SEAM NOTES — S2E6
POLISHED MASTER TRANSCRIPT
Speakers: Roselis Cortez · James Stanley
Timing based on the final edited episode timeline.
[00:14] ROSELIS
When does good enough become the standard that you never meant to set? You know, good enough can help you move, learn, improve, or it can quietly teach you to care less. And I think that there is a fine line there that can be quite dangerous, right?
[00:42] JAMES
Dangerous. Wow.
[00:44] ROSELIS
Yes, yes, yes, because it can push you to lower your standards.
[00:50] JAMES
And is that a bad thing?
[00:53] ROSELIS
Um, well... Why do we have to lower our standards?
[00:59] JAMES
I think, for me—
[01:01] ROSELIS
This isn't about standards, but yeah.
[01:03] JAMES
But it is, kind of, right? So we're talking about whatever that bar we set for self, right? The respect, as you say, showing up for self, right? Which we need to do, right? But sometimes, well, I'm going through this thing in life right now where I have a guest on my sofa.
[01:23] ROSELIS
Okay.
[01:24] JAMES
This person's going through—somebody that I love dearly—going through major life trauma, and they're on my sofa in my new apartment that is much smaller. And I just, Roselis—just, as you know, you know this—just got it exactly where I wanted it.
[01:42] ROSELIS
And it took you some time to get to that place where you made peace with the space too.
[01:46] JAMES
Totally, totally, 'cause I was, you know... If you come into my apartment, you come in and you see this dining room table against these windows, and I would daily check it before I close the door, like, this vessel's slightly off and that candle needs to be kinda—and everything needs to be lined up. Okay? And I'm like, that was my standard, right? Everything—everything in the room. The books had to be opened to the right page, etc. And then my friend comes in, somebody I love, and she's really hurting and she's distraught, and all of a sudden it's a whirlwind in this little apartment, and I started reacting to it. I forgot how much I love her. And I went to, 'Oh my—the candle and the vase and the book and that,' and she looked at me. And I said something not nice. I don't really remember what it was, but it was like, 'Do we have to move that?' or something. And she reacted, and this look on her face broke my heart. I went to bed with that on my mind. I woke up the next morning, we had coffee, and she said something to me. She said, 'You terrified me.'
[02:53] ROSELIS
Ha! That's—that's...
[02:54] JAMES
Terrifying.
[02:55] ROSELIS
A strong word. That's a strong word.
[03:00] JAMES
I needed it. I needed to hear it.
[03:02] ROSELIS
Mm-hmm. Because what did that do?
[03:05] JAMES
So my standard—all this aesthetic had to be perfect. It's part of my image, it's part of my brand, right? The home, all of it. But I put that in front of somebody's well-being. I put that—that standard took precedence and priority over my dear friend that was hurting. And as soon as I caught that, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. What am I doing? This is not who I wanna be or am. My love for her and this human being, and for others hurting, should be stronger—and is stronger—than if the candlestick is not right, if the book is off the table, all of it.
[03:43] ROSELIS
Okay. I completely agree. I completely agree. I get that. And especially when it's like the candle and the book and the thing and the that, and there's no one else coming into that apartment but you. Right? I mean, that's—I understand that we want to keep those standards, and I hear what you're saying when you're talking about the standard being set a little too high. I mean, if I knew company was coming back with me, I would be like, yeah, but people don't notice these things. But here's where we can kind of go into what I mean. You know, you're thinking of the standards, and I'm talking about lowering the standards shouldn't be accepted. And really what we wanna talk about here is: when is it okay to kind of push your standard to another place, which is exactly what you did in this case—
[04:36] JAMES
What I did, yeah.
[04:37] ROSELIS
—with her, right? But, like, I was talking to somebody about Seam Notes, right? And they said to me, 'How did you get started?' And I said, 'Well, I had no clue what I was doing.'
[04:53] JAMES
She really didn't. It was great! Neither one of us did, but she really didn't, which was, I think, good!
[04:59] ROSELIS
No idea. No idea. No idea what I was doing. I knew—we knew what we wanted to talk about, we knew what we wanted to set, we knew what the goal was or the intention of doing the work that we're doing and creating this, right? But I had no idea how to film, where to film, what to do, how to edit—none of it.
[05:24] JAMES
None of that, yeah, exactly.
[05:25] ROSELIS
None of it. None of it. What we needed, blah blah.
[05:28] JAMES
And it was a bigger lift than I think either one of us thought.
[05:31] ROSELIS
Huge lift. It's a huge lift. But, you know, whatever. So here's the thing, right? We get started, we make a commitment to one another that we have a date where this is gonna launch, right? We get the recording. We finally settled on something that we really liked—the topic. We felt that it was a good launching episode, etc., etc. And I spent four days trying to edit this thing prior to the launch date, and I can't get this editing thing to work. I tried different programs—
[06:08] JAMES
I remember. Yeah.
[06:08] ROSELIS
I tried finding help. I tried doing all of these things. And so when the moment came, I needed to make a choice: do I not launch? Or do I launch imperfect and unedited, but keep the commitment—or the standard of keeping the commitment—to self, to one another, to the people whom we had shared that this was gonna happen?
[06:39] JAMES
To Seam Notes itself.
[06:43] ROSELIS
Right? Exactly.
[06:43] JAMES
Exactly. Agreed.
[06:45] ROSELIS
It's an honor of doing something when you say you're going to do it.
[06:45] JAMES
Which I think is huge. Yep, agreed.
[06:53] ROSELIS
Exactly. It's part of maturity. It's part of respect.
[06:54] JAMES
Agreed.
[06:54] ROSELIS
It's part of all of those things, right? And so we did a launch with a raw episode. It was 45 minutes long. It went in circles. It did a bunch of different things.
[07:10] JAMES
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[07:10] ROSELIS
It was a—
[07:12] JAMES
We are better now.
[07:14] ROSELIS
It was absolutely imperfect. Yes. It's taken time, but, you know, it gets better all the time.
[07:19] JAMES
Agreed
[07:21] ROSELIS
Right? But the idea here is: was the standard of keeping the word more important than the appearance of perfection? And did the ability to move through—taking the leap, per se, of doing something imperfectly—give room to the start of something in order to move forward?
[07:56] JAMES
Agreed
[08:00] ROSELIS
Right? Because if I had decided that I needed to make that episode perfect, then it would have been the price of the start of this whole journey.
[08:13] JAMES
Correct, agreed.
[08:13] ROSELIS
Right? And then it would be delay after delay after delay after delay and different things like that. So the lack of perfectionism—which I don't necessarily believe in perfectionism, because I think it stems from fear and it is a paralyzing thing—and absolutely nothing is perfect in this world.
[08:39] JAMES
Exactly. So we're we're buying into this delusion of perfectionism and we can't do something which is holding us back because of it, right?
[08:48] ROSELIS
And it's this idea that other people will judge us, and really the one that's doing it is ourselves.
[08:53] JAMES
We're judging self for it, right? So you give birth to this thing, right? This Seam Notes—this beautiful thing that's hopefully helping others—and that needed to be the priority. Giving birth to it.
[09:04] ROSELIS
Right.
[09:04] JAMES
Right?
[09:07] ROSELIS
So then what happened? The standard wasn't met in that first part of having a good episode. I mean, the bones were there. It wasn't clean. It wasn't all of that. But guess what? After I learned how to do this, I eventually went back and cleaned it up and edited it, because I didn't let that default then be the standard set for the episode.
[09:39] JAMES
It didn't define Seam Notes and how we do things.
[09:39] ROSELIS
Correct
[09:42] JAMES
Right. No, agreed.
[09:42] ROSELIS
So, the idea is clear here.
[09:43] JAMES
Yeah. Yeah, right.
[09:47] ROSELIS
And it's not about, 'Oh my God, it has to be perfect.' It's not about, 'Oh my God...' It's: where do we find ourselves within all of these standards that we give ourselves or put upon ourselves, right? That are the way to go, that are the way that you let them be—or do you really emphasize those as a part of your life?
[10:14] JAMES
I mean, it's all of that for me. The example of my friend on my sofa: I gave up the standard of James always having to have everything perfect in my eye, but it is still very much a part of me. Trust me, as soon as my living situation is back to not sharing it with someone, I will go back in and make sure everything is in line. But this situation taught me it's not as important for me to have a perfect living space looking perfect all the time more than someone's well-being. Right? Yeah.
[10:49] ROSELIS
Right. Huge. It's huge. So then where this is great, because it leads us to that—to, you know, the fact that you have this happening right now in your home, right? This is good enough. This is good enough right now because it's serving a purpose of helping somebody else. It is not infringing upon you. You feel good about what you're embracing by doing all of this, etcetera, etcetera.
[11:18] JAMES
Which is shocking me, by the way. Shocking me. I called you. I called her and I told her, I said, 'Wait, you're not gonna believe this. There is shit piled on my dining room table. There is stuff all over, and it's not driving me crazy.' Like, I'm not even thinking about it, guys. It's not even a thought process because I've already come to terms with and accepted this is all okay. It doesn't matter. It's just stuff, and my friend's well-being matters. But I will return.
[11:44] ROSELIS
Exactly. And so here it takes us to that other side of this, where it doesn't become the baseline. Mm-hmm.
[11:51] JAMES
Yeah, no, I don't want it to become the baseline.
[11:53] ROSELIS
Because those standards that you have for yourself are still the standards that you wanna keep—
[12:00] JAMES
Yeah, of course.
[12:00] ROSELIS
—still the standards that you wanna honor. Still the standards that give luxury to you, to your life, to your inner being.
[12:09] JAMES
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally.
[12:11] ROSELIS
So when your friend leaves and, you know, she heals and she gets to a better place and she moves forward, you'll be able to return to those standards because it will not become your baseline. You know, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about the bed, right? We—
[12:28] JAMES
The bed?
[12:29] ROSELIS
You and I are—
[12:29] JAMES
Making the bed, yeah.
[12:31] ROSELIS
—are big on making the bed in the morning.
[12:31] JAMES
Very similar, yes. I have to—
[12:33] ROSELIS
It's like a thing.
[12:33] JAMES
Every morning in my life.
[12:35] ROSELIS
The bed needs to be made, and I like it to be taut, and I like to tighten—
[12:38] JAMES
Yes, right.
[12:39] ROSELIS
—the fitted sheet and all of that business, right? I like to come into my bedroom and go in and be like—
[12:47] JAMES
And if the sheets could be ironed—I don't do this—but if they could be, I'm down.
[12:51] ROSELIS
Dried in the sun.
[12:51] JAMES
Ohhh, lovely.
[12:51] ROSELIS
Those are two things that, you know, that's not the way life is here in North America.
[12:51] JAMES
Yeah. Unfortunately.
[12:51] ROSELIS
But that's okay. All right, so, you know, let's make it a really simple example, right? You get up late, you went to bed late, you get up and you didn't give yourself enough time. You decide to have sex with your partner and you then get out of bed really late, or—
[13:21] JAMES
That's a great excuse not to make the bed. I'm good with that.
[13:26] ROSELIS
But it's a great excuse not to get out of bed—or to stay in bed. However, you are running out the door. You gotta get—you're, like, putting your shoes on as you're closing the front door, and you're doing all—
[13:43] JAMES
Thirty-five things at once.
[13:45] ROSELIS
However, for me, right, what I would do is I would, like, toss the pillows on top and grab the big blanket and just kinda—
[13:53] JAMES
I take the duvet and cover it. Yeah.
[13:55] ROSELIS
—kind of make the bed.
[13:57] JAMES
Yeah. Agree.
[13:58] ROSELIS
Right. However, when I come home, it doesn't remain that way.
[14:06] JAMES
The same day? Wow. See, I don't do that.
[14:08] ROSELIS
The same day. Because I don't want it to become the baseline.
[14:11] JAMES
Right? Agree. No agree. Agree.
[14:13] ROSELIS
Because if I do it one day, then the next day I'll make the same excuse to say, 'Well, you know, I mean, whatever,' you know? And I like to make my bed, and I like to turn the bed down before we go to bed.
[14:29] JAMES
Me too, me too.
[14:29] ROSELIS
And I like to do all of these things which take just minutes of your time but are gifts that we give to ourselves within those standards, right?
[14:40] JAMES
And it sets structure, I think, for our lives. It's not just making a bed.
[14:46] ROSELIS
No! it means so much more.
[14:47] JAMES
Yeah, it has nothing really to do with the bed at all, or me arranging everything in the apartment to be just so. It is a structure, at least for me, in my life, that I'm meeting the standard that I have set, and I'm doing it across the board—whether that's getting up at a certain time, speaking to people a certain way, attending a certain thing. Yeah.
[15:09] ROSELIS
See the danger of leaving the bed unattended, if you will, upon your return, right? So you come home, you take off your street clothes and you put your house clothes on. You're in the bedroom already. Make the bed. Bring it back to the standard, because then you run a greater risk of creating and allowing that as your baseline.
[15:35] JAMES
No, and I totally see that happening. So I'll share with you—and you may know or not know this—but right now my life is in this flux state, right? And James is figuring out the who, what, why, all of this stuff. And where standards come in is I am easing up on my standards, right? This person's in my home. She has nothing to do with it, but she's in my home. Things are a little bit in disarray in the way the apartment looks. I'm getting out of bed at a different time than I normally do. My gym routine is a little different than normal. All of it seems to be affected. And I think, to use your word dangerous, is that that continues throughout all aspects of my life: my career, my focus on the company, my focus on my relationships, etc. All of it kind of is like, I don't have to be as on point now. I don't have to, you know. And yes, we all need to relax a little bit here and there and allow ourselves to do that, but I can see a pattern from making the bed to not following through with my life, to be a little dramatic.
[16:45] ROSELIS
Yeah, but it's connected. Exactly. So—
[16:47] JAMES
It's all connected. It really is. When I let one little thing go, it all starts to go.
[16:55] ROSELIS
That is exactly the point. Right? That is exactly the point. It's, you know, the episode launched imperfectly with that knowledge, but it was honoring a different standard, right?
[17:08] JAMES
Correct, Agreed.
[17:08] ROSELIS
However, it didn't become the baseline for the continuing things.
[17:08] JAMES
Right, right.
[17:15] ROSELIS
It didn't allow for it to not try to strive for excellence, or better, or improvement. It didn't lead to mediocrity within the standards, right?
[17:29] JAMES
Right, right, right.
[17:29] ROSELIS
And I think that is really the point that we're trying to make here. It's: what standards have you set for yourself? Those are the ones that, if you honor them, it's all about self-respect, about what you do for yourself when nobody's watching, how you conduct that part of your being that feeds your soul, that feeds your spirit, that does all of that.
[17:54] JAMES
Agreed.
[17:54] ROSELIS
It has nothing to do with the appearances of the outside.
[17:54] JAMES
Right.
[17:58] ROSELIS
However, if we look at the episode idea, it is about appearances as well. But at that moment, that could slide because it was honoring a different part.
[18:11] JAMES
Yeah, yeah. There had to be a priority there, and I think the bigger priority is giving birth to Seam Notes.
[18:15] ROSELIS
Now, when I first brought this topic up to you, you said that there was a Buddhist angle that kind of rang.
[18:21] JAMES
So this is a Buddhist teaching, right?
[18:23] ROSELIS
Right. And what is that?
[18:24] JAMES
So in the Buddhist practice that I do, one of the head teachers—amazing human being, he's a Buddhist master—he has this term, "rough is enough." And when I first heard Kadam Morton saying this, I'm like, huh? Rough is enough. But what he meant was he wanted beginners, people that were just starting on a spiritual practice, to not get discouraged and to just jump in and kind of roughly understand the process. But with wisdom, know that rough is enough cannot be forever. That we're gonna get in the ground, we're gonna absorb in the Buddhist teachings, and then we're really gonna start understanding with wisdom. We must focus and get deeper and deeper and deeper. Um, yeah.
[19:15] ROSELIS
Yeah, which equates to how we started by saying that imperfection can be the price of beginning.
[19:20] JAMES
Correct, exactly. He didn't want to discourage new students or new practitioners by saying, "Oh, you need to learn Buddha's 84,000 teachings, and you need to understand the emptiness of life." It was just: have a rough experience in your own way, and that is enough to start lighting the fire to get you going down the path. But eventually, with wisdom, like we're talking here, knowing that rough is enough cannot be the forever solution.
[19:45] ROSELIS
Correct. Correct.
[19:49] JAMES
Right? Right
[19:50] ROSELIS
Look how cool that is, that, you know, we came up with the thought or the idea and that it aligned so well with those, um—
[20:01] JAMES
Spiritual aspects.
[20:01] ROSELIS
—of your teachings.
[20:01] JAMES
Yeah, yeah. Agreed. Agreed
[20:03] ROSELIS
Yeah. I just think, you know, I remember when we first started and you were like, 'Standards? Why are we using that word?'
[20:09] JAMES
The word standard still—I still react to it internally. But I get it, because I'm going through it right now, that I am letting my standards slip across the board, guys. I really am. And I'm aware of it. And I've always been so not that person that I'm allowing myself to be, okay, let's sleep a little later. So if I don't get up at five, I'm gonna get up at 5:45, right? If I don't do an hour and a half in the gym, I'm gonna do 45 minutes or an hour in the gym, etc. And it really is, you know, my focus on work, right, is not as focused as I normally am. But I'm still getting things done, right? When I'm in the zone and I'm a hundred percent on point, and I mean really keeping the standard, not only am I holding myself accountable, I'm accomplishing across the board—from work to my personal life to my spiritual practice, all of it. I am really, really feeling accomplished and good. Right?
[21:12] ROSELIS
Yeah.
[21:12] JAMES
Yeah.
[21:14] ROSELIS
And, you know, sometimes I think maybe we can come up with a different word, and I don't mean it because of your view on the word standard, but I really believe that that is where the luxury lies in life. Period. Standards for self, standards for our surroundings, standards for what we accept, standards for how we move in this space, how we behave with other human beings—
[21:37] JAMES
Totally, yeah, yeah.
[21:39] ROSELIS
—how we are in every area of our life, and that we honor that within the four walls of our home, right?
[21:46] JAMES
Correct.
[21:48] ROSELIS
Because that's where it begins.
[21:51] JAMES
Well, it has to begin in the conscious mind—
[21:51] ROSELIS
Exactly. Well, of course.
[21:51] JAMES
—before we even bring it out.
[21:55] ROSELIS
That's what I'm saying. If we are doing it in this space that we live in, you know, the standard isn't that you never fall short; it's that you know what you return to.
[22:13] JAMES
Yeah, agreed. I'm very much aware of where I need to and where I return to.
[22:18] ROSELIS
And I really believe that that is a huge key in life. Right? I mean, if you failed the standard with a friend, where you weren't there for them when they needed you, or you made a comment that was not intended to hurt their feelings but that it was, and that you can apologize—
[22:42] JAMES
Correct, returning to it, right?
[22:45] ROSELIS
Go back to it—
[22:45] JAMES
Look, listen, we are humans—
[22:45] ROSELIS
—and be like, wow, I did this thing—
[22:49] JAMES
Yeah, yeah, totally
[22:49] ROSELIS
—that is not my standard, that's not my thing. So really, we're talking standards in all aspects of life.
[22:59] JAMES
And not in a judging way, right? Or compartmentalize where you need to be this great person, you know? That's not at all. I mean, when I hear the word standard, I kinda think, you need to be here. And that's not what we're saying.
[23:13] ROSELIS
Right. And that's why, at the beginning of this conversation, when we talked about standards, you were like, well, what about, you know, what about lowering them? And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what we're saying. It's really more about self-respect and self-honor.
[23:25] JAMES
Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[23:29] ROSELIS
That's really what this is all about.
[23:30] JAMES
Yeah. Honor meaning keeping your word to self. First, I can't keep my word to you if I can't keep it with myself. Right?
[23:39] ROSELIS
How beautiful. How beautiful. Okay. So this week, notice where good enough is helping you move and where it's teaching you to care less.
[23:51] JAMES
Mm.
[23:56] ROSELIS
Until next week. Thanks for being with us.
POLISHED MASTER TRANSCRIPT
Speakers: Roselis Cortez · James Stanley
Timing based on the final edited episode timeline.
[00:14] ROSELIS
When does good enough become the standard that you never meant to set? You know, good enough can help you move, learn, improve, or it can quietly teach you to care less. And I think that there is a fine line there that can be quite dangerous, right?
[00:42] JAMES
Dangerous. Wow.
[00:44] ROSELIS
Yes, yes, yes, because it can push you to lower your standards.
[00:50] JAMES
And is that a bad thing?
[00:53] ROSELIS
Um, well... Why do we have to lower our standards?
[00:59] JAMES
I think, for me—
[01:01] ROSELIS
This isn't about standards, but yeah.
[01:03] JAMES
But it is, kind of, right? So we're talking about whatever that bar we set for self, right? The respect, as you say, showing up for self, right? Which we need to do, right? But sometimes, well, I'm going through this thing in life right now where I have a guest on my sofa.
[01:23] ROSELIS
Okay.
[01:24] JAMES
This person's going through—somebody that I love dearly—going through major life trauma, and they're on my sofa in my new apartment that is much smaller. And I just, Roselis—just, as you know, you know this—just got it exactly where I wanted it.
[01:42] ROSELIS
And it took you some time to get to that place where you made peace with the space too.
[01:46] JAMES
Totally, totally, 'cause I was, you know... If you come into my apartment, you come in and you see this dining room table against these windows, and I would daily check it before I close the door, like, this vessel's slightly off and that candle needs to be kinda—and everything needs to be lined up. Okay? And I'm like, that was my standard, right? Everything—everything in the room. The books had to be opened to the right page, etc. And then my friend comes in, somebody I love, and she's really hurting and she's distraught, and all of a sudden it's a whirlwind in this little apartment, and I started reacting to it. I forgot how much I love her. And I went to, 'Oh my—the candle and the vase and the book and that,' and she looked at me. And I said something not nice. I don't really remember what it was, but it was like, 'Do we have to move that?' or something. And she reacted, and this look on her face broke my heart. I went to bed with that on my mind. I woke up the next morning, we had coffee, and she said something to me. She said, 'You terrified me.'
[02:53] ROSELIS
Ha! That's—that's...
[02:54] JAMES
Terrifying.
[02:55] ROSELIS
A strong word. That's a strong word.
[03:00] JAMES
I needed it. I needed to hear it.
[03:02] ROSELIS
Mm-hmm. Because what did that do?
[03:05] JAMES
So my standard—all this aesthetic had to be perfect. It's part of my image, it's part of my brand, right? The home, all of it. But I put that in front of somebody's well-being. I put that—that standard took precedence and priority over my dear friend that was hurting. And as soon as I caught that, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. What am I doing? This is not who I wanna be or am. My love for her and this human being, and for others hurting, should be stronger—and is stronger—than if the candlestick is not right, if the book is off the table, all of it.
[03:43] ROSELIS
Okay. I completely agree. I completely agree. I get that. And especially when it's like the candle and the book and the thing and the that, and there's no one else coming into that apartment but you. Right? I mean, that's—I understand that we want to keep those standards, and I hear what you're saying when you're talking about the standard being set a little too high. I mean, if I knew company was coming back with me, I would be like, yeah, but people don't notice these things. But here's where we can kind of go into what I mean. You know, you're thinking of the standards, and I'm talking about lowering the standards shouldn't be accepted. And really what we wanna talk about here is: when is it okay to kind of push your standard to another place, which is exactly what you did in this case—
[04:36] JAMES
What I did, yeah.
[04:37] ROSELIS
—with her, right? But, like, I was talking to somebody about Seam Notes, right? And they said to me, 'How did you get started?' And I said, 'Well, I had no clue what I was doing.'
[04:53] JAMES
She really didn't. It was great! Neither one of us did, but she really didn't, which was, I think, good!
[04:59] ROSELIS
No idea. No idea. No idea what I was doing. I knew—we knew what we wanted to talk about, we knew what we wanted to set, we knew what the goal was or the intention of doing the work that we're doing and creating this, right? But I had no idea how to film, where to film, what to do, how to edit—none of it.
[05:24] JAMES
None of that, yeah, exactly.
[05:25] ROSELIS
None of it. None of it. What we needed, blah blah.
[05:28] JAMES
And it was a bigger lift than I think either one of us thought.
[05:31] ROSELIS
Huge lift. It's a huge lift. But, you know, whatever. So here's the thing, right? We get started, we make a commitment to one another that we have a date where this is gonna launch, right? We get the recording. We finally settled on something that we really liked—the topic. We felt that it was a good launching episode, etc., etc. And I spent four days trying to edit this thing prior to the launch date, and I can't get this editing thing to work. I tried different programs—
[06:08] JAMES
I remember. Yeah.
[06:08] ROSELIS
I tried finding help. I tried doing all of these things. And so when the moment came, I needed to make a choice: do I not launch? Or do I launch imperfect and unedited, but keep the commitment—or the standard of keeping the commitment—to self, to one another, to the people whom we had shared that this was gonna happen?
[06:39] JAMES
To Seam Notes itself.
[06:43] ROSELIS
Right? Exactly.
[06:43] JAMES
Exactly. Agreed.
[06:45] ROSELIS
It's an honor of doing something when you say you're going to do it.
[06:45] JAMES
Which I think is huge. Yep, agreed.
[06:53] ROSELIS
Exactly. It's part of maturity. It's part of respect.
[06:54] JAMES
Agreed.
[06:54] ROSELIS
It's part of all of those things, right? And so we did a launch with a raw episode. It was 45 minutes long. It went in circles. It did a bunch of different things.
[07:10] JAMES
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[07:10] ROSELIS
It was a—
[07:12] JAMES
We are better now.
[07:14] ROSELIS
It was absolutely imperfect. Yes. It's taken time, but, you know, it gets better all the time.
[07:19] JAMES
Agreed
[07:21] ROSELIS
Right? But the idea here is: was the standard of keeping the word more important than the appearance of perfection? And did the ability to move through—taking the leap, per se, of doing something imperfectly—give room to the start of something in order to move forward?
[07:56] JAMES
Agreed
[08:00] ROSELIS
Right? Because if I had decided that I needed to make that episode perfect, then it would have been the price of the start of this whole journey.
[08:13] JAMES
Correct, agreed.
[08:13] ROSELIS
Right? And then it would be delay after delay after delay after delay and different things like that. So the lack of perfectionism—which I don't necessarily believe in perfectionism, because I think it stems from fear and it is a paralyzing thing—and absolutely nothing is perfect in this world.
[08:39] JAMES
Exactly. So we're we're buying into this delusion of perfectionism and we can't do something which is holding us back because of it, right?
[08:48] ROSELIS
And it's this idea that other people will judge us, and really the one that's doing it is ourselves.
[08:53] JAMES
We're judging self for it, right? So you give birth to this thing, right? This Seam Notes—this beautiful thing that's hopefully helping others—and that needed to be the priority. Giving birth to it.
[09:04] ROSELIS
Right.
[09:04] JAMES
Right?
[09:07] ROSELIS
So then what happened? The standard wasn't met in that first part of having a good episode. I mean, the bones were there. It wasn't clean. It wasn't all of that. But guess what? After I learned how to do this, I eventually went back and cleaned it up and edited it, because I didn't let that default then be the standard set for the episode.
[09:39] JAMES
It didn't define Seam Notes and how we do things.
[09:39] ROSELIS
Correct
[09:42] JAMES
Right. No, agreed.
[09:42] ROSELIS
So, the idea is clear here.
[09:43] JAMES
Yeah. Yeah, right.
[09:47] ROSELIS
And it's not about, 'Oh my God, it has to be perfect.' It's not about, 'Oh my God...' It's: where do we find ourselves within all of these standards that we give ourselves or put upon ourselves, right? That are the way to go, that are the way that you let them be—or do you really emphasize those as a part of your life?
[10:14] JAMES
I mean, it's all of that for me. The example of my friend on my sofa: I gave up the standard of James always having to have everything perfect in my eye, but it is still very much a part of me. Trust me, as soon as my living situation is back to not sharing it with someone, I will go back in and make sure everything is in line. But this situation taught me it's not as important for me to have a perfect living space looking perfect all the time more than someone's well-being. Right? Yeah.
[10:49] ROSELIS
Right. Huge. It's huge. So then where this is great, because it leads us to that—to, you know, the fact that you have this happening right now in your home, right? This is good enough. This is good enough right now because it's serving a purpose of helping somebody else. It is not infringing upon you. You feel good about what you're embracing by doing all of this, etcetera, etcetera.
[11:18] JAMES
Which is shocking me, by the way. Shocking me. I called you. I called her and I told her, I said, 'Wait, you're not gonna believe this. There is shit piled on my dining room table. There is stuff all over, and it's not driving me crazy.' Like, I'm not even thinking about it, guys. It's not even a thought process because I've already come to terms with and accepted this is all okay. It doesn't matter. It's just stuff, and my friend's well-being matters. But I will return.
[11:44] ROSELIS
Exactly. And so here it takes us to that other side of this, where it doesn't become the baseline. Mm-hmm.
[11:51] JAMES
Yeah, no, I don't want it to become the baseline.
[11:53] ROSELIS
Because those standards that you have for yourself are still the standards that you wanna keep—
[12:00] JAMES
Yeah, of course.
[12:00] ROSELIS
—still the standards that you wanna honor. Still the standards that give luxury to you, to your life, to your inner being.
[12:09] JAMES
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally.
[12:11] ROSELIS
So when your friend leaves and, you know, she heals and she gets to a better place and she moves forward, you'll be able to return to those standards because it will not become your baseline. You know, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about the bed, right? We—
[12:28] JAMES
The bed?
[12:29] ROSELIS
You and I are—
[12:29] JAMES
Making the bed, yeah.
[12:31] ROSELIS
—are big on making the bed in the morning.
[12:31] JAMES
Very similar, yes. I have to—
[12:33] ROSELIS
It's like a thing.
[12:33] JAMES
Every morning in my life.
[12:35] ROSELIS
The bed needs to be made, and I like it to be taut, and I like to tighten—
[12:38] JAMES
Yes, right.
[12:39] ROSELIS
—the fitted sheet and all of that business, right? I like to come into my bedroom and go in and be like—
[12:47] JAMES
And if the sheets could be ironed—I don't do this—but if they could be, I'm down.
[12:51] ROSELIS
Dried in the sun.
[12:51] JAMES
Ohhh, lovely.
[12:51] ROSELIS
Those are two things that, you know, that's not the way life is here in North America.
[12:51] JAMES
Yeah. Unfortunately.
[12:51] ROSELIS
But that's okay. All right, so, you know, let's make it a really simple example, right? You get up late, you went to bed late, you get up and you didn't give yourself enough time. You decide to have sex with your partner and you then get out of bed really late, or—
[13:21] JAMES
That's a great excuse not to make the bed. I'm good with that.
[13:26] ROSELIS
But it's a great excuse not to get out of bed—or to stay in bed. However, you are running out the door. You gotta get—you're, like, putting your shoes on as you're closing the front door, and you're doing all—
[13:43] JAMES
Thirty-five things at once.
[13:45] ROSELIS
However, for me, right, what I would do is I would, like, toss the pillows on top and grab the big blanket and just kinda—
[13:53] JAMES
I take the duvet and cover it. Yeah.
[13:55] ROSELIS
—kind of make the bed.
[13:57] JAMES
Yeah. Agree.
[13:58] ROSELIS
Right. However, when I come home, it doesn't remain that way.
[14:06] JAMES
The same day? Wow. See, I don't do that.
[14:08] ROSELIS
The same day. Because I don't want it to become the baseline.
[14:11] JAMES
Right? Agree. No agree. Agree.
[14:13] ROSELIS
Because if I do it one day, then the next day I'll make the same excuse to say, 'Well, you know, I mean, whatever,' you know? And I like to make my bed, and I like to turn the bed down before we go to bed.
[14:29] JAMES
Me too, me too.
[14:29] ROSELIS
And I like to do all of these things which take just minutes of your time but are gifts that we give to ourselves within those standards, right?
[14:40] JAMES
And it sets structure, I think, for our lives. It's not just making a bed.
[14:46] ROSELIS
No! it means so much more.
[14:47] JAMES
Yeah, it has nothing really to do with the bed at all, or me arranging everything in the apartment to be just so. It is a structure, at least for me, in my life, that I'm meeting the standard that I have set, and I'm doing it across the board—whether that's getting up at a certain time, speaking to people a certain way, attending a certain thing. Yeah.
[15:09] ROSELIS
See the danger of leaving the bed unattended, if you will, upon your return, right? So you come home, you take off your street clothes and you put your house clothes on. You're in the bedroom already. Make the bed. Bring it back to the standard, because then you run a greater risk of creating and allowing that as your baseline.
[15:35] JAMES
No, and I totally see that happening. So I'll share with you—and you may know or not know this—but right now my life is in this flux state, right? And James is figuring out the who, what, why, all of this stuff. And where standards come in is I am easing up on my standards, right? This person's in my home. She has nothing to do with it, but she's in my home. Things are a little bit in disarray in the way the apartment looks. I'm getting out of bed at a different time than I normally do. My gym routine is a little different than normal. All of it seems to be affected. And I think, to use your word dangerous, is that that continues throughout all aspects of my life: my career, my focus on the company, my focus on my relationships, etc. All of it kind of is like, I don't have to be as on point now. I don't have to, you know. And yes, we all need to relax a little bit here and there and allow ourselves to do that, but I can see a pattern from making the bed to not following through with my life, to be a little dramatic.
[16:45] ROSELIS
Yeah, but it's connected. Exactly. So—
[16:47] JAMES
It's all connected. It really is. When I let one little thing go, it all starts to go.
[16:55] ROSELIS
That is exactly the point. Right? That is exactly the point. It's, you know, the episode launched imperfectly with that knowledge, but it was honoring a different standard, right?
[17:08] JAMES
Correct, Agreed.
[17:08] ROSELIS
However, it didn't become the baseline for the continuing things.
[17:08] JAMES
Right, right.
[17:15] ROSELIS
It didn't allow for it to not try to strive for excellence, or better, or improvement. It didn't lead to mediocrity within the standards, right?
[17:29] JAMES
Right, right, right.
[17:29] ROSELIS
And I think that is really the point that we're trying to make here. It's: what standards have you set for yourself? Those are the ones that, if you honor them, it's all about self-respect, about what you do for yourself when nobody's watching, how you conduct that part of your being that feeds your soul, that feeds your spirit, that does all of that.
[17:54] JAMES
Agreed.
[17:54] ROSELIS
It has nothing to do with the appearances of the outside.
[17:54] JAMES
Right.
[17:58] ROSELIS
However, if we look at the episode idea, it is about appearances as well. But at that moment, that could slide because it was honoring a different part.
[18:11] JAMES
Yeah, yeah. There had to be a priority there, and I think the bigger priority is giving birth to Seam Notes.
[18:15] ROSELIS
Now, when I first brought this topic up to you, you said that there was a Buddhist angle that kind of rang.
[18:21] JAMES
So this is a Buddhist teaching, right?
[18:23] ROSELIS
Right. And what is that?
[18:24] JAMES
So in the Buddhist practice that I do, one of the head teachers—amazing human being, he's a Buddhist master—he has this term, "rough is enough." And when I first heard Kadam Morton saying this, I'm like, huh? Rough is enough. But what he meant was he wanted beginners, people that were just starting on a spiritual practice, to not get discouraged and to just jump in and kind of roughly understand the process. But with wisdom, know that rough is enough cannot be forever. That we're gonna get in the ground, we're gonna absorb in the Buddhist teachings, and then we're really gonna start understanding with wisdom. We must focus and get deeper and deeper and deeper. Um, yeah.
[19:15] ROSELIS
Yeah, which equates to how we started by saying that imperfection can be the price of beginning.
[19:20] JAMES
Correct, exactly. He didn't want to discourage new students or new practitioners by saying, "Oh, you need to learn Buddha's 84,000 teachings, and you need to understand the emptiness of life." It was just: have a rough experience in your own way, and that is enough to start lighting the fire to get you going down the path. But eventually, with wisdom, like we're talking here, knowing that rough is enough cannot be the forever solution.
[19:45] ROSELIS
Correct. Correct.
[19:49] JAMES
Right? Right
[19:50] ROSELIS
Look how cool that is, that, you know, we came up with the thought or the idea and that it aligned so well with those, um—
[20:01] JAMES
Spiritual aspects.
[20:01] ROSELIS
—of your teachings.
[20:01] JAMES
Yeah, yeah. Agreed. Agreed
[20:03] ROSELIS
Yeah. I just think, you know, I remember when we first started and you were like, 'Standards? Why are we using that word?'
[20:09] JAMES
The word standard still—I still react to it internally. But I get it, because I'm going through it right now, that I am letting my standards slip across the board, guys. I really am. And I'm aware of it. And I've always been so not that person that I'm allowing myself to be, okay, let's sleep a little later. So if I don't get up at five, I'm gonna get up at 5:45, right? If I don't do an hour and a half in the gym, I'm gonna do 45 minutes or an hour in the gym, etc. And it really is, you know, my focus on work, right, is not as focused as I normally am. But I'm still getting things done, right? When I'm in the zone and I'm a hundred percent on point, and I mean really keeping the standard, not only am I holding myself accountable, I'm accomplishing across the board—from work to my personal life to my spiritual practice, all of it. I am really, really feeling accomplished and good. Right?
[21:12] ROSELIS
Yeah.
[21:12] JAMES
Yeah.
[21:14] ROSELIS
And, you know, sometimes I think maybe we can come up with a different word, and I don't mean it because of your view on the word standard, but I really believe that that is where the luxury lies in life. Period. Standards for self, standards for our surroundings, standards for what we accept, standards for how we move in this space, how we behave with other human beings—
[21:37] JAMES
Totally, yeah, yeah.
[21:39] ROSELIS
—how we are in every area of our life, and that we honor that within the four walls of our home, right?
[21:46] JAMES
Correct.
[21:48] ROSELIS
Because that's where it begins.
[21:51] JAMES
Well, it has to begin in the conscious mind—
[21:51] ROSELIS
Exactly. Well, of course.
[21:51] JAMES
—before we even bring it out.
[21:55] ROSELIS
That's what I'm saying. If we are doing it in this space that we live in, you know, the standard isn't that you never fall short; it's that you know what you return to.
[22:13] JAMES
Yeah, agreed. I'm very much aware of where I need to and where I return to.
[22:18] ROSELIS
And I really believe that that is a huge key in life. Right? I mean, if you failed the standard with a friend, where you weren't there for them when they needed you, or you made a comment that was not intended to hurt their feelings but that it was, and that you can apologize—
[22:42] JAMES
Correct, returning to it, right?
[22:45] ROSELIS
Go back to it—
[22:45] JAMES
Look, listen, we are humans—
[22:45] ROSELIS
—and be like, wow, I did this thing—
[22:49] JAMES
Yeah, yeah, totally
[22:49] ROSELIS
—that is not my standard, that's not my thing. So really, we're talking standards in all aspects of life.
[22:59] JAMES
And not in a judging way, right? Or compartmentalize where you need to be this great person, you know? That's not at all. I mean, when I hear the word standard, I kinda think, you need to be here. And that's not what we're saying.
[23:13] ROSELIS
Right. And that's why, at the beginning of this conversation, when we talked about standards, you were like, well, what about, you know, what about lowering them? And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what we're saying. It's really more about self-respect and self-honor.
[23:25] JAMES
Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[23:29] ROSELIS
That's really what this is all about.
[23:30] JAMES
Yeah. Honor meaning keeping your word to self. First, I can't keep my word to you if I can't keep it with myself. Right?
[23:39] ROSELIS
How beautiful. How beautiful. Okay. So this week, notice where good enough is helping you move and where it's teaching you to care less.
[23:51] JAMES
Mm.
[23:56] ROSELIS
Until next week. Thanks for being with us.
