When I issued my first book, The Art of Real Estate Investment: Entry to Exit, in 2020, I faced a question every author faces: to whom do I dedicate this work?
It became clear to me that the person who shaped my thinking more than anyone else was someone I have never even met in real life.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
It became clear to me that the person who shaped my thinking more than anyone else was someone I have never even met in real life.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
For the past 20 years of my life in Dubai, he has been my biggest inspiration. This is not a sentimental statement. It is reality. I’ve learned real lessons, applied real strategies, and built my businesses by watching how he leads, how he operates, how he faces challenges, and how he markets and builds at the scale of a city and a nation.
Every time Dubai achieved a milestone, he never stopped there. Every success became the start of a higher standard. He never settles. He keeps raising the bar. And I learned to do the same.
From him, I learned that client experience is non-negotiable. That excellence is not optional. That vision without execution is nothing. That the impossible is just a word. And that in every challenge there is an opportunity — but it’s on us to keep thriving, to keep working hard, and to stay positive and optimistic so we can seize those opportunities and come out stronger after weathering adversity.
When I wrote my book, I dedicated it to him. Because the truth is simple: I would not have built what I built, or thought the way I think, if I had not lived in a Dubai led by him.
When I was preparing to open Game Changers 1.0 at Coca-Cola Arena in front of 3,000 people — the first and largest real estate training event in the history of this great city — I thought deeply about how to begin. I felt genuinely that the success, the opportunity, and the honor of creating and leading such an event would never have come to me, or to Dubai’s real estate sector, if it were not for the holistic vision of His Highness.
Those overwhelming feelings of inspiration and gratitude guided my decision. And so I opened by asking everyone to stand and pay respect to the visionary who made it possible for all of us to dream, to build, to thrive in this city.
Today, as I see his latest book Life Taught Me being gifted to his children, to his family, and ultimately to all of us as a legacy — I feel grateful. Because life has taught me too, but so has he.
And I want to end with a message of gratitude. To His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, for his vision and inspiration. To His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed and His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed, who continue to drive Dubai forward with the same spirit and ambition. And to every single person in the government of Dubai whose relentless work has created the platform on which we all stand today.
That is the Dubai standard.
That is his legacy.
And that is what I will always carry with me.
— Firas Al Msaddi
Every time Dubai achieved a milestone, he never stopped there. Every success became the start of a higher standard. He never settles. He keeps raising the bar. And I learned to do the same.
From him, I learned that client experience is non-negotiable. That excellence is not optional. That vision without execution is nothing. That the impossible is just a word. And that in every challenge there is an opportunity — but it’s on us to keep thriving, to keep working hard, and to stay positive and optimistic so we can seize those opportunities and come out stronger after weathering adversity.
When I wrote my book, I dedicated it to him. Because the truth is simple: I would not have built what I built, or thought the way I think, if I had not lived in a Dubai led by him.
When I was preparing to open Game Changers 1.0 at Coca-Cola Arena in front of 3,000 people — the first and largest real estate training event in the history of this great city — I thought deeply about how to begin. I felt genuinely that the success, the opportunity, and the honor of creating and leading such an event would never have come to me, or to Dubai’s real estate sector, if it were not for the holistic vision of His Highness.
Those overwhelming feelings of inspiration and gratitude guided my decision. And so I opened by asking everyone to stand and pay respect to the visionary who made it possible for all of us to dream, to build, to thrive in this city.
Today, as I see his latest book Life Taught Me being gifted to his children, to his family, and ultimately to all of us as a legacy — I feel grateful. Because life has taught me too, but so has he.
And I want to end with a message of gratitude. To His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, for his vision and inspiration. To His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed and His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed, who continue to drive Dubai forward with the same spirit and ambition. And to every single person in the government of Dubai whose relentless work has created the platform on which we all stand today.
That is the Dubai standard.
That is his legacy.
And that is what I will always carry with me.
— Firas Al Msaddi
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