It's the 12th of March and I'm understanding you today because you're a difficult human being so there is no resentment I'm understanding so the theme is understanding not resentment. Can you understand somebody? Can you have empathy? Let's see what Marcus Aurelius... I'm giving the Italian vibe today. Let's see what Marcus Aurelius said about this.

When you understand this, you'll feel empathy instead of shock or anger. You might even realize that you share or once shared similar beliefs, making it easier to forgive them. And if you've moved beyond those beliefs, it becomes easier to show grace toward their mistake. Beautiful. Aurelius. You knew his stuff. Have you heard of a little book called Meditations? I certainly have. I've got a signed edition by the man himself. Wow. Marcus. We were talking about this on the way to the studio to record this today. And I think I asked you the question of, were you ever like that? Well, actually, were we ever like lazy? Were we ever tired? We were talking about something. were like, was that ever us? Because it's very easy to judge somebody. actually, were we once like them? Can you put yourself in their position? If you'd lived the life that they'd led, would you be like they were? And can you have empathy?

Empathy is a big one. remember, and I don't know if it's a story for the podcast, but let's say I'll get it out. when me and my partner were living in a flat, a lot of parcels used to go missing, used to get stolen. and, and my partner used to get really, really, really annoyed and frustrated because

Give us an example of what was in one these parcels. We ordered like a, I'm just a middle class man ordering gusto food. Wow, rich! A cook at home meal and somebody took it and I don't know what you'd want with a box of carrots and potatoes and a little bit of fine lean beef. But they took that and they stole it. And my partner was annoyed about it and I said, yeah, let's, we don't know who's taking this, but let's imagine that actually they're at home.

and they don't have food this week or they don't have shopping. So it's trying to, and it's hard, but it's trying to look at it from a different perspective and have empathy. Yeah. And I think it's so, so important to do that in sales because you're ringing people and they might let you down last minute. They might annoy you, they might frustrate you, but it's about how can you reframe things and have empathy or use it to your power? Exactly. So think about

cold call to someone Monday morning, you're feeling sprightly, you give it the best opener you can possibly give it and you get, you should go and bloody hurt yourself for doing this. You should get your data and set it on fire in front of all your loved ones and like whatever they're going to say. Nasty stuff that people say. Don't think that's a terrible person. Think what's normally happened in my life when I've behaved like that first thing in the morning. I've stubbed my toe on the way out. The cat's been smoking again.

All these different things when you think why is the cat smoking inside? There's a designated smoking area for cats outside. All the things that would annoy you could have happened to this person that happened to you. We're more similar than we are different. And when you start going into every conversation thinking that and seeing the other side as a human being as well as you, you start to have much more empathy in what you're doing and mean what you're saying. And there's all sorts of different sales skills that we can talk about about going into.

a deeper understanding, which is what our whole approach is about. But I think first and foremost, start there. with that empathy. Even when people are, you know, I see people talking about this on LinkedIn a lot. You might have someone who's very warm in the discovery call. There's a nice warm follow up email. Actually, they've got a reschedule for the decision. Fine. And then it comes to reschedule date and you get an email saying, sorry, not interested anymore. Now, rather than going, oh, that's rude because we had this report built and whatever.

think actually that's a person who might have thought they were going to use this, gone to get budget, actually there's some embarrassment there and they're wanting to keep the message as short and sweet as possible as a bit of self-preservation. Think about it like that rather than thinking everything's so personal. So, so, so good. And then I've got a story for you and it ties into understanding and not resentment and control and what you're in control of. We had a client that we've been working with for about a year.

and we were talking about renewals and things like that and we saw them we said they've not signed the contract and signed the invoice that's a bit weird so i saw them at one of the calls i said definitely like you've not got any cold feet it's okay if you have like no no no it's definite and then the next morning i woke up at half five and i had a message sorry it's a no wish you all the best okay and all of a sudden the emotion floods over. That's unfair. That's unjust. I've been lied to X, Y, and Z, all these feelings. And then I exhaled out and I just thought, okay, it's done now. There's no change in somebody's mind. What can I control? Am I going to be a stoic? I said to, I text you and I said, I've got something for you. stoic. And we just laughed about it. And we just said, right, okay, well that's, that's the situation now. And we use that. And what we did is we use that fuel and the knowledge that we'd had about that space.

And we were proactive and we were proactive with it and we went out and we spoke to other people. Oh, you were good actually. I don't, I think he's having enough credit for that. They left. I don't know how stoic this is, but you went, right. Who's the biggest competitor and then got a meeting with them and now they're a client. So I don't know if you can say that was stoic. I think it was stoic, fair. I didn't let the emotions run through, but yeah, I think it's about like, right. Okay. That's happened.

But you can use things as fuel or energy to kind of change your course. It's like, right, what have I learned from this now? Okay, can I turn a negative into a positive and can I understand and not have resentment? So I don't have resentment because we've got a much bigger, better client on board now. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zack Thompson. Remember you will die. Cheryl cool.