Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Rewrite Your Own Life Story | John McAvoy #361

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, 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. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 210 of the podcast with endurance athlete and author, the inspirational John McAvoy. John was born into a notorious crime family and served 10 years in prison for armed robbery. Since then, he has achieved incredible self-transformation. And in this clip, John shares why we all have the power to rewrite our own story. we all have the power to rewrite our own story.

Starting point is 00:01:50 I often find this when people have been to the real extremes in life, there's a real depth, there's a real understanding of the truth, of what it really means to be living a life on this beautiful planet. When I see the content you put out, I see someone who is always positive who's always upbeat the glass is half full not half empty but do you have bad days like anyone else and what happens when you have those bad days oh I'm like every every human that walks this planet like you have good and you have bad days stuff happens to me sometimes I've got no control over, but I always draw back from my life experiences. Like I've experienced dark places. Like when I was locked in a segregation cell for 365 days all on my own and I had very like limited human

Starting point is 00:02:38 contact. That's bad. That's given me a great perspective on what bad actually is. So even if I've got nothing now, and I've got no money, I've experienced what having nothing is. I've genuinely experienced what that feeling feels like. So no matter what happens to me in my life now, I understand what it feels like to be in that position, that dark, dark place. And it's kind of like, without being too cheesy about it, but like I see when I got released from prison, it was like a rebirth. Like when you go to prison, someone once said to me, you don't live, you just exist. And it's the nearest thing you can come to death, but not being dead. Cause you're basically in a concrete coffin, but you're alive, but you've

Starting point is 00:03:20 lost all your liberties, which in my case was deservingly so like I broke the law I'd made bad life choices based on my sort of my childhood and what I thought was right and wrong but I made those decisions which led me to go into prison and spending 10 years of my life in there but when I got released it was like I felt like I was like reborn and that's why I'm so appreciative of every day that I'm alive now. And the experiences that I get and the privilege of being able to see some beautiful places and interact with incredible human beings. And sometimes you can feel like you're overly happy. But the world went from being very dark and grey to very colourful.

Starting point is 00:04:00 And like when my friend passed away in that car crash I could have easily died with him if I wasn't in prison I would have probably been with him in the Netherlands when he committed that robbery and the car flipped and he died and two other people died and the driver broke his back I could have easily been with him in that car and that would have been the end of my life or the day I got arrested and the police had 20 machine guns pointed at me if one of them pulled the trigger that would have been the end of my life but I was fortunate that I did didn't happen to me. And I went to prison. And then I went through that journey in prison, that process of change, that when I got released, I'm so appreciative of my freedom and how beautiful the world is and the fact that I get to meet and mix with incredible human beings.

Starting point is 00:04:41 It can depend on what the actual situation is but forgiveness and not holding on to resentment albeit very very challenging is such an important skill to develop for our happiness our well-being the lightness in our being, right? Not holding onto all this negativity. What's your relationship like with forgiveness? Well, I would go back. I think the Buddha said it about with anger and resentment, it's like poison. You drink it, but expect the other person to die and I believe that like you said those negative emotions of resentfulness hatefulness it affects your soul in your core you're the person that will suffer and and I've learned that throughout my life of letting go of situations

Starting point is 00:05:38 because people have often said to me like the journey I was on in prison because again a lot of people that go through the journey of prison become out very, very bitter. They hate the system even more. They feel like they've been brutalized. They don't accept ownership of the reasons why they ended up in there. And again, some of us didn't have the best hands dealt to us in life. Like I had terrible role models as a kid, but I still have to accept the ownership of the decisions I made. So when I went into that place, I put myself in that place. When I went in there when I was a kid, I didn't accept ownership of it. And I felt like I was hard done by.

Starting point is 00:06:13 And then when I was in there, I was even more hateful, more resentful. And I come out and I was even more bitter and I was even more driven to do bad stuff. And I never accepted ownership of my situation because I didn't accept the fact that I put myself in there and I just think you have to let go of that stuff because it's so toxic to your soul and to you as a person even though sometimes again it is very hard but it's about your moment on earth like sometimes you can keep reliving the same trauma in your present things that happened 20 30 years ago and I know it's hard and I know people might listen to this now and go it's easy for him to say, but it's so important

Starting point is 00:06:47 that you do try to move on from stuff because you're carrying something from what happened 10 years ago, in my case, 15 years ago. And again, I accept full responsibility. I put myself in there. But some of the things that happened to me in there, I could quite easily come out and just said, well, I am the way I am. I'm being brutalized by them and I don't let go of it. And if I did act like that, that again i would not be here today having this conversation with you

Starting point is 00:07:09 and all of the good things that have come into my life over the last nine years since i've been released would not have happened because i've still been hanging on and holding on to that bitterness and hatred towards something else and again i want you to grow as a person, to grow and develop. You have to let go of that stuff. What I see of the John McAvoy in 2021 is someone who's got his head together, got his mind together, applying it to help himself and the world. I see someone who is being positive, posting inspirational content, trying to lift others up, being positive, posting inspirational content, trying to lift others up, trying to make sure no other child goes down the same path you went down. There's a lot in life that we have no control over, yet so many of us waste incredible amounts of emotional energy and cognitive reserve on these things that we can't do anything about if i think back to our previous two conversations that you've always seemed to have been someone

Starting point is 00:08:13 who's understood that i can't control everything but i can control a few things and that's what i'm going to focus on is that something you were born with or is that something you were taught? Um, I think it's something I I've learned and grown and developed as I've got older. But yeah, when I was locked in, in a prison cell, like you have literally no control over your environment, like what you eat, what time you go to sleep, day-to-day living in regards of where you are, you haven't got control of that, but you have control over your body. So I control over what I did with my body in regards of what I chose to read, how I exercised. Again, when I realized I wanted to be an athlete, it was those small incremental steps. You don't go from point A to point B literally within one footstep. It takes years of training.

Starting point is 00:09:10 Sometimes the improvement's so minimal, you can't even see it. But when you look back, you go, how did I go from being like that to where I am now? And it's those tiny little small incremental steps every day of improvement. And it takes time and it takes discipline and i and i often say this to young people because all everyone sees like when you see social media is the highlight reel the end of it they don't see the heartache the the discipline the focus the setbacks they don't see that part of it but everyone wants to show real at the end but then the minute they try to attempt to get to the show reel and they realize actually this is quite hard or i'm not good enough because look how good he is but they don't realize how

Starting point is 00:09:48 long that took for that person to get to that point and i often say that to kids like you it's a small process stay in day out of consistency believing in yourself believing there's better for yourself believing you can achieve what you set out to do. Because I do believe we're all equal as human beings. I do fundamentally believe that. That's why I feel like I have a duty to really just help people and use that story to show people, actually, look, I'm no different to you. You can do something different in your life. You haven't got to be an athlete.

Starting point is 00:10:19 It can be anything you want. If you want change in your life, it is possible. Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take three steps forward. Sometimes you have to reset, you have to pause, and then you move forward. It isn't easy. Again, monetary, because I know obviously that affects a lot of people's day-to-day living. Sometimes you do have to take a little bit of a step back to have a better quality of life. And that's what I would always say.

Starting point is 00:10:43 It's the quality of life that you're leading. Actually, I took my own advice off your podcast during lockdown. I wasn't very happy living in London. I didn't hate it. My life was okay. But I went to France. I went to the Alps on a training camp a couple of years ago, and I fell in love.

Starting point is 00:11:08 Alps on a training camp a couple of years ago and I fell in love. I've never felt towards a place like I felt towards that place. I'd never felt at home anywhere. I was always moving around. I never felt settled. And when I went out there a couple of years ago, I just fell in love with it, literally in love. And I just had this moment of real reflection on myself and I spent this time on my own um in the mountains and I was walking about and I assessed my own life and and I and you you have to practice what you preach and and I wasn't that happy living in London like to me it was like the matrix I was over it was over stimulation I was getting pulled around here there and everywhere doing stuff all the time. And I felt when I was there, I had this connection with nature and it had such a profound, powerful impact over me as a person.

Starting point is 00:11:51 I felt at home and I'd never felt like that. It's like this spiritual connection with the mountains and with that place. And I just made a decision. I thought, this is what I want my life to be. I want to live in this place. And I thought, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to, I'm going to take that step. Me going there financially has hurt me a lot. Like in regards of me generating income, I worked out the maths, what I needed, the minimum to live.

Starting point is 00:12:17 And I thought, as long as I make that, the quality of my life will improve exponentially. And I will get up every morning and I'll have the mountains. I can go and walk. I feel free. And I've never, ever, ever had this sense of freedom that I have when I'm there. In a year, two years time, I don't know where I'll be. I don't know what I'll be doing. Because you just don't know what can come up in life. Life is just a journey of growth. And I think there's such a beautiful big world out there. There's so many incredible humans that you can meet and interact with and learn from. And I think it's so important that people have that open mindset to try and different things and meeting different people and going to different places and experiencing different things. But I just

Starting point is 00:12:58 feel like when I get up every day, I want to be happy and content in my existence whilst I'm here. And if I can just lift other people up, however many people that is, if it's one, if it's 10, if it's a thousand, whatever it is, and I can make someone else's existence on this planet a little bit better, that's what motivates me now. So what is it that we can learn from the decision you made, right? Not everyone has that extreme experience of life to be able to go, you know what? I get what is truly important now. It ain't about money. It ain't about rushing around. It's about inner contentment and peace. What would you say to someone who is struggling with where they are at the moment in life? And

Starting point is 00:13:43 they hear that and go, yeah, all right for you, mate, but I can't make that kind of decision. We're all on our own journeys. And what brings happiness and contentment to everyone is very unique to that person. I would say in the situation of what motivates me and why I make my decisions is that I have a great appreciation of how short life is.

Starting point is 00:14:04 Going back to when my friend died, my dad before I was born. Life's so short, nothing's given to any one of us right now. Like really all you have got is the moment and the present. Tomorrow's not guaranteed to anyone. The next second is not guaranteed to me or you right now doing this podcast. And you have to act because I don't want to live my life and to be into a position where if I even get to the point where I have a time to reflect on my existence on this earth, I don't say, what if, if only I did that. And I think sometimes you do have to take those risks and take yourself out of your

Starting point is 00:14:37 comfort zone because again, life isn't this safety net. Like you don't know when it's going to end and you have to wake up and be happy and content in whatever it is you do. And like I said, it isn't about going to a different country. If you don't like your job, do something. Don't just pull it off. Don't just suffer it. Try to do something different

Starting point is 00:14:55 because life is such a precious gift. And we are on this earth for such a short period of time. You have to act. You have to do stuff if you want your life to be different hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip i hope you have a wonderful weekend and i'll be back next week with my long-form conversational wednesday and the latest episode of bite science next friday next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Rewrite Your Own Life Story | John McAvoy #361

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.