The "Perfect" Excuse for Not Succeeding
There’s a silent killer, a condescending boss standing over you, beating your creative mind into submission—it doesn’t smash your work in one tantrum—it chips away at it… slowly.
It whispers, “Not yet.” It tells you to hold back, to perfect every detail, to wait until you’re absolutely certain.
That terrible boss is perfectionism, and if you don’t learn to silence it, it will choke the life out of your growth.
To be transparent, I’ve been stuck in perfectionism a lot recently, it seems to creep up on me.
As a creative tech entrepreneur, I’ve left behind a graveyard of half-baked ideas: drawers full of homemade gadgets, digital notebooks of thoughts that never made it past drafts, websites that sit like unopened shopping malls, nearly completed products, and writings that will probably never see the light of day… because I just didn’t think they were good enough.
But here’s what I’ve learned: if you want to create, to build, to leave a mark, you have to kill the perfectionist and just jump in.
The Early Days of Doing (and Sucking at It)
It wasn’t always like this, my perfectionism was learned over time.
Boredom was always my nemesis (still is)... and many times I fought it with reckless creativity. My hands were never idle. I tore apart gadgets to understand them, broke things in the process, built wild ideas, and fell headfirst into dozens of projects no one I knew anywhere had ever attempted. I was drawn to the unknown like a drug.
But the key... I didn’t care about what it looked like… I didn’t care about perfection. I sucked at almost all of it... almost never knew what I was doing—and that was the magic.
Oops... I Built a Business
One day, almost randomly, I shared a terrible candid photo of one of my raw, unfinished personal creations online. Strangers took notice... they begged me to make one for them... so I posted a PayPal link. What happened next changed me forever.
More money than I used to make in a year showed up before sunrise. (There's no coming back from that feeling, btw.) I accidentally became a permanent entrepreneur with an audience of fans cheering me on—overnight. I had no choice but to give them something, and the clock was ticking.
Dozens of public embarrassing failures, job losses, and a global recession later (I'll share more in the future), I ended up with tens of thousands of direct customers, several franchises, and a network with 500+ resellers pushing my little product in 80+ countries—all because of that one day I wasn’t afraid of what anyone thought about my creation.
When Feedback Becomes a Cage
At first, the attention was exciting. Seeing people react with their words and their wallets to my creations was motivating, even when their critiques were harsh. It made me want to improve, to get better, to prove that I could do this.
But over time, something shifted. I started obsessing over the feedback, letting it dictate my work. Every flaw felt monumental. Every critique became a reason to delay the next release. I stopped creating for myself. Instead, I was building for an audience, chasing their approval... it almost killed everything.
That’s the poison of perfectionism—it doesn’t just slow you down. It makes you forget why you started.
The Cost of Perfection
Perfectionism tells you that every detail matters. That your work has to be flawless before it’s worth sharing. But here’s the truth: You will always be judged unless you do nothing at all.
recently sent me this while brainstorming, and I keep it nearby as a reminder.
The perfectionist, and its weapon—fear of judgment—doesn’t just kill creativity. It kills momentum. It keeps you polishing something that doesn’t need to be perfect when you could be moving forward with your next great idea!
The Struggle is Real
I’m still working on silencing the perfectionist, but I know this much: you don’t grow by waiting for perfection.
And… everything around us seems to constantly demand it—it gets heavy.
That’s one reason why the Rebel Speakeasy exists. It’s not just a space; it’s an antidote. A place where the weight of rules and perfection doesn’t follow you through the door. Where conversations aren’t rehearsed, ideas aren’t filtered, and flaws aren’t hidden.
So grab the tools, make a mess, and let the world see your work. Because the only way to kill the perfectionist is to drown it in action (or for some, booze).
And if you’re looking for people who get it, you know where to find us.
Until next week,
Cheers!
-Rick & Ani
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