The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 41: Feb/March 2019 | Page 8

BUSINESS NEWS FORMER SQUADRON LEADER & HIGH-RISK DIVER PUBLISHES ‘GAME-CHANGING’ BOOK NATIONAL AWARD SUCCESS FOR PRESENTATION TRAINER Being voted the second best motorsports commentator in the UK in a popular poll hasn’t gone to Chris Dawes’s head. In fact, the Swindon businessman, who offers CPD accredited public speaking and presentation training through Open Dawes Training, is amazed at the achievement. It’s still business as usual for Chris, who is a regular commentator at race tracks throughout the UK, overseas, and online and has become an official voice of Wiltshire’s Castle Combe Circuit. He was among ten finalists for Commentator of the Year in annual awards run by Motorsport Media, which broadcasts Motorsport Radio, and he came a close second. “I am still totally blown away by being runner up, because I ended up coming ahead of some of my absolute commentating heroes,” said Chris, whose business is based in Gemini House, Groundwell Industrial Estate. “In fact, I can’t get over the fact that someone nominated me let alone that I received enough nominations to appear in the final ten. It’s been a very humbling experience, to receive recognition for doing a job that I truly love.” Chris brings many of the skills honed in the commentary box to his presentation and public speaking training. These skills were also built up during his years as an IT solutions consultant, where he quickly had to learn how to make a dry subject like IT engaging for the audience, leaving them fired up and ready to buy (or sell when presenting to resellers of their B2B software). “I think my style in the commentary box translates to my business as a trainer. I have fun in the commentary box, I am a motorsports enthusiast, and I am able to communicate this to the crowd. I talk about what I can see, what is happening, give them a context and paint a picture so I bring it all to life. It’s entertainment as well as sport, so I help the crowd enjoy it and feel part of it.” Part of Chris’s talent is to make each 8 THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2019 person feel like he is talking directly to them – especially relevant for public speaking and presentation training, and can be applied as equally to talking in meetings as to a seminar. Chris also addresses coping with nerves – and he still gets very nervous, whether he is talking to a room full of people or a crowd of 40,000 plus, but uses this to his advantage. He helps bring out the best in his clients – he’s not changing them into performers, he’s helping them be the very best version of themselves. “I use an analogy of learning to drive: when you start you are subconsciously incompetent, because you don’t know what you don’t know. Then you become consciously incompetent, because you know what you should be doing to parallel park but can’t quite manage it. The next stage is being consciously competent, where you pass your test but you are still thinking ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’. The final stage, that I strive to get my clients to, is being subconsciously competent, where you really learn to drive and you do so naturally and well. At this point, you are able to be you and let your personality come out when talking with or in front of others.” Through Open Dawes Training, Chris offers training in groups or one-to-one. This can be at the Groundwell training centre in Swindon, or inhouse at clients’ work settings. For more information about Open Dawes Training CPD accredited training, email [email protected], call 01793 238259 or visit: www.opendawestraining.co.uk Wiltshire entrepreneur and high-risk diver Gareth Lock publishes his first book in March and it’s been described as a ‘game- changer’ in the world of diving. Gareth, who is based in Malmesbury and had a 25-year career with the RAF, is using skills from his military career and his knowledge as an experienced diver to teach business owners the importance of human factors through his company Human In The System. Another prong to his business is travelling the world working with those involved in diving to show how their behaviour can be a matter of life and death. His first book ‘Under Pressure: Diving Deeper with Human Factors’ is published in March. Gareth said:“In diving, human theory is as important as decompression theory. Behaviour is contextual: what we do always depends on multiple, complex factors. Yet, we invariably attempt to understand a person’s actions by reducing them to the simplest terms. In so doing, we throw out all the information we need to avoid finding ourselves facing the same dangers. “In this book I try to capture that information through real experiences of divers and use established science to analyse and explain how such situations evolve.” His book has been described by Lanny Vogel, CCR, cave and technical diving instructor, owner of Underworld Tulum as ‘a genuine game changer’. Lanny said: “There are many books about decompression theory, diving medicine and advanced diving techniques, but this is the only text that looks into the incredibly significant impact of human factors within diving. “Gareth does a great job of taking the For more info: www.humaninthesystem.co.uk newest ideas in the fields of psychology, human behaviours and accident analysis and making them both entertaining and relevant to divers” Ellen Cuylaerts, an award-winning photographer and conservationist said:“This is a must read for EVERY diver AND EVERY instructor. It truly is a gem of information, information that is mostly overlooked but exactly the information I have been preaching about since the day I started diving. Common sense is sadly not a given to most, so this book MUST go viral!!!!” Gareth’s book is published on Wednesday March 13 and will be available from www.thehumandiver.com, Amazon and Waterstones in hard copy and will be available via Kindle very shortly after that.