A few weeks ago, I did something I had been preparing for and quietly dreading in equal measure. I gave a TEDx talk. But this newsletter is not about the talk. It is about the twenty minutes after.
When I stepped off the stage, I did not rush to a quiet corner or grab my phone to check messages. I walked to the balcony. I needed to watch the other speakers from above.
It was strange and beautiful. I had just lived what they were about to live, and I could see it written all over them. The breath before the first sentence. The flicker of fear at minute three.
From up there, I could see the whole theater. I watched 450 people lean in, smile, sometimes wipe a tear. I spotted my family in the third row, fully present. It looked like a heartbeat.
And then it hit me. I have spent my career sitting in four very different seats, and each one shaped me. There is a backstage seat, where you prepare, rehearse, and quietly question your choices. There is a balcony seat, where you observe and let the bigger picture do its work. There is a stage seat, the one we romanticize, where everyone can see you. And there is a crowd seat, where you are simply one of many.
We chase the stage. We think the stage is the destination. But every honest career, and every honest sales career especially, moves between these four, on repeat, sometimes in the same week.
Owning the four.
Backstage is your prospecting, your research, your 180 rehearsals before the call that matters. Balcony is your pipeline review, your CRM, the quiet hour you spend studying what worked and what did not. Stage is the meeting, the demo, the close. And the crowd? The crowd is your prospect's seat. The one that reminds you they are a human first, a buyer second. The one that keeps you humble.
The salespeople I respect the most can move between all four without losing themselves. They do not live on the stage. They do not hide backstage. They remember what it feels like to be on the other side of the call.
I could not stay on the balcony for long that day. I needed to be in it, not above it. So I walked down and stood among the 450 people. No longer apart from the moment. Part of it.
That is when I saw everyone up close. I saw, from left to right, my son, my best friend, the love of my life, a very strong friend, and my cousin, who, for the record, cried his eyes out the whole time. These are my people. They represent the larger community that made the entire thing possible.
And that is the part I want you to take into Monday. You are not closing deals alone. You never were. Behind every signature is a champion who vouched for you, a colleague who covered for you, a coach who pushed you, and a family that fed you the night you stayed up rewriting the proposal.
Find them. Thank them. Then go do the work.
Talk soon, Tati.
