Ep 11: In conversation with Fabian Cowdrey

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Welcome to the All Is Wellness Podcast with me, Emma Naylor. Join us in open and honest conversations with wellness professionals and industry experts. Welcome back to the All Is Wellness Podcast. This week's guest is Fabian Cowdery. Fabian was born into one of sport's most distinguished dynasties. Cricket was always part of his identity and escape from some dark days on the playground. At only 24 years old, he left the cricket world and was forced to recreate his identity. He now wants to share a story of his own mental health struggles and to show others how they can live better lives. Fabian, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast this week. I'd absolutely love to hear a little bit more about your story so we can share it with the listeners.

Yeah, no problem at all. Well, I'll start right at the beginning. From age 6 years old, my, well, my dad played cricket for England. He captain England, my granddad captained England and my uncle played for Kent. And at age 6, I made this announcement to my dad that I wanted to be the next England captain. So I'd already, I was one of, wow, six or seven year olds to decide at such a young age that I wanted to follow in the footsteps. And that wasn't really accepted in necessarily in the way that I wanted at school. School in a very academic sort of upbringing where everyone around me was sort of a scientist or a mathematician, all I wanted to do was either act, play sport or sing. So naturally I didn't really fit in, in that environment. And it, and it led to some interesting times on the playground, as you, as you just mentioned.

Yeah, no, I, I can imagine. I mean, as, as I just often think of a six year old or a seven year old saying that they want to be an England captain for cricket. It's quite a different kind of path to take, you know. How did you find, as you said, with your father and your grandfather being so well known in cricket, did you feel that that sort of put a lot of pressure on you to go down that route?

Brilliant question. I was very proud of it when I was younger. You know, I'm still very proud of it. It's been one of those blessings for me and I think it helped me get recognized when I was young because scouts and coaches would think, oh, that's, that's Chris Cowdery's son. So they, they took more of an exacerbated interest in, in my performance, which was a positive thing, but I still had to go and do it. And as soon as I walked over the white line onto the cricket pitch. That was where I felt accepted. That's where I felt at home. That's where I felt at peace, really. And it was like that all the way through my upbringing. You know, my. My upbringing wasn't sort of completely filled with. With, you know, negativity on the playground. I had a great time. I got the sports scholarship to Tunbridge School. But the funny thing about that sports scholarship was it was called the Cowdery Scholarship, so it was named after my grandfather because all of them attended that school as well. So I remember arriving and I'd just been awarded this Cowg sports scholarship and kids were saying to me, if it wasn't for your name, where would you be? All of it. Wow. I was pretty good back in the day, Emma. And as. As time went on, it was clear that I had a. I had a talent, I had a gift. I was a bit of named, a bit of a prodigy and. And what have you. And at age 18, I'd left school and the day after, I got a call from the CEO of Kent County Cricket Club. And bear in mind, all I've wanted to ever do in my life is play professional cricket and follow my family into these, into the footsteps. And I got a call and they said, we want you to be our next professional batsman. We're going to put you on a contract. Wow. But the same day, I was lying in the bath and I had the. I had the bubbles over the top of me and my mum and my brother very awkwardly decided to walk into the bathroom and I thought, what on earth is going? What are you doing? Can you get out? You know, I'm. You know, I'm an adolescent male. I need my time to wash. And anyway, it went a little bit south because that was when they. They told me that, you know, know, Mum and Dad were breaking up and. And my dad had always been my hero and whatever growing up, and. And that was. That was really tough for me because I'd gone from the extreme highs of fulfilling an ambition to crashing down to. To the very sort of depths of. Of, I guess, mortality of humankind, where your whole family's sort of breaking in front of you.

Yeah. And, I mean, I. My parents divorced as well. I remember. I think it was before my. My GCSEs that I found out. And it's exactly that kind of high of all of these things you wanted to do that kind of come crashing down. And it is, you know, as a teenager. Life as a teenager is hard enough as it is, you know, exactly without all of these other things kind of going on, how do you. How do you kind of manage that juxtaposition of so, so happy about this massive thing in cricket you've been working towards, to the actual kind of breakdown of your family? How did you navigate those two mix of emotions at such an awkward age?

Yeah, it was tough because my mental stability had always come from playing cricket or going home and feeling comfortable with my dad watching sports or.

Yeah.

Or with my mom and my brother, my twin brother, Julius, which I'm sure we'll touch on at some point. And that was where I found my peace. That was my safe haven. And all of a sudden, you know, when I was going into training, I bear in mind I didn't speak to my dad for three, three or four years following that, because there was a lot of control around that. And he was my hero growing up and always the person I turned to for everything cricket related. So I went into the first three years of my career into this pressure cooker where my family were, you know, legends at the club without his. Without him being there, which was really tough for me. And when I went home, I was returning to a broken. A broken home, if you like, where my mum was heartbroken and my brother was struggling. And we were. We were sort of fighting every day to get through this mental battle. So when I went to the. Went to the cricket pitch for training, all the fans used to. You. They bought tickets to. To see me play, to shake my hand, to get my signature, but they were reminding me of how amazing my dad was the whole time. And I wasn't. I wasn't even in conversation with him. And it was just everywhere I went. I couldn't really hide at school. I had somewhere to hide. As soon as that happened, it felt like my whole world was falling apart. Bearing in mind I just signed a first professional contract. That sounds hard to believe, but it was. It was difficult internally.

Yeah. And I think. I think that you kind of just hit the nail on the head and I think that we often see externally all these great things. I'm sure there were lots of young people, lots of older people looking at you, thinking, wow, Fabian, you've really made it as this cricketer, not knowing that behind closed doors there was so much struggle and so much pain going on. You know, we never really truly know what's. What's sort of going on in someone's life. How did you kind of deal with that external pressure, with going, actually, your dad was a legend, your granddad was a legend all of these people thought that you had to be this person. How were you kind of navigating that while kind of dealing with the breakdown of your family at home and try did you feel that you had to put on a facade and pretend everything was great?

Yeah, absolutely. Nail on the head. I became the joker. I held on to this sort of front that I try and make everyone laugh laugh. I, I try to protect my inner struggles by being or playing a certain Persona in order to mask it if you like. So in the dressing room I'd be the first person to, to make a joke or be a little bit chat chat back to the captain, all of this sort of stuff. Yeah and I realized looking back on that now that was, that was coming from a deep place of insecurity. I mean talking to about the pressures of the name. My first, first 11 match, my first my debut was against a tourist New Zealand team and they brought over their international side and they were playing in a warm up fixture for their England series and I got picked and I was walking out at the home ground at Kent. To the right of me was my great, it was my grandfather's stand, the Colin Cowdery stand behind me I was walking out of my great grandfather's pavilion where the players get changed and on my back my, I had stitched my back Cowdery on my, on my back obviously. And 8000 people stood as I walked the wicket. It was, it's an intimate ground but 8000 people, everyone stood before I'd hit a ball so they weren't clapping me, they were clapping the dynasty. And that feeling, that feeling of complete euphoria of you know, being incredibly proud, that was temporary validation because it wasn't real that I hadn't, that wasn't my achievements although I'd been successful getting to that point that was, this is achievement in itself. You know played five years, six years of it, did well in my own way but it was, it was an eye opener. People buying tickets to get close to me. And as time went on I wasn't as ignorant as I was in my youth to these, these pressures. You know, press releases about yeah the next one, next cab off the rank, you know, how well is he going to do being compared all of that sort of stuff was, was a regular feature in my sports career.

Yeah, no, I, I mean it's so interesting because it's not often that you know you get that I get to or people get to kind of talk to people who have such big family, you know, history in the sport, like cricket. How was it, you know, you mentioned that you. You mentioned, obviously you and Julius are twins. Like I mentioned, I'm also a twin as well. And growing up, growing up, my parents tried to not compare us, but of course, naturally we were compared by outside people. We were often known as the. The nail of twins. And my mum and my dad really, really make an effort to make sure that we weren't compared. We went to different schools when we were in the same schools, we were in different classes, different colors, we didn't dress the same. How was it? You know, I've grown up with a twin, but it's always interesting to speak to other twins. How was it growing up with a twin kind of navigating all of this change?

Yeah, I mean, he's. Well, first thing about Julius is he's always been my best mate, so I've been really fortunate enough that he's still my best friend. And we, you know, we, we liaise with each other about, about everything. And he does his thing, I do my thing, but there was never really a competitive thing between us that you find in lots of twins. So I was a better cricketer, although he was very gifted and he was a better singer. So he was, he was in his, his sort of area and I was in my area. But we obviously at home, I mean, if we were, if, if mum was dishing out the chicken nuggets, we had to have seven each, you know. He couldn't. He could.

Yeah, I couldn.

In like, the front seat of the car, for example.

Like, did you ever have. Did you ever have, like a rotor of who got to go in the seat?

As in, like, we used to argue the whole time saying, I'm sorry, you've been in the front seat for the last three weeks. It's my turn for the next three weeks.

But, oh, my sis. My sister and I, we used to have my week and your week. So if it was her week, she could choose what was on the telly. She got to sit at a certain place at the table and she got to sit in the front of the car. And then the next week it would be my week. But if she got car sick, she would say, I know it's your week, but I'll owe you one day. Next.

I love it. I love it. I mean, this is so funny because that's exactly what it was like with us. I mean, in every, in every capacity, you know, we had to be absolutely the same, otherwise there would have been a tantrum. But. But then you get to sort of 15, 16. And I remember leaving the boarding house at my, at Tunbridge school because we were so, we were so close. We almost distanced ourselves from getting to know other people because we didn't really need any other friends. And that was actually affecting our upbringing and probably led to some sort of difficult times. We both got a bit of a hard time because we were probably naturally secluding ourselves from ever trying to fit in which, because you know, you know what it's like being a twin and I assume, hopefully your relationship with your twin is great too.

Oh yeah, she's my, she's my best friend. I often think that, you know, if we ever, if I ever have a disagreement with a friend or a family member, I would say, well, at least I have my twin Jesse and that's, that's all I need. But you're right, it can also be a bit of a double edged sword as well because you can end up isolating yourself away from kind of others. You know, now we're nearly 30, we kind of have, you know, we know who we are as people, we've kind of built those foundations. But I think as teenagers it's very easy to isolate yourself and then kind of carry on that behavior into old.

Yeah, I agree. And get me wrong, I'd like to be a millionaire too. You know what I mean? So. But there's always going to be that thing between twins. But we are 100% behind each other and he's actually been a really good support network for me through some, through some difficult times. In terms of leaving sport, having, having to sort of recreate the identity. I mean I was the cricket kid, I was the person following in the footsteps and then leaving, leaving sport. I, I retired from the game at 24 without any idea of what I wanted to do. But all I knew is I couldn't be in this environment anymore. It's making me so unhappy that I have to make a decision for my future. And making that step was one of the trickiest things I've ever done. But looking back on it now, it's, it's led me to a life where I'm now trained to be a life coach. I've got my mental health pushing mental health hard. I start a business, started a business around transferring vital skills from sport to other walks of life. Resilience, pressure, mental health. And it's led me down a path where I feel I can use those wisdoms, if I can, to support people. So, you know, my view is on this point that you have to look back. Otherwise you go mad for a start. But you have to look back at your negative circumstances and be like, silver lining, what did I learn? Because you wouldn't have been that person without those experiences.

No, I can, I completely agree. Just to kind of take it back a step. Before you Left cricket at 24, that is such a young age to, you know, something that you wanted so badly to leave. How did it feel when you decided, actually, this is what I have to do? How did you work through that fear of judgment, that fear of I don't know what I'm going to do? How did you take that first step to decide?

It was probably a year and a half process. I, I was there, okay. When I was playing. I had been performing very well in the reserve team and I wasn't really getting the recognition that I felt that I deserved at the time. Plus I looked at my career.

Yeah.

Now looking back at the sort of where my family were at a similar age and thought, crikey, I'm. I'm not where I need to be. And that was, it's really sad that I thought that because I, I didn't have the perspective that I have now in life. And the one thing that I say about professional sport or anything that is really magnified and intense for me, I was either playing as a mental cycle, playing, practicing or thinking about it. And I was literally just going round in a circle. I never really had any understanding of what was going on away from the sports field. I had no unders. I'd been brought up on a cricket field. That was my safe place, that was where I needed to be, that's where I felt comfortable. So I never really made an effort in other, other stuff that I didn't care about. So leaving was incredibly scary, but it was, it was needed. And for two years I went through this cycle where I was going out too much and you know, again to self sabotage, trying to mask the pain that I was feeling that things didn't work out the way I wanted and I wasn't the person that I thought I'd be and, but I, I knew that at some point my luck would turn and I, yeah, I can step back and think about what they want to do in their life and who they want to be. And I had that sort of awakening where I had to change. I had to stop going out till 4am, 5am in the morning. I had to think about my future.

Yeah, no, I think, I think that it's interesting a lot of, a lot of the People that I've been having conversations with and talking, especially during this podcast, have kind of had that awakening moment. And it's often strange because, you know, if you said to Anyone, oh, at 24, you were going to give up the sport that you had absolutely worked your whole life, for you to said, no way. There's absolutely no way that anything could get in the way of me and this sport. But actually we kind of go through these changes and realize it's something that you wanted in a phase of your life. But as you said, there was this awakening moment and there were other things destined for you. You. From when you gave up at 24 until now, how have you sort of rebuilt yourself in terms of, you know, emotionally, physically, business wise? What. What kind of things have you been doing?

Well, I mean, the first thing was, and I would recommend this to anyone going through hardship or any form of internal pain is to look at getting in the gym, look at going on more walks, look at, look at fitness.

Yeah.

Because for me, that was, that was my way of clearing my head and, and sort of getting back into myself, as I said. Like I was for two years after I finished playing, I, I was, you know, just stopping myself from dealing with any problems. And the one, the one way I've managed to do it in every area of my life with great support from my dad now because we're now best friends and he works with me and stuff, which is great, turn that round, but it's taken years and whatever. Yeah, it's to, it's, it's to sort of sit back, look at your life from outside in, as opposed to being trapped in the sort of prison of your mind and look at it logically, not emotionally, and then work that way because I think so often when we go through hardships, we don't think there's any, there's any escape to it. But as soon as you can step back and look at it and actually feel, look at your life as what you're grateful for, the things that you love and, and focus on those things and find a way of retracting from living in the past, which is what I was doing for a couple of, couple of years.

Yeah.

Or anxious about the future. If you can find a way of being grateful for what you have right in the second, like our conversation now, that is literally it, then, then you can start to rebuild your, your mindset.

Yeah. And I often think that it's. We really over as humans, we really over complicate things and we often feel like we have to kind of resolve.

Yeah.

Everything today, you know, it has to be, well, I've quit my job and I've quit this. Now I need to figure out what I'm doing for the next kind of 40, 50 years of my life. And I often think, as you said, it's just sometimes as simple as that as going right, really, really strip it back to basics, what makes me feel good, what doesn't make me feel good, do more of what makes me feel good, and let's cut out the stuff that doesn't make me feel good and kind of start to build on those foundations. Because I think if we start doing too many things, we become very, very overwhelmed. And I felt myself doing this, you know, when I've gone through the changes or I've gone through any kind of growth period, I've often found myself wanting to do a hundred things when actually I can't even do one or two things perfectly and often find that actually doing the simplest things first and building that foundation is the most important thing.

Yeah. And look, thoughts are emotions. And, you know, one of the things with emotions is they come and go and people identify with them and allow their emotions to take over when actually you don't have to. You have a choice as to how you respond to certain things. And also social media has led us to believe that we have to be so far advanced to where we are. You know, I'm 28 right now and still building myself, still, still trying to grow. We all are. But because we see the perfect version of everyone on social media, that we feel like we have to be millionaires or we have to have a house in the country, perfect life, the girlfriend, the two kids, or you know what I mean? And, and people get caught in that place and there's no time frame on people's lives. I mean, KFC was created by someone. Yeah, exactly. So people.

Yeah, he was like 60. I think he was 64 or something.

Yeah. So people find their identity and their purpose at different times. Not everyone's as lucky to. To find their Identity@. @ 22, 23. Some people find it later. So just remembering that there's no time frame on life and just trying to trust the process and enjoy every step of the way is what I learned following sport. I got so captivated in. In where I needed to be, you know, instead of really enjoying every day. And as a result, my. The love of my first love of my life began to diminish. But there are other things involved and things I would change. But, you know, you have to find a way of just taking every day as it comes and realizing that not every day is going to be sunshine. And actually what does, what can those dark days teach you?

Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I think that often we never kind of pause and actually appreciate, you know, everything we've worked for, you know, as you said, you know, I've. I recently hit one of my massive, massive goals which was buying a house. You know, I've always wanted to buy a house since however young. And we did it last year, the end of last year, we managed to buy a house after such an awful year. And often life is so fast paced that sometimes I forget to sit and say, Emma, what you wished for, you're sitting in right now. This is exactly what I wished for. But I'm almost so focused on great, I've hit that goal, what's the next one? And I often to sit and forget that actually what I wanted right now I've been working for since I got my first job. Saving, saving, saving, getting a mortgage, doing all these things that sometimes I just need to kind of take a step back and say, hey, listen, remember when you wished for what you had right now?

Yeah.

And it's exactly what you said. I often think that we go, well, I've got this house, when's the next house? I want to be a millionaire. I want to have 10 million in my bank account or whatever it is. And it's, it's. Sometimes we have to be humbled and I sometimes think the universe will humble you but often it's in ways that we don't want. So I try and remember my, remember and practice gratitude daily with writing a gratitude list. Yeah, you know, doing all the things that I know make me feel good and saying actually I'm really, really thankful for even the smallest things, but also the massive, massive things that I've been working towards.

I think, look, well, firstly, congratulations for fulfilling an ambition. I think we all have to, we all have to enjoy every step along, along the road, you know, and really strip it back to that. There's a well known quote which says if you're living in the past, you have a chance of being depressed. If you live in the future, you, you're likely anxious. But if you're at peace, you're living in the present. So that's a really important one for, for your listeners. I think if they're listening in and they're trying to focus on, on the now and not get caught in. I've just bought this house and I'VE got this achievement, but what's next, you know, and then they get into that anxious mindsets you're discussing with me. So that I would definitely try and relay that. I wish I had that a slightly younger age, but that's the cycle of life. We can't learn everything at once. But let's, let's accept that we're imperfect and, and we're going to make mistakes. Because if you can't accept that, it's going to be a rocky road.

No, absolutely. So what are you, what are you up to these days? What, in terms of work? How does that kind of look for you and how does that differ from when you were playing cricket?

Yeah, so I was a live events business. My business, Cal Corner before COVID we sold out our first 12 events. We, we specialized.

Wow.

Yeah, we specialized in intimate and exclusive events for corporate clients, bringing in a legend of sport to talk about overcoming their adversity. And what we, you know, because there was 6070 in the room, people got to have a selfie with the legend, questions from the audience, video footage, canapes and sort of networking. But the important thing for the whole night was we had big rugby captains, Chris Robshaw, James Haskell and cricket legends, golf legends, whatever. And they were prepared to be vulnerable on the stage. And there was something so powerful about someone who's perceived to be this macho person from the television run out of Twickenham or played at Lords and, and people think they're sort of beyond mortality, but they're prepared to sort of break down and be vulnerable and say, look, guys, I've also had to go through a hell of a lot in my life and if I can struggle, so can you. And it really gave that, that feeling of, I don't know, belonging in this world for people who were struggling, particularly in the workplace. So that's been what we're doing and then we've gone taking it all online and supported companies with those transferable skills and resilience, bounce back ability, handling pressure. All these skills are massive in sport and can be successfully relayed. And apart from that, starting a podcast. Podcast as well. Following you into the podcasting world. Yeah, lots of yours are absolutely fantastic and delighted to be on it. And with the amazing Lauren White alongside my fitness coaching and bit of broadcasting in the summer. So I'm a busy boy.

Yeah, no, it al. It all sounds amazing. I'm so excited to hear the podcast, actually. I know that when Lauren came on this podcast, she was kind of in talks with you about it. So I'm so excited that you guys, with all of your knowledge and all of your experience are going to start your own podcast. I feel like, you know, there's so much that everyone has to share and I often feel that people don't, people don't know how to channel it a lot of the time. And you know, when I was first starting this podcast, there was that fear. Even though now I look back and I'm like, it's such a small project on this, on the scale of things, but actually it's that fear of will anyone listen? Does anyone really care what I have to say? But the response that I've had has been absolutely incredible. And actually, I think as you said, you know, all the way from kind of rugby players down to kind of, you know, myself, he's been working in corporate for however many years. I think we all have so much knowledge to share. We often compare ourselves to people who, you know, like, like, like the likes of Tony Robbins who have had such life experience or so much business experience. And it's sort of actually, you know, everyone has so much to share and everyone is relatable on some level. What are you guys sort of focusing on in your, in your podcast?

So our thing is of course, normalizing the conversation around mental health, improving everyday mindset with our Sunday series. That's what it's going to be about. Giving people the tools to attack the next seven days, but also relaying the key skills of elite athletes and how they can improve performance with that as well, which is a massive factor for us. But I'm really, I'm absolutely honored to be on the journey with such an inspirational person in, in Lauren White. And, and as you said, if you can help one, one person, that, that, that is enough. You've, the response you've got has been fantastic because you're looking to share your vulnerabilities, your wisdoms and bring people on who've done the same. And that is powerful and, and particularly in young men at the moment, the suicide rate is absolutely beyond belief. Kids as young as 11, I know, feeling a lack of self love or a willingness to carry on at 11. So for me as a, as a young, youngish man now, you know, it's my responsibility, I feel, to show people that even though I went through this macho life playing sport in front of millions, millions of people, I suppose on television, I did a couple of times, but in front of lots of people, I'm still prepared to talk about it. And Lauren's always been open so, yeah, keep talking. That's the only way to, to get through hardships. We have to learn how to talk about it more. And what you're doing is amazing. And hopefully we can follow in the footsteps. Emma.

Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. Fine. Just to kind of finish off, what would be your one piece of advice for our listeners?

Oh, great question.

I always finish with this one and it throws everyone.

I would say that if, if you were really struggling to get out of the confinement and the prison of your mind and you are stuck in, in that trauma space, which for whatever reason, it might be something difficult in your own life, a job, on furlough, your ball at home is, is to do what Emma said and what I do, which is write down the top 10 things and you can find 10 things. It can be as small as the roof on your head when other people don't have it. And write down the things you are really grateful for. Is it your mom? Is it your dad? Is it something that happened that morning? And allow yourself to come right back into the present, because at that point when you feel completely unified with the present, you'll feel peaceful and it will take away the anxiousness of the future and the. And I suppose the form of depression that comes in when you're living in the. In the past. So really try and focus on that.

Fabian, thank you so much for being our guest on this week's podcast. I've had such a nice time talking to you and I'm so excited to listen to your podcast that's coming out very soon as well. If you want to find out a little, a little bit more about what Fabian is up to, please head over to his Instagram, which is Fabian K. Cowdery. You can listen to his podcast and see all of the amazing things that he's doing. Again, Fabian, thank you so much for being our guest on this week's podcast.

Thank you, Emma. Thank you for having me.

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