“Fake it till you make it.”
we’ve all heard it. Some take it for a lifestyle, some from the optimism that it will all work out. But how do you actually make it when you are faking your image?
Brooklyn-based street artist and muralist, Eric Friedensohn, embodies this saying through his work. He began by painting murals that calligraphed the word, Optimism, and wanted to make this a worldwide career for himself. Although he was painting a large number of small interior murals and signs, nobody hired him to work on his ideal projects. Therefore, he started photoshopping his murals on walls and spots that he desired to work on.
That was when his work on the internet boomed and grabbed the attention of big companies such as WeWork. He mentioned in this short film:
I had a moment in my freelancing career when I wanted to do more murals, but I wasn’t getting hired to do it. So I would use Photoshop and I would take photos of walls and I’d mock them up on the walls, and all of a sudden, I got an email from this company called WeWork and they saw my murals, whether they were real or not, and they wanted me to work on their team. It ended up having me grow a whole team of artists and travel around Latin America creating murals and artwork for all the different spaces.
From there, his career started to grow, so did his fanbase. It was his optimistic approach to the work that made him “make it” in the end. When you visit his website, this is his slogan:
- Art for optimists
Optimism is essential to achievement, specially in the most challenging times. So fake it till you make it in your reality.
I’m Reza Bird, a filmmaker and writer turned entrepreneur. The coming decades seem threatening and very competitive, but also full of opportunities. Subscribe to my newsletter, where I encourage you to start your own digital business as an artist and leave your safe zone.
