56: Perfection Detox with Petra Kolber

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I am overjoyed to have one of my good friends, Petra Culver here today to talk about her new direction in life and business, the Perfection Detox. I'm so excited. Petra is a happiness guide, inspirational speaker and movement motivator. She has 25 years of experience presenting around the world and has led workshops in over 20 countries. She's consulted for many companies including Reebok, Gatorade, California Walnuts, and Health magazine. Canadian fitness professionals recently named her the 2016 international presenter of the Year and she is the guest host for the live online show Daily Burn365. As a two time cancer survivor, Petra is passionate about waking people up to the precious gift of time. Her mission is to inspire people to move more and fear less so they can stretch their dreams, strengthen their courage, muscle and build an inspired life full of joy and gratitude. Petra, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Jenny. It's my absolute privilege to be here.

For all of you listening, you have to know that when Petra Colbert walks into a room, it lights on fire. It's like she is so bright and radiant and cheerful. It's incredible. And Petra, having come from a fitness background, I know that there's actually a lot of pressure on how you show up, how you look, how you are. Can you talk a little bit about how your fitness background inspired you to create this new direction of the Perfection Detox?

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, Jenny, is we have this idea of what people expect us to be like and then we also have this inner ideal of what we think we should be like. And I think sometimes the worst person that's gonna beat on ourselves is Ourself. And what was happening for is, Jenny, there's this idea of what I thought people, everyone expected a fitness expert because that's how I was being positioned. I never. I hate the word expert, but I was being positioned that way through Reebok and my work. And it's a privilege to have been doing that kind of career. But because of that word expert, I had this idea, Jenny, that I had to be perfect, that I needed to know everything that I. And this is absolute, not the truth, but it was a truth that I was living internally. And so, like, you know, you're talking about your book Pivot. I was like, okay, either I'm gonna do something with this. With this pain and turn it into. Not turn pain into profit. That's terrible. But, you know, do something useful with it. And I realized the more I spoke about the shadow side, and there's also so much good that the fitness industry does. There's so much good, and there's also. There's a dark side to it. And what I found was, Jenny, when I casually began doing some keynotes within the fitness world, I began to touch struggle I had with anxiety through perfection. And what I noticed is when I mentioned that the kind of the room sat up, I was like, ooh, maybe this isn't just me. And I had so many women coming up to me afterwards going, oh, my gosh, when you feel this way, too, you give me permission to actually be human. And so I thought, I think there's a pain point here that if I. And I had worked through it through seven years, some of it with a therapist and some of it on my own, and I thought, like, if I can strategize this and kind of get. Unpack it as what has worked for me, maybe I can give people, women and, you know, young teenage teenagers, the cliff notes on how to live a good life of prosperous life, but maybe shy away from this idea that it has to be of. Has to be perfect to be of meaning.

What do you think it is about fitness in particular, that triggers our inner perfectionists?

Well, I think it's almost like perfection on steroids. You know, it's like what you look like is you kind of wear your life. And I think we wear our life by using what we're eating, what we're thinking, what we're doing, how we're moving. And fitness, unfortunately, has sold this idea of, wow, that the success in fitness is determined by what you look like, how much you weigh. Do you have a six pack? Which I think can Be really dangerous for a lot of people. Because if we're measuring our success by what we look like, we're missing all this beautiful medicine that can come from moving our body. Being more vital, being more creative, being more likable, being more successful, being happier, being more joyful, being more resilient. But if we're only determining fitness as the end goal by what you look like, that's why. Because what we're selling, Jenny, like if you think about the infomercial, you know, January, January 1st is around the corner. Infomercial season is launching. You know, the perfect. You lose 10 pounds and you're going to be shining. We look at what's on television, you know, we believe media. So if it's. This is what the media is telling us, well, it has to be true. And unfortunately, we've been selling this idea of to be successful at fitness, it means you look perfect. And if we take it as, as that being the end point, we are not never going to really reap the benefits of what movement can do for us. Moving our body, moving our brain, moving our thoughts. And so I think that's why perfectionism, while it's not just in the fitness world, is certainly highlighted that way because we've made how we look the definition of success.

It's so true. I'm just reflecting as you're talking. In my 20s, I bounced between.

Really overeating, then calorie restriction, then working out like a maniac, and binge eating because I was convinced if I had an extra 10 pounds, I was past the lovability threshold, would no longer be appealing lovable. And that you're right, it was even unconscious at the time, but that my worth was so directly tied to my looks, my weight. And then I've written in the past about perfectionism as far as accomplishments and even also in my 20s, feeling, not knowing who I was outside of the accomplishments themselves. And so it's kind of this. It can hit us up from all sides.

And again, it's not saying that we. I think you just said it right there. For many of us, we think, oh, ten pounds from now I'll be happy. Two sizes from now, I'll be happy. And not saying that maybe for the benefit of your health and for what you want to do in life. And you had said this, you know, I've heard you say that, you know, your body is your business and maybe to be at your best, at your optimal, maybe you do need to lose 10 pounds. But the success is not your body. The success is the energy you feel once you're taking care of yourself in a better way, when you're putting yourself first, you're, you know, then you're. But you're not making the success what you look. And the moment we tie in our worth, be it in our achievements, what we look like, it's a downhill struggle. Cause the moment we debate that we are not enough is the moment that it's all over. And Jenny, it's not saying that I don't want to improve in certain areas of my life. It's not saying that I want to strive to be better, to want more. Nothing wrong in that. But if we can't be happy with what we have, what makes us think we'll be happier with more? So it's like, how can we take what our strengths that we have today? And you talk about this in pivot and work from that. So for me, perfectionism is. It's only a word unless you attach a feeling to it. And there might be some areas of your life where the word perfect actually makes you want to be better. You know, strive more, work harder. And then I say, don't change a thing. But if there's areas of your life. And for me, it was what I looked like. And also this idea that I thought I had to know everything to be a fitness expert, which, oh, my God, and thank God for Google, because now I just say, if I don't know the answer, let's Google it. But for so many years, Jenny, I would be. I wouldn't define my success by everything that I did. Well, I defined myself by. Not that I made a mistake, that I was the mistake. And that is no way to live. And I think many times we compare our backstory to everyone else's highlight reel. And so I just wanted to kind of like the wizard of Oz, but pull the curtain back and say, hey, you know, you've had the power all along, and it doesn't mean that you don't want to strive for more.

I'm glad you brought that up because I have a lot of go getters who listen to this podcast and are in the pivot orbit. And a lot of us love our work. And I have a lot of friends who are very passionate and really pay attention to detail and have a high bar for excellence. Do you think there's some amount of perfectionism that is helpful? And how do we know when it's tipping from helpful into unhelpful?

Great question. I think. Let's go. I'm gonna go to the back End. First, I think the. When you say, was it helpful or unhelpful? First of all, does it pay off? Does it paralyze you or does it backfire and only you know the answer?

What's the difference between the three? Real quick.

Yeah, great question. So if it pays off, if the word perfection makes you wanna excel, get up a little bit earlier in the day. Thr be the best that you can be, put out the best work that you can be, great. Don't change a thing. And if you think of the word perfect and it actually paralyzes you, like you. You're so afraid of shipping something because it might be judged and it's not perfect. Or that even if you're doing the work but mentally you are just drained. Instead of adding joy to your life, it's sucking the joy out of you. Then maybe let's just reframe what perfect means. The trouble. I think the trouble happens, Jenny, is when we make perfect the basement. When perfect is the basement level of my success, it's either excellent or it's not. It's perfect or it's not. It leaves no room for gray. It's not that I made a mistake. It's that I am the mistake. So perfect for some people, it might actually make them soar. And excel, then that word is working great for you. And for those people out there that maybe go, oh, my God, if I. I can't do this. Cause it's not perfect. I'm not prepared to share my work with the world because I'm waiting for that perfect moment or my work to be perfect. And you literally get paralyzed or you're shipping work that's absolutely. It's excellent. But even in your success, you're like, well, well, that was just easy. Or I just. You discount the good. Then let's reframe that. And I say for those of people that feel paralyzed or that there's no joy on the journey, can we reframe the word perfect? To being an excellence enthusiast? You know? So you still want to be. Yeah, I still want to be excellent in what I do, but it allows me to have room and joy. It allows me to take failures. Because the more you want to excel, the more risks you want to take, the more you want to grow. But it lets me redefine what failures mean. For the years, Jenny, where perfectionism for me paralyzed me and spiraled me into anxiety attacks, I viewed failure as a definition that I was the failure. Omg. Can I tell you how that was not a way to live and now I love the acronym Fail first attempts in learning.

I love that. That's great.

And nothing's changed, Jenny, but my mindset has changed. It moves me from a fixed mindset. Oh, my God, I don't know enough versus you know what? Maybe I don't know the answer to this question. And what a wonderful opportunity for a, let's Google it, find the answer. B, now I've got a whole new perspective on something that I thought I had explored thoroughly. So really the situation hasn't changed, but our mindsets have changed. And to come back to the question, how do you know where it stepped over the line? I think it's, are you?

Basically, can I have joy? Like, I know you've worked so hard on the book launch and your new amazing book pivot, but I'm also. When we talk, even offline, Jenny, there's a sense of joy around this. There's a sense of you're determined to have a good time and you're wanting to be the best that you can be, strive to be perfect. And you still got the book out there.

Yeah. In fact, we were just recording an episode for Petra's podcast, which I encourage everybody to listen to. It's perfection Detox and I shared this that, you know, in the six months leading up to the launch, let's say I had a to do list of 300 items. I'm just making that up every day I cringe like, I'm checking this off, but it's nowhere near perfect that I was every day shipping things that I knew were 75% okay or good. They were good enough. I could still see exactly what was wrong with them. My newsletters had typos. My websites have backlinks that are broken. There was so much that I sent out the door at 70%. And every day I had to kind of pet the perfection monster and just say, like, hey, I know you want to do amazing things together we can acknowledge. I don't want even call it a monster. It's just my perfection pet. It's like my little companion that I like. The striving for excellence. Excellence is really what it's about. But that I think one differentiator I've noticed for myself is, are you still shipping the work? If you're shipping and you have this perfectionism bar and, you know, you haven't met it, but you still ship for the most part, then I think, cool, okay. And that just means, you know, it's really part of that striving for excellence. And they used to Say, at Google, the bar is always raising, which could be frustrating for us at times because it meant, like, you'll never meet what the standards are, but at the same time, a little motivating that we're always learning and growing. So the bar is always raising. And I think as long as we just don't take that too far. And like you said, Petra, internalize that as that's where our worth comes from.

Yeah. And I think, like you said, I mean, a lot of people, what I look at is this idea that so many of us feel so alone in, this idea that, oh, my. We look at everybody else. And it's actually been named now by Stanford University as the Dark syndrome. It's actually the imposter syndrome that was. It's been labeled now by psychotherapists that most of us at some time in our life, we're gonna feel a bit like a fraud. Like, I'm gonna get found out, like, oh, my God, maybe I'm not the best person for this. And we still show up and do the work. Where I think it can become very dangerous is if we think with the only one that feels this way. And this is why I'm doing the work, Jenny, because Stanford University, especially with young girls, and I look now at social media and like, oh, my goodness, I don't know how it is growing up in this world today, because not only are we comparing our backstory to the highlight reel of the people in our class, the people in our peer group, but now we're comparing it with the people around the world. And we're seeing that anxiety and depression and stress, this mindset can actually trigger serious, serious consequences. And so this is why I think we need to. The minute we put our fear into a voice, the minute we say, I'm afraid of not being perfect, there's no more power left in it. The power comes when we're silent about it. And if we can say, oh, my God, I'm not the only one that feels this way. You know, I was at an event this past weekend, and it was like 100 people in a room, and I asked them to close their eyes so no one can see what's going on. And I say, can you put your hand up? If you feel at some point in your life like a fraud, like, you're going to be found out. Every single hand went up. I have them put their hands down, they open their eyes, and then I share. You know, if it was only one hand go up, I wouldn't take it any further. I'VE never been in a room, Jenny, where 85% or more hands go up. And that's why I think if we can have a conversation around this, it's kind of a serious topic. But bring light heartedness to it, bring action steps to it. That's what my goal is. Because there's a lot of conversation out there right now. Oh, just be vulnerable and be heart centered and I love that work I do. Just don't be perfect, don't work. But as a recovering perfectionist, tell me how because I want to recover perfectly. So it's like, you know, I just want to have a conversation and apply action steps to a need that I think is becoming higher and higher. As you said with Google, the bar keeps getting raised. And sometimes that bar is a true bar that we're matching ourself to. And sometimes that bar has completely been photoshopped, airbrushed, you know, five, you know, five filters in from Instagram and you know, so how can we compare what's really going on and not get hooked up with what's being sold to us by the media and have a good time along the way?

So let's talk practical steps. What do you do when this is part of the reason I couldn't even sign into social media for over a year. It just gave me such anxiety every time, which I know is my own neuroses that I could look into. But talk to me about your self talk. When you the other day, I didn't even mean to. I just. It was either Instagram or Facebook and bam. There's a photo front and center of this woman with shredded abs and the best quads. And you know, what do you do in the moment that you get triggered? For me, I was looking at someone's favorite physical form. For others it may be seeing work accomplishments or family photos. Who knows what it is. But that moment of getting triggered where the self talk initially is I am not enough. This person is younger, skinnier, smarter, more accomplished, whatever the they are more of in that moment of feeling triggered.

Yeah.

How do you course correct?

Great question. First thing is awareness. Step one is awareness. You even noticed. Here's the thing, Jenny. For most of us, we don't even realize we're having this constant internal dialogue of comparison, compare and contrast and then contract. We have between like 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts a day. Based on different pieces of research, they say 95% of those thoughts are the same we had yesterday and 85% tend to be negative. And that's not a character flaw. It's part of a genetic makeup that kept us alive. So the first thing I want to say to anyone that your brain is. Is designed to focus on everything that could kill you or compare you, you know, so our brain is designed to go to the negative. First thing is awareness. Notice what you're looking at and can you appreciate it without comparing yourself? For me, first of all, side note, I don't go on the Instagram accounts or anything related to do with fitness because that would just crush me. But then I see there's an awareness there. And then step two is like an acceptance. What are my. My recurring top five hits? Because we all have them and you said that thinner, smarter, younger. I always say, what needs CPR for your er? What does that mean? Where do you need to put breath into your er? For me, it's these days, it used to be I should be smarter. That was my ER need to be smarter. I've dealt with that. I'm like, I'm never going to be the smartest kid on the block. But I know I can do research and I know my strength is Jenny. Taking really good.

While the research, not mine. I can take research and make it really relatable. That is a strength of mine. I can take science and I can make this relatable to your everyday life. And I know that's a strength. And I know many times I have to Google things because I have no idea what the heck you're talking about. My ER right now is should I be younger? Because I'm getting older. So I've got 2ers younger and older. So I know if I leave those thoughts unmanaged, they're gonna. They're gonna. They could paralyze me or they could really define my day. So I need to put breath into that. So the first thing is A, be aware and then B, you know, then bring acceptance to it. For many years I had this idea that this perfection kind of manifested itself in me with anxiety that led to panic attacks. And instead of breathing life into that Jenny, I kind of tried to crush them. So the minute you breathe into the pain point or what we might conceive as a negative versus trying to push it away, we take the power out of it. So. And then it's have action. So my thought is, have that listener at home right now. Is there a top hit that keeps coming up for you? And if it's a positive, yay, go and do your happy dance around the room and awesome sauce. Don't do anything to that. But if that Top hit keeps coming up like, oh, my God, I should be younger. Like, I need to catch myself when I look in the mirror. I'm on TV now again, you know, being this guest host on Daily Burn 365 and I need to catch yourself. Are people here to look at the wrinkles or are you here to uplift them and make it about being of service? So I have a, you know, I say, it's not about me, it's about the people I'm in service of. So the minute I stop making it about me, that's one quick little fix that I do. But the fastest way for me is breath. Breath. The longest journey we will ever travel is from our head to our heart. Our ERs sit in our head. I should be younger, I should be thinner. I should be smaller. I should be a better mother. There's always something we could be better at. The way we make peace with it is in our heart. And the way we connect our head to our heart is through our breath. So my invitation to the person listening at home on your podcast, Jenny, would be. And right now, also with a light touch, with a lightness, don't go. Don't beat yourself up for I shouldn't be having these thoughts. I know better than this. You know, I know better. There's another er, it just is. And there's a thought that keeps coming up over and over again. Whatever that is, can you hold that right now with a light touch and place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly? Because for me, when I move into that er, for me being I need to be younger, what happens is I start breathing from my chest because what it's. I start moving into fight and flight. Your brain doesn't know the difference between a thought and what is real. So whether you're smart or you're not, whether you're young or you're not, whether you're aging well or you're not, it doesn't matter. What matters is how do you feel about this? Because that what is what your heart is going to take on as true. So right now, if you have that thought of I should be younger, smarter, whatever your ER is, notice if your chest is moving more, your hand on your chest is moving more than the hand on your belly. And your first step is, can you move the breath deeper into your belly? And how do we do that? Just bring awareness to it. Can you quieten that top hand that's holding that error and move that into your belly, which is your heart center right now for, you know, bringing breath into, getting rid of this little negative Nelly. And then I breathe in for four counts and I breathe out for eight. So we take in an in breath for four, three, two, one and we exhale for eight, seven, six, five, four, four, three, two, one. And we do that for like a minute or more with that er and the minute we take breath and attention to it and as we breathe in we say I breathe in joy, I breathe in now. And as we exhale we're letting that er, I need to be thinner, smarter, whatever out of our body. So the first thing is even noticing that you're having that thought Jenny is amazing. Then we just need to move out, make friends with it, let it go and know that we're doing the best that we can with what we have and then making whatever that ER is. It's normally when we become self centered, not in a bad way, but we've moved the focus onto us versus what is our work of a bigger purpose. Like I know for me when I start talking on a bigger stage I'm like oh my God, I should be thinner. I didn't work out as well. That small, small thinking, the small me, the mini I, the myself. The minute I can say I'm here of service to do the best that I can and hopefully enlighten someone and ease their burden, it begins to shift out that that idea of we should.

Be more, I love that exercise and that perspective shift. Another mindset shift that helps me is recalibrating my values around it. So even just the other day I had a thought. It might have been along the lines of oh, what if I was younger? Maybe it was in a dating context, I'm not even sure. But then I asked myself in that moment I said, well, if you could go back to being 22, would you? And I thought, hell no. I'm so grateful for everything I've learned. Every year of life really has been better than the one before it. Just because of the wisdom that I've gained and a sense of calmness and purpose and focus. And so I'll remind myself too. Well, if you could, if you could wave a magic wand and be younger or be in someone else's shoes, would you want to be? And when I really refocus on the value, what I value wisdom and like you said, service, that no. The answer is no. So in that way I don't have to worry about those things as much as sometimes when we're fed the messages from society would tell us, oh hey, these Are your priorities. You know, this is what you should look like or be like or be doing in your life.

Yeah. And that word should, Jenny, is so key. The minute we start, yeah, you should be doing this, you should be that. Then we know we're in that area where maybe perfection is not going to help us. And, you know, perfection right now in terms of the media, it's not my job to change the media, but I can change my perception of how I react to it. And I love that idea of a great antidote for perfectionism when it's not serving you well, is gratitude. And so that last step is appreciation. When we can be grateful for what we have right now versus 10 years prior from now or 10 pounds from now, and then from that space of being grateful for who we are right now doesn't mean we don't want to make shifts or change things, but we can move from a place of appreciation and gratitude versus punishment and pain. And for me, especially with the fitness industry, Jenny, when I talk to people who strive a lot around the perfect body, the perfect weight, size, the perfect diet, my thing is, can you move because you love your body versus moving to try and like your body. When we can like who we are right now, that's when we do our best work. So again, to go back to a question you asked a while ago. When do we know if perfection is good or we're stepping over our boundaries? When it stops you from doing your best work.

One thing I didn't know about you until preparing for this podcast is that you are a two time cancer survivor. I had no idea. And I'm curious to know how having those experiences early on have shifted your mindset over time around all of this.

Yeah, talk about an imperfect. Imperfect. Oh my goodness.

I can't believe it.

Yeah. You know, Jenny, it's so long ago now, it feels like another lifetime. But let me tell you, I did my best living when I was at my most imperfect because what had happened is I had got melanoma on my foot, stage one, I think it was 98 right now. And so that got cut out. It was interesting because it's on my foot and many times you can have a melanoma cut out and kind of basically move on your day. And you know, as long as they check the lymph nodes, everything's good. But mine was on my foot so I had to stop what I was doing for about a month because fitness was my career. But anyway, I got it cut out. It was all good. And then two years Later, I had a lump on my neck. And basically they were like, okay, we've got two case scenarios here. Either this is lymphoma, which we're hoping it is, which is very curable, or it's melanoma that has metastasized. And so for two weeks there, Jenny, I didn't know whether I was gonna have six weeks, six months, or 60 years. And let me tell you, not once did I worry about, am I a size 6? Do I have a 6 pack? Am I perfect? It's like, holy crap. I knew at that point. And my only thing I was thinking about, Jenny, is like, I want to be around enough to love in the way that I know I can love. That's the only thing that came to mind. And my most. Anyway, long story short, it was lymphoma. It was very curable, but I had chemo, radiation. I lost my hair. I put on like, I lost 15. I put £15 on from the steroids. I became bald. But I was fearless, Jenny. I not once it crossed my mind. And I was talking to Jonathan Fields about this when I was teaching with my big old bald head and my £15. I was teaching step at the time. This is like 20 years ago in New York City. My classes were packed to the brim. And I think what it was is up until that point, I was trying to sell the perfect Petra. And now I was just selling, let's move because we're here, because we're alive. And I think I was an absolute mirror to people going, what the hell have I got to worry about? So maybe I'm not at my perfect weight right now, but look at Petra. You know, I kind of was that mirror of what life could be and how grateful we need to be for the extraordinary in the ordinary day. And then in typical fashion, you know, 20 years out, I still have to remind myself of that now and again, of the extraordinary, of the gift of who we are today. And. And that's not saying that we might want to improve in certain areas of our life.

That is such an incredible story. And my friend Derek Shanahan, who I love dearly, he told me long ago, he said, people respect perfection, but they fall in love with imperfection. And it sounds like that was the case with all your students.

Yeah, I mean.

This is the key right here, Jenny. For many years, I thought an expert people wanted perfect. But the very thing I thought people craved was the very thing that was separating me for them. Because we connect through our cracks. We don't connect in the perfect. We don't connect through. We connect through our flaws. We deepen our connection through. Oh, my God, you went through that. Me too. If Petra's out there going, oh, my God, I got it dialed in. I'm crushing it. I'm amazing. What? There's nothing to talk about. I've got everything figured out. It's when we go, oh, you struggle with that too. Me too. That's when the deeper connection, that's when we can reach down and help people up. And then we also get to say, you know what? I haven't a clue. I've done this with you, Jenny. I've asked you for help with podcasting, and I get to ask and reach up, and you get to reach down. It's a two way street. Perfection is a one way conversation. It doesn't allow room for like, oh, you have that too. Perfect is shiny, it's cute, but it doesn't create a deeper meaning or a sense of purpose.

I agree. It's boring.

Yes. Perfection is so overrated.

When I think about the writers that I love the most or the podcasters, it is. It's the people who are willing to show their flaws. I love what you said. We connect through our cracks. So on that note, I have to ask. So you're in the midst of a pretty big business pivot yourself. You're moving from decades purely doing fitness into.

You bring up the decades. Right, of course.

Oh, I say that to say, like, you're a total badass. And by the way, I'll share this because I know you've said it publicly. Petra's 53. She does not look a day over 25, so everyone should just know you're, like the most radiant, joyful, gorgeous person I know. I mean, really, I'm awed by you every time we're in the same room. And. Yeah, and I know that you're in the midst of this big pivot, moving into a larger stage for yourself in terms of your message and your audience. What are some of the things that you're grappling with as you go through this pivot?

You know, I think for me, the biggest thing is learning to say and be okay with I don't know, and asking for help. Because for 30 years, you know, three decades, I was the expert that people came to for advice. I loved giving advice. I loved helping people. And now the biggest lesson I'm learning, I'm learning that to grow and expand means you're gonna have to not know things. And so I think my biggest lesson that I'm making peace with is being able to ask people for help and seeing just the response that I get. People. People want to help, but they need to know that you need their help. So for me, it was a big thing for me to say, I don't know how to do that. Can you help me? Can you give me the Cliff Notes? And you've helped me so much, Jenny, with podcasting and saying it's okay to be scared. I think this whole idea that you should crush your fears, you know, no, fear is.

I agree. I agree.

Yeah. I love Pema Chodron. She says fear is a reaction that you're getting closer to your truth. But let fear let you rise up. Let it be respect for the work that you're doing. Let it move you forward and let it not pass. So it's making friends with your fears knowing that if you're feeling afraid, it means that you care. It means this is work that is meaningful to you. So embrace it and then put it in the sidecar. Just don't let it be in the driver's seat.

I agree completely. There's so much masculine. Crush, smash, destroy, obliterate your fear. And I love. You know, there's a certain amount of that that I appreciate. And when I say masculine, that could be coming from a man or a woman, but it's just that sort of like, smash it. And I agree. I just don't see anything wrong with fear, really. I mean, unless it's holding you back. And that's where, you know, perfectionism, if we come back to that, that. I think at its root, perfectionism is procrastination. That when we're waiting for something to be perfect, what we're really just saying is, I'm afraid. I'm afraid to ship this and see what's going to happen on the other side. But so as long as we keep shipping and taking action, our fear will be there. And it. To me, fear is your friend, and it can just totally sit in the front seat with you. Even Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic, she. She says fear can sit in the back seat, and it's not allowed to control any of the dials. It's like a small child. And even that I thought was a little insulting to fear, who's just trying to be helpful.

And another one of her quotes that I love, Jenny, which is so perfect for this right now, is Elizabeth Gilbert says, fear. No, perfectionism is just fear in really good shoes. Yes. Right. Yeah.

I just love hearing all of your thoughts on all of this. So, any final, final thoughts before we start to wrap up? Any message you want to send to anybody who is mid Pivot, and maybe the perfectionist in them is sort of rearing their head and creating some paralysis about taking next steps?

I think just know you're not alone and that fear is not a bad thing. It means you're moving closer to what matters to you. Can you put. Any time you feel paralyzed, you feel like that perfectionistic chatter, that Judge Judy coming on, you know, give it a name, say thank you. I know you're trying to help me, but not so helpful right now. And breathe, breathe. In for four and out for eight. Because what tends to happen when we're nervous, we're afraid, we're thinking about perfection. We move into that fight, flight, or freeze. And that does not allow us to do our best work. It actually paralyzes and shuts down the part of our thinking brain that we need. So just breathe deeper. Stand up, move your body, move your breath, move the idea that it has to be perfect to be of value. And you're doing amazing work. Keep going. And again, when you get paralyzed, just think of the work that the world needs. Your voice. The world needs your imperfect voice and your imperfect message. And with that, together we can make wonderful changes.

I love it. Petra, thank you so much for being here and for being my friend in life. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

My website, petracolber.com is the best place right now. Thank you so much, Jen. It's been such a. A wonderful conversation.

I'm so glad. And everybody listening Petra's podcast. I'm not exactly sure when this one comes out, but search for perfection Detox, no doubt. It's going to be incredible, Petra. I can't wait. And it's just such an honor to be on these Pivot paths together.

Thank you so much.

All right, that wraps up this episode of the Pivot podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And Pivot is officially out, so grab your copy wherever books are sold. Even better, tell a friend and leave a review on Amazon Reviews. Help other readers decide whether to purchase a copy, and it helps build a lot of momentum in these early days of the launch. Thank you all so much in advance. I couldn't do this without you.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter at jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.