Happy last week of September, I hope you have had a good one.
This week’s Ponderings are not for the faint-hearted, nor for anyone that dislikes me talking about love, sex, networking and going deep!
As you know, my Ponderings are all about my previous week and what has alerted me to a subject. This past week, Thomas and I have run two events to enable Business Owners to feel deeply connected to one another (our ‘Business Is Personal’ lunches). The other thing we have done is be glued to the new ITV programme, ‘My Mum, Your Dad’.
So, you may ask, where is the connection between the two things? One is personal, the other is business, well this is my Pondering, so read on.
Both types of events are about people finding someone that makes them feel safe, that they like enough to continue talking to and, ultimately, both would like success.
‘My Mum, Your Dad’ is about people in their later years, (i.e. not kids) seeking love. We found it very lovely and highly emotional when they did. Nominated by their kids, 5 couples entered a ‘home’ for 2 weeks. All mums and dads learned that they needed to open up, share their past and see if their vulnerabilities could be respected by the person they were attracted to. Ultimately, they wanted to fall in love with someone and hoped that that person would feel the same.
Our ‘networking events’ are very similar. We introduce strangers to one another and hope that they will open up, share their past and see if their vulnerabilities and needs could be respected by the person they were talking to. Ultimately, they wanted to grow their business, and they hoped that they would find someone that could help with this.
The most critical aspect of the similarities is that success came for those who did not seek a transaction too fast. The culture of the TV show ensured that they could not seek a bedroom on the first night. Each person got to know the other deeply through deep conversations before they looked for that transaction (aka sex), and beautifully, even if a ‘transaction’ didn’t happen, they made a great friendship of support from the time they invested in each other.
The success rate for love was very high.
In turn, the culture of our lunches and community is about finding common interests, seeing the real person and finding trust. From this, success is achieved and businesses grow.
We all know that dating sites are aggressive and few people (and there are some) want to spend time courting. We all know that online networking is the same, an impatience to rule someone in or out as a client. The world is crazy with the desire for fast, too impatient to see that people take time to warm up and to find that safe space.
We all also know that our human needs of being heard, noticed, liked and understood are in every aspect of our life. Fast sex? Fast business? I know which most people would opt for…
