Welcome to LSE IQ.
I'm Jess Winterstein,
and this is the podcast where we ask social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question.
This month, as holidays draw to a close and new school and university years begin,
we're bringing you a bite-sized episode.
This is a public school program.
I will never, ever cut a player who comes out to play for me.
But when you put that uniform on, that Titan uniform, you better come to work.
We will be perfect.
In every aspect of the game, you drop a pass, you run a mile.
You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile.
You fumble the football, and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind-pots.
And then you will run a mile.
Perfection, let's go to work.
And so because I think that a lot of perfectionists, including myself, we use that word because we pretend it's a fault.
You actually secretly think it's a virtue.
And so the trick is to actually expose it to pull off its fake mask and to expose perfection and call it by its real name,
which is fear.
That's all it is, it's fear.
It's fear that you're not good enough.