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136 The Power of Positive Leadership

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In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast we learn about the power of positive leadership and how it can enhance you as a diving leader.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to The Dive Locker Podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

Last week I spoke at a YMCA conference, and my presentation was on workplace culture. And I had a lady come up to me at the end asking how to get a boss on board who doesn’t get how to lead. I shared with her some of my strategies, but it got me to thinking about people in general who are put into a position of leadership and how the model of positive leadership is one of the best, where positivity is the glue of culture.

And that reminded me of one of my favorite books on the topic, The Power of Positive Leadership by Jon Gordon. Now, Jon Gordon is one of my favorite leadership authors and I want to share today some of the most solid principles from his book for you. Why, because if you’re listening to this episode you’re in leadership. Whether your an owner or manager of a dive center, an instructor, a divemaster – you play a leadership role in the lives of people around you. So, we are going to build you up today!

Items In This Episode

Episode Sponsor

If you find this show adds value to you as a dive pro and you’d like to help support the show, please consider supporting it on Patreon. It’s only $4 per month – that’s only $1 per episode. When you become a supporter of The Dive Locker you’ll get a shout out from me on the next episode after you join. You will also be listed on the Patrons of Dive Locker Podcast webpage. And you will receive 10% off any ScubaGuru Academy course at the Patron level, and 20% off at the Rockstar level. And of course my undying appreciation for helping support the show.

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135 Should The DEMA Show Be Open To Consumers?

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In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast we learn about the pro’s and con’s of opening up the DEMA Show to consumers.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to The Dive Locker Podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

Every few years a handful of DEMA members and DEMA Show exhibitors raise the question of allowing consumers to be able to partake in the DEMA Show. For decades this has been questioned and once again this is up for a vote amongst the DEMA membership. Since the deadline to vote is this Friday April 8th, I thought I would do an episode this week and point folks to the survey. But just like many topics I want you to know the details.

So today we are going to look at the pro’s and the con’s of opening up the DEMA Show to consumers. Oh and if you’ve never been to a DEMA Show or you’re not a member of DEMA, I still think you’ll benefit from listening as there are some really good industry issues in here.

Items In This Episode

  • What is DEMA?
  • Pro’s of opening the DEMA Show to consumers
  • Con’s of opening the DEMA Show to consumers
  • Take the DEMA Show survey

Episode Sponsor

If you find this show adds value to you as a dive pro and you’d like to help support the show, please consider supporting it on Patreon. It’s only $4 per month – that’s only $1 per episode. When you become a supporter of The Dive Locker you’ll get a shout out from me on the next episode after you join. You will also be listed on the Patrons of Dive Locker Podcast webpage. And you will receive 10% off any ScubaGuru Academy course at the Patron level, and 20% off at the Rockstar level. And of course my undying appreciation for helping support the show.

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134 Teaching Skills Neutrally Buoyant vs Kneeling

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In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast we learn about teaching scuba diving skills while neutrally buoyant vs kneeling.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to The Dive Locker Podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

So the Internet is a buzz with banter regarding teaching scuba diving skills while neutrally buoyant from the beginning versus kneeling from the beginning. In fact, the debate is quite heated in some cases. Now it’s true that we all want to make the best divers possible, but how to get there varies by dive pro and even agencies in some cases.

So obviously all open water divers will at some point during an open water diver course need to demonstrate proficiency in neutral buoyancy. For some that mastery is quicker than others. And for some of us Instructors, seeing students demonstrating neutral buoyancy or hovering for 30 seconds or a minute is not mastery. But that’s a whole other soapbox. So what is at debate is how we get them there and how quickly should we introduce neutral buoyancy.

James Blackman is host of the wildly popular YouTube channel Divers Ready. And during an interview with him he mentioned how he was doing training for a young lady who wanted to become a Technical diver. So he started off with an assessment Dive and when he asked her to do mask clears she immediately deflated her BC and kneeled in the sand to do her skills. This blew his mind and it was proof that her training never involved doing these exercises, to mastery, while neutrally buoyant.

So in this episode we are going to breakdown the pro’s and con’s of teaching skills neutrally buoyant vs kneeling.

Items In This Episode

  • Pro’s and con’s of kneeling on the bottom
  • Pro’s and con’s of neutrally buoyant
  • Examples of skills
  • Overall benefits of teaching all skills while in neutral buoyancy

Episode Sponsor

If you find this show adds value to you as a dive pro and you’d like to help support the show, please consider supporting it on Patreon. It’s only $4 per month – that’s only $1 per episode. When you become a supporter of The Dive Locker you’ll get a shout out from me on the next episode after you join. You will also be listed on the Patrons of Dive Locker Podcast webpage. And you will receive 10% off any ScubaGuru Academy course at the Patron level, and 20% off at the Rockstar level. And of course my undying appreciation for helping support the show.

https://www.patreon.com/thedivelocker

Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes Page at scubaguru.com . There you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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LXD059 : Bret Gilliam

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Bret Gilliam – Diving Industry Legend

ScubaGuru_Gilliam

In this episode of The League of Extraordinary Divers I chat with legendary diving industry professional Bret Gilliam.

Todays guest has done just about everything in diving.

Bio

Bret Gilliam has been professionally involved in the diving industry since 1971, a career now spanning over 50 years. Since beginning diving in 1959, he has logged over 19,000 dives around the world. His background includes scientific expeditions, military/commercial projects, operating hyperbaric diving treatment facilities, liveaboard dive vessels and luxury yachts, retail dive store & Caribbean resort operation and ownership, as well as filming projects for movies, television series, and documentaries. He was founder and President of six multi-national diving companies including V. I. Divers Ltd., AMF Yacht Charters, Ocean Quest Cruise Line, TDI/SDI, UWATEC, DiveSafe Insurance, and four diving magazines. He is President of the consulting corporation, OCEAN TECH, since founding that company in 1971.

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Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Aggressor Adventures

Thanks For Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

Please leave an honest review for The League of Extraordinary Divers podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! And, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

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133 Exploring The Go Diving Show With Mark Evans

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In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast we learn about the success of the Go Diving Show and what it means for our industry.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to The Dive Locker Podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

In many given recreational industries there are consumer shows. These shows could be outdoor shows for hunting and camping, RV shows for recreational vehicles of all kinds, boat shows for all aspects of boating – and these shows put on display in an expo hall all the different products – big and small – and services that support their industry.

Consumer shows are also a good measure of interest in a particular industry. After 9/11 a shift happened. People started to think about how short life is and all of a sudden folks in the US decided not to wait until they retired to get an RV and travel, so in 2002 and 2003 RV sales went through the roof and RV consumer shows were extremely popular.

Well in diving we have consumer shows as well. Beneath The Sea, Boston Sea Rovers, The Blue Wild, Our World Underwater, The Scuba Show, are some of the consumer shows that have come and gone in our industry. However, one of the absolute best shows in the industry is new Go Diving Show in the UK.

The Go Diving Show is the brainchild of Mark Evans. He and his wife Penny and his partner Ross run Scuba Diver Magazine in the UK and have branched out into custom versions of Scuba Diver Magazine for other markets worldwide including Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the US.

About Mark Evans

Mark is one of the top underwater journalists in the diving industry. Mark Evans has been diving since the age of 10. He answered an ad for a water sports editor and his career in diving took off. At the age of 25 he became the youngest diving magazine editor as was Editor of Sport Diver Magazine in the United Kingdom. He held that position for 18 years which allowed him the opportunity to literally dive all over the world. In fact he’s an extraordinary diver on the League of Extraordinary Divers podcast. You must listen to that and his diving story about the sheep. You’ll cry laughing at that one.

In 2020 Mark and his team founded the Go Diving Show in Coventry, England. It was postponed in 2021 for Covid and now its back and just happened last month. This is a brilliant cutting edge diving show for both divers and pro’s and I wanted Mark to come on and tell us about the show and the people visiting the show. I think you’ll be encouraged in two ways after listening to this episode. First, you will see that our industry is rebounding. People are ready to dive again and travel. Second, check out how Mark makes his brand the Go Diving Show stand out from the pack. He is creative and he doesn’t like status quo. And for that he is gaining tremendous rewards.

So listen to this episode with both of those takeaways in mind.

Items In This Episode

  • Attracting families and youth
  • Celebrities
  • The dive travel boom
  • Pro day and pro party
  • Bruce the Bucking Shark
  • Go Diving Show website

Episode Sponsor

If you find this show adds value to you as a dive pro and you’d like to help support the show, please consider supporting it on Patreon. It’s only $4 per month – that’s only $1 per episode. When you become a supporter of The Dive Locker you’ll get a shout out from me on the next episode after you join. You will also be listed on the Patrons of Dive Locker Podcast webpage. And you will receive 10% off any ScubaGuru Academy course at the Patron level, and 20% off at the Rockstar level. And of course my undying appreciation for helping support the show.

https://www.patreon.com/thedivelocker

Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes Page at scubaguru.com . There you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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Welcome Dive Professionals

Welcome to ScubaGuru.com!  The ScubaGuru brand is dedicated to giving dive professionals tools and techniques to be GREAT LEADERS – leaders in the classroom, leaders underwater, and leaders in their diving businesses.  With unique leadership skill-sets, the dive professional can create:

  • Better divers
  • Loyal customers
  • A thriving dive center
  • A flourishing dive industry

See what we mean by Go Beyond the Standard and enjoy the rewards of being truly great at what you do!

Sincerely,

Tec Clark

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