Fake it til you make it, or?

Does faking it til you make it work anymore?

Unfortunately for all of us, yes, faking it does work. But here's why I'm advocating for Learn it til you Know it.

I used to be a proponent of this notion of faking it, but mostly because I was suffering from imposter syndrome and didn't realize that I wasn't actually faking shit. Like when I started my side hustle (my business, The Social Media Manager), I had conversations with myself that I wasn't worthy and so I should just "fake it" until I felt confident enough to market myself.

I saw so many people doing exactly what I do and I thought there would be no way to differentiate myself from them. Then I started to doing my research. These people had no clue what they were talking about. In fact, they were literally conning people. Faking it, especially if you're doing it at someone else's expense (ie encouraging them to buy a course from you when you don't have expert knowledge in the field), is not a good idea. I felt like there were so many other people that were better at this than me, so why would I sell a course? Then I started seeing people who had so much less experience, and some with NONE at all, that were confidently going into this field and selling bullshit courses from content they stole from experts.

You can't fake being good at dance, or at modeling, or at software engineering. You shouldn't be able to be fake good at anything. I think this is where the term "coaching" can be used too loosely. Anyone and their mom can be a life coach, business coach, digital coach, or whatever coach. But not just anyone and their mom can be a track and field coach. So, let's have the same standards you would for hiring someone to help you run a marathon that you would to help you run your business.

If I could offer advice, it's to make sure that you know the person you're purchasing from knows their stuff. Just because someone has a curated Instagram account with a bunch of (annoying) carousel posts that tell you "how to" do something, doesn't mean they know what they're doing every time. I see these posts all the time by the way and they are all stolen from each other - it's truly disheartening.

So let's turn this conversation around. Faking it is actually hurting people/entrepreneurs/businesses, especially in a time when business owners are trying their best to cut costs where necessary and grow their brand. So, let's not encourage fake anything. Let's encourage those who put in the time, effort, money, and energy into learning a specific craft - and once it's learned, it's KNOWN. Not "made". Not to be famous. Not to be adored. Let's simply praise expertise and weed out the fake.