Happy birthday to me Happy birthday to me Happy birthday dear the god of sales Happy birthday to the founder of modern sales Saving the generation Hello, hello, yeah, that's Ryan Holliday. He just said ego is the enemy. He would know. Do you know how I am? Catty, wasn't it? Very stoic of you. You know how I remember your birthday?

This could know that it's a mate. It's going to be this thing about remember you'll die or something. No, it's not. It goes into my brain, right? No, no. If this ends up being nasty, it's not. not. It's a genuine story. It goes into my brain. It says when Zach Thompson's birthday to remember it. And I go back to being 17. I remember you went to syndicate nightclub to watch pendulum on your on your it might be in your 18th 17th or 18th. And it was May the 21st. I remember that day because I was going to go and last minute I thought I can't be asked.

Do you not go? No, I didn't go. It was a mad night. Someone got knocked out on the way in and then I got to do something and I got home that I'll tell you about off camera. I know. I actually know what you did. And can you still taste the Rizzler? ⁓ Very good. What is philosophy really? Isn't it just preparing ourselves for whatever comes our way? If I train myself to endure it, then let whatever happens happen.

Otherwise, it would be like a boxer quitting the fight just because he took some hits. In reality, you can walk away from the ring without consequence. But what do you gain by walking away from the pursuit of wisdom? So what should we say to every challenge we face? This is what I've trained for. This is why I practice. Wow. I like that. I delivery. You should do like some kind of voiceover work. What people say that. So listen, right? This is a great one. I think the box analogy is

Stupendous. My father was a boxer and mother was a housewife. He's an incredible boxer with an incredible mind. But when I think about the boxing, I think it's great because a boxer doesn't think, oh, hold on a second, you hit me. What are you doing hitting me? You're in the boxing ring, aren't you? I don't know, it's always dad then. And in sales, this happens well, it? Where you think, well, that person was horrible to me on the phone. email, I thought was definitely in a closet. They've just sent an email saying, sorry, we're not interested anymore. And suddenly you get you taking the hits. Of course you're taking the hits.

but you're not accepting the rules of the game. No. You're thinking like, oh no, but they really like me. They shouldn't have done that. That's not a rule of the game. No. likes you, mean they're always going to say yes to you. Or I've just rang someone, they were horrible to me. Right? When you click quick apply on a sales job on LinkedIn, or you send your CV, or you get a job interview and then you accept it, you are accepting rejection.

Sales equals rejection. If you are naive to think that I'm going to accept this job and I won't be rejected, that is getting into a boxing ring and being surprised when you get punched in the face. You are going to get rejected and the sooner you accept that, the more you can accept it. Yes. Very good. Very good. But I think it can go, it can go both ways, can't it? You can also think, ⁓ I've hit target a couple of them in a row. There's something like

amazingly unique and different about the way I'm doing things at the minute and start to fall back a little bit on some of the habits that got you there. So you can think, I mean, we've seen it before, we? The way we've had a top performer, maybe a little promotions happened or they've rewarded themselves. And then suddenly it's like, whoa, holy not even like a slight drop, like a complete drop to just nothing's happening again. And I've been there. I've been there many a time where I've done the thing. I've got the emotion. I've hit the goal.

And then I'm like, well, it doesn't really matter. I can kind of chill out now because there's something unique and special about me. But there isn't because I've not accepted the rules of the game. The rules of the game are I need to do the bit consistently and I need to also have the desire to do the thing consistently. So what about when you look back, what are those moments where actually you were probably getting in your own way because you weren't accepting the rules of the game? I think there's so many like name one.

Yeah, I will mate. Just give me a second to think. I think we overestimate when something might be hard. So like when I've worked on campaigns in the past and the early days I took on maybe a very technical SaaS platform thinking, well, everything else I'm delivering on, like, and then you can't deliver on it. It's like, this is really hard. And it's like, well, yeah, there are going to be campaigns. There are going to be people that you speak to. There are going to be products that you sell.

that are probably going to be harder than others. But it's about how you react to that and that how you respond to that. And that's the stoic thing of, okay, well, it might not be my fault that this client I've taken on is harder, but it probably is. But it might not be your fault that they've invented a new product or it might not be your fault that they've doubled the prices of the thing that you're selling. But it is your responsibility. And there's going to be all these things that come come against you at points. It's like, okay, how do I respond to that? And we know the stoics. They talk about your choice.

And that is all stoicism is, is having a choice how to respond to things. Exactly. So perhaps a takeaway here is before you take on a sales job or before you take on your day in sales or your month or whatever it may be, remind yourselves of the rules of engagement. What is in your control? What is not? And roll with the punches. Roll with the punches, baby. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zac Thompson. Remember you will die. I'm a boxer. That's I do best. A box.