Hi, Tom Edgar here, and here’s why I started the Shine A Light podcast.

Like with all things in life it was a mixture of circumstances; over the years I’ve consumed a lot books, podcasts, events and courses and felt the time was right to add my own unique input with everything I’d learnt and seen along the way. It was a motivation and feeling I’d had for a while and then one day I was watching a football match and something clicked.

It was a Champions League game and Chelsea were playing Real Madrid (2020/2021 season) and Mason Mount had just played a great game, the host of the punditry panel turns to Ashley Cole and says Ashley, “you worked with Chelsea’s youth team while Mason Mount was there, was there anything special that you noticed from him during that time?” I was genuinely interested at this point to hear what he might say, did the player have that extra bit of time on the ball that the best players are said to have, even as a kid, perhaps he was plucked from obscurity at a kids trial game and just as the scout was about to go home he saw him kicking a ball on his own and realised how special he was… So Ashley what was it, “oh you could see the potential, he was the type who always stayed back to do extra training…” Deflated my enthusiasm evaporated from me, what a tired old cliche, it’s not that I don’t think staying back late and doing extra training isn’t important, it’s the implication that this is what separates people from the rest. In a world like football, where the stakes are so high, there must have been other kids who stayed back late after training who haven’t made it to the Chelsea first team and subsequently lit up a Champions League game against Real Madrid.

What this did was set my mind racing about the other factors that must have influenced this young player to rise where so many others had failed. On closer inspection and understanding of Chelsea Football Club I’d argue that Mason Mount’s rise is down to a unique set of circumstances that one might want to call fortune, favour, chance or even “Luck…”

Because of this, I am going to be have the topic of luck as recurring theme throughout the first season of the show and indeed have some guests who are on the front line of the topic so we can deep dive and explore their opinions on luck.

Don’t worry, I’ll also explain what I see as the real reason for Mason Mounts meteoric rise to Chelsea’s and England star!