Hello, everyone. Very good day and welcome to the
PPS podcast. I'm Kevin Mitchell from
Professional Pricing Society and today we are going to explore a
topic that's a little bit different from our usually
pricing focused revenue manage focus discussions, but one that
we feel is very, very important for the PPS community.
So today we're going to actually be talking about perfectionism.
As pressing professionals, we are expected to be perfect all
the time. We have to make precise,
data-driven decisions and make sure that everything is exactly
right. And all of that pressure can be
overwhelming. So sometimes we have
perfectionist tendencies that slow us down.
It can be stressful and that can limit our innovation.
We probably have all heard the adage that sometimes perfect can
be the enemy of the darn good. Enough for right now.
So with that, I'm very excited for our discussion today.
Our guest today is Janelle Villiers.
Janelle is an author, a coach, she's the founder of Janelle
Villiers Partnerships, and she's going to share her expertise on
how we can overcome perfectionism by addressing
toxic thinking, shame and imposter syndrome.
So today we're going to talk about how we can embrace
authenticity, build resilience and move forward towards our
personal and our professional goals with a lot more
self-awareness and a lot more compassion.
So we're going to be talking about developing A mindset
that's going to help us thrive. And we're going to go a little
bit beyond pricing strategy today, but we are going to talk
about some things that definitely have a good Venn
diagram overlap with revenue management and pricing as well.
So with that, Janelle, welcome to our podcast today.
We are so happy to have you. Thank you so much for having me
and I'm truly honored to be able to have the discussion with you.
I, I hope that it provides a lot of value for you and the
listeners. I'm really excited.
All right. I'm sure that it will and we are
very glad that you're with us of course as well.
So have a couple questions for you that we have pre selected
from our audience here and one of them is Janelle.
Perfectionism is something that many professionals struggle
with, but often it flies under the radar.
From your experience, how does perfectionism show up in the
workplace and what are some of the signs that a pricing
professional, a revenue management professional, might
be struggling with the concept of trying to be perfect and
everything around perfectionism? I love this question, it's one
of my favorites. I think there's some people who
either are in denial about their perfectionism or I think that
being a perfectionist means like, it's a good thing, right?
They almost like wear it as a badge of honor.
And so in between those two, there are a lot of people who
are like, I don't know, am I, is this something that I may like
identify with? And so I have a 5 questions that
I'm going to put out there for, for you and the audience.
And the answers are either going to be A yes, always, B
sometimes, C rarely, or D no, never.
So, first question, have you ever felt a deep sense of
embarrassment or humiliation when others witness a mistake or
failure that you've made? Yes, always, sometimes, rarely.
No Never question 2. Do you often avoid taking risks
or trying new things because you fear judgment or ridicule from
others 3. Have you ever found it difficult
to share your achievements or accomplishments with others due
to a fear of being seen as boastful or arrogant?
4 Do you frequently compare yourself to others, focusing on
their successes or positive attributes and feeling
inadequate or inferior as a result?
And lastly, when faced with criticism or negative feedback,
do you tend to internalize it and feel a deep sense of shame
or unworthiness? I don't know about for you,
Kevin, but I know for me, the first time that I was asked
those questions, I was saying A&B for like all of them.
Yeah, I would agree. I have a lot of A's and B's.
I do not think I have a single D from amongst your five
questions. I would concur on an awful lot
of that. Well, for you and those who are
also trying to take stock of those questions, I just want to
say welcome to identifying yourself as a perfectionist.
You are not alone. And that's number one.
I just want to put that out there.
This is not a phenomenon that exists where in in isolation.
And I think having a conversation around this is one
of the first steps that we can do to changing our mindset
without, you got to name it attainment, right?
So if you don't, if you're not aware that this is even
happening for you, then you can't really progress.
So number one, I think those questions are really helpful and
identifying something that you might be struggling with that
you didn't even know was being a part of your life or kind of
like your your mode of operation, like behind the
scenes subconsciously even. Interesting.
And what's also interesting I think with that is when you look
at the questions, even though they're very different
questions, when we talk about, you know, comparison to others,
how we deal with negative feedback and the other things
there are the questions are very different.
But I feel with a lot of us, there would be a tendency to
have very similar answers throughout those five questions,
which might get down to the point that you were trying to
make where this is something that we definitely do have to
deal with. Also, I'm thinking off the top
of my head that in a lot of cases within pricing, within
revenue management, the answers that we come up with can be a
number. It can be a dollar amount, a
euro amount, a yen amount or whatever.
And numbers are always interesting because typically
you can have a difference of opinion on connotation versus
denotation or something like that.
But generally a number is either right or wrong.
So there's that extra element of pressure on this has to be
perfect because I put a number out there, I put a price out
there, I put a contract out there to my largest customer.
And if it is not 100% right, then that means it might be seen
as 100% wrong. So another question in pricing
and revenue management where all of our decisions basically
directly impact a company's revenue, which means jobs, which
means people salaries, which means people bonuses.
We have this constant pressure as we were talking about to get
it right. So in your view, how can
perfectionist tendencies affect decision making and a
professional's ability to execute effectively?
Analysis paralysis immediately, right?
You're thinking analysis paralysis for if you have a
managerial role, you may see some of the people on your team
and think, are they procrastinating?
Like what's happening, right? You might see it might look like
that to you on the outside, but really it's analysis paralysis.
It's this fear of getting it wrong.
A lot of times when people are identifying in their
perfectionist thinking, there's the identification part is
what's key to fail, to be wrong, to fail is, is there's now an
identification of no, I made a wrong decision.
It is I am wrong. I am a failure instead of this
thing that I did failed. It is an identification of self
and that to me is the most important thing.
It's one of the things that that's one of the reasons why
I'm so passionate about this topic.
Because if you, if you identify yourself as the as a failure
instead of just recognizing a decision you made or something
you did was wrong. Do you know how many dreams that
kills? I mean, yes, decisions and you
know, moving forward and movement, yes, but like
ultimately, like trying new things and being innovative.
All, all that is dead in the water because you now are
identifying yourself as a failure.
You're never going to move forward and move past that.
So for me, this is very, I'm very passionate about this
because of this factor. It's the identification of being
a failure instead of recognizing, oh, it's a decision
that I made. And I would say a lot of it
comes from top down. It's a culture that you see from
the top. If the expectation by those at
the very top is that you always are going to do something right,
then of course everybody else is going to be an analysis
paralysis and scared to even try things new.
I think, I mean, not to get too ahead of myself, but I really
think the key is is to create a culture in which people
recognize that it's OK to get something wrong because we've
built in structures where we can, we can pivot, we can
navigate, create a plan A, a Plan B.
Maybe you have based on all the data that you've been looking
at, all the research that you've done.
This is the most likely thing. But if not, then we can quickly
move to the next idea or the next thing.
So it's not you, it's it's a learning process, the learning
what went wrong by the wrong decision, the wrong price given,
the wrong number given only is data that we can now take and
learn from that. So that way we can quickly move
to what might be closer to the right number or, or indices.
It's not a, it's not a proclamation as to who you are
right. It's, it's just you're receiving
information. So that way you can move on.
And OK, so if that's not correct, then let me see.
Like maybe I wasn't looking at it the right way.
Maybe there's some other thing that we need to look focus on to
head us in the right direction. Understood.
So when we talk about analysis paralysis, we can kind of get
into a situation where as you mentioned, we don't think or
sometimes we do think, but perhaps we should not think and
we need to get away from I'm right versus I'm wrong versus
this decision, this process, this standard was perhaps more
correct or less correct that it could have been.
And we will adjust and get better for next time.
So understand that even though we do internalize it and that's
a toxic way of thinking that really it's about the outcomes
and about reaching a better outcome there.
And it shouldn't be so much of a personal impact on who we are as
an individual. It's just a one small facet of
it in doing our jobs that we're trying to move forward.
And when we talk about toxic thinking, and this is something
that we've touched on and mentioned a couple times, so for
our listeners who might be stuck in a cycle of analysis
paralysis, of overanalyzing, of second guessing themselves, what
are some practical other steps that they can take to interrupt
those patterns? So I have three steps.
It's a three-step framework that I give often.
I do like workshops on this. Number one, we have to all
identify and claim that we are not perfect, whatever this idea
is of perfect that we have also PS like built in our mind, we've
created what a person, a perfect person is, but it's not real,
right? So whatever that is, we just
have to accept that I am imperfect and beautiful because
of that and just as worthy because of that.
Not that, not that you're now less valuable or have less
innate worthy just because you have imperfections.
No, no, no, I am. I'm imperfect and that's what
makes me like a great person. Some it's OK, people can hang
out with me with all of my imperfections.
Step one, Step 2 is gaining resiliency from shame based
thinking. And I have a framework
specifically for this because this is to me the most important
and deepest dive that needs to take place.
Bernie Brown was probably one of the most famous shame
researchers has this saying where when perfectionism is in
the passenger seat, shame is driving the car.
Interesting. So really quickly the difference
between guilt and shame. Guilt is I'm sorry I made a
mistake. Shame is I'm sorry I am a
mistake. So if you have shame driving the
car and it's basically thinking if I can say it perfectly, act
perfectly, do it perfectly, that will shield me from the
criticism from and judgement of other people.
But here's what the reality we try and shoot after this perfect
magical thing that's not real. And guess what we miss.
And who does the judgement and criticism come from?
Ourselves. Ourselves.
Exactly. And so see, this just proves it.
I'm a failure. I'm not worthy, I'm not good.
No one's going to want to be around me.
I'm unlovable, whatever. All of the things, right, all of
the things that you're thinking. And so This is why shame is the
driver because that's those are the shame based thinking
thoughts. But if we need to gain
resiliency for the shame based thinking to kind of bounce back
from that or and then the third thing is radical self
compassion. There are many ways in which we
can do this, but a lot of it is just includes being present in
the moment, recognizing you're doing the best that you can with
all that you have and you're you made the best decision in the in
the moment. Sorry, this reminds me this was
not a part of her questions, but it's still reminds me of a book
that I read. Essentially, it's how to make,
how to make decisions when you have the least amount of
information available to you, how to make good decisions.
I think it'd be really good for for this particular audience.
It is written by a professional poker player and she describes,
I mean, in poker you have limited information and how do
you decide one thing over the other.
And one of the things I love that she points out in this book
is people look at the results of a decision and think that
because of the results of the decision, the decision was bad,
right? So given all the data that you
have, you think, OK, I'm going to, you know, whatever, swing
the bat, make a decision to give this particular price, speak to
my child this way, whatever, right?
Like you make a decision based on the limited data that you
have and the result turns out your child is like, you don't
love me. How could you say that to me?
You swing the bat completely missed or you know, it's a foul
or whatever. You, you make that decision with
the price and completely wrong, right?
So now you have this result that is in like bad, right?
As everyone agrees this is a bad result.
Didn't like this, but that doesn't necessarily mean the
decision was bad given all of the different factors that were
around. You were making the best
decision with what you had, and that's OK.
I think we, again, it's one of those things where the self
compassion comes in. It's like, man, I made the best
decision with what I had. It didn't go the way that I
wanted. The result wasn't what I was
hoping for. But what can I gather from this?
How can I learn? How can I grow?
How can I move forward based on what just occurred?
But yes, it's that idea. It's the idea of self compassion
is recognizing you're we're all here just doing the best that we
can and giving yourself grace when the result isn't what you
expected. All right, so just to go over
the three things that you mentioned there.
The first was to identify that we are not perfect and of course
we all know people, be they either in public life or in our
personal groups who say that they are perfect and we know
that that is an outright lie. Our second one was to make sure
to gain resilience from shame based thinking.
And one of the things that you mentioned there was think of it
as I made a suboptimal decision. I made a mistake versus I am a
mistake, which are completely, completely different when you
talked about shame versus guilt there as well.
And the third was radical self compassion as well.
But one thing, Janelle, that you mentioned when you talked about
those 3 is you really concentrated on the second one
of those gaining resilience from shame based thinking.
So if we talk about shame, if we talk about imposter syndrome,
and I know that a lot of our members have mentioned me, when
they get great new jobs, they feel like impostors.
You know, maybe they were an analyst.
And the next thing you know, they have progressed and they're
leading A-Team. And imposter syndrome is one
that I hear all the time from our members.
So if we talk about shame, if we talk about chain based thinking,
overcoming shame and we talked about the imposter syndrome,
these are two things that perfectionism tends to feed on.
So in our field in revenue management, when you're
constantly presenting strategies to leadership, these can
definitely creep in. Imposter syndrome can be all
over the place. So what are some ways that
people can shift their mindset and approach these feelings
with, as you mentioned, more self compassion, more empathy,
more caring for themselves internally?
How can we deal with some of these shifts and some of these
feelings that can come up? The framework that I have built
around this, I have an acronym called A life for it.
So the A stands for awareness first.
We just need to have awareness around what's happening.
Fantastic. Congratulations, you're all
aware. Step 1 and #2 is for L for life
and you need to look within because that leads to I, which
is identify your triggers. In order to do that looking
within, we have to look to our past.
Where were the messages that we received or when?
It really is really the better question, when were the when did
we receive the messages? Typically it's in our childhood
that we weren't good enough, that we were unworthy, etcetera.
This these messages could seem super benign, but we don't even
recognize that they if without being addressed, they can
continue on through adulthood. So these are things like you got
all A's and 1B on your report card.
You get home and your parents are like, but the B though,
right? Like they only focus on the B,
not not all the A's, right? And a child could interpret this
as unless I'm perfect, I am unworthy of love, affection,
attention, etcetera. Another one that I think is
interesting is and again, it's it's benign, but sometimes a
parent will not talk about what their child is good at because
they think like their head will get too big.
So if they're really good at sports, they won't really tell
them. They'll just say like, oh, they
keep getting better. Or if they're good looking or
attractive, they won't tell them that they're beautiful or
handsome. Or if they're smart, they won't
really tell them that they're smart because they're like, oh,
well, they already know that. I don't need to like, you know,
make their head big. And so the kid doesn't hear it
though then they don't hear it from like the people that are,
you know, they would expect to hear it from.
And so they might grow up thinking like, oh, I must not be
beautiful, I must not be smart or I must not be really good,
whatever that is. And again, if I was, then I
would get the love attention, etcetera, etcetera.
Now you can imagine there are some messages that might be
stronger than others and you would be correct.
So I'll just, I'm just going to list all of those and I will
list the three strongest one is, or I should say the two
strongest. The second strongest might be
surprising, but it's actually emotional and physical abuse.
This is probably very obvious, right?
Like, oh, I must be bad. Something must be wrong with me
because they wouldn't hit me that way or they wouldn't say
those mean things to me if I were good enough, right?
So that's the message that child could interpret as but actually
even stronger than that is divorce being put in the like
Child Protective Services and things like that or being
adopted. And there is a strong
abandonment message that could be received.
And the idea behind that is if or the message that could be
received or interpreted is something must be wrong with me
like to the core, because otherwise my mom or my dad would
want to be with me. Even if it's divorced, they
would want to be around me. They would want to like, you
know, be with around me. So.
Obviously something is wrong with me and then even further so
I can't let other people get to know the real me because if they
did they would abandoned me to looking within and identifying
your triggers. What are those things that were
said to you when you were younger that could possibly
still be existing today as an adult that you just never
addressed once? We are here now.
We've identified our triggers. F is find your good mirrors.
These are the individuals who in your life who can hold up a
mirror to you and remind you of who you really are.
I love this analogy. This is an analogy from Tim
Fletcher. Shout out to Tim Fletcher if he
ever hears this. He's a pastor out from Canada
who talked about good mirrors. I love his analogy.
So you all know funny mirrors, right?
When you go to a like a fun house, right?
And like you look at a mirror and it totally distorts you.
Now imagine somebody who has had a lot of shame based thinking
from when they were little. And the only mirror in their
house is a is a funny mirror. So they see themselves as three
feet wide by three feet tall, but it's the only mirror that
they have in their house. So that's that's what they have
to see themselves as, right? Like they're like, yeah, I'm 3
feet tall by three feet wide. That's it.
And then they go over to a friend's house and the friend
has a normal mirror and they see themselves and look, look at
this. I'm actually 5-7 and slender,
right? Like, and they look at the
mirror and they're like, friend, something's wrong with your
mirror. And the friend is like, no, no,
the mirror is fine. Like that's what you look like.
No, no, no, I am three by three. This is not right.
And then the other friend's like, no, right.
Like trying to convince you. And this is what it's like when
you have Shane Bay's thinking you only had that one mirror.
And so it's sometimes it takes a while to recognize who you
really are for that reason. But you need those friends.
You need those friends who are your good mirrors, the friends
who can show them, pull up a mirror to you and say you are
amazing. Look at all that you've come
through and you've not only survived, you thrived.
Which gets me to E for empathy. Empathy is the kryptonite to
shame. Shame cannot exist where empathy
persists and true empathy is only provided when you share and
you're vulnerable with people and you tell them what's going
on. How else are they going to be
able to show, you know, be a good mirror for you and show you
who you really are if you're not vulnerable and you share like
these really crazy thoughts that are going on.
But I get it, it's hard. It's hard to be vulnerable,
especially when in a society that tells you don't do that
right? Like, being seen as weak is like
the worst thing that you want to do, right?
And I think a lot of people associate vulnerability with
weakness when the truth is it requires a great deal of courage
to be vulnerable. And honestly, the empathy that
you receive from that not only kills the shame, but then also
creates community, creates authenticity.
You are now being your true self and being accepted as such.
Thank you for the explanation. I like your discussion of
awareness of how we need to look within, of how we need to
identify the triggers which might be from the past that
affects us, how we can find good mirrors.
And of course empathy being the E in that, in your word there.
But also from our members perspective.
I know that empathy and sympathy are very, very important because
we have internal pressures and external pressures.
We have to deal with challenges from within our own
organizations and our own teams, also with our marketplace, with
our customer base. And also we are in the rather
unique position, particularly right now where there is a lot
of change from a macroeconomic perspective and a lot of
progress. Also right now within pricing,
within revenue management, we have AI, artificial intelligence
taking over some tasks and doing some things, creating new, new
models, shifting markets. We have from a April 2025
perspective, we have tariffs which change everything that we
do and change our cost structures, our customer
structures, our profitability and a lot of things there.
So we have a lot going on within our little part of the business
world. So how would you recommend that
we look at embracing progress over perfection in order to stay
agile and in order to be an innovator instead of getting
stuck in our old ways of thinking?
So spoiler alert, right? Like I saw some of these
questions before and when I was thinking about this, I thought
to myself, this is so interesting given the current
climate, everybody's searching for certainty in an extremely
uncertain, volatile moment of time and probably feeling a bit
helpless in how you can navigate through that.
Like what can I do to make this more certain?
Not just I mean like in your life, but also in your business,
in your in your job. And you might feel like you
don't have agency in that. Like these are, these are just
so many factors that are just out of one little person's
control. And so I can understand that it
must be extremely anxiety provoking.
And God forbid if you are a perfectionist, there's like no
way out of this at this point. It's like nothing's going to be
right, people. Nothing's going to be right.
So one of my thoughts was number 1.
I think what we need is we do need more connection.
I'm going to continue to advocate for more connection,
more vulnerability, more collaboration of thoughts of
thinking instead of I have. So that that means you must not
have or I win, which means you must lose.
Creating more win, win relationships where everybody is
winning, where everyone's on board.
Honestly, right now that is revolutionary to even have a
mindset that like, no, we can all win with, with a new idea or
a thought if we look at it a different way.
And it might be again, it seems risky to, to do something in
that way, but I also think it's just the more human way to do
it. So it goes.
I mean, let's think about AI, for example.
AI takes the emotion out of all the data it receives and just
gives you an output, a decision, a number, etcetera.
And then if it's wrong or the outcome of what it just said, it
doesn't go in the way that like we all hoped, it just collects
that data, puts it back to itself, and then like spits out
a new thing. So I think it's only going to it
just to me, it further demonstrates why it's so
important to see outcomes, not as like you are a bad person or
something is wrong with you, but just information to take.
And the quicker you can pivot, the quicker you can navigate
your entire crew, your team, everybody to now move into this
another, another direction is going to make you more nimble in
this in this frame that we're in like this, this moment in time
that we're in. Because it's easy to want to be
conservative and to not do things that are risky because
everything else just seems to be all over the again, like it
feels like we have no control over anything, but we do have
control over is how we react to things and just just again,
giving grace. I mean, we're going to have to
be really human with each other and see each other, be empathic
with each other, see each other as all just trying our best.
And when it doesn't work out, if a result is not what you want,
the best thing that we can do, I mean, it's to adopt AI tactics,
but essentially like take the information as data and then
move as a team thinking, OK, that didn't work.
So how can we now pivot to this next direction, this new way of
thinking, a new thought that can just help us navigate through
the time better? Understood.
And yeah, that's very good advice.
Thank you so much, Janelle. And really, there are a lot of
things that you that you centered on, that you
concentrated on, but empathy, sympathy, realizing the
difference between shame and guilt, and realizing that a
mistake does not mean that you are a mistake.
It means a decision that may have been suboptimal there.
So definitely appreciate that. And we're going to go ahead and
wrap up before our listeners who are looking to overcome
perfectionism, to embrace authenticity, and to approach
your work with greater confidence.
I do think that Janelle's methods offer a great,
compassionate, empathetic path forward.
So, Janelle, thank you very much for your time with us today and
please share with our listeners how they can connect with you.
Absolutely. So I am on all social media
platforms. The best place to find me is
probably Instagram. That's Janelle Janelle under
score villi V as in Victor ILL i.e.
I also have a YouTube channel Janelle Villiers partnerships or
part of the better way to look it up is called the other side
podcast where I talk about the other side of mental health, how
we can build resiliency to things like shame based
thinking. I also do a bit of coaching in
terms of how to write books. So if that is also like in the
back of your mind, like one day I'd like to write a book, I did
give a lot of advice about how to do that too.
Excellent. Well, thank you so much.
Appreciate that and would definitely encourage our members
to reach out to Janelle with your questions and your search
for insights there on some of the things that we talked about.
So thank you very much, Janelle. And also for our members, I'm
looking forward to seeing everyone in Dallas in May at our
conference. And also we will have other
conferences with CPP workshops and a lot more will be in Las
Vegas in October, will be in Barcelona in December.
So look, look forward to seeing everybody there and also keep an
eye out for a lot of new information from our team about
some of the things that we've been talking about today.
We've got great information on AI and tariffs and lots of other
things for you and your team as well.
But Janelle, thank you very, very much.
It's been a pleasure having you with us today.
And for our audience, thank you for tuning in.
We will see you next time. Have a great day everyone.