When I was about 12 I remember doing some school craft competition where we had to make and then sell our wares to our teachers. A teacher said something to me that's always stuck, but I always struggle with following.

It was "Don't point out your own short comings"

I was saying things like 'in the final run the paint job will be better', highlighting the deficiencies of our Xmas decorations instead of highlighting the positives.

If you've ever met a good sales person working for your company, they're almost blind to the deficiencies in your products. It's not that they're deceiving you, it's that their internal reality is that that they see the positives, that's all they talk about. That's the product they're selling. If you try and say 'well this bit isn't great', they give you a confused look.

As soon as the 'negatives' click, their sales plummet. It's a built in defence mechanism to add confidence and to be honest it's up to the client to see the deficiencies, not the sales person.

That's kind of like a start up founder is, they've got to focus on the positives just to keep going. To stay working the hours, to keep their team going. To keep believing it will work out in the end. Having been part of a failed startup, I think the time for honest reflection and learning is afterwards.

But saying you've met x and y and z, worked for a company you haven't and photoshopping yourself in photos?

That's not the same thing at all.

That's just fraud.

Let's not conflate the two as this article has.