Well, I can’t tell you how good it felt to be invited out from behind my keyboard to take part in an actual face to face conversation a few weeks ago.  Thank you, Michael Quigley, for being just the person to be intrigued enough to welcome me into to your home for a cuppa and a chat, purely for the purposes of showcasing ideas, promoting local ventures, and generally just talking with and learning from new people.

I’d never actually met Mike in person before this invitation, and our connection had been purely through LinkedIn; mutual connections, similar business links, blind curiosity etc.  Mike is already a skilled written communicator, and a published author no less, so there would be nothing I could really offer him business wise, yet he still wanted me to appear on his popular YouTube show, Mindset Matters.  Was he selling me something?  It didn’t appear that way, and if this was indeed the case, why would his show be showcasing me and my work?  No, this wasn’t business.  Mike is simply one of those rare gems who sees benefit in all conversations and relationships, and this perhaps goes some way to support why he named his highly regarded Personal Formation venture ‘Kataholos‘; a name that loosely translates to the phrase, “Everybody Welcome“.

In business, we tend to conduct a lot of our ‘talking’ online, and when it comes to face to face interaction, we can all too often become outcome-focussed.  With business between our two ventures not necessarily on the agenda, it became clear that Mike and I had lots to talk about for his show – and off it – and the conversation flowed.  I stand by the fact that he could have had the cameras rolling from the minute he welcomed me into his home (or rather, his garden, seeing as he was standing in the middle of it reading a book when I parked up out front…) The talking point that formed a nice focus for us, however?  Our shared passion for language.

Mike is a specialist when it comes to mindset, and so language is key in all he does.  He is also an advocate for digital health, and therefore knows how language can be much more powerful than we often give it credit for in a digital age.  We talked, we listened, we learned.  Shouldn’t we all be doing those things as we progress through our hobbies, ventures and businesses?

Mike and I weren’t clients of one another when we met; we worked in different areas and we held differing view points and beliefs around many different things, but these are the very people we should be talking to in life and in business.  Whilst I will always be an advocate of the written word and the power of the written form in business, how nice it is to engage in conversation with people with absolutely no expectation of a ‘deal’ being made.

In the business of building relationships, it’s not buying, it’s not selling – it’s talking.

To see part one of the conversation between Mike and I when I appeared on his weekly show, Mindset Matters, please follow this link! https://youtu.be/6OEU_NtYGk4 .