Fake It Till You Make It

Whenever I have some sort of mundane activity I need to do, I find a TV show that I’ve watched an excessive amount of and just have it playing in the background (sometimes its music or a podcast… but really I need it to drown out the noise around me). Well, my go to show for that is West Wing, and last week I heard a quote that struck a chord. The quote:

“Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you. Put it another way: Fake it ’til you make it”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkTQ7sbXecw

Hearing this quote, for what quite possibly be the 25th time, it truly is amazing how accurate the statement is and even more, how directly it can apply to the startup world, but not because we are faking it, but because by showing up early, leaving late, living breathing and taking in as much information as humanly possible better prepares us for when the challenges continue to come.

We jumped into the recruiting industry without a lick of experience. What we did have was a desire to learn everything we could about recruiting. We’ve learned about the tools that recruiters use every day, we’ve learned about what candidates are constantly seeing, and we learned about why companies even feel like recruiting is important. Yeah… I may have started as a blank slate with a deer in the headlights look, but I’ve changed for the better. I’ve learned about the effort it takes to become an “expert” in an industry (not saying I am one… but when you speak on a panel, people start to make assumptions), I’ve learned how difficult it is to make that very first sale to someone that you’ve never heard of, and I’ve learned more about business since starting Sizzle than I ever could have if I had continued living the corporate life.

At the end of the day, I can’t say that I’ve made it. But I’m definitely started “faking” it a whole lot less than when I started.