Dubai – A Gut Feeling

Dubai Coastline

It’s 8am on Sunday 29th May and I am sat in Manchester airport in the Escape lounge writing this blog. I was up at 3am to get to here and I’m checked in.

I am off to Dubai again, and take off in two hours at 10am. It’s quire surreal to be going to Dubai again so soon but an opportunity arose from the UKTI (United Kingdom Trade and Investment) team in Abu Dhabi and it was a difficult decision to make. They emailed me following my meeting with one of their team in the British Embassy in Dubai three months ago.

Asked to run a session

They asked if I would be willing to run a Mental Resilience session for their staff on their staff training day in Abu Dhabi on the 2nd June. They told me that it would be their joint team from Dubai and Abu Dhabi numbering around 25 staff. They also informed me that they had no budget at all for this.

I told them that provided I could find another company to pay for the trip then I would be happy to come. Unfortunately, no business materialised from the other contacts I had made on my last trip, so about two weeks ago I emailed them to tell them that I couldn’t make it on this occasion. They responded straight away thanking me and asking me when I would next be in Dubai.

Following our Gut Feeling

My wife Julie heard my explanation of the events leading up to me saying no and she told me that she felt I should email them straight back to tell them that I would be coming. She said that a door had been opened and it could be a good opportunity missed. I was laughing as she told me this as I’m the one who takes risks and she is the safe one. But on this occasion I felt she had a point, so I emailed them back to let them know the good news.

They were very pleased and I now had two weeks to try to sort out some meetings out there. Chris in my office sent out some emails to the media contacts out there and we received an email back from a newspaper who asked if they could run a feature on me in their Friday magazine, which came out two days ago.

Publicity in Dubai

I’m hoping that the article has been published and I will find out when I get to the hotel tonight as they are saving some copies for me. This means there is a chance that someone will read the article and get in touch with me. I have another interview with an online business magazine tomorrow at 4pm at my hotel which will give me some more exposure.

Another meeting I have set up for tomorrow is with a bank who I met last time and who are interested in my Mental Resilience for some of their staff. This meeting will be a relationship builder to move things forward. Things works slowly with large corporates so I am happy to work to their time scales.

Several thing spring to mind as I write this:

1. The majority of decisions we make with our intuition (gut feeling) are correct. Julie has that intuition for me to go – let’s see what happens from this trip
2. It would have been much easier to say no and stay at home, but sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone in order to grow
3. Sometimes you have to take a risk in order to achieve good things. I don’t know if anything will come from this meeting but my gut tells me that I am right to be going
4. It will be 40 degrees and very humid so it won’t be a comfortable time and I will be on my own which is also far from ideal. I will miss Julie very much but sacrifices have to be made to achieve your dreams.

Thoughts for the week.

1. Do you have anything which your gut feeling is telling you to do, but you aren’t listening?
2. We often process things so much that we lose the connection to our intuition
3. Are you putting off anything which you know you should be doing but are nervous about stepping out?
4. Remember the majority of decisions made following your intuition are correct
5. What you See and what you Say is what you Get – be careful what you think about and say, as that is where you will end up. If the majority of your thinking and speaking is more positive than negative, you are creating a good future for yourself.

Well that’s it for this week, the next blog will have some feedback from the trip to Dubai.

Have a great weekend and stay positive.

Warm regards

John