Have you ever heard the phrase “Fake it till you make it”? It seems to be everywhere in entrepreneurial business advice. And I’ll admit I’ve been ‘faking it’ in my business building efforts for about three years now, with seriously minimal success. So I wonder, does faking it really work? And if so, what does that say about integrity and transparency in our business efforts? What about being genuine and authentic instead?

Just yesterday I was pulling together my taxes for this past year and although I spent a couple thousand dollars in marketing and business expenses, I have no taxable income to show for all my small business efforts. Not a single dime. This feels immensely frustrating to say the least, yet still, I remain optimistic. I hold onto my deep desire to help people live their lives on their own terms. This is a genuine motivation coming from my authentic inner self. And so I will continue to reinvent my vision until I feel I get it right. Willingness to reinvent yourself and what isn’t working has a lot to do with being successful, just look at Madonna.

Looking very honestly at my business efforts, I’ve tried a lot of methods. I redesigned my web site – twice – with optimized SEO and Google Analytics. I advertise and interact on social media, participate in network marketing groups, write articles for my blog, compose newsletters, attend expos, and nurture professional collaborations. I’ve even written and tested ten different versions of my elevator speech and earned two coaching certifications for more ‘credibility’. None of it yielded me clients or taxable income in the past year. Now granted, it could be a flaw in my business model, in my approach to marketing, in my attitude. Oh heck, it could be the failed economy! But to me, these all sound like excuses. Ones I’m not willing to accept because they keep me stuck in a victim mentality. I refuse to allow myself to remain stuck. My point here is that I've tried lots and lots of options and I still fail. Am I giving up? No. I'm simply directing my focus away from ‘faking it till I make it’ to being completely genuine about who I am and what I do in my business. Whether or not I'm successful by society’s standards, at least I know at the end of the day that I am being myself. I can respect myself and what I do, and know that the person I show to the world is who I am to my core.

As I figure it, I’m about half way through my life. I have no children, no spouse, and no relationship with my immediate family. I have a corporate day job that pays my bills but does not line up with my personal values. I've owned two small businesses that have failed. My web site and blog have four consistent visitors, who as far as I can tell live in Brazil and I’m pretty sure are just spam activity. A lot of people could look at the contents of my life and think 'epic fail'. But I'm not interested in what other people think and I’m not trying to start a pity party. Am I happy? Yes! Happier than I've ever been. And why in the face of all that failure would I be happy? Because I choose to be happy, in a most genuine way. And I finally get to practice what it is like to live my life on my terms. This brings me genuine joy. It's as simple as that. My only concern is about what I am thinking and how I perceive my failures. This is what matters most because my thoughts and perceptions are the only things that affect my life directly.

Who was it that defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Ah, yes, it has been attributed to many great thinkers. Who said it doesn’t matter because it is a great life lesson and it has a point. I’m taking it seriously. How many of us readily admit to our failures in our relationships, in our business, in our life adventures? And yet we continue to repeat the same patterns, reap the same results, and blame someone else for our failures. Let’s stop the patterns that don't work, and find the ones that do! As a society, we're so much more inclined to celebrate and open up about our successes, faking it till we make it, but what about celebrating our failures as well? They’re part of the journey too. Depending on how you look at them, our failures can be bigger lesson-learning tools than our successes. They can be a catalyst for tremendous change! I've learned so much about myself and how I approach my life thru my so-called life failures. As I see it, I’m earning my PhD in failure and that’s okay. I realize that these failures are huge opportunities for me to try a new approach, make an impactful change, and start again with renewed passion for the things I really want to do with my life. By taking responsibility for myself and my failures, I'm building my life through playing by my rules now. Making the choice to embrace failures, forgive yourself, reinvent your vision, and keep moving forward is an incredibly empowering process. Who knows how many more failures I’ll face in my life, but I do know that when the next one shows up, I’ll be that much closer to achieving the success I’m working towards. That’s the kind of success you can’t fake because it’s all about being genuine!