Fake it ‘til You Make It. I’ve tried… and fallen short, and tried again. There’s value in learning to pick yourself up and try again.

There’s a delicate balance between confidence and insecurity, faith and doubt, determination and disorganization, knowing something and knowing nothing. But when you’re in that moment- whether it be at a tryout, the game being on the line, making an adjustment to your system or personnel- it often comes down to who has the most confidence in their decision.

Many years ago, I watched a Jeff Bridges movie, White Squall [1996], based on a true story. Bridges takes a group of prep school boys on a sailing voyage meant to help them learn about how to become men when they encounter a deadly white squall. There was a singular line in the movie which has stuck with me.

“Where we go one, we go all.” A thought so simple, yet it embodies many ideologies of teamwork – trust, reliance, commitment, confidence and loyalty.

Sometimes, in the beginning, we just need to fake it until we make it. Then as our skills grow, we’ll no longer need to fake it. We become the athlete we worked to achieve.

-Nora Maguire White