“Fake It Till You Make It”
I understand the intent: act confident, and the competence will follow. But in practice, faking is a fragile strategy. People can tell, eventually, and the moment they catch you performing an expertise you do not actually have, you lose the one thing worth more than any skill: their trust.
I would rather learn it till I make it. Admit what you do not know, then go earn the knowledge. It is slower, and far more durable.
“Always Be Closing”
This may be the most damaging thing ever taught to salespeople. The relentless push to close every conversation treats people as targets, and they can feel it.
The best closers I have ever known barely close at all in the traditional sense. They listen, they solve the real problem, and the sale happens almost as a byproduct of their having been genuinely useful.
Serve first. The close tends to take care of itself.
“Never Let Them See You Sweat”
The notion that a leader should project unbroken confidence, never admit doubt, never show strain, strikes me as backwards.
A carefully maintained facade keeps people at a distance, and distance is the enemy of trust. On the occasions when I have been honest about what I had not yet figured out, people did not respect me less; they leaned in.
Controlled honesty about the hard parts is not weakness. It is often what makes people willing to follow you into them.
“Follow Your Passion”
It sounds beautiful, and it strands a lot of people.
Passion is usually not the thing you begin with; it is the thing you develop as you get good at something and watch it start to matter. Some of the deepest passion I have felt grew out of work I did not love at first, work that won me over as I improved and saw the difference it made.
Chase mastery and contribution, and passion has a way of showing up to meet you.
Question the Advice You Hear
The point is not that this advice is stupid. Most of it started as a reasonable idea before it got flattened into a slogan.
The point is that advice repeated often enough stops being examined, and some of the most confident, most repeated wisdom deserves the most scrutiny.
Think for Yourself
So here is the only advice I will offer without hesitation: do not take any of it, mine included, on authority alone.
Run it against your own experience. Keep what proves true, and quietly ignore the rest, no matter how many times you have heard it.
The willingness to think for yourself is worth more than any rule someone hands you.