Business Words Of The Week – Prep & Ritual

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

Their words for Episode 017 of the Own It!! podcast are Prep & Ritual:

Nicola: 

What’s your word of the week then?

Judith:

Well of course typically I’m going to contradict myself now, because the last thing was all about going with flow and allowing and having it come to you and living with possibility. My word of week is prep, short for preparation because I’ve also had clients doing presentations, pitches, standing on stages, and you can’t do that without of being prepared. Somebody said, “I’m doing this speech on Saturday. What do you recommend?” I said, “Being prepared up to the eyeballs,” because when you stand on stage and forget what you’re going to say and lose it all, and blah blah blah. If you’ve done the preparation it’s all inside you somewhere and you can bring it out.

Nicola: 

I totally agree because you can put me on any stage at all and I will never run dry of things to say or will never be stumped by… In fact you know that presentation I did before Christmas: Inspire. Where I said everyone was laughing. I apparently was very funny but didn’t realise it but I’ve actually just had that video back on there. It’s more about my facial expression than anything else.

Judith:  

Your face makes people laugh? You have a funny face? Is that what you’re saying?

Nicola:  

Apparently I do, but that’s why I have no fear of public speaking is because I know my stuff inside out, and –

Judith: 

Preparation. It’s prep.

I noticed it in one of my clients emails and she was saying prep for this, prep for that. When it came to this thing of, “Oh god I’m so nervous about my presentation.” If you’ve prepared well nerves are natural but you don’t need to worry because it’s all in there. That’s my word of the week. What’s yours?

Nicola: 

Funny, it’s very similar – it’s ritual. We’ve got a bit of zeitgeist going on, Judith. How nice! That could be the word of the week.

Rituals… yes. I’ve re-organised my mornings. I’m attempting to have some rituals around getting up and getting coffee and writing my journal, which I’ve always done for the last few years, but now I’m listening to Paul McKenna, I’m doing at least his 12 minute one, and his 7 minute one, and I’m just really enjoying it.

The calm and the peace of moving from one thing to the next without having to think about it or be interrupted or having any background noise is just really… I’m finding it rather wonderful. So, ritual I think is the thing.

Humans like it don’t they. Sometimes they’re bad rituals and sometimes they’re good rituals, but as long as you’re doing it for internal reasons rather than trying to pacify the Aztec gods, for example, which was never a good idea.

Judith:  

Yes.

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