Fake it til you make it

hey have you ever heard of the phrase
fake it till you make it one of my new
friends millennio 4388 left a comment
talking about this this phrase and it is
a very common phrase in the software
engineering industry where I've worked
for the past six years I've been in big
tech for the last over two years and I
have to say it's a very very important
concept
and if done
incorrectly it could lead to very bad
results where you look incompetent um
and you a lot of
credibility so today I want to talk
about why it's important to fake it till
you make it and then I'll also discuss
how you can fake it till you make it but
before that I want to discuss what we do
here in this channel so basically we are
trying to become as articulate as
humanly possible and you can only do
that by practicing constantly being
consistent in practice and also
improving the inputs into your life into
your uh
vocabulary so that's another one of my
goals here just to be a really good
input into your life basically exposing
you to powerful Concepts so that you can
internalize them and use them in your
day-to-day uh vocabulary as well and
that way we can both become more
articulate together so I mean I can't do
all that heavy lifting here you have to
also practice uh speaking in your in
your own time as well in your daily life
to improve your articulacy but it is
proven that improving your inputs will
increase the quality your outputs so
just uh to keep my promise for for this
week uh I'm going to do seven days of
authenticity so this is day two of
authenticity and uh the word
authenticity comes from the Greek word
authenticos which means original
genuine principle which which itself
derives from
authentis which means U one acting on
one's own authority as the master or
Doer
and uh that's definitely a very powerful
concept and I think important enough to
be the third one uh in our words and
wisdom series last week's was Nuance
which is kind kind of affects today's uh
concept as well so we now we want to go
into uh the phrase that we were talking
about
earlier what was
it I'm drawing in blank yeah I don't do
any edits no music no BS here we're just
talking straight value and um basically
I don't want to insult your intelligence
by doing a bunch of jump Cuts I don't
and I don't want to waste my own time so
faking it till you make it that's what
we're talking about why should we fake
it till we make it so if you don't fake
it till you make it you're essentially
never going to improve your life you're
not going to do things that you feel
uncomfortable doing you're always going
to feel some level of imposter syndrome
um there's going to be people online or
wherever you're that you're going to be
comparing yourself to and thinking that
you're not up to that standard but when
in reality if if you actually know know
the people that you look up to nine
times out of 10 they're not going to be
as extraordinary as you think and when
people are that
extraordinary that's I mean they're the
outlier uh I I meet I talk to super
talented people every single day
and it's really not humbling I guess
whenever I speak to them it's it it
brings them down to earth a little bit
right everyone's just human just like
you and if you're at average able-bodied
sound of sound mind you can perform at
their level as well it's just a matter
of Faking faking it till you make it so
um yeah that's why you should fake it
till you make it I have a story behind
this as well um whenever I was working
at the construction company I was a
software engineer at a a construction
company in the
Midwest and I was doing a bunch of
interviews for big Tech and eventually I
got a bunch of offers from uh the big
tech companies uh well not a bunch a
bunch I got like three but the salaries
were two to three times more than what I
was making at the construction
company and in my mind with this
increase within with this increase in
salary also came an increase in
expectations of about the same amount 2
to
3x and that left me thinking am I 2 to
3x better than I
was at the construction company like how
is that going to work right that's not
that's not the case at all they people
hire at these big tech companies
basically based off of what they imagine
working with you would be like they want
to work with someone who can pick up on
things quickly if you can pick up on
things quickly
then you you would fit in basically and
picking up on things quickly is not that
difficult you just have to be really
interested in the thing or at least
yourself into thinking that you're
interested in the thing and you'll be
able to pick it up pretty quickly I
promise
you you just have to put in Earnest
effort toward picking the thing up and
that I think that leads us into the the
next step into how you can fake it till
you make it and for this I have I guess
kind of a story it's not really a story
just an example situation so imagine
someone is asking you like you're in a
you're in a design meeting right you're
presenting something for the first time
and it's a design that you're not really
sure about for a system that you're not
super familiar with and while you're
presenting someone asks you a difficult
question that you don't really
understand the worst thing you can do is
not be authentic in the situation if you
make up some answer you will get shot
that answer will get shot down full of
holes um you will look like an idiot
you'll sound you'll be you'll just look
incompetent in general um and you'll
lose
credibility because then people will
know
that like either way people are going to
know that you don't know what this thing
is so why risk your credibility here
right so the best thing you can do here
is to be authentic to yourself and just
say I don't know the answer but I can
get back to you with the answer um after
the meeting or something you just earn
like earnestly just take a note down
down and people will honestly appreciate
this like you'll they'll feel heard so
this is the Nuance here that person
asking you the asking you the question
they just want to sound smart that's the
Nuance
here they they they're trying to
contribute either they're trying to
contribute to the the U design
discussion and sound smart themselves or
I mean they want they do gen genuinely
want to help you um create a better
design either way uh you listening to
what they have to say is the most
important thing here and you just
jotting it down and actually getting
back to them with the answer later is
the best course of action so I still
think authenticity is a super important
concept and wow I'm I'm cringing because
I just used the word super and that that
doesn't feel very articulate I'm going
to have to find some way to uh remove
maybe remove that from my
vocabulary but yeah yeah so yeah no
music no edits here I'm just going to
leave that in and I don't think I really
have much else to talk about regarding
uh this the subject today so I'll see
you next time peace