Watch out, he's an intellectual !!

Yesterday evening my friend Andrew commented to another friend, half tongue in cheek: "Stuart is a real intellectual". Now I may be wrong, but "intellectual" is rarely used as a neutral handle for somebody in the way we use "tall" or "talkative". Quite often during the past century people labelled as intellectual were villified and even killed.

So over the years I've tended to assume it's a put-down, a short-hand way of saying that someone has their head in the clouds or even up their arse. Then last week, in conversation with somebody else whom I regard as a real business "player" several leagues above mine, he said he was surprised that I wanted to meet up with him because (his words) "you're educated and I'm not".

So maybe "intellectual" is sometimes used from a defensive impulse rather than with offensive intent. Maybe I should just take as a neutral description. Or maybe I should just accept that no description of anybody is ever really neutral.

A week of conversation and still going strong

Over the years I've been on a few extended busienss trips abroad with colleagues and clients, and always enjoyed them.  Always.  Last week I was off to Sicily with a BIG Dutch client, Pim Berkhout, founder and main owner of de Arbodienst..

I say BIG advisedly because Pim is tall and hefty - heftier than he would like to be.  He also has a big voice and a very big personality.  He can be daunting and domineering. 

He likes to do his brainstorming and business in interesting places.  So we met up in Rome airport on Saturday 3rd April, flew on to Catania and spent much of the next eight days in conversation over breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as between meals.  Mostly the conversations were in English, occasionally in Dutch and sometimes in Italian.  And amazingly, by the end of the week we were still going strong, conversationally.

Our agendas were very open - we were both looking for ideas and inspiration to move our respective businesses and possibly to seek some opportunities for collaboration.  Pim is highly entrepreneurial and I have other skills and interests, so we learned a lot from each other.

At the beginning of the week I wondered how we would fare spending so much time with each other.  Would we run out of things to say?  Would be get bored with each other.  Once again, I learned that it's possible, with the right intent and skills, to spend many hours and many days with someone and still have fresh, rich conversations.