Business Word Of The Week – Illusion & Connection

In each Own It!! podcast, Nicola and Judith discuss their chosen Business Word Of The Week for that particular week.

Their words for Episode 015 of the Own It!! podcast are Illusion & Connection:

Nicola: 

What’s your word of the week then?

Judith:

Ah well, Alice’s quote hinted at it. It’s illusion. The things that we believe in aren’t real. We know, don’t we, from quantum physics that a chair is not a chair. It’s just a handful of vibrating … I don’t even know what they’re called. What’s smaller than an atom? They’re smaller than an atom.

Nicola:   

Oh. I don’t know. Nano-atom?

Judith: 

When you go into the middle of atoms, there’s nothing there, there’s just a vibration.

Nicola:  

Oh I don’t know about that. I haven’t got that –

Judith:  

It is. There’s nothing. The things that look solid to us, if you go into them they’re not. They’re just vibration. The same, I think, is true with our beliefs. We make them up and we think they’re true, but they’re not true. Everything is an illusion. One of my clients this week, she was absolutely exhausted, but she spent quite a long time on Skype talking to me. I said, “Are you drunk?”

She was so tired she sounded drunk. She just kept going, “It’s all an illusion. It’s all an illusion.” Yes. It is all an illusion. Everything, including the Oscars. That’s my point at the beginning. It’s an illusion whether you buy into “I’m the winner.” Or “I’m the loser.” This thing about navigating in a sea of illusions really spoke to me, and then this client taking a long time to talk to me about illusion. Physical things aren’t real, and the things we believe in aren’t real. We can choose our reality, and we can choose what illusions are helpful and we don’t have to take on anybody else’s illusions.

Illusion is my word of the week. Nothing’s real, Nicola, except that we make it so.

Nicola:

I know, yes. I’ve done a lot of reading about meaning and feelings. Because I know I was ruled by my feelings for so many years, and it was only when I did a lot of work last year on this that… Oh, that’s the postman. He always makes me jump. It’s so violent the way he shoves the letters through the box. He’s definitely not an illusion. He’s very real. He’s in the middle of a podcast.

When I realised that every time I felt bad I could think about why I was feeling bad, and it was always to do with the meaning I was attaching to something. The meaning I was attaching to something was always coming from a feeling that actually was generated many years ago. It was attached to something that had happened in the past that made me feel a certain way. Which now certain events I attach meaning to them, and feeling to them. As soon as I realised all that it completely set me free from being dominated and ruled by my emotions, which I had been for so many years.

It takes 50 odd years to learn this stuff though, doesn’t it?

Judith: 

Yes.

Nicola: 

Which is jolly annoying.

Judith: 

It is. That’s why I liked Alice’s quote so much. Because we make it all up.

Nicola:  

Yes we do. Different people would experience the same thing and have completely different reactions to it, because it would mean something different to them.

Judith:  

I know. How often does somebody tell you something, or you think something and somebody challenges you on it, is that true?

Nicola:   

Yeah.

Judith:  

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Not really. I mean, your illusion wouldn’t be mine and vice versa. That’s the thing. We’re living in this world, and the movies where we started is very much about illusion. In a good way, in a way that we love. That reminds me that I buy into that illusion to a greater or lesser extent and the more I buy in, likely, the more I am to enjoy it. Suspending disbelief I think it’s called, isn’t it?

Nicola:  

Yeah.

Judith:   

I think, in my business life, and in my real life, and in the things that clients turn up and tell me as if they’re facts burnt into their arm with a branding iron. It’s not real.

Nicola:    

I heard a great expression. It was, “Human beings are meaning making machines.”

Judith:

Yeah you told us that before when you came back from Rich’s thing.

Nicola:  

Yeah, that’s right. It’s wonderful, it really is. We were having a conversation yesterday about… Well, a lot of the day was about emotional intelligence, and apparently they’ve worked out a way to measure it now. And corporates are actually getting really interested in it, because they figure that it’s actually one of the things that people need to thrive and succeed in the next hundred years going forward. It’s not about academic intelligence, it’s about flexibility and emotional intelligence. They worked out a way to measure it. But we were also talking about empathy and narcissism, because at some point…

It’s funny you mention films, because I’m famous in my family for identifying with a character in a film, whenever I’m watching a film, and identifying with them so strongly that I actually am having the feelings and creating the back story, and all this business. The kids just find it absolutely hilarious, because they just watch a film and enjoy the story. Whereas I just get so far into it. I think it’s empathy bordering on narcissism.

But, no, it’s all good fun. The other thing is when you become aware of this stuff and then you’re talking to someone – as I’m sure you talk to you’re clients and I talk to clients and friends as well, because a lot of my friends are not in this personal development world at all – when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know this stuff and who hasn’t got these tools at their disposal, it’s very interesting how trapped they are in their reactions to things. No matter how unhelpful.

Judith:  

Yeah. Yes. Therefore, of course, one cannot just knock it down in one great big huff and puff. You have to chip away at it to the extent that they are bright enough and brave enough to see your alternative view and let those things drop away.

Nicola:   

Yeah. It was very interesting working with someone who was so clued up on personal development yesterday. Normally I have to go through quite a bit of that. Because there’s absolutely no point in creating a business plan if the person’s beliefs are going to get in the way. I usually unearth all their negative and limiting beliefs about their business before we even make the business plan. But yesterday I didn’t need to do that so much, because this person was very clued up indeed.

Judith: 

Saved you some time, yeah.

…A word of the week?

Nicola:  

I do yeah – it’s connection. Today on Facebook, Ryan Levesque who’s written a brilliant book called Ask. I highly recommend this to everyone. In fact if you go to thebusinesssuccessfactory.com – just go to the blog – he’s the latest episode of my interview podcast. He was giving away 50 copies of his book to my readers. You don’t even have to pay the postage and packing. It’s amazing. He mentioned on Facebook how much he’d enjoyed the interview. Actually he nearly broke down in tears at one point and it choked me up as well.

Because, it’s interesting how many of my interviewees… John Lee Dumas did this, Rich did this. I think there’s something about the amount of time that you have in an hour interview, and asking someone about their early life, how they became the entrepreneur they are today, it opens people up in a way that is quite unexpected. And when you get one of those moments on an interview, podcast, or even when you’re listening to it – John Lee Dumas actually does this to his guests quite often – it’s a connection between two people who have never met, might never meet, and didn’t know each other before that moment. But in that moment when someone reveals something about themselves that is so poignant, and the other person feels it too, the energy changes on the call. It’s an amazing moment.

Now Ryan and I will always remember that, although we never meet, which is rather marvellous.

Judith:   

Yes. It is possible to do that. It is possible. I think that’s one of the things we’re very good at in the UK, which is to have a little exchange with a complete stranger like that, which acknowledges their existence. You know, at the bus stop, at the checkout, in the petrol station. We’re rather good at that I think. Having a little moment, not in the in-depth where you describe in your podcast. But sometimes I’ve been to other countries where they don’t talk to strangers and have little exchanges like that. Maybe it’s just me.

Nicola:  

I know what you mean. There’s sort of a semi-homeless man who sits in Shoreham High Street, and I went to get my hair cut with my friend Kim, who I only really see at haircuts now. We try to go out once a month as well. This homeless man walked by the window when I was getting my haircut and I said, “What’s Peter doing here?” She said, “How do you know his name?” I said, “Well I talk to him all the time.” She said, “So do I. In fact I’ve just hired him to clear the garden.” It was interesting that we’d both made the connection with Pete. He’s not homeless. He calls himself… It’s not a traveller, its something else. He lives in a Yurt on the Downs somewhere.

Judith:  

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Nicola:  

Anyway I don’t want to go into too much detail about Peter, but he is an interesting chap and he loves jazz too. I think that’s how we made the connection. It’s interesting what little things make connections with people, isn’t it?

Judith:  

Yes.

Nicola:  

Don’t know how we got talking about jazz at all, but there you go. Coming in and out of the co-op.

Judith: 

But that’s the point isn’t it? Preparedness to talk to strangers leads to connection.

Nicola:

Yeah, absolutely. I’m always very aware that people who are sitting on the street, say that people walk past them without seeing them, so I do try to always make a point of actually-

Judith:  

When we talked briefly, when you came back from America about people in the service industry, and there was a very amusing piece on Facebook last night about how they spell your name wrongly on Starbucks cups. I thought to myself, “You know what? If I was a Starbucks Barista I’d probably spell your name wrongly on a cup as well. It might be my only revenge for you treating me like S-H-One-T.”

They clearly decided that everybody called Allen will be spelled Alien, which I thought was quite funny. I get quite cross with people on this side of the counter not making eye contact with them. Not saying, “Hello, how are you?” Not coming off their mobile phones. Not saying please and thank you. Frankly if I was on their side of the counter I would probably take revenge on spelling your name wrongly on a cup as well.

Nicola:  

I’d be thinking up much worse things to do.

Judith:   

Well you don’t need to spell to make a cup of coffee. You do need to spell to be a courier, delivery person, clearly. I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. I was having a little laugh about this spelling, and I thought, “You know what, they don’t need to spell. We don’t need to laugh at them because they can’t spell. As long as they can make a decent cup of coffee and they’re good company, we treat them nicely.”

There you go, you’re talking to strange homeless people. We should all be nicer, that’s what I’m saying. Let’s be nicer.

Nicola: 

Yeah. You know what? It’s not about what you’re doing for them. It’s about how much better it makes you feel.

Judith:  

Or both. Absolutely. That’s the thing you discover from volunteering, isn’t it? Nobody would ever volunteer to do anything if it didn’t make everybody feel better.

Nicola:    

Yes, exactly.

What do you think of our Business Words of the Week this week? What would yours be? Do let us know in the comments!