When you get a voicemail from Martin Buchheit asking you to give him a callback, you pick up the phone! When he then asks you to contribute to a book he's writing, you say yes...because your ego won't let you say no!
Martin contacted me back in 2020 to see if I would contribute to a new book he was developing exploring ego in high-performance sport and it's finally finished. Martin worked with George Perry to bring together over 100 of the world's top high-performance sports practitioners, in addition to their own experiences in the sports industry. They've explored the nature, role and importance of ego in the workplace, along with sharing insights into ego's successes and failures behind the scenes of the world's games.
I was honoured to be part of the book and have my contribution nestled between some of the best performance practitioners in the industry. This book won't make you an ego expert (we're not), but it shows a way for anyone in high-performance environments to avoid being a specialist in ego failure.
It's when the ego loses touch with reality that we have conflicts, narcissists, outbursts... what Martin and George call Ego F*** Ups. Those are what most people think about when they hear a word that once simply meant “I,†but has become one of the most misunderstood words in the settings where it wields the most influence.
Without the ego, there's no drive, no performance and no reward. No goals, no baskets, no IPOs, no deals close, no victories on the court nor in the courtroom. When the ego does its job well, we go from one ambition and achievement to another. When the ego experiences rewards beyond the ordinary, it drives ambitions beyond the ordinary. Working at that level becomes natural because it feels natural, it feels right - because it is right.
Martin and George use stories and insights from the back rooms of professional sports to guide readers from any workplace ...pick up your copy of Egoals now.