Can Uncertainty Make Your Business Stronger?

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
It's the Morning Drive. So Dubai is doubling down on confidence. After the recent regional conflict, government leaders have brought businesses together to protect the Emirates status as a global hub. And we've seen the Dubai It campaign, which is really about reinforcing, I think, resilience and looking at future growth. So what can every business, from startups and SMEs through to the larger regional corporations, international corporations, what can they learn when uncertainty becomes the new normal? It's certainly what we've been through. With me now is a startup investor, serial entrepreneur Ellen Mannaert. Hopefully, we're going to get some practical insights on leading through disruption, making smarter decisions and finding opportunities when the future feels unpredictable. Ellen, good to meet you.

**Ellen Mannaert** (0:58)
Good to meet you. Good to be here. Thank you.

**Tim Elliott** (1:00)
Good to have you here. So look, the government is stepping in to secure the kind of hub status of Dubai, I think, at the moment. What's the most important psychological shift a founder needs to make right now to stop surviving and to start growing again? Let's jump straight in.

**Ellen Mannaert** (1:17)
Let's jump straight in. So I would say, and I always talk based on my own experiences, is that a founder who doesn't know their or his decision making pattern will always lose. So I would say everybody that starts a business or is in the business has to know themselves very well. If you don't know yourself, you will jump out of fear. You will make decision making out of maybe the news outlet or what you're receiving or what's going on around you. When you know yourself, you know your business, you know your decision making, and you know the long term strategy of your business.
So a lot of times the people that are mentored, they don't know themselves. And if you don't know, and what I mean with don't know yourself is, why do you make the decisions that you make? Why do you make decision maybe based out of fear or maybe based out of ego? And that's most of the time where everything goes left. But if you can make decisions out of who you are, out of what your company or your business actually need, I think that you are always secure because you know that you are in it for the long term and the disruption will always be there.

**Tim Elliott** (2:23)
Okay, so if you're making decisions as a business owner and you know yourself, as you put it, it's that ability to kind of step outside of yourself, step outside of the emotion, and almost, it's almost kind of look in.

**Ellen Mannaert** (2:37)
Exactly, it's having an helicopter view of the situation instead of being there because when you are in it, you are an emotional being. So your decision making is based out of emotion. So, and most of the time when you are in this structure, a way of thinking, you don't see it clearly. And to have, as a founder, if you don't have clarity, you know, you will always miss.

**Tim Elliott** (3:01)
Yeah, okay. So if you're able to kind of, I do this quite a lot now actually. I just kind of take a step back, and one of the things I've kind of learned to do, and I used to think this was nonsense, but actually it really works, is just to take a breath.

**Ellen Mannaert** (3:14)
Take a breath.

**Tim Elliott** (3:16)
And it does, it has a calming effect. And if you apply that to business in the same way, there's a parallel.

**Ellen Mannaert** (3:21)
Exactly, exactly. So before you make any decisions, it only takes 90 seconds before your brain takes off with you, runs off with you, and you are running around not being grounded anymore. So when you can just take 90 seconds, when you are feeling overwhelmed, when you listen to something from the news or whatever, and you feel like, oh my gosh, I need to react, what is going on? When you just take 90 seconds to breathe, you will see that you are already much more calmer. It works like that with our brains as well.

**Tim Elliott** (3:50)
I'm going to introduce you to my wife because it doesn't take 90 seconds for her, I'll tell you that, but she's scoped.
There's lots I want to talk to you about, your businesses, your experience, everything else. There's a great deal to get through, but I'm just interested in your thoughts on this. Dubai government has moved pretty quickly to support businesses. There are a number of initiatives that have been announced. The Buy It campaign is one of those after the crisis. But what stands out to you about the government response here that you've seen?