Alan Lucas is the author of You Don’t Need Therapy: 7 Steps to Sorting Your Self Out, is published by Blink Street Publishing on 12 January 2021.

Alan kindly answered a few of my questions.

1. Tell us a little about You Don’t Need Therapy: 7 Steps to Sorting Your Self Out.

It’s a one-stop self improvement system. A toolkit for mental wellbeing. Simply called the Sort Your Self Out system, a system anyone can follow to make positive changes in their life. There are 7 steps and 70 practical steps so the reader can do the changing rather than just read about it. All profits from this and the work I am doing around it, including a products brand to encourage awareness of how much our Ego is running our life, are going to a new charity to provide free personal development resources to young people to help them avoid becoming messed up older people.

2. What inspired the book?

The chronic and escalating mental health issues we face are shocking and have been further exacerbated by the challenges around the Covid pandemic. I wanted to create a simply easy to follow system, or DIY toolkit, that anyone could use to improve their mental health. There are over 7 million people in the UK on antidepressants and apart from the side effects and costs, antidepressants only deal with the symptoms, not the cause of peoples issues. We urgently need better cheaper faster solutions. Good therapy can be great but access is extremely challenging at the moment and often therapy can be expensive and slow. The book isn’t anti therapy at all, and I am a huge advocate for people asking for help. Seeking help should be seen as a strength and the challenge is when people are brave enough to ask for help that is is easily accessible, cost effective and can bring fast results. That’s what You Don’t Need Therapy offers.

3. What would be the most important thing you would want readers to take away from You Don’t Need Therapy?

That there are lots of things you can do yourself, you just need to know how to do it, which is what the book offers. Good therapy can be great but ultimately you have the do the work. A skilled therapist will help guide you, but you have to do the changing. None of these things work- therapy, books, retreats, gurus- unless you do! Sorting yourself out is an inside job. If you want things to change to have to change. If you want things to be different you have to be different. The system addresses the bigger questions that lie behind our life and when we sort those out the small stuff takes care of itself.

4. Having been through the publishing process, is there anything about the process of creating a book that surprised you?

I found it much more long winded than I expected. There are so many aspects from first penning the manuscript, through design, editing, copywriting, production and that’s before even starting the sales and marketing process. I have a new found huge respect for all writers who have published their work.

5. What do you do when you aren’t writing? What do you do to relax and get away from it all?

I have a young family which keeps my very busy, I’m mostly a climbing frame, waiter or cleaner to our 3 girls aged 4, 3 and 1! They are a joy and family time is precious, but it is full on! I run 10k every other day and find running relaxing and energising, and like a moving meditation.

6. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?

Maybe slightly biased but I’d be happy to keep re-reading You Don’t Need Therapy as all the tools are all there for making a magnificent fun and fulfilling life. The growing never stops and the steps are always relevant. Other than that there are some great books which invite greater spiritual awareness and similarly they would never become redundant. If you really want me just to go for one – Eckhart Tolle- A New Earth.

7. I like to end my Q&As with the same question so here we go. During all the Q&As and interviews you’ve done what question have you not been asked that you wish had been asked – and what’s the answer?

What’s your biggest regret? As it’s a really common but unhelpful question, to ask someone to look at their life and decisions they made with the best information and intention they had at the time, and then think about this with the benefit of hindsight.

I would enjoy explaining more around that, so it might help others. Of course we would all make lots of different choices with different information but we didn’t have that information when we had to decide, so feeling regret seems a ridiculous concept. I have absolutely no regrets and am grateful for everything that makes up my experience of life.

About the Book

The SYSO System is a one-stop self-improvement system that can be applied wherever you are on your journey. You can change your life by following 7 simple steps and the book’s 70 practical exercises help you DO the changing, rather than just read about it.

You’ll learn how to expand your awareness, manage your mind, take charge of your emotions, meet your needs in healthy ways, have a crystal-clear philosophy for the purpose of your life, understand that everything is interconnected, and how to make your life more enjoyable by enhancing the lives of others. You’ll light up and lighten up, leading more from your heart than your ego, being focused on feeling fulfilled by being useful. By following the steps, you will change the filter through which you experience life and by changing the filter, everything will look different.

Changing your life isn’t that complicated when you know how, and when you know how, you don’t need therapy.

About the Author

Alan Lucas was born and raised in Belfast during the troubles and from a young age wondered why people would choose to kill others just because they had developed different beliefs.

After university, he worked as a ski instructor in the U.S, New Zealand, Australia, and Europe. He had a corporate career as a marketing boss at global sportswear brands Nike and Adidas and has founded various businesses.

An entrepreneur, coach and motivational speaker, Alan is passionate about self-improvement and helping people have more fun and fulfilling lives. He created the Sort Your Self Out system, and the EGO HERE® brand which donates its profits to the SYSO Foundation, providing personal development resources for young people to help them become the best versions of themselves.