Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #257 Jonny Wilkinson: Why Everything You Know About Success Is Wrong

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Jonny Wilkinson is one of the most decorated and recognisable faces in rugby history and he’s probably best known for kicking the winning goal in 2003 to help England win the Rugby World Cup. But this episode of my podcast is not a conversation about rugby. It’s a conversation about what it truly means to live a meaningful and contented life.   Jonny shares how winning the World Cup led to disappointment, discontentment and a mental health crisis. He explains how he spent his entire life trying to realise his dreams, only to discover that achieving them did not make him happy. In this deep and soulful conversation, Jonny explains how his relationship with rugby changed from initially being a ‘celebration of his talent’ to later becoming something that only caused him stress, anxiety and made him fearful.    Jonny has been to the extremes of life - extreme levels of success but also extreme levels of discontentment. And, by going to those extremes, I think Jonny has learned some incredible truths and wisdom, which he shares in our conversation. We talk about the difference between success and happiness, the price we often pay for pursuing our dreams, the importance of awareness and living in the moment, as well as the importance of letting go of old beliefs when they no longer serve us. We also talk about Identity and how limiting the labels we put on ourselves can be, how we can use micro-moments of resistance in our daily lives to grow and learn and how our past can actually change, depending on what perspective we put on it in the present moment.   This is a powerful, thought-provoking and engaging conversation with an incredible human being that I truly believe has the potential to transform the way you look at life - I hope you enjoy listening. Thanks to our sponsors: http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore https://www.vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://www.calm.com/livemore Order Dr Chatterjee's new book Happy Mind, Happy Life: UK version: https://amzn.to/304opgJ, US & Canada version: https://amzn.to/3DRxjgp Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/257 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. 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.

At 18, I was playful with the game. Anything could happen from any moment. By the age of 26, I'd lost all playfulness, completely. It was stress, expectation, pressure, fear of failure, everyone getting in my way, no one understanding me, no one caring. Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Welcome to Feel Better Live More. This week's guest is Johnny Wilkinson, someone who I think can teach us all so much about what it means to live a happy and joyful life. Now, Johnny has recently launched his own podcast. It's called I Am, on which he wants to redefine health, performance, purpose, leadership,

relationships, and human potential. Now, Johnny is one of the most decorated and recognizable faces in rugby history, and he's probably best known for kicking the winning goal in 2003 to help England win the World Cup. But this is not a conversation about rugby. This is a conversation about life and what it truly means to live a meaningful and contented one. Johnny shares how winning the World Cup did not make him happy as he thought it would. In fact, it only led to disappointment, discontentment and a mental health crisis. He describes how his relationship with rugby, the sport he loved and excelled at, changed from initially being a celebration of his talent to later become something he wanted to do well at because he thought it would make him somebody. Johnny has been to what I would call the extremes of life, extreme levels of success, but also extreme

levels of discontentment. And by going to those extremes, I think Johnny has learned some incredible truths and wisdom, which he shares in our conversation. Now we cover so many different topics, including the difference between success and happiness and the price we often pay for pursuing our dreams. We also talk about awareness, living in the moment and the importance of letting go of old beliefs when they no longer serve us. We also talk about identity and how limiting the labels we put on ourself can be and something I'm incredibly passionate about, how we can use resistance in our daily lives to grow and learn. Now, this really was a powerful conversation. It was soulful, it was deep, it was engaging. And I suspect it's one that at times you may find a little

challenging. In fact, I think it is one of those conversations that you may end up pressing pause and rewind on quite a few occasions to really take in and absorb what Johnny is saying. But I don't think that's a bad thing. This really was an incredible conversation that I think has the potential to transform the way you look at life. I hope you enjoyed listening. And now, my conversation with Johnny Wilkinson. I've just written a book on happiness. And in that book, there's a section where I say your dreams won't make you happy, which for many people is quite a provocative statement. But if I look at your life, certainly from the outside, I feel in many ways it showcases exactly what I mean by that sentiment. You as a child wrote down very specific goals,

and from what I can see, by the age of 24, you have achieved your dreams. You know, you've won the World Cup. Not only do you win the World Cup, you do it in the most fairy tale of settings. Final minute, you know, ball comes to you, you kick the winning goal. But immediately afterwards, I've heard you talk about this deep lonely sense of emptiness that started to creep in and that continued so when i say that phrase your dreams won't make you happy what comes up for you i think first of all you almost clarified it for me in that realizing your dreams won't make you happy. But actually, I find dreaming itself amazingly powerful. You know, having dreams and exploring what it is you desire in life. I think exploring it and conjuring up

the excitement and the passion and enjoy that I find amazing. But you're right, up the excitement and the passion and enjoy that i find amazing but you're right the dream itself when realized the physical manifestation of it there's nothing there but there's it's almost like the reverse people would think there's got to be substance in the actual thing but there's more substance in the idea of the thing when you're on your way to it than there is in the actual thing and i think for me it was fairy tale and it was amazing and it couldn't have happened it's ridiculous in a way that I might have sat in my driveway or sat in the garden rather and or been kicking a ball in my driveway and my brother and I would do this all the time oh and it's back to me three two one to win the match you know you

do this over and over again whether it's basketball but mostly it was rugby and then it's back to me three two one to win the match you know you do this over and over again whether it was basketball but mostly it was rugby and then it's happening it's what someone else is saying about you it's ludicrous how these things plan out and the process of dreaming and and creating that idea and and then bringing it about that's such an amazing process and i've sort of mentioned this before that what i think i had in a space that didn't help was that that creative process is what you celebrate as your power but when you get attached to what you actually create and not the process you find there's nothing there and that's what happened to me you know i was sure that that was the Hollywood ending to my life and it was going to be the happy ever after but the realization came very quickly that there was nothing there and they also by when I was young I set my goals so high I set the bar as high as I possibly could

and having that almost sense of infinite about what I was dreaming about was so powerful. But then to realize it, I then immediately started to try and kick into the next one, which was we're going to win the next World Cup. Which, why wouldn't that feel as good as winning the first one? Because it's winning a World Cup, you know, it should feel the same. But almost having the bar was now not quite as high and also I had this understanding deep down although I wasn't ready to process it or fully comprehend it that the answer wasn't going to be there either it wasn't going to be in whatever I was searching for I had to I had to

have a different relationship with myself and with life because I'd almost unfortunately proved something to myself at that point which was going to make life more complex in the short term for me. Um, because it was much easier being able to just to say, all I need to do is set myself a goal and then life's good. Yeah. There's, there's a, there's a deeper element to it. What was that feeling like the morning after when you open your eyes and that realization creeps in, that awareness that, you know, I've won the World Cup, but I also don't feel great. And the reason I want to really go there, Johnny, is because I think there's so many kids, so many adults in society who would look at your story from the outside and many other stories of, in inverted commas, success and feel, yeah, when I get that, that's going to be good. I'm going gonna be happy yeah and i think when we look at people like yourself who in some ways kind of showcase the extremes of life because i reckon there's thousands tens of thousands of kids who this spring and summer in the uk will

be in their back gardens and will be recreating that scenario yeah and how many of them actually does that happen to you in reality well one form of reality yeah right very few so I really want to understand and help everyone else understand what does that feel like what what is that emptiness can you can you describe it yeah i think the the first point is is for me is comes to mind is the idea about setting a goal and bringing about stuff in life and having your your creative hand in that realization and that manifesting of amazing things that's for me a huge point of why we're here to explore it what am i that's my power so i want to explore my power to to make things happen to be able to create this internal um reality and then how do i turn that

into an external reality that's the creative process and understanding that link and how it works that's that's amazing but your worth is in the internal part not in the external part and that that i think is when you say the emptiness that's that's the issue it's not with going out there and saying, this is my dream. I want to make it happen. It's like brilliant. But just the idea that I'm going to find something in the thing that's going to make me more. And I think that's the issue that part of understanding that creative process for me has been, it starts with realizing I have everything already. And if I'm feeling like I don't, that's blocking my creative process. If I'm already enough, I'm feeling like I don't that's blocking my creative process if I'm already enough I'm already perfect nothing that that's out there is going to fill me or or

complete me in a way or make me more worthy and that was what was behind a lot of this at the beginning when as a child the idea was I want to win a World Cup final because it's it was a celebration of who I am and my talent as I got older I want to win a World Cup final because it will make me someone and that was the it will make me something or someone and in that way is that I'm an I'm a nobody and I need to be a someone whereas a child you're a nobody and you love being a nobody. You don't even know you're a nobody because that's what allows you to be everything you want to be. So in this moment, you can be fully being this, and then you can be fully

being an astronaut, and then you're a prince, and you can be everything. But when you get this idea about who I am, suddenly you can be that, but you're trying to be that and that trying is not part of the creative process for me the true creative process is effortless and i was trying desperate if so need fueled to win that world cup was obsessive because there was something there which was going to make me who i was meant to be and And the big emptiness was one, first of all, the come down from the emotional, I think people speak about traumas as always kind of negative,

but an emotional highlight, that is a shock to the system. So you've got that sort of chemical, I guess, I don't know what you call call it almost like a mix that you've got to clear and next morning you feel like you're hung over so you've already got that feeling of like i'm not physically feeling in that wow moment i'm already a little bit down and low um and then you look around and the emptiness is you feel like you've been let down on a big promise just a massive promise and you feel like you've been betrayed a little bit

but there's still this hope in you that it's coming i said don't worry this is just a blip once you get out the door get outside or just get moving it's going to come. But sure enough, it doesn't. And I think it's so complex to understand that for me, it's just arriving when you're on your way somewhere. And to use an analogy that really works for me, it's a bit like, I'm not quite sure I found what it is for me. When I was a child, it used to be trainers, and it used to be computer games, but something that you used to think, this is my thing.

So for some people it's cars or whatever. So I used the example of a car garage. You imagine you went into a car garage and in that car garage, there's an infinite number of cars. And you know that in your pockets, you have enough money to buy any of them. And so you walk around that car garage and there's infinite number. And it's the best feeling because you look at each one and you're like, I could have this.

And you just want to try it. And you think, well, and you spend as much time as you can. And then you come to realize, that's what I want. So you pay your money, you get in it. And as soon as you get in it, you think this is amazing, but it's not as good as just a moment ago when I hadn't made my decision and that's what it was to me because when you get in that car and you drive it out and you see someone else walking into the show garage with the pockets full you're thinking I wish I was you I want to be free like you I've made my choice and then to carry on the

analogy you drive it round and you get to the idea that this is my car now for life. And as it gets older and becomes a bit less in comparison to others, you start feeling like, I'm now, yeah, it's not as good. And then you want to put new spoiler on it to try and vamp it up, to try and compete again. But you know that it's not changing the real deal, which is on the inside. And then you realize that the whole point for me was the understanding was that you never leave the garage you're always in the garage or another way

of looking at it is that you never your pockets refill straight away you only have a test drive that idea of who you are but once you get stuck in it that's what it felt like to me i'm going to become someone this is my class this is that's what it felt like to me. I'm going to become someone. This is my class. This is who I am. I'm a rugby player and I'm going to win. But all I wanted to be was free again. I wanted to be that childlike thing about realizing that I'm not stuck in this. I've got this ability to choose who and how I want to be in every moment brand new. I haven't spent my money. I haven't made my choice choice I'm not held to this idea it's just an idea and learning that that idea can be lifted off like the rugby shirt this is who I am

right now because it helps me take it off I'm free I feel amazing how do I enjoy this next moment well what is it I want to achieve what's the right shirt back in the car garage that's perfect for this moment bang well it connects me to my goals but the problem is we keep that shirt on because we can't take it off because we feel like if we take it off we're a nobody but actually it's in taking it off we realize oh this gives me back my choice it allows me to play with the idea of who i am whereas of course in society that comes with a bit of a stigma you know the, the idea that you change, it's charlatan. But actually, the ability to take off shirts and choose is what allows you to go from one business meeting as all you are and whatever happens in that meeting,

if you've got another one straight after, you walk in and you're fully present for that one. Yeah. But if you're not, whatever you carry from the first one, because it's a stain on the shirt, you take into the next and by the end of the day your shirt's torn to bits so you recover as best as you can when you're sleeping and the next day but it's still marked and that's what aging is that's what all this trauma is this idea this shirt is a bit broken but so this is what i had as my idea at the end of life was i was going to show this this is who I am this is the this is my life right

here and so every failure was was a stain I couldn't get out and it felt so painful because it was and then people's like say you can't change the past for me was a was a reinforcement of how terrible it was as opposed to the idea of trying to help you let go actually the understanding has been for me that in any moment you're never wearing a shirt like i said you never leave the car garage it's an idea of a shirt that helps you engage fully according to the what you want to create but once you got sticks get stuck to the shirt once you get stuck to your creation from then on in you start talking about things like pressure like expectation, like stress,

because you've got to try and keep that shirt alive. You know, someone takes that shirt from you. As a rugby player, you get injured. You feel like someone's trying to rip that shirt off you. You can no longer play. You're saying, please, I'll do anything to keep it. But whilst you're wearing it, it feels tight. You can't grow.

You can't expand. And I think taking the shirt off is a natural understanding letting go of those old ideas is the freedom that i always wanted you know i see as i study your life as i listen to conversations you have had over the past few years, I actually see many similarities in the mindset that I have had in the past, the relationship I have had with myself. I see so many similarities and I feel like all of us, they can be played out in many different ways. So on the outside, they can look quite different. But actually on the inside, I know for much of my life, I felt there was a deep hole. And actually, if I achieve, if I get good grades, if I do this, I'm going to feel good.

And from the outside, I've had a life of huge success, but much of that success has come with a real emptiness. And in some ways, and this is the challenge I have, is do we need to go to these extremes to realize those dreams that we thought were going to make us happy to realize oh oh the next day you wake up and what now yeah like you know the sun still rises the kids still need feeding before school then it gets the bus stop do you know what i mean it's like i mean in your experience can people learn these ideas and these messages without going through it yeah i think some of the quickest routes come when you've got no other choice because you've exhausted and i hear about this in the spiritual side people talking about exhausting the seeker to the point where there's nothing left so that's surrender yeah so you can surrender but

if you if the the seeker in you that's looking like you said for that extra thing and whatever it is is so tired they just fall away what's left is the clarity that you know that what you're looking for is actually where you're looking from and i think that there needs to be some kind of i think challenge involved definitely the fact is for me i think is that there's lots of challenges taking place all the time that we're not noticing and there's opportunity in all of those. But what we do is wait for the one that we can't step out the way of, the one that hammers you. And there's no way you're not going to be noticing that

because it's so strong. But actually the more consciously aware we become in our days, the more we can tune into where there's essentially resistance. So when it comes to that internal side, for me, the understanding I have within when there's challenge, there's only ever one answer,

and that's to let go of something. It's never to add something. Where there's resistance, the resistance is because there's something in the way resisting. This is and this is what's saying this is the way life is and this is something saying this is not the way it should be when the not the way it should be falls away we become one with life when we try and add more resistance thinking that that's somehow going to sort the conflict out. It doesn't work.

It's like waging war upon something, thinking there's going to be a conquering. It doesn't happen. Life's not going to give in. Life's going to keep being all it can be. And whilst we continue to come out, have an idea of who we are, that's going to get in the way of who we really are.

And that's the conflict. And I think there's so many challenges going on all the time if we're interested in them. And so much of this is, I think for me, I've become a bit more sensitive to the subtle things that are going on, the subtle sensations, the moments of kind of when you're getting triggered, but it's not just the trigger where you're shaking and you're panicking, it's the trigger when you're getting triggered but it's not just the trigger where you're shaking and you're panicking it's the trigger when you're you're in that space of realizing basically

this is the kind of internal environment i need i understand that i want to set because out of it is inspired all these incredible surprises of life intuition revelation, all this kind of stuff. And this is the environment I want to set, but I'm not setting it right now because this isn't how I want to feel. So who is setting it? It's an old version of me that's got an idea. There's your opportunity. And so it can be as subtle as just saying, how am I right now? And it's an unfulfilling idea to a self who thinks there's going to be an answer because the answer is the answer is not a sort of a response to the question it's the burning away of the question yeah that's the answer and the way that i see it is that you have your energy of your energy at the base of you and then that leads to how you

see the world comes out of that energy how you see the world out of that comes how you feel about it out of how you feel about it comes how you think and out of those things comes what you do and of course out of what you do feel and think comes what you create and until we change that energy nothing else will change and yet we mess around with the latter stages of the chain almost trying to i guess instead of switching the pump off we're down at the bottom end trying to push the water back and i think once you become more interested in your energy rather than your ideas about who you are and what so i'm going to do something different but that's that's only going to last for so long unless you change your

energy so for me it's it's become a case of what's my energy how do i want it to be and is it and once it becomes peaceful quiet compassionate gentle excitement and and in that space of restfulness then that's how i want to approach everything there's a clarity within that and sometimes i'll go and i'll feel like my energy will just trigger and i'll be with some some of the guys i'm coaching and there'll be a real excitement and i'll know that if i place myself in that energy i want to be when i get lifted up to an excitement i know it's in response to who i'm with. And it's a meeting. It's like a real inspired energy as opposed to that, that kind of, I guess, frantic energy that can come with you, that needy energy that needs something, needs things to be a certain way, that needs reassurance and i've lived a a lot in the energy and what i tried to do was reassure that energy

thinking that somehow by what i was doing and change in trying to think differently would somehow change the energy but it was the energy that was making me think yeah you can't as einstein said you can't you can't sort of solve a problem with the same mind that created it the same way that nothing's going to change until you get to that more subtle level and that subtle level is where all the opportunity is because it's boundless how would you define energy for someone who feels i kind of like what you're saying johnny but i don't quite get it what do you mean my energy i would say from my perspective what do i mean about energy is it's not something you can think about because once you're thinking you're down that end of the chain it's about probably the closest you can get to it for me for me the most obvious way is feeling

so you understand that the most direct link i feel is is how you see the world and how you feel are closer to that end of the chain than i think thinking and doing and and that side of it what's basically outcomes in your life so head that way so become more interested in how am i seeing things and how am i feeling right now that's moving in that direction and as you explore into that direction it's taking you towards energy getting towards that energy for me is represented in worthiness and sort of loving peaceful silence you're in that area as a base whereas from as you move down to seeing the world this becomes a sort of judgment side for me it's a case of moving that way in the chain back towards being through getting more

interested in feeling and becoming more um aware of how i'm seeing things rather than setting those in stone this is how the world is rather than this is how i'm seeing it this is what someone's done to me not this is how i'm feeling which then he leads you with than this is how i'm seeing it this is what someone's done to me not this is how i'm feeling which then he leads you with so this is what i'm going to do about it and that's all reactive so getting to that idea that just like we said about old ideas that are fixed it's a case of saying well unfixing them is simply a case of realizing as we said there is no truth to anything yeah there is a reality that comes from the energy system and when energy changes the reality changes and you know for example a way

of looking at that for me is saying i could look at i had a four-year period in the middle of my career where i was pretty much injured the whole time and in a certain energy system in an energy state, state of being, I'll sit there and a thought will come up, imagine if I hadn't been injured, I could have played 15 more games. I might be the most capped player ever. I might have the most points ever. No one could, you know, and what a waste of time.

The world was against me. How does that happen? I'll never be able to, no one's, and then all of a sudden you wake up in a different energy state of being. And you'll think, wow, what an amazing challenge. I wouldn't swap that for the world because look at my life now. Now, nothing's changed factually. I was injured for four years in both of them.

But the reality has changed simply because the energy has changed. And out of that energy, you look at something a different way. You see it differently. You feel about it differently. And then what you do in your day changes. Because of that energy, you become capable of different things. So anytime there's absolutes in people's language, this is how things are.

It's one to sort of see that maybe that chain is getting locked. The energy system has become, this is just who I am. And yeah, that's how I used to be 100%. You know, this is who I am. This is the way things be. And then because this is who I am, this is how you are. And suddenly you get very separated. Who I am is very closely linked to this,

I think a cultural belief at some level that who I am is a result of all I've been through, which is that if you like, depending on how you view what you've been through, it could be a victim mentality or a kind of privileged mentality or whatever. But when you start looking at the fact that what you've been through can be seen differently depending on your energy state, you change it around to who I am as fact that that what you've been through can be seen differently depending on your energy state you change it round to what I've Who I am is a result of all I've been through suddenly becomes all I've been through is a result of who I choose to be now

Which is empowering. Yeah, this idea that who we are now is not a result of What's happened in our past it's what's happened in our past is a result of who we are now yeah let's just dive in here because i think that is a pretty profound statement that i think has the potential to confuse, has the potential to really throw up all kinds of things in people's minds there. So what do you mean? I would say, from my perspective, who I've chosen to be today will give me the perspective on the past. So I don't need anything to make me who i am today i have the freedom to be however i want to be today and through those eyes if i'm still interested

and looking at the past this is an interesting one because yeah you will see it in the way that serves your dreams of who you are now so another way of looking at this is maybe clears it up but may make it more complex is that the difference there with that is that when you try and say the past and then we talk about changing the past it feels a bit blocked but actually if you look at the experience of the past that we all have i would speak just for myself and ask the question to anyone else is that no one's ever experienced a past. You just have memory. So if I said, well, tell me about the past, you'll go to your memory. You don't go to the past. So when you think about, rather than thinking I'm someone that has a past and a future, you think of yourself as being someone that, you know,

who's living in the now between the past and the future you then think of yourself as someone who is the now with memory and imagination and once you realize that the past is actually in you as memory not like a trail behind you like a tail that you're wearing or worse still like a you know here's where i was born and i'm now tethered to that moment by a rope and that rope's pretty heavy so there's a bit of wiggle room because i'm trying to see it a bit differently but not much and because i'm tethered to that rope that rope is also now deciding what's possible for me according to my understandings of what's been they give me my understandings of what can be so now i've got a rope coming out the front as well,

which I'm holding onto, which is tethered to a more or less, you know, you can change your fate a bit, but not hugely. So it might be there or there, but more or less, I'm kind of stuck between these two ropes. And I'm just kind of like,

and then the idea is in my head, the image I get is that you've got a tight rope underneath you and around the tight rope is the unknown. So you're using the past tethered you and around the tightrope is the unknown so you're using the past tethered you there and the safety rope of the future attached to where you're going to try and keep you on this thin line of now and it's so difficult to enjoy the now because you've got all this unknown around you that you might fall into and you're constantly looking at your

past to help you and your future to keep you online whereas in fact actually if it becomes you're just here with memory and imagination we're not moving from a past to a future you're exploring memory and imagination and as you release that idea of it being a set past what you're essentially saying is rather than saying i can change my past we're saying you can play with your memory it's your memory but because we have those emotional attachments to each memory almost those emotions that underpinned the memory at the time they create the rope once you remove those emotions that belong to the energy state of how you are now the the memory just floats around you and you can pick and work with it you can join

dots together in different ways to form different ideas of how a past moment happened but whilst there's this idea that you know i felt this way and this is a lot of the thing I think we're in this therapy of releasing emotions and allowing them to be, is that as soon as you do that, you find that your past becomes softer, more playful. And it's just for me that it's coming back to now as memory that belongs to you as opposed to a past which is yours, but you don't necessarily have any you can't touch it

so that idea for me is really powerful because when you look at memory and imagination they're kind of the same thing so as soon as you open up your past you'll open up your future and you can start to dream again so i look at it as a five-year-old child who maybe or a three-year-old child who doesn't have that much of a rope because they haven't got too many of the emotions that have drawn together and so what are they doing constantly dreaming all the time and dreaming freely we dream in the sense of what if with conditions with conditions not what if on a negative sense children dream on a what if purely positive at least i feel that that's a they should be dreaming that way they should be allowed to dream that way but getting

back to that is often a sign for me of what my energy state is is when i dream how uninterrupted is my dream if i say dream of something amazing right now how clear can i be and how much does anything come in the way that say oh well you'll never go there I've dreamed myself on holiday or you'll never get holiday because you don't get time you know it's like well hold on no let me dream this is my my freedom to dream and often your dream is interrupted by your idea of how things were and a really really big part of this for me has become really interested interesting and so different how i was is this almost freedom to to actually not take so much notice of what's happening around us because that gets in the way of how things can be so often we're saying people say i just try not to think

about it but actually what the problem is is whilst we think everything's important we're forming that emotional attachment behind us as a past it's a trap isn't it it's a so being able to be playful is the is the key be playful with everything find the beauty and the grace and the humor and the love in everything that allows it to have room. And if you find that you're not doing that, work on the energy state. Take yourself out. Like you said, go for that walk where you can fully relax.

Take yourself out rather than sit there and try and solve it, which you're thinking about it feeds the feeling, which feeds the thought, which feeds the feeling. And suddenly after 20 minutes of trying to work something out you've put yourself in a right old state and now suddenly that day is almost you know cemented itself as part of that past and now you've got situations you're going to try and avoid people you can't work with and what have you whereas in fact actually that playfulness is that space. And I think when you said about my journey, what did I become about the age of 18? I was playful with the game.

Anything could happen from any moment. By the age of 26, I'd lost all playfulness completely. It was stress, expectation, pressure, fear of failure, everyone getting in my way. No one understanding me, no one caring. Whereas when I was 18, I was staring at the field just thinking, oh, I don't need anything else. Yeah, and that playfulness is often a sign of whether that's, you're playing with your memory, you're playing with your imagination

and you're playing with life. And that's not a bad relationship to have, I think. 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, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important, especially at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. All of this goodness comes in one convenient

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office or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. What did winning the World Cup do for your ego at that time? Major reinforcement of the idea that because I have succeeded in a sense of I've achieved a goal, what I thought to be a very high bar of a goal with great competition and what have you, there was a real concreting in of self-importance. In other words, my ideas have been proven evidentially

and therefore I am right, I have the answer. In other words, my ideas have been proven evidentially and therefore I am right, I have the answer. And so therefore I started spreading the answer in just my everyday behavior, but also quite consciously and in a sort of designed way. I wrote a book that age interviews wise, and what was coming out of my mouth at that time was just my, like I said, that was my energy state with all those ideas getting stronger

and that's how I saw the world. So of course there was no effort to say, I'll tell you what, I see the world like this, but I'm gonna speak about it like this to sell books. It was, I see it so clearly because I'm so fixed on who I am now and i want to talk about the clarity because the clarity to me felt powerful but go further down the chain how did it make me feel that clarity terrible yeah do you distance from everything unhappy and what does that

making me think all kinds of stuff that was troubling and what was that making me think? All kinds of stuff that was troubling. And what was I doing? Surviving massively. And what was I creating? All kinds of stuff I didn't want. Injury, stress, everywhere. Well, that's what I hear when I hear your story, when I sit with it. Like, I really feel the first part of your life, the rugby player, the World Cup winning rugby player,

the successful rugby player, meeting his dreams, achieving his dreams, making the nation happy, all these kind of stories. What I hear is a certain rigidity, a desire to control everything, not only that you could control, but things that, frankly, you probably couldn't control, but you were trying to. So I get this sense of tension in the body. And what I hear these days is the shoulders dropping, just acceptance and not trying to resist anything that comes up just accept it yeah is that a fair comment in terms of how you would summarize that the difference between these kind of different states of being yeah definitely the the the rugby playing idea was one of, they're both based on the same understanding that where there is great focused intention, there can be manifestation of dreams. So where you hold your energies in line for long enough, you can make things happen. for long enough you can make things happen now in sport we have a thing I look at where you have in sporting terms sometimes you see people and you just

think there's genius why they're genius because they make it look so easy and it doesn't make logical sense to me to see someone put so little in but get so much out so you look at your tennis players and you think no and you look at football players and the creativity and the time they seem to have on the ball and the stuff they're seeing that people how do you see that it's all genius and it's all effortless yeah now i had that genius on the field because there was a degree of me that was completely born to do it that was my genius but i also had another part of my state of being which was a different kind of vibration which was massively mistrusting mistrust distrust huge part of that dislocation of true self from yourself from idea of who i am from actually like the the core

innate sort of values of who i really am you know the loving compassionate um worthy side was now replaced by this kind of fearful, competitive, distrusting side. And because of that, I had enormous energy and desire to achieve my goals. But there was, I did it the hard way, which was through distrust, which means I'm going to have to fight like mad for this because the way I was seeing the world was that everything is against me. It's going to slip up all the time

if I don't do everything I need to. So my kicking sessions went from 20 minutes, half an hour. Even by the age of 18, I remember one day I took my bike down to the park and told my mom I'm going to kick down at the local club she turned up later and said what are you doing I said what do you mean she said you've been here five and a half hours and I wasn't even thinking about coming home because and it wasn't some of it was joy most of it a large part of it was just, I have to do this. I have, my confidence comes, my reassurance comes from seeing I can do it. And then you think, but can I do it again? I did it

again. Just about to walk off. But can I do it again? It's a never ending loop. So I'd, you know, you get to a stage where you're like, yes, I can do it. The next morning I'd wake up, I better go and do some more. Why? Because I need to check if I can still do it total distrust now I did a whole career on that but what it meant was that that intensity was probably my strong point people couldn't live with it however that sort of switch you've spoken about between me then and me now was actually happening during the me then on the field when the whistle went. And that's what probably the secret was, was that the born to do it part came out when the whistles went, because when the whistles went,

you know, the first whistle goes and the action kicks in, there just isn't time to think everything through. And when there's no time, that's what I started becoming a genius, but I would play and play and play and I'd be a genius. And the referee would say penalty. And I'd realize it's for me to kick the goal. Something I'd practiced more than anyone I don't think ever could genuinely. And then they'd bring my kicking tee on and I'd set the ball up. And now all of a sudden I've gone from no time to think, born to do

this genius, total trust, because I'm just not thinking about not trusting to now suddenly put the ball on the tee and it's all distrust because i've got time to think and it's all about this is who i am what do people think i need to keep this alive whereas when i was in my genius mode there was i let me go and let my genius come out. When I hear you say that, I'm drawn to two realities on the rugby field. Reality one is actually you have no time to think. So you're an eight genius. I was going to say 10,000 hours,

but let's call it the 100,000 hours of practice or the million hours of practice. Maybe they come into their element then because you've got no time to think, you've done the work, so you can deliver and perform in that sort of state of flow. That's in the midst of the game, so you don't have time to respond. But then you get a penalty and you go from passion and flow and creativity and expressing your talent to kind of fear and tension and anxiety. And I really want this conversation to, well, my hope is that this conversation feels relevant for everyone in their life as, you know, what's their equivalent of that if not everyone plays

in a world cup final but everyone has that or has had that conflict i would think at some point yeah and and i think for me the big thing that comes out of it as in terms of challenging a large i think a momentous movement of society or what has been a momentous one is that somehow those two things i mentioned those two different states are actually defined as one is preparation the other is performance so to suffer and struggle and sacrifice is preparation and that leads to great performance that leads to the zone and this is where my experience is completely at odds with this and therefore what i look at as my preparation now is that preparation and performance are the same thing which is why when it didn't used to be the case i'd constantly be speaking about i'm i'm really

trying to live in the moment because i had in my head that there was some hierarchical perspective to this is an important moment where things are going to be are going to matter to who i am and this is not and therefore this is where i'll use my time to worry about that big moment whereas the realization that every moment is practiced for the big moment makes every moment a big moment or every moment a non-big moment. And that may be what I mean by that is in the changing room, the idea is, can I let go in the changing room and be the best changing room version of me? The most free changing room version of me. And what about on the Tuesday afternoon when I'm having lunch with my mates? Can I be the most Tuesday change and reverse to me and what about on the tuesday afternoon when i'm having lunch with my mates can i be the most tuesday version of me in other words am i able to take the rugby shirt off and put this having a laugh with my friend's shirt on or have i got have i

got my rugby shirt on underneath and i'm trying to add a shirt over the top thinking that they'll do it and all i've got is half my mind going to the rugby and the other half is trying to stay here and say you know i'm having a laugh and the therefore preparation comes down to just how involved and fully engaged am i right now it's never about how am i looking for the future it's about now so if someone says and it's a really interesting one people say how's your life right yeah how's life people sometimes say yeah it's all right i've got this coming up looking forward to that and that's going to be good but today's a bit you're sort of like but life is about now so how's life is another way of saying how's your now and it's a big honesty question to to be like oh hold on i've been skipping the now because i got in my head somehow that I'm going to find my now later on.

Yeah. And that's me for my life. And I think, you know, that idea is preparation and performance are the same thing. Otherwise, you're going to have a point where there's a moment in life where you're going to arrive and no one's found that moment. I think this idea that every moment is a big moment, I think it's really

powerful. What I love about that is this idea you were talking about earlier in the conversation that we often wait for that one big moment where we have no choice apart from looking at ourselves differently and re-examining everything but there are those micro moments every single day what taking the bins out is a prime example tomorrow morning one of the things i will be doing is taking the bins out to the front of my house so that the bins can get collected, right? How do you see that moment, that 20 seconds when I get the bin and I take it around and I make sure it's in the right place for it to be collected? If it's, I can't believe I have to do this. My partner said they would do it. They didn't do it. As you're doing it with this frustration,

do this. My partner said they would do it. They didn't do it. As you're doing it with this frustration, A, you're not in the moment. B, you're bringing tension into your body. And certainly as a medical doctor, I think we've been so reductionist in the way that we look at health. Health is multiple components, multiple dimensions. And I think a lot of us, whether it's my profession or society at large, doesn't recognize the importance of freedom in the body. And that if we feel an emotional tension, if we are trying to resist what is, than emotional tension if we are trying to resist what is. We actually create stress in our body. That stress is real. It's not imagined. That will cause tension and that will lead to issues. I mean, I hear the four years of injuries and I'm thinking, I'm not surprised Johnny got injured if that was his life. If you try to control everything and push and push and push, to me it doesn't sound just like it was a physical overtraining issue.

I'd welcome your thoughts on this. To me, I'm hearing, was Johnny ever free in his body? Did it ever relax? Apart from for those two hours on the pitch on a Saturday, was the rest of the week just tension? And if it was, well, of course he got injured. Yeah, exactly. And it wasn't even those two hours on the field

because the game is broken up. Moments of absolute kind of chaos. We're talking mini moments. So mini moments where you felt free. An entire week, you're looking at a handful of moments for an entire week and the rest of the week totally devoted to stressing in order to earn those moments as an idea which obviously was way out but in those moments you you're you because you let go your

body and mind is able to operate at its fullest and the idea of the rest of the week is i'm going to compromise my body and mind enormously so that during the game it's going to work brilliantly it makes no sense it makes no sense whatsoever hence the preparation and performance thing it's not even logical it stacks up and it affects your sleep as well i think there's two processes going on constantly one is stress and one is recovery and stress is that energy going out and recovery is energy coming in but i like recovery i like the word healing and what we tend to do is because of how i feel what i tend well i've definitely done is that you shelve healing and your day becomes stress because of how you see performance because everything is about a bit fear-based a bit

got to stop this from happening got to get this right got to do this expectation whatever you get it done and then you say right end of day let me do some recovery and healing at the end of the day but the problem is is that like you said, you're still thinking about your day. So you're still stressing, but you're just thinking I'm doing some healing as well because at least I'm sat on the sofa watching TV and I might've relaxed my shoulders a bit,

even though my mind's going. And then you get to the major healing, which is when you sleep. And it's the time that everyone heals the most because who they are drops away. And it's the only only time so it's kind of like an amazing experience but the more you stress the less of that you get yeah so now the the powerful thing of the understanding is when you operate within that genius setup through those what i would call those connection points of the relaxation and the and the the excitement and the you know the, the excitement and the, you know, the, the alignment of,

of energies upon what you want, that kind of worthiness, that dreaming, that, that ability to, to aspire. And then also the, the passion and the fulfillment and the worthiness all kicked in. You're recovering and performing at the same time. You're as well so now you have a period where i spoke to an enlightened an enlightened yogi um once and i and he was telling me that he sleeps two and a half hours a night my wife was with me and uh she's has a nutritionist background and she she loves the idea about the sleep and and you know both of us kind of would love to have more and she just jumped straight in and said how how do you recover and his response was recover from what and this was my point is that if every moment's a big moment and you're willing to allow then you have this healing and energy going out at the same time because obviously when you run

even just by being alive your heart beating is stressing so there is all this healing and energy going out at the same time because obviously when you run even just by being alive your heart beating is stressing so there is all this stress and um it's it's happening but recovery doesn't happen until i hit the sofa at night and then i'll give myself permission to chill out and until i'm at that big business meeting that's when i'll give myself permission to really enjoy the moment or embrace the moment. But actually it's the idea, something that's so big in terms of all of this with healing, is that just clearing the idea that you have about the potential of any moment. So a bin layout, putting the bin out moment, because of how we've looked at it before and reinforced that idea,

nothing can come from that there's this idea that anything is not possible when you're putting the bins out this is what's possible from the from putting a bin out maybe you might meet a neighbor yeah and you might say hey doing um chances are something else is going to go wrong whatever it is that's the the size of it but actually without that idea in place, what's to say that that moment of life with everything going on around you, there's an interaction that you've asked for

that's now available because you've stepped out the way and it just may happen whilst you're putting the bin up if you're receptive. And that's when people's life-changing moments, they'll often say, I was just walking down the road. You wouldn't believe what happened. And it's often because you step out the way and allow these things to happen.

And once you have an idea that this is the potential of this moment, it can't be allowed. This is the potential of this other person I'm speaking to. That's the kind of person they are. That's the story of who they are. That's as far as the story will ever go so therefore i'll chat to them but not yeah but actually the meaningful exchange why does it have to be with your your boss or

someone that has the contacts to send you why is it not this person you've never seen before who's just walked past you who's in your life for a reason the only reason it's not available there is because you've chosen that it can't be there a couple of thoughts come to mind yesterday i went i was i was working at home i thought i'd go for a quick walk and i you know i had a i had a lot to do so i thought okay quick 25 minute walk around the block and then i'll get on. And I don't know, halfway around, this elderly lady who often is out walking her dog stopped to chat. And I know a few years ago, there would have been a sense of frustration in me that, oh man, well, I'm going to chat because she's super nice. And it would be rude not to. But in my head, it'd be like, how long is this going to last? Because I need to get back. And I'm not perfect. I do fall fall into that sometimes but i feel i have an awareness now where

in that moment and this is what happened yesterday it was like oh okay well i've got an opportunity to connect with this wonderful lady who wants to talk actually let's just do that in the moment and see what happens and you know you you literally change your experience of the same situation. Yeah, exactly that. Your week as a professional rugby player was often six and a half, six and three quarters, maybe six and seven eighths. Seven minus a tiny bit days off that week with tension stress anxiety as you say you would sacrifice your body and mind for those few micro moments on the pitch when everything stopped the mind stopped and you were just in flow i noticed when you said that you said your body and mind. So that was the cost

that you paid to be that successful. Well, certainly that's one interpretation of it. What were some of the other costs that had to be paid for that level of success? And I guess I'm thinking more about well anything really but also the people around you your relationships I mean maybe that's a side we also don't see when we see the person lifting the trophy on the podium getting to that place that people think they want to get to what were some of those other costs I think when you're speaking about the cost of that success i would i'd for me i'd reframe that to saying it was the cost of distrust it was that was the cost of a lack of trust in yourself so i had a big dream with a lack of trust in myself

and that was the cost of it lack of trust in just yourself or people around you as well? It's the same thing. So once I start with a lack of trust in myself, it automatically projects itself into lack of trust in others, lack of trust in life. Because that lack of trust in me is essentially I'm not worthy or deserving and therefore this person's out to get me because i'm not deserving of being in a great conversation so there must be something more at play here i might be being used in some way so there's a distrust that and i'm and i feel great we've just won a game but i'm not worthy of this so my trust in life is where's the banana skin so always looking for the problem survival because that distrust is something's out to get me. So I'm going to live in survival.

You mentioned control. And I'm going to control my future rather than create it. Hence those two energy states of being. You create your future with your imagination and your alignment and your energies and your just involvement, or you can control it and now one of those is stressful one of them's not and i the cost of that distrust or that that that hole in me was huge you know just the fullness of relationships as we basically the comment making the most of your life just comes down to fully trusting in yourself and

realizing your worth now that's a that's a hell of a journey to go on but they're the same thing when you're for me when you're in full deserving worthy mode and trusting of yourself you're making the most of life because the only thing we interact with in this life is ourselves and so your interaction with yourself is the interaction you have with life so every problem that's or disconnect on the inside will be represented on the outside so that self-love that whole idea about the you know the mask on the airplane who drops down put yours on first put some before you put someone else's on it's a really good one apart from the fact it needs to

be amended to realize that you never put anyone else's on you put yours on and everyone else's will happen according to your desires as long as you look after you in every moment and looking after you for me is is you mentioned i think before we've spoken about the four pillars of health exploring those to the utmost, taking away the idea like the bin moment of this is all that can come out of putting the bins out. This is all that can come out of me eating this kind of food. But yeah, as long as you feel that way and think that way,

that is probably all that can, but it'll probably be less according to how else you're feeling about yourself in there. So the four pillars of health plus a complete openness and willingness to involve yourself with life on a full level which means getting out of your own way and getting out of your own way for me just means dropping that idea yeah it's interesting yesterday evening about five half five i was just knackered i'd had a i just was physically and emotionally very tired and again i was like oh man johnny's coming tomorrow morning um because the interview is at half seven in the morning which is the earliest i think we've ever done

an interview because my process before i i say interview I don't know why I said that because I'd never considered them interviews I consider them conversations and my typical process is before a guest comes to the studio I will have been researching and I say researching, again, it feels like quite a dry words, really, like I've really enjoyed delving into your life over the past few days. It's been a real, because I've learned so much about myself through studying you. I've seen so many similarities, I've learned things. And so my whole process is about really trying to, I've not thought about it like this, but really feel the energy of that other person. Who are they? What kind of connection might I be able to sort of foster with them when they're in? And I like about an hour and a half before they come just to make a few notes.

It just helps me imprint things in my mind that I may want to talk about. And I caught myself going into this anxiety trap for just a few seconds that, oh man, I'm knackered. Johnny's coming to work, I have time in the morning to prepare. And I thought, wait a minute, what do you need to prepare? You're talking to someone who you really like, who you really respect. You've spent time absorbing the story. You know how to have a conversation. And I remember saying to my wife in the kitchen, you know, all I need to do, the best thing I can do is switch switch off go to bed early and get eight hours sleep because if i do that i've got much more likelihood that i'm going to be present and attentive and be able to respond to whatever the possibility might be

yeah and the reason i share that is because i kind of feel, I strongly, strongly believe that there's a moment, there are multiple moments for learning every single day if we open our eyes to them, right? 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. 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 and 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 behaviours 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 it 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.

Every moment, whatever's in your path, for me anyway, whatever's in my path, is a mutual serving going on. If it's a person, if it's a thing, if it's an idea that's been inspired, there's something from it. And rather than study it, just to allow it and it'll come through. But it's really interesting what you're saying, because it's one thing that's important that doesn't come through of what I'm saying is that that trust in yourself and doesn't mean that you now no longer need to you know almost like well i don't need to do any more of anything because things will just work out which almost has that kind of i don't care attitude but the underwriting key of all of this is that it's determined by your desires what it is you want and the more energy you have for what you want the the more intense and more things will come up to serve it the energy

system as i think about that, I think about intention. Because as you've already mentioned, we can dream in two different ways. We can dream as a child with this infinite possibility, or we can dream with a sense of worry and attachment to that dream actually happening. I feel that we can be motivated yeah as i have been and it sounds as though you have been for much of your life from a from place of lack there's something missing so therefore that's my drive that's my motivation because i will compensate for that lack but you can also

i guess have motivation from a sense of fullness and abundance. And so I think this idea of the same behavior or the same word, dreaming, motivation, confidence, success, actually, they're not really one word. It's what's the energy behind that words yeah what's the intention yeah do you know what i mean definitely and that it's really interesting that so much of what we're talking about for me anyway is this is this understanding that i think being on this earth is having all the power of the the creative force behind it within us and it's and it's crammed into this sort of it feels like it's crammed into this physical form and as it's in there it wants to go back to being all it is so it's expanding and as it expands it's hitting upon our limits

and that's desire it's why you never goes away you know you have this feeling of like i'm so much and i'm constantly desiring more and more because i know i'm i'm infinite i'm so much in here and so i can't stop wanting things and i can't stop dreaming and i can't stop feeling and what have you and it's pushing on those those limits which is why when we reinforce those limits and it pushes against them, sometimes we get that conflict. So when we want to make things safer or when we get really identified with this is who I am in this physical body, it feels like there's got to be more to life than this. Why? Because that part of you that's infinite and ever expanding is saying, no, no to this idea you've got. You're holding me back. Yeah. and it's asking the whole time and what we keep doing is thinking we'll we'll answer it by reinforcing those

boundaries a bit with some reassurance or some physical stuff and it's going no no you got to go bigger than this and all of that the whole point about you mentioned about the ego or the the ideas we have is that we keep bumping them out and as we bump them out and and let some go and and then we'll find more in there that are deeper down but as we do that the energy in us is able to expand and that's the growth that's the connection as we feel like we we're starting to connect to more of ourselves and so everything is about expansion you mentioned about dreaming with the idea of motivated by that desire of wow how great could everything be and then you've got the dream from a fear perspective now one of those is is a once you dream about how great everything can be all you need to do is set it in motion and it naturally just keeps expanding it's incredible it's a sense of that creativity that has no boundaries you started off

and before you know it you're just you can't stop when you start with a fear-based one it contracts and gets smaller and smaller until you're in a space where you feel like i feel so restricted is that how you felt after the world cup it's how I felt in the changing room beforehand and as much as because there's that need to survive and get through and so as you're inside your boundaries you've created your walls of who you are and you want to reinforce them now you're not going to go outside of them to add to the wall so you'll stay inside them and add to the wall so you're losing more space. Reinforcing, you don't go out of your boundaries

into the unsafe and so you can build more layers because it'd be counterproductive. So you build them from the inside. So extra reinforcement just shuts you into more and more of a space. So the more controlling you get, the more survival it gets, the more reassurance it gets,

it's coming to a point of crisis whereby you put a brick in and you go, oh my God, I'm now stuck. And that's the moment of this has to stop. And I think that's what I did at the beginning. It starts with people like me. People are talking about me as if I could be someone. And then you think, I'll just do a bit more. And I don't want to make any mistakes because I don't want to let them down or that idea.

do a bit more and i don't want to make any mistakes because i don't want to let them down all that idea and then 10 years down the line someone who saw you at 18 comes and speaks to you and says what's happened to you what's happened it's the same thing i say to the guys that i might coach and when i'm kicking is that we'll create this liberated space and they kick a ball and they give permission to really be free and just explore it and we say wow look at that took two minutes now you've got all week imagine what you could do with all week that was two minutes and at the end of the week they come back and it's like what happened what's happened to you and it's the question of what are we doing with our time in preparation? It's liberating.

Liberation is preparation. Whereas I think what we think is preparation is about walking into a room and saying, look at how solid these walls are I've built. I'm not getting outside of them ever, but at least you can see me. You can see me from space. That's how solid I've built my, that's how much I've become as someone.

You can see me, I'm distinct. You know who who i am you know what i'm about because i've built these walls and i'm stuck in them and i don't like this but part of me quite enjoys the fact that that i'm getting that feeling like i'm expanding because people can see me and they know me and they recognize me but actually the internal experience will eventually call out sort of stronger and demand that those walls come down, I think. The way you think about the world, see the world, feel the world today in 2022 as we have this conversation,

if you looked at the world and felt the world through the same lens when you were 23 could you have performed at that higher level and could you have helped your team win the world cup i genuinely like to think that that outcome was going to be that outcome whatever the route there would have been different the reason that outcome would have happened is because the desire would have burnt equally as strong and nothing that's what really matters is the desire and the more you're able to channel it and align it the more immediate that process becomes it becomes almost sort of things appear in a much more sudden way whereas when you go

through this is what i want i've got to fight for it you create the fight and it becomes a long drawn-out process and as the expression goes what you resist persists so you get the same lesson over and over yeah i had those four years of injuries i had 14 injuries in a row and i only learned the lesson when i went to play in france i got away from what i perceived to be and essentially it's all about giving yourself permission to what to let go but when you feel like you're in a physical state the physical world needs to give you permission and so rather than just being able to give yourself that permission by being able to accept as we spoke about or or love or let go or meditate or do all those kind of important

non-self-serving things that's the permission but in order to go to that space I needed permission from the outside what I thought was the outside so I was in England where I had this idea that everyone there knew me and they expected from me and what have you and and and and I had this idea that I wasn't achieving and that I was being scrutinized and and so going to France the south of France was an escape that was a bit of the permission the second thing was I was by the seaside and it was sandy and it was sunny and the people speaking a different language as far as I was concerned I was also on holiday so now I'm on holiday miles from where I am thinking that no

one cares about me anymore and eventually what that did was say, oh, big exhale. And my body said, oh, hold on. He wants to heal. Yeah. Let's get in. Not in survival mode anymore. And for about six months, I healed fast. I had a dislocated kneecap, which had cartilage ripped off the back of it.

And I had an audit. I had a big, big operation of that, that which they were saying you may not come back and all of a sudden within six months i was playing i played every game there but after six months the french supporters amazing guys started turning up with banners with my name on and i start thinking oh no i'm a success when i'm thinking yes i'm thinking i'm doing well. I'm getting confirmation. And that old part of me, the old understanding, which has yet to clear is saying, I better make sure I don't,

because I don't want them not turning up. And within another six months, I'm in that space. I'm kicking for three hours again, my groin's hurting. And I'm saying, what am I doing? And it's incredible what it takes. in the last game of my career 2014 i'm in the changing room before the french cup final the french um league final we've won the european cup we're hoping to do the double never been done before and i'm 35 i've played everything i've seen everything i've had every lesson i could possibly have in that time. And if someone comes in there and says,

sign this contract, you win, but you don't get to play. I'm signing it. I'm still signing it. That's how much the fear is in that I'm willing to give up everything I love, what I was born to do, go out there, play, express my talent, feel it, be challenged, be in the moment with everyone. I'm pretty much willing to say, yeah, I'll go out the back back door but as long as i can have the prize at the end of it despite the fact in 2003 i had the prize and realized there was nothing there yeah

it was the outcome that energy state you needed the outcome the energy state created the idea that the outcome will solve me that's the thought that comes from the way you see the world and i'm in yeah that's how it's tricky it's not one of those where you unless it's challenge isn't challenge unless it comes in a form that you don't want yeah and and often the biggest ones are the ones you can't even see it's just no no there's no challenge here this is just how life is and it's and it it's crazy it's crazy but you'd give up playing the game that you love just for the trophy. I'd have done it for 95% of the games I played.

The only ones I wouldn't have done were when I was 18. Yeah. When it was a joy, because I didn't have that idea of who I was. But the other thing which is, you know, mad about it is that, I was speaking to my brother about this just just yesterday that the times

where i've been at my absolute best i think and just played like just beyond what i thought was possible were probably a couple of times and when i was young one of, and the other one a little bit older. I turned up to training and realized there was a game and it wasn't training. I didn't have my kit, didn't have my boots, and it was basically two minutes until kickoff. I had my boots but not my kit. And someone's come out and said, we're playing a game. And I've gone, what?

I didn't know. Here, look, borrow a shirt. Get out there. And you're on the field. You haven't had time to go through the whole survival and part of you gives in and just says oh well might as well just give it a go and suddenly the clarity the the flow stays in straight away same with all kind and later on when i get pulled into things i've been england training um and suddenly the england coach this is after i've

retired is sort of saying i want you to run in today um what i haven't um all right i've got my boots and i'm sort of thinking i hope my hamstring doesn't go and but you just get on there and you go oh well yeah and your desire says i'm in but ideas say, we haven't had time. We're out. And the desire's in, the ideas are out. And suddenly it's like, ah, yeah, now I see. Now I see where it is. And it's that, it's, that's the lesson I've had all the way through my career in the moments in the game where I've just let go.

And it's been like, yes, there's the simplicity. And yet I just didn't know about the energy state. I've been working later down the chain yeah and because of the because you've managed to create what you wanted to create more or less and it's coming a certain way you then give yourself permission to reinforce you know to concrete in those chains and say right this is what this will be me but it also means that's the end of you yeah end of growth and end of everything that goes with it means that's the end of you yeah end of growth and end of everything that goes with it when i first read that in most of your games you were given the option to not play them

yeah you would have taken it it surprised me but it also deeply resonated with me on a completely different level and scale. I have attached success and winning to being a huge part of my identity. And I think I've got a pretty good idea of where that came from in my childhood. I think, you know, very briefly, I feel certainly at this moment in time that my parents as immigrants to the UK who you know face a lot of discrimination and they wanted the very best for their children to not go through the same things as them their their route for us was you excel you get straight A's you go to a top university get a top job and good. So, you know, anytime I came back with anything less than 100%, it was like, well, you know, 99 out of 20, why didn't you get 20? 99%,

why didn't you get 100? And perspective is huge here because having spoken to someone recently about this, Having spoken to someone recently about this, she was doing it, I think, from a place of love. But Little Rongan takes on the idea that, oh, I'm only worthy, I'm only enough when I'm top of the class, when I've got the best grades. And you take on that identity and this self-limiting belief your entire life until you, first of all, realize it. Because when you're within it, you're blind to it. You go through your life blind. You think this is who you are. And so you're like, wait a minute, it's not who I am. It's who I was. It's who I thought I needed to be. But what happens if I remove that and let's go off that? And the particular moment that comes to mind is if I was playing any sport with my mates, I want it to win. Right? It was, I write about this in

the Star Chat 3 in my new book. I write about this moment when I was in uni in Edinburgh. And like on a Sunday afternoon, we'd often go to Diane's pool hall, just to, you know, after a couple of nights out, just to unwind on a Sunday afternoon. And I'm a pretty decent player. If I was ever losing, like I would go into the toilets,

look myself in the mirror, give myself a pep talk, give myself some slaps. I don't know if that's a knowing laugh or not. But then the funny thing is, is that you'd come out. Yes, you would probably play better because of it. I guess most of the time you'd end up winning. Occasionally you wouldn't.

But what I figured out over the last few years is I actually didn't enjoy winning. Losing was too painful for me. So it wasn't that I wanted to win. I wanted to not lose. And I think I've carried that for so much of my life. And it's a very lonely place to be. It's a very empty place to be. It's a very lonely place to be it's a very empty place to be it's a very stress inducing place to be and i don't know does any part of that story or those stories resonate with you yeah um the winning thing is is yeah really really interesting and it's so it's so linked to self-worth yeah when you lose it's immediate and it's so obvious i feel so unworthy because i because i haven't won at something i remember having a running race at school and i used to be quite fast when i was i used to be i didn't carry on two finds my playing

days but i uh i remember we had these right and everyone in the school used to say oh he's really fast he's really fast but I could sense that there were these other kids in the school that were getting probably a bit faster and that maybe my my reign at the top was coming to an end and we had a race on a on a grass track and for some reason it's mad that this happened I can't even work how it happened but we're talking like eight nine years old and the head master's out there timing it between three of us and it's in a break time i don't know how it's got to this serious but anyway we're running and about halfway into the race i realized that i'm not i'm behind a little bit behind and i'm i'm sort of like becoming probably just aware that i'm trying as hard as i can and i'm not making up the distance and then a one of the you know

really young kids four or five years at the school it's kind of like walks across the track but is it's kind of like walks across my lane but way before i'm there and of course i kind of make a big deal of it yeah and then by the end of the race i'm i'm thinking i'm saying and people i can see people are starting to say that the other boy's fast and i start to my brain is saying i've got to find a reason here because the idea that i just come out and be vulnerable in that space to say ah or heaven forbid i should turn to the boy and say hey well played you're you're really fast i love that good for you you use i mean no chance i'm survival mode protect deflect everything and i'm sort of going on about how it's got in front of me in the track

and i couldn't move but and walking back towards the classrooms or whatever, I just remember I'm in shock. And it's powerful. It's powerful shock. And I've got numerous instances of this I can remember that plagued me. And a day would go by and then the thought of it would come up in my head.

And then the shock would come back with the thought. And I'd start to say to myself i'm never going to be able to forget this and i can't stand this feeling and i can't live with it and i can't stop thinking about it and then sure enough i'd go off and find something i look you know my brother would be playing or i'd be doing something else for my mom down we'd be having fun and then suddenly the thought would come up and the shot would come up and i'm starting to picture that for the next 90 years this is me because you and and it's it's so real and that's what i remember is is everything was so serious in those moments you mentioned about that playfulness that from quite an early age mine was fear-based and that i just came to this idea that i had a

sense of doom about everything that there was something slightly underhand that was going on that was out to get us in this world and that i i had the way i projected about myself was being perfect and so i made up what perfect was and then i went after it but again same as you 17 out of 18 and a spelling test i i spelt the word gauge wrong so i'm this is when i'm nine years old i can remember it i got 17 out of 18 i spelt the word gauge wrong and that's it i'm in yeah like a classic would would be uh i've mentioned this before but it's a really powerful one that i did a radio interview when I was 11 because our school under 13s team were unbeaten and Surrey Radio took us on and the guy asked me,

so how did you get into rugby? I said, oh, yeah, because of, I can't think, I'm a bit flustered. I watch these guys on TV and I just sort of copy them. And I felt pretty good after that. I got home and said to my mum, yeah, I did the interview today. Oh, how'd it go? What did they ask you? They asked me how I got into rugby.

And I said, I just watched the guys on TV. And she said, did you mention your dad? You know, the one that's been coaching you since the age of four and has taken to every game. And my world has fallen apart just in that moment because I sort of sensed that, you know, oh my God, what have i done you know like this and i'm thinking that it's so unfair that i haven't mentioned him and he's put all this hard work in and he would be saying don't worry about it you know like what are you talking about it's fine i don't care it's like i just

really it's not a problem and then also he'd be like, but it's, and it's, don't worry, it's Surrey radio. You know, it's gone. It's been undone. But months, months, months where I'd, and I'd burst into like tears, just watching TV. The thought would come up, the shock with it. And then it'd just be uncontrollable. And wherever he was, I'd run over. I'm sorry about that thing. And he's like, what oh it's like months ago but you can understand that that's reality there is no and this everyone's like it doesn't

matter but of course it matter to you in your heads it's reality it means that i've somehow let the door to this thing that's out there and it's it's it's so interesting that you know that energy state about fear is that you live fear. Yeah. It's reality. And the same way that when you have an energy state desire, you know, more aligned with joy and whatever, you live joy. It's that simple.

And you can work directly on the energy state. But of course, so much of the idea of that thing is like, just try not to worry about it. But, you know, the idea about saying, try not to think about something is another way of saying, just think about this for a bit. You know, try not to think about something is another way of saying just think about this for a bit you know try not to think about a pink monkey and you think about a pink monkey what does happiness mean to you these days happiness is is is that connection with with worth it's it's that happiness comes from

with worth it's it's that happiness comes from gratitude for you know when i'm in a grateful state for being alive that for me is happiness and that for me is immediately engagement in life i used to talk about some of the guys who talk about yeah i want to be i want to be out there on the field and just enjoying it and i thought this in my career so i remember watching a video of a game once and thinking what am i doing and i was walking around with a big smile on my face and doing this and i knew at the time i was hating it because happiness doesn't necessarily mean a massive smile although often it does and i think it's brilliant when it does because it's infectious and it it's an amazing thing but engagement is joy on that rugby field when i

said i was just at one i'm not smiling but there is absolute joy in that and that's happiness is is a sense of involvement in life which is that gratitude for being here and recognizing that that i deserve to be here and i deserve what i want in life simply because i am here because if i didn't deserve it i wouldn't be here now there was an expression i really liked by someone saying that you're that important to the universe that if with you here it's all it can be without you here it would only be some of what it could be and it couldn't exist you're that important that's how important we are that that you're here because you're supposed to be here and actually according to your desires and and your makeup and the energy states and all the build-up of the karmic stuff in there and all this kind of

business that's driving you life has devoted itself to us all individually in its own amazingly unique ways that we all have these incredibly different experiences and we all have our different challenges and we're all so unique and taking on such different things, but each of us is being attended to fully. Not one of us is having more of life and life giving less is in fact, this often works out that someone that feels like I'm getting more of life,

look, I've got the money in this. Oh my God, I'm so unhappy. To the persons that I've got nothing and challenged and then suddenly, oh my, I'm revealing so many incredible things is that life's giving everything to to us all and i think for me you know sometimes it it's just a case of being receptive to it yeah to realize that you've launched a new podcast

which is fantastic why have you called it i am and why did you decide to launch it because launching it because it's my passion and it just it was another one of those inspired things that came out when you're sort of thinking i never thought about doing one and all of a sudden it was kind of and actually people were saying to me you should do one i i it's not really i'm just interested in this and all of a sudden i thought i really want to speak to this person and i think this person i think some of the message i think people might like because i was speaking to more and more people and they were being interested in kind of this

side of things i thought this would be really interesting so i i started on that and just did one and as i did it i suddenly realized i liked i liked just probing and then allowing i was kind of ask a question and just sit back and go wow this is brilliant and of course it's always a good sign when you you're doing something which is you know which i guess could be determined as some kind of career-based thing but you're looking at thinking this is just what i'll be doing anyway yeah i mean it's better than what i'll be doing because i'd normally be at home listening to this kind of stuff that you're saying but now i'm talking to you about it and i get your presence and everything and why i am because exploring what that true self may look like or or not may look like but but other people's experience of it to help that

worthy connection of ideas to expand back towards the infinite, you know, the true self of there's no boundaries to what we really are. So when our idea expands, we're getting closer to it. And I think just to explore what other people's ideas and experiences have been of that connection is important. And I am because that's all it's about it's about the I am before it attaches to something else I am a woman I am a man I am um a doctor or a sportsman I am good I'm bad I'm I'm I'mny anything that follows the am is a limit upon the potential i'm free still not as much as like going back to the car garage idea

when you're looking at the cars i am now it's an i'm a car owner but before that i just am and that's where all the possibility is it's the unrealized is where potential is so when the i am sits unrealized that's where all the possibility is so if someone if someone was to ask you who are you today how does what you just said frame that answer it's really a good one because i can't talk about the i am that i was talking about then because i don't necessarily i only have my experience of it when i talk about it i'm gonna i'm gonna sort of slightly shift towards the i am what's next yeah but

there is the thing that keeps me feeling and really feels honestly truthfully close to the i am is the open-endedness of the answer i'll give which is is that I'm unknown. That's a genuine experience is that I have no idea who I am. I just have, I was so sure at one time. Now I have no idea. I was so sure of past and future. I've no idea now. It's moved to that state now where I'm just, I'm excited and curious about all of that.

So who am I? I've got so, I've got nothing for you other than the fact that I feel unrealized. I feel like I'm a work in progress that's never gonna progress. I feel like it used to be a journey, but a journey gives the sense that you've come from somewhere and you're going somewhere. I'm actually, I'm actually an adventure. I'm an adventure, which means it's, I'm an exploration. And I'm, I'm, I feel like

the best thing about it that i can say is that i'm never going to arrive at an answer for that or an answer for anything and and it's in that space like i said i'm back in that i'm back in that car garage my pockets feel full and it's not just cars it's like every moment of life is in that garage and i'm looking at each one thinking these are all great i'm just gonna i'm just gonna sort of i'm just gonna enjoy them all and and do my best to to remain free of of becoming attached to too many of them does it matter to you through this conversation through the conversations you're having on your podcast? Does it matter to you what other people think?

Your former teammates, your former colleagues, people who knew you and interacted with you when I guess you were in a very different energy state to the energy state you're in right now. I'm really interested because the way you speak is not the way people expect an ex-rugby player to speak and an expectation of what. I mean, we're all just humans doing the best that we can. So I get there's a slight contradiction like contradiction even in what I've just said but this idea that what if someone you used to be close to was a close teammate thinks or says publicly man you know joining back then dedicated knew the goal work hard would pull us all up around and we'd get that goal i don't recognize who he is today i don't i don't get what he's talking about

there's been a few of those yes more than a few yeah so so yeah so therefore as someone who who i feel seems to have got a lot of his identity in the past from external validation, are any of those tendencies still left? What happens when you get that criticism or the negativity? Does it matter? Have you learned to frame it differently? You know, what happens there? I get a big... It used to be when, in a game, when something would happen and go well,

whether it be a kick, mostly it was a bit of play. And if it was sometimes an external voice when I was younger, I was actually quite sort of, I was quite sort of, unfortunately, a bit verbal on the field, but also internally, you'd have a voice that would say, yes. I get that yes the other way around now. So when I have those triggered moments, I literally look and say, yes, this is it. So I have, of course, everyone has those critical people. When you say critical, people have an idea that they would like you to do things differently

or whatever. And if that triggers me, when I get triggered, I say, yeah, this is it. This is my moment now. So you mentioned about the external validation. I'm kind of like, well, that's going to hold me back yeah so i want to if i've got something in me i want to see it you know i need someone to shine a bright light because if i think i've cleared a lot of it and there's loads in there hiding i need a bright light to show shine it and that bright light will come because i'm asking for it and it may come in the form of this or this or this. And if I get caught in trying to prove myself,

I'm going to miss the point. So on the one hand, I like being triggered. On the other hand, I know from being alongside a lot of those guys when I was younger that we all wanted the same thing. We wanted to be free and happy. I know that it's so difficult for players coming out of the sport which seems to have so much attachment and and highs and lows to it that gives you a feeling of being someone that when it's taken away from you you end up with the immediate sense of being no one that everyone's on that journey everyone's

on the journey towards as you said happiness and finding out what their worth is and so there's always that connection the same way that if if you want to connect with someone you don't think you've got anything to say you'll connect over the fact that what is it you really want in life oh sure funny enough we got that in common what is it that really holds you back in life oh funny enough we can talk about that forever or if we got those two out the way we can talk about tell me about something yeah tell me some stuff in life that you don't know about yeah and you'll find that we don't know so much and the i think we're all on that journey anyway the other part of it finally is just that um when you meet people because i was up in newcastle just yesterday meeting so many of guys i hadn't seen for 10 years plus 15 years um i don't talk like this

when you talk to them funny enough this is this is geared to the energy of our conversation and what have you and and the energy of the room and whereas when you meet people they wouldn't notice the change not because i'm holding anything back but because that's the best that's that's the the most strong connection is there through that so we have a laugh my language has changed because as i was really judgmental when i was younger because of this need to reference myself as better and what have you so often other people took the brunt of that by me you know you're not professional you don't want it enough yeah you shouldn't be here all this kind of stuff so that i could feel better

about myself and so that's of no interest to me anymore i don't yeah it's just everyone is equally value and worthy so but naturally you guide conversations into areas where it always ends up being about this though it doesn't matter what you start on at some point it's crazy how it almost from a um i don't know sort of it is a synchronistic kind of happening that someone will just say something yes it's just been a bit tough for some of this i mean oh really what's happening this is this oh yeah yeah and then one comment is kind of like yeah that's funny you should say that actually yeah do you want to catch up at any time yeah yeah sure and if people say what on earth are you talking about

then it's almost kind of like to me if it challenges me then brilliant but often that's that's probably on me because i've misread the energy whereas and i think that's where i'll be trying to be something whereas when you're listening you know if someone says something to you and you respond up here when they've spoken here i mean that's because i haven't read where where the opportunity was and often you're trying to talk about this stuff when it's not relevant i mean that's not their fault no that's that's on me but it's but actually the root to this is always there if you kind of because it's my desire i'm really interested in growth i love the fact that people can feel you know like also there on that journey and if that's my

huge underlying intention when we talk chances are that's going to manifest in some way to finish off this you know mind mind-expanding conversation. One of the quotes I've written down that I've heard you say is, making friends with the unknown is the biggest key to connecting with yourself. I think it's really, really powerful. This podcast, Johnny, is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of life. There's been a lot of wisdom shared in this conversation, but I always like to finish off

with some final thoughts from my guests. I think many people will feel inspired. Some might feel a little confused, but also challenged and also i want to go there yeah i want to go there maybe i need to re-listen maybe i need to pause and rewind a few times as you say we all at our core want the same things we want that happy joyful passion-filled life do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share with my audience happy, joyful, passion-filled life. Do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share with my audience?

I think probably the most important part of this, when you said about feel better, live more, I feel like the whole thing comes down to to to that sense of worthiness and the biggest message which is so difficult because sometimes it it feels like it can step away sometimes from people suffering and struggling and like i said challenge doesn't come unless it's your challenge isn't really valid challenge unless it's it's a challenge everyone is facing challenges and i think you know we had a chat before and i really enjoyed what you were saying about you know and relating to

what i'm talking about that energy state of being if i was in your energy state of being right now, I'd be doing exactly the same thing. There is nothing better, worse, right, more right or more wrong about me than you. Also, it's important to realize that you just can't know anyone else. If you want to know them as much as you you can ever know them is you have to know yourself deepest that's the work and i think that's the biggest respect to pay to anyone is to say what can i offer you i can just offer you all of me and to get all of me out i've got

to work on what's stopping me from being all of me because otherwise that work will will be my greatest respect to you so i can be all i can be for you and my presence can mean you can be all you can be around me and just to mention again and again that everyone has struggles and who knows what's happening beneath the facade and everyone's like i've said i'm trying i've been trying to prove myself all my life and and underneath i've wanted something different but i've been on the face asking for what it is not for something that i haven't actually been wanting and i think just respecting that and giving each other a break. People talk about tolerance, but tolerance has that sense that what someone's doing isn't right and you have to tolerate it.

But I think that compassion to understand that every meeting of a person with another person, when you strip away the physical, as we've done with the I am, what goes is what they look like how old they are where they've come from everything about the story and what you end up with is the reason why you're being put together and as long as we remain in this idea of this is who i am what i look like how old i am and this is my story you get their story with it your version of their story and nothing gets done you get two two actors having an on-stage scripted conversation that's come straight

out of the energy being and it's been almost predetermined whereas when you're willing to strip that down you get you get something mind-blowing and you mentioned about putting the bins out it's that same with every conversation you have with a person it's just let go of this idea that i've done more than you or i'm older than you or you're better than me whatever how strong that, and that's for me is the being there is that the rest, it's just not important. When you think about actually the opportunity to connect on this level right now and to be vulnerable enough to share deeply. And ultimately, as it all comes down to is friends with the unknown is just take a punt on trust. friends with the unknown is it's just take a punt on trust and it's hard for everyone's been let down in so many ways or feels they have or been betrayed or but it's kind of like yeah but you and yourself you haven't been so take a trust in you and let that feed out into the world you don't

have to trust other people you start with trusting yourself and then that will feed out and you'll get there I think but I'm on that on that path and my my path is full of challenges and you catch me tomorrow and i'm in the middle of a challenge i'll be like it's probably not a good time for an interview let me uh i'm still there as well but uh my respect goes out to people and their opinions you mentioned about my podcast i love hearing people think and yeah if you don't like it let me have it yeah let me have the reason tell me what you think would be better and tell me and tell me some guests you think you'd like to have on there and all those things and and and help us all grow it together johnny it's been such a joy and pleasure speaking to you thanks for taking the time my pleasure to come to the studio i really hope this isn't our

last conversation together and um yeah looking forward to putting the bins out tomorrow very good nice so what did you think did that conversation challenge you did it make you reflect well as always do have a think about one thing that you can take away and start introducing into your own life. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. Always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it.

Because when you feel better, you live more.