Interview with an Accredited Trainer: Anthony Graham
A lot has changed in the world since out first ‘Meet the Trainers’ spotlight post (which, if you haven’t already read it, can be found right here). We can now meet friends outside, go into actual shops, and, by the time you read this, even stay overnight at a house that isn’t your own. What a luxury. What hasn’t changed, though, is the fact that each and every one of our Seventh-Wave® Accredited Trainers remains incredible. To prove this to you, I’d like to introduce you to the second trainer to be featured in this series, Ant.
Ant’s affinity for training and people was first realised at the very beginning of his career, when he quit an engineering role in favour of working at a hotel. Be it in the kitchen, in the restaurant, or eventually being asked to train the other staff, it was in this role that Ant ‘first discovered that I just love people’. And from that very moment, an incredible career in training was born.
“That’s when I first discovered that I just love people”
Only one year after attending a ‘training trainers’ workshop, and deciding that this was what he wanted to do for a living, Ant was ‘doing that, and I’ve been doing it ever since’. What followed was a varied and wide reaching training career, from Florida to Tokyo with Disney, to the Turks and Caicos Islands where he set up his very first training company (the very one he still runs today in Coventry). Having such diverse experiences in such different parts of the world means that Ant became equipped with any and all training techniques to help people all over the world.
“That’s what I want to do for a living – the year after that I was doing that, and I’ve been doing it ever since”
So why did he bring his talents to Seventh-Wave®? Simple. Having already been good friends with director Nick Booth, Ant was there for the creation of the company, and since the two were likeminded, shared the same values, and ‘knew each other implicitly’, it made ‘perfect sense to become a Seventh-Waver’. As an OG member of the Seventh-Wave® network, then, Ant has a pretty good grasp on each model included in the 6 workshop programme. What is most important to him, however, is how flexible this programme can be. In the ever-changing, constantly evolving field of people training, new models and ideas come to the surface constantly. When a new trend arises, with exciting and different ideas about leadership and self-improvement, Ant is keen to know more and adjust his training alongside these transformations. One such ‘new’ idea that has now become a firm favourite among trainers and trainees alike is Patrick Lencioni’s ‘5 Dysfunctions of a Team’. Also the top choice of Stuart in his ‘Meet the Trainer’ spotlight, Ant believes that ‘this model covers everything’. The willingness and enthusiasm for constantly following new trends and budding models means that concepts such as ‘5 Dysfunctions’ can come to the surface and help as many people as possible – and let’s face it, that’s always the ultimate goal of any Seventh-Wave® Accredited Trainer.
“There were only going to be like-minded people in [Seventh-Wave®]”
For a lot of self-employed trainers, it can be a fairly isolating and lonely business. Of course, you interact with those you train most days, but once you leave that training room, you’re on your own. Because of this, Seventh-Wave® is extremely proud of it’s incredible close-knit network of Accredited Trainers – and no one is more appreciative of this peer support than Ant. Now I don’t want to give away any trade secrets, but there is a WhatsApp group which contains each member of our amazing network. For Ant, this ‘enables you to share things privately [and] publicly’, and has created an ‘inspirational family’ that has become indispensable. Whether a trainer needs advice on a certain model, or simply wants to celebrate their first day of in person training in a year, this group allows it. This group also brilliantly captures what the Seventh-Wave® network is all about: ‘sharing, sharing, sharing’. Not only does this help the trainers themselves, giving them a support network, but also benefits the clients immensely. ‘Because we share, our clients are more enriched, because they’re not just getting my knowledge, they’re getting knowledge from a whole range of people and industries’. Other people and collaborators bring so much to the table, and ‘that table isn’t there without Seventh-Wave®’. It’s a win-win!
“Because we share, our clients are more enriched, because they’re not just getting my knowledge, they’re getting knowledge from a whole range of people and industries”
In the future, Ant sees nothing but excellence. When I asked where he sees himself and Seventh- Wave® in the years to come, he replies: ‘we will achieve greatness, there’s no doubt at all’. He hopes the 6 workshop programme will be seen as an ‘industry standard’, and that the good that the programme does will be experienced by as many individuals as possible. It is fairly certain that if Ant has anything to do with it, in between all the cooking, walking, and reading (only industry books, I’m told – the mere novel simply does not cut it), he and Seventh-Wave® will reach incredible heights. I’ll leave you with Ant’s final, immortal words of the interview, simply and effectively summing up how every Seventh-Wave® Accredited Trainer, and those who have benefitted from the programme, feels: ‘May it last forever’.