A week or so ago I had coffee with the Blog Whisperer, Jerry Kennedy.  Sweating bullets he confessed to me, “I’m scared. I went out on a limb and posted a major attack on the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” crowd, and I’m afraid I might piss some people off.”   I felt for him. His more endearing qualities, transparency and authenticity, might work against him.

In the worst way I wanted to just take the napkin from underneath my blueberry scone and wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead, and in doing so, wipe away his angst. Instead, I took another sip of my Sumatra.

“And at the same time, I don’t really care.” he looked at me expecting a response.

Gasp.  Gulp.  Guilt?  Note to self, “Read the post.” I smiled politely to hide my rising concern.

What if, in my work with hypnosis and coaching, I’m asking people to “fake-it”?

People who work with me know I am a HUGE advocate of acting “as if” what you  want is already coming your way. Do you want a booming business? Act like a successful business person. Do you want a loving relationship? Act loving, even if the boot marks are still fresh from the swift kick to the curb your received in your last relationship.

If you want something claim it through your actions.

This economy presented the perfect opportunity for many of my clients to examine how they want to spend the next stage of their life.  In other words, they’ve been fired from their job.  They leased their soul to an employer for the past 20 years and the company defaulted. They feel mislead, cheated, robbed, blindsided. This is not the mindset set to be in when you are looking for “what’s next”.

To think I might be unwittingly asking some of them to “fake it” sent me into some serious soul searching.

Many don’t feel confident going forward.  Here is what I know. You recapture confidence and claim success by doing the inner work, traversing into the muck and mire of your mind and letting go of crap. And you shortchange yourself if you stop before doing the work it takes to reveal, deep in the secret chambers of your heart, the golden seed that yields your life purpose.

For the people brave enough to do the work, stepping into their newly unveiled purpose feels a little foreign. The first few times they remove the old mask to express their divine purpose, it appears haltingly awkward as they blindly feel their way into creating the experience they envision.

The distinction between the person who is boldly stepping into a new role and the person “faking-it-‘till-they make it” is one of faith and intention. Completing the inner work with intent allows your soul purpose to become remarkably clear. Claiming this purpose feels a little akin to the first few times riding a bicycle without training wheels. Your birthright is to express this purpose, gifting to others the blessings you are here to give.

If you lack faith that you can be who you profess to be, then you are indeed faking it. No amount of declaration of who you are, what you can produce, guarantee or accomplish will create a cognitive resonance attracting your target audience to you if you lack faith.

No matter how you say it, play it, pose it, pretend it to be, if success is not rooted deep in your consciousness and your heart center it can not become your experience.  Proclaiming otherwise lacks the resonance of Truth.

Truth sells and markets itself. No faking needed.

There are many ways to become entranced. This weekend I experienced one way in the presence of Suzanne Falter-Barns, Get Known Now branding expert, and her new business partner, Jeffrey Van Dyk , as they soulfully blended their respective niches into one sweet outcome for the entrepreneurs attending the launch of their new program “The Perfect Platform Revival”.

I have to admit, as a solopreneur enrolled in one of Suzanne’s year-long courses, and as an early coachee of Jeffrey’s mentor, Tim Kelley, curator of Know Your Purpose, I was a little hesitant in spending precious resources for what could be another workshop promising the big shift but sorrowfully under delivering. Was this cross-niche hybridization a way for two coaches to simply repurpose program material that was close to the dreaded product expiration entrepreneurs face as followers jump on the brand wagon of a competitor? Or was it as promised an intersection of business and spirit?

The line between business and spirit thinned as soon as I crossed through the doors of the conference room and immediately Suzanne and Jeffrey began a sweet, subtle orchestration of purpose and the pedagogy of building an attention getting-brand and ultimately a high performing purpose-driven business. In what only can be recognized as a series of divinely orchestrated events, Spirit brought these two together to deliver to heart-centered entrepreneurs the foundation for growing a highly successful service-based business, and inspiration continued to infuse the two as they co-created the event.

Reminiscent of the leadership style of the Coaches Training Institute, the duo ushered in level four learning intentionally, artfully and palpably. Practicing that down-to-earth, authentic and transparent “tell it like it is” style Suzanne is best-known for, participants were not hyped with false promises that they would walk away with their purpose brand and platform, nor underhandedly slipped a hard up-sell into a big-ticket program to get the “rest of the story”.

Those who were called in their heart and felt they are here to play a bigger transformational role in ushering in the Third Great Awakening by developing a spirit infused business in the New Economy were  invited to explore working further with this divinely-paired duo in a manner that would make Lisa Sasevich, Queen of the Invisible Close, proud and crumble the pedestals of those still standing in the hard up-sell camp.

Those who chose to forgo the offer left brimming with possibility in the after-glow of a series of well-crafted exercises and coaching hot seats that skillfully blend and build the leader’s respective niches together, and gave the participant more than enough content to apply to the next unfolding of who they are here to BE  and the blessing they are here to provide the world.

Without giving away the finale for “The Perfect Platform Revival” when you attend the next offering, bring your Sunday’s best for the final day, when in true revival spirit, Jeffrey and Suzanne combine all their talents to create a magical experience that left me wondering if I even needed to board an airplane to fly home.

The spirit of revival has previously profoundly altered America’s values in areas such as temperance, prison reform, and abolitionism. Jeffrey Van Dyk and Suzanne Falter-Barns prove in this joint venture launch that they are the transformational pioneers birthing us into this Awakening where future studies of world transformation will show that the life and fabric of purpose-driven American entrepreneurism became the model of the New Economy.