Armed Robber Explains How To Completely Turn Your Life Around | John McAvoy

[Music] so John welcome to the podcast thank you very much for having me on I have been so looking forward to this conversation it's been how long have we been trying to get the setups over a year over yeah every year over year we finally managed to do it thanks for driving up are your story is so incredible and inspirational it's pretty hard to know where to start so I guess we should probably start with how you drive up was I wasn't expecting that my drive up was in too bad to be honest I had drove from London up to Derby and I stayed at Darby last night my friend's house and I drove from Darby here this morning stopping it the gym on the way out to show you yeah she trained quite a lot now yeah I trained seven days a week I've got quite a bit blocker train at the moment because I'm racing next weekend at the Red Bull time-lapse race which is a 25 hour 6k loop do as many loops as you can on you bite in that time yeah so I'm in the last big block of training before that race next Saturday so how many loops you have to do well it's literally 25 hours because it's the equinox just bring the clocks go back and it's how many times you can cycle around at that 6k loop in twenty five hours and you get a power hour so at I think twelve o'clock at night they let you go into a mini loop and everything you do on that mini loop is doubled elapsed it's like a computer game yeah it is is there's I think there's 1,000 people taking part in a relay in relays um and there's 20 of us doing it as solo riders so just on your own though I have to sort of sort of work out the strategy and what I'm gonna use to cycle for that 24 hours I mean it sounds to me as though of course that's about fitness but it seems to be more about mental strength totally yes 110 no you I think in a lot of aspects of what I do today I think that's probably why I went across into endurance sport in the first place because I think like 80% of its physicality I'll show you I say yes physicalities what in the context of the training and getting there but then when you do a small like Ironman the psychological element of the race is far greater than the physicality of you being shrunk because at a point your body will start screaming future slowdown and you've got so much time to process what you're doing so for instance riding a bike for 25 hours I've got so much time to analyze why I'm doing it it becomes past physicality like it's so long that it's not just about being really quick because because your mind if your mind gives up and cracks that then obviously it doesn't matter how strong you are physically you you will stop all your slowdown yeah it's interesting hearing you say that in the context of your story and your life journey is incredible because you appear to be someone to me who's got an incredible about mental strength and you know have you ever cracked has your minds ever quite to the point where you couldn't go on no not no no it hasn't it's weird like because I don't know like the environment as a kid and growing up and situations I believe obviously experienced it takes a lot of who you become as an adult from your childhood I often says about myself I don't see myself as being unique in any which way like that's how I've always been so so what I do today for instance the sport I do and how I lived my life I've I've always been like that with the mindset but what can what can happen if you apply that mindset interests I'm very negative how detrimental it could be because how I am today is how I've always been in certain regards yeah but years ago that same mindset was applied in saying very negative and it was them very destructive so how I led my life and the sort of consequences of that behavior and what that obviously led me to being in prison for 10 years of my life that's incredible to think that the same mindset that can lead you to incredible athletic success it's the same mindset that when applied to different choices and different ideologies can lead to you being in a prison cell and that's quite fascinating for me well I I could tell you a very interesting story once so a really good friend of mine went to London 2012 Olympics and he's retired after he now he won a silver medal he was well champion and Roman and he wrote at the same round club as me and we were we were running along every day so he was training for the marathon and and I remember as we're running along we was we was having a sort of discussion about environment and growing up and I was trying explain to him the conversations that me and him having that day I was having those conversations in a high-security prison unit with people that were in there Forgan eyes crime but as young people that they had that exposure to crime and that way of life he was exposed to sport rowing but the mindset was that the same the world to win the one is to be successful to wait to achieve sewing the we need to leave a legacy those characteristics were exactly the same they were they were exactly the same as what both groups of people had but it was how this group of people apply their into crime and it become detrimental to their lives and they had on society by their childhood and by the lack of opportunity to do something else and have any awareness for that mindset what you could potentially do with that if it was applied into something else so that that's it comes back to what I just said a minute ago is like if if what when I was growing up as a kid I strongly believe this if I would have had exposure to Richard Branson or was someone that was involving business or an athlete my life journey would have been completely different but when I was a young boy my mindset and my exposure was directed towards criminality and and everyone that I saw that was like me and they were like me like my stepdad when I was growing up as a kid he was driven he was very focused he spent 16 years in prison for armed robbery had five acquittals at the Old Bailey but he was similar to me I could I saw similarities in these people and they made that life and and I attributed success to be money it become very obtainable like it was a road in which to get it and what I deemed had being successful as at that point in my life which was having lots of money they all had lots of money so he become very tangible and I could touch it and it was real and they showed me a direct path that that mindset that I had how I could then go and obtain that success yeah so in some ways there's a dedication to excellence it's just depends on what your definition of excellence is right and if you're driven by money in and around you you're growing up where criminal activity is leading people to having money and having all the you know the material success in life of course you're gonna apply that mindset so that's so for a lot of people listen to this they may not be familiar with your story John and the fact that you were in prison for ten years did you say yes yes so maybe you could walk us through that I mean what happens you know what was his childhood like how was it that you ended up with such a strong mindset in a prison cell so I will have to probably go all the way back to before I wasn't even born so my real dad died of a massive heart attack at 38 years old he went to bed one night and my mom is eight months pregnant with me and he didn't ever woke up it was unkind those didn't realize I had a heart condition passed away so I get born into the world but that's named John and I had what you could class is quite a relatively loving childhood right Christmases were happy for me my mum my sister bought me up and my boy we had this big extended family all of mama had loads lots lots of sisters so that my on is my cousins and and I was a happy child I was a really happy child I was really well loved amazing memories of my childhood and when I started going to primary school to me not having a dad didn't I didn't know I was missing anything cuz I didn't have a dad because he was just normal because there was no man in our lives as a kid and I and I remember the children of primary schools used to tease me now you said that where's your dad and then obviously I didn't know who my dad was and I never I remember as a little boy I went home and I asked my mum my mum explained to me that my dad had died and obviously been a little quick kid and even as a man I'm very acquisitive I always like to understand stuff I've always had that mindset as a kid which we can go on that play that later on in my life and my mum explained to my dad had died obviously my question about what does that mean my mum explained that he's gone to heaven then I made a connection from a very young age that my life was limited like I wouldn't be alive ever and I made this connection as young as that one day I would not live and something in me as a kid where I didn't want to be normal in the context of I wanted to achieve my life I didn't want to be average and I know it's overwhelming effect on me and my mum used to take me to museums and like the HMS Belfast on the Thames London London dungeons Tower London the British War Museum stuff and and I just used to love learning about history and she's to get minis magazines every month called discovery and in discovery booklets used to get puzzles and used to be about humiliate from the Poli and then you'd learn about history as you did I was a little boy and I can remember thinking like these men and women were on earth before I was born and hundreds of years and I was in this my house in Crystal Palace Park Road in London and and I am reading about them and what they're done and and I was so young I didn't understand it was it was legacy but they had achieved something in life where I was now reading about them 100 years after their diet and then that Lind sparked something in me that that I wanted that when I was older like I wanted to achievement my life that was significant and I don't know how this sort of happened but I just then morphed into this obsession with British Telecom and I used to sit there and love watching the adverts on TV and and again I I was I was a young boy and I'll never forget like we'd drive in my mum's car and I'd be in the back court of passion Jersey and I look out the window and every corner had a BT phone box and then when I'd go around to my aunties and uncles houses they had a complete monopoly on the telephone communication system and everyone had the BT landline and I remember like I'd run round and there would be a BT phone in the bedroom in the living room and I said to my uncle one day I said how much money does British Telecom make and he said they made billions of pounds a year and him from that moment my dream when I got older was to own British Telecom and I was convinced that I was in live anyone said to me what do you want to be in your older I want to own British Telecom the reason I'm trying to I'm explaining to you now is because even from a little boy I know I was like eight years old I was so driven to do something with my life I wanted to achieve something and then you can only classed as what happened next was like this perfect storm of this man coming to my life when I was eight years old I didn't know who was he come into our house and Christopher's part road and men never released to come round my mom's house other than my uncles and he walked in and he was immaculately dressed I'll never forget black hair really white teeth massive gold watch on his wrist really clean black shoes and I was just I remember I'm standing all the way and I am I might already come in and I was just an oralist man who was in order of him and he went into the living room and he asked me to go and make him a cup of tea and I went into the kitchen and this little boy I made him his cup of tea and I went back in and I was watching live dialogue me and my sister and then as he was leaving he gave me a 20 pound note and know that I was a young boy it was the first time an adult never giving me paper money and I was just in all his 20 pound out and I remember like obviously as a kid I'm thinking like down to war woofs and spend on sweets and he left and then I asked my mum who he was and my mum explained to me that was her ex-husband so before my mom married my dad when she was growing up as a kid in South London they lived with each other on the same cancellous table both Irish Catholics families were really close they grew up his base he basically kids baby like babies and when they was sixteen my mom got married to him when my mum was 18 she fell pregnant with my sister which was my half-sister really but I didn't see like that and that was her biological dad and he was a bit hard for me to understand so so young but he started coming round take my sister out take him me out he didn't have a son I didn't have a dad he's obviously got this wolf to me knows my real dad's dead so he knows my mum's obviously struggled to bring me up he started taking me out with my sister stops taking my sister out continues to keep taking me out then I'm nine then I'm ten then I'm 11 we're going out to restaurants we going out to bars he's all the trappings of wealth he always used to tell me that when he was 21 years old he was a multi-millionaire he had Mercedes Porsches yeah used to tell me other an apartment on the shuns and these on France in Paris he started taking that to these restaurants and then be all these men they're always friends they were all very similar to him always talking about money was to mint money and my granddad passed away when I was 12 when my granddad passed away me and my mom and my aunt he's were clearing out my dad grandes flat and there was a big bundle of newspaper clippings in an envelope that my granddad had saved in a drawer and open up the jaw took his new bundle of newspaper clippings looks at them and it was like headlines of the Sun newspaper the news of the world and that man Billy my mum's ex-husband was one of the most prolific armed robbers in the United Kingdom yet five acquittals at the Old Bailey the police tried to kill him twice they shot him twice and when I met him when I was 8 years old he literally just been released from serving a 16-year prison sentence for armed robbery if you didn't know any of this I didn't know any of this so he never used to talk to me about prison whatsoever up to that point so how do you you just found out when you were looking through these clippings yes and as a 12 year old you connect the dots up so the Porsche 911s and the mercedes-benz and this that yeah like you start connecting up and you probably starts I surmised that all the money that he had now today and all the men that we were going out with he friends were all engaged in that behavior then I had the awareness of that's what was happening so how old are we then at that point I was 12 to 12 so for four years you've become very close some guesses yeah very very close like I saw him like Yves my dad I treated him like that like I loved him he looked after me Christmas like he was become like my father he didn't live with us but he was he was he was in my mum's life because of my sister so he used to always come round and pick my sister at minimum start picking me up and presumably your mum knew what he was up to or his life my mum my mum knew probably what his previous lifestyle I don't think my mum necessary knew what he was getting up to because a delivery choice there wasn't any relationship so they were very separated like my mum was a florist yeah when I work everyday and and I often say it's about my mum situation with this in regards situation because my mum married him and I were little kids yeah and they grew up together and and I know my mum told me this month's like he was even normal like in regards of he was a planer decorator and when he was 16 years old his father got murdered in front of him and my mum always said to me when I got older that was the trigger and something inside him changed and then he'd in and up basically going off onto this path of becoming one of Britain's most wanted men and becoming one the most high-profile armed robbers in the United Kingdom from that turning point of watching his dad get murdered in front of him when he was 16 years old I mean it's fascinating to hear how little not little things how things that happen to us at various points in our life it can completely shape us it can change our viewpoint it can change our perception of the world's you know had he not seen his dad be shot who knows what he would have been doing right yeah and it's and and that yeah and I'm wanting that happening with him he started hanging out with the wrong groups of people that then showed him a different life and and and basically schooled him and and then that then played itself out within my relationship with him when I then started making that decision that that was the life I was gonna choose he started and he used to reference it to me like when he got taught how to engage in that lifestyle for me in a young man then when I made decision that's that I went to do it he then started becoming the person who schooled him he started becoming to school me in the regards of and he nice and it feels very weird talking about this today because obviously my life so far removed from that what it was once before in the past but like the the facts of like you you you never talk in your house and you never talk in cars because the police can bug them and you start hearing the stuff when you're 13 14 years old teaching me how to drive lorries she teach me at learning teaching me how to drive campus surveillance all this stuff they're not growing up like I started learning it like and and one of the memories that really sticks with me when I was a young boy most teenagers you drink call when you grown-up you on that part you learning about yourself and you hanging out your friends and and I remember one day me and my friends are in the park we've we've managed to get some cider got drunk I've gone home on being sick and I'm a decider I was in my school backpack and my school backpack was left in the bush next to where we lived in this like little fields and some old lady walking her dog found the backpack open up oh alcohol she's gone down to the local police station she's dropped the bag off then the police station opened up found my report card phoned up my skull got my house number the police officers and found my mama said your son has left the bag down here it's got alcohol in it obviously they know I'm young can you can you bring your son down and obviously probably want to scare him a bit and not drink so my mom takes related PlayStation sit in the in the room and a police officer and the policeman says to me who's she with and I told him I didn't think nothing more of it I'll come 13 years old I just told him I said I was with my friends from school go home step that comes around like he did every every now and again I've never have a week and stuff and and he found out that I had told the policeman about my friend and he wasn't mad the fact that I was drinking alcohol in a park he was mad because I told the policeman about my friend and I'll never forget he said you never ever ever inform on your friends and and and that had a really again had a massive impact on my psychology about loyalty my relationships towards people he used to say to me as a kid never trust women he said to me all the time but piller used to call it pillow talk like cuz you susceptible to you tell a woman something you cheat on Oh or you get divorced and the next thing you know she's standing up and called testifying against you and I'm a young boy and you're absorbing all this stuff as a young kid growing up and it started out it start start to have a quite the impact on your perception of the world and what people are in your perception our loyalty to above all a human beings but that becomes your normal right that is that's what you know to be the norm and your your getting educated by your stepfather so this is what you think you think this is the way to behave in this way sad step at 12:00 when you found out about how your stepfather was probably getting his money do you remember a thought process of that time do you remember thinking should I talk to someone about this should I have a chat with my mom you know was it just too was it too overwhelming I mean what can you remember what went through your head I think it aged it's very exciting it's very cowboys and Indians yeah and then you're around these men because Mara - isn't just him now it's just other men that they're living their lives like a million miles an hour they've got a fragrant disregard for law it regulations law doesn't apply some say if you're a teenage boy and you're around men that are 30 40 50 years old and they've got that outlook on life and they're all incredibly wealthy and they've all got big houses and they've all got nice cars and they do what they want when they want and no one tells them what to do when to do it they've they've completely taken themselves out a society like toxicated no it is a young boy and it was like it generally was again like looking back on it I didn't have the awareness then to see obviously I didn't have the maturity yeah you can get sucked into that so that mindset as a kid because I didn't have the material and I didn't see anything else and this is what this is why I'm so passionate about today like I genuinely understand when young people make these poor life choices why how they wear their minds out when they make it she does about how driven you are our ambitious you are when you get older you want to do these amazing things own British Telecom you only know what you know and suddenly if your life that lens gets all in and everyone else outside that world's abnormal yeah everyone else is unknown about your life these people are normal and everyone else is at normal and again I can tell your story one day and it again it had had profound impact on me when we was driving through an area of Kent and my stepdad had this Porsche 911 and it was the limited edition car there was 200 of them at that point in this country and he and he was telling me this and we're driving along we stopped at a traffic lights and I'm sitting in the passenger seat this Porsche and you know he said to me look out the window and I looked out and he said these people like sheep and and I didn't know what he was what he meant and I and I was would you mean the Sheep and he said they're also I used the system and he said the system takes from them and we take from the system and and again I it really did have a powerful impact on me because then what then happened when I started going to school my teachers become the system and they become my authority and how unfair this system was but these people went to work every day they pay tax and the system above them was corrupt and these people did what they wanted when they wanted and and that and again there's a kid when I started doing back to school I was like looking at my teachers if he you're part of the system or you're part of the state and then as much as I love learning which I did like a love history love geography I love I was inquisitive suddenly I end up hating my teachers um and then I started in completely disregarding my education completely churning from school I had no interest in it because to me then it was like I'm not going to engage with the system by getting an A in English my math isn't gonna get me what I want in life so it was just ingrained in you that you don't engage with the system you don't play by the rules as a system is the enemy the system is the enemies matter who that is whether it's the police officer school doesn't matter any one of official authorities aware if someone not to engage where yes and you and your life becomes dictated to by your set of your moral compass so that when I was growing up it was instilled like I couldn't even think I couldn't even comprehend ever ever ever allowing a finger on a woman like couldn't even calm her end it like that was a big no-no doing anything toward people who went to work everyday big no-no Burghley in someone's house big no-no selling selling her in a big no-no so you're governed by your own sense of morality but not what society tells you what's right I'm on what the lawmakers tell you what's right and wrong in one level it's empowering to think what society is not gonna tell me how to live my life you know it's interesting that you wouldn't obviously you taught not to touch women not not to harm women not to harm people who'd go to work you know not to burgle people's houses but you can burgle a bank yes because the bank is assisting yes yes so even within that sort of I guess criminal activity there's a code yeah there was a code of conduct which your bye-bye yeah hundreds n and and and that was an axle of that that mindset even when you going go to prison you you get treated differently because of this when I went to prison I the the the prison officers would treat people that they classed as serious criminals at people that involved in serious and organised crime completely different it's how they would treat common criminals that were stolen or so on someone's car or burgled an old lady's house so livers are a hierarchy so with in crime with with the people that I was associated as a young man and as a man were the top end of the hierarchy so then when um went to prison he was then completely treated completely different to other prisoners that's fascinating so just just expand on that a little bit so are you saying that you got preferential treatments in prison compared to people who did the lesser crimes I don't know yeah yeah a hundred sent like a hundred cents the prison officers retreat you completely different to how they would treat normal what they were classed as normal prisoners and why is that is that a fear of retribution it was it was respect they respected you and and again this is what I remember when I went to prison when I was 18 years old first time I ever got arrested right it might like properly so forget about when I was a kid with a bag at school with the decider but as an adult 18 or an adult I was a teenager go to prison and because of police intelligence because my stepfather and all the people that they saw that I was hanging out with when I was under a police surveillance operation when I go to prison if you're under the age of 21 years old you can't be kept with adults over 21 in prison in this country you're classed as a young offender so you go to like a young offenders institution ways that between ages of 18 to 21 um but because the police believe that I had the means to escape from lawful custody because my stepdads and all of his friends most of them have tried to escape over the years and people I've been seeing if I had to then be what they defined as being a category a prisoner which was the highest level of security you could put a prisoner run in his country the problem then was there was no young offenders prison estate where they could put a category a prisoner because it was so rare so what in that happening they had to then put me in an adult prison because because I was too high security to be kept the young offenders so I go to this allo prism I'm 18 years old I'm in a segregation unit when they moved me there that explain to me what's happened they said your your category a this is what's happened we can't put you in a young offenders institution you're gonna go up on a wing are you gonna cause trouble because you're a young man and normally tend to find in prison the younger people because the testosterone being the ability to be able to control their tempers and stuff they're more wild in prison far more hot they're far more harder to contain they cause more issues to the prison service so they were worried I'm gonna go into this prison wing and I'm gonna stop causing those you travel for all these grown men that been in a few years so I said I wasn't saying I'll go on there um because again I was taught at sickened that myself like I didn't want to show any weakness so I didn't show any fear so when I get in that banana in that situation people are saying well how did you feel not but I had no respect for the system so we're not gonna trade in no respect I didn't I didn't fear it it was already normalized to me in regards of I heard men talk about what prison was like yourself so when I go into this wing and shave off the bat prison officers are like lavishing praise on me because they're like oh you must be really serious tonight you must know some really serious people because you're so young and you're on this high level scooted and suddenly all these men that are in on that wing and I'll never forget it like there's guys in there that would commit you to drug trafficking and armed robbery right serious serious criminals and their lavish in this praise on to me as a young man saying or you must have a lot of bottle like if you're in this situation you're on this level secure it's such a young age right you must be really game that meaning I was I would do a lot of stuff and then that starts planning to the psychology and you then you're getting you getting praise off people are as a young man um it's then it forms your identity Vermont it reinforces that this is my life but not prison but this is my life these are the people that I look up to these are my peers and people that I respect and II and I feel embarrassed today saying this to you because they did it that like look at when I put myself back in that situation or how I used to idolize some of these men that now understand the grand up oh it meant a lot to have that respect showing of them that now when I look back I find it embarrassing to say is that young person I respected those people and and not I crave their admiration but it put him anyways I mean it's fascinating to hear you say that because in many ways that your stories really giving an insight in to many including myself as to what it's like for some people in terms of your norm is your norm right doesn't matter what someone else's norm is if that's your norm I mean what do young men crave you want acceptance you wants you know to be seen as something you know people are lavishing praise on you if you're you know if you didn't you know obviously your father wasn't there so this is a new male figure in your life who is someone to you know idolize I guess someone to look up to it's of course you're gonna end up so it's a you know yes I guess it's interesting so you say it was in Barrett it's embarrassing now reflecting that especially given the changes that have taken place in your life but in many ways how can people blame you for did you know you know what I mean in many ways how could you've gone any other way and again III wholeheartedly accept full responsibility for every decision I've ever made in my life good and bad I'd like no one ever forced me into doing anything clever did I chose what I did wasn't a mistake it wasn't a mistake they were poor life decisions based on what I thought was right at that moment in time by like you said if you only know what you know um and and I and as for the people listening sister today some people might listen to it and might not like me and but I'll be honest reviewing that and and that was how that was what my life was like and and like everyone that I saw outside of that world was that normal to me and I couldn't fathom it I couldn't fathom how other people functioned in that system that I thought was so unfair and then it wasn't like we that we wasn't Robin Hood's and are they I didn't see myself as that as such a person because inherently doing what we did why I did is incredibly selfish and it's all about you and it's all about you being successful and you achieve and what you want to do in a night and because again you don't like my cop-out mechanism years ago was I've never heard no one never visit no one no I've never killed anyone I've never I've never done anything like that but the psychological damage you do to people can be far greater than the physical damage and that took me years we honestly it took me two hours to wait for that moment of change that you start in looking at your life and how destructive that is to other people because you just feel like well I'm not actually hurt no one and I remember I used to sit there with psychologists and we'd sit end and that unless you cop out like well I thought I've not I've not actually had a victim so as part of your and that you're the people who were engaging me activity with you as part of your moral code we don't hurt people without harm people so you were actually living up to that moral code you like well look yeah we're taking money from the system we're not hurting anyone but but but the physically we're not very lucky but the person that still has to do that role in which to take that money into a bank or to do that person that person you start seeing him as an extension of the system and they're not yeah they're going to work but that's your copper and I'll never forget I was in a I was in a maximum-security prison in 2000 and he was at 2007-2008 mum called for Saturn which is one of my heart is the highest security prison in the country and I was on a victim awareness course and there was this old lady that come in the Chaplaincy was running victim awareness and never forget her name was called June and her husband or they basically over Christmas their house was burglarized the burglars stole all of their lot a lot of their Christmas presents and her husband's insulin and he calls the massive issue over Christmas Fulham and he destroyed ruin their Christmas so I'm sitting there there's about four or five hundred people in the room of us and and know all convicted of serious offenses like these some of these men were like multi-millionaire drug traffickers and we've all got our arm around June because I'm saying what a scumbag but I can make the association between me and that person yeah because I was on June side and that's how wars yeah your mindset is like like one of the guys said if I have a seen dude I ought to beat him up if I was seen in command your house and I would leave all him out and and we will fall so sorry for June because I was you know I mean like she was she was an old lady if someone I was brought up to respect she was a female and and then I remember like it's bizarre how when are the difference that rule right it's completely different set of rules and in on the flip side I sit with a psychologist writing my sentence plan and we're talking about victims and any same well not really I've not got none no but you have like and and it and again II when I went for the process of really changing that then you start analyzing your life and the destructive nature of what I've done and it's and I are nothing inherently subconsciously that's why I think that's why I'm so driven to make as much change as I can today because it's something inside me like I look back at my life and and night sometimes today like people lured me as being an inspiration and I'm not like I'm not I'm doing I'm probably making up for all the wrong I've done in my life and that then that drives me today because it's probably an inherent subconscious guilt I've got from the stuff I've done in my past don't you know I've heard you speak before and you must have especially where your life is today and we're going to get to all of that you know you must have shared various assets if your story many times on many interviews what I still feel for me there's a real intensity there's a real almost shaking as you're telling the story and I I want it's a real that's real authenticity in the way you're telling it this real emotion and I get the impression from you know we're sitting what two feet away from each other it feels really sure that you're still affected by that you're still do you feel you're still coming to terms with some of the things that have happened yeah because obviously what might I say obviously isn't obviously if you didn't know me but where my life's gone to such a dramatic u-turn on what I'm doing today like as he as driven as I still AM and the inherent characteristics so I've still got my outlook on life has changed so if if I could define like I was probably someone of the mindset like Donald Trump years ago and now I've gone the completely awful opposite way round to where today of my life and now I perceived the world much more liberal sidon obviously when you've got that mindset now it's challenging when you look back to what you was as I was a man so that I was a grown adult I was like 25 26 years old I was in a maximum-security prisons the way I perceive life by I feel ashamed that I used to see life through the lens like a hierarchy people weaker than others and people were stronger than others and and like being in prison that we used to sit there in prison and I remember having these conversations with Iraq and even dream about this now because my life I see life so differently but like when when I'd be in prison and like we we would think that society we were the higher part of society in regards of like the system fears are so much has to take us out of society because we take from it and I look at it's now I don't see anyone being any different and I mean that I genuinely mean it like I wouldn't treat the Queen of England any different to our tree a kid it was growing up in the cancellous day or a kid that was hitting a young offenders institution 7 the last sense for murder I would treat them equally as the same that we're all equal human beings and I don't see anyone any different and so when I then can take myself back to that point in my life when I fought like that it does make me feel ashamed that I used to think like that um and that's probably why I'm so passionate today we're trying to reiterate the message that I do that we are all equal as people and everyone should be given an equal opportunity in life to have success because we're no different from each other we're all one person up we're human beings we're on the planet at the same time and and I feel again I don't really I don't often sit there and really think about it like this but as we're talking about it now that is probably one of the big reasons why I'm so passionate about doing what I'm doing today and and and I can remember like like when when my life changed and I come out of prison I was so determined to make up for my past I'd say yes to everything right so if a school wanted me to go in yes I'll do it if a charity was going yes I'll do it and I said yes yes yes yes yes to everything and I dug myself into this massive hole I got ill okay get in sick sick and cold I ever trained I was trained as a full-time athlete but I felt so obliged and obligated to be known as this different person that I was a good guy I was in that scum bag that spent all these years in prison it was detriment to my own health and and that was how passionate I was about when I come out about making up for all the wrong I've done in my life and it was I remember I used to say yes to everything I'm off really close friend Terry said like you're you cannot keep doing it like you can't keep driving across the country driving a thousand fifteen hundred miles a month going to all these community centers doing all these talk every single day because you're gonna end up making yourself really sick any minute if you crack even you're no good to anyone you have to look after yourself physically or mentally but because you're so determined so driven by wrong path I want you to close a chapter on that and I didn't want to be defined by that one to be defined as the person I am today but I mean and that in itself is so relevant to every single one at first just because you made certain decisions whatever those decisions are doesn't need to define you for the rest of your life you know we we have the opportunity to change all of us do no matter where we think we currently are even I guess if your situation seems insurmountable I think change is always available to us and I guess the you know there's so much to your story but you know I think I'm remembering rights that you were once I think were you given two life sentences and you thought that was we I don't know does that mean you thought you were going in for life that's so so when and what were you doing what what did you get put in for at that point so when I was when like I said everyone when I was in prison when I was 18 I got a five year because custodial sentence I served two and a half years ago I come out um I was 100 times worse than the man who was locked up come out putting even more money um to me change rehabilitation was weakness so I can remember as a young boy growing up said that they'd be casually having conversations about someone who went to prison that come out they didn't see perceive it as changing they saw it as a person being broken the system had broken them all right so my mindset and I was in prison the first time was they will not break me like I come out and I will not change and I will be even worse and I want to make even more money so I come out continue to commit crime the police started watching me I was under surveillance after couple days I'd be in that prison so nice decision uh if I lived in this country the United Kingdom are probably gonna knock that Matt to prison so I made a decision to go abroad which it did I went out to Holland and I went to Spain because I'd like friends and family there come back to United Kingdom after like a year briefly it was only a week for a birthday party I come back and I in that meeting up we run on my stepdads best friends he basically asked me what to commit a conspiracy to commit a robbery I said yes greed over coming again initially I said no he said no and I said no and they don't know because to me the risk and reward didn't work out it was like I didn't I looked at it and I was like I didn't like being United Kingdom I thought the wrist of the amount of money and sofa so is this the first part of you changing potentially or was this will you know no this was just more at that particular job you thought risk reward doesn't doesn't hug you I'll give you an example when I sat my parole board yeah the parole the chairman of the parole board I never forget it looked at me and said to me in the interview you could have come off I'll never forget you could have come off the campus of Cambridge University today and sat in front of me for a job interview but not you're not you're sitting in front of me today trying to get released from a custodial prison sentence and she said you treat crime like a corporate venture you do a cost analysis to everything you do the risk to reward and when he asked me originally my wrists award was it wasn't worth the risk it wasn't the fact that you want to do it because I was frightened to do it it was just literally I didn't want to do it because of that and I said no and then I agreed to do it and then I would enter he's a day that was the best decision I ever chose to make my life because when I agreed to do it what I didn't realize there was a hundred man police surveillance operation watching that individual that I said gesto and I just walked into there one of the biggest surveillance operations that the Metropolitan Police was running in London three days later I'll get arrested for that guy then when I got arrested with him they the game had completely changed time the Metropolitan Police made applications at Home Office and they made me a double category a prisoner which is the highest level of security you can be on in the United Kingdom that meant that when I got put in prison on remand I had to be kept on a Hsu which is a high-security prison unit and I didn't know what that was at the time but it's maybe it's a prison within a prison and it's the most secure prison institution in the whole of Western Europe it was built in the 1990s for the IRA and I'll go into this unit there was a prisoners shape Abu Hamza he was fighting traditional United States of America and the 21-7 attempted suicide bombers who tried to blow up the troops and that that was then my life in there with them yes you saw them yep observe him every day for two two-and-a-half years there was literally that was my life having food with them having lunch with I mean well again it goes back to my moral compass again and I what my moral code was selected for initially when I went on that unit um very claustrophobic we used to quote the Batcave because it was like banks or floodlights very tiny no natural sunlight you know it felt like he was underground basically and I remember walking on the the exercise yard when I first went on the unit and I saw these guys walking around and I recognized them all from the newspapers and stuff and I kind of really understood how much trouble I was in night before all right I knew I was in trouble but then when you go in there and you realize the lemp's to which the police want to keep you in here and not let you out or realized that I was probably not going to get out of this situation and then to me what they had done in my moral code was was as bad as a sex offender that that's how I witnessed perceived them at the beginning and as the and I didn't talk to them I didn't talk to him the only one that I spoke to with Sheikh Abu Hamza and and I remember like when I went in off exercise he come up to me and he asked me because obviously going to prison you haven't got nothing nothing to talk had no clothes like other than what I had that day and stuff where I got arrested in um and that's why either I'd have little bag stuff because my mum remember mom dropping some stuff off the police station but you got a limited stuff you got no shower gels or anything and said to me do you want do you need any milk and I said no I fine thank you did you need any further said no I'm fine honestly thank you and I went to the shower and I come out and I went in my cell and he put some cards and milks and Weetabix prison history weet-bix and a massive copy of the Koran on my bed and it was the one of biggest books I've ever seen and I took it out and I said thank you very much I'm okay thank you I'm like all due respect I'm good and he took it and he was fine and I used to have limited conversations with him but the guy who tries black the tube I didn't talk to her at all and I remember one day obviously we're living in such a small claustrophobic environment and his unit so when we had Association that memory was out of ourselves for one hour we had to be on like the tiny little landing and here the you rather Paul table around machine and exercise by a telephone shower and a washing machine but we had to be out in that area of space so the cameras could see us we wasn't allowed to sit in our own cells and I remember sitting there and I was listening to two of the guys that were arrested for the suicide bombing talking to each other and they were talking about their kids and I'll never forget I was just decision tonight to quit football and North London and nightmare is that that I knew and it and and I just remember things most awful I'm never gonna be in my life in a situation where I'm ever gonna meet these sorts of people ever again and again that acquisitive nature of me come out and I want to understand them I genuinely want you to understand I went in to understand light because I've always been very interested in politics and political life got current affairs and I wanted to understand what motivates someone so to get to a point in life where they're willing they believe in something so much they're willing to kill themselves and kill other people and and I found it fascinating and I made a decision that I would start talking to them and then I did and we would talk about a mixture of different things sport football and then it's Brissac it's bizarre because what lends that and that happening is like you're in this situation where you're all on the same side because we're in prison so you got the prison officers on one side and the prisoners on the other she's very weird situation that you're in with these people because even though you don't agree with what they've done you're on the same tiles of defense's them if they're very cent and and I just made a decision to start talking to them and and it man and it was it was very fascinating to they all denied what they done they said they didn't do it which I thought was quite interesting because I didn't I think I couldn't sound someone was willing to do so and why they would then deny it when they got caught but they didn't but that was my life but for two and a half years and and then I got sentenced and I went to would each crown call and I've got two life sentences and there and the reason the judge gave it to me was because he said that one of the biggest factors was because of my age at this point and I was 20 I was 24 years old he said to my light links to the criminal underworld was so extensive as such a young age and and obviously the effects of coming in to cult and I was armed police around the courthouse to stop them from stop people from helping me break up that had an effect on the judge and the judge knew I was in that high security unit he knew ordered the cost that was incurred by that so obviously that's already filtering his lens of this young man in front of me and he said whatever sentence I'll give you say you're gonna come out a young man and even I believe you always pose a risk to the public and he went so I'm gonna impose a life sentence for conspiracy to rob and I'm gonna impose another life sentence for possession of firearms we've intend to commit robbery and and I remember like I stood there and I didn't all the Metropolitan Police for that robbery squad we're down in the footwell and obviously they're looking for a response from me they want to see like you know they're looking and they're smiling each other in a pattern shot on the backs and I just didn't show any weakness whatsoever like because I just fought I'm not gonna give you the satisfaction and and I am and I and I laughed I just smiled at them because I didn't have any and I didn't have any I had no doubt that I wasn't gonna sit in prison for however long that judge fought was gonna see him using for my mindset back then was the first opportunity I get to get at this place I'm gonna take it and I'm not going to sit in it the rest of my life you're not go up the system beat you no no and the first opportunity I had to get out I'm going to take it and they take me back to the high-security prison unit and every 28 days someone from the Home Office used to come in on the unit because there was obviously very high-profile prisons on them people that were a threat to national security they were the the person from the Home Office would come on every 28 days and just speak to everyone um I was in the threats national security but I'm there but they obviously know who all these people then are cuz it has to be signed off at a very high level and government to justify keep you on it and I'll never forget this lady sat down and I'm moaning and I was saying I went to get on the main prison block I didn't want to be on this unit I said like I want to go on a moment using my head I'm thinking the quicker I'll get this unit quicker I'll get over there quick I'm gonna progress for the system and the quicker there's gonna be a little [ __ ] of light for me to get out and get back get my freedom back yeah and she sat and she had this smile on her face and she said to me we're not stupid she went I know people like you do not change and she went the first opportunity you get to run for that wall you'll take it and she said you aren't gonna get that opportunity and she was a hundred and right obviously I didn't knowledge that and I sat there and she left and then a couple of days later they transferred me to a matching security prison in Yorkshire which was full Sam you know you said you wouldn't show any weakness externally did you feel a little bit broken internally did you feel really done at this time I'm stuck here now for I mean what was you wouldn't show outside but will you at all crumbling on the inside or were you you know the thing that gets me about your story John is there is no matter the cycling we're talking about the start which are doing next weekend right it's this strong mindset that you can apply I guess to anything and back then you're applying it to you know the criminal world you applying it to how do you know look if someone like me for example if I got sentenced to life sentences I probably crumble and crack like you know the thought that you don't have your liberty your freedom but you know when you haven't group but that's environment again isn't it it's because your life is normal to you my life that was normal yeah like my mother my uncle's my cousins my uncle spent 25 years in prison for committing the biggest armed robbery in the world so 26 million pounds worth of gold bullion at Heathrow Airport so that massive cloud hung over me as a kid as a young man as a man went into the prison system everyone's always talking about my uncle the prison officers because I know who he was notoriety and a bit of kudos in some ways that he's that because it's not your norm that you're you would like most people would most most most people to go to work every day if you put them in prison if you give them a parking ticket as a as impact on effect on their life but when that's your life and that's what you know that's what you know it comes back again its environment and it's its exposure to events do you think with hindsight any part of you was cracking on the inside or do you think you were totally okay with that you thought there was just another obstacle so I overcome there was another obstacle to overcome I didn't die because I didn't like I said when they said when he sentenced me I had no I'd know he desire and I didn't anticipate what sort of for one moment I was gonna end up spending whatever time he thought I was gonna end up spending and I would not spend in there because you knew you'd play the game that you had to play to get out if she wanted to escape yeah no I wait to get out as quick as I humanly could so he didn't matter which way I did it was I just wanted to get out I wasn't gonna sit in there for the rest of my life that was not going to happen that I really story wants that you were in solitary confinement and you voluntarily stayed in there even though you could have come out yet to prove a point yeah like that that was when I was that go that goes back to when I was 9 18 19 years old well as I was 19 um and it was it was all about so they basically the prison officers tried to take my clothes off me um to put me in a special suit when I was 9 years old in prison which is bright yellow so he's to identify you in the prison as you're walking around as an escape risk prisoner so it wasn't that many people in prison but they seized because obviously everyone's wearing gray tracksuit then someone's walking around and canary yellow trace all the prison officers know we need to look out for that guy because he's highly rich he's highly got the potential to try to escape I refuse given my clothes in my cell today escort me dance with segregation unit I don't when in front of the prison governor the next day and you in prison you've got a comebacks of rules and regulations so certain law and the I refused a lawful order in prison so the governor said to me you refuse to give your clothes over you wouldn't go into the escape so at this point I'm in it now because when you're in the system you can't be it because you're in there well they're not in yours he said I want to give you seven days confined to cell which is basically in a segregation unit away from all the other prisoners at the end of that seven days they come to me they open up the door and they said when you go on the wing you've got you've been allocated a wing cleaning job and again my disdain for them I was like there's no way I'm gonna be a wincleaner they said you refuse another law for door I said yes then they took me back in front of the governor again the governor gave me another seven days confined to sell and he smiled at me when he gave it to me and then he took me back to segregation unit and when I was in prison as a kid I never wanted to be institutionalized and I I remember I asked my uncle this one day I said how did you not become institutionalized so to me in my mind prison was not going to be my world right so I made sure I stay connected to real world so sis into the radio and H to read newspapers every day staying connection to current affairs so life wouldn't just pass me by I want to sit in prison and for two-three years life would just carry on and that's where the issue stems from a lot of people like their life goes on pause and in there at reality and in this little cocoon babble of love it's not reality like you knows little conclude bubble and and I wasn't going to be one of these people so I made that decision so I made sure that stake him it's his current affairs and I read and I went to see it I went to Reno like any I love learning so when the librarian come around with her trolley usual allowed to take two or three books off a week and then she come here next week and then you could put a request in or just have whatever shares on the trolley and there was a book on the trolley it's about Nelson Mandela and I started reading it and there was a there was a passage in it well when he was in prison in Robin Ireland that he used to smoke tobacco cigarettes and he realized that the prison officers was using fact that he smoked tobacco as a punishment because I was able to take sank away from him so he never smoked a cigarette ever again he relinquished that power to them so they couldn't take it off him because he didn't smoke no more so he stopped him from smoke he smoked yeah they could take that away and then or it yeah yeah so he gave it up as you can't take that from me anymore now I'm not professing to be like Nelson Mandela but what I'm saying is when I read that I then for in my mind is a 19 year old boy in prison if you think by putting me in this tiny little 6 by 12 foot space is a punishment or taking it away from you so when they then come to put me on the wing I said I'm not going because they put me in there for 14 days thinking they were punishing me so then I refused to leave it and I said not fair and and that was that was something where when I look about retrospectively because I spent literally 365 days locked in a room I didn't come out to use the phone I didn't take exercise outside to say that again so for one whole year I stayed in that room and if I won't come out like even Christmas Day and you were 19 at the time I was 19 I can't I cannot like of course I can't get my head around that because it is it's so alien to my norm I guess even for you that was alien that wasn't even your norm but you took it within your moral compass that was your way of not letting the system say it was me being defined and it a nice interesting he's four I'll tell you why this is fascinating one about Terry now because this is something where my life's progressed through two years ago I did a talk to some students studying criminology not a nun Trent University and there was he was funny because I didn't notice at the time we was in this auditorium it's pitch black you can't you can't see anything and at the end the professor when it was all done all the students believing the professor said to me that's absolutely incredible and I said which many men because normally when I stand up and talk even all you see is this little glow of white where students just on their phones when I'm talking but with you and I started talking it was black yeah everyone was listening to what you sound and no one was on their phones or anything and then he we were talking because obviously he heard me Sam what I'm saying to you they the students and him found it very fascinating again out the mindset can be redirected and changed and he was talking about the UM the the sort of defiance is that me regaining control of my environment and not letting the environment control me and then he then said do you think and it was I never process the format for when you started exercising why did you choose to do it and I said it made me feel alive which he did so I never you I wasn't athletic I wasn't driven by sport as a kid I had no interest in I'd like being an athlete but when I was in that prison cell for that 365 days I had to develop with coping strategy I being in that containment of being alive like feeling like I was a human that someone said to me once when you go to prison you don't live you just exist and I wanted to feel like I was living so I started training and that was how I used to see that situation and he said but do you think it was more of a defiance in you saying to them they can't stop you from doing that but you've regrade you've created your control in that space by you reading what you want to read you train him when you on a train and then not being out to tell you that but when I learned look back on that situation now and I think what I've done the last year of my life like in 2006 Joe has an a in 2009 I realized what a massive chunk of time that is but when I was in that mind space as a kid as a young man yeah returning every day for a year yeah yeah I mean I you know on one level I totally get that I mean obviously I can't I think I'm quite good at empathizing when people are struggling but it's so hard for me to understand that you not quite voluntarily but yeah many of us voluntarily put yourself in a tightly confined space for one whole year as an act of defiance but I do absolutely get this idea that if you read what you want and you train when you want in the way that you want to you've got control and I think for any human being when we feel we've lost control over how our life goes down over the little things that we want to do day in day out you know I'm a doctor I've said many times before I see an issue with patients who are chronically unwell when they feel that they can't do anything to influence what happens to them and they're just they have to be at the beck and call of their illness I see that as being it can be what it can be very problematic I'm always trying to give my patients control why they feel even if they've got a really you know they've got some white cancer but they've got some things that they can do in their own life to actually influence the way that they're feeling I think that's so so important so although it might seem quite distant I think what you're talking about is something Universal for humans we we need an element of control otherwise how would you have survived for one whole year in that room and again like this was when all the stars align because what motivated me to start that process of exercising I didn't realize because I didn't intentionally do it the reason where I'm at today yeah but if I did not make that decision back then well that mindset that I had as a kid I wouldn't be sitting in front of you today because that triggered something inside me physically and it was like disability that I had but I didn't know I had like I lost weight I've got I think got a six-pack that didn't do it for that reason I didn't do it for aesthetics I did it because it made me feel like I was a human being but what happened when I made that decision back then I never anticipated that nearly a decade later because I made that decision about him for different set of reasons that that would then allow me to then go and break free world records and turn british records on indoor rowing machine and and and that's something I've even struggled with because I didn't set off on that journey to do that but because I had that mindset and that defiance and that regaining control back of my environment and that hatred towards the system and that that that wanting to feel like I was a human again I'm feeling like I was alive if I didn't start that process and being locked in that room for 365 days I would not now be sitting in front of you with all the stuff I've achieved as an athlete and that's been something for me that it's been read the hard for me to even come to as I and then you earn starts and is there something else in life where your life's mapped out for you and you make these decisions and you yeah which you don't anticipate leads to a different road for you to travel so John is she saying that it's making me think if you never had confined yourself to solitary and therefore you had to come up with a strategy to deal with that and so you never started working out as you're just saying would you be here today you know did you know when you started working out hey I'm pretty good at this because I guess on one level if you had never been athletic before that did you know you were any good I mean did you just because you have no frame of reference right none but but this is quite important as well because um it's then you don't in set limitations on what you physically can achieve so so obviously when I did what I did in that cell and I I was in that segregation unit and I started working out you got no right you say they've got no frame no point of reference I wasn't trained remember people word even though that fit I was lost lots of weight exercises got easier I didn't realize how good or where I was at get released from prison after that experience training just fell off a cliff basically doing it because I didn't need to anymore cuz I was out that situation and then when I went back to second time when I was in a high security unit Yury kickstart the coping strategy so again Harper 6:00 in the morning six o'clock cell circuit ninety minutes two hours read books all day read books all day and that then was my Cobra strategy through that prison system so you said two sentences like you were in prison once like this time right hands you can find yourself into this room there's a box for a hold yeah yeah you start training you don't know how good you are you don't have bad jog you've got no frame of reference you've lost a bit away as you say you come out with a six-pack but then you go back to your old ways and you don't train once you're out it start taking drugs partying drinking high-octane lifestyle every straight back straight back in million miles an hour and then you go back into prison and again you you click straight back into the lessons do you learnt last time this is how I cope yes this is gonna be how I get through this sentence so it just kicks back off first day back in there I'll start training again again I'm unfit just like getting back on a horse yeah I'm unfit because I've not been exercising so start training again again my body starts to morph in shape I'm focusing on my trial that's sort of that situation of the stress of that and then at some points thinking I'm probably I might be able to get out then obviously come to realization I'm not gonna get out but the exercise the reading continues and continues and continues get sentenced then I'll get moved to a higher security much riskier prison I'll get moved away from those eight people in Belmarsh and get beautiful Sun so now I get Mesa for Saturn I mean a high-security prison the highest security prison in the country like convicted prison men in there been in there 20 30 years some of them for murder like it's the real end of the line sort of place like fine I've never seen violence like it in my life like for nothing people stabbing each other for in prison yes but for like for nothing that's scary it didn't scare me it was again you become normalized to it and no I know and I wasn't involved in the drug culture I didn't take drugs was in prison I didn't I didn't have that I just I kept myself out of all those situations before the gang I was involved in a gang but in prison it was very very violent in that prison in particular start training going through the process out in the exercise yards and I remember a couple prison officers said to me like they thought I was in the army before I'd gone to prison because of where I was very regimented cell very clean they usually I was at next charge are doing circuits and then Christmas come round want to get off the wing little bit extra because he's Christmas so you have competitions in the gym and you get a box of quality Street and roses for winning the competition's and I had they just have a badminton competition they still have a football competition they had a powerlifting competition and I had a fitness competition and the fitness competition it was called superstars and the prison officer they used to run it was a man called Mark Elliott Mark Elliott was from Yorkshire I never used to call him like playboy he was a he was tanned really muscular really tight t-shirts he was the prison officer that works in gym but prison officers in the gym weren't like prison officer Wertz on the on the wings so he's a bit of a lad really into his fitness and training and he looked he looked the part and he was the one night love fitness loved it and he put on the the superstars competition so he said McAvoy Joanna do it so they've gone in I'll do it get some of the wings to come down and do a competition and so anyway I signed up for that sign up for the the strongman competition which is a powerlifting competition I put my name on both lists and then just before Christmas we go down the gym and I do the superstars competition and when I mean it's bear in mind a lot of these men have been in prison for a long time I and they did exercise as much as me and I absolutely walked away with his competition like no one even got close to me right it was kind of like CrossFit he was at burpees step ups you you would get power but like you did all these different exercises run around machine jump off run on a treadmill the incline of 15 and no one got close to me and I remember when I finished he went to me like because obviously the circuit he put on this was like a competition outside so he looked how quick I did it and was like that is really quick like if you would have done outside like you would have been up there provide some of the top guys in the country had no interest like it didn't bother me then consumed that one mindset was still criminal I was like yes you still had that mindset that you grown up with yeah yeah I'm just doing this to play it was like he felt good you could you could you got a box of chocolates and you you had died you took the crown of the fittest man in that prison and I was down everyone saying are you oh you'll really fit and stuff like you're the fittest guy in the prison it didn't mean anything and the next day the we did the strongman and it was um it was squats bench press and deadlift and it will power to weight so it was like for your weight they did the calculations of how much you could lift and in the whole prison I was the first strongest man and I didn't hardly really do weight the third strongest in whole business I was I was the fittest in the context of the circuit and when I did when I did the strongman competition I was like the third strongest and bear in mind some of their men were Mao man inside I was like a little dwarf [ __ ] in relation to them like some of them had biceps bigger than my head like they were massive and I'm sange to today now I would have looked back now and if I look back on the situation you said to me someone could do that I would say that person is very athletic ly talented but back then it didn't mean anything it was just like of bravado in the gym not you being the strongest and you being the fittest it wasn't like oh actually I'm quite a good athlete at it's like I'm Mary I'm better than most average people like I'm the fittest I'm one of the strongest in the prison so anyway following year comes around obviously in prison you get this bit of reputation you're the fittest guy in the prison and again I just walk for it right no one no one even come close to me and strongman competition get same thing kind of happen again I'm just taking off the days I'm just taking off the days I'm doing the cell circuits I am I'm doing everything that's being asked to me I'm going on all the courses I'm taking all the boxes you're going in all the courses that they ask you because you want to rehabilitate no all because you want to play the system I want to play their game I'm gonna give you what you want so I think a yes country said I was you tend to find when you're in those shoes I'm in a maximum-security prison I've been in that at this point I've been in custody for four years I need to get is high-security prison because I know I'm not going to get released if I stay on this prison because you'll never get released from a high-security prison on to the street but because of I've been such a higher level of security going in they were so cautious to move me out of that that environment test I tried to escape so you have to do everything you're asked to do to get out of that place as quickly you can't you have to you have to meet all your sentence plan targets that they set you every and and to be honest review it's given me a different perspective about prison reform if I'm honest or what this work I do today because I've seen it like I've done it I've been when you do some of these courses like enhanced thinking skills and you're given your homework to do when you go back to your cell and you may have the course the month before and you copy everything he's done you just change the index offense to your offense and you hand it in and I give you an mark and they say arts amazing you chopped like it's like school yeah exactly like school and and and I'm not I I believe overwhelmingly a lot of people do once you change I do think that I think like you always get the my new film like in my regards to my case back then my lifestyle of organized crime it was all about change was weakness but not everyone is like was like that if that makes sense there's a lot of people that made poor decisions and and lack of opportunity again if you guide them and show them like if you would have showed me a lot of opportunities I got today back there and I probably wouldn't hook him I would have continued committing crime and I'll be totally honest with you where a lot of people review to give them all juries and I'll say the vast majority they would change the direction of their lives but I was doing everything that was expected of me and it worked and he did work and they moved me at that high-security prison and they moved me to a low-security prison today do you think they knew do you think a lot that some of the prison officer knew John is just playing the game he's not changing but was nothing we can do about it because he's ticking the boxes well but this is this is the get is like the catch-22 situation for them then because then they acknowledge their own system doesn't work because they if they ask you to do everything and you do everything they ask you to do how can then then turn around and say well you still not change yeah so you want you're in their system and now and people realize that so when you're in that situation you know you back them up into a corner where they have to progress you they can't sit so if you're fighting every day and you're taking drugs and you're going against the grain and and and you're you're doing every fingers they can then justify doing it and keeping you in that situation keeping you in that place if you're going through the process and you're doing everything that's been asked from you and they're saying their courses work and x y&z they have to progress you for that system and then you have to then be transferred out because if they're done most people would take them to cult they go in front of a judge and say well he's done everything's been answering the judge go yeah like if you've said that's what you need to do and he's done that you can't legally keep him that situation and and it was working like am I getting downgraded I got I got moved out that higher security situation prison after four years and I got moved to a low security prison in Nottingham which was a category B prison so I before I was in a category a so double Wade a now is in the B so I'm looking at my tariff because you get a minimum terrified serve a minimum of five years on that life sentence but when you said when I say that people get confused sometimes a life said this is a hundred years right a hundred years long or 99 years long and in the judge sets a minimum tariff of whatever that is that could be 20 years that could be five years depending on severity of your offense so the judge warranted that I had to serve a minimum of five years in custody but when that five years comes to an end that's then up sort of parole whether they released me or not so but they don't have to and if they don't you could technically sound prism for 99 years or the remainder of your life so you have to demonstrate you're no longer a risk to the public so when I was at for years I had the year left of my tariff before he expired I mean a lot of security prison-- I start doing everything again that's expected of me and then my life completely changed in 2009 so this is interesting I mean the whole story frankly is interesting I'm you know we've been chatting for over an hour and I'm that's just so much I'm thinking about it is such it's such a fascinating story for I think the vast majority or the vast majority people everyone's got a unique upbringing right but I think very few people have got your upbringing and I've got your story you have such a strong mindset John that you've applied to everything whether it was in prison when it was outside prison whether it's what you're doing now I'm really interested with someone who's got such a strong mindset how does it change what I'm gonna say what brokey that's the wrong word what what was the trigger what was the catalyst for someone who is that fixed in their mindset and has been exposed said that sort of upbringing as I think the judge or one of the officer says you for people that you don't change so what caused people like you to actually change I would say in in my case it was it was trauma because I had never lost anyone in my life so when I was growing up and when I was a young man I heard people die I heard of people dying people get murdered people go into prison but predominantly death situations and I was immune from that that never happened to me or anyone I cared enough for that that was someone else and then when my best mate died or best friend from it being from from from childhood basically died in a car crash committed Berry in the Netherlands I had never experienced the motion like in my life like I could I hand on her I could not remember a time in my life for me in the kid to when I was 26 years old so I found out my dad died my friend died where I had literally cried I couldn't I literally couldn't remember time but from being a kid and then when when I found out my friend died on the phone I found out my cousin I heart was a football match on TV and I found out my cousin a halftime and I was just waiting to see if he was watching the game and details I was saying to tell you I said what and he said you on your own and I said cool so I am like what's wrong and he said that Aran's died my my diet and I said how and and he told me even at the time I was a little bit sketchy like not really understood even he died in the car question the Netherlands and and I was in display for the beginning and I just like I just thought something's wrong like it's not him it's bit of confusion and I remember I put the phone down and yeah it can I was sitting there and I just remembered I had this this gold Rolex watch on my wrist there was a Rolex Daytona and a black doll face and he was worth 16,000 pounds and I didn't sit in in prison and and it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't it was defiant so I had it like it was it was it was me being defiant towards the system even though you've taken my freedom and you've put me in this environment I'm still me but I've still got money and I just you can't take that from me and and I remember sitting in this cell and and I realized how one hour precious life isn't and my friend's life had just literally gone out like a light and he never had children you never got married and I realized that pathetic it was the situation I thought I was winning some sort of war in my head against the system and the stay and and actually I was just basically pissing my life away it was like someone switched on a tap and my life was literally going down into a drain every day every breath I was taking and I was literally spending my life on earth locked in his tiny little box thinking that I was winning some sort of war in my head against the system being defined and the following night because it was quite rare that these English people that were committing crime were in the Netherlands it made news at ten it was like he was on ITV knows and I remember watching knows and they showed CCTV clips of the final moments of of my mates life and he was in some shitty supermarket in the Netherlands spraying a can of CS spray into the lens of the camera and it froze the camera froze and there was a picture still and I could see it was him because I could tell by his eyes and I just remember about looking at that TV screen and I was like I said I just it just hit me like that I looked how pathetic it was I the situation that the I was in and and and it made me look at my own mortality and it made me look at my mate that I saw what I saw where I was at it was pathetic in that context but how that could have been me and I could have been that person on how lucky and fortunate I was because I could have been shot dead back in 2004 when the police tried to arrest me and my life for the cease to exist that day in that car park in southeast London and I saw the fact that I was alive as a blessing and I and I made a decision that night that I was done I was done for that life and and the following morning I come out and I went down for breakfast and no one obviously knew within prison what had happened and I'm sitting in this community area and there was he's a ver inmates talking to each other and I and I was I was owned out like I just I wasn't even engaged in the conversation and they was talking to each other about when they got out they was gonna do this and do that and this person was a police informant and I just sat there I thought I can't be around these people no more and I tried to use the analogy sometimes it's like being addicted to drugs and being locked in a crack then because I made a decision I didn't want this life no more and I wanted to do something else in my life I didn't know what that was but I didn't want this life I wanted to get at this place get away from these people I was trapped and I was literally physically trapped like I couldn't just get up and get out and before I I it was the system like it was prison officers I didn't want to engage Weaver night I detest it and I didn't like but now suddenly it kind of flipped and it was the people that but that were people in the situation it with me as prisoners where before I saw myself like them and then suddenly I'm like I don't want to be around you people no more Eva and I were an hour and I was yeah I was lost because I didn't know what to do like I did generally it was my identity like everything that I was as a person was defined by by by who I was in the context of people respected me because I was in prison and I and I kept my mouth shut and I got a massive prison sentence and the way I did my prison sentence it in the segregation unit and stuff from people lauded me for that and then certainly I realized what nonsense it all was and the people that I looked up to and people I respected the fact that they had spent their whole lives sitting in prison rotting and my best made that I loved that I've lost his life down to some sort of [ __ ] dream that doesn't exist it's nonsense like and and I and and I was like I need to do something else that the Jews feel in some ways that you woke up on that day in the sense that you suddenly could see life for what it was and actually you look back at your previous life up to that point and you feel who the hell was I kidding like it almost as if you had a blindfold on I don't know is that it's an awareness awareness and then once you've got it you can't go back because you can now see your life in a very different way that but until you can see it that way you can't see it right so you're stuck in that box the way you are it's you know what's fascinating for me is that it often takes tragedy or real suffering on some level to to force many of us to change you know you this is a current theme on this show and and many people stories around the world you need a pain points before it actually kicks us into action you know certainly one of the most life-changing things to me was when I lost my dad's you know that I think that was the first point when I realized you know I knew he was sick for years I helped care for him but when he was no longer there it was like oh my god like people do go I mean you know he's literally not hearing what I know it sounds ridiculous but when it when you're confronted with that it suddenly makes things real and certainly for me that was a huge turning point like that has been the start of the next phase of my life you know all the things I'm doing today I don't think I have all had done them until I've lost my dad you know it's I needed that to start questioning me my life what I was doing and what's what's interesting for me about your story is that you had a moment that suddenly put everything in Seth sharp focus and made you realize what a story that you'd created in your head but actually wasn't wasn't real but then you were still stuck in that place so yes you've had the awareness but when I had the awareness I could go and start making change immediately I wasn't stuck in an environment where I couldn't make those changes but you were you were still in as you said with your analogy you're still there and he didn't it doesn't matter if you go out if you got to the prison in governor and you say to him I've changed yeah I get it now buddy I get it you know I'm different now he's gonna be like what do you you sit there and you've still got X amount of years left to serve of that sentence so it was to say I was in that moment lost there's an understatement because I genuinely didn't know what I wanted to do with my life over there I didn't want to be where I was at and I wanted to do something different with my life and then I probably meet the most remarkable human that I've ever had the privilege to ever meet in my life and that was the prison officer that that aided me to find that belonging and find that sense of Worth and directly and change your direction into something and and put that energy in Drive that I still had as a human in some way productive and positive so what happens you lost you know you want to make change but it's difficult you know how you gonna do that so walk us through what happened you know who is this prison officer that helped you and how did he help you and how did you discover this talent that you have which is actually in many ways got you out of prison and and completely transform your life and now you're transforming many other people's lives with this story it's incredible on so many levels but but what happens so I um when when we go back to that story I've just told you about the inmates I needed to escape them I needed to get away from I didn't want to engage in that negative conversation they don't want to hear and around you I went shut down from it right so I'm locked I'm confined in the situation or environment I wanna do so all my life I don't want to be surrounded by negative people I want I want to disengage from them disconnect I go down to the prison gym there was an inmate called Mickey he's a little bit overweight wasn't fit wasn't like that athletically fit in prison you get free gym sessions a week Mickey had seven and I asked him I said how how are you getting all these extra gym sessions because normally do it your wing gets one day the other wing gets another day and it's just stop gangs from going in the gym and fighting each other and he said I'm roaming for a children's charity Hospice in Nottingham and I'm around a million meters over the course of however many weeks or months it took him so I asked him I said who did you ask and he directed me to the person that run the prison Jim Craig so I go to Craig and I said to Craig Craig can I do what Mickey's doing and could I can I basically Rohn raise money for the charity so he said John if you get sponsorship so prisoners could sponsor me 50 pence and pounds and you could have money sent him from family and friends to sponsor you for stuff in prison even you can do it so he gives me to sponsorship forms look I back up on the wing some inmates sponsor me a pound I am my mom sent me some money in for sponsorship so I give it to him hand it in he writes me a note and he's basically Jim pass so I could off window dancin gym everyday so get on the round machine first time 26 years old never really been on one properly like in regards of like I did it in a circuit but not like how this this relationship with me and that piece of equipment sort of played out so I'll get on it start rowing 20 miles a day 32,000 meters and when I was on the rowing machine I was in this prison gym everyone in that place left me alone for that to 200 hours and I look at that that monitor and I would go up and down the slide my technique was horrific I didn't only from a technique of that spoke by many time and I just watch the numbers and obviously I didn't understand about dolphines I didn't really understand about this before doing that sorta lymph of exercise and the sudden you're getting this massive wave of right endorphins because she continues to exercise him for like two hours and I didn't have any heart rate monitors or nothing I was just doing it on Phil and back town next day the next day the next day 20 miles a day 20 miles a day 20 miles a day 10 million in a month so I wrote the first million a month because it was it was my favorite it was it was therapy it was getting me through again this situation right when I was in that segregation unit for that year training exercise but now it took on a whole new significance it completely transcended me a prison and I asked Trey if I could do another million he said yep and anything another million which was free months and then the prisoner said to me you do know five million meters is 5000 K and that's equivalents around across the Atlantic on the rowing machine so I went back my way that's actually quite a cool thing to though like row across there that's a load of cross the Atlantic on endure a machine so go back to Craig asleep can I do another two million he said John if you keep raising money you keep gun so now I'm working out my head all the math so I'm like if I keep doing this is he's gonna get me near to my release date so anyway as I'm starts go for the last three million meters over the two months I wrote 10,000 meters hard one day and I stopped and the screen polls that 10,000 meters to 10k and this Inc amazing man called Aaron Davis which is prison officer Wertz in the Jim in Loudoun Grange in Nottingham he was standing behind me and and again you'd think I was making this up there wasn't someone else to say this actually happened he looked over my shoulder and he went that is really really quick and again you're in a little cocoon bubble you don't know like I didn't know what was good what would bad and he left next I went down road again next day I went down road again and he come up to me the second day he come back to work and he just basically handed me those pieces of paper and on it was was all these indoor rowing records world records and British records and I looked at them and and I could like basically beep to the records I knew I could be to other records there and then and and and I had unconsciously woken up this in bit ability in my body but I didn't even I possessed and I possessed it since I was a little boy I was 8 years old was that that come into my life and and I had this ability for endurance ball and Darrin gave me those participating I went back to my cell and I don't know why but he just planted a seed in my head and and I went back to him and I said look I'm in prison I probably didn't think at the time it was realistic I said goofing as possible if I could do one of these records and he went to the governor and and there's mad his life is he went to the governor called Garrison's Garrison's was a deeply religious Christian man and Darren went to him in his office and Darren told me historians and told him and he said look I've genuinely believed this could help John turn his life around Wow and Gareth said if they will let you validate those records from prison he can do them staring one away you're all the information he explained the situation about me being in prison and I couldn't do it in a public setting so I couldn't do it outside and they said as long as you get to independent verifying witnesses that were police officers that I said would prison officers that's fine and you Wayne because I was doing it as a lightweight man on 75 kilo and you take photographs and you put a special memory card into the Rama Sri and you send it all to us we validate the records as being legitimate so the first record I attempted to break was for the marathon and it was it was 42 K and and I remember that we had to basically make our own energy drink because I couldn't have sports nutrition had no heart we Mother's nothing so like I was literally I was eating more sugar cane as we was doing it like the discussions that they would give out in the prison for tea and stuff and the tea packs they give you once a week me tea bags and I was doing it on the whim like I didn't really know what I was doing and I broke that record by seven minutes seven minutes seven minutes oh but it's insane I broke it by seven minutes and and honestly this was a very powerful moment in in in all of this because again I tried to get this across to young people today when I was growing up as a kid when I went back when I go back to the beginning of the story where I talk about legacy and I talk about not waiting to be average and reading all those history books and then developing his fascination of British Telecom and having lots of money I tributed success and money and wealth that is what I fall in life that defines you as a human I fall the more money you had in your bank the bigger your house was the more watches you had the bigger the car you had was your with that he finds you by the level of success though and what value you was as a person when I broke that record that day everything ride ever craved as a little boy I felt that moment on that gym mat in that gym and the satisfaction so that worked all something and not being average and not being normal like an average and achieving something with my life and a legacy so that moment I was one of the best people in the country at what I just done and in the world and they're not and it made me feel incredible and that's when I made a decision that I was gonna use sport and my body to be a vehicle to get me out that life and I become absolutely consumed with being an athlete I went down to the prison library again I cut like we'd go back to the beginning store in a segregation unit and there was this little old lady it works in the library and she was sending out she had to put special questions the outside leverage sending books on sports nutrition on training on heart rate zones I started to understand what a protein was what a carbohydrate was glycogen I understood about the heart I I wanted to become I studied being an athlete but the most important part of this was Darren started bringing me in books athletes of Olympic athletes now I had never had no exposure to these sorts of individuals this is a young person or when I was in prison so everyone I ever saw with my mindset did what I did they were all driven they're all focused suddenly I'm reading books on James Cracknell Steve Redgrave Lance Armstrong I'm reading through these books and all the characteristics that I I can relate to them and I'd never seen this group of people before that I could relate to on a level like I didn't I'd any people I could have relate to were people that did what I did years ago and and even it reinforced more that that is what I was gonna do and about prison I was gonna be an athlete so within the next 16 months I end up setting free World Records in prison in prison and eight British records on indoor air machine or a multiple different distances and I got my first pro board I think is a given I think there's no way they're not gonna let me out and genuinely like I've changed like I've genuinely changed when you're had you've changed you've done all this great stuff in prison you think I've son of really good chance here being released I thought it was he given I didn't I didn't even contemplate that it wasn't a given that I thought that even the the probation officer that sat with me he was like yeah she was remarkable like your application for release what you've managed to achieve is remarkable so I think I'm gonna go in front of the judge it's just gonna be a tick the box exercise I gonna sign the Bing and they're going to show me walk out the gate and and we sat there and the judge said to me he said what are you going to do when you come out of prison and I said I'm gonna become professional athlete and he looked at me and he was an art it was uh he was old he was but 75 years old I look maybe a little older than that and he put his glasses on the bridge of his nose and he leant back in his chair a smile on his face and he said of all my years of sitting on parole hearings I mean you are the first person has ever come out said to me that you want to come out of prison and be a professional athlete but I absolutely categorically believed in what I said I would do I honestly thought I was so convinced I would visualize it when I was on that round machine I'll train I'd visualize when I got out this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna be an athlete I'm gonna be the best of what I choose to do I'm gonna be successful and I used to go for this process of visualizing it and in the more the records are set the more the more encouraged me but daran daran my relationship with Aaron in his in his part of this journey was I had never had a Mao in my life that had an interest in me to be successful for no game he didn't have no gang what's her like he used to come in on his days off when no one was paying him back into prison to sit with me to do records because he believed in me as a person and we would sit there and and we would talk about his family my family and he become like a confidant right I would enjoy going down to the gym not just to train but to actually sit there and talk to him and he'd bring me in books and I actually think like in some regards being in prison it was quite frowned upon on his side like he was a prison officer and I don't think necessary some of the prison officers liked the fact that he forms relationship with me because when I got transferred out of that prison I went to another prison and obviously like a prison officer writing a letter to a prisoner as a big big no-no like because staff corruption and so forth so he wrote a letter to the prison that I got moved to Jim Department to pass on to me so that meant it went through from prison officer to prison officer to me so then it wasn't directly tomatoey it kept it in official channels to wish me all the best sailor I know you can go out you can still be you can be a successful person I've got absolute confidence you and I remember when the prison officer gave it to me he laughed and he said the why on earth was he white and you'd not let any forty was funny like because I was in prison and he was a prison officer but he said Darren said some stuff to me amongst the records and when I broke the world record for the most amount of metres Road in 24 hours I remember when I was on the map there was that blue gym mats in the gym and it was just me and him left and there was a couple of other prisoners and they went out and I'll never forget Anastasia metre today and he said if if you come out of prison and you come back it be the biggest travesty I've ever seen as a prison officer because you've got the ability man not just physically but you've got the ability to be able to suffer even when you put those two things together us in a sporting prowess and the ability to suffer even you'll be unstoppable even do not come back and and that lived for me today I always add that as a mentor that when I raced today in Ironman I always remember what he said to me about having a gift and not wasting it and doing something with it yeah so at that first meeting where you were convinced you were going to be released were you no no they day when I got the parole board because I just said I've never heard that like but but he said he actually said to me my release plan wasn't based in reality and he said he thought I was setting myself up for failure and you know what I don't hold any hard feelings whatsoever and and I made I made a deliberate attempt when when I got out and the way my life's unfolded and it wasn't it wasn't arrogance and he genuinely wasn't I made sure that all the police officers or the main police officers arrested me and the judge and all the people on the panel got a copy of my book right and it was an arrogance and I wrote in with the police officer that arrested me and I genuinely said this isn't me being arrogant I like you to read this I just want you to know people can turn their lives around and people can change and and I thank you for what you did by by what you had to do is your job but I put me in there because it was the best thing that's ever happened to me and I just want you to know that people can change and it wasn't yen and to be fair to him he did get back in contact via the publisher and just said tell John I'm really proud and I'm glad that he's done something constructive his life and and I made sure that like that every as many prison offices as possible get to read my book like last year auditory this year and a PE conference for physical education they 180 prison officers that work in the gyms across the country but all given a copy of the book just to reiterate to them I was as bad as what you forget right literally I was in the end I was at the end of the road you could not go anywhere else for where I was sitting in a in a double category a high security unit in in a prison told I would never change it was impossible so if I have managed to do this anyone can anyone can and I just want to be able to get that message out and let people know that and with the judge that I just wanted to get that across to him that that day you was wrong like I did change but I understand why you made that decision because I can see it you saw a man sitting front of you have been in prison for at that point seven years was he saw as a high risk to the public still even I did all the stuff athletically he still believes I've stood him risk and that was his duty to make sure that the public were protected but I just went to him no but I genuinely did change when you saw me that day and I just want you to know that people do change do you think there was anything that people around you apart from the prison officer Darren like in terms of thinking about other people who are in prison now and maybe you're playing the system or doing what they have to do to survive is there any way with hindsight that people could have identified hey you know what John has changed how something is different in him he Witte is changing maybe it's time to release him I think a lot of the time a lot of these decisions are based on fear yeah because if you're on the man that signs that piece of paper and you let me out and I go out and I kill someone it's on your head dude it's gonna fall he's gonna be why did you let him out wide and I think there's a lot of risk aversion and I and I think I think it's starting to change in regards to probation now where before it was very very much more if there's any risk don't let them out but you don't let no one out and that was what was happening you had the bottleneck people going into prison and no one getting out because everyone was so fearful it should challenge because obviously sometimes some people don't want to change yeah if you've let John out if John wouldn't have changed in 2009 and John got released in 2012 as the old John I would have carried on reoffending and I would have died I'm not gonna lie I would have because I details I hadn't actually change over an end there are people like but there are also people that have changed it's a challenge I understand it's very challenging because it is picking it and again that that's that's how it's that's what the difficulties within the within the prison system but reform in the regards of the broader picture I go back into prison I speak to inmates I'm a great believer in Prevention's better than cure for start the cost the amount of money that's put in some prisons and reoffending like reoffending alone cost attacks about 18 billion pounds a year like just people coming out down back 18 billion pounds a year which is staggering and then when you go into prison and you and I and again you go into a lot of prisons you look at the work that's going on that and rehabilitation and they're not able to even do it because they have enough prison officers to unlock people to go to classrooms so like they can't let the young people or people out of their prison cells down to education they're locked up all day so you're locking them up all day and then eventually their sentence run that you should let them up out to the streets and there's no rehabilitation going on and that's why I've been such a big advocate of law I think prison officers do a tremendously difficult job like we've the resources they've got but you issue challenge because you need to put that investment into these places but in also you need to put the investment into prevention of stopping people from going into these places in the first time and then that vision you go into a bigger social issue with scoring exclusion and so on and so forth but as things stand now I think that sport which I'm a massive advocate for and I've been part of a wider movement of getting more sports organizations to enter the UK justice system as a way of helping to lower reoffending because I think if you go into a lot of prisons you tend to find if you said to most inmates what do you value they will probably turn around and tell you it will be food gym visits education will be a very very distant lower fifth or sixth on that list now if you can interlink education and and and and sport educational learning become personal trainers whatever that is into this role this this area you can then engage some of the most disengaged because what I've seen when football club's going to prisons because they've got the badge on their instincts if he drawn to it and they're more susceptible to learning and he and it does have an impact sly I've seen it with my own eyes and speak to prison officers the difference between you going into a classroom and being again people that had horrific bad experiences the education system you lock them up in the classroom say you need to learn about William Shakespeare that's not going to happen and it doesn't happen when it does happen because a lot of the town is not even enough prison officers to let them into the classrooms yeah you say when a football team comes and they've got the badge on and it does something and people want to listen while sitting opposite you know you've got another badge on you a badge that is a logo that is known all over the world the Nike logo and to my knowledge you are the only Nike sponsored Ironman triathlete is that rides there's one other now there's one over there no no I was I was the second we transfer there's one in America but I'm on a very few one of very few yeah and one the only one in Britain okay and so I mean that in itself is incredible another incredible part of your hero's journey as it were is you get out of prison you finally do get released you know before I move on from that that a significant moment you you've obviously been released from prison before but the last time you hadn't changed this time you were a changed person so do you remember what was it like walking out you know you're walking out into the world this time a different John I'll tell you what's how you weren't you were the same John this to me you were different John let me walk me through that how was that for you so when when you get released after being there for a long time so as I was in there for eight years I served eight years eight Christmas is a birthday's a summers you'll be very surprised it's quite a big anticlimax because you you build these dates up in your head and you get it and then ben remind you I got arrested in 2004 not in 2012 all right you come out and you've been fixated on time all this time like dates people got dates on calendars and night everyone's date and you're something that day comes and you'd open up the door they will be down to reception you sign some pieces of paper and they basically take you to the gate and they and they annual crowds retreat cluster and you look round you think is that it go as quick as it starts as quickly ends and that's it like and it's quite it that it froze you a little bit because right well what no no no but when I got released it was quite an anticlimax I'll come out I'll get picked up I'll get in the car I haven't been in a car for three years the first one was do was stop garage and go in and buy something cuz I you don't you earn of choice now we went out for dinner that night after all got out of prison and I was with with my mom and we went out for dinner and I remember um one of my friends was very surprised by like my social skills that I was my social she was quite good that's that please thank you and where I was and I didn't seem from and then I thought I I've adjusted like nothing nothing's really family I'm a cold now I'm good because obviously we're these stories people coming out and they don't know what to do and stuff and they get really anxious and it was only the next day I went to go shopping to buy some clothes cuz I didn't have anything that I went into a shop and and it was choice you don't have choice and I remember I was indecisive like what color do I get like because I wasn't used to being out to get by a green or yellow or red because you can have black because he looked like a prison officer on the cut and it was little things like that and then I joined a rowing club london rowing club so i got out on the friday got released and on a saturday I joined a rowing club in London in Putney cause the straightway you're like right yet right on it I want to try I'm gonna be an athlete now this this was quite this is quite an important part of this because I didn't intentionally do this it was unintentionally by the in realize impact it was later only glad for my life so I get released on a Friday athlete you want to be a sportsman want to join one of the best frien clubs in the country so go then to london rowing club high performance center there was all these olympic athletes at the rowing club when i joined and it was quite weird because i just got released after the olympics and I see in all these light pictures of these athletes up on the wall and the rowing club that up in the Olympics so I joined this club cause it was high performance lightweight rowing but dream was to be a pro athlete I want to be a pro rower so I joined this rowing club now what I didn't realize I thought I was gonna join this club and it was all about sport but my whole social circle completely changed overnight like I come out of prison now no one knew I just been released from prison I'll join this rowing club so this was quite important because I think what this did this broke down people's preconceptions of what people in prison would have been like because I started forming really strong friendships with people some of them were barristers there were lawyers police officers judges what would choose a different skill they didn't about with multi-legged out order and near to hannah fact we've been in the changing rooms going out now what they saw was this guy that just turned up wasn't never really rode on the water and an amazing herb time sindoor round machine times I didn't tell any of them about the records I had because I knew if I told them people will go online because rowers if you told people stuff of him rowing in context of your ability people will research if you big yourself up and you start pretending you're really good people will start down on and actually go and actually you're not that good you results like a good so I kept it really I just said all year like just keep fit in the gym just want to try to get rowing ago so no one there anything about me so I built up all these amazing friendships and NACA said like I it was like I basically the easiest way I could have turned my luck that changed direction of the amount of my friends that I would have been the have him and if I would have uprooted my whole life and gone abroad it that's what it felt like it felt like I just planted myself in this whole new community in rouen made all these amazing friends and and they basically will become my sort of support network like people that I'll go and hang out with and so my old friends I completely disconnected from them that most of them didn't even I've got me some prison because I stopped writing letters and stuff so when I come out I didn't expect I thought I'm just not gonna have any friends but I first get out but in overnight I made this whole social circle I'm rowing the early in the morning at hoppers five and then I'm rowing again in the evening with the same group of people next day I'm going to the gym and the people I'm Randy even so I was living basically nearly every single day and what was quite sort of I never forget this obviously my dream when I was in prison was to be an athlete then when I wanted to be like the best a fella could being there was a female role called Sophie Hoskins and Sophie won a gold medal at the alundra and in pics and on a Tuesday night it london rowing club we would do it like all the guys would be on the round machines together and within the same session so everyone's in synchronicity so everyone's bang like right age he going down and up and down the slide 18 strokes per minute and I had the Olympic champion sitting on my left and I remember thinking like my god like two weeks ago I've sit in a prison gym ten weeks later I got the Olympic champion sitting next to me right next to me and it threw me a little bit like because that was what I wanted with my life and and as I said this my relationship with all these people carrying and developing and then because I was really ashamed of my past when I got out I didn't want no one to know especially when I joined the rowing club and I made these amazing friends and and they all did these incredible things like they won medals at the Olympics they travel around the world their works in hospitals they climb Mount Everest they roll across the ocean they nominated these incredible things and feats for their lives and and I've come out and and all I'd done my life was called misery misery and destruction to people and I felt really shame because what I was worried about was kind of being shunned and I'm actually gonna actually we don't really want you here like and it was a real worry for me that at the beginning I really didn't want people to know about my past that they find out they did what waiting that happening um I I kind of got the I got the sense that some people had found out and I went to take the initiative and I went to be the one to sort of tell my own story and me take control of it so then I made a decision to write a blog and I wrote the blog and he kind of went viral with him Rowan and it was good because the way the Rowan community accepted me and it broke preconceptions of what someone they fall someone would be like in prison and I think maybe I dunno if I were to join the people know there's this guy who's a convicted armed robbery he spent eight years in prison and now he's joining us rowing club jonah rove him maybe some people would have gone though i don't but they built these friendships up with me and actually I just become John and people when when I explained I said I wrote the blog and people read it I think people could understand why I did what I did again I didn't well made me do it I mean John it's incredible so many levels I mean look obviously I don't know the people you befriended in the growing club but if you're talking about barristers and doctors and Olympic athletes a lot of those guys I'm sure you know had had amazing experiences growing up with amazing opportunity you know as you've demonstrated with your story how you bought how you brought up what you're exposed to that defines your reality you know yeah I became a daughter right my dad as does his family were doctors all my parents friends were doctors right so for me actually at that point getting into med school was actually no big deal in the sense that that's all I was surrounded by like I'm not saying I don't I'm not very proud to be doctor I am but I'm just I'm simply saying that actually what we're surrounded by very much the limits or defines what we think is possible right so it's it's so it's so lovely the way you did it where you've got to know them they've got to know you for who you are befriended you growing with you and then it comes out was there any backlash did some people shun you after that Joe what not one person not one literally the the way it was received and the support in which I received after it I would say that people were more willing to reach out and help me even more on the quest and what I chose to do which was be an athlete and I mean write a lot of them bear in mind some of these were Olympic champions that were willing to come down and roll with me on the water to teach me how to rope because they wanted me to be successful and that went all the way from like amateur rowers the club all right up to Olympic and and I was very fortunate like two years ago I got asked to go see Caversham which is where the GB rowing squad trained and I got asked to go down and speak to all the athletes which to me was a massive because like that was something I wanted to do like and to go to go into that high performance environment meet the people that you look up to but that that was the level of in the British Rouen that the whole spool just we're supportive of me and and they have been up to up to this day here is that blog still online today yes it is yeah I think it's still there somewhere if I'll find it I'll let sort in the shownotes I actually want to read it because I'm super interested as to what you said in that blog to the point where or no one shunned you they just wanted to help you and I imagine you would have been very honest and but I'm looking for severe that will definitely link to that so you were training you know you've come out of prison you're a changed person you want to be a pro row you've joined this club you're training with these guys but you don't become a pro roadie you go into a different sport so you know what happened there and what happened to end you up being sponsored by Nike so I I I'm a realist um I was 29 years old when I got my least nearly 30 so I was literally just touching very basically when you go into a sport like rowing you you kind of realize it's kind of like swimming to a regards of if you've not done it from a young age it's very very challenging to take it up as a grown man and get to that level in which you want to get to which which I wanted to get to it so it's technique trip and Riley like people think Rowan's are very easy sport and you use your arms you don't use your arms Rowan's of rowing is very technical it's like swimming and it's getting to swimming at the moment and I'm learning and I'm obsessing on YouTube videos and what something can I wish had looked at kids that's what I used to do is sit there watching right at night I'm good two hours a day and I'm watching the odd that's how you get in the world that's how you catch the walk you know I'm obsessed it is you but you don't realize how difficult is until you start doing it it's challenging and and even though physicality my heart and lungs and my mind set I had the attributes to do it like I would train with people who went Olympics and you realize that like you're not a million miles off them but technically I was lightyears and I knew I knew I took up the sport too late to get to that level so when I was in prison I used to watch Transworld sport and trans wolf and Channel four member travel4 so I used to watch that program and on it one day was the sport called Iron Man which was a triathlon and they were showing the World Championships in Kona and I remember watching this program and actually I'll find you this blog because I say it was a blog when I was in prison me and Darren drafted that what my aspirations were when I got at prison so just to show you that this isn't me making this up as I've come out and inside it makes a better story so I watch this episode of transport I see Iron Man and I thought to myself I'm gonna do one and then one day while I was in prison when I come out no no desire to do try a floral Ironman didn't like didn't it wasn't why I was after it was rowing so anyway I'll get to a point rowing for six months and I fall right I am NOT going to get to that level and I am in in Rowan that I want to get to what other sport can I do where it's not team-based so I can't slow up with people damp because the problem is rowing you you row in a crew now but you're over at crew at your ability level really so you're not you're I'm not gonna be put in a boat with three other Olympic champions if I'm really bad novice do you know I mean because obviously I'll kill the boat speed so when you do an individual sport it's all on you so if you put the hard work in and the discipline and dedication you can't slow anyone down of your techniques not that great so it was either me wrong on my own which I wouldn't be able to get to level because the obviously limit yourself then surround with what where you could row in a boat that if you only ran on your own you can only do certain amount races and stuff so it was like why I salute sank hell so I'll go on the Internet I went on Google a tight tire man in and I'll never forget this they were the only Ironman race I could do was Ironman UK because I wasn't allowed to leave United Kingdom because I had a travel ban when I got released from prison so I couldn't travel without asking permission and so I'm an UK was the only one I could go and he was in Bolton so I'll go onto the entry it's sold out there's no when she's less happy am I gonna do this so then there was at the bottom of the link there was a there was an entry for via charity clicked on that and I've got it on a charity entry like six weeks out from the race so I enter it and then I went and bought a bike I hardly had any money we've got out of prison so I bought this buy it was way too big for me was like two sizes too big on eBay got the bike bought a wetsuit I had six weeks to train for this Ironman now I'm very fit still from rowing and all the training I've been doing in prison because I've got really some prison I'm still training or gum out start rowing like professionally so I'm doing 20-plus hours a week trains on arrow Billie I'm really fit so they shall go then to serve a time start washing videos I teach myself basically swim watching these videos and I know I mean I'm an UK so I'm an UK six weeks out other so you couldn't swim couldn't swim they literally like literally like because again sometimes people might listen to this and go there's no way he's done this so I get released in November 2012 I was rowing for like six months and then I did Ironman UK in July of to 14 so within that space I was rowing on the water then I made a decision to I'm any case six weeks out so I turn up Ironman UK teach myself from six weeks previous everything so when I turn off my man you came I had never ridden a bike for a hundred eighty can my life the furthest I've ever ridden the bike was 80 K 180 K was the bite Lake and then you obviously have to run them often and I never swam further of 3.8 K so I've never done there so I turned that tire man UK and and I'm not saying this arrogantly I'm genuine him I'm not saying any whatsoever but there was a couple of emotions happen when I completed the race alright so when it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be it wasn't it wasn't I wasn't making a far sight I did the Ironman and I'm a new car he's very hilly so I did in twelve and a half hours and I think I was in the top 150 or 200 and I remember but when I run down that finishing show in Bolton Town Center it was it was smashing them of rain but I got so emotional because it was like my god I feel like I've just achieved sang so good like because it cuz it was sound I done seen something that a prison and where I fought about that in prison I thought I'm going to do one one day and ever expected it was gonna be as soon as it was and for what that's what I'm gonna do now and I did I man you can I've finished across the finish line and and I loved it I feel really emotional and I felt card this wave the sense of accomplishment and achievement so that's one we dedicate my life to I'm gonna I'm gonna be a triathlete I'm gonna be the best traveler I can possibly be and then I went to a human performance lab in Essex and they did like some testing on my heart and lungs and the woman said to me so I explained to I just did Ironman tolera quick I did it and stuff and I said that it's just a rare in history over there man out of hours she did just feel to max test and all his lactate test and she said you've got the ability to get to an elite level in triathlon if you T if you train your body correctly and that was all unneeded severe and then I went off I made a lot mistakes though like it wasn't it went when because what become detrimental to me because I was so driven and I was so determined to be successful at something I end up not being coached and I trained myself into the ground like literally I over trained I got virus post-viral fatigue I got really ill I turn I should not not injured but more internally like when I got sick and I got a virus erased that did a full distance Ironman on a virus and and it and it sent me over he sent me over a cliff and I too have an ECG and it but again it was a learning process and having the awareness I didn't have the skill set to coach myself because I was so blinken so because it again to me be being successful as an athlete was my way of proving to the world I wasn't a piece of [ __ ] that I wasn't some scumbag that spent his whole life in prison and I was actually good at something and I was so consumed intoxicated by that it become my Achilles heel so because I could suffer and because I could hurt myself by when and again it's not arrogant but I went from basically being a non runner so being had to run like a sub for our mouths and in training within about eight weeks I mean an ocean of rubber and Battersea Park I just run the marathon every Sunday run Battersea Park and every day I did it what in the Hat in or every week I'd get quicker and quicker and quicker and it was like being on an Ergo again the splits get quick and get but the problem is I wasn't recovering no and I just kept thinking when I felt like crap I just got a man up like I don't want it like if I'm not suffering if I don't wake up feeling like I've got a hangover because my body's so depleted that it means I don't really want it I'm being lazy so I go out and I would do it again and I'll do it again and eventually you start thinking a massive hole and and I couldn't get out hole and I end up overtraining that's it for me it really strikes me that your mindset has always been critical in anything you've done whether good or bad I don't like the terms good about the choice is right there aren't they but everything's just a choice and every choice has a consequence but there's something about you and your mindsets that it's it's just incredible really in terms of yes how much you're suffer how much you'll push yourself all right what I love about your story John is I think it's empowering for for anybody I think it just shows what human beings are capable of but do you think you are special in the sense that you do have some you do appear to have some superhuman physical abilities you know you do an Ironman when you can't really swim he's in six we should teach yourself how to swim when you do it you're not a runner yet in under eight weeks you sweat your running marathons and under in under three hours these are just incredible feats and so have you ever thought about it you know that you are like a genetic specimen in some ways and you are special no I I don't think I'm special um I think everyone is inherently gifted at something like I was having this conversation that while Gover secretary in an office I mean the receptionist so I always like talking to people and I mean yeah I love it I love it yeah it's just like I'm sitting down and ladies there she's working and I'm waiting to have this meeting and they've kept me in the foyer and she's chatting to me she what she's doing and she's typing she's talking to me and I said I do i do triathlon to I'm an absolutely incredible like I thought I could never do that I said but I could never do what you're doing now and she said would you me I said you've not looked at me once and you've just typed for like minutes like she's just I said it's learn skill is to learn ability you've learnt to do that like I've learnt to be good why though because I do it every day like you do that every day and I just think again like I finished comes back to her and I know I might be kind of subject a little bit here but I often said it's the kids when I talk to them about imposter syndrome so when I go into a situation um where a little while ago I had a meeting at 10 Downing Street you know trees amazed policy advisers were there and we was talking about opening up schools over the 6 weeks holiday to make them into community centers and when I left that situation I remember quite a few of my friends said like do you do not feel nervous like you your answers turn down the string you're talking to all these people at political aides tonight I said but why should life like why should I feel like that then the humans there no difference menu they just they've gone to university they've learned the skill set which is allowed them to have a job that works in politics like I'm good at what I do because I do it every day they go to what I do we've all got skillsets we're all good at something and I just think in life I think we've all got talents and abilities and skills and the ability and I feel like as well everything all we've spoken about it there was never no self limiters so I didn't I didn't limit myself because I had no limits gauge off what was good and what was bad I just did what I could do I never sat there and gone oh I can't do that because some three hours is really quick because that's how a percentage of population can do that because I didn't know that was really it goes what's that a story when you were in solitary confinement and you're training every day to get through to give yourself that control you know what's good you don't know if 20 precipices it's crap or world class you just do what you can do do if you have a blank canvas if you don't know what by you not engaging in the athletic world you don't know what's a good time so you just do the best you can do I think that is so empowering you shared a story when we had a bit of lunch just before we started this conversation about young people about was at an underage prison you visited and the things you said to that girl or what if you just share that it's like so just just to go back a little bit because everything we've spoken about so far today I would always say that it's always it has always been about me right before it was about money when I was a kid then I realized was good at spoke it was about medals it was about Ironman and I believed even when I changed that I still went to reaches out my life and I fought legacy then was by being really good at sport and when your medals and having all those records I mean all those placards and my walls and doors and that defined me as a person by my legacy and I was consumed by overtraining got ill fixed that got better at spoke but then what really changed my life was when I started going into schools my my my story started coming out when I made my story come out in the Roman world but underneat started breaching out into the wider world I've got opportunity to go into schools in the beginning I was like I don't really see what value I'm gonna have because again you don't really understand I don't I don't feel what I've done is exceptional and I don't I'm me guy I'm John I've gone through the journey I've gone through me experience oh I've gone through and I'd never realized the impact that could have on other people's lives and then I got enough from the opportunities to a school talk in Essex and I and I took it and I went and I did this talk and at the end this young boy his name was called George followed me in the head teacher out I mean a head teacher went to his office to have a debrief and George follow us out and he said sir can I speak to John and Simon [ __ ] head teacher said he looked at me and he said look do you mind talking to myself now you are standing here shot just in case of other than what he's gonna say so that I school so George looked at me then he was 14 years old and he went to me I'm like you and I said would you mean you like me anyway and I'm not you and I said generally knows him with men and he said my dad's coming out of prison my my mom's book not my sister I don't want to go to prison and he started crying and honestly I've never experienced anything like it in my life I had genuinely never know I never it was such a powerful moment to know I had impacted on that young boy's life where now whatever I said to him he was highly susceptible to listen to what I was about to say because he could relate to me and I said to him in life you've got an awareness I didn't have your age you realize all the triggers all the warning signals now but you don't want that life which is good because I didn't see that your age what do you want to do in life and he said I want to work in sport I'm not good at sport so you don't need to be good but you could be a Messer you could be a physio you is so many other occupations within the sports world that you can do you're in a school it's geared up for sport they want to encourage and help you and stuff so a nice stand in contact with George fire and I used to phone up the school and and Simon Cox head teacher used to put George on the phone in the office and we used to I used to chat him in the car on the way to the gym every now and again just to keep him in any and and the most an honesty man my tips like Simon Cox phoned me up when he did his GCC's and he was walking around the the hole and I'm not there I'm not there like I don't notice and George puts his pen down in the jesusí hole and sits back and Simon goes out to mrs. What's Wrong George and he says I can't do it sir he went I can't do it he said why can't you do it even I can't he went I can't I can't do it and he said to him George what would John tell you to do now and Simon said I walked away and I look back and he picked up his pen and started writing again and when he told me that story made honest a man they got like even now it was so powerful it was so so powerful and then he sat EGC sees and he end up getting a C in that denial grade and in he sign on to college but throughout that impact our young person's life where they listen to what you're saying I realized then that that was my calling in life and and then I realized that this awareness again in my life you constantly having you're developing growing that legacy is actually it isn't about money and it isn't about winning stuff it's about you having a positive impact on other people's lives and lifting other people up and by me and Patterson on George life if George now doesn't go to prison and he has children and those children don't go to prison and their lives are good Chris George's life's good and their kids lives do better all because he interacted with me that's what legacy is about it's about reaching back and lifting people up and I realized I was in such an incredibly powerful position an influential position where not only could I have the impact over a young person's life but I was able to go and have means it turned down in Street and gonna have menus for politicians and go and meet big brands and corporations where they wanted me to go in what that then then did for me was able me to unlock opportunities for other young people to have a better life which I am happy to say that I am able to do buy the property of using my life because let's be honest lots of people it's the story and I have always said this like I was very fortunate I got asked to go to the Conservative Party conference a couple years ago it's irrelevant my political beliefs are but the facts have been out to have an audience of people that can make decisions that can affect the lives of millions of people to me that was an honor and a privilege to come from where I've come from to be able to address those people and to have that platform to be able to influence change and then politicians come up to me and say I can't believe you sat in prison for ten years for what you did by the way you conduct yourself and the way you are and what you've done and what what I don't see like this but what an inspiration you are now are you're an amazing person you're an amazing athlete and I say but you you must remember I'm no difference in the 90,000 people sitting in prison I was given an opportunity and I chose to take it so that's why it's fundamentally important that those other 90,000 people are able to change and turn their lives around and be given the right opportunities to turn their lives web so it allows me to connect up the dots to people because they can relate to me so when you see it in front of them they can look at me and relate to me on that level and I am like one of them and and that's what's important because then when you can connect the dots up and show them that I am NOT different to these people I am exactly the same as them so if you think this about me and you look at me and Lord me these other people are capable of doing what I've done I'm no different to those people I was once that scumbag that was sitting in a maximum-security unit with suicide bombers if you look to me then you say these piece of [ __ ] never let them out of prison where now you don't say that so it's connecting up the dots and as I've gone through that journey of going into prisons and it's been a life-changing experience for me it really has like when the story I was telling you about earlier like we're not when I went into an STC which is a secure training center so it's it's technically a prison but they can't call it a prison then it's for children and and I walked into this dis environment I had never seen children in prison under the age of 18 I've seen young offenders like young men I'd never seen girls in prison so I go into this STC and it's a mixture of girls and boys mixed together but they're on different housing units and I was asked if I would like to go on the housing unit and look where the children slept and I agreed I said Jail I would like to I was interested to see what it looked like and we walked on this spur they try to D institutionalize it as much as they possibly can so that it doesn't look like it's a prison but you can quite clear there's bars on the windows and stuff and they got a sofa and I got a big TV and then the prison officer was like walking me down with the governor and we stopped outside a massive metal door lock I was put behind and he puts the key in and he opens it up and he opens it and then I walk in and it was literally like a little girl's bedroom and it threw me mate like honestly like I cut it so hard to verbalize how it made me feel yeah I looked on the wall knows pictures of mum there was letters that a mom and Nana Turner and I'm and I and I was I was I was upset for her but then I was enraged when I left that how young people have failed so bad like are the sexual abuse and stuff that I heard that happens to some of these young girls and and and it and it just driven me even more I thought I need to do more to help provide young people of opportunities not are in those situations to have a better life because it was just so sad it's in such a young girl in that situation and been fouled so bad for out the care system that fled her again only known what she knows and their behaviour she's expressed from the experiences that she's been through from since you basically the day that she was born you know I can see where the strive and you why it's so strong why you want to go and use your story use your life for goods it's yeah it's emotional talking about it because you know I think Matt see your life and you know you didn't have that you know your father was you didn't have a strong male figure so of course if your stepfather rocks up and he's gonna fill the void it's like that boy at school who sees you and actually he can relate to you so now he's got a male role model who he can relate to if you don't have that well of course you're gonna make maybe some poor decisions you don't amoenus I was genuinely again like I was genuinely surprised but the further along the journey I've gone to serve him released from prison the social difference in his country is and how so few have so much and so many have so little to the degree where like children headmaster once phoned me up when it was snowing now I remember I was at school snow day I was loving it didn't have school I didn't have school like you'd be off school for three or four days loving it and headmaster phone up in Essex and my developed a really close relationship with him and he said I've we've had to close the school and I've said I'll bet the kids love it and he said he said John he said I feel so bad because I known today for the next two or three days probably that probably about 70 percent of my skull will not eat a meal for breakfast or lunch because they're solely reliant on the school providing those meals because the kids aren't even at home because they haven't the mums and dads haven't got the money I haven't got the food to eat and then you startling stuff of I never understood for a moment not being a female but then there was problems with girls with tampons they were truant from school when I was on their periods because they couldn't afford Tampax and you think how on earth is it that bad and then I don't obviously you come to the Prison Service and you look at the costs that gets spent on incarcerating young people right the chairman of Brentford Football Club coming on a visit to film young offenders and he was standing with me and he's a businessman he's a very intelligent man and I said to him I could have the cost of the young offenders prisoner stay like that overnight straightaway one decision he said how could you do it so I said see each one of these kids today running around cost the taxpayer seventy-five thousand pounds per year to incarcerate in his place he said Jeff I said if I got that young boy over there and put him in eat them into the best private school in the country I've just half the budget the UK justice system over half so you how can it make sense it costs thirty five forty thousand and send the kids to the best private school in the country there's seventy five thousand pounds to incarcerate them in a young offenders institution if that's not lunacy I do not know what is and I don't understand for the life of me why this has been allowed to continue if it's in you can do it only slightly and when I speak to my friends there's just no awareness of it in society that this is a problem right you see people that they're talking about when we leave the EU and it's gonna cost thirty nine billion pounds and you think we're spending 18 billion a year on reoffending and you and you look at this and you think how do people not see these numbers and it's we build and wait and we just was so judgmental as a society we we look down on so many people in terms of where they've ended up in life and we don't realize how that could absolutely be me or you that just for life circumstance and a few little minor decisions here well that can absolutely influence the outcome and it's something you know I obviously talk a lot about health and health inequality as a massive thing depending on where you grow up in this country your health your your your your life's one will be different could maybe my up to ten years depending on your postcode I mean this sort of inequality is staggering and it's not something we typically talk a lot about on this podcast but it's an important topic and as I try and talk some more and more varied people about different things about it's all ultimately how to live better how we can all live better lives and I think we live better lives not only when we feel better individually but when society is happier healthier around us it's very hard to be happy when yes you're individually doing well but people around you a struggling guest I think is but we are all on the same rock you're all only surf at the same moment in time in history like we all were here together and we're all going to end up in the same six foot hole at the end of it so again my belief is the fact we should work together and we should help other people and that's what life should be about it shouldn't be about profit constantly like selling new stuff constantly should be about working together and helping you helping your fellow man because that you should society community becomes so much better by living that sort of existence and when we don't live it you shield a disharmony that's going on in the world today and all the hatred and is that clean it's got a point now where we can't keep doing things the way we've always done them since getting more and more toxic and it is about that it is about that compassion I think that's what was really missing in society but John this is by far the longest conversation I've ever had on the podcast and I actually feel we're just warming up yeah I'd love at some point as we I think we'd better start wrapping this up but I would love to continue this at some point and have maybe the in-depth conversation on the work that you're currently doing you talk it's coming you talking to school so maybe maybe we can do that at some point then but I think it says that this conversation you couldn't make up your story I told you this before you came in I know is it salt I don't mean this in a disrespectful way but if your story was being made as to a Hollywood film I don't need to believe it I have been told that a few times I have been Oh help me how does it feel to you to hear that it's hard isn't it because it I've lived the experience so I've gone through it and I feel like you do compartmentalize your life um you do you do do it and I suppose I say you overcome stuff that goes on like traumatic experiences stuff it's just it's a very strange sensation because I am me so it's hard for me to have look out yeah and I got in and go like yeah sometimes you do have to pinch yourself like before trees are may step down as prime minister I've got invited to turn down the street and I'm I mean I'm in turn down a street like we've 200 people that were the heads of charities across the country that are working in new violence across the United Kingdom and I'm standing there and treasom a prime minister on a podium at 10 Downing Street starts referencing my story sand to them about we as a society can't give up on people and I'm referencing me and saying because of John McAvoy like what he's managed to do of his life he's gone on his accomplished what I've done and it was surreal like yeah and that was what I would say that's probably one of the biggest moments of this whole journey in the context of it being quite surreal that you look and go Prime Minister of the country stands up and references me in a room or naina yes and actually references what I've done from where I've come from but that was quite a surreal experience but it is hard when you've when you've lived it that's my norm given that it is your normal it's got you to where you are today do you regret anything I regret I regret what I did deeply and and but I don't regret the experiences that I've gone through and I don't regret being in prison for ten years I regret what I did to go in there but I don't regret being in there I I don't I'm not bitter about anything I'm not hateful resentful is that been hard for you not to be bitter at the beginning like not now but when I was in there I was quite bitter you know I hate for resentful towards the system and everything it stood for but since my inside decided to turn change my course of my life round know like I've yes I've just moved on with my life and I just believe it's a journey and I and and you know what I I'm not a religious man I'm not a religious man but there was one vent before we close up where I was at the World Book Festival down in Somerset and before I went and done it I asked the organizers when I was there that day I said like what what's like the demographic for the audience they said very white middle class he's probably one of most affluent areas in the country can live it was very like Nick Clegg was talking before me and then I was okay and I thought I'm really gonna be in for a tough time after this after I stood up but and all these old people have come in and we do this talk and then hands are going up and these old people were like we want to give you money we want to give you money to help you doing what you're doing right and I was blown away and then when I was standing around couple from introducing themselves stuff and and I used to be a Roman Catholic when I was growing up Irish family and I stopped believing in God pull me into prison and this priest come up to me at this row Somerset Book Festival and he please hand on my shoulder and he said the book Redemption that's what it's called he went is that got a religious connotation to it I said no he said are you religious I said I was I was a Catholic I stopped believing in God ironically when I went to prison because I fought it there's a God why am I in this bad situation as mad as that seems what I'm saying is that justification I said if there's a God why is he let me come to prison and he put his hand on my shoulder and and it will live with me for rest of my life and the hairs on my neck stood up and they will now and he went to me I've never seen a man put on earth to do what you're doing more clearly than what you've been put on earth to do and he went you might not believe in God but Jesus believes in you and I'm not saying I'm not religious now but it was very powerful when a man of because I respect other people's religions it's very powerful in a man that does believe in God believes that there's some greater being for you and the reason why you're doing what you're doing is for a call in your life and I don't believe in God but I believe that what I'm doing today was my calling and I believe that was what I was put on earth to do and that's why like again someone once said to me like do you ever get nervous if you stand up in front of 2,000 people and speak and I don't because even if I try to mess up what I was about to say it would be impossible because I can't because I'm speaking from my heart yeah I don't have to memorize stuff I don't have to go up with notes because what I'm saying I believe in and it's might it's me being true to myself if it was faking was artificial I would have to go up the notes and prompters and I don't and the end and and that's why I believe that I'm able to stand up in front of big groups of people and talk and just tell your story and influence yeah I mean literally I was getting singling at the back of my neck as you were saying that because I can see from here clearly they you are here for a reason you listen there's no doubt that your story is so powerful that it is making impact is going to change people's lives and yeah you had to go through it that was your journey we've all got our own paths right but I think there's something powerful about it that will inspire thousands tens of hundreds of thousands millions of people as your story gets more and more well-known it shows the potential of any human being that no matter where you're at you can make change you can turn your life around a lot of people listen to this podcast the health and well-being and although we're not technically spoken about health and well-being what we haven't spoken about is mindset belief that you can change and I think those things are just as relevant to my audience as they might be to a school audience or you know young offenders who you're trying to inspire John this podcast is called feel better live more because as I say over and over again when we feel better in ourselves we get more out of lives I always love my guests where possible to leave the listeners with some actionable tips view are things that they can think about applying into their own life immediately to improve their lives and I wonder I appreciate you've not had any prep on this but I wonder have you got some closing thoughts of people that no matter where they're at in their life they can think about applying to improve the way things are a bird always I will always go back to it goes back to self belief and not setting limits and what you're able to achieve and what you're able to accomplish I'm a great believer in positive full visualization and working toward something and it's not about being the best it's about being the best version of you I might not be the greatest I'm an athlete in the world but I just want to be the best I can be and that's what's important in life like you being the best version of you and and and believing that there's no possibility you can always get better you can always overcome and it's never the end until it's the end so until you take your last dying breath and they're going to put you in that casket you've you've got life and if you've got life live it because if you if you're on this planet and it's such a short period of time like we're like a blink of an eye on the planet and I just think you have to maximize every day of it you have to go out and you have to live your life to the fullest and and that sometimes we all have bad days I have loads of bad days but you have to be so appreciative of the fact that you can you can breathe and you can live and that's what life is about it's about going out and experiences enjoyment and and not getting bogged down on stuff that isn't that important yeah well thank you so much sharing that thank you for so openly showing your story incredible I've heard it before but to hear it over the table from you literally I could feel it inside I could feel tingles a lot of people want a feedback see they want to get in touch with you can they find you on social media if so where would you like them to find you I'm on Twitter and Instagram and yeah I've got an internet sites and website and stuff so there's an email address if anyone wants to email it just gone to the website and you click through like the message section on it yeah Graham and Twitter would you look thanks for the time today let's definitely do a part two I think there's so much more to talk about but good luck with everything my dear man you're making a huge thing for you Mary thank you thank you cheers John you

Channel: Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Views: 62,650

Keywords: The Four Pillar Plan, NHS, GP, Progressive Medicine, Four Pillar Plan, the stress solution, feel better in 5, ironman, john mcavoy, inspiration

Id: OtPNh0uBfII

Length: 152min 29sec (9149 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 01 2020