Balance fearlessness with attention to detail

Balance fearlessness with attention to detail Three weeks ago I wrote a column about dealing with war anxiety. I interviewed my family (what else is new?) and then wrote about my brother Mikes worries about life insurance. Then this guy, Paul, started sending emails to me: Who is your source on that insurance stuff in your column? Pauls emails kept coming. He called four insurance companies and then sent another email to me. He told me my brother gave me bad information. So I forwarded the email to my brother. And he said, Paul is right. You misquoted me. I am not a detail person. I associate details with perfectionism and I think perfectionism is a disease that undermines everyone who has it. Mike thinks I am being extreme. So when he gave me the bad news, he didnt say it like, You misquoted me, Im sorry for you that you made an error. He said it like, You misquoted me, and finally you got in trouble for not paying attention to the details. Hooray, hooray, justice has been served. My disdain for details started when I looked around at all the people who are disappointed with their lives. For the most part, these are people who wish they had done something that they did not do for fear of failure. In the worst cases, people have lists and lists of things they did not do because of fear of failure. Then I saw a bumper sticker that said, What would you do if failure were not an option? When I went through my own list of what I would do, I decided that if I stopped worrying about failure, Id be able to do a lot more. So I started focusing on just getting stuff done, instead of getting it done perfectly. Details fell to the wayside. I also noticed that once I stopped worrying about doing something perfectly, I didnt have nearly as much reason for procrastination. Its easy to start something if you tell yourself that getting it done 70% perfect (as opposed to 100%) is okay. Believe it or not, in most cases, 70% perfect is okay for what we do. Getting rid of perfectionism and procrastination has served me well. I have explored all sorts of ways that I can find success. I have flourished in many types of businesses because I have not put off trying. And I can jump fearlessly from project to project finding those that spark my career. But in the process, I think I lost too much respect for details. At some level, I know these attributes are important. For example, if you cant keep track of schedules, you cant get anything in on time. And if you cant keep track of expenditures, you cant stay within budget. A happy career path requires a balance of fearlessness and attention to detail. And thanks to Pauls attention to detail (and patience with my snippy emails) I am going to recalibrate myself. Dont get me wrong; I still despise perfectionism. At the end of life, people do not wish they had been more obsessive about perfectionism. They wish they had tried more things, taken more opportunities. But I dont want to limit my opportunities by being unreliable. So heres hoping that Paul never catches me being careless again, and that Mike will still let me quote him.