Practice makes progress. Yes. It's 2025. We don't say perfect anymore. We're making progress. We're getting better day by day. It's the 31st of January. It can't be. Where has January gone? Come back to me, January. The blink of an eye, it's over. All those things you said you were gonna do at the start of the month, did you do them? That's the question, isn't it? Don't return to philosophy as a taskmaster but as patients seek out relief in a treatment of sore eyes or addressing for a burn or from anointment. Regarding it this way, you'll obey reason without putting it on display and rest easy in its care. Beautiful. And that was Marcus Aurelius. Our friend. Yeah, he was in your year at school, wasn't he? He was, he was naughty though. A very naughty lad. I'd like to use this episode as like a bit of a reflection, which I think is very fitting for Stoics and - salespeople as one, but it's probably been a hard month for salespeople getting into it, getting in after the Christmas kind of rush. So Christmas, December, it can be quiet anyway.
Then you have a couple of weeks off. You're eating your mince pies. You're drinking your sherry. You've come back. You say, I want this year to be the year I get good. But have you mastered it? I reckon there's a lot of people who have the sure thing, the deal that was coming in after Christmas and they're still sat there wondering, waiting. Where is it? Where is the sure thing? And look, the theme this month has been all about control, hasn't it? What's in your control and what's not? What's something that you once believed about being in control that you now no longer believe? I think I used to believe that I could cloud others' judgements. Go on. So I think that I had some control on how people would maybe feel towards me, but maybe that comes from a place of people pleasing more so. So if I am X, then X will feel X about me. If I do this, then they will respond warmly to me. But actually, even though there is probably evidence that if I do that and people respond warmly, there's probably also evidence that people don't. And over time you start to realize, well, one swallow doesn't make a summer. That's a good night. Very, very good night. So when did you realize that wasn't true?
I've been studying Stoicism for a few years now. I say studying, it's not like I'm sitting down and reading it every night, but trying to think of these Stoic quotes and mantras on a daily basis. What I found, and I think this is definitely the theme, philosophy as medicine of the soul, it's medicine. It's meant to make you feel better. What I find in modern day 2025 is people use self-development as a drug, as like an addiction. There's all the self-development books, there's all the kind of learning, but without any action. And they're kind of feeding on that. They're getting their dopamine from diving into self-development, but are they actually self-developing? Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I've said this before, there is no self-development without self-awareness. And that's the thing, isn't it? It's understanding the, is this a signaling that
look what a great salesperson I am, or am I actually just being one? Am I trying to show, well, look at the Rolex, of course I've just hit target. Yeah. Am I not hit target, but I'm hoping that if people see the Rolex, I'll think I have. These are the things that you need to ask yourself. What am I doing it for? Why do I feel like I need to appear that way? And sales has got this funny ability where it will show you sides of yourself that you either didn't know existed or you thought you'd got rid of. You know what I'm saying?
Who am I doing it for? I think that's a great one. And you see it so much on social media with the Rolex and the car. But, but why? Like the, I think the quote is we buy things. Uh, we don't need to impress people. We don't like, we don't like. Fight club. Yeah. Fight club. But, but why? It's, it's just a crazy world. I think probably from people watching them, they can probably tell me and you aren't that materialistic. We don't, we don't have fancy watches.
We don't buy designer clothes. Like it's, it's not about that. It's the philosophy and the old school philosophy from the Stokes is just about being content with yourself and having that level of control. Life is going to be hard. Okay. Let's face it. Sales is going to be hard. The rest of the year is probably going to be hard. It's going to throw so much shit your way, but what can you actually control? And if you can develop this mindset of, well, it is what it is.
those beliefs, whether they're true or not, it is what it is. I remember my granddad saying to me when I, when I was younger and being on it, he wasn't like this wise old man. He was just a bloke from Ashton underline, but he said there are some things in life you can do something about, which you should do and some things that you can't, which you should forget and, and, and listening to that now as an adult, I mean, that was Marcus Aurelius in, in its greatest. Right. It's about controlling the things you can do.
So ask yourself the worries that sit on your desk or sit in your inbox or sit on your mind as you lay asleep at night. Can I control them right now? If you can't then then let them go. And I also we laugh about this but we might get emails on the weekend or out of hours and we laugh and go it's B2B. It's business. No one's gonna die. I can respond in the morning. It would always it can always wait.
On your, on your deathbed, you'll have wished you waited. That email didn't really need to be delivered, but you could have spent a bit more time with someone who's not here or who's grown up now, instead of responding to that email that they didn't read till 12 o'clock the next day anyway. Exactly. So I think use the philosophy that the advice I'd give you is take some of the Stoic lessons that we spoke about this month, apply them into your world.
and think about those mantras and how you can use these beautiful quotes from stoicism to enhance your life so that you live a more content and a richer life. You've got a bit of a Roman look about you. You're saying that about my nose and I don't like where this is going. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zack Thompson. Remember you will die. Guilty feet. They've got no rhythm.
