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
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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.