Sales is tough.
Although it’s one of the most important skills to have as an entrepreneur.
I learned sales from jumping into business with my advisory company. It was education through repetition.
BTW, today is the last day to participate in the crowdfunding of my next bestselling book – Musta’s Mixtape.
The sales process is about outreach, persistence, and resilience.
As someone who is slightly introverted, reaching out to people is not my main cup of tea.
I learned to get through this by setting up processes and systems.
Even though I’ve been doing this for 8+ years now, the resistance to reaching out does not change.
I cringe while making a cold call. I overthink when sending an email. I fidget before a discovery meeting starts.
Sales is a battle in the arena and my ego fights for its dear life.
Ultimately, I don’t want my sense of self to be shattered.
Sales can be a spiritual exercise. Sell something and you’ll learn about who you are and who you’re not.
Don’t Sell Who You’re Not
A lot of us don’t accept reality for what it is.
We are constantly threatened by the Now.
Our minds project into the future in search of salvation in the future. We bear a current hell for a future heaven.
Then our minds go to the past, replaying what should have been done, reinforcing who we think we are.
All these mental gymnastics take you away from what is most important – the present. The Now.
Your ego loves to avoid. It’s an avoidance diva.
Your ego and mine would get along.
On the surface level, we might clash and argue, deep down our ego loves doing the same thing: avoiding the present reality.
So it hides in the past and the future.
This leads to unhappiness.
And unhappiness is increasing around the world at an alarming rate.
Alert! Alert!! Alert!!!
Uh oh….I hear the cacophony of egos….splishing and splashing.
Hands waving in the sky, wanting to be noticed.
“I don’t have an ego, you have an ego.” (OK. I know I do)
“I need my ego to assert myself in this world” (I feel you, but then you get what you want – and then what?)
The best thing you can do to the ego is observe it, don’t get pulled into an argument with it.
Anyways, back to the letter…
You are not the labels that you and society have imposed on you.
There is a real self that goes beyond the identity built by your mind. Beyond your thoughts is a consciousness that exists: your real being.
This self can only be experienced in the present.
The way to experience the present is to become observant.
Observe your current mindset, understand your needs, and pay attention to how you express yourself.
Your programmed mind is not who you are. It separates you from your true self.
3 Ways In
Pay attention to the thinker. That’s it.
Once you put a spotlight on your thinking mind without attaching to it, you will be well on your way.
With this awareness, you’ll become aware of unconscious behavior.
You’ll notice repetitive patterns that keep you stuck in a life you don’t want.
Most importantly, it will help you break away from illusions and align yourself with the most important thing – reality.
Here are the 3 steps to get there:
1. Develop a Whole Mindset
Bypass your fixed mindset.
When I was in grad school for engineering, the engineers could not stand business people.
When I did my MBA, the business school students always clowned tightly-wound engineers.
When I hang out with musicians and artists, a lot of them talk about how expressive they are with an air of superiority to the corporate folks.
When I’m with my corporate and investor friends, they laugh at the “pie in the sky” artists.
Hol’ up Hol’ up Hol’ up
Like Notorious BIG said on his track Party and Bullshit: “Can’t we all just along?”
Most people identify with a particular mindset.
You either have a rational mindset that relies on logic and reason or a creative mindset that relies on expressions and intuition.
When you are steeped in one mindset, you tend to look down on others with a different mindset.
To tap into the flow of creative intelligence, develop a whole mindset.
Your left brain should complement your right brain
The “ego agenda” is built based on our experiences over time. We identify with the personal goals driven by our egos.
On the other hand, there is programming that comes from the group agenda.
It’s the “social agenda” that started from when you were born.
As soon as you started understanding your parents and them telling you what to do, your programming began.
You became loyal to authority figures.
Between the ego agenda and the social agenda, it is easy to think through those lenses because it makes thinking automatic.
It’s one or the other: I’ll either do my own thing or confirm with the group.
Conscious thinking requires effort.
To develop conscious thinking, you have to bypass our fixed mindsets, egoic constructs, and societal agendas.
To achieve this requires awareness, openness, clear perception, lack of bias, and unclouded thinking.
“The more you rely on a mindset, the more disconnected you will be from your inner knowingness” ~ Abundance, Deepak Chopra
2. Stop Giving Your Ego Life
Your ego is sensitive.
It always wants to defend and feed. Ultimately, it is scared to die
As I crowdfunded my 4th book (just a reminder, you can join in here), I’ve been through the process 2 times already.
I know the feeling. I know I have to put myself out there and be vulnerable.
But I also feel the resistance. I don’t want to overstep.
Ask the wrong person the wrong way, silence, a ‘no’, can lead to a sense of inadequacy afterward.
Just like my other business, the fear of rejection can be freezing.
Ultimately, I didn’t know what I really feared was death.
Death of who I have identified with – my ego.
The egoic mind thrives on identifying with a false sense of self.
It always wants to defend its position.
This leads to arguments, berating, and even war.
We deal with different fears: fear of failure, fear of loss, and fear of being hurt.
The fear that is the root of concern for the egoic mind is the fear of death.
Anytime the ego is threatened: there is a fear of the false self dying.
Once you bring awareness to it and realize that you are not your ego, you are on a path to liberation.
Another fear is the fear of not being enough.
This sense that you need external things to be whole shows up in a lack of self-worth.
The ego feeds on external things such as job titles, social status, a need to be right, possessions, recognition, knowledge, relationships..all to feel whole.
“Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You are whole, you just have to realize that you are not your thoughts or what you do.
3. Watch Your Word
The words you speak will change your world. Choose them wisely.
Your thoughts become words words become actions, actions become habit, habit becomes character.
That’s how I started my business school application for Stanford.
I was responding to the infamous question: “What’s important to you and why?”
That quote which was attributed to Gandhi was a late addition to my essay.
I think it was the last sentence I wrote but it was added as the first sentence.
It touches on the importance of a strong hook to start your writing.
But the hook itself touches on the importance of thoughts and words and how they impact our individual lives.
Words are magical. They carry energy.
Words are a mere representation of what is being communicated. Behind it is what is really being said.
What you say is important, but how you say it is even more important.
People can read the energy of what you put out into the world.
When you are aligned with your true self, the authenticity rings through.
Your words can either reflect: I am “enough” or “not enough”.
When you don’t feel enough, your words will be directed towards complaining, blaming others, criticism, and pessimism.
When you feel enough, your expression is for gratitude, love, optimism, and uplifting others.
The most important words are those that you tell yourself. They either downgrade or upgrade your story.
A big part of building relationships is open communication.
Most people just want to feel heard.
The sooner you realize that your partner, sibling, or friend is a reflection of your inner world, the sooner you take ownership of what’s going on and work on yourself.
“We are quick enough to spot faults in others, but very slow in seeing that what we most dislike about someone is precisely what we resent about ourselves”
~ Deepak Chopra, Abundance
Final Thoughts
You are not your thoughts.
It’s easy to identify with your thoughts. It’s harder to just observe them and be present. Go sell something. It’s a spiritual experience of watching your ego.
Don’t get lost in your mind. Find yourself in the present.
