Fake It Till You Make It

What do you do when you don’t feel good enough, smart enough, or competent enough? Well, some people—including some experts—might suggest you act as if, AKA fake it ‘til you make it, this episode’s subject matter. They claim that by behaving as if you’re already happy/successful/doing what you hope to be, you can manifest it into reality. Other experts, however, think this is, at best, a band-aid for feeling like a fraud, and, at worst, a reckless, irresponsible tactic, especially in the world of business.
Check out Joanne’s new podcast: “In This Story…with Joanne Greene”. In each episode, Joanne shares a flash nonfiction essay, showcasing tales and observations from her animated life. Find it from wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is available for pre-order from your favorite online book seller. Release date is June 20, 2023. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [e-mail] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
Follow us on social media @allthefwordspod
Write to us! [e-mail]
Links https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-well/202301/when-is-it-ok-to-fake-it-till-you-make-it https://www.shondaland.com/live/money/a39125630/fake-it-till-you-make-it-good-advice-or-a-setup-for-failure/ https://time.com/5777479/fake-it-till-make-it-advice/ https://wondery.com/shows/dr-death/

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome to All the Efforts, apodcast where two writer friends nearly thirty years
apart, explore everything we give anF about. I'm Gabby Muscowet and I'm
Joey Anne Green. On each episodeof All the F Words, we focus
on a theme starting with the letterF, things like Fantasia, follicles,
and faust. Will share stories fromour lives and our distinct generational perspectives,

(00:27):
and look to experts for insights andideas. Today, we're talking about the
expression fake it till you make it, an aphorism commonly understood to mean that
by imitating conviction, competence, andoptimism, a person can realize those qualities
in their real life. It's apsychological tool that was a whole lot more
controversial than I expected it to be. When I first suggested we record this

(00:50):
episode, I figured we just sharesome stories about times and we didn't feel
like we had all the tools toaccomplish something, and so then had to
budge our expertise a little or somethinglike that and then call it a day.
Turns out it's a little more complicatedthan that, isn't it always?
So? As you said, fakeactually make it is an expression suggests that

(01:15):
by imitating conviction, competence, andoptimism, or or really imitating anything,
a person can realize those qualities intheir real life and then achieve the results
that they seek. Or perhaps noone will notice right exactly exactly it's it's

(01:36):
not lying, exactly, it's embodying. I think that's that's the way that
it's sort of positioned. And it'sa really old concept. It's something that
people have been talking about for avery long time and some recent I'm gonna
give you a few I want togive you a few examples, and then
I want to talk about the waythat it has shown up in your life,

(02:00):
and I'll talk about how it shownup in mine. So I found
this quote from a writer from WilliamJames, who's a philosopher and psychologist who
in nineteen twenty two wrote in theGospel of Relaxation. Oh I need to
read that. I can just tellby the titles. Yes, So well,

(02:22):
listen to quote and tell me whatyou think. I don't know if
this is exactly your speed, butso it says action seems to follow feeling,
but really action and feeling go together, and by regulating the action which
is under the more direct control ofthe will, we can indirectly regulate the

(02:43):
feeling which is not Thus the sovereignvoluntary path to cheerfulness if our spontaneous cheerfulness
be lost, is to sit upcheerfully, look round cheerfully, and act
and speak as if cheerfulness we're allthere. So, in other words,
just turn it off. If suchconduct does not make you soon feel cheerful,

(03:08):
nothing else on the occasion can soto feel brave, act as if
we were brave, use all ourwill to that end, and a courage
fit will very likely replace the fitof fear. So this is a very
very interesting concept. Many religions arebased on faith. Judaism, as you

(03:30):
know, Gabby absolutely is built aroundthe belief in God. But you don't
have to believe in God to beJewish, and you have to do certain
things. It's all about what youdo. So the doing the action ultimately

(03:52):
should in many cases, or maybeeven in most cases, lead to faith.
But whereas in other religions it's aboutthe faith less about what you do.
So I think this is a reallyinteresting concept. Act happy and you
might just find yourself happy. Haveyou seen the Book of Mormon? The

(04:15):
Broadway show, absolutely hysterical. Thefirst thing I thought about was the song
turn it Off, remember like alight switch, and it's all about like
just shoving those feelings down. Iunderstand that this writer is saying project happiness
and you'll have it. It's likethat trick. Have you ever heard of

(04:35):
that trick where you put a penor a pencil in your mouth and it
forces you to smile, and supposedlybefore long you actually feel like smiling.
No, but I thought you weregoing to say the one about how you
put the pencil underneath your breast toactually need to wear a brab But I
digress. No, like this,this makes a lot of sense to me

(04:56):
because I've been talking about this alot, Lady a lot lately in connect
action with my book By Accident.This idea that we are always programming our
brains, we are always giving ourselvesmessages. So often it's you're not good
enough, you have no idea whatyou're doing in this situation, which then
leads to faking it till you makeit often. But you could also say

(05:20):
to my say to yourself, you'vegot this. We've got this. I
can do this, and it makesa big difference absolutely, And I think
neuroplasticity is such an important point here. The idea that your brain neuroplasticity is
a lifelong thing, your entire life. Your brain can shift. The idea

(05:43):
that you can't teach an old dognew tricks is just totally false. It
is very possible to shift and changeone's brain. And this brings me to
one of my of the one ofthe I think most interesting example of fake
it till you make it in Certainlyin our it's a little it's a little

(06:06):
old, but in our present timeit's definitely something that people are still talking
about. Are you familiar with Haveyou read or heard of the book The
Secret? Yes, I've heard ofit, but I have not read it.
Okay, it's super interesting. Ihave not read it. People love
it. It is written by thiswoman named Ronda Byrne. She is Australian,

(06:31):
and it is it takes this ideathat you can sort of project happiness
and feel happy and kind of expandson it into basically it's about the law
of attraction, which says if youact as if you already have something,
or simply act as if you canmanifest anything you want, so she introduces

(06:59):
a notion originally popularized by this womannamed Madame Lavatsky. She was a Russian
mystic and a Protestant minister named NormanVincent Peel. Any idea is, to
him, thinking things will make themappear in your life. So she provides
examples of historical people who have allegedlyachieved this, and she has a three

(07:21):
step process, which is ask,believe, receive. And so here's a
quote from from The Secret. Howdo you get yourself to a point of
believing? Start make believing, bea child, and make believe. Act
as if you already have it.As you make believe, you will begin

(07:41):
to believe you have received. Sowhen I read that, and when I
think about it, it's very easy, my ego, my judgmental self,
very easy for me to go,what a bunch of hooey? That is
so silly and so narrow minded.But I think that if maybe I'm a

(08:05):
little bit less literal about what she'ssaying, I think it's a really nice
concept and it's definitely something that I, as a creative professional, have employed.
The idea of sort of embodying Ohwhen when I will get into some
some ways that not feeling as ifI have things under control have come up

(08:31):
for me later on an episode.But sometimes when you just feel totally out
of your depth, or when youjust want something so badly and you see
no path to it, sometimes alittle bit of making believe can be really
effective in my experience. What doyou think, Well, here's the thing.
Well, I think yes, andis what I would say. And
I definitely had my skeptical face onwhen you were reading that quote. I

(08:56):
think that when we are not unfidant, we project a lack of confidence.
So if we're unsure about the jobthat we're doing, other people are going
to pick that up. They're gonnasniff it a mile away, and they're
going to question whether you have thechops or not. So to a certain

(09:16):
degree, I think projecting an airof I've got this actually does get you
there a little bit more quickly becauseit engenders confidence in those around you.
So I think there's just some datathat would prove that I'm imagining. Do
you know anything about manifesting the workof manifesting a little? Okay, Well,

(09:45):
I learned a lot about it.It's actually something that I've been hearing
about a fair amount just I've seenit on social media and there is this
author. Her name's Gabrielle Bernstein.She is a writer and speaker on modern
spirituality. She wrote a book calledsuper Attractor. She's written I think nine

(10:07):
books, super Attractor and another onecalled The Universe Has Your Back, and
she has a piece on her websitesays what is manifesting. It is cultivating
the experience of what it is youwant to feel, and then living and
believing in that experience so that youcan allow it to come into form,
which to me is a little bitmore approachable than you know, believing yourself

(10:33):
into a literal thing, thinking abouthow you want to feel and learning to
project that feeling. I think thatthat feels more approachable to me. Absolutely,
this idea that you can want somethingand then if you just think about
it and believe it, then it'sgoing to happen. I mean, obviously

(10:54):
we know in life that's not alwaystrue. When someone is ill and we
want them to get better, wecan pray our hearts out about it,
and it doesn't mean it's going tohappen, right, So I think we
have to look at this with somekind of a grain of salt. I
think there's also danger in faking ittill you make it, depending on what

(11:16):
you're doing. Obviously, if you'redoing brain surgery, you don't want to
fake it till you take it.Yes, you know, there's a lot
of things that are actually dangerous,and you want the person to be as
absolutely skilled as he or she canbe. An area where what you're saying
exactly is a problem often is inthe professional world in business now, certainly

(11:41):
there have been stories of people fake, like truly literally faking medical knowledge.
There's a story of a great podcaston Wondering. I can't remember what it's
called, but we'll look it upand I'll put it in the show notes
of a terrible doctor. This guywho I don't think he even graduated from

(12:01):
medical school, and he scammed hisway as a spine doctor and killed a
bunch of people. But that's notthe most common thing. But what we
have been seeing a fair amount oflately is actually something that you and I
talked about on a previous episode wedid on fraud, which is scammers people

(12:22):
like an Adelvie Elizabeth Holmes, whobaked it so well, embodied success so
well, embodied confidence so well thatin the case of Elizabeth Holmes, many
lives were lost and a lot ofmoney was lost, and a lot of

(12:46):
people were hurt. So it's it'sa tricky area when it comes to I
think it's a it's a concept thatcan easily be taken out of context,
so when you literally it can becomereally problematic, and in a more practical

(13:07):
you know, let's let's assume thatmost of us are not looking to scam
billionaires out or to defraud anybody.When you bite off more than you can
chew in a professional or really anysituation and become therefore afraid, I think

(13:28):
when it gets in the way peoplebeing afraid to ask for help, that's
when it can become a problem,no doubt, no doubt, because you
know, you have to know whenyour actions can adversely impact outcomes, that's
for certain. And I think thatto some degree this is okay to do

(13:54):
if you are at the same timelearning as absolutely much as you can so
that in a short period of timeyou will no longer have the need to
fake. Well, there's there's aninteresting um. One thing that kept occurring
to me is that the people whoneed to fake things to make them,
especially in a professional context, Iwould imagine that it varies from um between

(14:20):
men and women. So men,who you know, we all live in
a patriarchy. Men grow up ina patriarchy and often have many of them
will have sort of a built inexpectation about how life is going to go,

(14:41):
and then in a professional environment mayhave more natural This is I'm obviously
generalizing, no, you know,not talking about anybody specific, but in
a in a professional environment, mayhave more natural confidence because of the way
the world has treated them. Ifyou're a woman, especially if you're a

(15:03):
woman in a predominantly male dominated industry, I could imagine faking it till you
make it becoming kind of in termsof confidence, like an active survival.
I'm sure that for many women andnon binary people and LGBTQ people and people

(15:28):
of color in different situations, thereis that sense of being an impostor and
fake it till you make it isvery much connected to the idea of impostor
syndrome. I've certainly felt it.I don't know anyone who hasn't in one
situation or another. Because we stretchjust a little bit, our resumes are

(15:52):
definitely depictions of what we've done andwhat we've accomplished. But there's a little
bit of stretching here, dare thatgoes through. So on the subject of
impostor feeling like an impostor, Ihave I took a look at a PDF
that you sent me. I believeher name is Ruth, but she uses

(16:15):
Rachel professionally. Yea make sen Yes, Rachel Davis is the SCOTTI who is
also a psychologist, and so sheshe did some work on what she calls
impostor phenomenon because technically it's not asyndrome, and she's Her reason for that

(16:37):
is that she doesn't want to giveit any more oxygen than it deserves.
It's neither a syndrome nor a diagnosis, and both of those imply something pathological
and fixed. So here's basically whatit is feeling like a fraud. Being
worried that you'll be exposed for beinga fraud A number three, which I
think is really important. Being worriedthat that exposure will cost you and diminish

(17:02):
your social standing in your chosen group, or even that you'll be thrown out
of your group altogether. The worstactually, so you had said before that
you've experienced impostor phenomenon. I haveto I'd love to hear if you could
share an example of what that waslike. Oh yeah, In two thousand

(17:26):
and eight or nine, I tooka job as a director of the Center
for Jewish Life at the Marine JCCand the ones. There were a few
things that I was not overly familiarwith. One was working on a PC
because I'd always worked on Max,and the other was I said I was

(17:48):
familiar with doing budgets, but Ihadn't actually done a budget on Excel,
and one of the first things thatI was asked to do was create a
budget and I was just I neededhelp, There's no question. And initially,
even when I remember when I startedworking there, I didn't know anything

(18:10):
about their systems. There's always amajor learning curve when you start a new
job. But for instance, youknow, there was a way to print
documents from everybody's office to a centralplace. I didn't know how to do
that. My stuff wasn't set upproperly. People didn't have time to help
train me or even answer my questions. So I just kept feeling more and

(18:33):
more. And this is something ourolder listeners will relate to, Like I
just couldn't keep up. I wasin my fifties when I took that job
at late fifties, and I waslike, oh my god, maybe I'm
too old to start a new joband learn all the things I have to
learn to be successful here. Now. As it turned out, that was
not true. I learned it.I did fine, we move on.

(18:56):
But that feeling of oh, no, everybody knows something and I don't know
it, and how am I evergoing to learn it and feel fully competent?
That really haunted me at the beginningof that job. I really get
that, You're so right. Whatabout I just wanted to say, the
beginning of every job that I've everhad, just the you know nothing,

(19:21):
being where, not knowing where anythingis literally and figuratively. It's so disorienting
that it can make you feel impostera phenomenon. Even if you absolutely do
know what you're doing right, there'sthis incompetence factor. And also you have
to learn the culture of any newplace, and that takes a while.
I mean, in some places it'sokay to chat by the water cooler,

(19:45):
and in other places it is notokay. So yeah, I mean,
definitely a lot of empathy for anybodywho's starting a new job and has that
feeling, and just know that,like so many other things in life,
this too shall pass and you willfeel very differently a month or two down
the road. Well, for me, that the story that sticks out the

(20:08):
most was when I was a coupleof years into running my food blog,
Broke Ascourmet, and it had hada lot of success all at once.
My first book had just come out. I think I had already started talking
with an agent about the possibility ofturning it into a sitcom, and I

(20:34):
got invited the company that ran adson my website invited me to come to
New York to sit on a panelwith some other food media companies people represent
All I heard was representatives, arepresentative from other food media companies to talk
about different ways to make it inthe in the food blog world. So

(20:59):
that's all I knew. And thenI found out at the last minute that
the whole thing was going to behosted by Andy Cohen from Bravo U.
So Joanna is shagging um. AndyCohen is a very famous He's a producer,
but he's also a host on There'sa show called Watch What Happens Live

(21:21):
I'm not really a real Housewives fan, but I think he's really funny.
He's a memoirist and he's written somevery a couple of very funny memoirs.
Um so that so I found thatout and I was like mostly just excited
about that and thought it was sortof tickled that I got to to be

(21:41):
on a panel that he was goingto be not on, but I sort
of moderating, and so also onthe panel, I got to the hotel
where everything was going to be.And also on the panel was uh The

(22:03):
the founder of food fifty two,which is an incredibly famous food blog,
and then um The one of thepublishers of Lucky Peach Magazine, which is
a great magazine. He's now kindof been me too. So you know,
maybe I shouldn't have had such badimposter syndrome, but it was I.

(22:25):
I really didn't. I really wasso new to the game. I
was such a My blog was sucha scrappy self made and I don't mean
that in the glamorous way. Itwas these were big deal people with big
deal like or at least in yearperception, in my perception, and we

(22:48):
were supposed to talk to a wholebunch of advertising executives about the different ways
that we have found success in thefood blog where old and I was at
least fifteen years younger than both ofthem, and I just felt so out
of my depth and plus and thenthere's there's this uh, you know,

(23:11):
famous guy interviewing us, and itwas so um, I was so overwhelmed.
And what I did was, Iguess I probably faked it till I
made it. I just sort ofdissociated and focused on being as charming as
I possibly could, because you know, um, that was really all I

(23:33):
that was. That was that wasthe only thing that was going to make
me feel confident. So that's howit worked out. After this break,
we will talk a little more aboutfaking it till you make it. When
I think about being uncomfortable in themoment and feeling like I need to fake
until some fake something until I makeit, it's definitely something that happens less

(23:57):
often now that I'm older. Ithink in my twenties in particular, it
was like in my teens, Iwas a little more comfortable sort of doing
and saying whatever, and then Igot a lot more self conscious in my
twenties, and maybe early thirties,and then eventually, as I've gotten older,

(24:17):
feel a little more comfortable just admittingwhat I don't know, admitting when
I'm uncomfortable. But it still comesup from time to time. You know,
where do you stand on that?What's that like for you? It's
so interesting. I think back towhat I was doing when I was in
my twenties, and I was anchoringthe news and deciding what was the news,

(24:40):
And I think it took an awfullot of arrogance almost to think I
knew enough to make those kinds ofjudgments. But I think I had that
sort of false confidence that comes withyouth and just kind of barreled through.
So is this a little different thanwhat you were just saying. But I

(25:02):
think as I've gotten older, I'vebeen much more aware of how little I
know relative to the amount of knowledgethat is out there in the world.
So I've become more humble and butlike you say, more willing to share
and expose. When I think Idon't have all the answers, I'm willing
to say, yeah, I don'tknow. I'll get back to you on

(25:26):
that, you know, rather thanmaking up an answer. One thing I
always find comforting is to remember thatto a certain extent, everything is made
up. You know everyone, Mostpeople in many ways are sort of making
things up as they go Well,that's certainly true for a lot of people.

(25:49):
Yeah, doesn't work in science.Doesn't work in cook well, in
cooking, I guess it doesn't.Yes, certainly, it's more in savory
cooking. There's a little less freedomto make things up as you go along
in baking. That is that isbaking is science. So you know,
that's why I don't. But thereare there are ways to um. There

(26:11):
are ways. It's like, Imean, maybe baking is kind of a
perfect um metaphor for or maybe it'smore of an analogy for for how to
embody faking it till you make itin a healthy way. It's like you've
got to have a certain amount ofum of structure in order like for like,

(26:36):
for example, in order to havea cake that rises, if you
want a cake to be a cake, you've got to follow a certain number
of things ratios of you know,fat to flour, to leaveners, et
cetera. But there are are areaswhere you can you can kind of um
freestyle. You can you can youcan make us cinnamon chocolate cake and see

(27:03):
if I don't know freshman would begood at it. I don't think it
would be good, but you know, give it a try. Don't necessarily
follow this advice just in the end, yes, exactly, but in terms
in terms of but yes, perhapsdon't follow that advice literally. But I
think that what I want to striveto do is is have most of the

(27:27):
have the the primary blocks of knowledgefor whatever it is I'm doing as down
as I possibly can, and thenleave room for the things that I don't
necessarily know, and and let thatbe okay, and therefore have enough confidence

(27:47):
that I don't seem terrified of doingthe wrong thing, because I know for
sure about me that feeling like I'mabout to mess something up is will often
lead to me messing something up,even if I'm not actually as out of
my depth as I feel like Iam. So overall, and after doing
all this research, do you thinkfaking it till you make it is a

(28:11):
good thing, a bad thing,an inevitable thing. I think it's a
good skill. I think it's agood skill to be able to embody confidence
even when you don't have it.But I think that It's also important to
feel in that confidence, to beable to admit when you're wrong, when

(28:32):
you don't know what you're doing,when you don't when you when you need
help, whether it's emotional help oror literal help with something that you're trying
to do. I think having humilitybut also the ability to access your inner
confidence is a good idea. Ithink beyond that it gets a little iffy,

(28:53):
but always be willing to ask forhelpness. You don't have to act
like you know everything. Don't youhate people who or I shouldn't say,
hey, people hate it when peopleact like they know everything. Yeah,
yeah, I do. It's itit um because because first of all,

(29:17):
not only a lot of the timeswhen that happens, not only does the
person not not actually know, andyou feel that the interaction that you're having,
it's it's not only do they notknow that they not able to provide
the information that they think they are, but it can sometimes feel like the
interaction is about them and not aboutwhat you're discussing or about you know,

(29:40):
what you need. So yeah,yeah, absolutely, thank you all for
listening today, and we hope thatif you do fake it, that you
absolutely make it Amen, right.Amen. You can follow us on social

(30:02):
media. We are on Instagram,Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube at All
the Efforts pod, and you canalso email us at All the Efforts pod
at gmail dot com. Have agood week. Bye bye,