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Comment by salimmadjd | Hacker News Reader

That's the secret. Convince yourself that your startup is worth investing in, and then when you explain this to investors they'll believe you.

This is one of the best advice for both fund-raising or anything else in life and it's basically the same strategy Arnold Schwarzenegger used to become the "number one star" in hollywood [1] as explained by Steve Chandler:

* ...Then I asked just how he planned to become Hollywood's top star. Mind you, this was not the slim, aerobic Arnold we know today. This man was pumped up and huge. And so for my own physical sense of well-being, I tried to appear to find his goal reasonable.

"Easy, It's the same process I used in bodybuilding," he explained. "What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true." *

edit: attribution added - 1: http://biznik.com/articles/being-like-arnold-schwarzenegger

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I don't quite buy it. We may just be seeing selection bias How many thousands do that and fail miserably? We never hear about it. How many luck into things? We hear about them, but don't then discount Arnold's story by some Bayesian amount of doubt. And how many get completely burned by trying to live as if they are something they are not, and get ostracized as a result?

Hollywood is filled with people trying to act like they are a great star. Almost none of them are, nor will they ever be one.

The way I'd look at it is that focus and confidence is a pre-requisite, not a guarantee. Arnie was right.

I would like evidence for that statement. Because I have heard many Hollywood stars just exude insecurities. Heck, we talk about it all the time, and it even has a name "imposters syndrome". If you can achieve great things while feeling like an imposter, I would say that is an unanswerable rebuttal to the claim that confidence is a a pre-requisite.

@RogerL "Hollywood is filled with people trying to act like they are a great star. Almost none of them are, nor will they ever be one."

You're skipping over important nuance: Assuming star = bundle of confident, recognized talent that brings values to any endeavour he/she is involved in, radiates this (vs "shouting") in person.

In contrast, Hollywood is filled with many people not acting like they're great stars, but projecting the peripheral benefits of being a great star (ie high visibility, rich lifestyle, entourages, etc) but they do not feel/act like stars at their cores.

Similar also to "the method" in acting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_acting

I use this in negotiation as well. You convince yourself that you are playing a role and do what is consistent with the role you are playing. You are an actor. Takes quite a bit of practice.

I'm having difficulty squaring what you do with what pg is recommending:

  > And by convince yourself, I don't mean play mind games 
  > with yourself to boost your confidence. I mean truly 
  > evaluate whether your startup is worth investing in.

Isn't "playing a role" a form of mind games?

I think it's reconciliable over the fact that by setting out to become a certain kind of person/startup/something, you become it. After you're there, it'll be the truth, and not a mind game anymore.

As a personal example, I started dancing, and after watching the movie Step Up 3, I decided that this guy (http://youtu.be/EKIgbR_V8fs?t=1m2s) danced really well. So I set out to dance just like him. At the beginning, it was me akwardly dancing in front of my bathroom mirror at 3 in the morning. Now I can do what he does, and more.

So yeah, fake it till you make it, and then go get some investors.

That's not how I see it.

It's more like, if you can't truly convince yourself that your startup is worthwhile (or becoming the character via method acting), then your startup/character/acting method should be changed because other people won't believe it either.

Isn't that backwards? The whole point of the method is that you break down the distinction between you and the role, and become the character - you're explicitly not thinking about being an actor.

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