Katherine Morgan Schafler
speaker
127 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Katherine Morgan Schafler’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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If you take perfect back to its Latin root, you get per facere, completely done. So when we describe something as perfect, we're not saying it's flawless. We're saying that's completely whole. I don't need to add anything to that to make it better, right?
And so one of the discoveries that I've made in my work is that perfectionists aren't actually seeking flawlessness, they're seeking wholeness, that sense that like, this is I wouldn't want to change this thing at all. So if you think of like, when we say someone's a perfect stranger, we're not saying like, oh, she was a flawless stranger. We're saying she's a complete stranger to me.
And when you think of someone's laugh that you love, you know, that laugh is perfect. Nobody in the history of earth is like, oh, if they just rolled their giggle a little more at the end, that laugh would be perfect. right? You're like, that's perfect.
And so understanding that when you're communicating with someone and in a conversation with someone, flawlessness has nothing to do with it and is often actually a block to connection. What the other person is looking for is intimacy. And the easiest definition I've ever heard of intimacy is like into me see. Intimacy, from my view, is just when someone sees something real about you,
and or you see something real about them. So if I were to somehow like lift up my computer and show you my bedside table right now, that would be a very intimate gesture because the things that I have on my bedside table are real, right? It's not staged. It's intimate.
And I think when thinking about conversations and connection, allowing there to be a little bit of intimacy as you feel comfortable, if the person is safe and, you know, all of that, all of that other stuff is in place is a better way to think about how to have a successful quote unquote conversation than like, how do I articulate myself perfectly? You know?
I love that. Yeah, exactly. Well said.
Perfectly fine.
Such a good question. And I bring up the different perfectionist profiles to help people understand what they're naturally good at and where they can easily offer other people help and where they naturally struggle and where they would do well to ask for help.
So the way a classic perfectionist can enjoy their perfectionism without isolating themselves in a pocket of like, if you want something, well, do you got to do it yourself is to understand that the strengths of that profile of the classic perfectionist, you know, they do what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it in the way that they said that they would do it.
They're so reliable, so dependable, you know, As you brought up, just naturally infuse structure into any situation that they're in. And the cons are that sometimes that can create a transactional feel from the people around you where they feel like they know a lot of facts about you, but they don't really know who you are.
And the classic perfectionists themselves can feel kind of taken for granted because it's like, oh, she always plans the vacation or they always do the deck. So let's just let them do it. And it's like, just because you like doing something Doesn't mean it's not work. It doesn't mean you don't want acknowledgement for that work.
So I think, you know, asking for help in the sense of letting people know you a little more, letting yourself feel more connected, saying that you would like appreciation. is one way to start creating connections. All of these profiles are complementary.
So like a classic perfectionist and a Parisian perfectionist would do very well to link up because Parisian perfectionists are so indexed on relationships and connection that they're not necessarily the most structured professionals. people and classic perfectionists are. And like when you're in connection with somebody, there's naturally a little osmosis and diffusion happening.
So this is an important point that I really want to say, you know, you don't heal by learning how to edit yourself. You heal by learning how to be who you are in the world. And I didn't write this book so that people can identify their weaknesses and then try to churn those weaknesses into strengths and be good at all things at all times for all people.
I wrote the book so that people could understand their blind spots and understand, oh, I need help with this. And I'm not going to try to make this a strength because doing that comes at the opportunity cost of like not enjoying my strengths, which are so easy for me. So let me just ask for help on this.
And, and also like as a classic perfectionist, you can give help really easily and that helps people feel connected to you. And it's not a heavy lift for you because you do it so well and easily. So there's a complimentary system happening here.
So they're like professional perfectionists can be professional procrastinators because like, you know, this type wants the thing to be perfect, the conditions to be perfect before they start. And the strengths of procrastinator perfectionists are they're such thoughtful people. They're so well-prepared. They can see a situation from a 360 degree angle.
And the cons, as you're saying, are like they can spill past the point of diminishing returns on their preparative measures and they never actually execute on the thing they most want to do. And that's what's such a painful experience to know you want to do something, know you would be good at it, Know you're ready and just feel stuck, you know?
Yeah.
Showing 61–80 of 127 · page 4 of 7
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