Stop chasing me round the Mulberry bush. Why? Because I feel like we could get on better if we sat on this bench and talked about stop chasing approval. Really lovely, actually. You like that one? Yeah, really good. Threw you off there, didn't it? Yeah. Anyway, today we're going to be picking up the Incaridian and talking to Epiharsalidus Epictetus. Easy for you to say. Easy for me to say. If you should ever turn your will to things outside your control in order to impress someone.

Be sure that you have wrecked your whole purpose in life. Be content then to be a philosopher in all that you do. And if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself first that you are and you will succeed. Hmm. I think if you try and impress somebody, you'll fail. Well, yeah. Go on. How will you fail? If your sole purpose, and this is just an opinion, and opinions mean nothing, but if your sole purpose is to impress people.

Or automatically by default, you're probably failing because you're missing something along the way. Like it's, it's just a bit icky. think like your, your sole purpose should be to help and inspire. And that's it. That's where people go wrong. Inspire and impress. Yeah. Do you know what I think about, someone told us once that you should watch when you go back around your parents as an adult, what you default to.

And when we first started the business, I definitely used to default to being around my parents and being like, Oh, what I'm doing this stuff. Like, are you interested in it? I'm doing this other stuff. Are you interested in that? And like yearning for that, like, notice me thing. And yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, I agree from a sidestep, but I think a lot of salespeople don't realize what you're bringing in when you're dealing with the rejection and the validation that comes with selling.

is that inner child and the inner child is definitely going to be based on that rejection and validation. And so what it will tend to bring up is these things that you perhaps need. And some of them might be your boss has suddenly become this father figure that you need approval from, or that client reminds you of the high school bullying. You want to prove them wrong or that.

Remind you of the high school bullying actually you can't kind of cower away and when they give you an objection that normally you deal with fine every day suddenly you're like, yeah, you're probably right yet. See you later then. Hmm. And you're carrying all that around with you every day. Have you noticed any of that? Yeah. But so then my head goes to how do you start to unpack that? Because I know that from conversations we've had, if we're in situations now, there's never a real kind of push to impress, which is which an argument would be it's a different kind of status game of not saying much so either way you can't win in the same way that There's no deed that isn't selfish like, you know, I'm friends with this how I let a bee sting me but the bee the bee died so and and you felt good from it, so it's a different kind of status game but is it's case of how do you start to unpack that? Kind of I don't want to call it trauma, but there's definitely like a line of trauma

Who are you trying to impress? And it goes back to our favorite word. Why? Why are you trying to impress them? Let them. Let them. Let them. Really what the Stoics are saying is there are emotions that will come up. You're an emotional being. You're meant to have them. The problem is when those emotions flood your awareness. What they were always trying to train the same in Buddhism is there's a observer that lives in your head.

And this observer can watch the emotion, watch it about to flood the human system and go, there you go. There's the awareness. You know, that was the inner child talking. That's not really you. That's annoyed you because of this and building that awareness muscle over time will stop you being just this reactive machine where anger or sadness or whatever is driving the bus. It will go, no, no, no, actually I'm a big boy. Move aside. I'm still in charge here. I get it. We can talk about you later.

and it'll stay in charge. My pet peeves is people that say, I am just the way I am. That's how I am or sing it. I am who I am. That wasn't the song. and the people that go, yeah, you don't you. Most people don't don't want to. Most people don't like me after the first time they've met me. All those different things. I've said that to you. Yeah, but I don't like you after the first time I met you. That was true. No, but it's like.

yeah, I'm just, I'm just hot headed. That's the way I am. yeah. Actually, no, that's not, that's not just the way you are. Nobody is one thing we are ever changing. And if that is something that you say, that's a flaw, I'm hot headed as a person, then change. Permission to rant? please. Okay. So there's a thing that annoys me in the current culture, self love, right? I don't know why it annoys me because I don't think what it actually was probably meant initially is the way it's been interpreted, right? If you've watched any of these like reality shows, Love Island, Married at First Sight, whatever, you get people who just have the most terrible behaviors that are just completely unacceptable. And they're like, look, if you can't love me when I'm literally drowning a puppy, you don't deserve me. If you can't, when I'm plowing my car into traffic, if you don't love me at that, then it's like, no, no, you're not getting the point. What it really should be is...

self-acceptance, like I can accept when I've done something wrong and get better. Yeah. Doesn't mean when you do something wrong, like that is literally part of you. Yeah, I've just hit this person in face because my food order is like, that's just who I am. If you don't love me at that, then you don't deserve me. Get better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's a real funny one. And I think that your job on earth is to find out where your cons are, where your flaws are, and slowly, slowly work towards.

Okay, nobody's perfect, nobody's asking you to be perfect.

but you want to work towards getting better. I was going to say you're perfect. Yeah, and I wasn't going to say that. Well, I always think you are. Thank you. And I'd do anything for you. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zach Thompson. Remember you will die. Please let me out.