Niall Jones - Have you found your Peer Space?

Founder of The Peer Space, Niall Jones knows just how important it is to be connected to a positive community.

Here he shares his passion for bringing people into social gatherings to create welcoming environments where great ideas happen.
#collaboration #team #community #inspiration #personaldevelopment #business #coglo #connection #networkingmeeting #onlinenetworking #onlinecommunity #onlinebusinessnetworking #networkingevents #businessforgood #adversity #kindness #inspiration #personaldevelopment #love #growth

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi there. My name is Jiell Tiny. I'm from Collaboration
Global and this is our podcast Being Human Hidden Depths.
I'm going to be interviewing some of our members from
Collaboration Global and they're going to be sharing with you
their extraordinary lives. Although they would probably believe they're just normal, everyday,
average humans, but they are extraordinary. Like you and me,

(00:31):
we all have our story to tell. We've all been
through difficult times and we've come out at the other
end having learned an extraordinary amount about ourselves that we
can share with others. So I think you'll find lots
of things that will resonate with where you've been in our.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Journey as well, and look forward to seeing you on
the other side.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome today to Human Being Hidden Depths by Collaboration Global,
and my name is Jill Tiny. I am excited today
to interview, to have a natter with, to get into
deep conversation with Narl Jones. Noah, Welcome to our podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Right, great to be here, Lovely Well.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
The reason I'm so excited about this is because I
know barely anything about you. Normally, when I have somebody
on the podcast, we've had a long chat and I
found out about their kids and their pets, and you've
just joined the Collaboration Global community. And we've had some conversation,
but you know, basically it was me doing all the
talking and you going okay, I agree, Yeah, I like that.
Can I join? And not a lot about I've not

(01:39):
really been able to pull too much out of who
you are, what you're about, what is your why, what
is your purpose, what is your mission? All of those
kind of things that are fascinating to the people listening.
I'll ask the question I ask all of our guests.
What drew you to Collaboration Global? What made you join?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah? I think so. I think we had We've met
many years ago at some kind of event, and I
was interested, intrigued by what you're doing at that time.
But I hadn't engaged with any any of your events
until for some reason, I stumbled across something a few
months ago and thought, yeah, maybe it's a good time

(02:18):
to come back around to connect with what you're doing.
Came wrong to an event and I was intrigued by
the array of different people from around the world, with
all their different quirks and individual individuality, and thought, I'll
come back to this Yeah, that was it. I think

(02:39):
that was it. You know, i'd definitely I've been I've
moved around internationally and worked a lot outside the UK
and then made a number of I've done a number
of initiatives linked to gathering spaces and collaboration, and yeah,

(03:02):
I was intrigued and fascinated by whether this might lead.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, do you know what, that's a very familiar theme,
this intrigued like, what on earth is that woman up to?
What is she doing bringing all these people together? What's
the purpose behind it? And obviously, as you will learn
and you will find out as the weeks and months,
progress is multi layered and multi leveled, and we have

(03:26):
lots of missions and lots of purposes within the members
and then within the whole community at large. So we've
just literally talking just before we came on air that
you've been working on yourself and you've now worked out
what your mission is and what your purpose is around
your business. Tell us tell us the journey, your story

(03:48):
of how you got to be part of the peer
space and how the peer space was launched.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Sure, sure, okay, So I will just sort of run
through some early early decades fairly quickly from a mixed background,
and I moved. I think of myself as a bit
of a man of Wessex. I quite like thinking of
the old historical Oh, I like that I grew up
in Yeah, I grew up in this in the combination

(04:15):
of Hampshire, Dorset, in Somerset and Yeah, nice areas. But
I also I saw some some challenging times my parents
kind of parents, quite different backgrounds, so quite a mixed background.
I ended up. My schooling was quite mixed, ended up
in different different types of schooling. But essentially I saw

(04:44):
my parents go to some challenges, quite big challenges. So
what I would say at eighteen, I kind of I
went to UNI, but I kind of felt like I
was trying to run away, get away from I think
I realized this decades later and eventually fire a number
of Southwest cities. Ended up in the Southeast very my

(05:05):
mid twenties, and very quickly realized this is why I
should be here, you know, kind of this is all
making sense now. Met my my my Bulgarian what became
my wife within within a few months of arriving in
Southeast and we had two daughters before moving out to
Eastern Europe. So I had a number of roles sort

(05:28):
of corporate marketing, corporate management, saulting, and then startup Eakos
system programs and in London in around London and then
part of the New Europe boom Eastern Europe. So went
off to do this exciting New Europe startup venture which
was amazing for three years. And it was on the

(05:49):
back of a sort of fifteen year run out of
UNI where I'd sort of started my young family, gone
off to done his great jobs in London, then gone
off to be part of that boom, and then that
recession of that time two thou ninety ten.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh remember it, well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, it really impacted us. So I then in some
ways it's been more challenged, more challenging since then. I
came back to the UK about initially about twelve years
ago and had some challenges reintegrating and ended up doing
my own things consulting and my own ventures. My first

(06:25):
venture around sort of collaborative particularly ideation spaces, and I
continued that back in the book area in a couple
of years before lockdown, and in those two years I
also started my first dinner spaces and I started I
became before a musician and this was sort of probably

(06:47):
the deepest bit of personal development work I'd done at
that time, was going off to do it. I got
sent off to do a to a charity that's like
a men's charity for mental health, men's mental health, and
went through this very intense thirteen process weekend that sort
of changed my life, and I became started running my
own dinners and came before a musician at age forty five.

(07:11):
Never too so I had this one. No, I had
this wonderful two years up to Lockdown where I got
my international business dinner club kind of going in one
of these emerging capital cities in Eastern Europe, Sofia, and
in parallel we got this mixed ex pat and Bulgarian
band going that was like rocking the British Embassy a
number of times. We were like playing all around city

(07:35):
and of course all stopped dead in its tracks in
twenty twenty twenty was it twenty twenty, Yeah, yeah, when
the world changed. Yeah. So that original dinner club, I
called it Executive Peer Spaces, right, which ran for me
two years and real mixed bag of people. We carried
on through Lockdown. A couple of years on, we're doing

(07:57):
virtual events, and in those two years, I came back
to the UK a second time. So this is now
three and a half years ago and we incorporate the
peer space as a company. We've had quite a sabbatical
there up until about a year ago, and we've made
the decision about a year ago to start to go

(08:17):
back to physical events. So we are now near a
year back into running in person events. We've been running
showcase speaker dinners, So speaker dinners, it's like the format
that I work with a lot, yeah, in Surrey, particularly
Surrey and London. And alongside that we have a kind
of we do a sort of white label service to
create events series for companies and potential local communities as well. Yeah,

(08:43):
so that's a quick one through.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
That gets us in today. And I take my hat
off to you because every time I've run an event
in my various guys as over the last of twenty
years is hard work. It's really just finding the right
venue is half the battle, and to be able to

(09:06):
get that for you, but then actually you know, getting
people to show up and getting to host it and
all of those other things. It's that's why a lot
of people just people say, oh, let's get collaboration global
people together from all over the world. And I'm like, oh,
that's hard. When you told me what you did, and
I'm like, oh, when you want to be a member, hey,
this could happen. This might be something that all our

(09:28):
members want. Is what I could have the energy to
do because I'm not doing it on my own. So
I'm excited to have you in the well. I think
it's going to be a good collaboration. Where did the
name come from? The peer space?

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Actually, I would say that's going on this men's initiation.
We ken it was such a powerful, powerful experience to
be I'm going to be honest. I felt like there's
a lot of things about it that were very special,
but this sort of first time I really felt like
I was really asked and listened to, so asked how

(10:03):
it was, you know, how the world is just like
flying along and all the algorithms and the kind of
computer says no, and this sort of loss of humanity
that we've had, and this very very human experience, and
I thought, this is a really potentially not being really
necessarily understood how I relate to other men. And this

(10:25):
was the beginning of this sort of process of understanding
that better and what's ultimately a very competitive world, I suppose,
but I would say I'm having done stuff with things
like Enneagram. You know, I'm quite heart person then you know,
artistic and musical and and some aspects of the way
the world is feel very confrontational competitive, And this was

(10:47):
a very sort of healing kind of thing. So I thought,
what a powerful peer group. You know, it's like a
peer group of So when I started my dinner, I
was I wasn't thinking about doing it gender exclusive, if
I wanted to speak it. I didn't really think about
it being that way. But I just thought, what a
powerful thing it is to have a peer. I mean,

(11:09):
I know more generally how powerful peers are for all
of us as we grow up, you know, as we
get to a certain from certain age onwards, I think
it's mid teens onwards, the people around you are just
about become very important, if not the most important thing,
who you're navigating life with, you know. So I've always
thought of it the piers base of being doesn't matter

(11:29):
if you're you're twenty five, you major, first million, or
you're just starting out of that age and you're you're
in the room with the fifty five year olds, who's
who's sort of close, you know, getting later, they're in
their career. We're all on that life journey, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
So wherever you are on that life journey, you've got
something to contribute. What I find is, I know some
very wise twelve year olds, just like the wisdoms. Have
you been here before? How do you come out with
stuff like that? It's just amazing? And then you talk
to an eighty nine year old and that wisdom is

(12:04):
this over the years, it's the same kind of intrinsic knowing,
and it's like, how where does that come from?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay? One of the massive shifts that we're seeing now
as you think about the old days is like you
work you out for corporate structure, and in my in
my working lifetime, the way that everything has gone so
towards individuality, personal branding, that's exploded, you know. And so
if you get things like your personal branding right, whatever
age you are, you know, but if you if you're

(12:32):
still like it's a different world from that kind of
corporate rating up for corporate add kind of world. It's
just these two things, these two worlds seem to be
they're running. They're running there, but trying to navigate them
is not the easiest thing because the world's changing so fast,
you know.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
And I think it since Lockdown and people have realized
that loneliness is one of the biggest triggers of mental
ill health. That I think this emerging thing that like,
men don't know how to talk to each other. And
it's so lovely to hear someone like you say that
you've been on one of these retreats and you've done
that work that was most profound for you, and you've

(13:11):
come out the other end, and you hear stories about
you know, stories around the campfire and all these men
we can retreat things. I think it's so essential for
our world, as women who are feeling vulnerable, who can't
go out at night because of, you know, fear of
being attacked or fear of being bullied at work or whatever.

(13:32):
It's understanding that once men start talking to each other
in a compassionate way in a listener, they can then
see more clearly what we have been going through and
they can be more compassionate to us. So then we
don't have to stick up for ourselves as much. Although
we're very good at doing that. So when a man
sees another man bully a woman or belittle her or whatever,

(13:55):
they can stand a going that's not nice, why are
you doing that? And it's the same for each other
because this has been an accepted way of oh, that's
just funny, or that's for fun of teasing and taking
the mickey out of each other, when actually for the
person that's happening to it's not funny at all, and
they're having to put a smile on. So there's this
culture between the two where the women are kind of

(14:17):
kind and the men are kind of brash. And I
think that's a sweeping statement. I get that. I know
that that's a big sweeping statement. But I think when
you're talking about the things that you've been through and
you on and you can see a different way of being,
that's that's part of the pivotal way of society changing
order to th rust to help each other.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, definitely, definitely. It's so many different levels to how
interesting it's been in terms of what I've learned about
myself and just looking after each other and that kind
of more much more compassionate way of relating to each other.
And then as part of all of this, there's these
women's groups run anong side, and then at certain moments
we're trying to integrate the two worlds, you know, like
do more gender inclusive soilitated spaces where everyone's kind of listening,

(15:03):
very careful to each other and trying to help each
other and do some healing processes. And it's really I
just like my thing is this combination something of something
like how you do good gathering spaces and maybe how
you make them welcoming, Like this combination of welcoming and gathering.
And obviously the music is a very very fun world

(15:24):
the musical spaces, and then the the pier spaces I
do with the business dinners and even the low community dinners.
It's more, it's very it's very gentle. It is kind
of something usually we're exploring an important topic, but we
have like a good decent thought leader and expert or
a local hero speaker make it like an interesting theme

(15:46):
for the evening from someone that's got a good story
or they know their topic, and then it makes it
really although there's some serious elements to it, actually the
feedback I get is that people love it. You know,
it's not too strong a words get a very positive feedback,
and there's a sort of beauty to it, a bit
of a magic to it.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
I think what we try and achieve in collaboration global
as well is in a lot of spaces you go
into you feel like you have to be on Hi,
how are you? This is my business, this is who
I am, this is and everything's fine, everything's okay, even
though you might have had the most worst day. And
yet in a place where people can relax and be

(16:25):
themselves and be authentic and just not bother about putting
on that facade, that's when the true connection is going
to come out. That's when they be able to really
hear that person sitting next to them about the story
that they've had. And because there isn't any upmanship, there
isn't any I've got to think about my pitch, I've
got to think about how I can get something from you.

(16:48):
They're just really seeing how they can maybe help each other,
rather than.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
And just going on to the pier thing. I think
people just connect on we can all sit in a
room and say this is what I'm trying to sell you.
That's what I'm trying to sell you. It's not trying
to say but people just people really connect on passions
and things they love, you know, like and that's that's
how it really works, you know for me. So one
thing is, you know, for a dinner, you can have

(17:14):
a topic that appeals to people and then everyone's got
that in common because they come in together for the topic.
But the other thing that we look to do is
things like let's bring people to have something in common together.
So often that's kind of okay. International people, international business
people in a big city, that's kind of okay. I
get it, like we're all from different places. And but

(17:35):
for example, I would love to mix the way that
I try to do, like business dinners with the music.
So could you do an event for musicians who are
all in business and then they kind of have the
thing in behind behind the the fact they're trying to
do business each other, is they all enjoy music, for example,
if they perform music. And that's the example of the

(17:57):
sort of thing that I'd love to create. But I
suppose my flagship event that I do is this what
was called executive peer spaces is now sort of dug
out dinners. Is this capital city kind of dinner that's
open to everyone, but it's sort of particularly open to
the international community, business community, you know, people that whether

(18:18):
they're long term in the city, you're passing through, or
whatever it might be.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, and I love this idea of having musicians that
have a business because most musicians need to have that.
They're not necessarily making it on their music alone, and
they need to have a side hustle so they know
how to run a business. Probably not, but they're using
their music, you know. So one guy who's one of

(18:43):
our members is Leo Saunders, who runs his business is
Chune River, which is to do with creating music for
an event in your life or for your business. So
he created our theme tune for Collaboration Global right every session.
And he's a a jobbing musician. He'll go out there
and he'll play for you know, do his gigs around

(19:04):
the country, but he's got Chune River bubbling on under
in the background, helping and supporting other musicians. I have
to introduce you at some point. Yeah, yeah, it's I
get where you said, But that to me is like,
why has nobody thought that before? That's just so long.
It feels like it's common sense, but it's genius common
sense if you see what I mean, It's like that

(19:26):
makes me think. So it's such a good idea to
bring right together.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
And you think about things O Lockdown. I played guitar
in my bedroom for twenty five years and only six
years ago did I start performing, And because I had
to revert to that in Lockdown. But see as I
started performing, I don't have any problem talking about what
a joy it is to practice with other musicians and
then perform with an audience. It's like each one adds

(19:52):
a kind of level of hike, and it's such a
natural high. It feels very you're genuinely making people happy. Yeah,
I've had a lot of people say, oh, you sing well.
Never had a problem with anyone saying you should be
doing this, and that's always my fear. So I've encouraged
a lot of people into music, and so when you
think about something like musicians in business, it's never about

(20:14):
who's good, who's not good, who's the best. It's just
all of us on our journey. Because I've now been
in tea bands, I've done a lot of open micing.
I'm on the journey in my music. There's always new
songs to learn, there's always I can always improve my playing,
I can always improve my singing, and everyone's on their
individual journeys. But it's a beautiful part of my life.
Now you know that, I just there will always be

(20:36):
part of my life going forwards. But it took so
long for me to figure out.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
It's interesting is so many people do you think it's
the way they were taught when they were younger. I
know my daughter, she enjoyed the piano. She liked playing
the piano, but then she did an exam and she
was horrified by how nervous and sick she felt about
doing this exam. So I said, look, if you enjoy
playing the piano, we'll carry on letting you have listens
so you can learn how to play more, but don't

(21:01):
take any test, don't take any exams. So the teacher
would say, oh, she could do grade four, she could
do grade five. I'm like, no, we're not doing that.
But yeah, but she'd be that, no, just not doing that.
She wants to enjoy it. She doesn't want to have
any pressure. She just wants to be one with the piano.
And she would play a lot when nobody else was there,
so it was just about her and the piano. And

(21:21):
so in today's world, we need music, We need the
arts in general to help us with our mental health.
Because he doesn't get emotionally moved by music, who doesn't
get emotionally uplifted by a tune, who doesn't get affected
by memory that a piece of music can recreate for them,

(21:42):
So important for all of us to access music in
different ways. Whether you're just listening to it and appreciating it,
whether you're singing along and tapping your toes on, whether
you're competent enough to play a ukulelean plus calls out
of it, it doesn't really matter. And I think it's
such an important thing to bring music consistently to to

(22:04):
a group of people. So if you're you're bringing people
together at an event and then you're adding in that music,
it's like, what's not to like?

Speaker 2 (22:12):
I think it's rich, isn't it? And it's like it's
part of the ecosystem of gathering spaces. Like it's sort
of like you So if you said to me, now
money is no objects, what would you do with your life?
I would just like go off around the world to
look to sort of it, to meet people who are
looking after gathering spaces and just kind of like just

(22:32):
a never ending exploration of how to do gathering spaces
as well, because it's just so fascinating because we can
all it's very easy for us. I'm going to say,
it's easy for us if we're if we have our
health health, then to have a very solitary life. Right,
we can go to the shop, get our phob we
need go back and cook it. But this skill of

(22:53):
creating spaces for you know, for people to come together
in some way to either explore a topic or to
heal or to have fun. You know, it's just such
a fascinating And I absolutely believe, and I've done a
couple of little bits of content around this. I absolute
believe that sometimes they can work so well just through serendipity,

(23:14):
and other times they can work so well through some
conscious structure, you know, conscious conscious plan. Yeah, and so
that's interesting. It's just yeah, it's fascinating, isn't that because
it can make all the difference?

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Oh? Absolutely, And I think that's my use the phrase
gathering spaces, and that just feels like you're going to
come to a big hug, aren't you, with this this
warmth that you're going to experience through a gathering space.
And that's kind of my philosophy around collaboration, is that
you build and you create a team to collaborate, but

(23:48):
that team becomes community. You get to know each other
really well, you get to support each other really well,
and then by the end of that project, whatever that
collaboration happens to have been, you're going to know each
other so well, it's going to be a hug going
to you know, let's do this again, and let's take
it forward and what else can we do because you're
connected at a different level to just doing a job.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Just getting the.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Job done experiments as well out there. How when people
connect a deeper level, like through a shared interest or
you know, a commonality, or just the fact that you
know you're another human being. Let's do something for good,
let's put something good out there, it has this ability

(24:31):
to release the genius that's within you.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
And some people I'm not a genius. I'm not Einstein. No, No,
everyone has got genius of some sort in them. It's
just the problem is most people think, oh, anyone can
do that, Well, no, they can't do it in the
same way that you do it, because that is your thing.
That's why you are so good at it. You take
it for granted. It's one of those things that you
can do without even thinking about it. So for me,

(24:57):
one of the things I do, which I consider I've
been told is my genius. It's connecting people up and
I can't help myself. I can't stop it. So I
was out for a brunch with my daughter the other day,
got chatting to the guy that owned the cafe, connected
up with him, and my daughter is like, Oh, everywhere
we go, you've got to be helping people with the

(25:17):
business cards and the connections. And but that's what I
love doing. And if I can help someone that way
and you know, put them in touch with the right people,
why would you not do it? So your genius, that phrase,
is that the gathering spaces. It's facilitating and bringing people together,
which is so needed in today's world.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
So I can't think of anything more rewarding to be
part of as well. On both sides, you know, the
music and the and the meal based things, and you know, yeah,
I like work to kind of continually kind of try
to understand it better the ways you can do it
and with and without with them, without curation, you know, obviously,

(26:03):
sometimes you just need to kind of give the time
and place. That's it. Everybody else one's place, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
But yeah, did you know there's a story on one
of the Simon Sinex podcasts, a little bit of Optimism,
where there was a young girl that had been bullied
at UNI and she'd been told that she wasn't wanted,
and she was invited to a party that didn't exist,
and she just felt really low, so she just put
out onto the internet. I'm going to be meeting at

(26:34):
ten am at this park. I'm very lonely. If you're
lonely too, why didn't you come and join me? Fast
fast forward six months and it's a world movement. There
are parts all over the world that are doing this
just because there are a lot of lonely people out
there that need to make contact, from you know, fifteen
year olds all the way through to you know, ninety
five year olds. It's just crazy how people are doing that.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
I'm not surprised.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
What's here, because somebody has it was very cinning rung
on my doorbell to so I'm going to just stop
one second and we're back in the room. I've got
a nice young man who's sorting out my boiler for me?
Thank you? So gathering space is Neil tell us more
about where that kind of feeling came from.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
So after this, I had the six years in Eastern Europe,
which had kind of gone a little bit pear shased
somewhere in the middle. It started off as a wonderful
joy ride and kind of didn't go so well in
the second half of that period. So in my first

(27:41):
year back in the UK, I wasn't finding it very
easy to reintegrate, and someone referred me to a dinner
club in Bristol where I was living. I was living
in that area and I walked in the door and
as soon as I walked in, I just thought, thank goodness,
I found you. I really felt like that. And the
guy had this the leader had this sort of cat

(28:02):
grin as if he was literally saying, that's why I're
all mad here, literally, and I just became I went
to that for four or five years and just fell
in love with the format. And all he actually did
really was he brought people together a lot of sort
of i'm gonna say midlife people, consultants and entrepreneurs, and

(28:26):
he had a speaker, he had an expert expert on
a topic in the room, and they kind of led
the evening and he was there in the background, you know.
And I'd never been invited to a dinner lab before
age sort of forty, and I just fun in love
with the format. And here I am now one hundred
plus of my own events. You know, I've spotlighted fifty

(28:48):
plus speakers, and but but with this huge four year
gap around lockdown. Yeah, and yeah, like no looking back, right,
since I've done my own ones, it's just all joy,
you know, It's just yeah, it's been wonderful.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Can you look back and put your finger on why
you felt that you didn't fit in?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
That's a great question. I really like the question. Okay,
I'm pretty sure it is around this strange experience I
had as a teenager where I I kind of got
into clever kids school past my eleven plus went to
grammar school. In hindsight, I didn't really like it, and

(29:34):
we moved. We moved town's anyway as a result of
what's going on in my family's life. And then I
went to a regular state comprehensive, much much preferred it,
much more inclusive environment. But in the background to all
of this. There was a little bit of a narrative
because I was supposed to go to a private school,

(29:56):
which I never went to. And I think even now,
this whole array of different messages kind of created a
little bit of confusion, and because I sort of saw
there was like it was quite difficult, It was quite

(30:16):
challenging times for my parents and stuff through those sort
of school years. Twenty thirty years later, I realized I
kind of did run away from all that, kind of
went off to the city and tried to So not
exactly an orphan of it, but yeah, definitely mixed messages.
So when I talk about it in the light, in

(30:37):
the sort of light version, it's like I've got a
mixed background. So don't talk to me about born and
bred in this city or which university. You know. It's
kind of like I've moved around a lot, you know,
I made up a bit as I have gone along.
You know.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
It's interesting, isn't it. Yeah, it does have a profound
effect on people. It's like a lot of a better
and that I've met, you know, and you talk to them,
and because of the nature of their job in the military,
they have lived in so many different places they never
get to put down route, so there's this kind of
feeling of you know, not quite fitting in. You know,

(31:15):
it's that kind of thing. And one one of our members,
doctor Lizzie Burnsall, she's a veteran, done all the tours Afghanistan,
you name it, and she doesn't. She says, there's a
difference between fitting in and belonging. And oh yeah, it
does make a huge doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
I did a dinner about the notion of being internationalized.
That was the topic for the evening. Oh wow, because yeah,
because we had the mixture of people that like in Bulgaria,
we have people that have been to the States and
come back, while our guys gone to the States and
come back, and then lots of other non Bulgarian guys
that are coming to the dinners. And one of the
things I remember thinking was, you feel this kind of

(31:58):
like I feel like Bulgaria's like a second home to me. Yeah,
like the UK it's my home country, but Bulgaria is
like a second home. So I kind of feel like
I belong in both. If I add a lot of
other countries, I don't know what it would have done
to my brain, but I think once you've kind of
left your home country and spent any significant time. So
I spent about ten years living in Bulgaria. There's a
sort of feeling like home is definitely a little bit

(32:20):
has a different sense to it. Yeah, and you feel
the pull other places in other countries and the other
countries you might have been part of, and at some
level it's almost like home geographically is wherever you are.
At that point, you have a slightly different feeling from
if you just stayed in your in your home country.
It definitely shifts things a little bit.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, I can imagine I've never lived abroad. Obviously holidayed
all over the place, but never lived anywhere for any
significant period of time. But I consider home to be
where my family are so so long and the best
time for me is when they all come over, because
obviously my daughters have left home now and they're all
under my roof, and I'm like, yes, I'm happy, contempt

(33:02):
that really doesn't. Me and my husband have been married
like a gazillion years, and it's like when he's not around,
I don't get homesick, but home doesn't feel as homely
as it should in that sor it's a bit like wealth.
I've always considered wealth to be a state of mind,
and I think home and belonging is a state of

(33:24):
mind as well, and we can choose that state of mind.
So even when we were kids and we had no money,
me and my sister never were made to feel that
we were poor. Looking back, you can see all the
signs that we were living in but we didn't sit
there because my dad had the attitude of yeah, we'll
find a way, we'll find a way. Yeah. He never

(33:45):
said no, he just yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll Can we
have a holiday this year? Yeah, yeah, we'll see what
we can do. Usually meant staying at Auntie Margaret's house
because she lived about twenty miles from the seaside, close enough,
you know, it was that sort of and while she
was on holiday herself, she was having a holiday, and
we were going back to that her house. So, you know,
it's a state of mind. And when you kind of

(34:06):
have that a feeling of home within you and a
feeling of wealth within you, that feeds into an abundant
mindset and abundant space where there's enough to go around.
We're all fine, we'll work it out, we'll find a
solution that problem, that relationship that's not working. Let's see
if we can find a way forward, find a way through,

(34:28):
agree to disagree. There's always another way of looking at things.
And I think when you have looked at your life
and going huh, so that's why I felt like that,
Oh that's interesting. Oh I get it now, and then
you can package that up and then move on to
the next thing and open yourself even more to your experiences.
So the experiences that you have had, many many people

(34:49):
would be enby, like, ah, he's lived abroad for ten years.
That sounds amazing, and yet you've gone, oh, yeah it was.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
It was yea, oh it was. It was amazing as well.
I mean with no regrets in a way, but it
was also in other ways. It was kind of definitely
just some element of disorientation. And I was gonna say,
just just echoing what you're saying, I think I was
gonna say, obviously, people need people. We need to find

(35:19):
our people, don't We find our people to some extent
find our place. But the people I think are more
important than the place in many, many ways. And I
had my family unit, and but over and above family.
In the music, it's kind of like I've had. I've
been a couple of bands that's that's like a kind
of definitely little community. And then I mean, obviously i'm

(35:41):
business now with business partners, but with the piers based stuff,
it's kind of well, we're we're I mean, being part
of the international business community in the big city. That
feels like okay, the people that I'm able to gather
in this moment. And then but doing that for a company,
I definitely think it's big business. You know, it's big business.
If you can do getting your people that are around

(36:02):
your business, maybe the key people, stakeholders, looking after them well,
wreaking good, welcoming spaces. It's very good for business to
do that well. And I know a lot of big
companies able to get this. So I mean there's a
kind of really serious because I'm very good in the
low community side of it in terms of you know,

(36:23):
running dinners just for local communities in general, but there's
a very serious business side to it as well. If
you do it, if you can do.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
It, well, yeah, well this is what I was thinking.
It reminded me of a story of Daniel Priestley you
might have come across, who runs the Dent organization, and
he tells the story of how he came from Australia
having been quite successful over there and kind of thought,
can I do it again in London? So he came
over his suitcase in his credit card and he had

(36:53):
a big dinner, you know, the first time with the
twelve people that he knew in London he invited, or
he invited. I think there's about four people he knew
and he invited. He asked them to bring other people
and basically he used it as his first pitch. He
put it out there to what he was trying to
do and he got his investors at that meal. But

(37:13):
he said he needed a restaurant and you know, a
private room, good food, you know, camaraderie, you know people
that knew, people that he didn't know, and for business,
those kind of gatherings, that's where a lot of the
business will be done. It's the same as a golf course.
It's the original networking.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
So well you do it. Definitely, I definitely think it's
very like like I see the speaker having a speaker
at dinner, like the golf round. Can I ever have
the thing? There's a thing that is gives you a
bit of a focus which isn't about the doing business.
So a combination of a speaker and a lot of

(37:53):
opportunities for people to kind of to be seen and heard,
and a nice dinner and setting. It's yeah, it's kind
of a magic to it. Yeah, why not?

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Why not? Indeed? Yeah, I was already. Let me just
write this down the stuff I want to talk to
you about off of this conversation. I'm not going to
share this with I'm ready today.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
So knowing that you're bringing people together, which I think
is beautiful, what would you say your purpose is? Having
gone through all that learning yourself and those experiences of
living abroad, have you got a specific purpose that you
adea too.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I'm going to say championing welcoming spaces, because there's a
message there about the way that we can create super
super simple welcoming spaces without spending a single pound around
our own you know, whether it's our family dinner table.
I've got very interested in doing something with pubs. I

(38:55):
want to go out and do a big roadshow with pubs. Yeah,
I've got a whole idea around doing pub parties and
things and doing a sort of roadshow for that because
it's just there's such a beautiful institution. Yeah, and they're
sort of just there in every community.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
And closing down, aren't they. That's sad as well, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah? And I think you know, a welcoming space to
me is so it's I mean, it's just one word
that's sharing. It's having this opportunity with a little bit
of like curation because I like doing it's not too heavy,
but it's like a light touch, kind of a lot
about the hospitality, but a little bit of curation, but

(39:32):
not one hundred percent curation, you know, so, but just
this sort of light. If you make it about what
makes a welcoming space to me, it's like to make
it about the people in the space, because I think,
you know, if I look in general, there's a lot
of space spaces that are broadcasting spaces, so you have
a big figure that's I'm the one talking to the many.

(39:53):
Everyone else gotta listen. So to make these spaces that
are a bit more kind of interactive and about people
in the room, but still perhaps to have a main focus,
this combination is really nice. So so just at the
family dinner table, to create a space that's about making
sure everyone's heard. You know, if you think about it

(40:14):
versus the old kind of Victorian whatever it seems to be,
the man at the end of the table, you know,
don't don't speak to your spoken to all this sort
of madness of the of those times and like you know,
and or imposing your will on your kids and stuff like.
The very opposite of that is a big fan of,
you know, Ken Robinson and his whole thing of getting listening,

(40:39):
listening to what your kids, you know, or kids or
adults like, what is it in their behavior or actions?
What is it they're showing about what they need or
what they actually want to be doing with their lives.
You know, if you can do that stuff better, I
think you would be a better place.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, I think so that that's communication is so like
you say, Kim Robinson had it, sus didn't he in
his talks. If anyone hasn't heard of KEM Robinson sadly
no longer with us, but not a Ted talk, go
to ted dot com typing Kim Robinson. He talks about
education and what's failing in our education system today. And

(41:20):
I think so many times I go out in the
conversation and sit around the table with people and people
talk over you, and it's like I was actually having
I was talking, then can you just let me finish
my sentence? That would be nice. And that's the way
a lot of people do talk. Or now they've gone
the opposite way and they sit with her at phones

(41:40):
and they're talking to the person somewhere else not that
far away on their iPhone. So it's putting the gadgets
down and actually learning how to listen to understand what
the person is saying, rather than oh, yeah, I know
what you mean before they've even finished what they're saying,
and then they try and top you with the story. Yeah,
it is a with this age, I think communication is

(42:03):
not and how people communicate is very evident when you
look at Twitter, when people will launch into a dire
tribe of abuse at somebody. And I saw this the
other day. There were two statements about the protests, and
they more or less said the same thing, but one
person's following went buff and lambasted them and said how

(42:24):
dare you The other person? Everyone was like, oh, yeah,
that's a really good idea, that's a really good thought.
Like they're saying the same thing. Why are they getting
this difference of communication coming through. And what's weird is
that people feel it's okay to criticize another person without
having met them or know them, or permission to do so.

(42:45):
And that's the world that we're living in. So when
you can bring people together in a gathering space, a
welcoming space and teach them those skills, albeit you're not
going to tell them these are the rules at this table,
but you're going to demonstrate this is how we do
things here, and you're giving a perfect example of how

(43:05):
they can take that and use it in their businesses
and use it at home exactly.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
And I really want to say, it's like, in terms
of what I'm striving for, what I'm trying to champion,
it's the idea of a perfect perfect space or a
perfect peer space. But this is closely related to like
a perfect day, you know, like if you can create
more perfect spaces perfect days, you know, because over a
day you might want to have a number of different
kinds of gatherings. You know, you might have some time
on your own as well. But this is fascinating, It's

(43:33):
a fascinating world, right trying to trying to create environments
that are delivering that delivering that, you know.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, and that perfect day is interesting because I often
say to my clients, you know, what does your perfect
day look like? And they're like, well, what do you mean?
There are a couple of just describe it, you know,
not necessarily a day on holiday, but a day at
home that you would love to live again and again
and again because it's perfect. And it's like, well, I'd
like to maybe get a new client, I'd might like

(44:01):
to maybe do it. And when they actually write it down,
I say, right now, look back over the last month.
How many perfect days did you have? And they're like, huh, actually,
but they have realized that because they're so busy looking
on to the next day and the next day and
the next day. I said, you know, if that's fifty
percent of your month, that's not a bad month. That's
you're having a really good time. If you get one

(44:22):
day a month and you go, that was my best day,
well how do you replicate that? What did you do
to get that day to be your perfect day? And
then see what you can do to make it to
happen again and again and again. Obviously you're never going
to have a perfect day every day, but who you
are in the moment can be the perfect person inasmuch

(44:42):
as you don't have to react to people in the
way that you might have reacted before. You don't have
to think poorly of somebody and make meaning of a
situation that doesn't actually exist. Is knowing who you are
and being connected to who you are is really the
first step towards create your perfect anything. You're perfect gathering,

(45:02):
your perfect dinner party, you're perfect barbecue, your perfect business.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Then if I was if I was saying to you,
because I sort of see we do the stuff for
the lunch. I don't really like breakfast so much, but
lunch and dinners, I'd be like, I'd say to you,
we can talk about doing a lunch or dinner collaboration
global and dinner. But then the next level is if
you think about collaboration being like almost like the opposite
of biting each other for resources, and it's kind of

(45:30):
how can we work together to create a perfect collaboration
global day, you know, because that stuff is like I
bet you have You'll have a lot of the right
people in the room to make that to make that
happen really well, and I'm sure you'd be very gould
at learning how to do another day even better, you know,
and it's like, oh, that's that's kind of exciting. I
feel exciting.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh there's so much potential along
the way, isn't there. Let me just I'm going to
pinch your question from Simon Sinek that I do mostly
for my guests. Me, take yourself back to when you
were maybe six or seven and you're playing and you're
having your perfect day at that age. What's the sort
of thing that you used to enjoy doing. What's a

(46:11):
good memory that you can back that was you having
a good time.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, I spent almost from age school all my school years,
I was within a few one hundred yards of fields. Wow.
So I had a very kind of wild, wild childhood
and the sense that with the friends, you know, even
from those early years right through even yeah, certainly early
teens kind of going out into the fields and kind

(46:39):
of wandering and roaming and possibly kicking football around, but
being able to kind of walk long distances away from
home and doing kind of silly army games or riding
a bike, walking up a hill and watching the planes
as a nearby base and watching the planes from top

(47:01):
of the hell for hours, and Yeah, that feeling of
being very free to kind of roam quite wild, which
I know is something I've taken. That feeling be able
to walk up a hell, you know, take a breath,
and I feel like it's something that's a really it's
an important thing for me.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, it's good for your mental health, Isn't it? One
being outdoors anyway, but two having that sense of freedom
and like it kind of makes you feel invincible to
a certain extent, doesn't It's like I can do anything,
I'm I'm free our lovely memory.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
I think that that plays into where you are with
your purpose, because you want to make welcoming spaces, and
that sense of freedom means that you're not worried about
who's coming to your space. Is you just you're worried
about that they have to be welcoming. Let's bring people together,
make them welcoming. So it's not considering like this type

(47:56):
of person or that type of personal or they would
be good or they would be bad. It's like, let's
bring the people together and make it a welcoming space,
and then it will work because of what you've created
in that culture and that ambiance to that.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
It's kind of interesting how I haven't changed very much
the way that we do it, and but I'm open
to that. And it's because I think when I started,
I was worried about people wouldn't like like the way
that it's been done, or they would be challenging, you know,
the way that I'm approaching it. But it hasn't really

(48:29):
been like that at all. It's just kind of like
I sort of just I was already mid forties when
I started, so I think this would work, this combination,
and I pretty much stuck with that, and it kind
of just does seem to work quite well.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
So it's like, just not broke, don't fix it. That's
all they say, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
It does interest me though, that's sort of like, how
do you spend a decent two or three hours together
around the hospitality sort of centered moment and people that
may or may not know each other. You'll be open
to that. How do you make it into a something
that people put a tick against at the end, you know,
because it's fascinating to me. It's fascinating to me, always

(49:10):
open to how to do it better.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. So in an ideal world
what's your favorite welcoming space if you were to be
the participant, what would you enjoy most.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I mean, it's a sort of a bit of a
heat between the shared space and well called the storm space.
But the thing about the shared space is very gentle
and it is a bit out of healing, and it
could be a dinner. It could be around the fireplace,
you know, it's kind of like and it could be words,
or it could be music. Right of course, this is nice.
I could kind of jam around the fireplace. But the

(49:45):
thing about storm, the reason I put so much energy
into the masterminding stuff, is it's like you can, in
my opinion, with the right structure of the right mentality,
you can like fix everyone's problems like fast. It's like
it's like sharp end stuff. But it's if you really
get it and you do it well. It's not very complicated.

(50:07):
People don't do it regularly. People sit on the train
like zombies, and like you can actually achieve so much.
I think it's sort of five to fifty people. If
you have the right people around you, you can just
solve everyone's problems like every day, like within sort of
fifteen minutes. If you just organized in that way. But
I know the world's not all that, but it is exciting.
It's very magical, a bit like the dinners. The speak

(50:29):
of dinner format is like a magic. This kind of
like rapid masterminding thing is really interesting as well. It's
kind of like another kind of magic. So yeah, very
different vibes, but.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
You've come in on I feel gone.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
No, I'm saying that the sharing and more sort of
sharing kind of speaker space, it's very kind of like
sitting back in a comfortable chair and the storming thing
is like the brain is flying and it's like, whoa,
we can solve everyone's problems here now, and it's it's
kind of crazy, but it's it's quite serious. But actually
it's not very complicated. So they're like a bit of

(51:08):
a dead heat. But that's they're so different and you know,
beautiful Bobviously, if I could just wave one, did you
play musical Day? Obviously, I think.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
That's that's the best. And I think you're coming at
this now a pivotal time when people do realize that
to feel good about themselves, to feel good about their business,
there is some collaboration that's required and they can be
supported in these kind of arenas in these kinds of spaces.
So it's just trying stuff out. And if you've never

(51:42):
tried a kind of gathered gathering space like this or
a business dinner like this, it's another way to go.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Neil, no sorry. I look at your name and I
see Neil, and I should be saying no sorry.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
That's fun.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Brain, it doesn't work very well sometimes. If people want
to hear your music, have you got it recorded anywhere
where they could go and listen.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
I have got a little bit in some places. If
you really wanted to just see a big download of
all the things I've been doing. I've got a TikTok.
I've done most of music on TikTok, but I've got
a couple of things recorded as well. So I think
if you look up my name Nile Jones on TikTok's
probably the easiest way, okay. And there's there's a few

(52:33):
there's a few YouTube things. Oh the band. The band
I've been in the last couple of years, last year
or so is called out to Lunch, So you could
find us on I think we're on Facebook and Instagram
and YouTube. And where do you normally gig we're gigging.
We've been gigging around Hampshire and sorry.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Okay, so yeah, I shall come and find you then
that sounds good.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
On Saturday, We've We've got one on Saturday in Hampton.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, okay. We've dropped some details down into the YouTube,
so find you on the podcast. And also if people
wanted to contact you directly about arranging one of these
wonderful events that you do, what's the easiest way for
them to get hold of you.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
So the website is www dot the peerspace dot com.
My email Nile Andia double l at the peerspace dot com.
And we're probably most active on LinkedIn, so LinkedIn, Instagram,
by LinkedIn, we're very active, so you can find me
on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Okay. And now, as a member of Collaboration Global, you
can also bump into Nile at one of our co
Glow sessions. We now host them on the second Thursday
of the month and the last Tuesday of the month.
So if you just go to Collaboration Global dot org
and you can book there, or you can go to
event bright and search for Collaboration Global and you'll find

(53:58):
us and you can book that and come along to
one of our Zoom events online. Hopefully very soon we'll
be having them in person as well because of Noia,
but you might bump into one of our online sessions
as well and have a chat there. Thank you so much, Nia,
it's just so much. I love the fact that you're
talking about welcoming spaces, you're talking about gatherings, you're talking

(54:19):
about bringing people together. That's just music to my ears.
And I think it fits so well with what collaboration
global we're doing, and I think it's at a time
in our history when we need that more than ever.
So I think hopefully over the next coming years, you're
going to be a very busy man getting all these
organized for lots of other companies' businesses as well. Thank

(54:41):
you for joining us today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Thanks very much. It's great.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
You're welcome.