While we’re on hiatus preparing for a new season of Rethink the Way You Sell, we wanted to bring you some content from Jeff you probably haven’t heard before. Jeff produced a premium podcast called Deeper Thought from 2020-2022 and you’re about to hear one of those episodes. Enjoy!
This is an enhanced audio version of the Deeper Thought post Be Water by Andy Racic, including an interview with the author. Andy has been into kung fu movies lately, but it's comments from Bruce Lee that are anything but action-packed that have him thinking.
FULL TEXT
---
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” -Bruce Lee
I’ve been on a kung fu movie kick lately and naturally that means I’ve been working through Bruce Lee’s catalog. Bear with me a moment while I gush. Man, did Bruce just.get.it. If you asked me what exactly the “it” is that he got so well, it would take me a few pages to try to articulate that alone. But I can tell you with certainty that he got “it.” I can’t imagine how else he could have achieved so much and had such a transcendental impact across so many fields.
Alright, on topic...
Prospecting. Ahhh! Arguably the single most important activity every rep needs to be doing weekly if not daily… and yet the one almost all of us skip if given half an excuse.
Prospecting can either be a couple hours every week that you dread (or worse, avoid). Or it can be some of the most fun you can have in a sales job. The key thing about whether or not it’s fun or it’s hell is really your mental agility when you’re practicing your prospecting. At least, in my experience that’s the case.
I like going into prospecting with my research and a plan of attack ready. I rarely have fun or much success without those. However, if I’m not mentally nimble, and ready to roll with what comes, it’s a slog. I’m basically going through the motions with my script/talk track when reaching out. My tonality inevitably falls a bit flat. I don’t listen as well as I should. The calls don’t yield the results I’m hoping for. Totally frustrating!
When that happens (and it definitely still does from time to time, as much as it pains me to admit), I’m not “being water.” I’m attempting to bulldoze my way straight to a result without being mindful of the moment. I’m attempting to make the world conform to my plan. I don’t know about you, but so far I haven’t found a person who likes being bulldozed, and when I try to force the world to be a certain way, the world puts me in my place pretty quickly. When I’m “being water,” though, I’m mentally sharp yet relaxed and ready for whatever may come. My calls just go better. My emails may occasionally be a bit unorthodox, but I find that I’m able to get my points across simply and directly without sounding like a corporate robot. And it’s a heck of a lot more fun.
Subscribe to Deeper Thought on Soundwise
