In 2022 I dared to book a photography session. I was going to do it, this thing called: a BRANDING session. As I was building my online business I needed to have some professional photos of me. Then why did I dare to do it? Because I don’t like having my picture taken.
Nevertheless, the idea of having professional photos sounded pretty… I don’t know, I think it made me feel more legitimate? My cohort in the Life Coach School shared information about how to get the most out of your photo shoots and as the day came closer and closer I felt this excitement activate.
That morning I got my makeup done by a professional and had the photos taken. Then I realized, I kinda don’t like the photos.
A big chunk of the reason why I didn’t like the photos is because I generally sucked at posing and my facial expressions were awkward. A smaller chunk of the reason was I didn’t really enjoy working with the photographer I hired. But a small, tiny bit of me inside my unconscious had a hidden reason:
I felt so fake.
The reason why the photos look so unnatural is because I would never pose like this IRL. I would never make these expressions, I would never place myself in front of these objects, I would never be physically present in these locations.
More than that though, a part of me believed I was trying to be more professional and legit than I actually was. Who the fuck was I to try and look all glamorous? I don’t have anything to show for it because I made 0 dollars with my business at the time.
So I just made the most out of the situation. I picked like, 5 photos I liked out of the hundreds that were taken and I used them for years because I didn’t want to go through the ordeal of another photo shoot I’m going to hate later.
It’s been 4 years since then, wow! And I’m at year 3 of my Buddhist practice, also wow! I’ve cultivated a lot of mindfulness for myself and I’ve also cultivated a lot of freedom. The freedom to be cringe, the freedom to do things I don’t want to do, and so on.
As I’ve been working on the technical aspects of my website I’ve been adding more bells and whistles to the many webpages I created. But there came a point where I couldn’t progress anymore because of the lack of photos of me.
When I look at the websites of my peers or teachers they all feature confident faces in cool poses. I pictured myself in those clothes, in those poses, in those faces and I noticed that old resistance come up: it feels so fake.
But what if I… was just fake for that moment and that’s fine?
What if being fake wasn’t all that bad?
I tried to reason with this. It felt like the invitation to be fake was similar to an invitation to join a MAGA rally when I’m fundamentally against the ideology of MAGA. Like, if I go, I’d had to have sold my soul beforehand.
And that rigidity of thought is inside of me, not the photo shoot or the MAGA rally. The brain resists this hard, “No! Being fake is actually bad, I don’t want to be that!”. This kind of kicking and screaming makes it easy to identify that the root cause of this suffering is attachment to what I think is right and good.
What if being fake was good? I think of how many times I’ve held spite for other people because they said some things that made me feel bad. So I first feel bad because of something they said, then I hold on to the spite which prolongs the feeling bad. And in those moments where I feel bad how many times have I thought to myself “I don’t want to feel this way”?
If the people at the time had faked it and just told me pleasant things they would have saved so much suffering from myself. So turns out, in that case being fake would be nice. Also when I’m engaging multiple sellers about a product or service I’m trying to get, don’t I weigh the pros and cons and navigate the situations through being fake at times?
All those instances conveniently escape from my brain and the impulsive FAKE BAD! GENUINE GOOD! kicks in instead. Thankfully years of bowing have taught me how to lower myself and do the actions I want to do. So I walked into a self-shooting photo studio with my wife and decided that I was going to be so performative and fake today.
But you know how when your expectations are so high, the results can be underwhelming? Well I imagined I would have the most fakest photos but actually the photos turned out to be a lot more genuine than I thought. Who would have known!
Today I ended up betraying my old self. I made myself into a performative faker. But this freedom to fake is what sustains my momentum as I continue navigating the unknown.
Taking photos like this don't seem like much but they're an important part of having an online business in 2026. I've been writing a new book on "How to start an online business in 2026" and I have a cool perk you can take advantage of today.
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Billy Seol
July Life Coach
julylifecoach.com
