sometimes can be like that. Why did it go well? Like what was it? Was it, you know? Mm-hmm. And whereas failure typically you can diagnose what went wrong. Yeah. And learn from it.
Mm-hmm. And hopefully never make that mistake again. Mm-hmm. What's an example of you learning from failure? Oh, learning through failure. Gosh. Um, I can share one. Okay. Um, I was on a shoot and I. Should have hired an audio person, but I didn't. I thought I could do everything myself. And that's a first, first failure.
But, uh, second failure. The, the real failure I need to mention, uh, is I setting up audio and I had a them lav, they had a lav mic on. I also had a boom mic, two sources of audio. Um, [00:10:00] 'cause I probably needed, anyway, I had two sources of audio. Mm-hmm. Um, I was relying on the boom mic to be my main one. And this was gonna be like the backup.
Uh, I just anticipated the boom mic being the, the better option. I didn't realize that the boom mic was not on, I didn't have phantom power on and mm-hmm. And so it was not recording any audio at all. But I didn't know that because I didn't spend long enough checking and I was just rushed and, and I'm doing it all myself.
And so I listen, I put the headphones on. I hear their voice, they're talking. I'm like, okay, it's working. Take the headphones off. I get my camera on, I'm operating the camera. And I didn't realize that what I was hearing was the lav mic. Ah. So that boom mic wasn't recording any audio. The lav mic died halfway through that shoot.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. And I
Speaker 2: didn't know. So not only was my boom mic not recording any audio at all. I lab, Mike died, and so I had to use very bad [00:11:00] audio for parts of that film. Um, yeah, audio is so important and I've never made that mistake again. I'll just say it that way.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, over the course of my career, there's been a number of just like skillset developments that you learn, and that's, that's a good example of learning the hard way.
I've got a similar one. I, I did weddings for a long time and I've had a couple moments, thankfully, nothing super significant. But, um, one time there was, you've
Speaker 2: gotten lucky,
Speaker: dude. I think I gotten lucky. The amount of, the amount of things that have gone wrong for me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you've never had this happen to you.
Oh my goodness. Bless.
Speaker: And I don't love, bless love saying it out loud. I feel like I'm now my time's coming. But, um, never had card failure, never lost cards. I've gotten very close. In fact, my organization of cards at times have been, has been somewhat haphazard.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, don't get me, sorry.
Speaker: And, um, yeah, and, uh, the, and there's been times where I've, I've, I've, I have lost cards, important cards from a wedding like ceremony, stuff like that.
But always found him. And one time there was a miscommunication [00:12:00] between me and the person who was shooting with me on the toast recording. And I kind of got it all set up and I was like, you go monitor. He thought I hit record. So then there was no audio of the toast except for what was for my camera. Oh no.
Which, if anyone is even knows a little bit about how cameras work and audio now, that's just not, they're not
Speaker 2: meant to record audio not usable, like far from usable their own,
Speaker: thankfully. Like we were able to recover it well enough that you could hear the toast well enough. That is, we are okay to go. But yeah, never, you know, ev now, I mean, you know me whenever we're filming anything.
Almost always is a recording. Like I always text you. Yeah. Like I know you're monitoring it. Yeah. But I'm always like, I gotta make sure, like check
Speaker 2: again, check again. Yeah.
Speaker: But I think some of the biggest things I've learned comes, you know, obviously you learn a lot from the skill standpoint or logistics and checking in on stuff and making sure you don't make any mistakes like that organization.
But some of the biggest things I've learned is just communication. Expectations. There's been a lot of projects where like the expectations were completely missed and that was due to upfront [00:13:00] communications. Yeah. And how we be clear and how do we set expectations, how do we go in the right direction and how do we really work together?
And so I've, you know, ended up in situations where I'm like, oh, we were, this was just a big miss. Um, and it's because we, we thought we knew what was going, I thought I was, knew what you wanted, or you, you know, the whole thing can just so communicating. Um, on the front end can just be a huge, if you understand how to really communicate well.
Yeah. Create expectations, contracts, have it be very clear. Um, and have done a lot of handshake agreements and most of them have gone well, some of them have not. Yeah. And for that reason, let's, you know, contracts are important.
Speaker 2: Yeah. How does the, uh, we started this conversation off talking about perfectionism.
How does communication play into. Perfectionism, expectations, all that.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely. I think a few things can play in there is just, again, you don't want to be [00:14:00] rejected. Yeah. I think sometimes it's like, I don't, I don't want to do anything, have expectations. Oftentimes my, um, lack of communication on the front end is because if I say these things, they may say no.
And so I think it's better to just not say that. Not say it at all. Yep. Um, which
Speaker 2: is so opposite,
Speaker: but in the moment
Speaker 2: it seems right
Speaker: and it's because I'm feeling imperfect in what I'm communicating or offering. It's this feeling of I'm not perfect, or what I have to offer is not perfect, or how I'm saying it in any form or fashion is not perfect.
So the answer is gonna be a no and I better not say it and just hope that everything just kinda works its way out. And that's just silly. Yeah. Um, naive and ineffective and has been a problem. And so, you know. Yeah. And it
Speaker 2: ends up being a lose for everybody. It's a lose. That's, that's for everybody's the hardest thing.
Not only is it like, obviously not good for you. Yeah. And that, but [00:15:00] it ends up being not the best for the client, not the best for the project. All that ends up being looser. Everybody. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker: But if, if we can ground ourselves in reality that this is where I'm at, clarity and communication matter, and if it's imperfect, it's still better.
Mm-hmm. Then no communication at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And
Speaker: so in every step, pursue excellence, but ground in reality, and don't let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of you taking a necessary step that. That's in front of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You mentioned contracts. What are other ways to keep that communication clarity?
The number one priority?
Speaker: Yeah. Obviously contracts are like an overarching, I don't know how many people actually read the contracts that we, we send them. Right. But just a lot of email communications. I think it's also learning, uh, systems and structures. We've started to implement, you know, meeting multiple times with anyone who wants to work with us.
Yeah. Just that we can have a lot of face to face time to really. Flesh out and communicate what's gonna be going on, [00:16:00] staying in contact. Um, that's a big one that I'm
Speaker 2: not, I can be better at.
Speaker: Yes. Wanting our clients to not have to be the one who reaches out. Right. You know, that we're staying in contact frequently, giving updates if there's a long span of time.
Mm-hmm. Um, between any, any sort of, uh, connection and it's definitely something that I need to grow on. And, um, but that consistent communication doesn't even have to always be super in depth, but just like. Touch points. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's, I think that's where I get held up. I feel like if I'm gonna email this person, I better have something to tell 'em.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But really if it's just, hey, we're still working on it. Yeah. Uh, I just wanna let you know like we still like I'm alive. Like we're good. Yeah. Like sometimes that goes a long way. I know. Um, I've been on the receiving end of something like that. Yeah. And it does go a long way. It's like, yeah. It's huge.
It doesn't have to be a huge milestone, but some sort of contact mm-hmm. Is always helpful. Yeah, absolutely. It's a good reminder.
Speaker: And that's a challenge 'cause we're bell busy. Oh yeah. But I feel like we can also get in our heads of like, yeah, I hope I want something good to say. Mm-hmm. [00:17:00] You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I kind of say, uh, I like self reject before I even, like, like I didn't give them a chance to reject me.
I just rejected myself. Yeah. Chances are they wouldn't have, they would've been fine. Yeah. But I, I can be in my own way, you know? And that's, that's a huge struggle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Going back to the insecurity thing, it's real.
Speaker: Yeah. Absolutely. And the spirit of nurturing. It's the little things. Mm-hmm. It's taking little steps.
Yeah. It's embracing where you truly are and taking little steps to continue to move where you want to go. Yep. And I think excellence is, is a great pursuit. Quality matters. Yep. Um, but recognizing that the road there is through failure, right? Yeah. And so you gotta take some steps that are gonna be uncomfortable.
Mm-hmm. Um, you might have to, you know, fail. And, and visibly fail, you know? Um. Yep. It's also a bummer. It'd be nice to have all the failures be behind the curtain. Yeah. No one saw it until we come, but that's just not how life is. Mm-hmm. [00:18:00] And it doesn't mean it doesn't have to be this big public thing, but you know, with videos it's like we sent, like, if you send it out, someone's dissatisfied.
Like that was seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's not pleasant. That's unpleasant, but it's never as bad as you think it's gonna be.
Speaker: Never as bad as you think it's gonna be. Yep. Um, and then I think just remembering that. Outside perspective is so helpful. Creativity is not a solo gig.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And, uh, I know for me, well, I'll said it before, but just internal curiosity, what's, what is.
We make jokes about it. It's like, but what? Yeah. What? Take a moment to reflect. Where does that come from? What is behind that? What, why are you afraid of rejection? What's the narrative that's going on inside of your head that you can bring some truth to?
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. And that, that even speaks to, you know, how we approach this podcast.
Personal and professional bamboo, all those things are intertwined.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: You know, it's easy to think of your, uh, I love the show severance, you know, like, yeah. Your work person is severed. It's like a whole different person. Yeah. I think it's easy to kind of fall into that, like the moment you walk in the front door at work, like you're a different person, or the more [00:19:00] likely the moment I leave, I go home, leave work at work, like.
Yeah. It doesn't work out like that. No. You know, you're the same person. Yeah. And so you, uh, whether you like it or not, all of that's intertwined. Mm-hmm. And so getting curious, reflecting all that plays into each other, and that can make your work better and make yourself better.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Bamboo Method Podcast, investing in the unseen. And remember that anything worth investing in takes time.
Speaker 2: And also if you like episodes with just Sam and I have any thoughts or uh, ideas to explore, let us know. Theatro music.
Such a good song, such a good song. Here's a sneak peek for the next one.
Speaker 4: When you do special things, it needs. Special instructions. There's so much forethought that goes into designing a home. So key sale is [00:20:00] one-to-one color coded guides that you roll out at the job site, and it coordinates all the critical details that go into installing big, specially doors, big windows, anything specialty, windows and doors.
Speaker: If you
Speaker 2: enjoy the music, there's, there's a bit of meaning to that. Uh, Darren, if you're listening, do we love you. We love you. Darren King Ave. Be my dad. What?
Speaker: It's Ave Ave. A-A-R-D-V-E-R-K Ave. Aardvark. I don't think it's Aardvark Ave. Darren, I'm so sorry if we butchered it,
Speaker 2: I'll just call you Darren.
Speaker: Yep.
Darren King. Um, the king. The king. AKA referred to as the king. From mute Math. From mute Math. Well, I mean, technically mute math still exists, but not in our hearts.
Speaker 2: There's, there's Mute math. A-D-A-D-K-A-D-K. [00:21:00] Yeah. After
Speaker: Darren King. Ah, if you know Mute Math, then you know why Our Hearts ache. And Darren King was the drummer for Mute Math and a big piece to that.
Fantastic band and Darren King still makes music. And that is a artwork, what we use for our podcast music. Mm-hmm. And it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Spent many a drum lesson trying to be like daring King and failing so many, but try so
Speaker: many, so many drum lessons, so many dreams. Just thinking I could be like, of a lot of tears.
Uh, of
Speaker 2: joy.
Speaker: A lot of hard work. Lot of heartache. Yeah. And joy and fulfillment and beauty.
Speaker 2: Sore left legs 'cause of high hats. Splash.
Speaker: The high hat's flashing man.
Speaker 2: Unreal.
Speaker: And those, uh, just like fast ghost notes, some left hand exercises to get those ghost notes. Mm-hmm. Really going. Um, but might seem like a small piece, but it really is, you know, for me and Wade, some of our entrance into creativity was music and um, math was a big piece to that.[00:22:00]
Definitely. So it's pretty fun definitely to bring full circle. Into the Bamboo method. Mm-hmm. An artist that has played a big part in our creativity, and it's a big part of the, the podcast and your experience. So
Speaker 2: yeah. Music is so crucial. Crucial to every project. Yep.
Speaker: Absolutely. Don't be a perfectionist.
Speaker 2: Use mute math. Use artwork, music, use artwork, music. Actually don't use it. Let us only use it. No, no. It's ours.