On this episode of Media Rebel Unplugged, what are the three steps that people should be taking right now to overcome perfectionism within the So, rip the bandaid off and just do it. ah there's an idea for what I call falling forward, which means the idea that goes plant, that doesn't mean that the whole idea of telling yourself you're not ready is a lie. Welcome back to Media Rebel Unplugged, I'm Janice. Today we're diving into a topic I think so many of us can relate to, perfectionism. It's something that can look like ambition or drive on the outside, but underneath it's often fear, self-doubt, or trying to meet someone else's expectations. My guest today is Dr. Albert Ramonte. He is a psychology professor, talent agent, and the author of Rise Above the Script. His work blends psychology, business, and storytelling to help people recognize the scripts life has written for them and teaches them how to break free and write their own. Today we're going to talk about losing the facade of perfection, breaking those old patterns and what it really means to show up as yourself in leadership and in life. Elmer, I am so glad that you're here. I really appreciate it. happy that to be here Janice. Thank you. Of course, imperfectionism as we discussed prior to recording is something that is a recurring conversation here. So why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about what you do and what inspired you to bring psychology, business and storytelling all together. I've always been interested in the mind and how it worked since I was a young child. I was always a deep thinker. So, you know, I'm a talent agent and I've been doing this for about 22 years now, a college professor. The one thing that keeps coming up is self-doubt and positive syndrome, self-sabotage. So my doctoral thesis or dissertation was on perfectionism and how it's more than just wanting to be successful. mean, everybody wants to be successful. That's why we are always striving to be the next level, but to a point where we're incredibly hard on ourselves. And what happens here is that it's an unattainable goal. mean, if you think about it, there's no such thing as perfect. can often get caught up in telling ourselves the script of, you know, what we are supposed to be like, look like, sound like. So how do you think someone can start recognizing that script that they're living by and then adjust to being easier on themselves? Well, the way to start being easy on yourself is self-acceptance. And a lot of people have, you know, a hard time with that. They're, they're focused a lot on the negative. And if you look hard enough, there's enough of that. And we are almost critic. We, you know, something new or something a little bit difficult, that inner voice starts kicking in. I'm not good enough. I'm not adequate enough to do this. I'm not smart enough. It's more of an inference. You start to infer that you're not enough. Yeah. And that starts the, the, that the path of self-sabotage and wanting to be the best. Telling yourself you're not ready is a lot. When you're running a perfectionist loop, nothing you will do will make you ready. A lot of people are so scared of making mistakes or so scared of failing. The one thing I've learned. that inner voice, start thinking worst case scenario. And we start imagining these really glorious and magnificent failures, where if we fail, everyone's gonna be laughing, judging us. And the truth of the matter is, when reality hits, the actual failure is never anywhere near as close to as what we imagined it to be. So our imagination plays tricks on us. Great, that's the story that we tell ourselves. And even in experiencing rejection, not only are we becoming critical based off of that, but then we start to form a fear around it. And now we don't want to risk anything and we keep putting things off instead of saying, I am going to risk it all and I'm going to make this work because there's no better time than now. Right. And that's the whole thing is we have to put a lot of work into overcoming this narrative. Now, our brain is designed to protect us. Our brains purpose keep us alive. And it's just an amazing job to do that. anytime there's a perceived fear, which is change, putting yourself out there, our brain starts to come up with reasons as to why this is not a great idea or why we should retreat. And it does a great job at keeping us doing that. But at the same time, what we need to do is, is rise above the self talk and saying I'm safe. And we have to work to override the nervous system. And that means recognizing these thoughts. If I'm hearing you correctly, we need to reframe our thought process and interject a moment of negativity and reframe that statement we're saying. Yes. And it all strips down that fear. If you look at the root word of fear, the acronym is false evidence of being real. So, fear is, it's false evidence. What we have to do is reframe belief patterns. Another idea is learning to live comfortably with failure. And instead of saying failure is a bad thing, let's look at it as feedback. There's an idea we call failing forward, which means the idea that goes planned, that's not a bad idea. It may just need to be refined and A lot of times when people hear the word no, they automatically full stop. It rarely means never. So learning to be comfortable with that is important. Anybody can tell you that things are never going to go as planned. Even experts and inventors, someone's are making, you know, seven, eight, nine figures. They have a whole laundry list of ideas that didn't go as planned or curve balls that were drawn at times or doors that were shut in their face. There's hundreds of stories like that. What... makes everything common why they're so successful is because they didn't let that nose stop them. They still kept going. So we can learn so many lessons from that. Let's learn from the masters by the one thing that really unifies all of them didn't give up. They made mistakes, but they instead of using those mistakes and holding them back, they use those mistakes to move forward. There. What are the three steps that people should be taking right now to overcome perfectionism within them? So the first step is to rip the band-aid off and just do it. um the second is lean into a tribe or a mentor because that's really important. know, Tony Robbins said this and other successful motivational speakers talk about how your tribe is important. You have podcasts, have YouTube, you are consuming content and go to online forums because successful people are going to build you up. They're not going to bring you down. People that are bitter and insecure, they're the ones that that are most likely to be, be judgmental. audit your social circle. Are you around people that will, that tolerate you or people that celebrate you? Because you want to be with the latter group. You want to hang out with a crowd that celebrates you. And that means being with people that are going to help you level up in the game. Because if you're not around this, it's easy to feel insecure. It's easy to fall into that negativity trap. Start looking at your social circle. And then reflecting on your failures and transforming them into learning experiences. You'd be very surprised about how far ahead that can take you closer because a lot of people are listening to podcasts, motivational programs, thinking, someday I'm going to do this. So someday I'm going to get that book. It'll never happen if you say someday. That would be my question to them is why are you saying someday? not today? Yeah, why not today? Start writing the first chapter. Write an outline if you have to. It's not gonna be perfect. We're not even looking for perfection. Yeah, we've had a few authors on here and one her name is Betsy Pippin and she really stood out to me. She wrote it things called the metaphorical boxes that we put ourselves in, which resonated with me because we do do the same thing like perfectionism same thing. We create these boxes and she asked me what's a box you're putting yourself in and I said, well, I keep wanting to write a book that's a memoir about my life because I've overcome so many different things I think could help other people and become basically a workbook for others, especially women. And she was like, well, what's stopping you? And I was like, well, I'm not a celebrity. Why would anybody care to read about me? Or how do I have the time to do that? And she was like, take an hour a day. And even if you're not a celebrity that people know, that doesn't mean that there isn't at least one person out there who wouldn't learn something from it. Right. her, I started writing this book. And that's second action and that's going to get you closer to that author status. And I would even challenge that if somebody were to say that, well, why are you going to deprive the world of your lesson? That's the thing when you're an author or any type of content creator, a lot of times you may be impacting people and never know it because they don't tell you. And you never know that. You never know if somebody may read that workbook and it changed their life. They may never tell you that, but it can happen. That's the main thing. You know, do it for that reason. You never know who whose eyes you'll take. That's a very good point because we're more apt to share our negative thoughts, especially on social media. We're not out there sharing the positive things that people are doing or what we're hearing or how we're feeling. So I think you bring up a really good point. And you know, even going on the social media lens there, it's a blessing and a curse at the same time. You know, there's a lot of great opportunities to put ourselves out there in social media, but it's also opening ourselves up and putting ourselves out there. Um, and, and I've heard this too, from a lot of people that are, that went viral. It's like, look, when you go viral, it's both going to be a good thing and a hard thing sometimes because a lot of times people are going to use, you know, social media as a dumping ground in their own insecurities. and troll and, and, and, you know, write inflammatory comments, you know, when it's really all projecting their own insecurities. So I remember one, one content creator really, you know, value and appreciate had said that once you go viral, stop reading the comments. And that makes a lot of sense because people that will really inspire them, they'll tell you privately. So you don't necessarily have to read the comments. People that are insecure that what I call keyboard warriors, that's going to fuel the inner critic even more. That's part of it too, is not. is getting to a point where you're considering what other people think. Your idea is to create this thing for your own fulfillment because, and I'm going to get a little deep for a second here, but I will say that most of the people at the end of their life, their biggest regrets are the actions they didn't take. It's not the mistakes they made or the failures of the experience. The biggest source of regret or psychological torture at the end of life are the missed opportunities. The opportunities where, hey, I could have done this but I didn't. Yeah. Yep. You bring up some wonderful insights for people and steps that they can take to break out of it. And this has been such a great conversation. Sincerely appreciate your input and your knowledge about how we can shed this perfect image and embrace more of the messy parts of us that make us real. For those that would love to learn more about you, would you share with them where they can find you? And again, we will have information in our notes. Sure. I first I would really encourage you to check out my book Rise Above the Script, A Confronting Self Doubt and Mastering Self Sabotage for Performing Artists. It's available on Amazon. You can also go to our website, albertbramonti.com and I would love to connect with you there plus I'm on all socials. Feel free to reach out to me. very open to collaboration and communications. Wonderful. Thank you again, Albert. If you have enjoyed our conversation, please make sure to follow or subscribe. Thank you again for tuning in to Media Rebel. I'm Pugged. We'll see you next time.