November 30, 2007
Faking It Until You Make It
When I started Success Unwrapped two years ago, and Internet Marketing Unwrapped over a year ago, I was working full time as an Account Rep for Nokia… the cell phone company.
Yes, I still get calls now and then from store managers, which reminds me of my “old life” that I have completely left behind. I didn’t give it a lot of thought when it was small stores that don’t sell a lot of phones, but yesterday I got a call from the Bell World store in the Toronto Eaton Centre — probably the biggest account Nokia has — and the manager said they had not seen a new rep in the 10 months since I was laid off.
Hmm… not what I would call good customer service. But I digress!
So anyhow, in the old days when I had the corporate gig, I would work all day, then come home and track down personal development and internet marketing experts, ask for interviews — and then ask some more, since you never get them all to say yes — lock down the dates, ask for bonuses to if it was a live call, then send out emails about the calls, or the podcasts, review some affiliate programs, send out more emails… yes, all around working a full time job AND some other extracurricular work as well.
Then in January I got laid off, after 3 years… the whole story is here.
At that moment, I realized I had become a full-time online marketer myself… but I had been afraid to quit the JOB, just like a lot of us are. We get hooked on that false sense of security that really isn’t so secure after all (I’m a perfect example of that!)
But I had learned the concept of “acting as if” — also known as “fake it till you make it” — a little trick that has served me well over time.
I can think of numerous times in my life when this has taken me to the next level:
