Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #210 How To Rewrite Your Life Story with John McAvoy

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

CAUTION: This episode contains themes of an adult nature.   Before he came to see me today, my guest John McAvoy took a walk around Strangeways prison. For a former inmate, that might sound an unlikely way to start the day. But for John, it’s the sort of thing he does on a regular basis, to remind himself where he’s come from. This is John’s third appearance on the podcast, but for those new to his story, he was a teenager raised into a life of organised crime. By the age of 18 he was one of the UK’s most notorious armed robbers and was sentenced to two life sentences. John spent 10 years in maximum-security prisons but during that time he transformed his life, describing his release as a ‘rebirth’. Today John’s not just a record-breaking, Nike-sponsored athlete, he’s a man on a mission to make amends and make sure no other child goes that same route into crime. Through initiatives like his Open Doors campaign, to give young people access to school sports facilities during holidays, he’s inspiring new generations to rewrite their stories. But it’s not just youngsters John’s experience and wisdom speaks to. He’ll be too modest to agree with me, but I hear a spirituality and philosophy in his words that we can all benefit from. Our deep and honest discussion covers John’s move to the Alps to live a simple life, rejecting the wealth he could easily command. We talk about connection, forgiveness, the importance of not judging people – and we even ponder the meaning of life. I’m struck by how people like John, who have achieved incredible self-transformation, are the perfect figureheads to help inspire and create positive change in society. He’s a master of storytelling who uses his own, unique experience to give us access to new perspectives. I really hope you enjoy this conversation.  Thanks to our sponsors:   https://www.calm.com/livemore   https://vivobarefoot.com/livemore   http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore   Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/210   Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/3oAKmxi. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Follow me on https://www.instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on https://www.facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on https://twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

We are only on earth for such a short period of time. Life is such a precious gift. If you want change in your life, it is possible. Is it hard? Yes, it is hard. You have to do it. You have to act. If you want your life to be different. Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More.

Welcome to Feel Better Live More. Hello, how are you doing? I am really excited about today's guest who is someone who is returning to my podcast for his third appearance. His name is Mr. John McAvoy. And if you've not heard my previous two conversations with John, particularly the first one, that's episode 91 that I first released on New Year's Day 2020, I really would recommend that you go back and take a listen. John, I think, has one of the most incredible life stories that I've ever heard. As a teenager, he grew up surrounded by and being strongly influenced by the male role models in his life, all of whom were engaged in criminal activities. And essentially, John was raised into a life of organized crime. By the time he was 18 years old, he was one of the UK's most

notorious armed robbers. He was convicted of two separate life sentences, and he spent 10 years in a maximum security prison. And one day whilst he was in prison, he saw video footage on the news that one of his best friends had died. And this was the key moment that resulted in John changing his perspective on his life. He could see clearly for the very first time that his entire life had been built on a lie. And in that moment, he decided to change the story that he told himself and immediately started to evolve. He discovered a talent for rowing, and whilst in prison, he started to break world records and transformed who he was to the point

where he was freed. Now, he describes the time since his release as a rebirth and now dedicates his life to helping others. Today, John is not just a record-breaking Nike-sponsored athlete. He's a man on a mission to make amends and make sure that no other child goes the same route that he did into a life of crime. Through initiatives like his Open Door campaign, which has been set up to give young people access to school, sports facilities during holidays. He's inspiring new generations to rewrite their stories. But it's not just youngsters who John is inspiring. I really feel that John has a level of knowledge, insight and wisdom that we can all benefit from. In today's conversation we cover a wide variety of different topics including

John's recent move to the Alps in order to live a simple life, his decision to sacrifice money and income in order to be happy, the power of connection and forgiveness, as well as the importance of not judging people. We even ponder the meaning of life. Now I have to say, one of the things that I love the most about John is his authenticity and his incredible honesty. And I really think that people like John who have achieved incredible self-transformation are the perfect figureheads to help inspire and create positive change in society. He is a master of storytelling who uses his own unique experience to give us access to new perspectives on our lives.

I really hope you enjoy listening. And now, here's my conversation with Mr. John McAvoy. I was really struck when you came to the house today that you stayed in Manchester last night. And before you came to see me today, you took a walk around the outside of Strange Ways to Prison. Why did you do that? I did it because I feel like sometimes it's very important that you must remind yourself how far you've come in life because I'm a great believer in living in the present and in the moment. And we've spoken about that in depth on other podcasts.

But you do have to remember the journey that you've traveled on to get to that moment. And this morning, for instance, when I was standing in a hotel, literally across the road from Strangeways Prison. And I was never held in Strangeways Prison, but it was a maximum security prison. So there was always that danger that I would be transferred there if I was moving up north but to go there this morning I just took a look at the prison and I could see the cell windows and it was just a nice reminder of how far the journey I've traveled on from spending 10 years of my life being one of those prisoners locked in those tiny little cells to now living on the top of a mountain and obviously coming to see you today.

Did you know last night when you checked into the hotel that you'd be going to Strangeways in the morning or is that something that, you know, you wake up and you see it, you think, actually, you know what, I've got a bit of time, let me go and take a look around. I mean, what goes through your mind there? No, it's something I deliberately sort of wanted to do this morning. I didn't realise how close my hotel was to it. But I do normally actually do it quite regular. So if I was doing sort of a, if I was doing any work trips up near Nottingham, I would always go back to Loudoun Grange where I set all the world records on the indoor rail machine. And again, just look at the gates outside the prison and remind myself that I was in that place for for years uh when I'm in London if I go past Woolwich and go

to Belmarsh it's just that reminder like the other day I was I was in London I had a meeting and I deliberately walked past the uh Royal Courts of Justice and I remember at my appeal um and I hadn't been there well since, since 2007. And again, it's just that reminder. I was on my way to go and do something else in London, something very positive. But it was just a nice reminder and the journey that I've been on to get to the point where I am at the moment in my life.

What goes through your mind? So you're walking outside the prison. You're seeing the bars outside the cells. Do you feel it within your body? Are you, is it just a quick thing? Oh yeah, I used to do that. Man, it's just a nice reminder of how far I've come. Or do you really visualize you being back in there

and what that was like for you, sort of really sort of deeply and viscerally? Yeah, I'll be honest with you when i was walking past the prison this morning i looked you could see the cells and it just makes me feel sad that there's other men in that place right now wasting their lives just sitting locked in those cages um probably the vast majority of them are probably under the age of 40 so they're they're very fit and healthy still. And they're just wasting their human life in that place. Um, how it makes me feel internally, um, it just sharpens up, um, the, the, the, the journey that I've been on. Um,

and it, and when I think back to being one of those people in that place, um, how you can sort of leverage that situation, you can do something with your life when that place, how you can sort of leverage that situation. You can do something with your life when you've been in a place like that. I remember the day when I got transferred out of Loudoun Grange Prison, I got moved to an open prison. So Loudoun Grange, what, high security?

That was a Category B prison. Which means what? So I was in a double Category A, then I got downgraded to a Category A, then I got downgraded to a Category B. So it's the level of security keeps dropping. So when I was in a double category A, then I got downgraded to a category A, then I got downgraded to a category B. So it's the level of security keeps dropping. So when I was in a category B prison, I was going to be moved from a B to a category D prison, which is an open prison,

which meant that there was no perimeter wall around the prison. And that was when I was on the final stages of getting released. So that was when I had my parole here and they didn't release me, but they said I could go to open conditions. And that's like you start getting reintegrated back into society slowly and I just remember when I was in Loudoun Grange when I packed all my kit up to get moved to the Cat D it was it was the last time I'd been in a closed prison which we had a perimeter wall and it was like a proper prison like you would see on tv like an actual like so it wasn't a Victorian prison but it was like a

semi high security prison and I remember looking back into that cell when I had all my kit packed on the outside of the cell, my cell was empty. And I thought I will never again in my life ever see this view. And I looked back into that cell and I shut the door and then I got moved to the open prison. And eventually I ended up getting released completely. You know, one thing I see when I see the content you put out, I see someone who is always positive, who's always upbeat. The glass is half full, not half empty. But do you have bad days like anyone else? And is this a tool you use on those bad days to remind you? I guess I'm just really trying to understand from you, John.

I often find this when people have been to the real extremes in life. Let's say someone suffered with really bad addiction, or like you, you've been locked up. People said, lock him up, throw away the key, life sentences. Yet from that, you turn things around. When an addict turns things around, I find there's a real depth. There's a real understanding of the truth of what it really means to be living a life on this beautiful planet. And I'm just interested, how do you see that now? And what happens when you have those bad days? Oh, I'm like every human that walks this planet, like you have good and you have bad days. Stuff happens to me sometimes I've got no control over, but I always draw back from my life experiences. Like I've experienced dark places, like when I was locked in a segregation cell for 365 days all on my own and i'd very like

limited human contact that's bad that's given me a great perspective on what bad actually is so even if i've got nothing now um and i've and i i've got no money i i i've experienced what having nothing is like i've genuinely experienced what that feeling feels like. So it's given me a great perspective of, of having nothing and being in a really dark place. So no matter what happens to me in my life now, I understand what it feels like to be in that position, that,

that dark, dark place. And it's kind of like, without being too cheesy about it, but like I see when I got released from prison, it was like a rebirth. Like when you go to prison, someone once said to me, you don't live, you just exist. And it's the nearest thing you can come to death, but not being dead because you're basically in a concrete coffin, but you're alive.

But you've lost all your liberties, which in my case was deservingly so. I broke the law. I'd made bad life choices based on my sort of my childhood and what I thought was right and wrong um but I made those decisions which led me to go into prison and spending 10 years of my life in there but when um sort of when I got released it was like I felt like I was like reborn and that's why I'm so appreciative of every day that I'm alive now. And, and the experiences that I get and the privilege of being able to see some beautiful places and interact with incredible human beings. Um, and sometimes you can feel like you, you,

you're overly happy, but again, it's like the world went from being very dark and gray to very colorful. And like, I could have easily, when my friend passed away in that car crash I could have easily died with him if I wasn't in prison I would have probably been with him in the Netherlands and when when he committed that robbery and the car flipped and he died and two other people died and the driver broke his back I could have easily been with him in that car and that would have been the end of my life or the day I got arrested and the police had 20 machine guns pointing at me if one of them had pulled the trigger that would have been the end of my life. But I was fortunate that that didn't happen to me and I went to prison.

And then I went through that journey in prison, that process of change, that when I got released, I'm so appreciative of my freedom and how beautiful the world is and the fact that I get to meet and mix with incredible human beings. Some people will be listening and watching this, John, and they won't be familiar with your story. They won't have heard our first conversation where we spoke for, I think, two hours and 40 minutes. It was the kind of feature film length version of your story. I think still probably one of the most impactful conversations I've ever put out on

this podcast. I still get comments. I'm sure you do even to this day. I don't want to go through all of that again, because that already exists for people if they want to see that. And I'd highly recommend that they do. But that was the feature length version. Have you got a shorter kind of, you know, three, four minutes, sort of five minute kind of summary of that whole story, just to give a bit of perspective to people as to where you were and where you are today. So I always say in regards to my life journey, you have to even go back before I was even born. My real dad died when my mum was eight months pregnant with me. I'm brought up into the world and I couldn't have asked for more love as a child

my mum and my sister and all my mum's sisters big extended Irish family I was a doted on little child and I was loved I can remember back to Christmases and birthdays

my grandad and I had these great childhood memories and it was only when I started going to primary school children started teasing me at primary school because I didn't have a dad I asked my mum where my dad was. My mum explained

to me that I'd died. And being an inquisitive kid, which I always was, I want to know where someone goes when they die. My mum tried to simplify it. She says, my dad went to heaven. But from a very young age, I had this great awareness of mortality. And this has been a thread that stayed in my life from that age. So I understood from a very young child that I wasn't going to live forever. Now that then triggered something inside me that as I got a little bit older, I developed this, I can only call it an obsession with history. When I was a little boy, my mum used to take me to London Dungeons, HMS Belfast. And every month she used to get me these magazines out, the news agents,

they were like history magazines for children and they would have puzzles. And I just remember one day putting all these puzzles together in our home in Crystal Palace in South London. And it just dawned on me as a kid that these people had died hundreds of years before I was born. And this then triggered this sort of desire to want my life to have a significance when i was an adult i wanted to achieve something i didn't want my life just to float just to pass by i wanted to achieve something and then that attached itself onto money from a young age i saw again this this this sort of obsession with owning british telecom um and being a billionaire when i was older because i asked my uncle one day i said how much does british telecom make And being a billionaire when I was older, because I asked my uncle one day, I said, how much does British Telecom make? And he said, they make billions of pounds a year.

And everywhere I went, like any aunties and uncles' homes, they all had BT phone box, landlines, and there was BT phone boxes everywhere, BT adverts. I grew up in that era of Margaret Thatcher. So I used to watch these adverts. And that was what my inspiration was. That was what I wanted to do when I was older. And anyone asked me, what do you want to do when you're older? I wanted to own British Telecom. And then what I went to do when I was older. And anyone asked me, what do you want to do when you're older? I went into own British Telecom. And then the perfect storm was created when I was eight years old and my mum's ex-husband got released from prison

after serving 16 years for armed robbery. And he wasn't just sort of a, what you would class as like a normal criminal. Like he was a multimillionaire when he was 21 years old that he never used to stop telling me about. He had five acquittals at the Old Bailey. He's very respected within the criminal underworld. And he opened up this whole world to me as a child of organized crime. One of the big moments when I was 12, my real dad that died before I was born, his brother committed the biggest armed robbery in the world. And he stole 26 million pounds worth of gold bullion from Heathrow airport. And I can remember sitting in,

sitting indoors and there was this Hollywood film on TV. And I remember Sean Bean playing my, my uncle in this film and all of these characters of all these men that Billy was sort of introducing me to were all played in this, this, this, this film, film this movie my cousins all played by actors and actresses and uh and and and that was it made it obtainable there i saw then there was a road to obtain wealth which i thought was success i thought as a child the more money you amassed as an adult the more successful you was as a person and then that sort of was reiterated by the behavior of my stepdad that constantly was always talking about money. Um, and then sort of, as I went through this journey in this process, I started becoming more and more sort of, um, rude towards my

teachers because I was having all these projections of this like anti-authority, anti-state projected onto me by all these men that were involved in organized crime and then my teachers become the state they become police officers they become even though they wasn't but like when my teachers are telling me you're going to fail at school you're not going to amass to anything if you don't get any alien english or maths and i'm looking at this group of men over here that were all multi-millionaires that are committing criminal activity and there's a child as well it's very intoxicating like you're you're you're around these men that are engaged in this level of crime where like rules regulations laws are not applicable to them

and and as a kid it's very enticing um and and the draw was so strong that even if my mum tried to pull me away like my mum worked in the florist and my mum's working minimum wage and these men are multi-millionaires with apartments on the chancelisa and they got massive tennis courts in their houses and swimming pools so this sort of just just just carried on it carried on in me this journey of that was the life i was going to choose and i did choose that life i left school at 16 years old i bought a firearm my stepdad found out i did that and he was then worried that I was going to commit armed robberies with people my own age and then he thought it'd be safer committing crime with them and then basically then from that moment I started sort of casing out security vans

making deliveries and stuff and then that escalated to me getting arrested I went to prison when I was 18 first time I was kept in a maximum security prison with adults because the police believed that I had the capability to escape because my stepdad and all my family were breaking me out of prison. So that made me even worse because then I'm kept in this maximum security prison with all of these drug traffickers and armed robbers and I'm an 18-year-old and I was having all of this respect

sort of lavished on me because there's like a hierarchy within crime and suddenly you've got this young kid that's 18 year old and I was having all of this respect like sort of lavished on me um because there's like a hierarchy within crime and suddenly you've got this young kid that's 18 years old in maximum security prison as one of the only category a young offenders in the country um and it just exacerbated and made the issue even worse with me because I think sometimes as well you're constantly seeking for that validation from adults um and then you're having all this praise put onto you but doing something very negative but in that world it isn't did that almost feed your ego yes yeah most definitely because again like you're i think as a as a young boy and a person in general

like growing up you you want praise of people and uh and and and i was getting a lot of it but something that was very very negative and it and it feeds in to this behavior that then it got even more toxic. And then I went to court when I was 19 and I ended up getting five years on a plea bargain. And this is where my journey of sports started. I was in a segregation cell when I was 19 years old for a full calendar year. And that's where I started doing the cell circuits. And then I wasn't doing it to, to get fit. I was doing it cause it made me feel like I was alive, like I was a human being. Um, and then after that two and a half

years of being in prison, cause I had to serve half the sentence, I was released and I was a hundred times worse. I was even more determined to make money. I hated the state even more. Um, I've gone through this process of obviously, because I was in prison, people knew that I was in segregation for a year. So then when I got out, it was like, I didn't inform on anyone. I sat there. I was as difficult as you could be being in prison. So you get a lot more respect by your peers within the criminal underworld. I was out of prison for four days and I found tracking devices on my car. So I had to make a decision. Do I stay in Britain? If I stay here, I knew I was going to go back to prison. So, and then I

lived that typical lifestyle you imagine. I went abroad. I lived in the Netherlands. I was in Spain. I was taking drugs. I was literally living a million miles an hour. I was just absolutely consumed with the acquisition of wealth and money. And I was hanging out with people that were all incredibly wealthy people. And it just exacerbated the issue even more. And it made me even more hungry. And I come back to the UK temporarily for only a week. And I met up with one of my stepdad's friends. And he asked me if I wanted to commit a robbery. I said no at the beginning. And then I then will then tell you that it was the best decision I ever chose to make because he told me the sum of money involved, the greed, overcoming again. I thought it'd be easy. I agreed to do

it. And I just walked into one of the biggest police surveillance operations in London at a time. And there was a hundred police officers outside that coffee shop taking photographs and filming it. And, um, and I'd been watching him for two months and four days later I get arrested with him. Um, and then that was the whole journey of me being a double category A prisoner. I mean, even hearing it again, it is just incredible, especially seeing where you are today. You know, money comes up a lot in your story.

I've read, John, that when you finally got out, you have said before that you swore to yourself that money would never be your God again, or something to that effect. I hear that from you and I think about what I see around me in the world, that a lot of people do believe success and even happiness is money. I want to get a better car, a better holiday, a better phone, better clothes. I will be happy then. And of course, we all define happiness and success differently, especially given what's happened to you over the past six or 12 months in terms of where you live now. How has your relationship to money changed? And how do you look at life in terms of success and happiness now compared to in the olden days?

So my relationship with money is probably a little bit more unique than most people that are probably going to listen to this podcast. To me, money was a very, very destructive thing in my life for me personally, and everything I saw around people around me, it led to people going to prison, losing their lives. Um, so I've got this relationship with money where I was intoxicated with it. Like, I don't think you'll probably ever meet anyone like that would, would have been as consumed, like the way I am now as a person, what I do with my life, imagine all that energy channeled into money.

That was my life. I would wake up in the morning and I was consumed with acquiring money. I didn't care how I did it. I wanted money. I wanted this. And it was all around the goal. And it was never about obtaining material things with it. It was about the acquisition of it. Because as a young kid, like I said, I always made this connection between the more millions you had the more successful you was as a person which means what which meant that i was successful that i i had achieved something in my life that was going to be my legacy it was how much money i had acquired over the course of my life so even if you hadn't spent it or bought any fancy clothes or anything with it just having it having it it just about having it. It was just about having it. And that was it. And also probably the pursuit of obtaining it as well.

The pursuit of going after it and getting it, the way that that made me feel. Then when my friend died, when I was in prison, and I went through that process of, which I can only class as like an awakening. It was like an epiphany and I looked at my existence and then like I said to you I've always had this inside me this this drive triggered by my mortality that I wasn't going to live forever like my dad dying before I was born

realizing I wasn't going to live then my friend dying whilst I was in prison and then um so that thread of realizing that I wasn't going to live forever really come alive at that moment because i'd never lost anyone as an adult that i loved so i loved my friend i've never felt other than my mum towards another human i've never had that relationship with anyone ever ever ever ever um i can't even remember other than that the last time i'd ever cried before that happened to my friend and so this is the guy who you saw in when you were locked up you saw him on news at 10 on news at 10 but this is the friend you're talking about and i'd never had i'd never felt that loss in my life like i'd never like i i'd seen and heard of people being

dying car crashes and stuff but that was other people that was never no one it was was really close to me and then when suddenly when it happened to someone that was so close to me and someone I deeply loved and cared for um like I've still got his letters that he wrote me in prison I still have those today these last ever letter he wrote to me I've never had that relationship with another human like I had with him, that trust, that bond. So when he died and I was in that cell, I looked at my own mortality and this awareness overcome me.

And it was like, this is my life on earth. Like I'm literally pissing it away into a drain. And the impact that had over me was so powerful that I realized that there was more to life than the life I was leading up to that point. And then when I got released, I always made a promise that money would never again be my God. I would never in my life make a decision based on money. It would have to be based on my happiness and me being content in myself as a person. This whole relationship you have with money is fascinating. Of course, it does sound

very unique. And I don't want for a minute to suggest that money is not important. It depends where you are in life, what your means are. Yes, absolutely. Money can give us things, shelter, life, what your means are. Yes, absolutely. Money can give us things, shelter, foods, a sense of autonomy and control in our lives for sure. But how have you managed to stay true to that decision that you would never make a decision based on money again? Or have you ever faltered from that? Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. So I'll tell you the journey. So when I got released from prison, I did my level three gym instructor course whilst I was in prison so that meant when i got out i had a personal training qualification so when i went for parole and i said to the judge and my parole hearing in the prison that when i got i was going to be an athlete he said to me my release plan wasn't based in reality he said like it's not

going to happen but i'd set all these world records on the round machine in prison. So I knew in myself, I could do it. I read The Secret whilst I was in prison, The Laws of Attraction. I visualized every day when I did any training session in that prison, I could taste it, I could smell it, I could see it. When I got out, I knew I would be successful as an athlete. I knew I would. I had that absolute unbreakable belief in myself that I knew I could do it. So when the judge didn't release me, what he did say was that I needed to have a plan B. And he said, you need to do something. So I did my level three gym instructor course. So he didn't, he didn't release me, but they moved me to the open prison. And then I did my level three gym instructor course. So when I got released from

prison, I had disqualification. So I could train people as a personal trainer. So I used to go to the park next to where I lived and I would train people. I met people through the rowing club and then through them I found some clients and I was charging £30 an hour. It was nothing. But it sustained me enough to be able to continue the journey of being an athlete. And that wasn't a smooth ride, believe me. It was very, very hard. I over-trained, I got sick. I made really bad decisions as an athlete because I didn't trust people to help me because I had these issues with trust. Because again, I was always brought up to be distrusting of humans, people that wasn't really close to you. So it was my dream. I wanted to be an athlete. I wasn't going to entrust another human with that because they didn't want it as much as me. So I trained myself and I got really sick. Anyway, so it wasn't a smooth journey. It wasn't like I got out of prison and suddenly I ended up becoming a Nike sponsored athlete. But I believed in myself when I got out and I had to figure a way of how could I support my dream and still continue to do the volume of training I need to do to be successful.

So I started working as a personal trainer. Now, as I got better as an athlete and all these doors started opening um and my opportunity started to present themselves to me um because my story started getting out there um one of the best experiences I ever had was four years ago. Um, I, my, my, one of my contracts was running out with Nike. Now to me as a human, whatever happens in my life, moving from this moment onwards, no one can ever take away from me that I sat in a maximum security prison basically for nearly 10 years of my life on earth. And I managed to turn it round, come out of prison and work with Nike under the same umbrella as some of the greatest athletes that have ever walked this planet. No one can take that away from me as part of my life journey. So when this other sort of opportunity was presented to me, it was paying me a substantial amount, much more than

what I was being paid, but it didn't mean anything to me. And believe me, it was a lot more than what I was being paid, but it was more about me as an individual. And I wouldn't have had that same affiliation, the same sort of affection towards that other brand that wanted to work with me later on. Because Nike, one, took a massive risk on me at the beginning. And two, my relationship to those people that showed loyalty to me was so strong and the part of my life journey that no one could ever take away from me what i had accomplished to work with them and to work under that same umbrella as those athletes and that was one of the nicest feelings in the world because up to that point i was never really put in a position where someone ever offered

me anything substantial that i could go do you you know what? I always knew I would turn it down. But actually when it was actually in like basically in black and white, I was able to say, I'm okay. Thank you. I want to work with these guys and I work because my legacy and my life and what I'd achieved meant more to me being with them in that position than going somewhere else. I mean, it's incredible to hear that. You know, when I hear you say that, John, I'm always struck by your authenticity. Ever since I first met you, there's a certain realness about you, which you don't get all the time with people. And as you're talking about that story about you turning down a big money deal, and as you're talking about that story about you turning down a big money deal what I hear is you're someone who really values loyalty

but actually if we press rewind on your life I get the feeling that loyalty was always one of your values but it's, where do you apply that loyalty to? Because, you know, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me as though you were very, very loyal your entire life, but you were loyal maybe to the wrong set of values, whereas now you're loyal to kind of honesty and integrity and empathy and compassion. Am I reading that right? Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health,

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commitment to making a top quality product. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually, they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office or car. If you want to take advantage of to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. It's been a very strong thread of my life. Even going back to, for instance, I don't think I've ever verbalized this before in a public setting through a podcast or through an interview,

but even when I got arrested and we was on remand before our trial and the police, the Metropolitan Police, offered me a deal. And it was basically, if I gave evidence against my co-defendant, I wouldn't basically get two life sentences. And sometimes people don't understand

what life sentences are. So technically, as we're doing this podcast now, I'm still serving my sentence in the community. So it lasts 100 years, 99 years. So when my life sentence is taken away from me completely, I'll be 123 years old or 122 years old. Um, and basically what that means is if, if, if the police ever suspected I was ever involved in crime, they could recall me back to prison that I don't have to be arrested for anything.

If there was a, if they suspected I was seen with a wrong group of people, I could be recalled back to prison. My probation officer could recall me back to prison. And they offered me this deal. And I said, no. Knowing, well, I said no, but I said it in a much more ruder way. But knowing that the probability was that then I would get what I've just said to you I would get. So before I would have probably got 10 years, fixed sentence, done the 10 years, got out, and that would have been the end of that. But I couldn't do it. And throughout my life, like from being a kid, it was always like,

it's challenging because it's like I often say about my stepdad, you can't blame someone for all the bad if you don't also acknowledge the good. And there was a lot of things that he did teach me as a kid that later on in my life had put me in good order.

So like when I was a child, very shy. As a kid, I used to hide behind my mum. I didn't like talking to people. I was really, really shy as a child. It's just strangers. And I remember he drilled that out of me as a kid. And he said, you have to be able to converse with people. And then as I got a little bit older, he was always very mindful about, you didn't just interact with criminals. He used to take me when he had lunches with accountants or solicitors or barristers. And it was to sort of broaden my horizons within being able to converse with different groups of people.

And that come from him. But that loyalty thread really was embedded into me from him as a kid. It was always like you treat people how they treat you. And if you're good to people, they'd be good to you back. Yeah. It's, it's fascinating, isn't it, John? Because there's a, there's a real tendency these days, you know, with cancel culture where everyone's either all good or they're all bad. I think it's one of the biggest problems out there in the world at the moment, if I'm honest, is this inability to kind of, you know, look at someone and go, you know what, I don't have to agree with all of them, with everything they say. Actually, you know what, I quite like 60% of what

this guy says, but I don't agree with 40%. But so many people now just chuck them out with the garbage. It's like, it's either all great or it's all bad. But I'm sure, you know, how many human beings are there where we actually agree with absolutely everything that they do or say? Do you know what I'm getting at? When I hear you talk about, you step up, I think, well, it sounds like he taught you some great stuff. Doesn't mean everything was great. Yeah, most definitely.

And I also believe everyone goes through a process of growth because I can guarantee to you now, if we would have done this podcast 10 years ago and you would have come and interviewed me, the way I would have perceived the world and some of the stuff I would have said probably then, nearly everyone listening to this day would have probably not liked me that much.

But you go through that journey of growth and you meet people along your journey and they shape and change how you see the world. And i've seen it before like when you see like people in the public eye that have tweeted something 10 years ago um they've obviously gone through a process of check not everyone does but sometimes it's clear to see someone does and then it can sort of be so detrimental to them today because i believe everyone everyone does or most people do go through a a growth in life of meeting new people and developing and seeing life for a different prism. We're talking now, the lens

how I saw life 10 years ago is so remarkably different to what it is today. Your story, frankly, I think is one of the best examples ever of judging people because we have these phrases in common parliaments, don't we? We have, what is it? A leopard can't change their spots. Lock him up and throw away the key. We have these sort of phrases that we bandy around whenever we want, but let's apply those in the context of you people may have said that about you um but you have shown that a human being can change their spots and people and people did up only up until probably about four years ago people were still like i i remember a time when um i was uh i was out on a date i dated this girl at the rowing club a couple of times.

And we went out one night. And I made this flipping comment. She was getting text messages. And I just said, oh, your friend's checking up on you. And it was actually her mother because she told her she was going at me. And where she wasn't responding back to her text messages, she said, if you don't message me back within the next 20 minutes, I'm going to call the police because she was out with me and she'd obviously told her about my my story um and what i noticed

it probably about four or five years ago it shifted a lot but even when i first got out like when people started becoming aware of me um and about my life like i was a different person now like in regards of my views on the world and the way I am and my behavior, but people still treated me or some people perceived me like I was still that person from, from all those years ago. But I think again, what you've just said, I always think like I, what prison did teach me prison in, I was in a very fortunate position in life. And this is why I don't, I regret what I did going to prison. I really, really do. And I mean that like wholeheartedly, um, poor life choices based on what I thought was right and wrong. I accept the consequences of my actions. And that led to

me spending a decade in prison. When I was in prison, I was exposed to groups of people I'd never been exposed to in my whole life ever, ever, ever, ever. Right. So I'm in these environments where you're with people that were suicide bombers or attempted suicide bombers you have people that were serial killers people that were killers um and then at the beginning I remember when I first went in there I had that view I didn't I didn't want to talk to these people they were scumbags but I remember in one particular story I can remember when I was in this HSU, so the high security unit in Belmarsh, very tiny wing, like there's literally eight cells basically on there. So there's eight prisoners maximum. Like the staff ratio to inmates is massive.

It's the highest security prison in Western Europe. It's the CCTV cameras. When they open up your cells for association, you have to go outside. So when I first went in there, CCTV cameras, when they open up your sales for association, you have to go outside. So when I first went in there, I did not talk to anyone that was in there for terrorism. So bear in mind, there was only eight of us, six of us, six of the guys that are in there were in there for terrorism because I didn't agree with what they did. And I just remember it was quite awkward sometimes. Like you would literally look through them. You wouldn't even acknowledge them.

You was in the showers, they were in the showers, you wouldn't talk. And one day I was sitting out on the wing when we had association and i just remember them talking about football and i'm talking about arsenal and then you're listening to conversations around they're talking about their families and they're talking about this and their kids and and and you realize actually the humans like and then and again like i said when i was a kid was very inquisitive so then it was like i want to understand how you want to understand how you see the world and why you act the way you act. And again, I think to solve any issue in life with people, you have to understand what motivates someone to address why they're doing what they're doing. It's not

as simple as people are good and bad or good or evil. Life doesn't work like that. People make decisions based on what they think is right and wrong. And there's reasons why people act the way they act. And I think to fix, solve any problems like why young kids make bad life choices, why are they doing that? Why does a kid get a knife and feel like it's appropriate to stab someone else? Why do they do that? It isn't just that they're mad or they're evil or the horrible little kids, they're like feral. Something's happened somewhere to trigger that, to stop other people from doing those same acts.

You have to sort of go back and address it and understand it and have dialogue with them and be willing to talk to different people. Even if you don't agree with what they say, you have to have that dialogue. Gabor Mate says, don't ask yourself what's wrong with you. Ask what happened to you there's something so simple yet i think it's really really profound it's why why why 100

given how many people judged you and potentially continue to judge you, you've always been someone who's taken full responsibility. You've never once in all our conversations wanted sympathy from people. You've never played down what you did or the impact that has had on other people. I really admire that, this full responsibility there, which I think is a big learning for all of us that no matter what we do in life, it's only when we can be really honest and actually just take full responsibility and go, you know what, that was me. Yeah, these were the reasons, but I did do that. I think it's very hard to change until you have that sort of radical honesty with yourself.

But judgment really fascinates me because something I've worked on really hard is to judge less. And I honestly feel these days, I don't, I'm always trying to understand why rather than judge someone. I would love to understand what is your relationship to judgment? You know, what was it like when you were a teenager? What was it like when you were in prison? And then what's it like these days, given everything that you've been through? Yeah, well, there's been quite a transition. Like from years ago, again, like when I was younger, teenager, early 20s, you was, so the judgment would be intertwined into like respect and it would be

strong or weakness. But again, very alpha males involved in organized crime. Um, my stepdad would say to me, the only thing you've got in life is your name. If people think you're a piece of shit, you're a piece of shit and you're, and you're blackboard. And once you get that reputation within that world, that's really it. So again, it's having that respect by people, by your behavior, the way you act as a person. So I was very judgmental of people in regards of that world.

Like if you saw someone doing something that you perceive being right or wrong, how you would then act towards them um then when i went to prison again very judgmental at the beginning like what i've said the story a minute ago when i was in that situation the first couple months just didn't even engage with them um and then you start speaking to people people in their stuff and you start again you don't condone what they've done but you have to have an understanding of how they what the decisions they make in their lives and this is just a broader picture across people that were in prison so it's not people just convicted of terrorism here um and then you start delving into people that convicted of murder and other other other sort of other sorts of crimes um and then

you don't become as judgmental as what you thought, because I did have that prism of good and bad, good and evil, scumbag, not a scumbag. But when you start digging into people's past and you start talking to them and you start really understanding why they did what they did and what triggered them. And some of them didn't have dads as a kid. And then they was like exploited and manipulated. And then as I got out of prison, that understanding that that gave me an interacting with the, cause again, these are the real extremes of society. And then coming out of prison, I feel like it put me in a very strong position in the work that I do today. So like when you're in rooms with people that are politicians and stuff, and you're sitting

there having conversations, um, being able to have dialogue with people and understanding people's perceptions of where they're coming from and why they're doing what they're doing yeah do you ever find yourself these days falling into the trap of judging people do you ever i don't know what i've looked on the process like if you do fall into that trap how do you get yourself out of that you know do you go on twitter or instagram and see someone who's posted something that you don't agree with do you you know do you ever fall into that trap and if you do i don't know what's that method that you use to get out of it i've got to be honest i don't judge i don't personally judge people's behaviors because who who am i to judge i'm a flawed character as much as every other human being is i do stuff that some people might look i'm not a perfect individual none of us us are. Um, I, I'll be honest

with you. I think over the last few years in particular, I used to get very frustrated when I would see, um, people in the public eye and it seemed like to me, all people cared about was making money. And I had these huge platforms, these voices where they could sort of broadcast messages at thousands hundreds of millions of people and try to create a better world for people that didn't have the same opportunities as what they had but they were more concerned about selling people stuff all the time and and i used to get really frustrated with it and then it was only when i went into that world and again you start talking to people and you get

like how they perceive their reality based on their life experiences, that then I thought, actually, I get it. I understand because you don't know nothing different. You're in this world from being a young person and suddenly you've got an agent, a manager, and all it is, you're a product and you'd be commercialized. And all you see everything for most of most of the people saw it through the prism of maximizing their earning potential but they didn't see that there was a greater broader picture to what they could be doing with their platform to help create social change to put pressure on politicians like i think one of the great examples recently has probably been marcus rashford like a football player one football

player imagine if every football player did what he did, how you could create this huge shift in the politics of a country if people did do it. And I did used to get frustrated from an outsider's perspective. It was only when I went into that world that then when I started interacting with people in that world, I did understand why they are the way that they are because they don't know anything differently.

And I genuinely believe a lot of the time, because they haven't got probably an awareness as well of what's happening in the world, because they're not going into a food bank or they're not going into a community center. Because a lot of the time, probably the opportunity isn't there for them to do that because people that manage them, look after them, don't see there's a value in putting them into those places. I think if they did, maybe they would have an epiphany and something with spark actually i've got this huge platform i could really do something with this well that's something you're doing isn't it you know um you've come out of prison and not only have you transformed your own life you're now transforming the lives of thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of others through, I think, the authenticity, the kind of honesty, the way you tell your story, but then this real desire to give something back and do things for

others. I mean, look at any of our conversations, look at your social media feeds, it's very clear that what probably started for you personally to improve your own life and get yourself out of jail actually now has been used for the greater goods. And I really want to move on to that because, you know, John, you have spoken before, you've written about, I think this is a really great post of yours I read this morning from a few months ago, that there were three pivotal moments in your life. When your best friend died, when you discovered sport, and when you discovered nature in the mountains. of touched on that first pivotal moment in the conversation so far. But that second moment when you discovered sport, I think it's fascinating. Again, we told the story before in a previous conversation of how you discovered that you were actually any good at sport, how you broke so many indoor rowing world records in prison when you never even rowed before, right? So

you had this talent that you didn't even know you had. But you are very, very passionate that sport can change people's lives. So I really want to go into that. I think it's really, really important. When you say sport, what do you mean by the term sport i think sometimes people think it's probably running around kicking a ball about or running around the track or running or running or doing any any physical activity now that yeah that is a place that that's obviously it's very important it's good for your mental health for your physical well-being in my case changed my life because i realized i had this talent and then I used my body as a vehicle to get me out of that world that I was in, in prison

and that toxic world that I was living in, within crime. But what sport fundamentally does is exposes you to positive people. People that it attracts into your life. So without me engaging in sport i don't meet the prison officer darren who sees i have that talent darren without shadow of a doubt is one of the the most important men that's ever been in my life if not you people other than my mum um it's the people it attracts into your life those positive role models the people that can

help you grow develop appropriately especially as a young person. So like this summer, for instance, we was running an initiative across the country. We've opened up school facilities across the UK. So 39% of all school leisure space in this country is locked in school grounds, basketball courts, football courts, badminton courts table tennis courts so does that mean in the school holidays in the school 39 of these so 39 of all leisure space in the uk is locked in six weeks holiday it's gone out of the equation because it's all locked behind school gates so this summer we open up these school facilities and we allow the local communities to use these schools to basically deliver programming to young people. So children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, their cardiovascular fitness will regress by 80% during the six weeks holiday.

So they're not doing nowhere near as much physical activity because they're not at school every day. They're not doing PE. They're probably sitting indoors playing computer games eating a really unhealthy diet so we were providing healthy food and giving them access to sport and physical activity but most importantly we were giving these kids these safe spaces so youth workers could work with the kids during the holiday periods and give them that that nurturing and those positive role models because sport is about what it can open for you in regards of the opportunities to meet these those positive role models because sport it's about what it can open for you in regards of the opportunities to meet these these positive role models that can come into your

life that can have a massive massive massive shaping especially of a young malleable child that hasn't really formed any opinions and views of the world and i noticed it like we went to a school in newham a primary school and you had these children, and he was an amazing, amazing PE teacher called Paul Archer. Honestly, like he blew me away. He genuinely blew me away. So he had been at that school as a teacher from when the primary school kids, we were there, their mums and dads were at that same primary school.

Absolutely amazing teacher, person that gives back to the community. And I said to him, Paul, what would these kids be doing today if we didn't unlock this school during the six-week holiday? He said every single one of them would probably be sitting indoors in a high-rise council or a state flat doing nothing. And you're seeing these little kids running around, being children, interacting with each other. And I'd never really been around children that young.

So a lot of the work I've ever done was around like teenagers or people in their early 20s like that were on the edges of going to prison or secondary schools. And you see these kids, different religions, different races, all friends. And I realised how malleable children are at that point. Like they haven't got those

prejudices towards each other they're just children and and and it boils back to the fact that we're all human beings like we're just all one on this earth floating around the sun and and it really did hit home when i saw that how important it is that these kids get that exposure to these role models that are looking after them because they're so vulnerable and they're so malleable you took that around the country didn't you yes sort of did that in so the the open doors program but that was running over the summer holidays was in the cities of birmingham liverpool london and manchester so this year this summer it was a pilot project so nike basically invested the money through me through through my vision. So I went to them before COVID three years ago with this proposition. And I said, I want to do, say, come back again.

It goes back to what I was saying earlier on about loyalty and about when I was offered that deal years ago. And I said, no, because to me, working with people that I wanted to work with and no one could take away from me that I went from where I went through to working with, with Nike and being under the umbrella with LeBron James and Roger Federer and the Dow, like no one can take that away from me. And that loyalty that I felt towards them and what it meant to me as a human, as a person that I'd done what I'd done with my life to get to that point. It wasn't about me as a person.

I wanted to leverage my relationship with them to do point um it wasn't about me as a person i wanted to leverage my relationship with them to do something with it because i understood how powerful brands are to children and i wanted to leverage my my my situation with them to say look this is amazing that we're working together but let's do something more let's create something let's do something let's create change let's better kids lives let's help kids that's not like an unauthentic sort of campaign let's create something. Let's do something. Let's create change. Let's better kids' lives. Let's help kids. Let's not like an unauthentic sort of campaign. Let's do something where you're in the community and you're helping these young people. So what did some of those kids say? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life

that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health, and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed

and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision-making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviors into long-term habits, and improve our relationships. There are, of course, many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three

question journal. In it you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much this has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen

to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal, or click on the link in your podcast app. The most powerful reiteration I kept hearing from school after school after school is when you said, what are you taking from this as the young person? And all of them said, if I wasn't here today, I'd be at home in bed. Nearly every single child that I come across and I ask them that question, that was the reiteration I kept hearing from school, from from school in Birmingham Liverpool Manchester and London. I wonder what will happen to those kids now that school is back yes it's great for them to realize that in the

summer but I'm really interested as to like what does that realization do beyond the summer project well i think the regards of the six weeks are they in particular was because they're out of school for such a long period of time so so much damage gets created in that short period of time because what we didn't really touch upon was the academic regression as well so like some of the kids would regress by up to three full calendar months by the time they go back to school. So they're sedentary at home over the six weeks holiday. They're not doing any activity. They're not getting probably much mental stimulation.

So the regression is such, so, so big. And again, I was hearing that again and again and again all over the years whenever I've gone to schools and you hear the same narrative. And especially around everything that's gone on over the last 18 months what was lovely was seeing kids have a childhood and be happy and content and running around and being free and being with their friends especially after the last two years because that was one of the real big things i took from talking to the youth workers and teachers it was like the mental health issues that have been created around everything that's gone on with these young people. And it was just

putting them in a place where they were able to reconnect with humans and reconnect with their friends. And again, over the summer, a lot of them wouldn't be going on holiday. So they wouldn't get the same opportunities a lot of other children get. So they were in a safe place around positive role models that wanted them to be happy. This is the conversation that just really hasn't been taken place enough in the mainstream for me. It's, you know, everything that's gone on in society for the past 18, 20 months, I feel has been looked at through one particular lens. But it's like, yeah, but

what is the impact of closing schools for months? What is the impact on how kids feel about themselves, their mental wellbeing? You know, yes, their physical health. What are the long-term consequences of children not being able to be the social animals that they are, that we are, that humans are, right? That is a conversation that I feel is just not being had enough. Health is many things. It's not just one thing. You know, there's a guy who lives down the road from me who said, I think my son's 15 years old. And in February, March, 2020, he was a happy kid. He got a football training every week.

He wanted to sort of go pro when he was older. And within a few months of the first lockdown, stuck in his room, suicidal thoughts. And even now, as things are opening up, I'm not interested in going back to football. And parents are at a complete loss at what to do. I'm in total agreement with you. Like when everything was going on over the last 18 months, like the situation I'm in total agreement with you. Like when everything was going on over the last 18 months, like the situation I was in, I was having a lot of dialogue with youth workers

that were working with kids that were trying to help with homeschooling. And there's a charity that I'm an ambassador for called Football Beyond Borders. And I was talking to one of the youth workers there and actually it started stressing them out because bear in mind, they're on a Zoom,

they're on a call with kids and they can hear parents in the background screaming at each other and they're trying to help them with their education. And then they're getting off and they're getting upset because they're like, imagine I had to live in a flat share now and my two flatmates were screaming at each other constantly like that. Even I wouldn't be able to take it psychologically, let alone that child on the other end of that Zoom call that i've just now switched off from and they were powerless to do anything and it was a negatively affecting those people that were trying to help the kids and the frustration and again like going across the country during the six weeks holiday and talking to the teachers like it's again when you're having that very close up view of it and you're speaking to people that are actually dealing with it and you're seeing a lot of children have developed social anxiety disorders that they're scared now to go back to school because they've made the like the mental connection between going back to school and catching covid and dying or spreading it around

with with one of their parents and like a quarter of the register is like off school absent because they've got a social anxiety disorder from from everything that's been happening and like again it goes on and on and on like and it's not getting reported that's been happening and again it goes on and on and on like and it's not getting reported that's just not getting reported it's it's just a myopic focus on one thing sure that's important but so is everything else well i i personally don't think even in the news like the conversation around health has really been pushed that narrative whatsoever about people looking after themselves, like encouraging gym memberships,

helping people pay to go to the gym, like that whole conversation around everything that's been happening over the last like 18 months, there's a quite clear correlation between people that aren't that healthy to people that will end up catching COVID and dying and having severe ramifications. So if we focused on the health of the nation

and made the nation more healthier and you encourage people eating more fruit and vegetables and you encourage people to go to the gym and exercise more you obviously because this is this is most likely going to happen again in some point in the in the future it's going to happen again so it's about resetting the nation and and helping people live giving more knowledge and information to people how they live healthier lives because even something that's even something that i found quite interesting like you just take it for granted that you know what a healthy fat is and what an unhealthy fat is and what a carb is and what a protein is and like

there was a again paul from the school i knew him the teacher he said one of the children um opened up a sandwich and saw some salmon it was a salmon and cheese sandwich and what's that he said well it's salmon what salmon it's a fish no fish come with batter on it they didn't understand that fish doesn't they don't come like fish and chips in the in the fish and chip shop again and and there's like oh everyone knows what healthy food is no they don't actually they really don't we we all get sucked into the world in which we live and what what we're familiar with and we assume everyone also has the same upbringing. They understand it in the same way, but it's just simply not true. And yeah, so many frustrations, so many frustrations.

But furthering that theme, John, you're so passionate about the youth. I've heard you talk about it many times in public. You've obviously touched on it so far in this conversation. I know you're also keen, given that you now live in France, and I want to hear about that. What happened there? How come you now live in France? You're very keen to get kids from disadvantaged backgrounds out into the mountains. So you're sort of continuing that theme not just in their school in the summer holidays it's like well can i get them out of inner city london or wherever they are take them out to the french alps so maybe start off by saying how you ended up living in france what happened there and then where this idea came from to take these kids out

there as well so i i actually i took my own advice off your podcast during lockdown. And do you remember I made the comment about basically most people's lives were paused to a degree. Like you can still grow and develop during lockdown. You can still learn. You could, do you know what I mean? Like you could reset and if you want to do something different with your life, when the play button was pressed and stuff started opening up again, you could go and get a different job if you wasn't happy with what you was doing.

And it was a great moment of reflection to assess everything going on in your life. And I did that assessment in my own life during the first lockdown in the UK. And I wasn't very happy living in London. I didn't hate it. My life was okay. But I went to France or went to the Alps on a, on a training camp a couple of years ago and I fell in love. Like I've never felt towards a place like I felt towards that place. Like I'd never felt at home anywhere. Like I was always moving around. I never felt settled.

And when I went out there a couple of years ago, I just fell in love with it, like literally in love. And I would do everything I could to go back there as much as I could in the Canada year. And then when COVID happened in the UK, like that first lockdown, when we come out of it at the end of that June in 2020, I was going out there because I was meant to be racing, but my race got cancelled.

But I still had my accommodation booked. So I thought I'm going to go out there. And I went out there on my own because none of my other friends wanted to come or couldn't come so I was there on my own and I just had this moment of real reflection on myself and I spent this time on my own um in the mountains and I was walking about and I assessed my own life and and I and then you you have to practice what you preach and and I wasn't that happy living in London. Like to me, it was like the matrix. I was over, it was overstimulation. I was getting pulled around

here, there, and everywhere doing stuff all the time. Um, and I felt when I was there, I had this connection with nature and it had such a profound, powerful impact over me as a person. I felt at home and I'd never felt like that. It's like this spiritual connection with the mountains and with that place. And I just made a decision. I thought, this is what I want my life to be. I want to live in this place. And stuff like Brexit was happening. And then I had to then start assessing what I wanted to do with the next part of my life.

And I thought, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to take that step and go there and know like what we said about earlier on when it comes to money and stuff, me going there financially has hurt me a lot, like in regards of me generating income. But I made sort of the, I worked out the maths, what I needed, the minimum to live. And I thought, as long as I make that, the quality of my life has improved, will improve exponentially. And I'll get up every morning and I'll have the mountains. I can go and walk. I feel free. And I've never, ever, ever had this sense of freedom that I have when I'm there. Now I get, again, I've got great self-awareness. So in regards of,

I understand the way I am so when I get that when I was in prison all those years you go from one extreme to the other I've gone from being in a segregation cell for a year to living on the top of a mountain like and I get that sense of freedom because it relates back to me having no freedom whatsoever so when I'm there I feel completely and utterly free. As you say, you've had that experience, how many you've had that extreme experience of being in solitary confinement for a year in that cell. And yes, there's a massive contrast to seeing all these gorgeous photos that you've been posting at the top of a mountain with an amazing view you must have a real sense

of freedom in a way that very few of us have right so you go and you think and this is amazing i feel at home here nature's incredible yeah i'm going to take a big hit on my income in order to be truly happy and content so many people get a slight window into that when they go on holiday in the summer, right? They go to a beautiful beach or the mountains. Oh my God, man, it'd be lovely to live here, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be great if every day I could come back from work and just go for a walk by the beach

or see the mountains and see the sun rising every morning over the mountains. But then they get sucked back in to, you know, the rat race of daily life. So what is it that we can learn from the decision you made, right? Not everyone has that extreme experience of life to be able to go, you know what? I get what is truly important now. It ain't about money. It ain't about rushing around. It's about inner contentment and peace. What would you say to someone who is struggling with where they are at the moment in life? And they hear that and go, yeah, all right for you, mate, but I can't make that kind of decision.

Again, it's whatever it is in your life. It doesn't mean that you have to go to a foreign country and live in the mountains. We're all on our own journeys. And what brings happiness and contentment to everyone is very unique to that person. So to me, that was what was important. I would say in the situation of what motivates me and why i make

my decisions is that i have a great appreciation of how short life is so as we're talking right now um my mum's partner is dying of cancer he's probably got three months left to live and i thank you it's uh it's yeah for my, it's been a very difficult, challenging time. And for me to see him cut last Saturday in beds, um, at my mom's house in a bed that the hospital would drop around downstairs and he's in palliative care. And to see that like, he's, he's at the final stages of his life. And what, going back to when my friend died, my dad, before I was born, like we are only on earth for such a short period of time. And we were on this tiny little rock that's floating around

the sun. And the chances of us being born are so massive, like what one in 400 trillion, all the chance encounters before I was even born of all these chance meetings of relatives from thousands of years if one of those things did not take place I would not now be born and when you're seeing someone so close up as such the final moments of their lives like life's so short nothing's given to any one of us right now like really all you have got is the moment and the present tomorrow's not guaranteed to anyone the next second is not guaranteed to me or you right now doing this podcast. And you have to act because I don't want to live my life and to be into a position where when I get, if I, if I get even get to the point where I have a time to reflect on my existence on this earth, I don't say what if, if only I did that. Now I can make a

decision and I made the decision and it might not work. It might not have worked. And I would have had to retreated and reset and did something different. But I wanted to take the chance because I loved it so much. And I wanted that to be my life.

And I think sometimes you do have to take those risks and take yourself out of your comfort zone. Because again, life isn't this safety net. Like you don't know when it's going to end and you have to wake up and be happy and content in whatever it is you do. And like I said, it isn't about going to a different country. If you don't like your job, do something. Don't just pull it off. Don't just suffer it. Try to do something different. Try to learn different skills if you have to do other stuff, because life is such a precious gift.

if you have to do other stuff because life is such a precious gift and we are on this earth for such a short period of time. You have to act. You have to do stuff. If you want your life to be different. Are you someone who constantly re-evaluates? Because you said a couple of years ago

you weren't that happy in London, but for the 10 years when you were in prison, if someone had offered you that possibility, you're going to be out, you're going to be living in London, doing what you're doing. Related to that, that I'm guessing would have felt like, oh my word, that is, give me that and I'll be happy. And I'll never, you know, I won't never complain. I'll just get on my life then. First of all, is that true? Would you have felt like that if that was offered to you back then when you were locked up? And it brings me back to the start of this conversation when you walked around strange ways this morning, our perception of normal is constantly changing, right? Before we know it, we're just so used to the new way our life is, and then we start to take things for granted. It's just interesting you even when you were in relative freedom compared to the past you still had the ability

to take a long cold hard look at your life and go actually you know what it's not nourishing me as much as it could be i'm going to make another change yeah i but again it comes back to this thing about the the journey of life and the journey of growth and being open and susceptible to different ways of thinking. My life wasn't bad in London. It's far from it. My life, I was living in a nice house. I had a nice place where I lived with my friend. I was comfortable. It wasn't about that. It was about me as a human wanting to be in a place where I felt truly at one with myself and felt happy and content. When you were in prison, if someone had offered you that flat in London with your friends. I would have taken it, taken it without a shadow of a doubt.

And you would have thought, I'll be happy there the rest of my life. It's not as I'm not in this cell again. I don't think I would have thought for the rest of my life because again, I would have still wanted to, to see, because I had this, this thing about not seeing the world. I had this, this this this net obviously where i was so constricted because bear in mind like we i don't think we've touched on this but when when i first got released from prison i wasn't able to travel so i couldn't go on holiday so i because i had the life sentence um i had life sentence conditions imposed on me and that one of

them was i wasn't allowed to leave the united kingdom because if i went and never come back it would have been hard for me to extradite me back so you can't go and it was only well I think it was about six months before Covid maybe a little bit before that that the Secretary of State for Justice removed all my life sentence conditions because of the work that I'd been doing in the community so and even then like when that happened my probation officer everyone at the probation office none of them actually knew what that actually meant because in their office that had never happened to someone serving a life sentence so when I asked her the question what does this mean she said I genuinely don't know what you can and can't do now she said we have to get some confirmation on it because we don't know like we don't know

what this means I went in I signed the piece of paper and at that point she did basically say you can do what you want you're you're a free man like you so that was that then triggered the traveling more and seeing the world and again when you go to where i went and how beautiful it was and it had such a powerful impact over me um it's just that journey of that continued growth um and going to new places meeting new people new languages um it's just that i suppose it's like a growth mindset. It's like- Yeah, you've definitely got that, haven't you? It's because I don't, I genuinely don't.

I'm talking to you now, in a year, two years time, I don't know where I'll be. I don't know what I'll be doing. Because you just don't know what can come up in life. Life is just a journey of growth. And I think, because again, it comes back to, again, we're here for such a short period of time. There's such a beautiful big world out there.

There's so many incredible humans that you can meet and interact with and learn from and i think it's so important that people have that open mindset to try and different things and meeting different people and going to different places and experiencing different things the home secretary has removed a lot of these restrictions, but are you still technically serving a life sentence, or is that sort of done now? Or is actually, by the letter of the law, the restrictions have been lifted, but you are still, as we talk now, you're in my podcast studio, are you still serving your life sentence? Yes, so I'm still serving that life sentence. I've just got no license conditions. So before I had the license and the conditions, which restricted me. So it was stuff like, um, I had to live within a 10 mile, um, radius of my

probation officer, like probation office in Kent. Um, I wasn't allowed to leave the United Kingdom. Whenever I had a new job, I had to get approved to have a new job. If I moved a dress, I wasn't allowed to leave the United Kingdom. Whenever I had a new job, I had to get approved to have a new job. If I moved a dress, I had to ask them to come round and vet my flatmates or where I was living, whether it was suitable for me to live in that accommodation. And like I said, I've lost track because of COVID, but it was probably about six to 12 months before the lockdown that those restrictions were lifted um and i wasn't even aware that was even a process like it was only when i got called in um i don't know how it happened but internally within the moj someone must have triggered

something somewhere um because it did get to a point where um it was quite ridiculous like i had to attend my probation office every six months to have a meeting with my probation officer so when I first got out it's weekly then it goes every other week then it goes monthly then every two months then quarterly then half a year um so that was out for like two and a half three years and it got up to six months and like when we were putting together open doors I had a meeting at 10 Downing Street with Theresa May which is Prime Minister's senior policy advising team and we were talking about open doors i had a meeting at 10 downing street with theresa may when she's prime minister's senior policy advising team and we were talking about open doors so then when i'm going for my

month the six monthly catch-up with my probation officer and we're sitting there i'm telling her she's on what have you been up to and i'm telling that and she was like this is just ridiculous and it was like we we and then and i think was like, when it got to that point, it did start becoming fairly ridiculous. Like three years ago, I spoke at the Conservative Party conference with the Secretary of State at the time, Dr. Philip Lee, for youth justice. And I just remember, again, when you go back in, you're having these meetings at probation, you're telling them that these are the things you've been up to. And that's probably what triggered them removing the life sentence conditions. Do you feel like a free man? Yes.

Again, when I did have, I didn't realize when I had the life sentence conditions, like when they got removed, I accepted I couldn't travel. So I accepted that. When I got released from prison, I accepted these couldn't travel. So I accepted that. When I got released from prison, I accepted these things that, these restrictions that were placed on my life. And I didn't think about them really day to day. It was only when my friends might have gone out to France for the Tour de France, I couldn't go.

It was things like that. And then I remember, oh, actually, I can't just go on holiday when I want. And I can't just do what I want when I want. But day to day didn't really affect me. I didn't allow it to affect me. I lived my life and I had control over what I want when I want. But day to day, it didn't really affect me. I didn't allow it to affect me. I lived my life and I had control over what I was doing every day and I got up and I did what I did. When they got removed and I walked out and I had that piece of paper,

I was like, I could literally go to Heathrow Airport now and just get on a flight and go. And literally when they got removed, I could move house. Because before I had to commute every day from Kent into southwest London. And it was like an hour and a half commute to get into the rowing club where I was training. And all my friendship group was around southwest London because of all the rowing clubs there. And then literally I could move house. I could literally move the next day.

And I did. That's exactly what I did. I ended up moving in with my friend because I was able to do it for the first time since I've been released from prison but again it was I adapted to the situation I was in when I got released from prison and again it's not like how hard my life was and like I just took control what I did have control over I controlled and I knew I wanted to keep improving as a person and I wanted to keep improving as an athlete I had control over that So I didn't want to sit there a day and go, oh, my life's really hard and moan about it. I looked at it and gone, this is what it is. I'm just going to control what I've got control of. And that's me. I think there's something we can all take from that, isn't there? That there's a

lot in life that we have no control over. Yet so many of us waste incredible amounts of emotional energy and cognitive reserve on these things that we can't do anything about. Whereas a common theme in you, John, even, I think even when you were in the early days in jail, even before that, if I think back to our previous two conversations that you've always seemed to have been someone who's understood that I can't control everything but I can control a few things and that's what I'm going to focus on is that something you were born with or is that something you were taught um I think it's something I I've learned learned and grown and developed as I've got older. But yeah, like when I was locked in a prison cell,

like you lose control of your environment. That's what happens when you go to prison. You have literally no control over your environment. Like what you eat, what time you go to sleep, when you go to the toilet will fluctuate based on the times you eat and stuff like that. But day-to-day living in regards of where you are, you haven't got control of that, but you have control over your body. So I control over what I did with my body in regards of what I chose to read, how I exercised. And it was about those, again, when I realised I wanted to be an athlete,

it was those small incremental steps. Like you don't go from point A to point B, like literally within one footstep. It takes years of training. Sometimes the improvement's so minimal, you can't even see it. But when you look back, you go, how did I go from being like that to where I am now? see it but when you look back you go how did i go from being like that to where i am now and it but it's those tiny little small incremental steps every day of improvement and it takes time and it takes discipline and i often say this to young people because all everyone sees like when you

see social media is the highlight reel the end of it they don't see the heartache the the discipline the focus the setbacks they don't see that part of it but everyone wants to show real at the end but then the minute they try to attempt to get to the show real and they realize actually this is quite hard or i'm not good enough because look how good he is but they don't realize how long that took for that person to get to that point and i often say that to kids like you it's a it's a small process stay in day out of consistency believing in yourself believing there's better for yourself, believing you can achieve what you set out to do. Because I do believe we're all equal as human

beings. I do fundamentally believe that. And that's why people often said to me about, I've never suffered from imposter syndrome. I genuinely don't know what it feels like, because to me, like going back to when I was going into more sort of political environment and and uh and you were at 10 Downing Street and obviously you get the magnitude like as a kid I despised these people everything government stood for I hated them I thought they were all corrupt and then suddenly I'm going into an environment where you walk into 10 Downing Street and there's a little brown chair on the corner and then someone tells you that was where winston churchill sat when he declared war on nazi germany and then you're looking up at all these sitting or prime ministers the portraits they got on the wall and you're in this environment

and you go in these these rooms where people study politics and and you're going in there as a person i had a fascination with politics and i've watched many documentaries on politics but you go into this environment i see them as an equal they've they've got an acquired skill set because they've practiced at something like i'm good at what i do because i practice it but they're no better than me they've just studied something or someone's someone's put their time in something but as a human being we're equal we're equal as people so when i'm in that room i don't sit there and i don't not have the same confidence to engage with them we've all got our own skills depending on what we've applied our energy to.

So when I'm in that room and I'm having these conversations and I'm talking, they're no more superior than I am, but they're no more superior than you or anyone else. And again, I've made this analogy before. Like if I was in a situation where I ever met the Queen of England, I wouldn't treat her any differently to why I would treat a kid that was sitting in a Young Offenders Institute, because to me, they're equal as human beings. We're all walking around on this planet, we're all the same. You know, it's interesting. My wife has never really worshipped heroes. She's never been fascinated by,

I don't know, music stars or sports stars or whatever. And it's been a topic of conversation a lot within our relationship because as a kid, I really did. I put certain people, certain musicians, certain sports stars on pedestals. And I've been sort of really analys analyzing that over the last few months. So I'm doing a lot of writing at the moment. And I've been trying to figure out where that comes from.

And I do think there was, you know, I feel I've been deeply insecure for most of my life. And therefore, you know, putting all my faith in these heroes, I don't know, it did something for me. I looked up to them. And I think that then leads or contributes to a feeling of imposter syndrome, of which I've had on multiple occasions. Vid's never had that. She, I don't think really gets imposter syndrome. She doesn't really, you know, I think everyone's equal for sure. I always will treat every single person with the same dignity and respect. But clearly my behavior or this imposter syndrome that I've had, I don't really have much anymore. It's still there from

time to time, but you can tell it, I can tell. I'm slowly sort of leaving it behind. I just wonder if there's something in that. Did you idolize people? I appreciate you had these role models as a kid. You thought, wow, okay, money, right? I want to be like them. But is there anything in that that sort of resonated with you at all no i've i've i've been very similar to your wife i don't think for all i know i haven't as a kid like i didn't have posters on my wall of people i didn't want to emulate people that were in the public eye like there's never i've never looked to anyone um and to be perfectly honest with you the people a lot of people that I have come across,

again, lots of the time it is smoke and mirrors and they're not what it says on the label. Do you remember the advert years ago? And you look and you just go, what the public sees to what the reality is are two very different things. And it just, again, it just reiterates what I believe about all that.

Like a lot of that life with marketing and stuff is smoke and mirrors. Um, but I've never, and probably I've never felt like that, like what you've just said. So like growing up as a kid, I never had posters on my wall of people and I never looked at them and sort of said, when I'm older, I want to be like that person. Um, my thing was obviously only in British telecom, which which was a which was an entity which was a thing but actually like as a human I've never felt like that which probably would in some ways aid with not feeling that imposter syndrome when you meet people like I've never been I've met people in the public eye and I've never once been starstruck by people yeah I appreciate people

are good at stuff and I love being around creative people like i appreciate the gift and the skill that they've got but i wouldn't sort of be like just completely overwhelmed with being in their company because again to me they're just a human being that's acquired a skill worked on it developed it but they're no different to anyone else and and sometimes it is sad that people that we see get elevated onto these platforms and they've got voices and realistically, what are they doing?

Like, what are they doing? They're just selling stuff to people. That's it. They're not really doing anything else. And you look at what they could do in society and how they could better people's lives and stuff, and that's not happening. It comes down to values, doesn't it?

It comes down to us knowing what our values are and then what parts of our life are being consistent with those core values that we've got. It's something that a lot of people never ask themselves, I think. It comes down to this idea of success and happiness which we we touched on already this this kind of chase of more followers more money more this like without thinking like is this really nourishing me mind body and soul i find it quite interesting like you speak to people and they don't even question why we're here. Why are we on earth?

How are we on earth? Why are we here? Right? You don't, everything just seems very vacuous, very veneered. Like you see stuff on the television. And I don't know, like even everything over the last couple of years, like with the pandemic and you just think that like, what is all this? Like we're on earth. And like, again, the chances of us being in,

and people don't want to have these conversations about like mortality and what life's about and like philosophy. And it comes back to, again, that it's such, it can be such a colorful experience. There's so many things you can do with your existence on earth. And yeah, it is like a journey i'll tell you like for your viewers there's a there's an amazing documentary called

uh andy and jim and jim carrey and he played a character and in in the film have you seen it amazing amazing and at the end he starts talking about the meaning of life and what it's all about and i've watched it at least 20 times. It's so, so profoundly deep at the end. Because he says, like, Jim Carrey was a character. He isn't Jim Carrey. It's just like an avatar. But he realised he could make people feel happy and make people laugh.

And then he was wrestling on to who he was and this character, and he'd become so sort of pulled away from who he was as a person. Very, very good watch. I highly recommend it. It's going on the list. It's going on the list. What do you think is the meaning of life?

I've got to be honest with you. I don't believe in God. I don't think I'm going anywhere after this. I think that's the end of it. Um, I think this is life. I think this is the meaning you give it meaning you're here now. Like I said before,

the chances of us even being here right now, breathing, having conscious thought, um, being able to analyze our environment, interact with each other. Um, I think you have to give your time on this planet meaning.

Um, I think realistically is the give your time on this planet meaning. I think realistically, the only real meaning is to really give back, help other people, give other people opportunities. So whilst they're alive, their lives are a bit better and their children's lives are a little bit better. Because I think once it ends, it ends. That's my personal belief i know people probably listen to this and think i'm massively wrong um but i just feel like when i get up every

day i want to be happy and content in my existence whilst i'm here um and if i can just lift other people up however many people that is if it's one if it's ten if it's a thousand whatever it is and i can make someone else's existence on this planet a little bit better. That's what motivates me now. It's fascinating for me hearing that, John. This idea that you're not religious. I'm interested as to whether you consider yourself spiritual because I read a lot of your posts and you know what I love about them and I'd encourage

everyone who's listening or watching just to follow you because it's just inspiration and positivity just one after the other which I think is what we should be doing and we should be curating our feeds to give us what we want. So if you're looking for inspiration and positivity, I'd say you're about as good as it gets in terms of someone to follow. But you wrote this, I can't remember when, but it was a few months ago. I alone cannot change society for the better, but I can radically transform my own consciousness, overturning the conditioning that limits my potential. We can all do this one by one.

Over time, we can change ourselves to the degree that society changes from the inside out. Giving birth to a new way of being. Manifesting our birthright of living in a peaceful and abundant world. Have no fear. Trust yourself. Live your full potential. I mean, I hear really deep spiritual undertones

when I read that. Yeah, I do think life is like a spiritual journey. I do think that. I think, but again, it comes back to, I believe life is life. Like as we are right here now, my soul is inside this this carcass and it's a vehicle and I feel like when I look back on my life and my journey

the things that have transpired along the way with the energy that I've put out into the world like all those years ago attracting Darren into my life the prison officer when I was in a very vulnerable situation in regards I had no control over my environment and I attracted him into my life because of my energy and what I projected out there and then I got out of prison and then the people I've met along the way that have aided to my life and added to my life and this journey that I've been on uh this journey of growth and continued development um I think like I said we are the are the meaning. This is it. This is it. And this is what I try to tell people all the time.

Like, you have whatever it is, and I know it's hard. And I do, honestly, believe me, like, I know people might listen to this and go, it's all well and good for him because this, that, and the other. Like, when I moved to France, I took, like, basically 50% of my outgoing, like, in regards of my income coming, sorry, completely fell away. But I had to make that decision. I earned far less money, but I had to make that definitive decision to do something different

because that made me happier in regards of being in the mountains. Like my life wasn't crap in London, like I said, but being out there, I was happier. And when I got up every morning, I wanted to feel that essence of contentment and happiness and my environment and the people I was around in my inner circle and then the people I had to interact with through work I wanted to go in like

and and interact with them and be inspired I don't like I hear stories of people that cry before they go to work because they hate being in that situation and when you actually boil it down you go again you're on the earth for such a short period of time. Like honestly, like again, it might come across as being quite sort of morbid, but like at best, at best, as I talk to you right now, if I have a good run, I've got 40 Christmases and summers left in me. At best, that's what I've got. So that would take me up to nearly 80. So now that's, if something does happen to me before that, I don't crash my bike. I don't get cancer or something.

I'm going to maximize those 40 Christmases and summers, those 12 month cycles as much as I can before I cease to exist. I'm not going to waste them. I, I was in prison in a cage for 10 years. I sat in that room every single day for 300, 365 days every, every 12 months. Um, but when I was in that room every single day for 300 365 days every every 12 months um but when I was in that environment like I learned I grew I developed it was one of the best things that's

ever happened to me on this earth because I learned so much about myself and then I was free and now what I learned and the learnings I took from that situation and then where I am today with my life it's just maximizing every single day on earth. Because one of my greatest fears when I was in there was I would die in there. And that would be the end of my existence on this planet, sitting in that place. So now I'm out, I want to maximize the next however long I've got on this earth to be a happy, content human being and feel like I've got a purpose in contributing to other people's happiness. Because that makes me happy. You've got this incredible desire to give back to other people. About three weeks ago, John, Ramla Ali was sitting in this chair and she told her story

on the podcast. I think you know Ramla through Nike. And Ramla's got an incredible story from growing up in Somalia, being a refugee, fearing for her life, being all kinds of abuse and bullying when she was a kid when she came to the UK, and someone ripping off her hijab when she was 11 years old. Really scary, horrible experiences, and she's turned her life around. And now she was boxing in the Olympics just a few months ago. Her desire to box and the feeling it gave her was for her. It wasn't about changing the world or changing society, but as she changed herself and she saw the power of that, she's very passionate about giving back now. And it's interesting for you, if I sort of draw a parallel, I don't hear that you were trying to break world records in prison to help the world

and help society and help kids. It's kind of you were doing that for yourself and now through that you want to change society and i personally believe that the way we change the world is by first changing ourselves by first changing ourselves. I just wonder, you know, what is your perspective on that? I 100% agree with everything you just said, what Ramla said about herself and her journey. Everything in regards to my life for the first 28 years was always about me.

So when I was growing up, it was always about me amassing and accumulating wealth. And when I realised I had that ability as a sports person um I went to maximize it whilst I was on that rowing machine and it was all about world records and then I thought at that moment in time by me being a good athlete it would it would basically reset my life it would restart my life it would it would create a different narrative in the regards of, I didn't want to be defined as a man that spent a decade of his life in prison.

And I realized I had this talent and it was like, I wanted to like recreate my life as an athlete and I wanted to be the best athlete I could be. And I thought by being really successful as a sports person, that that was going to give me that legacy piece that I've always had throughout my life,

going around deaf, being a kid, realizing my dad died, then sort of developing that fascination with history, reading those books. And I kept thinking to create that legacy, it would be how fast I could run a marathon, how quick I could ride a bike, how many records I set on an indoor rail machine.

And that journey started to evolve in the regards of giving back when i started doing school talks and talking to young people and having these powerful interactions with with kids and and going back into prisons and being able to show people that um that you can do something amazing in your life because i i have to be honest with you even now i i still don't get the way people connect with my story and the way the journey i've been and i'm because i don't see it as being anything special i don't i'm i'm not special unless i'm the same as you or anyone else like so even sometimes now i still feel quite awkward when people come up to me

um like when we've recently me and you did that event the the running festival and people come up to me then and they're crying and I I don't really know what to say to them because like I can't sort of I it's just difficult because I don't see what I've done as being exceptional and I don't think it's exceptional um I just was going through this journey in my life and the way things played out. But in regards to, sorry, I've lost myself a bit, but in regards of me as an athlete and me being like I was as a kid with money, it was always about me.

But once I started realizing the power of that story and how it did affect other people, even though I didn't really understand it, that was when I thought I had an obligation because that saved my life. Sport saved my life. It saved my life. Like I'd have either ended up dead or spending my whole adult life locked in a cage, which I would have just died by proxy. So I felt I had this moral obligation to give other people opportunities in life not to make the same mistakes that I did and that that was where I focused my energy into into young people

but then it was like the the broader I don't know like I never anticipated how the broader public would take snippets out of my story and now people could relate to it like a couple years ago um when I started doing the stuff with kids and going to schools and the prisons and talking to them, yeah, they could connect with me. We could relate to each other because I've been through a similar experience as them. And I just remember a few years ago, I got this email once to my site and this lady, um, wrote this, it was so powerful. Like she wrote this email, she had been raped when she was younger and they never caught the offender, never caught him.

And she said she'd read my book. And when she read it, it made her feel better because she believed people could change. And she hoped that the person that done that had changed. And I was reading this email, I couldn't believe it. Honestly, mate, I was just, my jaw, I just could not believe what i was reading this email i couldn't believe it i honestly mate i was just my jaw i was just i just could not believe what i was reading how she just took something out of my story that i could never ever imagined someone would ever have been able to take something

positive like that that happened to them out of reading my book um and it and again like sometimes even now like some of the emails you get from people from different, completely different sections of society and what they draw on it. But that's why I feel like I have a duty to really just help people and use that story to show people, actually, look, I'm no different to you. You can do something different in your life. It hasn't got to be you. You haven't got to be an athlete. It can be anything you want. If you want change in your life, it is possible. Is it hard? Yes. Yes, it is hard. Sometimes you have to take two steps back

to take two steps, three steps forward. You have to do it. It is. Sometimes you have to reset, you have to pause, and then you move forward. It isn't easy. Sometimes, again, again monetary because i know obviously that affects a lot of people's day-to-day living sometimes you do have to take a little bit of a step back but to have a better quality of life and that's what i'd always say it's the quality of life that you you're leading i mean there's such power in an authentic story and And we're wired as humans to respond to stories. And it's incredible to hear what that lady said to you. You know, she reads your story. She takes a little micro moment from that into her life and makes hopefully her feel better and makes her feel hopeful and optimistic, even though there's been some very, very traumatic and

challenging things in her life. That's really, really incredible. But I guess I hear that and I think about forgiveness. And of course, I can't know what was going on in that lady's mind, what was going on in that lady's mind. But there's no doubt it is difficult. And obviously, it can depend on what the actual situation is. But forgiveness and not holding on to resentment, albeit very, very challenging, is such an important skill to develop for our happiness our well-being the lightness and our being right not holding on to all this negativity what's your relationship like with forgiveness well i would go back i think i think the buddha said it about with anger and resentment it's like poison you drink it but expect the other person to die but you're drinking the poison and i believe that like you've said those negative emotions

of resentfulness hatefulness it affects your soul and your core. You're the person that will suffer. And I've learned that throughout my life of letting go of situations. Because people have often said to me, like the journey I was on in prison, how do you not become like, because again, a lot of people that go through the journey of prison become out very, very bitter. They hate the system even more. They feel like they've been brutalized they don't accept ownership of the reasons why they ended up in there and again like we all some of us didn't have the best hands dealt to us in life like i had terrible role models as a kid but i still have to accept the ownership of the decisions i made so when i went into that place i put myself in that place

when i went in there when i was a kid, I didn't accept ownership of it. And I felt like I was hard done by. And then when I was in there, I was even more hateful, more resentful. And I come out, I was even more bitter and I was even more driven to do bad stuff. And I never accepted ownership of my situation because I didn't accept the fact that I put myself in there. And I just think you have to let go of that stuff because it's so toxic to your soul and to you as a person, even though sometimes, again, it is very hard, but it's about your moment on earth. Like sometimes you can keep reliving the same trauma in your present, things that happened 20, 30 years ago. And I know it's hard and I know people might listen to this now and go, it's easy for him to say, but it's so important that you do try to move on from stuff because

you're carrying something from happen 10 years ago, in my case, 15 years ago. And again, I accept full responsibility. I put myself in there, but some of the things that happened to me in there,

I could quite easily come out and just say, just said, well, I am the way I am. I'm being brutalized by them. And I don't let go of it. And if I, if I did,

if I did act like that, again, I would not be here today having this conversation with you and all of the good things that have come into my life over the last nine years since I've been released would not have happened because I would still been hanging on and holding on to that bitterness and hatred towards something else and again I want you to grow as a person to grow and develop you have to let go of that stuff it sounds like you've been through that process of forgiving everyone in your life basically who you could argue had led you down the golden path led

you astray from what the life you could have been leading it sounds so that has been hard at times, but you've managed to do it. Have you forgiven yourself for what you did? No, no, no. In regards of, I think it's something that will always live with me because my life is so different today. So the way I view the world is very, very different to how I viewed the world when I was like 16, 17 years old. So I'm 38 years old. So it's 21 years ago now, which seems mad to even say that. So I've gone through such a process of my outlook on life by the people I've met.

I find it hard to even reconnect back to John, 16, 17, 18, early twenties. The first few years of my prison sentence when I was in those maximum security units, the way I perceived other humans, prison officers, the police, like no respect for them whatsoever, saw them as like scum. And obviously my outlook is so different today to what it was back then. But sometimes again, when I'm reflective of what I did to go into prison in the first place, yeah, like that's something that is very difficult. Obviously, you have to move on. But the issue with me is my actions add ramifications on others.

It isn't just about me. So it's my behavior affected other people. So my way of living and the way I perceive the world had a negative impact in the world it wasn't just about me do you know i mean so that that's something that is a little bit more challenging but you do have to move away from it um but the way i look at my life today and again it does seem quite cheesy but if i can stop one young person going down the same road i went down it's like it's trying to to make amends for my behavior when I was a young person. Yeah, so interesting to hear, John. Does that mean you still, even though you can't connect anymore to 17, 18-year-old John,

17, 18 year old John, is there a part of you then that still feels bad and is angry at yourself or is not forgiving yourself for what you did and the impact that has had on other people? Okay. Day to day, I wouldn't necessarily think about it. But as we're talking about it now, I look at my behavior back then. And then obviously then you start reflecting on it and the way you perceive the world. But it is very difficult when you've moved so far away from a person and your outlooks on life have shifted so dramatically. It's a challenging one because obviously i i don't even feel like that person anymore i genuinely don't feel like that person like when we when we sort of relive stories and i tell you these things and um it doesn't it feels i'm so disconnected

from that individual now that it doesn't really feel like that happened to me those experiences but then when i recall the memories they're so so vivid. But day to day, my existence as I am today, I don't think about them. Is the memory still vivid when you walked into that trap and there were all these police officers around you with guns pointing at your heads? Can you still remember what that felt like? I could tell you everything about it.

Even the colour of the shoes when I was on the floor and I looked and the police officer, this lady with blonde hair, had these brown shoes on. And I can remember everything. It was like, because it was one of these moments when I had the car chase, as I'm talking to you now, I had this voice in my head, literally as I'm talking to you right now. And it in my head literally as I'm talking to you right now and it was reiterating I'm not going back to prison and in that moment I was fully prepared

to die to try to escape going back to prison because I knew what was coming so when I went to prison the first time it was all new when I when I was having that police chase the second time I knew I was going to be going back to a segregation unit. I knew what prison was. And I was so determined I wasn't going to be put back in that place. When I was having that car chase, I was fully prepared to die trying to get away from the police because I didn't want to go back. And I remember it, it was so vividly, so vividly clear in my brain today. And then when I did get caught caught just everything about that morning and the police officers running up and one officer in particular that I just locked onto visually and he had his firearm drawn and he was screaming at me to get down on the floor but like in peripheral view you

saw like a tsunami of police running towards me as well but it was just that one police officer and I wouldn't go down on the floor and they kind of like dragged me on the floor. And yeah, just this sense of like, it's over. And then you know what's coming. And when I was in the back of that police car, the police officer that arrested me when I was a kid, arrested me again. And he smiled at me and he said,

you haven't learned your lesson. And I just remember, it was like, the life just drained out of me, completely drained out of me because I knew what was coming you're in the police car presumably heart rate up through the roof stress response kicked into gear what I see of the John McAvoy in 2021 is someone who's got his head together got his mind together applying it to help himself and the world. I see someone who is being positive, posting inspirational content, trying to lift others up, trying to make sure no other child goes down the same path you went down. goes down the same path you went down. But as I hear that story,

part of me is thinking about the stress response. How resilient are we? How do we deal with stress? Because that is such an important skill for all of us to learn. How can we manage stress better? Stress ain't going anywhere. Stress is always going to be there in our lives, but how we think about it how can we manage stress better. Stress ain't going anywhere. Stress is always going to be there in our lives, but how we think about it, how we manage it, how we process

it will often determine the outcome of that stress on our health and on our lives. That situation that you just described, I can't imagine there's many more situations that you can think of in life that have more stress associated with them. That is literally the fight or flight response right there. And we talk about it in the context of 2 million years ago, a tiger approaching the camp, fight or flight kicks in, but that is the modern day equivalent. You are literally running for your life with guns pointing at your head how do you deal with stress today and do you think experiences like that have taught you anything yeah i think the the experience of again it comes back to perspective again so my perspective on these situations and in life in general obviously because that's been so extreme. Like anything that's not that isn't nowhere near as bad.

The way I deal with stress today is, again, exercise, training is a very important pillar of my response to when, because again, day to day, you have to deal with organizations and people and when you're putting stuff together to try to bring a lot of moving parts it can be quite a stressful experience but I always make sure that the fundamental of my day is I do exercise because I believe that's such and it's helped me get through some of the most stressful moments in my life like bear in mind again when you go back to being locked in a prison cell for 24 hours a day, like the exercise made me feel like I was alive. I didn't realize at the time, the physiological benefits of it and the endorphins and feeling healthy and the way it lifted my

mindset whilst I was in that place. I didn't do it for that reason. I did it because it just made me feel alive. But how that process in those places has really helped me like going through that journey of exercise and that's been something that's really stayed with me throughout my life like not not just training as a like a as an athlete but just the way it makes me feel good i think it's so so important that people put that into their schedules as one of the most like important parts of their day. But it definitely is about perspective. And again, I always pull and draw down on my life experiences when things have been really hard for me.

Like that sets the sort of the line in the sand. And I know that that's what bad is. So anything other than that, I kind of just go, I'm not going to let it affect me because that's bad. This isn't as bad. I can manage this. I can work around it. I'll find a way around it.

And even like that day when, when I got arrested, once the initial sort of part of me getting arrested has ended straight away, I was thinking, how am I going to get out of this? How am I going to get out of this situation? And my brain was already processing where I was and ways in which I could find a way to get out of this situation. So it wasn't like I didn't just submit to it. I was straight away, my brain just

kicked into gear and I was like, I need to find a way of how I'm going to get out of it and figure out a way to work around this. Yeah. The perspective you have on life is something very few of us i guess will ever have because we haven't lived those kinds of experiences but i think we can all learn from that and you know that is what bad is right that's that's really what bad looks like so relative to that there can't be that much in your life that compares to that in any way at all these days i think as well like you when when we look at our situations and i and i was we spoke about this i think on podcast too about it is perspective so like when you think things are bad someone somewhere in the world's got a lot harder than us and it was like when everything was happening

with all these lockdowns and we was all on the same ocean but we were all on different ships and we all had different resources on those ships. Some people, lockdown was like devastatingly bad because of the resource, the lack of resources. And other people, they had Netflix, they had food in the fridge, they didn't have to worry about their jobs, their bills. So again, when you have a perspective of sometimes,

because again, I do think a lot of time perspective gets lost and people think it's the end of the world, it's all bad. And when you really look at it and reframe it and see what bad is by, I don't know, looking at what's happening in the world sometimes and how bad other people have got it, that then you realize, and I think then that actually goes, actually, I'm very, very fortunate to be in the situation I'm in at the moment. to be in the situation I'm in at the moment. I never get bored of talking to you, John. I just find you endlessly fascinating. Your story, your passion, your honesty, your authenticity, your integrity. Honestly, it's touching every time I talk to you, but even when I talk to you

away from the podcast, we hang out, we exchange WhatsApp voice messages. It's always, it always improves my day. John, look, I'm going to close this third incredibly enjoyable conversation. Now there's still plenty I want to talk about. So maybe there'll be a podcast at some point. You have put out on your social media before this as humans we

overcomplicate life when we don't need to the simple life is the best life at the end of our conversation today for people listening the podcast is called feel better live more when we feel better we get more out of our life how can we all lead the simple life i think just trying to cut as much noise out of your existence as you can i found that's helped me quite a lot um look what's important and what's not and a lot of things we think are important they're actually not important and whatever it is that you feel like makes you happy and content is focus on that more have that spending more time with your family with your friends reconnecting with people and like what happened the other night with the social media blackout i thought

was amazing i thought it was incredible people reconnecting with each other on a human level again um that wasn't using all these apps to sort of communicate with people but just prioritizing life what is important. Look at your life, evaluate it. What's important, what's not? Because a lot of stuff that we think is important, when it's taken away, you realise it's just noise and it isn't actually as important as what we think it is. Yeah. Great advice. For people who want to stay in touch with you, John, what's the best way they can do it? I don't know. All different sorts of social media. I've got my website.

If anyone wants to... What's the website? TheRealMcAvoy.com RealMcAvoy.com. There's Twitter. There's Instagram. We'll put links to all of them in the show notes. Thank you.

John, you're an incredible individual. You're inspiring so many people. Keep doing what you do, buddy. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to talk to everyone. Take care, mate. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. And as always, do think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life. And as always, please do let John and I know what you thought on social media John is most active on Twitter and Instagram before you go I really want to let you know about Friday 5 my weekly newsletter

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