Everything is Sales

Hello!

It’s Thursday, 27^th November 2025. Welcome back to Bold Efforts. Every week, I try to take one idea about the future of work and living and look at it from a different angle. This time, I want to talk about something we think we understand but rarely ever see clearly. It sits beneath every achievement, every failure, every relationship, and every ambition. It shapes careers, companies, and even countries. And most people go through life without realizing how much power it holds over them.

It sounds like a simple statement, almost too simple. But simplicity is deceptive. The ideas that change how you look at the world usually start this way. They feel obvious only after they sink in.

Think about how decisions are actually made. No one chooses the best idea. They choose the most convincing one. Talent does not automatically rise. It has to be sold. Great work does not speak for itself. Someone has to speak for it. Even the quietest people in the room are selling something, whether they admit it or not. A belief. A preference. A way of working. An identity.

Sales is not a department. It is not a function. It is the constant negotiation between how you see yourself and how the world sees you.

The funny thing is, we pretend we are above it. We call it persuasion, alignment, pitching, storytelling, reputation. Anything but sales. But the truth does not care about our labels. If you want something from the world, you are selling. If the world wants something from you, it is selling back.

Once you start noticing this, the entire landscape of your life shifts. The question stops being whether you are selling. The question becomes how well you understand what you are selling. And whether it matches what you think you are selling.

People struggle when there is a mismatch. A founder believes he is selling vision, but the market sees someone selling hope. A manager believes she is selling clarity, but the team sees someone selling control. An employee believes he is selling reliability, but the company sees someone selling predictability. A mismatch creates friction. Friction creates stagnation.

The people who move fast understand that selling is an act of translation. You take the truth inside your head and translate it into a language the other side understands. You adjust without losing the essence. You listen without surrendering your position. You learn what people respond to, what they resist, and what they fear.

But here’s the part that most people miss. Sales is not manipulation. It is not trickery. It is not forcing someone into something they do not want. Good sales is alignment. You help people see what is already true. You help them act on a decision they were already leaning toward. You remove friction. You remove doubt. You make the path clear.

This is why everything is sales. Because life is a long series of moments where you try to create clarity. For yourself. For others. For the work you care about. The people who thrive are not the loudest or the slickest. They are the ones who can explain why something matters in a way that makes other people feel it.

And then comes the part no one warns you about. The better you get at selling, the more responsibility you hold. You are no longer just communicating. You are shaping outcomes. You are influencing people. You are steering the energy of a room, a team, a company. This is why selling requires honesty. Not the soft kind. The sharp kind. The kind that forces you to look at your own motives and ask whether you believe in what you are offering. A case in point is one of my favorite movies that deals with this subject: Thank you for smoking.

When your work is aligned with your truth, sales becomes clean. When it is not, sales becomes exhausting.

The world rewards clarity. It rewards conviction. It rewards people who can articulate value without noise. And it punishes the ones who assume that doing good work is the same thing as showing good work.

Everything is sales because everything requires understanding. Everything requires framing. Everything requires intention. Once you accept this, you stop waiting for people to discover you. You start showing up as someone who knows the value they bring and is not afraid to express it.

And that changes how people respond to you. You become easier to trust. Easier to follow. Easier to believe.

Most people think sales is about asking for something. But the best selling happens when you do the opposite. You make people feel like they are choosing you. You make them feel understood. You allow them to see their own reflection in what you offer.

That is the quiet power behind everything in life.

Everything is sales. Not because the world is transactional. But because humans are emotional. We decide based on what moves us, what feels true, what resonates. And the people who learn to communicate with that level of clarity end up shaping the world the rest of us live in. Thank you for reading. See you next week.

Best,
Kartik

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Who am I?
I’m Kartik, founder of Polynomial Studio, a holding company and product studio building AI-driven businesses for the future of work. The way we work and live is being rewritten. AI, remote work, and shifting economic forces are reshaping careers, businesses, and entire industries. The big question is where it’s all heading.

For the past eight years, I’ve been at the forefront of these shifts, working across real estate, technology, startups, and corporate strategy. I’ve helped businesses navigate change and stay ahead of what’s next, always focused on understanding the forces shaping our future and how we can use them to build something better. Click here to know more about me.

Why Bold Efforts?
I started Bold Efforts because I believe work should fit into life, not the other way around. Too many people are stuck in outdated systems that don’t serve them. This newsletter is about challenging the status quo and making the effort to design work around life. It brings together bold ideas and actionable insights to help you build a healthier, more balanced relationship with work, leading to greater purpose and fulfillment. If you’re looking for fresh perspectives on how to work and live better, you’re in the right place.

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