Is that affecting the number of students, do you think?

Yeah, for sure.

I think we're definitely seeing a decline in students choosing the US as a destination.

I think that's borne out by all of the figures.

And Dubai is increasingly becoming a destination of choice for many students.

not necessarily as an alternative to, say, studying in the US or in Europe, but it is becoming an education destination in its own right.

I think that's partly because of the positioning of the UAE government and the way they've positioned the UAE as an education destination, but also I think the feedback from existing students about the experience they've had, the positive experience, whether that's with the facilities or whether that's the quality of teaching.

Are there any new or emerging financial support measures that might make a difference to enrolment here?

are the same

principles that you can create early in your business to create that freedom and financial independence.

So what often happens, there's a little bit of a roadmap that people go on usually when they enter my world.

And some of them start with what I call an absolute lack of operational freedom.

And that's stuck in the business.

I started this entrepreneurial journey because I wanted some level or some definition of freedom.

And I appreciate that's different for different people.

How do you deal with that? Because that will be a lot of the things that people right now that are listening to this will be saying consciously or unconsciously that is preventing them from maybe building the structure and removing themselves from the operational involvement.

So when you think about what investor grade is, like what is your definition of investor grade?

Yeah, in the book, I break it down into 15 reasons.

So there is quite a lot of detail and depth behind that, but it all sits under the heading of what we call transferable value.

And the idea is that you're building an asset that can be handed to someone else.

I like the idea of it's like a baton pass in a running race.

Right.

If you want to make that a really nice, clean handoff and then the person can accelerate forward to the next stage.

have ever known because you've worked in private equity.

I'll

try.

It is a journey.

God, it's not a straight line.

It goes up and down.

Never linear.

No, I'll start off, I'll talk about the beginning and then I'll kind of accelerate through the middle a little bit.

So

How do you train that? Were you in a classroom?

You learn certain elements of how people's psychology works.

So a lot of it's around influence and persuasion.

So it's principles of that.

Um, it's also, you know, when, if I'm negotiating with you and in a role play situation, if you do that enough times, you start to, cause you, you'll be trained to say something.

You get muscle memory, right? It's the same as like anything.

Yeah.

This is not he has that effect doesn't and then i picked up two suitcases and left so i completely ignored his advice and i think uh the reality is i think had had i had a little bit more emotional awareness i would have gone look actually this needs to be handled with a little bit more you know a little bit more delicately and and kind of navigated away from this tony's

That's got to be a heck of a journey.

I'll try.

It is a journey.

It's not a straight line.

It goes up and down.

Never linear.

No, I'll start off, I'll talk about the beginning and then I'll kind of accelerate through the middle a little bit.

So let's dive in there and talk about the things that you do to help these founders avoid the pitfalls of selling to private equity and making sure that their businesses are in fact sellable for the highest possible number.