Is perfectionism just procrastination in disguise? | Jon Youshaei

Summary

Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily – "Is Perfectionism Just Procrastination in Disguise?" | Jon Youshaei

Episode Details:

• Title: Is Perfectionism Just Procrastination in Disguise?
• Speaker: John Ushai
• Release Date: February 5, 2025
• Host: Elise Hu

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Introduction

In this episode of TED Talks Daily, host Elise Hu introduces John Ushai, a successful YouTuber and content creator who delves into the intricate relationship between perfectionism and procrastination. Ushai's 2024 talk explores how the relentless pursuit of perfection can hinder productivity and authenticity, especially in the digital age where creators strive to build genuine online communities.

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Main Talk Summary

Struggle with Perfectionism

John Ushai begins by candidly sharing his personal battles with perfectionism as a content creator. He describes the paralyzing anxiety that takes over every time he prepares to upload a new video. Ushai illustrates this with a relatable scenario:

"I finish my video and I go to save it as final. But then I noticed that I could trim off a few parts of it and make it even better. So I resave that file as finalfire." (02:26)

This cycle repeats multiple times, often preventing him from ever publishing his work. In his first year on YouTube, this perfectionist tendency limited him to only six uploads.

Transition from Monet to Mozart Mindset

Ushai contrasts two historical figures to highlight different approaches to creativity:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Representing prolific productivity, Mozart composed over 600 pieces before his untimely death, far surpassing his contemporaries.

• Claude Monet: Embodying perfectionism, Monet destroyed over $3.4 million worth of his work due to dissatisfaction with imperfection.

Drawing inspiration from these figures, Ushai advocates for adopting a "Mozart" mindset—prioritizing quantity and consistent output over the elusive perfect product. This shift dramatically transformed his YouTube channel from uploading six videos in the first year to 173 videos garnering over 300 million views.

Influence of James Corden

Ushai cites late-night host James Corden as a pivotal influence. Unlike traditional hosts who adhered to monologues and interviews, Corden experimented with diverse formats like "Carpool Karaoke" and "Crosswalk the Musical," producing over 5,700 videos. This relentless experimentation, despite numerous failures, led to unprecedented success and subscriber growth.

"Most of our most popular videos were actually our most imperfect. We had videos with not the best coloring, not the best lighting, not the best audio, some shots were blurry, yet they still got millions of views." (07:20)

Overcoming Perfectionism

Ushai emphasizes that perfectionism often serves as a disguise for procrastination. By constantly seeking minor improvements, creators delay or entirely avoid publishing their work. He encourages embracing imperfections as a testament to progress and authenticity.

"The only thing worse than something imperfect is something that doesn't exist." (07:55)

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Notable Quotes

1. On Perfectionism as Procrastination:

   "Sometimes perfectionism is just procrastination in disguise." — John Ushai (07:50)

2. Mozart vs. Monet:

   "Put down your knife. Be Mozart, not Monet." — John Ushai (07:58)

3. Authenticity Over Flaws:

   "Cringing at your past work is proof of progress." — John Ushai (07:45)

4. Embracing Imperfections:

   "A lot of our most popular videos were actually our most imperfect." — John Ushai (07:20)

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Interview Insights

Following his talk, Elise Hu engages in a deeper conversation with Ushai, unraveling further nuances of his philosophy.

Experience at TED Stage

Ushai describes his TED experience as exhilarating and transformative, likening it to attending Coachella for creators:

"It felt like it's the closest thing we get, because the production is next level. The guests in the audience are next level." (08:46)

Elaboration on Key Concepts

Discussing the central theme, Ushai explains how perfectionism often caters more to the creator's insecurities than the audience's expectations. He underscores the importance of discerning whether refinements serve the work's purpose or merely soothe personal doubts.

"It's kind of an excuse to not get it done, not turn it in, because... you're saying perfectionism is procrastination." — Elise Hu and John Ushai (09:35)

Advice for Struggling Creators

Ushai offers pragmatic advice for those grappling with perfectionism:

• Continuous Vigilance: Recognize that combating perfectionism is an ongoing process.
• Self-Reassurance: Remind oneself that 95-99% effort is often perceived as 100% by the audience.
• Prioritize Connection Over Quality: Focus on the message and audience connection rather than immaculate presentation.

Future of the Creator Economy

Forecasting the evolution of content creation, Ushai posits a rise in professional creators, particularly educators:

"There'll be more of a middle class, it'll be more of an opportunity for folks who are educators." (13:19)

He envisions professionals across various industries—like medicine, law, and chemistry—leveraging platforms like YouTube to share expertise, thus sustaining long-term careers beyond traditional entertainment.

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Conclusion

John Ushai's compelling discourse challenges the conventional notion that perfection equates to high quality. By reframing perfectionism as a hindrance to productivity and embracing imperfections as vehicles for authenticity, Ushai provides invaluable insights for creators striving to make meaningful impacts. His journey from a hesitant uploader to a prolific YouTuber serves as a testament to the power of consistency over flawlessness.

Key Takeaways:

• Perfectionism hinders productivity and often masks procrastination.
• Embracing imperfections can lead to greater authenticity and audience connection.
• Consistency and quantity can pave the way for quality and success.
• Future creators will increasingly come from professional backgrounds, enriching diverse fields with their expertise.

By advocating for a mindset shift from "Monet" to "Mozart," Ushai inspires creators to prioritize the act of creation over the unattainable ideal of perfection.

Transcript

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[Elise Hu]

TED Talks Daily is sponsored by Capital One. In my house, we subscribe to everything. Music, tv, even dog food. And it rocks. Until you have to manage it all. Which is where Capital One comes in. Capital One credit card holders can easily track, block or cancel recurring charges right from the Capital One Mobile app at no additional cost. With one sign in, you can manage all your subscriptions subscriptions all in one place. Learn more at Capital1.comsubscriptions Terms and Conditions apply. You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. When I was first starting out in journalism, I remember an editor telling me, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. That is, sometimes you have to stop tinkering and ship a product or release the story in order to get it out on deadline. Video creator John Ushai battled perfectionism when it came to his online creations, and in his 2024 talk he shed light on how he overcame it to create an authentic online presence and build community. Stick around after the talk for a conversation off stage between John and me where we go deeper into the rise of the creator economy and how all of us can get involved.

[Activation Fee Announcer]

I have a confession. As a YouTuber, I make videos for a living, yet I still get severe anxiety every time I go to hit the upload button to post my next video. I finish my video and I go to save it as final. But then I noticed that I could trim off a few parts of it and make it even better. So I resave that file as finalfire. But then I'm like, wait, wait, wait. I can make the audio a bit better. I can make the color more saturated. Let me resave it as final. But actually. And then I Repeat this process 29 more times until I save 29 more versions of that same damn video until sometimes I honestly still don't upload it because it's still not good enough. My obsession with perfection got so bad that in my first year on YouTube, I only uploaded six videos. But hey, as they say, quality over quantity, right? What started to bring me out of my spiral was something I remember during my eight years working at YouTube and Instagram, where I met many creators and artists before trying to become one myself. And specifically one person who completely changed my perspective on how creativity actually works. And that one person is none other than the one and only James Corden. Yeah, the guy from Cats. You see, James did something so profound and different with his late night show and YouTube channel that he often doesn't get enough credit for it. For years, late night hosts had primarily structured their shows around two formats. Two segments, monologues, and interviews. But Corden came along and he's like, you know what? I'm gonna experiment with 109 different formats from carpool karaoke to crosswalk musical to riff off to the point where he uploaded a staggering 5,700 videos. And he soon surpassed nearly all the other late night shows in subscribers, despite starting from way behind. And while many of us may remember Corden for his popular formats like carpool karaoke, which has now totaled over 1 billion views, we don't even talk about and forget about the many, many flops he's had. Like formats like musical Chers, an actual format where he played musical chairs with Cher impersonators. That happened. And all this got me thinking that maybe I should be creating more like Cordon. Maybe I should be prioritizing publishing my work instead of just perfecting it, because you never know what will take off. And then it really hit home when I started seeing this trend across different artists, innovators and entrepreneurs throughout time. And I came across perhaps the biggest badass in history, Wolfgang Amadeus I'm going to kick everybody's ass, Mozart. Because Mozart wasn't the masterpiece making machine that history makes him seem to be. No, some of his early critics called his music far too noisy. But Wolfie just brushed that dirt off his shoulder and he proceeded to make over 600 compositions in his career before dying at age 35, which was far, far more than his peers, who only averaged 150 compositions despite living way longer. That was Mozart's method. He was obsessed about quantity as much as quality. He was committed to creating countless compositions that we have now forgotten to get the just small handful of masterpieces we now remember. But let's talk about another example. How about the guy who created this creepy cyborg doll? He got a ton of public ridicule, but by the way, he's also the guy who invented 1092 other inventions, including a little thing called the light bulb. So, yeah, Thomas Edison didn't even have the best light bulb moments, yet he persisted past his imperfections and bad ideas, too. Or how about Monet, the legendary artist? Most people don't know that he created over 2000 works of art in his career, but here's what crushes my soul about Monet, because that number should be way higher. You see, Monet was such a perfectionist that one time he worked on a set of paintings for over three years, until at the last moment, when they were supposed to debut the paintings in Paris, he saw slight imperfections in the corners. So he took out a butcher knife and he slashed through every single painting he made because it wasn't perfect enough for him. But curators and scholars today say that he destroyed over $3.4 million worth of art that night just because it wasn't perfect enough. Which got me thinking. How many of us are too much like Monet instead of Mozart, Edison, or even Corden? How many of us slash our work at the last second instead of just shipping it? And how many of us have unknowingly left masterpieces on the floor because we got two in our heads? For me, it was only once I started shifting my mindset from Monat to Mozart that I saw a real change in my career as a creator. That after posting an embarrassing six videos in my first year, we went on to post 173 videos that got over 300 million views. And somehow our channel became one of the fastest growing on YouTube. And yes, we had tons of flops, even more than ever. But I now realize that cringing at your past work is proof of progress. And sometimes perfectionism is just procrastination in disguise. And a lot of our most popular videos were actually our most imperfect. We had videos with not the best coloring, not the best lighting, not the best audio. Some shots were blurry, yet they still got millions of views. So next time you're working on your next big idea. I beg of you, for the love of God, put down your knife. Be Mozart, not Monet. Every artist, every entrepreneur, anybody who's ever pushed envelope even a millimeter has experienced anxiety. You're going to have flops. You're going to have critics. But I hope no matter what that you keep creating, you keep putting stuff out there. Because the only thing worse than something imperfect is something that doesn't exist. Thank you very much.

[Elise Hu]

And now for the interview between John and myself after he gave his talk. Enjoy.

[John Ushai]

And I'm delighted to have John Ushai with me now for a little extra conversation about the talk itself, the ideas, and how you're feeling now that you're off the TED stage. So, first, John, what was it like? Was it thrilling? Was it all that you hoped it would be?

Oh, I feel like it's the closest I'll ever come to Coachella.

Oh, my gosh.

Like, it felt like it's the closest thing as, like, speakers, like, creators, authors, like, we get, because it's just the production is next level. The guests in the audience are next level. The fellow speakers, like the entire TED team. So it was just a dream come true to be part of. And, yeah, my heart rate is definitely more chill now than right before I went on stage, but it was memory of a lifetime.

Yeah. Achievement unlocked. I love the line in your talk about how perfectionism can be procrastination in disguise.

[Elise Hu]

So I'd love for you to say.

[John Ushai]

A little bit more about that.

You know, it's funny, Elise, I added that line a few days before, so I was like.

And that's the one that I found really compelling.

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And people will come up to me afterwards. And I was just, like, trying to think about.

[John Ushai]

Because I love alliteration. And I was trying to think about, okay, most people don't think about perfectionism as procrastination, but really, I was trying to think about who is perfectionism for at some point. Is it for us, the artists, and the creator, or is it really for the audience? And as I think about it, after a certain point, it's really to make ourselves feel better, as much as we may not want to say it. And I started thinking back through every silly little edit I had in that final, like, 5.5percent of just trying to get it done. I'm like, okay, did the color change, did that do more for me or for the audience?

[Activation Fee Announcer]

Did the sound change do more for.

[John Ushai]

Me or for the audience?

And so you say, essentially, you're saying it's kind of an excuse to not get it done, not turn it in, because. Or not ship, as you describe it.

Exactly when it's there and we just have to put it out and, like, put our knife away. Like the Monet example I shared, Like, I feel like, yeah, we slash it up, but in reality, it's like, okay, relax. It's good. Put it out there.

Now that you have internalized this big idea in your talk and are a recovering perfectionist, what kind of advice do you have for the rest of us who might be struggling in this area?

That it's a constant struggle. It's, like, never a binary thing that you get on the other side. And, like, I'm Mozart now. I'm not Monet. I'm here to, like, put out my work and, like, I'm never gonna, like, try to perfect it. It's a constant struggle. And I think that I needed, as much as it sounded like, the people came up to me afterwards and the people who it resonated with, because I have to remind myself constantly that, like, this is good enough. Like, this is 99% there. This is 95% there. And for most people, that's 100%.

Yeah.

And these final changes are just, you know, again, maybe to make myself feel better, maybe to calm my insecurity before I put something out into the world that's, you know, been in my heart and my head for so many months. And it's the first time people are seeing it with their eyes and judging it. So it never becomes binary and never becomes a. Okay, congrats. Like, unlocked. You're now a Mozart. It's like, okay, now you always have that inner Monet that you gotta, like, quiet down.

Any good enough projects or videos that you've shipped recently that you're particularly proud of now, but were really reluctant to put out at the time.

The three that I shared in the. In the presentation, those were the ones that are like, especially the one that got 49 million views. And I looked back and I was like, oh, my God. Like, there's blurry moments, and I think there's a conversation of content versus connection, you know, where the. The content may have not been, like, quote, unquote, the highest quality in terms of, like, the media, you know, is a little bit blurry some moments. Audio is bad.

Production value.

Production value. Well said. But the connection and what that person was saying, what that video was for folks listening, is that that video was me going on the street of Hollywood. And I had this interesting realization where I was like, okay, who's more popular? Creators with social media followings or celebrities with massive traditional media following. And I compared like Tom Cruise and MrBeast or Logan Paul, Tom Hanks and Dude, perfect and the Beatles. And there's definitely moments where people didn't know who the Beatles were or Tom Cruise was or like Tom Hanks, but they knew who the creators were and vice versa. And so even though the footage was blurry, sometimes audio wasn't great. Like the message, the connection with the person talking got across and you, you know, the 49 million views like speaks for itself. So I think those were examples that I have to remind myself of and like, okay, let's move on next one.

What do you think the future has in store for the creator economy? Because that example I think really shows how much, especially for Gen Z, Gen Alpha, traditional media is really fading or doesn't have the same kind of clout that it did before or market share.

[Elise Hu]

As it did before.

[John Ushai]

So what does the future look like, do you think?

I think the future is gonna have more professionals going into it. And like right now I, I see creators in like two buckets. There are entertainers and then there's educators. And the entertainers are like the LOGAN Paul's, the Mr. Beast, the Ryan Trahans, like people who put out content that really like captivate you. But I find for the folks who have like a really long career can have a long career, it's, it's not easier, but there'll be more of a middle class, it'll be more of an opportunity for folks who are educators. And a great example of this is this creator named Dr. Mike. He's a fully licensed practicing doctor, but he makes YouTube videos multiple times a week. And he talks about medicine, he kind of debunks myths that are out there. And this is him talking about his experience as a doctor while still practicing myself. I talk about the ups and downs of being a creator. What I'm learning as I'm going through it, it's a little bit more meta. But if you look at just about every other industry, there's a channel called Dental Digest. He's a dent and he has over 20 million subscribers. There's a channel called Nile Red. He's a chemist and he has millions of subscribers. Legal ego. He's a lawyer, but he has a YouTube channel. So I think more and more people who practice a profession and know how to create content, there'll be at least one for every industry, no matter how, quote, unquote boring. That industry Is. And yeah, I actually did a, like a study where. Do you remember this thing called YouTube Rewind. I don't know if Elise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. I do.

Yeah. So for folks who are listening who may not remember it, it was essentially like 10 years ago, 8 years ago or so. YouTube would bring the hundred top creators from all around the world. They would select them and put them in this big music video that get hundreds of millions of views. It's kind of like, hey, you made it. You're at the top of YouTube. And they stopped doing it because it's so hard to identify who the top 100 was. But I actually, for the past 10 years, is crazy. I'm putting out a video. I haven't really talked to people about this yet, but I'm working on this other video where it's like, what happened to those 100 people from 2014? What happened to them? Like, where did their careers go? And what type of content were they making to cause them to either break out and sustain or go broke and become irrelevant?

Right, right.

The educators, the people who made educational content sustained more than the entertainers, in addition to a lot of other takeaways.

Interesting. Well, we can't wait to see that. That does seem like a really great idea for you to take on. You know, it's like a big meta story.

Yeah, a lot there.

Well, John, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much for stepping off the stage and letting us know. Kind of your reflections. Post talk at TED Next. John Ushai, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

[Elise Hu]

That was John Ushai at TED Next 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out [e-mail] curationguidelines and that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Autumn Thompson and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balaurazo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet. Thanks for listening.

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