About David
30 years. One mission. Human communication, mastered.
David Watts has spent his life on a single question: how do words change minds? The answer became a career, a body of frameworks, and a book — and it started with a boy nobody told he might never speak.
The boy nobody told he might never speak
At a young age, a severe accident drove a plastic tube through David's soft palate, shredding the back of his throat. A blur of panic, a rush to hospital, emergency surgery. Hours later, the surgeon told his mother there was a very real possibility he might never speak again.
The surgeon's prognosis was never mentioned to him, so he simply got on with getting better. Every afternoon his gran sat beside his bed, reading stories and urging him to echo the words back. At night he listened to the voices on Springbok Radio — warm, certain, alive — and copied them, unaware of his supposed limitations. He didn't just recover his speech. He fell in love with what speech could do.
That near-loss became a lifelong obsession with communication, language, and the psychology of influence. In his early twenties he discovered NLP through an uncle who'd brought it back from the UK. He never stopped: NLP to Master Practitioner level, Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, and his own reading in neuroscience and behavioural economics — thirty years of study aimed at a single target. Not how to use words. How words create worlds inside the minds of the people who hear them.
The work goes on
Today he lives with CIDP and dermatomyositis — two rare autoimmune diseases — and works anyway.
He also hosts the Watts Involved podcast, conversations with guests about business, mindset and resilience.
So when he stands in front of your people and tells them that communication can change everything, it is not a line from a script. It is how he has lived since a childhood bedroom where nobody told him he couldn't.
Credentials & expertise
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NLP Master Practitioner
An advanced certification in Neuro-Linguistic Programming — the study of how language patterns shape thought and behaviour.
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Ericksonian Hypnotherapist
Formally certified in the indirect, conversational hypnosis pioneered by Milton Erickson — the basis of ethical influence at the subconscious level.
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Master Coach
Certified at Master Coach level — coaching leaders, executives and teams through high-stakes communication, negotiation and change.
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Persuasive Communication
His field of expertise rather than a certificate: thirty years of practice in the language of influence, informed by self-directed study of neuroscience and behavioural economics — and distilled into the book.
The Three Stories
Every keynote is built on three true stories.
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The Origin Story
A childhood accident that nearly took his voice — and the thirty-year obsession with communication it sparked.
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The Credibility Story
Living with CIDP and dermatomyositis — two rare autoimmune diseases — and working anyway.
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The Vision Story
A world where influence is understood as a craft of service — not a tool of manipulation.
Teaching Philosophy
David does not give motivational speeches. He gives leaders tools they use on Monday morning. Every session opens with a story, not a concept — because the brain remembers narrative, not bullet points. Every framework is built to be used in the meetings and negotiations your people already face. And every group is meant to leave with language it can use in the very next conversation.
He researches your industry before he arrives. He customises rather than recycles. And he treats influence as what it is in the right hands: not manipulation, but service.