I am quiet this evening, thoughtful. There have been pennies dropping for me throughout the day.

The time of meeting a potential coaching client, whether an individual or an organisation, is a blessed time for me, knowing as I do how much difference coaching can make both to individuals and to the organisations they work in.

As the day proceeds I get to meet some of the people I may – or may not – work with in coaching partnership. It is a time of exploration. A time of getting to know each other. A time of decision. For my part, it’s important to have some sense, ahead of time, that the investment my client proposes to make in my contribution will indeed add value. I am ready to walk away if my sense is that it will not. It is also an important time for my clients – for the people I meet and for the organisation for which they work. I want to support the organisation and its most senior leaders in moving forward. Still, I do not want for any member of the team that he (or she) feel any sense of obligation to “sign up”.

Sitting waiting for my first appointment, something I knew ahead of time lands with a more visceral force: that if I agree to work with this organisation, I may be signing up to regular visits to the UAE and for some time. The pennies continue to drop throughout the day as I make meaning of my experiences: that I am already supportive of the organisation’s aspirations for change, that I am already committed to the individual members of the senior leadership team, that to engage with this diverse group of leaders is to reach out beyond questions of culture and ethnicity and to engage with each and every member of the team, that to contribute in this way has meaning for me which includes but also goes way beyond the success of the organisation.

Walking at dusk I hear the call to prayer. Every fibre in my body sings in response. Everything is right with the world. As I sit at dinner the excitement of my day gives way to a deep, deep sense of peace. Ramadan kareem.