The Human Side of Sales Leadership with Shar Banerjee

Ever wondered what truly makes a great sales leader? Is it strategy, skills, or something deeper?

Today’s guest is Shar Banerjee, a leadership and revenue growth expert. In this conversation, we dive into the human side of sales leadership—how trust, curiosity, and continuous learning shape great leaders. Shar shares her journey from scaling high-growth organizations to uncovering the real factors that drive leadership success.

With 20+ years of consistent revenue success leading individuals and transforming teams to exceed expectations and results, Shar now partners with revenue leaders who are as obsessed with creating workspaces that their people are bragging about. Side effects include extraordinary individual performance and organizational revenue WOW.

As an ex-head of sales of a technology company and an ex-head of business development of a leadership development company, Shar took both companies from zero technology, people & processes to thriving organizations worth millions today. What lights her up is unlocking the secret sauce that makes revenue organizations thrive. The one not-so-secret secret that she knows: incredible business with extraordinary revenue bottom lines are the byproduct of unwavering people development.

In this episode of Leadership: Human-Style, you’ll discover:

✅ Why challenges are a gift for personal and professional growth

✅ The importance of clear communication in leadership

✅ How to move from assumption to conversation in your team

✅ Practical strategies to step into your leadership potential

🔗 Connect with Shar Banerjee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharbanerjee/

Work with me!

Interested in team coaching, leadership coaching, keynote speaking, workshop design and facilitation, or strategy consulting?   Book a free call with me to explore how we might partner: https://calendly.com/lisa-mitchell-greenapple/clarity-call 

Let’s Connect!

• Lisa on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-mitchell-acc-ctdp-7437636/ 
• Green Apple Consulting 
  • on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/green-apple-consulting-inc/ 
  • On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenappleconsulting/ 

Looking for a Team Coach or dynamic Keynote Speaker/Facilitator?

Book a call with me to explore how we might partner (serious inquiries only please):

https://calendly.com/lisa-mitchell-greenapple/clarity-call

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Transcript

Lisa Mitchell [00:00:00]:

And let's hope, my dog. Hello, and welcome back to Talent Management truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by Shar Banerjee. Shar is the founder and CEO of Access Plus Leaders. Welcome to the show, Shar.

Shar Banerjee [00:00:14]:

Thank you for having me, Lisa. It's so great to be with you.

Lisa Mitchell [00:00:17]:

Likewise. My pleasure. So let's begin. I'd love for you to share with listeners a little bit about who you are and your background.

Shar Banerjee [00:00:25]:

Yeah, sure. Thanks so much. So, my name is Shar, as you mentioned, and I'm the CEO of Access plus leaders. We are a boutique leadership development and training company. We focus on leadership development training at large, with a special focus on sales and revenue teams. I myself am an ex head of sales of a tech company, and so I bring to the table that focus and that sort of viewpoint, call it on the importance of sales and the importance of skill development within salespeople and skills development and leadership development of revenue leaders at large.

Lisa Mitchell [00:01:01]:

Okay, so tell us a bit about your sales career. Like, how did that transpire? Did you go into that straight out of school, or.

Shar Banerjee [00:01:07]:

Yeah, yeah. No, I knew exactly that. I wanted to be a salesperson when I was a little girl.

Lisa Mitchell [00:01:12]:

Not.

Shar Banerjee [00:01:13]:

No, no, no, that.

Lisa Mitchell [00:01:14]:

Oh, you didn't? Oh, oh, oh, that's.

Shar Banerjee [00:01:17]:

You know what the funny thing is? Most people in sales had no idea that sales was a career before they got into it. Most salespeople landed into this role by accident. Like, they just fell for it. Like, there is no. There is no university that that sort of teaches sales, as, you know, a degree. And so I find that a lot of people kind of just found their way to it, and I'm one of them. And so I think one of the basic things for me that I learned is that I got into sales just with this idea of, I think I'm good at talking to people. Like, I think I enjoyed the being curious about other humans, and I think that this is a special superpower of mine, but I'm not sure about it.

Shar Banerjee [00:01:59]:

And that's kind of when I landed into my first sales role. And lo and behold, it was easy. The conversations were easy, and a lot of the sort of symptoms of easy conversation were happening to me, which is that people were buying what you offer, except that you don't see it in that lens until somebody points it out to you to say, hey, I think you're actually really good at sales. And so my sales career kind of started all the way from university. I was in one of those call center environments and.

Lisa Mitchell [00:02:29]:

Oh, that's my background, too.

Shar Banerjee [00:02:30]:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it was fun and hard and so interesting. The psychology of what works and what doesn't work. Fast forward to, you know, many years later, multiple career paths later, I joined a tech startup and I was head of sales of that company for nearly a decade. And, and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about sales, process, people, technology, all of the things, ins and outs of revenue, first as an individual contributor, but then also as a manager, and then as an executive, thinking strategically about revenue. So it's definitely a very beautiful spot that I hold in my heart for sales at large and revenue.

Shar Banerjee [00:03:13]:

It's the heartbeat of every organization. Right? And now I see that heartbeat as connected to so many people, because without the people understanding why it's important and how it shows up, it really, you can't really have a healthy heartbeat.

Lisa Mitchell [00:03:28]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sales is such an interesting beast, right. For the people outside of sales, they're often like, oh, they get all the fun stuff and all the budget and everything, which is true in a lot of cases. And then the sales folks are, you know, meantime, you know, hard driving and very numbers focused. And, and yes, many of them seem to fall into it because I've supported sales and done a lot of developed sales training and, you know, really, really enjoyed, I never did it myself, per se, until I went out on my own, but supported it for years. So I have some interesting sort of perspective on it, you might say. Right. Kind of being part of it and not really.

Lisa Mitchell [00:04:09]:

So I'm curious, because a lot of what we focus on here at talent management truths is how do we develop people and develop their skills? And so when it comes to sales training, what, what did you learn was the most effective approach over the course of your career?

Shar Banerjee [00:04:27]:

That's such a good question. You know, the thing is, you think that sales training is something where you put somebody in a course and it's a skill. Like you can pick up a skill and that's it, right? Like, you learn, you don't know how to do x, so then you go to school to learn how to do x, and therefore you go do it. Yes, that's true. And there's more to it. So the way that I think about it is that there's almost this mental school that you have to go to. Like the resilience of you, the agility of you, the competitive nature, all of that, the inner monologue, the knowing how to deal with rejection, all of that inner stuff is sales work. In addition to the skills the psychology, the tactics, the human element of a conversation.

Shar Banerjee [00:05:12]:

So I kind of see it as two parts of. Right, like the inside of you and then the skills that deal with kind of like, the outside stuff.

Lisa Mitchell [00:05:21]:

Got it. And I would agree. It's interesting because I think because we're both coaches, that's partly why. Totally why that resonates so much with me, what you just said. Because, you know, I remember it was more about, you know, the focus. If I go back, like, 1020 years, even, you know, on the tactics, like, tactically, how many people do we have to contact to close this many deals? Yes. You know, it was really that numbers game. And there was, you know, we talked about there was power training, pro boline raise.

Lisa Mitchell [00:05:54]:

There was, you know, different kinds of training that would come in that would teach you about how to do discovery and how to connect with people on a human level, certainly. But then there was a very big focus on quickly moving to business and kind of staying there until you closed. So what I'm hearing from you is there's this inner piece, this heartbeat piece. Maybe you could expand on, like, an example. Example that you can think of where that really came into focus, where somebody became more successful because of this dual focus.

Shar Banerjee [00:06:31]:

Well, see? So this is the layered approach to this whole topic, because a human is responsible for the bottom line of a company. Yeah, sure. At large, there's thousands of humans that are responsible for the bottom line of this company. But at its singular focus, the person, let's say, who's calling customers or is interacting with customers, that person itself is an entire universe in themselves. They're made up of relationships external to the company. They're made up of conversations and partnerships that their boss has no idea of. They've got experiences that are private and that shape them on the daily. And so herein lies like, this other thing that lies on top, which is how effective that one human is, is a direct consequence, as well, of the leadership that supports them and the willingness for that leader to see.

Shar Banerjee [00:07:21]:

To look at that person and not think of them as a widget, right? Like 20 dials equals, you know, not to see them as a formula, but to see through them as a human being and bring out the best in them. Like, the best. Their creativity, their anxiety, their worries, their. Their dreams, their goals, all of that stuff, like, to raise them up and then to drive work from that platform, is 100% directly related to the effectiveness of the leadership that that person is around. And so this is where it's like, this complicated nuance of, yes, there's training involved. Yes. You have to work on your inner mental dialogues and be okay with rejection, all that stuff. And there's also the surroundings.

Shar Banerjee [00:08:07]:

Right. Like, the system as well, needs to encourage the best possible, sort of like the beautiful, the beautification of the human experience whilst you're at work. I mean, and I have a ton of examples where, you know, reps bring that baggage into their workplace. Like the elevator doors open and you step in, but you're not able to leave everything outside of the elevator doors. Like, you bring in some of that emotional turmoil or whatever have you. And so it is working with that, not working against that, that I think the best leaders have figured out.

Lisa Mitchell [00:08:44]:

Right.

Shar Banerjee [00:08:45]:

I mean, and I mean, I could, I could talk about this for eons and eons, but it's not just even the leadership dynamic zooming out, then it's like the company. And like, what do you believe in of your people? Because if your people are your biggest assets, how do you show it?

Lisa Mitchell [00:09:00]:

Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, you can't just speak about this stuff at one level or in one corner of an organization surround. How do we create an ecosystem right, where it's embedded, threaded throughout? Okay. So help people work with who they are, what they are, not against it. What does that look like when you're helping leaders? Like, like, let us peek through the curtains here. Like, how do you help them actually understand what that means? So that, you know, because salespeople will say, I don't like any fluffy stuff. So, you know, how do you help them understand what that actually means as an approach?

Shar Banerjee [00:09:44]:

As in, like, work with people instead of seeing them as widgets, you mean?

Lisa Mitchell [00:09:48]:

Exactly.

Shar Banerjee [00:09:49]:

You know, I'll give you an example for, there might be a corporate mandate that says work starts at 09:00 a.m. let's say. And here you have an employee clocking in late to a meeting that started at 09:00. And as their leader, you can do one of two things. You can approach that person after the meeting's wrapped up. You can do one of two things. Actually, you can do three things. One, you can do nothing at all.

Lisa Mitchell [00:10:17]:

Yes, that's a choice. That's a choice.

Shar Banerjee [00:10:19]:

That is a choice. You can do nothing at all. You can address the issue head on. And the way that you address the issue is, hey, don't do that again, because work starts at nine, or the last way is just to actually just be curious about what happened. When I lay it out, it's so simple and so silly. Right? When I put it out in a matrix like that. Do nothing. Do something.

Shar Banerjee [00:10:40]:

If you're going to do something, tell them not to do it again or get curious about what happened. And so in this example, with this employee, who is otherwise an incredible employee, most people will just do nothing because they'll assume that it's a one off. Now, let's say it's a recurring thing. This really great employee is actually slipping through their performance. Work is not as good. What they had over. They over promise, under deliver. And now it's kind of happening over and over again.

Shar Banerjee [00:11:05]:

Now, this leader, who would otherwise say nothing, goes into the space of, well, now I got to say something because their performance is slipping. And again, the majority of leaders will go into the space of, hey, I know you don't normally do this, so please don't do it again. Or, you know, something maybe not as nice, maybe a bit mean, I don't know. Um, but then you're, you know, you're missing like that. I don't actually. I don't actually care that this has happened. It's all in the past. Let's talk about what's going on.

Shar Banerjee [00:11:32]:

Right. And like, to invite vulnerability into the conversation, to just invite them to be anything that they need to be in order to express to another human about what's happening. I often say, like, what happens if you actually remove titles from a private conversation and you see the human as they are? Like, at the end of the day, the only thing that separates us people from one another. It's not our titles and all that stuff. It's like, it's just the roles and responsibilities that we hold in an organization. Otherwise, we are. Right.

Lisa Mitchell [00:12:07]:

Yeah, 100%. You know, that's when I do a lot of team coaching with executive groups and leaders of all stripes, to be honest with you. And that's one of the things we talk about is. Makes me crazy when somebody sort of shows up and they're talking about subordinates, my subordinates. And I don't see that that often, but it still sneaks in sometimes. There's no such thing as superior, inferior, you know, subordinate. We are people, and everybody simply has a different role to play.

Shar Banerjee [00:12:38]:

Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:12:39]:

Right. So let's look at what that means for how we need to show up and operate on a day to day basis and. And interact together. Right. And how we. How we kind of. Yeah. Like, what are the synergies between us?

Shar Banerjee [00:12:53]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:12:55]:

Interesting. Okay. So when it comes to this whole. What would it look like? So I'm. I'm hearing you basically make a case for not saying nothing, which is a choice and which communicates a whole slew of probably negative assumptions for people. Right. When you say nothing, like the leader who comes in doesn't bother saying hello. People think they're grumpy, they don't like me, I'm getting fired, and they're just having a bad day.

Lisa Mitchell [00:13:20]:

That's all it was. Yeah. So you're advocating for somebody just to be curious, lean in, ask, how's it going? What's happening for you? I noticed you were late. What about the leader? Or leaders in an organization that say, okay, sure, we're too busy, we don't have any time for that. We simply, people need to be grateful they have a job and show up on time. Yeah. Because this, this happens. We.

Lisa Mitchell [00:13:49]:

I can. There's leaders I know that have said that to me.

Shar Banerjee [00:13:53]:

Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:13:54]:

What do you do then as the.

Shar Banerjee [00:13:57]:

The person receiving that information or as the coach of the leader who is.

Lisa Mitchell [00:14:02]:

As the coach or the sales trainer or whatever, how do you help influence that view of this leader? That there's nothing that they can do, that this person that their employees just need to get with the program.

Shar Banerjee [00:14:14]:

Yeah. So here's the thing. I think at the end of the day, unless we're talking to a team of heart surgeons, there is no life that is on the balance. Right. I think that perspective gets lost a lot in calendars and deadlines and this is due and this is urgent. There is nobody's. Most of the time, most of the time, there is nobody's life hanging in the balance. And I think that perspective is so necessary in these environments where we feel up to over our neck in stress and pressure and tension.

Shar Banerjee [00:14:50]:

Right. Going back to that example of that employee who was otherwise really, really great, stand out, no less, who kind of like had a dip in performance, who was showing up at 915 instead of 09:00. A few questions of discovery. And by the way, discovery, I could get into a whole other topic because sales is, you know, discovery is a thing in sales, but discovery is also a thing in leadership when you talk to your people. And discovery isn't he. Let me go through a checklist of what questions or why questions or, you know, here's my standard. I'm going to ask why three times in a row. It doesn't have work like that.

Shar Banerjee [00:15:26]:

Like, it is not a formula. Yes, it's a formula. And it's got to be delivered in a way that's authentic and true to your own expression. In that one case study of that one person who was late. True discovery of what was actually happening led to the revelation that this person was actually a new dad and they didn't feel comfortable sharing that information with their team. So nobody kind of knew what was coming and what was upcoming for this person. And, and he managed to hide it pretty well because he had a family unit and his partner took care of all of this kid's stuff. But it just so happened that the partner was extremely ill and so dropping off and picking up kind of landed on his shoulders for, call it like a couple of weeks while they were going through terse family issues.

Shar Banerjee [00:16:15]:

And that's all it was. It was like he just wasn't able to make it on time because of traffic. And now that his leader knew that instead of being like, hey, when is this gonna end? And we'll suffer until you're ready, it was like, oh, that's it. Let's have the meeting start at 930 without even then informing anybody about why. Like obviously just checking with everybody that that was clear and that one little thing saved his. There was, there was almost this like dignity that got saved. I, you know, he was not ready to share with the world that this was his own personal problem and for whatever reason. Right.

Shar Banerjee [00:16:50]:

Like, you don't have to be an open book to everybody, but that his leader saw that within him and said, I'm going to help you find dignity back in this role that you love. Like, let me, let me make that change for you.

Lisa Mitchell [00:17:01]:

Yeah. It's so funny because the late example, this is one that we use a lot in leadership training. Right? Yeah. And how to have the conversation and how not to ignore it, but also not be mean about it and you know, like, but be curious. So, you know, the follow on scenario that I always include is, okay, so you change the meeting to 930.

Shar Banerjee [00:17:26]:

Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:17:27]:

And the person does better for a couple weeks and then they slide again.

Shar Banerjee [00:17:31]:

Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:17:32]:

And now they're coming in at ten.

Shar Banerjee [00:17:34]:

Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:17:34]:

What do you do then? What are your thoughts around that? Like, and not so much on how to handle it, but how do you help leaders with that? Like, what's been your experience? What's the most effective?

Shar Banerjee [00:17:48]:

Talk, don't assume.

Lisa Mitchell [00:17:50]:

There you go.

Shar Banerjee [00:17:51]:

Talk, don't assume. Yeah, talk, don't assume. That's it. Like there's literally, the assumption comes easy. It is easy to go into another closed door meeting with other leaders and vent about people who are not listening to you. Like, that's easy to do. It's harder to just talk and keep that space open between you and your people.

Lisa Mitchell [00:18:13]:

I agree. Talk. Don't assume so. Just want to underline that for listeners, because I think that that's probably, in a lot of cases, the number one growth edge for leaders that I work with. Right. Is to drop notice when you're having assumptions. Ask yourself, what assumptions am I making before you go and respond to a situation or somebody where you could damage it if you're holding an assumption.

Shar Banerjee [00:18:44]:

But here's the other really cool thing about what you just said. Figure out what your assumptions are. That comes from self leadership, too.

Lisa Mitchell [00:18:52]:

Yes, it does. Yes.

Shar Banerjee [00:18:54]:

Right. And the self leadership component to this whole thing is, like, how did you grow up? What are the stories that you're making up? Where does it come from? What do you know to be valuable within that you are holding so tightly on for somebody else? Right. Because often leaders get this, like, they get into the grumble, into the anger, into the frustration, because they feel that somebody else is violating a value of theirs that they're holding on so tightly to. And that's the turmoil of this entire thing, is that that value is yours and it's privately yours. And then distinguishing that from somebody else's value, that insight alone. Oh, my God. Creates so much peace and harmony within.

Lisa Mitchell [00:19:41]:

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. So, you know, listeners for this show tend to be, you know, senior leaders in HR and L and D and talent, and they know, they know this stuff. They probably train on it themselves. Like, so I'm curious, with the sales or revenue angle, sales leaders, I've I've supported one in my history, really hard driving, tough cookie, kind of aggressive in a lot of situations and could be very, very bottom line. And so I've sort of got that person in my mind's eye. So I'm curious, like, what would be your advice to listeners around if you've got this sales leader who's saying, look, this is a bottom line place.

Lisa Mitchell [00:20:25]:

We don't have time to learn how to see the person and get curious and all that. We need to just drive on those results. So they're still sort of insisting on that more old school way or focus on numbers. What are your tips on how to influence them and help them see the light, the benefits?

Shar Banerjee [00:20:47]:

Look, here's the thing. Everybody's got their own growth progression. Everybody will figure out what they need when they need it. You can't force somebody to see it your way. Right? Like, case in point where we were just talking about, you cannot force anybody to see it your way. I would say the only thing that I would encourage somebody who is curious about inviting different elements to the way that they lead. I would actually invite them to be that hard hitting, numbers, focused, aggressive, human, because it served you so well, but be that for the right audience. So perhaps if you're reporting up to a board or reporting up to a senior executive team that they, and they only want to do the binary, you know, ones and zeros, and I don't want to talk about emotion like, this is all very, you know, pass or fail.

Shar Banerjee [00:21:37]:

Be that. Be that identity for that crowd, but to be that one identity for the people who have to feel that you have their back, it may not work, or you may get, you may get the nods, you may get the, oh, great, like, they're listening to me, but I question whether or not you have their hearts. So my only piece of advice is for anyone who is curious about blending and being a bit more agile in their leadership style, that hardcore, you know, I'm going to only talk about this box and I live in this box that works for a certain audience, but know that that is only a part of leadership there. And there are other dimensions of leadership that you can shine a flashlight on if you're ready for it.

Lisa Mitchell [00:22:25]:

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. And it's tricky because some people are just. Are simply going to say, I don't know why, you know, why I would need this. So if you're internal to an organization or external like us, like, it's. How do you make the case for them to see people as, as whole, right. And people that do not leave baggage at the door when they walk into the. Into the workplace, whether it's virtual or in person. Um, I think it's really important to, um, to meet folks like that where they're at, in my experience.

Lisa Mitchell [00:22:55]:

And, you know, with the individual I described became a good friend of mine, but, you know, when he would sort of say, well, I don't see why we need to do it, you know, this and bring in all this other stuff and it's too complicated, we don't have time, and it's fluffy and all that. And I say, okay, so, so we're not doing it. And how's that working out? Like, what, what are opportunities you might be missing out on? And we would, we would go down and then he's like, oh, so what. What do you want to shift to? And usually it was people rowing in the same direction. People not like attrition, slowing, less turnover, higher satisfaction, better productivity. Okay, then I think it's incumbent on us to try something new to add something else into the mix, you know? Will you trust me? Right. And that, you know, that seemed to really make a difference in that particular case that I'm thinking of.

Shar Banerjee [00:23:53]:

Yeah. And I think that's great. Right. Like, you need people who are comfortable and are you can reliably call on to challenge you, because I think one of the most disastrous things in anyone's career is not having people that can challenge you to think differently.

Lisa Mitchell [00:24:15]:

Yes. Excellent point. Excellent point. So what's been the gift of being challenged for you?

Shar Banerjee [00:24:22]:

Oh, it's everything. It's. You talked about growth edges. It's growth edges. I think being challenged is probably truly one of the biggest gifts that you can have in your life. And being challenged can look different. It can look like a bad performance review, for example. It can look like negative feedback.

Shar Banerjee [00:24:44]:

It can look like a kind conversation with a hard bottom line.

Lisa Mitchell [00:24:50]:

Yeah.

Shar Banerjee [00:24:50]:

You know, it can look so different. And I think the coolest thing is if you are able to parse out where the growth is for you, minus all of the emotional stuff that comes with hearing something that's hard to hear.

Lisa Mitchell [00:25:06]:

Yeah.

Shar Banerjee [00:25:06]:

And then creating a plan. Right. Like, where do you want to. Where do you want to grow into? Who do you want to grow into? How is your identity shifting and just being okay with that?

Lisa Mitchell [00:25:17]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember I, you know what? I don't remember exactly who it was, but years ago and sort of, you know, I was very set on a particular direction that I wanted to go with something, some strategy or something. And I remember trying to think who it was, somebody I trusted. But I'm just, I'm not landing the face in my mind's eye right now. But they said, you know, I said, okay, in this, I think this makes sense. And this makes sense. And here's how I thought about it. And they said, okay, okay, yeah, that sounds very logical.

Lisa Mitchell [00:25:43]:

What if you're wrong?

Shar Banerjee [00:25:44]:

Yeah.

Lisa Mitchell [00:25:47]:

And I was like, I'm not wrong.

Shar Banerjee [00:25:49]:

You know what I mean?

Lisa Mitchell [00:25:50]:

Like, this is sort of the initial reaction. What do you mean? What do you mean? I just made a case for how well thought out this was, and it was more around, and I'm like, huh, okay, that's interesting. So that was because I'm such an optimist and I thorough in my analysis of things. I sort of was like, okay, that's good. And I've learned over time. For me, my growth edge has been not to just take things at face value and to intentionally poke holes and walk around things to see what could go wrong. Not because I want to become a pessimist all of a sudden, but because that view, intentionally taken, is going to help me anticipate, you know, problems before they occur and. And get in front of them, essentially.

Shar Banerjee [00:26:35]:

You know, this one story I just want to share is this person that you're talking about that, you know, I'm okay with people poking holes in my stuff. Like, I'm okay with them saying, hmm, what about this and that and that and that. Because you do your own solo journey, and then when you invite others into the. Into the spectrum, they're like, oh, you think about things differently. And this is actually born out of problem. And the problem that I noticed within myself was this thing about having it all right all the time. Perfect. That word perfect.

Shar Banerjee [00:27:07]:

I remember having so much pressure around the word perfect, and there was this one major presentation with a huge key stakeholder meeting. I remember it so clearly. I had delivered presentation after presentation, and it was hours and hours of work, and I always landed it, and it always felt amazing, except I couldn't do that anymore. The workload was too much. I just couldn't keep up with it. And I couldn't keep up with the expectation of perfect. My God, how heavy is that? And I remember having this moment where I was going to crack, and I said, what if this presentation, instead of ten out of ten, what if I purposely make it a four out of ten? And I did it. I went in there, four out of ten, prepared, four out of ten slide decks, four out of ten presentation, four, like, everything, four out of ten.

Shar Banerjee [00:28:01]:

And I walked out of there, and I thought, I am so proud of myself, because not only did I do it, you know, 40% of the way, I survived. And you know what? From their perspective, it was good enough.

Lisa Mitchell [00:28:14]:

Yeah, we do it to ourselves. This perfectionism thing, I have it, too. And that really kind of. I'm smiling as you're talking about that piece, right? Because, you know, giving yourself permission to make it good enough, right. Is so important. And I wish that we. I wish that we saw more of that in corporate culture, that people were encouraged to, like. Like, figure out what's good enough without killing yourself over things.

Lisa Mitchell [00:28:45]:

Right. That would, right there, raise capacity. But with your example, it sounds like trusting yourself. You learned you could trust yourself. And I firmly believe that you can only wing it or go for the four out of ten if you've done something a million times. But it gets to the point where you're like, okay, I know my stuff. I always nail it. As you said.

Lisa Mitchell [00:29:05]:

And so at this point, so just last night, I recorded a podcast episode, a solo one, and I winged it. I wrote three points down in my journal and a couple sub points, and then I just went live with it, and I'd never done that before. I usually write it out more, so most of it, anyways. And it felt good. It's a bit clunky. It's not perfect. And I was like, but it's authentic. And, you know, so I think that challenging ourselves in this way makes a lot of sense.

Lisa Mitchell [00:29:35]:

And that's, again, sort of takes us back to where we started. Right. There's. There's the technical aspect of knowing how to, you know, present a pitch deck and do the presentation and how to speak to it and what, you know, what to say. There's all that stuff that was in the house, and then there's the perspective, the choice you make in terms of how you want to show up.

Shar Banerjee [00:29:56]:

Yes. And I will also add, I think, the trust. Oh, the thing that you nailed is trust, because after I did that, it became addictive. And so, naturally, I'm a very inspiring leader to the people who are in my team. And I would like every week, if not twice a week, we would do something against the grain, and I would never prepare for it, but I would block everybody's time off. We'd all meet in a meeting room. I would have nothing or maybe a shadow of an idea. And the biggest, like, felt so amazing was at the end of the hour, everybody was like, I took away this and that and this and that, and wow.

Shar Banerjee [00:30:38]:

And, like, mind is blown, and you feel so together and the camaraderie so strong, and the. The strength of the relationships are all there, and. And it all comes from trusting yourself that you, you know, inherently, the wisdom of you has it, and you've got your own back. So the trust is key, and it's addictive, actually, to go into a space where you're not really fully there, but I think that it enables for creativity to flow through.

Lisa Mitchell [00:31:01]:

Yes.

Shar Banerjee [00:31:01]:

There's something about facing the potential of failure that invites the window to be open on creativity.

Lisa Mitchell [00:31:09]:

Oh, yeah. That's why I used to submit my. All my essays at the very last minute in university. And I'm saying it like that because I hope my son, who just started at university, is not listening to this particular show.

Shar Banerjee [00:31:20]:

Yeah. Do school better than we did.

Lisa Mitchell [00:31:24]:

Please don't do this late night, all nighter thing.

Shar Banerjee [00:31:28]:

Oh, my God.

Lisa Mitchell [00:31:29]:

Anyways, we are nearing the end of our time together, so I have one last little question for you, which is because if you think about your career in sales and now as an entrepreneur, what's been the single biggest moment of learning that's impacted you the most?

Shar Banerjee [00:31:50]:

Oof. The single biggest moment of learning.

Lisa Mitchell [00:31:56]:

Yeah.

Shar Banerjee [00:31:57]:

Moment of learning that has impacted me the most. Insert long pause here because I love learning.

Lisa Mitchell [00:32:05]:

I know you do. Voracious learner.

Shar Banerjee [00:32:08]:

I'm a voracious learner.

Lisa Mitchell [00:32:10]:

So maybe don't pick the one biggest, like, what's one that kind of bubbles up and comes to mind? Let's not make it too hard.

Shar Banerjee [00:32:16]:

Yeah. Here's the thing. For me, I love to keep the learning alive. I love feeling. I hate this word, but I'm gonna say it. I love feeling stupid in spaces where people are smart, and I don't think this just has to live in corporate work environments. For example, I recently started competitively singing I feel stupid in spaces where women are talking about tone and range and breadth and, you know, what your stomach's supposed to do, what your butt's supposed to like, I don't know what the language is, but I love being there. I am also an avid.

Shar Banerjee [00:32:55]:

I mean, as you know, I love reading books, but I love reading books because I am so hungry for a new piece of information that will change my brain chemistry. So for me, anything to do with learning something new in and outside of work brings me alive. It really does. And then sharing that knowledge with the world, because I sort of think about, like, if I only know 1% of the world's information, there's 99% that I have no access to unless I'm actively getting in those spaces. So I don't know. I didn't really answer your question. But my big thing is just keep learning, because learning is growing and learning is growing. Learning is failing.

Shar Banerjee [00:33:42]:

Learning is developing. Learning is everything.

Lisa Mitchell [00:33:44]:

Yeah. And you're never done.

Shar Banerjee [00:33:46]:

You're never done.

Lisa Mitchell [00:33:47]:

Yeah. Yeah. The day you think you're done, you're done.

Shar Banerjee [00:33:51]:

I love that. Yes.

Lisa Mitchell [00:33:53]:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing a bit about who you are and what makes you tick. I appreciate it.

Shar Banerjee [00:34:02]:

Thank you. Lisa. This was so, so, so lovely to spend some time and spend this energy with you. It has been great.

Lisa Mitchell [00:34:08]:

My pleasure.