How to Be Yourself Men Style Advice Do You Fake It to Make It
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Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno.
I'm the founder of Real Men Real Style.
All right.
Today, I'm going to be answering a reader's question.
He wrote me and said, "Antonio, should I fake it until I make it or should I just be myself?"
Well, before I get into that, gentlemen, I'm going to ask you to subscribe to this YouTube
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Do you think you should fake it until you make it or be yourself?
Here's the question that came in.
"Antonio, I've got a question that's been on my mind for a while.
You know how when we talk to a girl, a stranger, or meet up with a client, we're told to be
yourself?
Do you really think that rule should apply for everyone?
Because I feel like most people don’t get too far in life because they follow this rule.
In their minds, they see themselves as a normal person, but in reality, it's the opposite
and they come across as rude, hostile, or just plain weird."
"When I was in high school, I really didn’t have too many friends.
I thought it was people just didn’t like me because I wasn't cool.
When I got to college, I started to rethink my whole attitude and style.
I watched the cool and I started to act cool, but I really wasn't.
Now, my question is, Antonio, do you fake it until you make it and act like somebody
else, or do you just be yourself?
And really, what does all this means?"
That's a good question and I'm going to try to address it by first off saying you do neither.
I don’t like either of those things because the whole "Fake it until you make it" is making
you sound like a fraud and the whole being yourself in my opinion, what they're really
saying is just be lazy.
Let me go ahead and explain.
I'm going to start off with the first one, "Fake it until you make it."
I don’t like that one because I think anybody can make it if they put their mind to it and
if they don’t accept excuses and if they're willing to narrow the field.
What do I mean by that?
Well, when I started my first business, A Tailored Suit, I focused in on custom clothing
and I became an expert on men's custom clothing.
Within that, I didn’t go into white tie.
I didn’t go into black tie.
I focused in on suits.
I didn’t go into custom shoes.
I didn’t talk about casual style.
I stayed very narrowly focused, running a number of books on the subject.
In fact, that's one thing that anyone can do.
Go out there and read a book on the subject.
You're going to know more than 95% of the world.
Read three books on the subject and you're going to become an expert on that subject.
How long does it take you to read three books?
Very quickly.
You don’t have to fake it.
You can become a narrow subject expert.
Now, from that, you can build strength.
From that, you can expand, and that's exactly what I did with A Tailored Suit.
So I went out and I studied under some of the best and yes, I did have to spend a little
bit of money, but I flew over -- I say I studied style over in London, Hong Kong and Bangkok.
Well, what I mean by that is I went over and I got to know tailors and I very quickly just
spent time with them.
I paid them money for them to just let me observe, to ask a heck of a lot of questions.
Some of them I didn’t even have to pay money.
I just asked them a heck of a lot of questions and I went back, had some suits made.
I went back, tore them apart.
That was my education.
I really did focus in and in a very short time period because I had to, and I'm talking
a period of months.
I found that I knew more about custom clothing than anyone else.
Actually, this brings to thought my friend, Rishi, over at The Dark Knot.
It was funny.
I was talking with him on Skype and I was like, "Rishi, you know all this information
about neckties."
He's like, "Yeah."
I'm like, "Well, you need to be putting this out there," because here's a guy that got
into the business, didn’t necessarily have a background, but he studied and he went very,
very narrow, men's neckties and in particular, a few different types, high quality men's
neckties.
He's not going low-end.
He's not really focused on bowties.
He's focused on neckties, not ascots, neckties; not shoes, neckties.
And by staying narrowly focused, he was able to build and able to really focus in on that,
so you can do that with any subject and again, from there, expand.
So don’t fake it until you make it.
Again, zero down, niche down, go after that and then from there, spread out.
The next point is about being yourself.
Should you be yourself?
Whenever I hear this, I think -- most people, what I think they hear or what they act like
is this means be lazy, don’t think, because that's really what it's about.
I have no problem with someone being themselves.
I had a friend.
He's actually out at Colorado and we're going to go in the downtown Wausau here and with
his fiancé at the time.
He's like, "Hey, are you going to wear that?"
because I was wearing a nice, casual shirt with a pair of nice dress -- actually, it
was very I thought a pretty good summer outfit, but yeah, I was probably going to be one of
the best dressed guys at the square we're going to.
He was in running shoes, cargo shorts, a t-shirt and with a baseball cap.
He's like, "Well, this is what I'm going to wear."
That's totally fine, but guess what?
I bet more than half the men there will be dressed just like you because he said he was
being himself but really, he was just going with what's currently in fashion.
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He didn’t want to have to think.
Although Matt, I think, has spent a lot of time thinking about who he is, he hasn't really
thought about his style much.
So yes, sure enough, we get there and more than half of the people at the square in Wausau
are dressed just like Matt for the summer concert.
To me, it goes to show that what's happening is most of us aren't being ourselves when
we think we are.
We're actually just being lazy because to be yourself, you have to figure out who you
are and what you stand for, and that is hard.
That's what philosophers and people have thought about and talked about, and it could take
a lifetime, but it's a journey, it's not about the destination -- a great Aerosmith quote
there, by the way.
Basically, you don’t find yourself; you build yourself.
That's one thing I've discovered, is I have confidence and I know who I am because of
my past, where I come from, and what I've done in my life.
Also, think critically and don’t be afraid to take notes.
A lot of us take notes on our smartphone, but I'm a big fan of just writing it down
and transferring it over because a lot of times on the smartphone, you can get distracted
or when you're on your computer, but if you take a really solid, critically classic book
-- and there are tons of classic books out there.
I'll link over to the Art of Manliness.
There are lists of books for men to be reading, but read through those books, take notes,
really force and ask the hard questions.
Ask "why" five times.
I think this is the Toyota way or something like that, but really ask, "Why are you doing
this?"
Why, why, why?
Get down to the curl.
Get down to the seat.
Get down to the core of why you're doing these things.
So being yourself I don’t think is relevant because most people don’t even know who
they are and fake it until you make it, I don’t see why you need to because you could
narrow down and become a subject expert very quickly and very easily if you stay focused.
That's my answer.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.
I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.
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