Can we talk about how badly Jamie Tartt butchered that Voltaire quote in Ted Lasso this week and how it might be the smartest moment of the whole episode?
He was going for "perfection is the enemy of the good." He did not say it right. He never does. But he got the idea across, and honestly, that idea ran through the entire episode.
Here's what I mean. Alice could have stayed home and licked her wounds until her suspension was over. Instead she went to the boat party, got vulnerable with Gemma even though there's clearly history there, and let her guard down a little. Then a teammate came up to tell her the team actually likes her, and Alice immediately backslid into "I don't need your help."
That is not failure. That is what progress actually looks like.
I talk about this in my own life with my weight loss journey. We think progress means five pounds down, five pounds down, five pounds down, in a straight line to the goal. It never is. It is five pounds down, two pounds up, six pounds down, three pounds up, flat for two weeks. It is messy and nonlinear and you take real steps backward. If you are waiting for the clean version, you will think you are failing when you are not.
Rebecca shows the other side of it. She pushed Matthijs away, realized almost immediately she screwed up, and instead of doubling down on being right, she started texting him and made it right. Ted does the same thing with the suspension call. He is not sure he made the right decision and he says so out loud. He does not defend the decision just because he made it. He stays open to being wrong.
That is the whole thing, isn't it? Perfect would mean never making the call wrong in the first place. Good means making the call, staying honest about the doubt, and adjusting.
And then there is Michelle drawing the BELIEVE sign in inverse colors. The scenery changed. The team is different, the players are different, the old tricks do not automatically work anymore. But the core belief underneath it did not change. You just have to be willing to look at it differently and adapt how you lead, the same way a good teacher adjusts for every student instead of expecting every student to adjust to one method.
Coaches need coaching too. Leaders need support too. None of us grow in isolation, and none of us get to skip the messy middle where we go backward before we go forward again.
So here's my question for you: where in your own work or life have you mistaken the nonlinear, two-steps-forward-one-step-back version of progress for actual failure?