Episode 345: Who else is in the room?
In this episode, Fiona dives into a fresh and impactful tip inspired by a recent TV show. She also talks about how past experiences shape our actions in business. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The importance of being open to learning opportunities.
Acknowledging the influence of others in our decisions and thoughts
Recognizing and addressing external influences in your decision-making process
The importance of human connection and relationships in business
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 345 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a quick tip episode and this one comes fresh because I have just been on my lunch break. It is one of my work days. I did my lunch and I pretty much have the same lunch every single day, but that's another episode. I was watching a bit of TV and something occurred in a show and I thought, I am going to go and record a podcast about that. Today's tip episode is very fresh and that tells you that content can come from anywhere. It also tells you that you should always be open to learning opportunities. Before we get stuck into the tip, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I record this podcast, watch TV and make my lunch. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into this mysterious TV-inspired tip.
As I said, this comes fresh, I was watching a TV show about 10 minutes ago and this came up and it was impactful. I was watching it on catch-up TV and I paused and replayed it a couple of times, and then I just sat there thinking about it and then I thought, “I'm going to going to do a podcast about this.” Bear with me because as usual, I'm just riffing. What was the show? I love to watch reality TV shows, and this is reality, even though it's more on the high-end calibre of reality. But I love this show. It's called Couples Therapy, and there is an Australian version, and there's a US version. If you are in Australia, you can watch them on SBS On Demand, which is where I was watching it.
I've watched these before. I've watched them quite often on Qantas Air. They will have Couples Therapy available. I watched some on a recent flight, and they only had three episodes of each season. I'd watched up to episode three, but I thought, “It's on, I will watch episodes four and five and six and seven.” I was watching one of the episodes of Couples Therapy. The premise for these people who have not seen it, is that couples go into a therapist's office, a real-life therapist's office. It's not scripted from what I can see. The whole therapy session is recorded, people have all sorts of different problems and challenges that are coming up. There was one couple that I was watching, and they've had challenges with trust and challenges with authority.
One of them is his stepdad. the woman has these challenges around can he parent my children in the way that I parent my children? They were talking about different things, and in between these couples having therapy, the actual therapist also goes to check in with her supervisor and chat through things. You watch these people have therapy and then it'll cut away to like the therapist talking about that therapy session to her supervisor who's also a therapist. I hope that all makes sense. As we were watching this one couple, it then cut away to the therapist talking to her supervisor about that couple. Something that she said, which is the point of today's podcast, this line that she said was “When people show up to therapy, you never know who's in the room.”
By that, she meant it's not just the couple that is coming in for therapy, it is all the other people that influence those two people. Let's say, for example, two women coming for therapy who are partners. It's not just woman A and woman B, it's woman A, and woman A's parents, woman A's sisters, woman A's best friends, and all the circle of influence around that woman. Then woman B also comes in with all her own stuff from how she was parented, how she was brought up, and different religious ideas she might have. All sorts of things are coming into that therapy space. The therapist was saying quite rightly, I never know who's going to turn up because it's not just those two individuals and then the individuals together as a couple. It is all the circle of influence that sits around them.
When they're having conversations with each other, they may not even realize that they're trying to have a conversation with their dad who never listened to them, their mom who was overbearing, or their grandmother who did things when they were growing up. I thought it was just a phenomenal way of expressing something that we all go through because all of us, talked about this in Marketing for Your Small Business, and I talk about it in group coaching. I talk about it a lot with one-on-one clients. Sometimes what's coming up in our business is not actually our own wants and desires. It's the things that we think Mom would be proud of if I got to that stage in my business, or my grandmother would've been so excited to have this opportunity, I should be thankful and excited.
In some cases, those things are there to help us, push us and challenge us in all the right ways. But in some cases, the other people are such that are turning up in our head when we are thinking about doing this new thing in our business or launching this product or going out and putting ourselves out there on a bigger platform. Sometimes the other people that are coming with us in our mind, in the things that we're telling ourselves aren't helpful and what we might deem as say, imposter syndrome may not be us thinking that we ourselves are imposters. But having this thought process of like friends or family thinking, well who do you think you are to be doing this because you didn't do that previously or you weren't doing that five years ago? Or what makes you think you're an expert?
This can come up for all sorts of people. I've seen people who are at the top of their game. I have coached people who are absolute leaders in the industry and they still have insecurities or they still think, that would be weird. And you push down and push. It will sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes it'll come from, when I was a kid, somebody said this to me, or my partner doesn't think of the business as a real thing. Or there's all these sorts of things that can come up. Sometimes what we are not aware of is who else is in that room. Like when you sit down and think about it, and even outside of coaching or outside of having a conversation with anyone else, we can be sitting doing something in our own business and we will hear thoughts coming through that are not our own.
They're coming from somebody else that we grew up with that is influenced or maybe not even grew up with, that we've interacted with that is influencing our thoughts there. Even in my own business and my own life, I didn't know what I wanted to do after I finished high school. Everyone who didn't know what they wanted to do at that time, I did a bachelor of arts and then I went on to do two other degrees because I just couldn't make my mind up. I was just interested in lots of different things. I wasn't somebody who knew exactly what they wanted to do. My sister always knew she wanted to be a doctor and she's a doctor. I didn't have that real clarity about what am I going to do with my life. I didn't know if I wanted to be a sociology professor, a writer of literature, or a psychologist. I had no idea.
I had a family member who got quite upset with my lack of decisions and I remember them saying, are you going to faff basically? In other words, are you going to f*** about it for the rest of your life? Sometimes this is 20-something years later, I can be telling myself off in, in my head something that I've not done in my business or that I'm behind in. I will hear that exact comment of, are you just going to faff about, are you just faffing about and that can still be there, even though that person might have just said it off the cuff without thinking wasn't what they thought, but they were frustrated in me not making decisions about certain things. When I'm telling myself that, it's not me, it's this other person that's in the room from 20 years ago from one five-minute conversation that is still continuing to live with me and sits here in the room with me as I'm working on my business stuff.
That's today's tip. When you are feeling like an imposter, or I don't feel like, I can put myself forward for that, or I'm not good at my numbers, start questioning. I'm not saying, to lay the blame on everyone else, but question where that thought came from. Is somebody else in the room right now, like somebody in my head right now that I can politely ask to leave because I'm in control? This is my life, this is my business, and I can do whatever you like in that to a certain degree. That's the tip to think about who else is in the room right now. In the same way that the show that I was just watching about the psychologist talking to these couples was that it's not just the couples that turn up and it's the same with business owners.
We are bringing so much of our own experience, our own influences that we've had from childhood all the way through into how we operate as business owners, how we operate as a leader, how we operate as a manager, how we operate when we hire staff. I'd be questioning yourself next time. You're stuck on something to think about. Is somebody else sitting in this room with me? Is it somebody else that I'm trying to appease or please, or achieve something for? Where is that coming from? That is it for today's quick tip episode. As I said, the show that I was watching is called Couples Therapy. I highly recommend it even if you're not in a couple. I just think it's great. Like always jokingly laughing, my husband will be like, “What are you watching?” I'm like, “Couples Therapy.”
We haven't had to go to couples therapy. No good or bad in that if we needed to, we would. But I just think that it's just an interesting show about people and humanity and relationships. Not just romantic relationships, but all the relationships that we have. Being a business owner, a large part of what we do is connecting with other people, connecting with our customers, connecting with people through our marketing, and connecting with our suppliers and manufacturers. Connection is massive for a business to sustain itself. A large part of that is relationships. It's interesting. I find it a fascinating show to watch. We'll link to that in the show notes. I'd love to know what you took away from this and if this resonates with you. You can always reach out on Instagram @mydailybusiness_ or on TikTok @mydailybusiness. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
