You spent a lot of money to become a PADI OWSI. This includes your open water, advanced, rescue, divemaster and PADI IDC as well as membership, insurance and dive equipment. 

Is this a bit of fun for a couple of years or something you can do for the rest of your life?

The answer is that this can be your career if you want it to be. There is no other course or university degree that is recognized worldwide other than the PADI OWSI rating.

Become a nurse, or a plumber, or an accountant and chances are that your qualification is not recognized in its current form as it is in your home country. This means that you have to do additional training to be able to start at the bottom in a new job. If you are an accountant this could mean data entry on the 27th floor in a cubicle with no windows.

But seriously, can the PADI OWSI rating be your ticket to happiness and financial independence?

As with any qualification it is what you make it to be. If you rely on only a PADI OWSI rating, then chances are that you will not do this for the rest of your life. So with this in mind I will give you an example of someone who became a PADI OWSI in 1993

He spoke German and Spanish which made him more qualified than others in a tourist destination. Soon after he landed his first job with a large dive company he got a bus licence, which moved him up into the next pay bracket.

After a few years of teaching openwater courses he began to get some specialties and soon realised had he done this in the early stage he could have made a lot more money teaching specialties on the liveaboard he was working on.

Next, he wrote his own Shark Diver specialty and sold a least 4 of them on every trip he was on. Not sitting still, he then put his name down for the Trip Director position as it came up and was given the opportunity to run the dive boat.

Learning from his skipper and logging his sea time he became a skipper. Soon after however the sales and marketing position became available and he put his name down for that. Having been with the same company for a few years now he was given the opportunity to try his hand at this position.

Sales and marketing took him travelling to conferences in the country and even overseas trips to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, England, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Germany.

After a few years of that, he put his hand up for the operations manager position to head a new dive shop and a new 3.5 million dollar dive boat in the next town over. He decided to get his Master in Business Administration online via a university to strengthen his business skills.

The next self improvement step was to become a PADI Course Director…. So…. You guessed it…. This was me and my career to date in the dive industry.

So come and join me and let me teach you to become not just a PADI OWSI, but the skills you need to make this your career.