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Hi there, I'm Ben Pearce and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills Podcast. Every episode we talk through how to thrive in the tech world, not just survive. Now, if you want me to work with your team, just give me a shout. I love to help teams be more influential, memorable and successful with their stakeholders. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to book a chat.
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the tech world Human skills podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and remember if you haven't rated or follow the show, please Can you it helps more people find the show and it means we keep getting amazing guests now? I must admit I know very little about topic today So I come to this from a place of complete ignorance because we are talking about stoicism and How it can be applied in the tech world how we can apply it and become better humans now our guest today It's an expert in this area He's had many years in the tech industry and is currently director of presale support at Thompson Reuters So please welcome to the show Tony Fransettik Tony it is brilliant to have you with us I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled Ben. Great to be here, too
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Well, um, firstly, we're very lucky. There is a thunderstorm rolling through at the moment So we might have additional sound effects from you. We might have thunder. There might be flashes of lightning We may even have power cups. So fingers crossed. We're gonna survive through the podcast Fingers crossed. Yeah any any any strobe lights in the backgrounds are unintentional. I promise
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No for people Tony that have another chance to meet you before do you want to tell us a bit about where you are What your background is? Sure, sure. So yeah, thanks for the intro presale support director at Thompson Reuters So I've been in the presale space now for the last 10 years. I've been at Thompson for 14. I started actually, I went to school for journalism which I'll play that off a little bit later, but
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You know I started went back to school and then got into Thompson where I was in our support division first And then I had transitioned over into our training team Traveled around implemented solutions there Then I was asked to lead the training team and then I took on a presales arm of What was at the time part of our training division? And then we moved wholly into the sales organization and that's been my passion for the last 10 years or so
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Brilliant brilliant brilliant and you're coming to us from across the pond. You're over in the US. I am. Yeah
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it is it's Morning time in in Michigan and I'm assuming across the pond. We have a whole different time frame We got a couple we did. Yeah, we got a team in the UK that we connect with on and off So yeah, it's a it's a good morning and evening discussion more times
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Now
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Let's get on to the topic at hand. So we are gonna be talking about stoicism and
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You know as I said right at the top I know very little about this very ignorant on this topic And you know, I was quite surprised because we started talking a maybe a couple of months ago About getting you on the podcast and we're like what what topic should we talk about? And the first thing that you suggested was stoicism which I because I I don't think we connected on LinkedIn or anything for I had No, no idea and so I was really surprised. I was like, well brilliant. Nobody's ever talked to me about this before I've got no idea what it's all about. So I was really excited To get this going so I imagine there might be some people with a similar level of ignorance to me at this name Could you kind of set the scene like what is stoicism and what was its background? Yeah, so I think what the most common response people get is I'm stoic so I don't flinch right? There's this this perception of what being a stoic is from an emotional standpoint But stoicism as far as a school of thought goes back a little bit far into the ancient times What it really boils down to is that I don't lie to myself about what it is mine to do So I mentioned journalism support training solutions consultants SDRs are actually part of my world I didn't tell that earlier But it's funny. I looked at back at it now and it's all different costumes for the same job, right? You interpret a messy situation tell the truth about it and then act on the part that I own And really that's where it's kind of this this whole stoicism concept came from I This is gonna go back probably six or seven years I had watched a podcast with Nick Kaposi He was talking about personal branding and so the intent for me was oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna post Monday motivation and Wednesday wisdom originally started FaceTime Fridays, but that fell off because I didn't Video is not my forte when it comes to this. That's one area have to focus on a little more time intensive. Anyways What what kept coming up for me and I was talking about motivation and wisdom is it's calling back to these These philosophers from you know, two thousand years ago of You know Marcus Aurelius and Seneca Epictetus like these these names kept popping up and then I started to lean more and that became part of what really drove me And it's not because the philosophy makes you calm It's because the job is always giving you something you can't control So so for me it was how do we how do we manage through this and and how do I help to maybe give back to a Community that's made a big impact on me
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And so sort of you you got into this sort of stoicism Philosophy and maybe we can dig into that in a minute as to a bit more with you But but then what you found was that you could apply it Really nicely to your world in tech and it felt fresh and it felt modern it felt relevant and and it helped
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Well, that's the thing that always it never ceases to amaze me when we talk about a quote from from like Marcus Aurelius Has a has a meditations. It's his journal. It's you know Emperor of Rome Managed, you know the entire Half of the world that he had under his arms at one point and he he journaled all of these concepts And there's a lot of just great quotes to pull from but they're so relevant today Which is what I always keep falling back to and it's it's it's funny because Stoicism is general. I'm as a philosophy of Judgment and the basics is you don't control events. You don't control other people. You don't control the quota You don't control whether your product champion quits mid-cycle, right? You control Whether you agree with what you observe what is the story your mind tells you and what you do next so there's there's three things I think this boils down to and Some of them are up to us and some of them aren't
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Character your effort you put in how much you prepare right if you're honest, that's what you control if The wind goes through the budget that's available for that customer The forecast is accurate or the the politics of whatever the buying committee is outside of your control
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the second I would say is is it's not the same as the It's not the same as the judgment. So if the demo crashes, right? That's something that's an impression if in my head I say the deals dead. I'm finished I can refuse that second sentence, right? It's not me in control of of the what happens in the moment Like some things are always out of our control what I'm in control of is how I respond to that in the moment and then the third thing really is Virtue is is the area of focus right? So revenue Your title how much pipeline coverage you have your logo slide all help they're all useful But they're not what's good You're trying to manage through how you conduct yourself throughout the conversation while you're going after the win And I think you know if I if I quote Seneca There's more things that frighten us that crush us we suffer more often in imagination than in reality And if you think about it, that's what every forecast review you've ever sat in Right like we build up that this is so terrible and in reality we can manage through just about anything If I ask you then is there a day you haven't survived yet? I Think I've made it through pretty much everyone. Yeah
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So that's the I mean really that's that that's what boils down to right like we are we are in control of how we respond to the situations and no matter what our mind tells us about how terrible or how grand anything is Reality is gonna be that we can move through and no matter what happens. We'll get through it Okay, so there was there was three things that you put you pulled out there. Can you just remind me? What were those three things that you pulled out it was? So it's what's what's in our control. What's not it is the first right? Yeah, the what happens is not the same as the judgment that we make about it
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And the third is the virtue you always search after is good. You always want to focus on the good
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Okay. Okay. Okay. I Like this and it's interesting because if you just said to me, you know What is stoicism before we started having this chat? I would have thought I would have said that it's something like it's about Discipline it's about denial. It's about Eeriness, you know that which Which is not me right? Sadly, so I you know, I'd have thought right? Okay
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But but what you're describing there isn't kind of what you're talking about is a positive psychology here And you're saying you are not the result of the things that happen to you, you know You've got some agency and and therefore you move forward regardless of the sort of situation That seems to me the sort of thing you're describing You're spot-on and you're not wrong around the original word like lowercase stoic, right? Jock clenched no feeling just grind harder, right? Like that's that's the the English definition and and honestly It's a lot of the version that sales culture rewards right just just push through it Just go forward like and and and while that's probably sold a lot of books on just you know grind harder That's not the the stoicism capital as school of thought. It's not denial of your feelings It's refusal to treat their feelings as a fact
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When it boils down to it, like I I still want to win I still feel you know bad when the deal falls through I still Care that the customer is gonna get the right fit for their business, right? The work isn't don't feel it It's don't let the feelings control what you do next Okay, so so they're feelings in the emotions. They're a signal a useful signal, but they're not the thing They're not the only thing don't become consumed by that signal because there are other signals that are coming in and need processing as well So it's it's a little but but not right Interesting. Well so far love it
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now I believe You said to me when we were when we were thinking about getting this that there were four tenets of
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Stoicism Can you tell me what they are and then can we maybe start to unpack them and as we go through and we can think about Yeah, I guess how they apply not only in the Roman world But also in the modern tech world Yeah, yeah, so it's it's four cardinal virtues and and this is
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Plato and Aristotle, right? They they followed some of these virtues as well The Stoics made them the the entirety of their focus right? So a wise act is It is where they're going for like how do you have true wisdom? That's one part of it Justice is another one courage and temperance So okay when when there's a wise act, hopefully that's just it's courageous and is already temperate so so they were trying to say like how can all of these apply to the good of of Everyone you interact with it's not just for your own self-service. It's it's how do you how do you help out your community?
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Okay. Well, I mean is it worth while unpacking each of those and spending a bit on a bit of time on each of those For sure. And and I think you know, I wouldn't say that one of the four is any more prominent than the other But by all means we can we can riff on that for a minute I always start with wisdom because I think at the core of any good solutions consultant sales engineer is Is knowledge in the product like you have to understand What it is that you're communicating about and and I've always said that for solutions consultants sales engineers to be really good at what they do It's not just the product that they have. It's the industry. It's the competitor landscape its Sales acumen its presentation skills its product roadmaps Marketing strategy like all of that kind of plays together into the pre-sales, you know wisdom so to speak But if you focus only in on like what it is in the product that you understand. Well, that's intellect Wisdom is is knowing what to say when it's important and also what not to say Right. So oftentimes when we coach through social results are getting started and they have like a deep technical background Pulling resources from our support division or training consulting Which you know, you know that kind of ins and outs of the product and there's a natural tendency to just want to want to share Right. Like if if you ask me a question that I can simply reply yes or no to Yes, and let me show you and everybody jumps in and then you just start talking and talking and talking and all they needed to Know is that it checked the box that it did something Right. So I think the wisdom in this in this context of what we want to say in pre-sales Is that it's not just having this giant wealth of knowledge and understanding of everything that's related to the product that you're talking about But how do you convey that in a way that's going to be meaningful to your customer? Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Isn't it? Because I thought a bit about that but this sort of this knowledge versus wisdom and I heard this little saying that I thought that I quite liked which was Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit Wisdom is knowing not to put it in your fruit salad That's spot on And I love that one just because you like oh, yeah, it's about applying it It's about not just knowing for the sake of knowing But it's about thinking about how we can apply our knowledge and use judgment to call upon the knowledge But use the right bit of knowledge in the right situation, you know to drive a good outcome
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It and that's it right and I think like when I when I first took over our PCL team like ten years ago Most of what we were doing at that time was overview demos, right? The the sales process at the time was just you know Show the key features and then kind of something's gonna pop up and and we'll kind of do some ad hoc discovery in the moment The the best SCs at the time kind of did that Q&A and dialogue throughout but that's not that wasn't the standard practice at the time So some prospects sure check the box does what they need But it leaves so many people wanting more they didn't get the connection that they that they wanted or the value And at the time our close rate showed the difference too So as soon as we started to coach that, you know ability to use wisdom in this case Like stoic pre-sales wisdom is a simple yes or no as opposed to just you know Offloading all of the knowledge that you carry inside Okay, okay
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So that's wisdom That's wisdom. Yep. What's the next one? Yes. Yeah justice is the other one and this is um I think people confuse justice when you talk about like criminal justice or you're trying to you know Get justice for being wronged justice I think is more so giving each party involved what they're owed right the customer owes is owed the truth sales wants a read right a clean read that that this is gonna be able to move forward or not if You're gonna give feedback to the product team. They want that clean and un unbiased answer from the customer's perspective
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It's it's the the the bigger piece I guess and in in the case of delivering it says
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This looks like maybe killing a deal that's gonna close and then Or not killing a deal. It's gonna close then it blows up an implementation Right. We don't want to just push through we want to be honest and and I look at this a specific way with pre-sales, right this is
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We serve two real customers in the in the pre-sale space, you know our sales counterparts and the prospects were engaging with and and I've always kind of
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challenged my team to err on the side of the customer I mean sales reps have a quota to hit there's a there's a natural tendency here, right? And if I think a little while back like we had some competing solutions One was a little cheaper with less functionality. The other was not and and you know in this scenario where the rep is positioning the more expensive product When the capabilities of the cheaper one would have done the job just fine My SC pushed back right and they encouraged the customer to go with the the lesser, you know about lesser dollar cost solution and The sales rep was really unhappy about that What I ended up going down the path was though and after a few conversations with the rep and their manager It's it's the long-term relationship with the customer that matters in this case, right? Not just one big sale to get to your quota but doing what's right by the customer
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You That's where I lean back on likes justice like doing doing the doing the right thing in the moment
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Yeah, and I'm a big fan of that It comes down to that sort of person integrity, doesn't it? and it comes down to that that honesty doesn't it and and I and I'm a big fan of You know, you might have left some money on the table in this deal But the next deal and the deal after and the deal after are gonna be so much better if you're from a position of trust And they know that you didn't pull a fast one Whereas in that short term, you may have made a bit more money in the short term, but the long-term implications They're gonna know you're not as trustworthy. They're gonna look around at competitors earlier or all of those sorts of things Are gonna happen, aren't they? Spot on you know, it didn't absolutely and and again to kind of tie this back to where these quotes like just overlay so well Into what we're talking about Marcus a realist and this is in his book meditations and it's just again his journal If it's not right, don't do it. If it's not true, don't say it
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Right, like how basic and simple that it's it's this this Commonality that we can all look to and say oh, well, of course that makes sense And of course, I would want to emulate that when I'm talking about Presales and communicating to
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To our prospects now now tell me so I'm a million percent with you And it's very easy to say that
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Have you been in any sorts of situations where let's say you're seeing pressure getting pressure from senior leaders People that can affect your career You know where they're kind of pushing you down a route and you and the other thing is it all that also that also Kind of says that your perspective is is right and that you're not misinformed or that you're coming from So so what about round the edges where you've maybe got that like there there could be an opinion there isn't a right and a wrong but there is Gray and there is balance and there are different stake. How's it all go when you in more complex situations? Yeah, and this is I think
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I'll liken this to journalism since again I went to school for journalism originally and it didn't really make sense that I found my way into pre-sales But there are some parallels there right and it's about asking questions and reading people and understanding things but journalism Train me that a story can be accurate and still be distorted Right you can give a clear perspective from one angle only and miss the opportunity to kind of balance that out And I think what you're talking about we all are gonna encounter the politics in the office We're all gonna encounter somebody that's in a position of leadership that is is directing down a path that you can't control So I think there's there's a part of this where everybody has to be looking in the mirror at one point or another and saying I trust my gut and And I know that's kind of probably not the the best hot take to have you know in pre-sales necessarily is always trust your gut But if you're going at this from a perspective of doing the right thing and and you know my team I've coached a mantra of how can I help and it's got three real? Legs to the stool if you will, but how do I help my peers? how do I help my sales counterparts and how do I help my customers and And if those things are what I lean back on I'm making a decision that's gonna help somebody and if that's getting pushed back against It well, I want to stand on my morals as best I can and you know, sometimes telling the truth isn't easy
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But if you don't do the right thing like that's somewhere I you've got to sleep with yourself at night Like you've got to be able to go down and lay your head down and say that I I know I did what was right Even if that's gonna cost me something from a from a relationship with someone in the office I mean, hopefully it doesn't affect a career because at the at the end of the day You're you're you're hoping that what your right choice is keeps you in your position But I yeah, I always want to fall back on did I feel like I made the right choice in my gut Yeah, I think and it's like you said if you can go back in if you can if you can sleep at night If you can if you can be in a position Because I remember a few times where I'd be working on a and a leader would say we're going in this direction and I'm going But you know, I've only got my perspective you've got your perspective you're seeing different things to me So I might disagree with that But and then you then you have to make that decision do I get on the bus? Can I make the piece with it or or can I not and have I got a say I can't do it I'm gonna vocalize it and that and that then comes down to judgment calls, doesn't it? It does and and so another thing to kind of consider in that case and you made a really really good point that that The leaders making those decisions are coming at this from a different perspective with more insights or more data points that are beyond What you have at your disposal less maybe or less. That's also very valid. Absolutely So in either case whether they have more or less I would challenge everybody to ask the next question
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and and what I mean by that if if you're talking to a customer if you're talking to a leader if you're talking to you know Coaching and a feedback in a in a in a demo and you ask somebody. Well, how do you think that went? Right and they're they're gonna say oh, I think it went good
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Tell me more about that. Like what do you mean by good and and this can be what do you mean by efficient Ben? You want your business to be more efficient? What does that mean to you? What does efficiency mean to you ask the next question and if it's gonna be in relation to a leader that's proposing something Just dig deeper what what that's that's really what pre-sales. That's what we do best is Uncovering what's important to someone and I think as a as a pre-sales leader, you know Maybe we're not in front of customers in the same way But we can model those same behaviors with our interactions in in our leadership discussions, too
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So don't wisdom so wisdom in my mind as I play it back was about Selecting what knowledge you've got and apply when to apply it when to keep quiet and you know To choosing from your knowledge base that's most relevant and applicable then we've got justice which is about
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Your personal integrity about operating with honesty so that you can sleep at night because you're you're adhering to your values It seems to be so that that's wisdom and justice What was the net what's the next one? Well, and it plays in really really well because what we were just talking about if you're gonna ask the next question to a leader Of yours takes a bit of courage Right, you've got to have a bit of a backbone in that conversation to come from a position of really understanding But I think you know it it's
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It's being willing to be uncomfortable, right? That's a that's a challenge I think that all of us give to our teams you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable, right? That's a that's a pre-sales tenant in and of itself
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because that's that's the job part of the the pre-sales function will always be walking into a demonstration and having a Percentage of that that you're unsure how it's gonna go You don't know who turns into a detractor out of nowhere You don't know if your system is gonna crash in the first five minutes You don't know if the sales reps gonna be a no-show and then you're the only one representing your company in the moment Right. That's not a defect. That's just reality. That's the process and so courage is being able to move through Those scenarios and keep your clear head, right? I think a lot of people are gonna look to just get rid of discomfort You know and and and not to not to go into the realm of social media But my goodness like there's a lot of just yelling and screaming But I only want to hear the things that are important to me in a lot of cases That's that's how societies I think transitioned over so you want to get rid of the discomfort
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Maybe it's more slides in your presentation. Maybe it's more preparation more rehearsal more Oh if they say this I'm gonna say that right the the preparation is the big piece, but if you pretend that you can rehearse
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Your way to certainty
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It's just not reality. So I think from a stoic perspective courage is is staying in the room When what you prepared is no longer what's happening, right? You go into it with a clear line of sight of these are the the key functionalities and needs of the business and the stakeholder comes into that first call and they say Actually, we want this as our direction and you've got to be able to manage through and pivot in the moment and take back to Again your wisdom of what you know and what now I can can use in these other examples You can do what's right and and give the customer what they're asking for But you have to have that courage underneath to do there to do that as well Yeah, it's sort of sort of going I can see there's all these problems But I'm gonna have a go anyway Yeah, yeah, well enjoy it anyway
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It is well and in how many times do we do we have those scenarios? Right and again just it just to throw out another how this ties into from a quotes perspective This is again Marcus Aurelius the impediment to action advances action what stands in the way becomes the way Well, that's every scenario that that you encounter in a demo, right? Like if something's not gonna go exactly the way you want. Well, alright make it work for you. What a great question I've never searched that before. Let's see what happens. All right, you just you've got to go through it And I'm not saying that we go in and just wing it that that's absolutely not what I'm trying to get at here It's more, you know prepare and do that to a high level But hold on to that to that plan lightly. It's not under preparing It's just not needing for your plan to be perfect for you to survive
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Yeah, yeah, and I think that's that you know again, I really really agree with that I think
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Putting your hand up and having a go at something. I think really important. I think you know winging it Not not such a fan of but you know, your preparation is good But you need to be able to adapt in the moment, you know, and exactly I always come at this from a music perspective I'm quite a musician and so for me, I you know, I think of things like this and go right have you you know Do I know the scales, you know, do I know that I've got knowledge of the scales, right? Okay. Okay Can I play them if I practice? Yes, I have right and now I'm gonna improvise with some other people in a band You're like, okay and go and I can take all that knowledge and I can choose bits which bits I'm going to apply But you just have a go and see if this note sounds right here And through all that prep then you can get into the moment and you can create something that's unique and really good fun And and sounds good and all of that kind of stuff, but it's all bringing all those bits together
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100% and and really like if you don't have the courage to go up and try Then you never have the opportunity to make that beautiful music, right? There's there's not an opportunity there Yeah, I will say like and I'll pull a quick story because this is one when I was a when I was a trainer And I one of the first things I got as a salute as a support rap I had a leader in the training team said oh you should we do this quick crash course and like train the trainer and then You're gonna go out and do our year-end training circuit for our customers and mind you never done this before, right? And this is like what's coming in the solution next year. So you have like a dev build that's not kind of buggy And it was you know a room full of practitioners I get everything started and in the first three minutes that dev build of the product crashed and I had to reinstall it from scratch so there's not really a comfortable way to handle that right but your composure and maybe and if if you're like me and you have a little self-deprecating humor built in there that goes a long way to help to manage the room and through a sweating forehead, right Start it ask the room how many times you guys have something crash like this, right? And and there's a risk in being that really transparent and honest because then they can say oh your products not good or whatever But being real and humanizing the moment that actually built some sympathy and in the time that I had the discussion I had it reinstalled and was up and running. So yeah. Yeah
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Love it. Right. So we'd have wisdom we turn justice we'd encourage. What's the final one?
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Temperance now, this is a this is an interesting one because
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I think a lot of people consider this like balance and all things in moderation Like that that's kind of the temperance mindset and I think you know for for pre-sales and how we would tie that into it It would be Proportion right like not every deal is gonna have a fully custom environment Not every executive meeting is gonna have your best solutions consultant on the call. Not every you know night after a closed loss Gets a hours long course motor post mortem to understand what happened right that not everything is gonna be there and so In It in a in my seat, let's say like as as a as a director, I think Qualification is that the the practice so so I'm not gonna give a demo out to everybody who comes to me with a request unless it meets the basic criteria right unless we have x y and z from from our Our checklist of items right needs analysis and what's important? What's their competitor? If we don't have a good understanding of what what is needed for this to be a true closing opportunity Then I don't want to go forward with it, right? It's it's refusing to spend that virtue on noise and and oftentimes you to the end of the month and You know, we always joke. There's a lot of dry spaghetti thrown at the wall and see if they can get something to stick It's it's it's having the confidence to push back in that and say not everybody gets it We're not here to serve all parties with with some doing the right thing and some not I want to focus on the ones who are doing the right thing
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so so temperate it's about sort of that that balance of of
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From what you've described almost like emotional balance and also resource balance of sort of going like what what
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Yeah, if I pour everything into this I can't pour everything into everything I have to choose pick and choose my battles And be a bit balanced about it. Is that is that am I kind of picking that up, right? Yeah, and and and I think that's you know
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Apply this a little bit broader right like this in general life terms This is all things in moderation, right? You can't have all sweets every day for what you eat You can't have all day sitting on the couch You can't write in in in a similar way with the pre-sales function all things aren't the same You've got to balance that out with what the needs are the business and I think there's a lot of a lot of leaders especially and this is something I've grappled with over the years to is are you are you treating every opportunity that comes across your table regardless of size scale and scope the same way and Originally when I first took over I would say well, of course it doesn't matter if it's a $5,000 deal or a $50,000 deal My team's gonna do the right thing But how you engage how you prepare how you coordinate with your sales counterpart in advance how you even communicate It's gonna be different based on several factors. Not not just simply the size of the deal
[00:33:07:14 - 00:33:18:16]
Yeah, yeah very interesting have you got any examples any stories or anything that sort of brings that out to life well in This this is this is the whole
[00:33:20:22 - 00:33:34:15]
Sales rep that comes in has they always ask for your best resource no matter what because they need this deal and I wish I wish that all SCs and leaders could have the confidence to be able to tell sales You can't always get what you want
[00:33:37:02 - 00:34:26:15]
Reality is right like the the requirements have to be there and we don't often turn down demos I think we've worked really closely with our sales counterparts to build this scenario Where they know what they need to provide to us going into it And if they've done the due diligence great if they haven't though and this is the important piece You don't want to waste the customer's time and you don't waste the the time of the the sales of the solution consultant More times than not if you don't do that due diligence, you're gonna come into it maybe position the wrong solution maybe killed opportunity for the entire deal or You're gonna extend that sale that much longer by having to backpedal do proper discovery in the moment Maybe have some time to demo but then follow up with the second or maybe third demo in the cycle So, you know have the reps put in the discovery work to make sure that both they and the customers are set up for success
[00:34:29:09 - 00:34:57:00]
Really interesting love it. This has been really really fascinating and I like a topic that I know Very little about but as you've gone through and expanded them, you know, I like I like all of them Yeah, I like all of them. Am I in to stosism? I don't know but the things you've described Yes, I've got the baggage of what I've always thought of stoicism being warring with what you've explained to me Which sounds really good and really relevant
[00:34:58:21 - 00:35:08:04]
Well, and it's it's it's funny again the more that I've kind of come across these and now I'm really searching after several years Of posting on these every Mondays and Wednesdays
[00:35:09:05 - 00:35:18:00]
But but no matter what it is and how deep you go into some of the the experiences that quotes the the stories that these philosophers had from from so long ago
[00:35:19:02 - 00:35:35:02]
It really is it Everything that comes into it just reinforces like a lot of the things that we know to be true today It just for me if if this is how again the Roman Emperor Managed through his own struggles with his personality and with doing what's right?
[00:35:36:16 - 00:36:06:08]
Maybe it's not maybe we're not alone Maybe it's not so hard for me to do those things too if I'm not in obviously, you know controlling half of the world I'm controlling my little world of pre-sales But the challenges are absolutely the same like we're all human And if you can find those things you can latch on to that are again helping you be a better person Yes, better pre-sales in this case specifically, but all of those things apply in life as well. That's what I like Yeah right Let's wrap this up Tony. So
[00:36:08:08 - 00:36:19:12]
What would be what would be your summary your key takeaways for anybody that's been listening to this Yeah, so I'll three three things I guess we'll leave everybody with you know first
[00:36:20:19 - 00:36:33:05]
It stowessism is a filter. It's not a personality Right. So so before the next meeting that you go to Build out a list of things that are in my control and things that are not
[00:36:34:07 - 00:36:40:06]
Only the ones in your control get your energy. That's that's one of the big things to start with second
[00:36:41:11 - 00:37:06:00]
A virtue without the customer is just a performance If if the move that you're trying to make Mislead or has you mislead the buyer in the process. It's not stoic, right? Go back on those those those four main virtues and if you find yourself in all four of those and you check the box you'll be in the positive and then the third that this is
[00:37:07:08 - 00:37:22:19]
The the situation versus the judgment right the outage the no-show The the panic of the account exact right those are just impressions You don't have to then apply that and build into the same negative energy. We'll say
[00:37:24:13 - 00:38:30:04]
I'll have I'll have another Aurelius quote here just because it's been my Running tally at this point but begin the morning by saying I'll shall meet the busy body the ungrateful the arrogant the deceit They're that way because they confuse good and evil and I don't have to join them Right. That's your Monday morning pipeline meeting So I guess my challenge to everybody is take away this this this concept and maybe for the next week or so Like you don't have to apply this forever if it doesn't work for it then so be it's just been a passion of mine But after a demo your your POC decision your forecast reviews write down three things What happened what I told myself it meant and then which part of that meaning I actually control And if the third line is empty, so it's something that was outside of your control You're just the emotion that's tied to it right don't let that drive it. So if you only do one thing Pick that one deal Tell your accountant partner your con exact one true thing that you've maybe been a little soft on
[00:38:31:09 - 00:40:07:18]
Maybe maybe you you bring up some more honesty have some courage Apply some justice by doing what's right and help them grow in the process, too If you run that exercise, let me know catch me on LinkedIn Make sure that we're applying this concept. Not just not just listening to a great conversation between me and Ben. Yeah Yeah Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I think you know before I got the conversation Before we got in the conversation I thought this might be an interesting just an interesting conversation But having been through it with you. I'm really aligned with it I like the whole wisdom piece the justice piece the courage piece the temperance piece like it all So I think that has been really really fascinating now you mentioned also to you you you post some Monday and Wednesday Kind of bits on these sorts of topics Where is where can people find out and get those coming into their feeds Yeah, so I primarily linked in is my main mechanism So if I'm in LinkedIn join me and like I said, that's Mondays and Wednesdays. I'll put a post out there I typically take a quote and apply it to scenarios that I'm going through in real life today And if I'm being very transparent with all of you as much as I enjoy kind of sharing What what what I think is something that's super impactful It's equally for me. You know, I'm human, too. I need a little motivation on Mondays I need a little wisdom when I get partway through the week, right? So yeah, so it is it is something that I use myself as a balance and a checkpoint But hopefully you can give some other people a little way to to tie into what might be important
[00:40:09:13 - 00:40:32:09]
Brilliant well, you know looking at the clock. I think we need sadly we need we need to finish there It's been a really interesting session So thank you so much for joining us in the middle of a storm all the way from the US of a to the UK So thank you so much for joining us It's been a really good conversation and I've really enjoyed it and I'll take a look from it. So thank you very much Absolutely. My
[00:40:34:23 - 00:40:54:18]
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