By Chelsy Arrata, @chelsyarrata | Locust Valley High School, NY
During my first year competing in DECA, I had ambition. An advisor? No. Experienced members to ask for advice? Also no.
I came from a very small, relatively new chapter, so there wasn’t much of an established “this is how we do things, and here’s how to get to ICDC.” We were still figuring out what “things” included, and trying to rule out the best strategy to follow. I desperately wanted to succeed in DECA, but I didn’t have someone at my school whose experience I could study and say, “Okay, that’s how I’m going to get where I wanna be.”
So, I resorted to the phrase all students are most likely exhausted of hearing: fake it till you make it. Stay with me a second.
When you’re starting somewhere without any guidance or past knowledge, it’s scary and incredibly difficult to tell whether you’re doing the right things to achieve the right “goals”. I found myself asking questions like, how prepared do I need to be? What does a strong presentation in my event even look like? Is qualifying for internationals something I can realistically work toward? What the heck is a performance indicator?
Having an experienced member answer those questions would have been nice. Having someone tell me I was taking the right steps would have been even nicer. But instead, I had to make my own decisions, even though I didn’t feel qualified to make them. And I brought that mindset with me into competition.
What I had to start with was the goal in mind. But at the same time, I had to approach competition preparation as though those goals were 100% achievable, even while questioning them. If I wanted to reach my goals in DECA, I had to take my own preparation seriously. Otherwise, I would’ve spent the entire year waiting for reassurance that I would never receive.
In my competitive event, I had to fully take on the role of a professional sales representative. The thing was that I couldn’t just present my product. I had to truly, genuinely believe in its value like it was mine and could explain why a customer should care. I couldn’t keep thinking about how my knowledge compared to students from larger chapters. I had a customer in front of me and a presentation to deliver. I had to simply do my job.
But it can be terrifying. You’re just a high school student asking an adult to seriously consider your business proposal, and on top of that, AWARD IT. For those 15 minutes, you have to take the situation seriously enough that they can as well.
So during my presentation and exam, I brought in “fake it till you make it” . I only focused on doing the job I had walked into that room to do. Eventually, I qualified for ICDC, becoming the first member of my chapter to do so. I finally had an answer to one of my fearful questions: yes, it was something someone from my school could accomplish.
I still stand by the phrase, overused as it may be, and I suggest it to every DECA member that has goals like I once did. During that first year, I needed a way to take my goals seriously while I was still learning how to pursue them, and I needed to believe in myself in that competition room. So I did. I truly faked it till I made it. And you should do the same. Small, big, inexperienced, or experienced chapter. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and immerse yourself in the competition: that may be exactly what your judge is looking for.
