None Of My Career Was Random. It Was Preparing Me to Build Balloonology.

People often ask me how I went from technology consulting to running a luxury hotel balloon styling business...

Honestly?

For a long time, I asked myself the same question.

Because on paper, my career makes absolutely no sense.

At 16, I was knocking on strangers' doors doing door-to-door sales.

Then I studied Psychology because I became fascinated by people.

Later I found myself working in technology and transformation consultancy, helping organisations think differently about systems, processes and customer experiences.

Somewhere along the way I even found myself studying UX/UI through Love Circular because I wanted to understand why people interact with websites the way they do.

Then I learnt HTML and CSS through Code First Girls—not because I wanted to become a developer, but because I never like relying on someone else to explain how something works.

Then there was another chapter that, looking back, probably shaped Balloonology more than I realised.

I worked at the tallest hotel in Canary Wharf.

That experience completely changed how I saw hospitality.

It wasn't about checking people in.

It was about the tiny moments guests remembered.

The warm welcome.

The anticipation before opening the hotel room door.

The attention to detail.

The feeling.

That's what stayed with me.

Fast forward to today...

People see Balloonology as a hotel balloon decoration business.

And yes...

We create luxury hotel room surprises.

But that's only part of what we're building.

The real business is guest experience.

The balloons simply happen to be the physical expression of it.

Everything I build starts with one question:

"How do I make someone feel?"

That question now influences everything.

The website.

The booking journey.

The language.

The recommendations.

The AI tools I'm building.

The hospitality partnerships I'm exploring.

The concierge services we're introducing.

The customer isn't buying balloons.

They're buying the feeling they'll remember when they open that hotel room door.

That's why I've become slightly obsessed with technology again.

Not because I love technology.

Because I love removing friction.

AI isn't replacing the hospitality.

It's giving me more time to focus on the hospitality.

It helps me research quicker.

Prototype ideas.

Design better customer journeys.

Build tools I never thought I'd be capable of building.

But here's something I've realised.

The people getting the most out of AI aren't necessarily the most technical.

They're the people who know how to think.

Who know how to communicate.

Who understand people.

One of the biggest game changers for me has been taking the time to understand how Large Language Models actually work.

Not from a computer science perspective.

From a thinking perspective.

Once I stopped throwing random prompts at AI and started giving it context, constraints, logic and a clear objective, everything changed.

I realised AI isn't magic.

It mirrors the quality of your thinking.

If your instructions are vague, your output will be vague.

If your thinking is structured, your output becomes dramatically better.

That's why I think one of the most valuable skills people can learn over the next few years isn't just prompt engineering.

It's learning how to communicate with AI.

Learning how it reasons.

Learning how it uses context.

Learning how to collaborate with it instead of simply asking it questions.

Looking back, nothing feels random any more.

Door-to-door sales taught me how to communicate.

Psychology taught me how people think.

Hospitality taught me how people feel.

Technology consulting taught me how organisations solve problems.

UX taught me how people interact with products.

And Balloonology has become the place where all of those experiences finally meet.

Maybe that's why building this business feels so natural.

Not because I was ever the most technical person in the room.

But because I've always been obsessed with creating better experiences for people.

And in a world where everyone is asking what AI can build...

I think the more interesting question is:

How can AI help us become even more human?