It was 04:00 and I woke up with a dull pain in my left forearm and pins and needles in my left hand. Bugger!

The Dives

That day I had completed two dives, the first to max depth 44m with an average depth of 38m for 27 mins and completed 31 mins of deco using 50%. The second was to a max of 26m, average 23m for 43m and a min deco ascent with deco clearing at 6m. Surface interval was 3 hours. An uneventful pair of dives from a decompression point of view. The previous day (Tuesday) I had not dived, the day before that (Monday) I only did 50 mins at an average of 21m with 10 mins on 100% O2 at 6m.

For those who are looking for a reason as to my bend, sorry, I don't have one and to be honest, the mechanism and causality for the bend is uninteresting to me in this particular case. Neither of the hyperbaric doctors here in Stromness could explain it either.

Rather, this blog is more about the decision-making processes that happened after I woke up because I believe that most divers...

If you want to do something new which improves your safety or performance, how committed are you? If you see something shiny, how easy is it to buy that compared to making a change to your habits or behaviours? Which is likely to have a greater effect on your diving?

Three weeks ago I met Isabel, a business coach specialising in branding and marketing, with a view to working with her. She had been recommended to me as a coach who has the knack of pulling coherent ideas from the free-flowing discussions and coming up with a clear message regarding an offer, branding and identity.

As Isabel and I sat there waiting for our coffee to cool down and talking about the future, she asked me a really important question. “On a scale of 1-10, how committed are you to making a difference to your business so that you can grow and get to where you want to be.” 

I said "9". I also added that given the time I put into developing human factors and non-technical skills...