How many times can you remember “faking it”?
My list is very long.
- The first few weeks of high school
- The first few weeks of college
- A few months on my first full-time job
- At least a year while courting Alice, possibly until our wedding day
- At least a year in any music endeavor I did publicly. (Favorite example: When Chuck Huey and I decided to return to our guitars to play church music in 1982, we agreed to play no songs with more than three chords until we got the hang of it.)
And there are more like the several years in each of the first three entrepreneurial pivots I made:
- Contract Marketing: The original consulting business we opened in 1988 headlined “we fix individual chain store sales”. Of course, to survive I did any consulting anyone would pay me for until 100% of our consulting was “fixing down stores”.
- Sales Building Systems: To build down store sales, we needed to create, print, and send promotional materials. Our fulfillment business took several years to capitalize and build process around. We “faked” Sales Building Systems while we continued to make most of our revenue by consulting.
- WorkPlace Media: The company I ultimately sold was a database driven media company, borne of our experience with consulting and fulfilling campaigns for chain stores. As with the other two pivots, it was years after renaming the business for database marketing to grow from 10% to 100% of our business.
My favorite memories of faking it were the many times Alice and I would look at each other puzzled while raising our kids and ask, “where’s the manual for this job?” We faked our way to becoming decent parents, as most of us do.
In every case, we muddle through until you either “make it” or become a great faker.
Making it beyond faking essentially means learning from our failures. It’s why transparency and humility are essential ingredients of leadership.
When I cut a very loud fart in religion class, I had to learn to never fall asleep in class again. The first time was funny, more of the same would have earned me a nickname I didn’t want.
When I made Alice angry and she was kind enough to tell me why, I learned never to touch her food. (When you’re from ten kids, any food on the table is considered a free-for-all.)
What are your fake-’til-you-make-it experiences? What are you still “faking”?
I hope you’re still faking a few things (like I am) because otherwise, you’re not growing.
Peace,
Tim McCarthy
