“Freedom isn’t found by chasing everything you want but by letting go of the need to want.” - Epictetus
Our brains are wired to always strive for more, and while this drive has fueled human progress, more doesn’t always equal happiness.
True contentment comes from appreciating what you have and taking pride in your efforts.
Epictetus teaches us that real freedom isn’t about fulfilling every desire, but learning to let go of the endless chase for more.
Focus on doing the work well. Fulfilment comes from the effort, not the outcome. Push forward, but stay grounded.
Recognize when enough is enough and celebrate the progress you've made.
Actionable tips:
- Focus on the quality of your work and client relationships instead of obsessing over closing every deal.
- Ask yourself if you're making decisions based on need or greed. Shift your mindset to long-term value rather than short-term wins.
Remember you will die.
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Disclaimer:
The Sales Stoic draws inspiration from the profound wisdom of Stoicism as presented in Ryan Holiday's "The Daily Stoic." As avid readers & fans, we deeply respect the work of Ryan Holiday, and acknowledge the significant impact of Stoic philosophy on our own approach to sales and life.
While The Sales Stoic applies the core principles of Stoicism to the unique challenges and opportunities faced by salespeople, it is an original work with its own distinct voice and focus. We aim to build upon the timeless wisdom of Stoicism to empower sales professionals with practical guidance and actionable insights for success in their careers and personal lives.
Jack Frimston
Co-Founder at We Have a Meeting
Zac Thompson
Co-Founder at We Have a Meeting
They can take our land, but they can never take our freedom!
25th of March, freedom from want. I thought you might say that. Yeah, I'm going to believe it is. It's epic taters. Easy for me to say. Easy for you to say. Freedom isn't found by chasing everything you want, but by letting go of the need to want. Understand that one? Yeah. It's, it's given attachment to the outcome. It's given attachment to the outcome. And the question, the cascading question to ask yourself is one of why.
Why the cascading? Why cascading? Why can talk about this from a therapy standpoint, but we can talk about it from a sales standpoint, but we can also talk about it from a inner dialogue standpoint. So let's say you've got a goal in mind, right? As a sales person, you want to be hitting a certain target and being a sales director or being an AE, let's say SDR to AE, something like that. Why do you want to be an AE? I want more money.
I want more responsibility, I want more freedom and I want to move up the hierarchy. Okay. Why is it important for you to move up the hierarchy? I want respect. I want to look better in my peer group and I want to have nicer things in life. Okay. Why do you want to look better in the peer group? Because all of my friends work in sales and I've been in the same role for a few years and I think it's about time that I'm on their level so that they give me more respect.
Okay. And why is it important to get more respect? Because at the moment, I don't know if you noticed, but a lot of my friends are very disrespectful to me. But you see how we get deeper and deeper into the layers of understanding. So what became, I want to be an AE actually becomes, I feel like I'd get more respect if I was an AE. And then you need to find out if I got there, would things be unanswered if I got there? So the answer that I think I would get of like, guys, I'm an AE, I'm an AE now look.
Is there a chance that they might try and to go? Who cares? So what? Who cares? It's a bit like going back to someone who was mean to you at school as a 33 year old man and going, look what I'm doing now. I told you, I? And be like, what? You've been playing this invisible game with people that didn't know the rules. Didn't know the rules or didn't even remember or weren't interested. Yeah. So sometimes I think it's about looking at things objectively, understanding yourself deeper.
The, the philosopher Socrates, people said to him, what did you learn from Socrates? And one of the best answers someone gave was I learned how to dialogue with myself. So learning how to ask yourself those tough questions. Socrates famously didn't answer questions. He would ask questions back. He'd explore things. He'd ask questions about people would leave without the answers, but they'd leave thinking, I've never seen that before. Actually, maybe I didn't know as much as I thought. Just being able to do that to yourself being your own advisor, your own inner philosopher to explore the foundations of what you think and the things that you chase him will give you a much more rounded view of things, but much more peace when you get there that it achieves what you said it would achieve. Does a tick the box that you think it's going to achieve or actually will you still be left wanting? Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it. And I think a few tangible ways to view this Russian dolls.
Right. Full of themselves. Hey! And a Russian doll, so it's like every time like a layer, whenever I'm kind of cascading why I think, can I get them to go deeper? Can I get them to open up? And one of the guys that we used to have in our office used to have a picture of a pneumatic drill on the desk. And that would be there as a reminder to dig deeper and dig deeper and dig deeper and find out what the root cause is and what the actual truth is. So sometimes in life you need little reminders.
And that could be anything from a photo of a Russian doll or a pneumatic drill. And then that slowly starts to build the habit and then it's there and it becomes natural. Wow. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zach Thompson. Remember you will die. Tell you's a dark horse. Black beauty.
