Imagine you are at home drinking a glass of soda and suddenly your glass falls off. So you go to the kitchen to use the brand new sponge you have just bought. Before using it, you take a look at the instructions. It says you should wet the sponge before the first use. So you take the nearest bottle of liquid, soda in this case, and use it to wet the sponge.

I don't need to say more, you all could imagine your floor wouldn’t be very clean this way!

This cartoon-like story is underlying a profound way of presenting usage of products and services. It is logical to wet a sponge with clean water, not soda or red wine. But logic is a learned process.

For some, boiling rice is with tap water, for others, it is with filtered water. For some, cleaning a room means cleaning the floor, and for others, it means cleaning everything from floor to ceiling. For some, being in love is, sending flowers and chocolate every week, for others, it is sending life transforming books.

There is no right or wrong, there are just different people interpreting what is logical for them, depending on their background. Words are subjective and personal because they are interpreted by us.

The fields of marketing, management, sales, education, politics... follow the same path of personal interpretation. What about doing these simple tasks: ask your lover what her/his definition of proving love is, and ask your boss or colleagues what success means in business. You could be surprised by some of the answers.

So next time before asking a question, what about finding a concessus with others about its meaning(s)? It might save you some precious time.