094: Why You Don’t Need to Be Perfect Uncommon Sense: the This is True Podcast

In This Episode: Sure, it’s cool to hear stories of famous (and completely obscure) people who exhibit Uncommon Sense — the ones I talk about here. But there’s one other thing you need to know about every one of them: they’re definitely not perfect, and that’s important to know because neither are you, and I’ll tell you why that doesn’t matter.



094: Why You Don’t Need to Be Perfect

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Show Notes



*

* Prior episodes mentioned:



* Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize (#15).

* Developing Uncommon Sense (#17).

* How to be Happier (#19).

* 7 Things to Stop Doing (& What to Do Instead) (#77).





* And/or see the full list of episodes.





Transcript

Welcome to Uncommon Sense, I’m Randy Cassingham.

There are several common gut reactions that listeners have to the stories I tell on Uncommon Sense. First there’s the feeling that “I could never do that!” — because the person I talk about is so special, or so talented, or born at just the right moment and the right place, that they’re seemingly impossible to emulate.

Or second, the “But what about…?” types, who are aware of something less than savory in the person’s background. To use a couple of examples from Uncommon Sense itself: Jeff Bezos may be looking way into the future, but didn’t he cheat on his wife of 25 years? Isn’t that pretty much the opposite of Uncommon Sense? I mean, not surprisingly his wife divorced him — and when she left she took 25 percent of his Amazon stock as a consolation prize. That was worth $36 billion at the time.

She did allow her ex to retain voting rights in those shares, but bad move ethically, morally, and financially, Jeff. But good display of Uncommon Sense, MacKenzie: she has given away more than $14 billion of that, but she still has more than $25 billion, according to Forbes. At just 52, she probably has a lot of time to give the rest of it away to good causes, which should really be a guide to other billionaires.

Speaking of which, what of Elon Musk? Sure he’s looking way into the future too, but doesn’t he do very stupid things on a pretty regular basis? Say, taking a big puff from a marijuana cigar — on camera — when his SpaceX company is in the middle of a make-or-break contract with the government?

Or make stupid tweets that have gotten him in big trouble? And that’s not even counting his buying Twitter for far more than it was worth, and probably much more than it will ever be worth. Yep, bad moves plural, Elon: every one of the actions like this took time and focus away from his huge missions in life — and cost him plenty of money, too. They set him, and those profoundly important life missions, back — at least to some degree — time after time.

Yet I held both of them up as great examples of Uncommon Sense. Isn’t there a disconnect here?

No, and here’s why.

As I’ve said repeatedly over the years in relation to This is True stories, which very often show people at their worst, we shouldn’t gloat that we are somehow better than they are because, as I say, “We’re all stupid sometimes.” The corollary,