Like most of my clients I am working in the “knowledge industry”. No matter if you are a legal, financial, pharmaceutical, sales or other expert: Ultimately you deal with the transfer, activation and/or implementation of your knowledge to help your clients better achieve their objectives, just like I do with my keynotes and training.

So I figured I should share a few ideas from attending the #KnowledgeSummit here in Dubai, UAE. They made me think about my role as Negotiation Counselor again.

“It´s said that you can survive for 40 days without food, you can survive eight days without water, you can survive for eight minutes without air, but you cannot survive for one second without hope. Education is about hope” stated Gordon Brown.

I totally support that. When giving keynotes, It still strikes me every time how important the element of hope is, and how thankful the audience for it, independent of the content.

Sure enough, not only negotiations break down without hope, but so do most interpersonal relationships. As many of you know, I am very heavily leaning on the concept of “trust” in my workshops. I guess i will have a closer look at “hope” (for a better outcome, relationship, or what it might be) from now on.

Interestingly, Brown mentions this also in a context that has been occupying all of us: “Even in the most hopeless of situations, we can create hope […] When it comes to the refugee problem in this region, where young people are without hope, we have got to give them that hope by making sure that they have education”.

Couldn´t agree more. And let me add that education might also help with another group that gives reason for grave concern: Young people that are not sure what to do with their lives, some of which end up finding interest in fundamentalist ideologies, whatever their name, color or shade.

I love the thought that I should be able to create hope in my area.

Maybe you like it, too. Let us make it the starting point to make this place a better one.