Kim had a habit of hiding in plain sight. The kind of woman whose calendar looked like a confession with every hour accounted for and every call color-coded.

But the real her? Nowhere to be found.

She worked in a world of confident people, or people who had learned to impersonate confidence well enough to pass.

And she envied them. The ones who spoke with hands in motion, who filled any silence before it could become awkward.

They weren’t smarter. They were just… audible.

Kim’s ideas were good. Sometimes brilliant. But brilliance, she’d learned, doesn’t count unless you deliver it out loud.

She’d open her mouth, feel the heat rise in her face, then close it again.

Later she’d rewrite what she’d meant to say, cleaner, sharper, and wittier.

So perfectly… useless.

Her perfectionism was a velvet rope of her own making: soft to the touch, but firm enough to keep everyone out.

One evening she stayed late, because of course she did. The hum of the office had faded into the metallic buzz of the air conditioner.

Somewhere between deleting a comma and rewriting a heading, she caught her reflection in the dark window.

She looked absent, like a person auditioning for the role of herself.

Maybe preparation wasn’t her problem? She longed to connect with her team, but her drive to get everything “just right” kept building walls instead.

The realization arrived like an email you’ve been meaning to open for weeks.

Over the next few days, Kim started noticing things she’d trained herself not to see: how people’s eyes slid away from her when she stayed silent too long, how her laughter sounded delayed, like she was waiting for permission.

It’s exhausting, she thought, to be the most prepared person in the room and still feel unseen.

A colleague once told her, half-joking, “You’re so polished you make the rest of us look bad.” At the time, she took it as a compliment. Now, it sounded more like a warning.

She realized she’d spent years trying to earn a seat at the table, when everyone else just pulled out a chair and sat down.

So Kim MFD’d. (Made a f*cking decision)

“I’m done rehearsing,” she said aloud to no one in particular. “If I forget my line, I’ll improvise.”

She started showing up differently. She asked questions she didn’t already know the answers to. She spoke when she was only “seventy percent” ready.

She stopped sanding down her rough edges for the sake of fitting in.

And something strange began to happen: people leaned in. Her uncertainty gave them permission to be uncertain too.

Her awkwardness made her relatable. Her laugh, once restrained, became infectious.

She found that connection, once she stopped auditioning for it, was not something to be achieved but something to be allowed.

Later that year, Kim stood in front of her team. Her slides were simpler now. Her sentences shorter. Her hands moved when she talked.

She was promoted to Team Lead. Her anxiety hadn’t vanished, but it no longer owned her.

She still over prepared sometimes. She still sometimes caught herself editing her own voice mid-sentence. But now, when she felt the pull toward perfection, she’d smile and say to herself: not today!

Confidence, she realized, isn’t what you get when you stop being afraid.

It’s what you find when you stop trying to be flawless.

THIS WEEK'S MFD CHALLENGE

When did perfectionism and polish feel safer than being human?

Show your customers and your team what real leadership looks like. Share the process before it’s perfect. Admit what you’re still figuring out.

Let people meet the real you.

Authenticity makes people want to follow you. And it makes them want to buy from you too.
 
Know someone solving the wrong problem perfectly?
Forward this issue to as many people as you want!

Until next Tuesday,

Kevin D. St.Clergy
Author & Podcast Host of Beyond Blind Blaming
Creator of the Blind Blaming Specialist™ Certification