Joe makes the client’s self-treatment viscerally absurd by externalizing it: “You’re going to hire me as a coach. I’m always going to feel like I’m not spending enough time with you. And if I don’t make you perfect on the first attempt, I’m a bad coach. Want to hire me?” Then flips it: “Do you want to work for me? I’ll always tell you you’re not doing enough and if you don’t get it perfect the first time, you failed.” The client laughs — of course no one would accept those terms.
“If you’re not doing it, that’s why. You’re a shitty boss.”
Yet this is exactly how he treats himself on his side project. The same person who understands fail-fast, iterative development, and experimentation in his job demands perfection and constant effort from himself. The double standard is invisible until externalized.
The insight isn’t “be nicer to yourself” as a vague platitude — it’s that the way you manage yourself has the same dynamics as any boss-employee relationship. A boss who demands perfection, never acknowledges effort, and treats any failure as terminal will produce a paralyzed, avoidant employee. That’s exactly what’s happening internally.
Related Concepts
- Bullying yourself creates resistance
- Enjoyment as the only productivity metric
- Punishing the remembering slows growth
- Gentle narcissism hides in the call to coach
- Wanting to control others’ perception of you is absurd
- Work patterns mirror relationship patterns