The Dance of Death
Why doing more, faster, might be the modern way of dying in circles.
There’s a phenomenon in nature called the ant mill - or the “dance of death.”
When army ants lose the pheromone trail that leads them home, they start to follow each other in a perfect circle.
They keep marching, convinced they’re on the right path.
Round and round. For hours. Sometimes days.
Until they die of exhaustion.
We like to think we’re smarter than ants.
But watch how we work, learn, and communicate today - always moving, always connected, always accelerating.
The faster we go, the more we confuse motion with meaning.
If you’ve read Are We Entertaining Ourselves to Professional Death?, you already know where this is going.
This isn’t a sequel - it’s the next step. We’re not repeating ourselves; we’re digging deeper into the roots of the same disease.
Because the problem isn’t just that we’re distracted.
It’s that we’ve learned to consume even our own learning.
The Comfort of Pre-Chewed Thinking
Most of us don’t watch, read, or listen anymore - we absorb.
I’ll admit it: I rarely watch a video or listen to a podcast at normal speed. 1.25×, sometimes 1.5× - just enough to “save time.”
But what we gain in speed, we lose in digestion.
An idea only sticks if you play with it, not just read it.
You have to wrestle with it, question it, twist it until it bends to your own context.
You have no idea how much time I spend juggling these ideas, books, and references - trying to distill them into something concise enough to read, but rich enough to make you think. Don’t thank me. I genuinely love the making of it.
Instead, we crave clarity, certainty, and quick takeaways - fast, simple, and ready to swallow.
It’s the intellectual equivalent of fast food: it fills the moment but leaves you hungry for something real.
Most of what circulates online are universal truths that sound great precisely because they require no effort.
But we’ve said it before: there is no one-size-fits-all in B2B.
It always depends - on your role, your market, your type of customers, your company culture.
When Frameworks Replace Thinking
I recently saw a post listing sixteen sales methodologies, neatly organized in a shiny infographic. Amazing job.
Someone commented: “Just pick one and master it.”
Of course not.
Learn them all, understand their logic, and choose the one that fits the situation.
Because Sales isn’t gymnastics - it’s football.
It’s not about perfect form; it’s about adapting to the field, the players, and the weather.
That’s the part most people skip: the context, the nuance, the judgment call.
Because it’s harder. It’s slower. It’s not formula-friendly.
The AI Illusion
AI makes this tension worse.
Used well, it can amplify your voice.
Used poorly, it erases it - turning you into yet another vanilla-flavored professional, optimized for engagement but empty of identity.
Unless you take the time (and the courage) to teach your AI to sound like you,
it will always default to sounding like everyone.
And “everyone” is easy to replace.
Thinking Hurts - That’s Why It Matters
Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to think.
To analyze your environment, your process, even your own company - and to see the cracks.
But those cracks aren’t failures.
They’re the starting points of improvement.
Don’t look away.
Comment. Question. Propose.
It’s not noise - it’s part of the internal narrative you’re writing within your organization.
(We wrote about that, too. Soon to be published.)
That’s how you move from spectator to actor.
From passive agreement to active contribution.
From a polished performer to a real professional.
Communicating With Customers Who Already Know
The same logic applies to how we communicate with customers.
If your presentation looks and sounds like something any of your colleagues could deliver to any other prospect,
you’re not optimizing your time (am being gentle here),
You’re adding noise.
Your customer has already done their homework.
They’ve read the case studies, compared vendors, watched the demos.
They don’t need another polished deck; they need a conversation that makes them think.
So challenge them. Ask questions.
Create those uncomfortable silences that force reflection.
Dig for insight and build your story around what you discover.
Yes, you’ll sometimes need to use slides prepared in advance. That’s fine.
But don’t read the script.
Adapt it. Rewrite it through what you’ve learned and what resonates with them.
Because if you sound like everyone else,
you’ll be treated like everyone else.
The Real Skill of the Future
Everyone teaches persuasion.
No one teaches discernment.
Let me give you an example.
In a previous organization, the term “features collapse” was often used - during sales kickoffs, internal reviews, even product presentations - to describe how our solution kept expanding its capabilities, allowing customers to do more with the same platform.
One day, I raised my hand - carefully - and said, “Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding something, I’m not a native English speaker… but nothing positive ever comes from the word collapse.”
Maybe it wasn’t because of me, but a few months later, the term quietly disappeared.
That’s discernment.
It’s not about being smarter than others; it’s about noticing what words, habits, or assumptions quietly shape how we think - and having the courage to question them. (Read our piece B2B Sales: Stop Hunting. Start Fishing for more).
And yes, I know: in some cultures, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
In others, you’re encouraged to speak up - even when you don’t have much to add.
Neither extreme is ideal. (Know where you stand and push the boundaries).
But somewhere between silence and noise lies the kind of reflection we need more of.
That’s the real skill of the future - not how to convince faster, but how to think deeper.
To slow down when everyone else is accelerating.
To choose friction over fluency.
To detox from the flood of certainty and reclaim the right to doubt.
Because persuasion, without thought, is theater.
And detox - real intellectual detox - is how you start writing your own script again.
Most of the advice you hear today tells you to do more - in less time.
More calls, more content, more speed.
Maybe that makes sense when you’re knocking on doors for prospecting; I’ve done that, selling books door to door.
But once you’re sitting in someone’s living room, talking with a family about their children’s education, you learn something essential: you have to slow everything down.
That’s when trust appears.
That’s when real connection begins.
And maybe that’s what this whole reflection is about - learning when to stop accelerating, so the conversation - with yourself, your colleagues, or your customers -
finally starts to mean something.
#B2BSales #SalesLeadership #CriticalThinking #CustomerEngagement #IntellectualDetox