Seeing as Lords Cricket Ground will be the 'business' meeting place for many of you this week, I thought I'd share a little something with you.
Did you know that the book DETOX YOUR EGO starts & finishes at Lords? If you're yet to read it, please let me explain a little more. DETOX YOUR EGO is a deep and at times raw & personal account of a 'failed' cricketer who discovered too late how damaging the effects of 'fear of failure', 'fear of rejection' & rampant EGO can be on fulfilling your true potential or achieving your dreams and goals. Steven Sylvester set out on a mission to dig deep & understand this self imposed and rigid obstacle to his success in professional sport. He, in his own words (not mine!) is the failed cricketer I speak of! A clearly talented athlete, having been signed by Oxford United as a youth & offered a contract for professional cricket with Middlesex CCC & Nottinghamshire CCC as a bowler, what went wrong? In the early 1990's he asked to be dismissed by the head coach, retired early from his contract (knowing he wasn't getting anywhere) and set off to find out... it's all in the story.
Through intensive self reflection and years of academic study & research he discovered something quite astonishing, like quite literally bizarre. He then shared this unique discovery with every single client he went on to work with in his private practice as a Chartered Psychologist over a 20 year period & to his absolute joy, every one of them achieved their dreams of either becoming a World Champion, broke records or became the best in their chosen field/team/company. He called it the withoutEGO Philosophy & has written about the whole journey and the bizarre 'thing' he discovered in his book. 'It' was basically the winning formula he never had or knew about himself as a sportsman & now takes great joy from sharing it with other sports teams & business executives. It's pretty intense to go through the process and he doesn't always agree to work with clients. First and foremost you have to be 'open' to look at yourself in a really deep way and be open to hearing some pretty honest truths. Once the client is happy to accept this then it's full steam ahead to the process (which can be up to a year long in some cases) and hey presto - absolute success. Quite literally and not just in work, home life too. You basically fix everything you needed to fix. Steven totally loves his work and has clearly found his true purpose in life, which for me and others that work with him and spend time with him, is a pleasure to witness. Thank God he does love it as he's always doing it - weekends, holidays, dinner dates (don't get me started!) his phone is forever on 24/7 for everyone and that's the way he likes it. So in a nutshell (bloody big nut!) DETOX YOUR EGO is an eclectic & true story of broken dreams, failures, intense disappointments, an England Captain, an Aussie International, a Secret Batting Coach, a Football Manager, a West Indian Cricket Hero, a CEO at breaking point, political battles, Executives in despair, world records broken, accomplished dreams, joy, fear & success - all set against the iconic backdrop and star of this weeks Test Match - "the Home of Cricket" - Lords.
Intrigued? I hope so. I know for a fact and first hand that Steven's experience of writing this book was at times overwhelming, cathartic to say the least and emotionally exhausting/rewarding. He took himself off into quiet corners for the best part of a year and I could see the emotional exhaustion in his face at times and then came the sheer delight when he hit the publishers imposed deadline. Quite literally jumping up and down delight (that might of been more me that bit!). I hope you get something emotional from reading it too. Oh, and I hope you enjoy the Test Match of course. Whoever wins already deserves it in my opinion. It's been a sight to behold and it's inspired my children to watch Test Cricket again after complaining previously that it was far too 'boring'. Not now, with school going back they've got it on record and i'll be at Lords with my Sandwiches and Binoculars ! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472227336/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_sn3Rzb8BNNY0W