I Met the Biggest Creators in Dubai - Here's What They're Doing

Hey gang, Robin here. Just thought that I would take you on a bit of a journey, a day in the life of a business coach, because for once I feel like I've actually got something really substantial to kind of share with you. So you'll notice I'm not in my usual surroundings. I'm currently out in Dubai, which is just absolutely wild. I came out here at the same time last year for a conference called the 1 Billion Followers Summit, and I had the great privilege of being able to hang out with wonderful creative influencer, creator influencer, a guy called Chris Do from The Futur. Yesterday I managed to meet up with Chris again. We had lunch just down the way there at the 25 Hours Hotel, which is just absolutely incredible. And just to kind of give you a bit of a snapshot of where I'm at at the moment, so I'm in an area called DIFC, which is kind of— I suppose it's quite a big area of kind of commerce business here. I don't know Dubai that well. This is only the second time I've been out here. Here's a flavor of it anyway. I'll just show you where I'm at. So down there you can see that weird-shaped building there, and to kind of give it scale, just look at the size of that building compared to the cars. And this is like a small building in Dubai. That's called the Museum of the Future, and the 2 towers which you can see behind it are the Emirates Towers. And sort of way down there you can see all the 1 billion followers kind of wrap around, around all the building. You can also see another building behind the Museum of the Future there, which is where a lot of the stages and talks are going to be a bit later on. There's a whole like creator economy, like entrepreneur economy out here. Um, I obviously live in the UK day to day, for those who don't know me particularly well, in a little place called the Cotswolds. And this is a far cry from kind of my usual rolling hills in the English Cotswold countryside. What's happened over the past few years as a business coach, I've managed to make a lot of connections globally. I've got clients in 30 different countries now that I've sort of accumulated over the past— well, I've been coaching for 10 years. I went fully online in 2019. So you're talking now 7 years, coming up for 7 years since I launched the first iteration of my coaching program. And I've got clients, 180 clients, and they're spread all over the world. And just so happens that there's been a mass sort of transit of people coming into Dubai. Many of them, I've got lots of friends here now. So last year, a very good friend of mine, Matt Essam, who is another coach, brilliant, absolutely brilliant coach, works with creative agencies, he moved out here and he invited me to come out and actually spend some time with him. So the same time last year, I came out, went to the 1 Billion Followers Summit. I was absolutely blown away by one, just Dubai is just a really like just incredible city. Aesthetically, it blows your mind. Energetically, there's so much going on, yet it feels like a very calm city. And also just in terms of what's going on business-wise is just really interesting. I just find everything out here like just super fascinating because it's, it's so different from back home. I never really tend to spend a lot of time so here though, that's the only challenge. So because obviously I have family back home in the UK, this time around I flew out via Emirates overnight on Tuesday, so I landed very early on Wednesday morning. Managed to get 3 hours sleep on the flight. I don't ever sleep on flights, so I travel business this year for the first time and got 3 hours sleep. And then I just chilled out really. I did too much last year on that, the first day I was out here, and I was exhausted by the end of So I thought, no, I'm just going to have a chill day. Went and got a massage in the hotel, like 90 minutes, and I slept through most of that. So I caught up on most of my sleep actually during the day. And so it's meant I'm actually here now for the conference, ready and refreshed and raring to go. What was also quite interesting is obviously I don't come here very often, so, but I've got lots of friends here and it was going to be tricky to kind of get around and meet all of them like individually. We're talking here clients, friends, colleagues, associates, like a multitude of different people. So what I did is I just put the feelers out. I booked a room over at the Ledge rooftop, which is kind of just over the way, it was about 15 to 20 minutes in an Uber. Last night, expecting just a handful of people to be there, we ended up with about 20 people who came along, which is a real privilege, and I'm quite humbled by that. Obviously, they felt that it was— to come and meet me was something, you know, they would make the extra special trip, which I thought was just fantastic. So I did drinks on the rooftop, the Ledge rooftop, and then we went downstairs and we had supper there. Unbeknownst to me, it was steak night, so Everybody had to eat steak. There was nothing else on the menu really to speak of. I think there was a Caesar salad or something. That was, that was the only alternative. But it was just wonderful really to catch up with some people. So, you know, lots of different clients there. I had some influencers which I've partnered up with and do some content within their programs. And it's just really nice just to kind of like cement some of these people I've not met in person either. We've just worked remotely. So again, it was just so wonderful to be able to actually meet up with some people like face to face. One of the major reasons why I'm coming here as well is, so in Dubai, in the UAE at the moment, they're kind of mostly UK-based, but they're trying to build this global brand Help Bank, which is run by Simon Squibb. So I knew that Simon was going to likely be out here this year because he won a million-dollar prize at last year's summit, and I saw that he was obviously then keynoting this year. So it made sense for me to come out here, and obviously they're trying at the moment, Help Bank is setting up. So Help Bank essentially is a platform, like a peer-to-peer platform where There's lots of experts in there, and I think we're up to about 300,000 members now. But people who either want to start a business or have an existing business can register on Help Bank and then go and post a question on there, and then they can get answers back from experts like myself. I'm also a Help Bank ambassador as well because I just, I love what the Help Bank ethos and vision is all about, about helping entrepreneurs to basically create a bit of freedom for themselves rather than being trapped in a job, actually kind of run a successful small business and grow it. so they can get, you know, do something which is fun, fulfilling, and actually generate some money for themselves as well as giving them the freedom they want. So Help Bank is setting up out here in Dubai as well. So there'll be a UK arm. We now have the Pitch Lift over in the States as well by Rob too, uh, and his partner, I think it's Steve, he's the other chap who's involved with that as well. So that— so we have Help Bank US, and obviously now we have Help Bank UAE as well, which is forming. So it made sense as a Help Bank ambassador, as well as like representing Fearless Business and my own brand, it kind of makes sense for me to be out here as well, kind of just showing my face, showing Willing with the Help Bank brand and advocating for it, and also just to network as well with the guys at Help Bank. My wife asked me, like, with the purpose of the trip, like, am I going to get— like, what business am I going to get? What return am I actually going to get from this? And I was like, honestly, I don't know. Part of this coming here is a little bit— it's personal. It's a little bit fed by my ego. It's very cold in the winter, and I really struggle with, like, the whole UK winters and the cold and the dark and everything else. So from a personal perspective, I'm out here for a few days just soaking up as much vitamin D as I can possibly get. And you can see the blue skies here, it's like beautiful. So there's that, that personal side of it. It's just good for my health and well-being to be out here. Second thing is I just love business, and Dubai is like growing massively from a business perspective. There is so much going on out here in this market, and so I need to kind of surround myself energetically with that sort of vibe as well. So those are 2 kind of personal reasons. The third reason is Like there will be some business which comes with this. The only thing is I'm not out here pitching and selling coaching and things like that. What I've discovered is that if you just show up regularly and often with the same consistent message and become a familiar face and you're not trying to take, you're actually just out here just giving value, just helping people out, supporting other people. The work and the money comes as a natural byproduct of that work. So I don't know what I'm going to get. I might get nothing out of this, but I do know is that I will have deepened several of the partnerships which I've developed over the past decade since I started coaching, and probably that's more important than kind of anything else really. Um, those partners which I've got are known and trusted entrepreneurs. There is a side to like entrepreneurship, there's lots of people in business who are just in it for their own gains, like just to try and fleece and make as much money out of other people as they possibly can do, and for me that's not what I'm about. I'm about empowering others to go out and grow sustainable, profitable businesses. And that means that I have to kind of, I suppose altruistically, maybe I'm— maybe there's a bit of a limiting belief around this, I don't know. But altruistically, I have to give a lot and without any expectation of anything in return in order to help inspire and empower other people to get out there and create opportunities for themselves. I hope even that through people seeing this video, for example, that it inspires them to do something within their business Maybe come out to Dubai for a conference, or book something in your own country that you've been kind of putting off for a little while that you think, you know, could move your business forward or help with your own personal growth or something like that. Sometimes it's really hard to know, like, what is the right thing to do. Like, I've, I've spent a lot of money to come out here, to fly out here for the hotel, uh, the supper which I put on last night. So there's a lot of money which I invest into this, and I suppose I'm not Mr. Moneybags. I can't just be out there kind of throwing money around spuriously, but I just have to trust in my gut instincts that this is a fruitful investment of my time, my energy, and my money so that ultimately, you know, there's something positive which comes out. But I just gotta— you just have to trust your gut sometimes and just go with it. I think if you hesitate and procrastinate and logically try and work out all of the, like, the different permutations and combinations, you'll just procrastinate yourself into a corner and you won't do anything. You won't take any action. I've learned over the years that if I overthink things, if I try and think about things logically, i.e., inputs in, like spend money coming to Dubai, must have outputs out, i.e., that turns into a 5x or a 10x return on that investment, I probably wouldn't be here. Because logically, you can't tie all of the pieces together. That's why the word psychological includes the word psycho, because a lot of the time, stuff Just doesn't make sense, but you just have to follow your gut and do it anyway, even if it feels like illogical to do it. So I sound a bit like Spock now, for those Star Trek fans out there. But no, I just wanted to share that little bit of— I'm gonna document some of my journey today and try and capture some stuff. I'm not particularly good on the filming side of things, but I will try and capture some stuff, you know, as I'm walking to the venue and things like that, and try and give you some behind-the-scenes footage as well. Catching up with a few really cool people, hopefully over the next 3 days in my, my world that I get to hang out with. I'm very privileged to hang out with. But take care, guys. I will catch up with you soon.