Fake it until you Make it!

In honour of the lovely weather, I was home early this evening and got to spend an hour in the garden basking in the early evening sun. I started to carry out my normal evening routine, became sidetracked and found myself sitting infront of the TV watching ‘Ashley Banjo’s Secret Dancecrew’. I have watched this a few times and seen an array of ‘groups’ of people spending three weeks being put through some tough paces all to reveal somewhere between a  mediocre and average end performance.

I was hooked from the off tonight, Ashley’s secret group were five Estate Agents all oozing confidence. The Manager was so full of himself he gave himself an initial rating of just below Ashley!

Normally during this show Ashley and his team will show the ‘secret group’ the routine he wishes them to learn, and their response is shock, horror, fear, doubt and so on. But not this confident bunch. Speared on by the Manager they all professed that ‘Yes they could do it’ the manager event went on to say ‘we’re going to smash it!

And so the show unfolds, and to give them their dues they were probably one of the most ‘together’ groups I have seen on this show. Ashley had given them a particularly complex routine – to match their confidence, but the team worked on and on. Their sense of self belief was impressive and their dogged determination was in my opinion ‘award worthy’.

In one clip Ashley expresses his concern at their over confidence, and then brings them to London to perform their routine in a busy square in Central London infront of Office workers eating their lunch.

Suffice to say, the group fell apart and after the performance the manager sits with Ashley and confides that in fact he is not as confident as he has been saying (and indeed hasn’t been since the start). He went on to say that he was using the same skills, language, enthusiasm, leadership that he uses within his business. When the team face a challenge, he steps up and encourages them to believe in themselves and they all rise to the occasion.

At the risk of sounding like a TV critic or spoiler, the final performance was ‘Great’ (probably one of the best I have seen on this show).

But what really interested me about this group of Estate Agents was there unwavering confidence, even though each of them (based on what the manager said for himself) were probably really frightened – for each other they put on a face of confidence. They sneered at Dolphin flips, jeered at half twists and poo pooed the most complex of twists! Throughout the whole three weeks they not only believed they were going to do it, they believed that they were going to do it as good as Ashley and his crew! They said this Loud, they said this Proud. These boys truly believed, failure was NOT an option.

 

The truth is they didn’t believe it but they told themselves that they believed it. They told each other that they believed it and there manager laid down an unspoken expectation that they would do it.

I call this fake it until you make it! Self belief, belief in each other, a strong leader – were all key components to their belief in success.

This reminded me of some of the clients I have coached – until they are able to gain ‘self-belief’ things seem impossible.  Until they begin to believe in themselves, their hopes, aspirations, do not/cannot happen. But when they have that belief, when they start believing, visualising, thinking, feeling, smelling …. That it is possible – then it simply IS.

If the mind can think it, the body can do it!

Why not try it? – Fake it until you Make it!