Trust the Process and Trust Yourself
There likely comes a time for every young person — at least those that aren’t clouded by an overwhelming ego — where they look around at their surroundings with curiosity. You’re probably familiar with the idea of impostor syndrome — the person who can’t internalize their accomplishments and fears being exposed as a fraud — but this look-around I’m talking about isn’t that. And it isn’t necessarily related to work. It might have happened when you got into undergrad or graduate school. Or maybe it happened the first road trip you took alone. It’s simply a moment where you looked around and thought, “Hey, I’m in charge. Who put me here? Can I pull this off?”
And these are fair questions. Who says we’re qualified to be in charge? Three years ago I was sitting in a college classroom. Eight years before that I was graduating high school. The distance in time between my adolescence and entering adulthood is still rather short. In this window I’ve graduated from college, moved on to the second job of my career, worked closely with a CEO while freelancing for a startup, and cleaned up my diet and exercise routine with a formula that I think will work long-term.
Author and marketer Ryan Holiday wrote a helpful article for those early in their careers about ‘grunt work’, but another of his articles truly hits the nail on the head. He writes that he doesn’t have faith in himself, he has evidence. He knows he can get things done because he’s already proven to himself that the work is possible. This self-knowledge dodges impostor syndrome, delusion, and it answers the “can I pull this off” question.
This is a useful model to aspire to. As appealing as the ‘fake it till you make it’ message sounds, can we truly trust a person who we’re fooling? Especially if that person is ourselves? Cardinal Retz wrote, “A man who doesn’t trust himself can never really trust anyone else.” And what else does the ‘fake it till you make it’ mantra encourage but a blatant lie to ourselves?
‘Faking it’ encourages a self-belief that isn’t based on fact, but delusion. We’ve certainly witnessed this in our peripheries through peers who naively believe they’re the next destined person to ‘disrupt’ [insert industry here]. And while simultaneously aiming to fake others out, they fake themselves out, too.
We’re Capable with Right Work and Right Effort
In Robert A. Caro’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker, he covers the rise and demise of Robert Moses, the master builder who shaped modern New York City through sheer will and political power. Caro includes an anecdote about a mayor that worked alongside Moses that is relevant to us.
The author writes that Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri was said to take orders from whoever happened to be talking to him at the moment. This mayor of New York City, one of earth’s greatest cities, was “A man simply unequal to meeting the duties that had been thrust upon him. The responsibilities he was charged with carrying out utterly bewildered him.” At meetings for the Board of Estimate, this mayor would crowd-source to find ideas and ask the group explicitly if anyone had thoughts. And if no one had ideas, silence would ensue. Eventually, the mind and body that was available to have ideas and make decisions was that of Robert Moses, the controversial, powerful and unstoppable builder. This isn’t just an anecdote of Moses, but of Mayor Impellitteri as well. Imagine being the mayor of one of the world’s finest cities with no ideas about how to run it?
This isn’t the first or last story we’ll hear of someone in a position of power that is incapable of the job’s responsibilities. This type of predicament can occur to those with a ‘fake it’ attitude, but it’s common without. The Peter Principle states that a candidate will get hired for a promotion based on their performance in a current role, instead of the abilities they should have in role they’ll be taking. The principle then says “managers rise to the level of their incompetence.” This is how someone is promoted to a position they aren’t qualified for. These notes aren’t just a warning about the embarrassment of taking a job we can’t do, but a reminder that we should put in the right effort to get roles we’re capable of instead of faking or lying to ourselves about our abilities. We can only do this by trusting ourselves and the process.
Trusting the process is a cliche but it’s vital. It’s tossed around in sports frequently, and the Philadelphia 76er’s have almost made it their mantra at this point. But what’s the significance? What’s the use in trusting the process? Why do so many athletes say this in interviews ad nauseam?
It’s because the process is all we have. All we have is the task that we’re currently working on. Eventually that task will be of great significance or consequence, and if it isn’t, we must remain diligent with the current task so that we are ready for the one with magnitude when it comes. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, “It is true, however, that no bull reaches maturity in an instant, nor do men become heroes overnight. We must endure a winter training, and can’t be dashing into situations for which we aren’t yet prepared.”
Prove You’re Trustworthy
The looming question isn’t necessarily whether or not the process will lead to results. Not all career-driven frameworks can be mapped out to specific endpoints, but we generally know that if we put our eggs in the proper baskets, we’ll land somewhere we aimed for, or at the least, worthwhile. This isn’t the problem. The problem is whether or not we’re trustworthy, because we aren’t necessarily always our best ally. Richard Feynman says, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Nassim Taleb warns of the Narrative Fallacy. This is the predisposition humans have to telling ourselves stories. It’s how we connect sequences or facts into explanations that aren’t necessarily there. This is what marketers, religions, and even parents do to young children when they work diligently to convince them of Santa or the Easter Bunny. Frameworks are used to guide our paths so that we can make sense of an ever-complicated existence. This is important existentially, but it’s also dangerous.
This is why we create a narrative for ourselves when we get a lucky break. “I was destined for this.” Or “This was meant to be.” Or even, more atrocious, “I found that $20 because I bought my coworkers coffee.” These stories might be more common in those that have a inclination towards finding meaningful significance in seemingly arbitrary and objective events. We all do it at one point or another in our lives, even if it’s something as small as buying a product to become a certain person, or concluding we nailed a job interview because of one comment made by the hiring manager. The philosophies or ideas we use to construct our being are larger and more obvious examples, which we couldn’t live without.
The world is more unpredictable and less catered to our determined narratives than we realize. It acts objectively — usually, because conversations on metaphysics and spirituality are for another day — so it’s in our best interest to interact with the world objectively. To be objective means to try and look at ourselves as others see us. To lay our talents on the table and see the truth. To accept what we’re capable of and how far we actually are from becoming what we would like to become. We must base our actions and expectations on all of our body of work and what we know we’re capable of, largely based on what we’ve done in the past or what we’re actively working toward doing now. This is the evidence Ryan Holiday alluded to.
This is the opposite of the ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude. Here we are measuring ourselves against who we are — as close as we can get to that understanding — so we have a better chance of getting to where we want to go, and becoming who we want to become. This is a much better way to interact with the world, too, because who wants to deal with a delusional asshole, let alone be one?
But the questions remain. Have we proven ourselves trustworthy? Are we watching ourselves and our actions to see if they align with what we say we want to do and who we say we want to be? Do they align with who we claim to be? Do they line up with the ideals we’ve decided we’re chasing? Do they line up with our ideal being? Who we are is revealed by our actions and results, not by our aspirations, wishful thinking, or even our thoughts.
The philosopher Montaigne was great at this. He kept constant watch of himself to see how he interacted with the world, especially in new surroundings. He realized the contradictions he often had in his being, but he did his best to get a grasp on himself. This is what we should do. Because as Tim Ferriss says, “The manifesto of the dealmaker is simple: reality is negotiable.” And it’s true. Reality can be toyed with. We don’t have to respond how we always do. We don’t have to do the things we always do. We can be and say and act differently. But only if we can get as close as possible to objectively understanding who we are now.
