Why Being a Perfect Entrepreneur is Impossible
Perfectionism and entrepreneurship rarely go hand in hand
During a recent job search, I was asked what my favorite brand or business was based on its image, product, or service. Instantly popping in my mind, Apple was a clear favorite. Its clean, sleek designs, innovative operating systems, and two trillion-dollar valuation have established itself as a company that brands itself on its continuous quest for commercial perfection.
Of course, this pathological need for complete excellence has stemmed from the conduct of the late father of Apple, Mr. Steve Jobs. Within his company culture, Jobs ingrained the need for Apple to deliver each released product with clear-cut distinction. Every released iPad, iPhone, and MacBook has to be bigger, sexier, and better than the last. It was this entrenched desire that has led Apple to a thirteen-figure valuation, an immense following, and acclaimed status as one of the world’s most valued brands.
It takes a second to realize that the man who had created a brand based on commercial perfection wasn’t actually even the perfect entrepreneur to begin with.
Due to his rigorous quest for brand perfection, Jobs implemented stringent policies and made internally controversial decisions that adhered to impossibly high standards or expectations. Teams creating Macintosh computers had to seek his approval on every single detail, which needlessly prolonged development time. Near-completed projects were unceremoniously dumped for failing to reach his standards of elegance. Talented employees were booted from the company for ignoring his design plans. There are tales upon tales that tell of Jobs’ capricious and volatile nature, and although he sought to instill a brand image of perfection within the ethos of Apple, he happened to brand himself as a colossal jerk at the same time.
Although Jobs’ unrelenting drive towards perfection helped create some of the world’s most aesthetically stunning and ingenious products, he did himself no favors with his board, and Jobs was ousted from the company in 1985. In 1997, Jobs returned to push the company back to profitability.
However, it was only once he managed to curb his acute perfectionism, was he then able to transform Apple into the brand it is today.
Despite its genuine definition of a psychological setback, people across the world still misguidedly value perfectionism. From the Japanese ‘kodawari’ to stage moms, our world is driven by perfectionist undertones. Whether it be in the home or the workplace, unreasonable performance standards can do more damage than what it’s worth.
Although mediocrity is just as toxic, striving for excellence is not synonymous with perfection. In the world of business and entrepreneurship, perfection will more likely hinder than help you. Therefore, if you decide to venture down the destructive path to perfectionism, expect to deal with these mammoth issues and expectations throughout your personal and professional life.
1. You will not be able to make everyone happy
If you are producing a product or a service that is designed for multi-usage across the spectrum, it is probable that you will not be able to make every single group of your consumers satisfied. Take the iPhone. Instead of retaining a physical keyboard, Apple decided to integrate a larger screen to uphold the brand image of the marriage between creative genius and stunning aesthetics. Although it made e-mails harder to write, the iPhone allowed browsing the web and watching videos to be much easier and enjoyable. Prioritizing the web and media over email dismayed executives, but delighted consumers.
Creating the perfect business is just as impossible as being the perfect businessman or businesswoman.
If you insist on agonizing over creating a completely perfect product, you will be saddled with a gamut of demanding features that your team will need to address. The idea of a minimum viable product (MVP) won’t even appeal to your increasing list of demanding sensibilities.
2. Your creativity will run dry
Striving for excellence requires immense dedication, creativity, and focus. Perfection calls for a lot more. If delivering high-quality results in your business already drains your ingenuity and innovative energy, then a relentless quest for perfection will only milk you dry.
3. Excessive stress will take its toll
Due to your impossibly high standards, life becomes a fight between you and the consistently mounting stress that you are placing yourself under. With unnecessary effort exerted on the non-essential or non-important facets of your business, there is no time for you to relax and rejuvenate to build the energy needed for your essential business. If you relentlessly strive towards a course of perfection, crashing and burning is pretty much an inevitability.
4. Valuable time and opportunities will disappear
This is exactly why business luminaries dissuade entrepreneurs from ever becoming perfectionists. Wasting time on perfecting a product or feature before launching it could lead to missed deadlines or missed opportunities. Always launch your product or service before you are fully ready so that you can receive the valuable feedback that will help you improve your business. Your MVP is built for this exact reason. You need to first strike the match before building the fire.
5. Failure is made all the more crushing
No one ever likes to fail, however, for perfectionists, it can be debilitating. As perfectionists pour all their effort into everything they do, a potential lack of success can wreak havoc on their self-esteem and self-worth. In terms of emotion, perfectionists tend to react more harshly with self-guilt, anger, and shame. As the pressure to achieve more and more mounts, so does the harmful effect of potential failures.
Pressure can transform coal into diamonds. However, at the end of the day, even diamonds still break.
6. Mental and physical health risks increase
Although perfectionism is recognized as a psychological issue, it can also have huge drawbacks on your mental and physical health. ‘Hustle porn’ is a movement that has attracted its fair share of controversy with its advocation of unhealthy habits such as missing mealtimes and hours of sleep to spend more time on perfecting your business.
One such example is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk. Renowned for his self-defined 120-hour workweeks which he achieves by running on a mere 4 hours of sleep, Musk remarked that this lifestyle was causing a significant toll on his health during an interview with the New York Times.
“It’s not been great, actually,” Musk told the Times. “I’ve had friends come by who are really concerned.”
According to the CDC, sleep-deprivation can cause a litany of potential health problems, including “obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, and frequent mental distress”.
However, most damning of all is the laundry list of clinical mental health risks that can arise from perpetuating perfectionism. Senior research fellow at the Curtin University in Perth, Sarah Egan remarks that “[perfectionism] is something that cuts across everything, in terms of psychological problems. There aren’t that many other things that do that.”
“There are studies that suggest that the higher the perfectionism is, the more psychological disorders you’re going to suffer.”
7. You won’t be open to compromise
Flexibility and being malleable is an extremely rare trait among those who strive towards perfectionism. However, among entrepreneurs, flexible is crucial for success. In a continuously transforming sphere, where business trends can be susceptible to extreme change, the best entrepreneurs are the ones who quickly adapt to changing commercial realities, making them better innovators and creative thinkers than most perfectionists.
As soon as the tide turns in a particular realm, successful entrepreneurs must keep their ears and eyes open and be open to doing a quick 180, rather than staying in a rigidly fixed position.
8. Risk-aversion leads to success-aversion
Some psychologists consider perfectionism as a phobia; defined as the fear of failure or making mistakes. However, for several success stories, failure was the principal reason for their success. From Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey to J.K. Rowling and Michael Jordan; there are numerous household names who would have never achieved their acclaimed status if it wasn’t for the mistakes they first made.
If the thought of failure prevents you from taking the next step, then you won’t achieve much. Learning from mistakes and pushing forward is one of the key lessons every single successful entrepreneur must learn before accomplishing any Herculean achievement.
9. Perfectionism leads to alienation
According to the famed African adage, it takes a village to raise a child. If that child happens to be an emerging business, your team are the ones who will help lead it to a productive and fruitful existence. However, if you are riddled with the prodromes of perfectionism, you will be seen as more of a terror, less of a trailblazer.
While being a monster might not be on your list of goals, uninhibited perfectionism can turn you into one without even realizing it. There’s a real propensity to set people against the very same demanding standards you hold for yourself. In most cases, it’s just a recipe for disaster for all parties involved.
10. You will never be truly happy
Let’s cut to the chase. Perfection doesn’t really exist. If the race towards an unachievable standard is the one you are running, don’t expect happiness to be cheering for you at the finishing line (pun intended).
Instead, if you want to be happy, stop trying to be perfect and live a personal and professional life that is well-balanced. Balance your professional goals with personal desires. Combine with something you have to or need to do with something you want to do.
In the fast-paced and constantly changing world of business, it’s better to aim for the short roads of excellence, than take the long highway to perfection. While the path to perfection may lead to feats of gargantuan achievement and benefits from striving to be perfect will be consistent, the exceptions to the rule are few and far between. In this era of ingenious product iterations and agile business, spending too much time perfecting a feature simply has no place.
