We have very little control over most of the things that bombard and affect us. We can’t control the weather, geopolitics, the economy, diving conditions or whether the next person we meet will be rude or congenial. We can’t rewrite our past but only control what we do today as we plan for the future. All these things (and many others) matter in life, but most are beyond our control. This can increase anxiety, stress and frustrations if left unchecked.

Thankfully, there’s more to it than this. Though we can’t control what the world might throw at us, we can absolutely control how we respond to it. We choose whether to be calm or not when facing adversity. We choose whether to see something as an opportunity or obstacle. We choose how we treat other people in the midst of things. We choose to behave based on thinking rather than feeling.

Our choices largely shape what happens next by influencing who and what goes on around us – and that makes all the difference. The attitude we bring to life is our superpower of control. In other words, putting energy into things we can’t control isn’t productive, but it’s highly productive to put it into the things we can control, and that is primarily our thinking and ourselves.

Applying this to the diving space, we can’t control whether the sea state will make diving hazardous, if a potential student has a hidden health risk or if someone’s BCD will fail on a given dive. But we can choose to put diver safety first by assessing conditions, using the Diver Medical screen, conducting Predive Safety Checks and acting based on those. Should something happen anyway, we can choose to be ready with the appropriate emergency equipment, training and preparation.

Similarly, we can’t control stress on the marine environment or debris pollution, but we can choose to make choices to be environmentally responsible. We can choose to teach and encourage green practices, to host PADI AWARE Dive Against Debris^® and to encourage divers to pass these along. History shows that many people making united choices together like this can produce big change – even though individually none of us controls much.

Your dive operation demonstrates the same principle – dive stores have gone belly up amid healthy, robust economies by not focusing on what they can control, while others have thrived and grown during downturns because they did. You can choose to give your customers extraordinary experiences by treating them as individuals. You can choose to never have a bad day that customers can see, even when you are. You can choose to evolve your practices based on changing market trends and interests.

I try to live my life as shown in this simple chart – and you might find it a simple utility that applies to your life as well. There are lots of things that matter that we cannot control and lots of things that don’t matter; focusing on those that do matter and which you can control is self-empowering.

It’s empowering to make good choices about what you can control – your health, your positivity, your responsibilities and your mindfulness to those around you. Because these not only ultimately shape diver safety, ocean health and business success, but life’s overall happiness, accomplishment and legacy.

Sincerely,

Drew Richardson
President & CEO

The post Straight Talk From PADI CEO: Self-Empowerment – Focus on Things That Matter and That You Can Control and Forget the Rest appeared first on PADI Pros.

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