Hippie CEO Life #42 - The Art of Faking Success
January 27, 2023
“Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can't be faked.” ~Peter Guber
We all the know the dangers that come when we compare ourselves against others but yet how often do we fall into the trap of comparing ourselves against our competitors, our teammates, people we see on social media?
While comparing, in and of itself, can be destructive, what can make comparing things much, much worse comes when comparing your view of the truth against someone else’s view of the truth.
This is especially true in the business world where real is rare. Very early on, we are literally taught to create our own view of the truth in order to embellish our resumes, turning our accomplishments and roles we’ve played into ideals rather than an honest history, before we ever get our first job.
And from there, our grip on the truth further loosens as we use “marketing tricks and hacks” to make things appear a bit better than they really are.
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Faking a Best Seller
As an author, it’s hard not to let those Amazon rankings get you down. You work incredibly hard, you have a loyal audience who loves your book, you fight to get media outlets to review your book, yet you are buried hundreds of thousands of rankings deep and then one day, you see a competitor publish a book and it becomes an overnight success, hitting #1 in the rankings.
But….how authentic is it?
Sure they hit #1 right after the book launched but in order to do so, they themselves bought hundreds, perhaps thousands, of copies of their own book off Amazon and gave it out to their employees.
Truth is a point of view.
Faking Social Media Popularity
You have worked for over a decade to build your social media brand, based on being unabashedly authentic. The growth was slow and difficult. You felt that no matter how hard you worked to create meaningful content, you just couldn’t find the level of engagement that you had envisioned. Then you see some hotshot social media star, show up from out of nowhere, going from 100 followers to 80,000 followers literally overnight, every one of their vapid posts getting double digit likes and comments. You feel defeated.
But….how authentic is it?
You dig a little deeper and start to find something very peculiar about the accounts that are liking and commenting on the social media star’s content, before long you realize that the popularity was bought. Their need for popularity has them opening up their wallet to buy followers bots followers that generate non-human comments.
Truth is a point of view.
Faking Best Places to Work
Being authentic is core to everything you do, including the business you are building as an owner, as an executive, as a leader. You are incredibly proud of what you have built, you feel great about the validation you get from your employees, but no one else seems to be noticing. You aren’t being talked about in trendy online circles, local media isn’t writing glowing reviews of your business, and your lobby shelves are not overflowing with “BEST PLACE TO WORK” awards.
But….how authentic is it?
You learn that those best place to work awards are actually things that are purchased, rather than awarded. You start to hear from employees of these best places to work just how truly toxic and awful it is to be employed there. You hear the stories about how managers are being pressured to stick to this manufactured version of the truth in order to attract new employees.
Truth is a point of view.
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So next time you are moved to compare your current state, your level of success, especially in the business world, with someone else, remember that the truth is simply a point of view.
It’s far better for you to be authentically you rather than to get caught up in this game of manufacturing “the truth” because while you may “lose” in the shot term, time does an incredible job of separating authentic and inauthentic and authenticity will win in the longterm.
✌🏼💛
