John McAvoy: From Convicted Armed Robber To Ironman Triathlete

Hello guys.

I'm glad to be here finally.

Continued growth, yeah, always be willing to learn and grow as an individual, have an open mind to what's possible.

So I was, from a young man, I would always say I was incessantly driven as a child. The reason I would say I was, and to me, it's clear, it was when my mum told me my dad had died before I was born. So my mum was eight months pregnant with me. My dad went to bed a 38 year old man, had an undiagnosed heart problem, dies of a massive heart attack. My mum brings me into this world as a single parent. I had a sister and these incredible aunties, my mum's sisters and I had this amazing childhood, really, that was happy, I remember my mum used to take me to museums, HMS Belfast, London Dungeons, every weekend, like she used to work in a florist, she didn't have much money, but she just used to do anything she could for me and my sisters, so we had a really happy childhood. And when I did start going to primary school, it was only then when I really started interacting with other children and then like it become clear that I didn't have a dad because people used to tease me, like children used to tease me. And I asked my mum because one thing again I always was, I've always been inquisitive. When I was at school, I was always that difficult child, why is the sky blue, why is this, why is that? And my mum sat me down and my mum explained my dad had died. And again, my response was where's he gone? My mum simplifies it he's gone to heaven. Where's heaven? And sort of, I then realized that sort of I wasn't going to live forever from being a very young person. And this really did have a profound impact over me as a child. And this sparked something inside me that when I got older, I wanted my life to have a significance, like I wanted to achieve something in my life because I knew I wasn't going to live forever, my life wasn't just going to go on and on and on. And as I got a little bit older, like I said, I loved history as a kid. And my mum used to send me to these museums. And she used to buy me these magazines at the newsagents. They were called Discovery Booklets. And every month it was about a different stage in history. And I just remember one day just putting these puzzles, because they were for children, together. And like, it's like Henry VIII and Napoleon. And as I'm putting these puzzles together, like I'm reading about people that died hundreds of years before I was even born, but they had done something with their lives. Their life had a significance. And that was then really like, I was like, I want my life to have meaning. And I want to do something with my life. And that focus, I would say, has always been in me since I was a young kid. I didn't want to be average. I wanted to do something extraordinary with my life.

Yeah, but I think my mum just, I was a little child, I was. She knew I was ambitious and I was always very confident as a kid to some degrees. Like I was confident in things I would go off and do stuff on my own, but I was shy around other people. And I think that was because I didn't really have a father in my life as a kid, it was just women. I used to always hide behind my mum, but I was very like, I just used to like, like we said before, come on air, like. I used to watch the adverts about British Telecom. And this is why to me being here today it's like my life's done this full circle. Because when I was a little boy, like I used to watch these adverts on the telly. And I said to my uncle, one day, 'How much does British Telecom make?' And he said, 'They make billions of pounds a year.' And I was like, 'When I get older, I'm going to own British telecom.' And I was absolutely, like, convinced. That is what I was going to do, when I got older. I was going to be a billionaire. And I was going to own British Telecom because I saw phone boxes on every street corner. Every time I went around my aunties and uncles houses, they had the BT landline, because they had a monopoly over the whole telephone communication system. So to be here today, doing a podcast with you guys. But when I was a little kid watching this tower on the news and on the adverts, it just feels like my life's done its full circle.

No and I'll tell you why, there's a couple of reasons why. So when my mum's ex husband got released from prison, when I was eight years old, he was the first male I ever had in my life on a regular basis I interacted with and I just built up this rapport with him. Now, this man, he'd served 16 years for armed robbery, he had two acquittals at the Old Bailey. Sorry, he'd been shot by the police twice and then five acquittals at the Old Bailey. And then growing up as a young kid, he come into my mum's life, not to have a relationship, but my sister was actually his daughter. So she was my half sister and every weekend he used to come around and take my sister out. And I think my mum didn't want me to miss out. So my mum had to let me go out with him. And I was too young to really understand what this man was, but he was a multimillionaire when he's 21 years old, he was one of the most prolific armed robbers in the United Kingdom. He exposed me from a very young age to the serious and organized criminals. Now, at that age, I didn't connect up all the dots. It was only when my granddad passed away and when me and my mum and my aunties were clearing out my granddad's flat in Peckham. My granddad had this envelope, he kept all these newspaper clippings from all like, the tabloid newspapers. And then I'm looking at them and it's pictures of Billy on the floor with guns around him and like armed robber. And then I connected the dots, like the money, the power that I perceived that he had, all of these people that I've been mixing with as a young kid, were all involved in criminal activity. And then that whole world becomes completely normalized to you. So I would look at you today, as someone quite young and think you was abnormal. And I couldn't fathom, because again, what these adults were projecting on to me was like, the system was corrupt, it was unfair. People that engage with it with are sheep and we weren't sheep. And we lived that side of that. So it was hard for me as a kid, to them fathom that other people pay taxes, they work, they paid 40% to the government. So growing up in that environment like that whole world becomes so normal to you, that you look upon it as just, that's life and people you hear these stories, about people going into prison and coming out, escaping from prison. So even again, you'd look at my life and think it's just this extreme at that moment. It was so normal to me. Because I didn't know anything else.

So going back to me wanting to own British Telecom, I thought from a very young age, success was the acquisition of wealth? And money, the more money I made in my life, the more successful I'd be, but I wasn't exposed to Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Bill Gates. I didn't see these people's children. But these guys that I was exposed to, my stepdad, all of his friends, all involved in organized crime, all multi-millionaires driving fast cars, apartments on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Everything was about money. Like I can remember my stepdad used to say to me as a kid used to to always tell me he was a multimillionaire when he's 21 years old. And he said, 'Do you think you're going to beat me?' 'Do you reckon you're going to have more money than me?' And I'm still young, I was still like a teenager and I was absolutely driven that I would be. And so they were the parameters of like, what I deemed at that point in my life was success. It was just the acquisition money. It wasn't about being ostentatious. I wasn't doing it to buy expensive stuff, but I thought the number, so I set myself that goal. I wanted to be a millionaire when I was 21 years old. And I set that, and that was what it was about. It was always about the success. It wasn't about the success with buying me these things. I didn't care about the materialistic side of it. It was more the acquisition of actually getting the money, because the money was the goal.

I would say, if I was opened up to other stuff as a kid and I didn't have these blinkers put on me, and then I realized there was other ways in which I could channel that drive. So like I remember when I was 26 years old and I was reading books when I was in prison of Olympic athletes. I'm 26 years old. I'm being exposed to groups of people, I didn't really even know existed. And when I'm reading these books, I'm like, actually, I've got the same characteristics as these people. Everyone that I thought was like me were involved in crime. I didn't realize that there were other people out there that had the same attributes as me. So these attributes, that I've always possessed. If you put them in something negative, they will be the most destructive things you can do. And then literally in my case, it cost me 10 years my life on earth sitting in a cage. When I was 26 years old and I chose those characteristics to redirect them in something positive, the massive attributes that will lead me to be successful. It was the re-shifting of my energy from negative into something positive. And I say this quite often, like when I go into prisons and talk to young men. The ability and talents they got locked inside their bodies. Like some of them like geniuses, like with maths, like if you gave them a kilo of drugs, and you said, 'how much money could you make out of that?' And they can break it down into grams and how much they would get and how much they cut it with. And if you could open up opportunities for them, when they realize these skills that they've got, if you put them working on the London Stock Exchange and taught them how to sell shares, it's the same thing.

No, it all depends which story we were telling. If it's-

I was the passenger.

But like I could tell you in the litany of stories over the years, where I've been in prison with some of the biggest drug traffickers in the world, and the way, they could transport drugs from South America, into mainland Europe and not have any connection. No phone calls, no emails. They've got the mindset, but again, it's applied in something very negative. They're entrepreneurs, they're clever, they're intelligent men. They're not stupid idiots, but it's again, it's the environment in which they've grown up around and the things that become normal to them, they don't realize that they can do other stuff with those skills. And that's why I'm all about opportunity and about opening up people's mindsets to what's possible for them. Like there is a big world out there. And if like, my PE teacher saw me when I was a kid and identified that I had hidden talent, I was good at something. And it had been very difficult for him, because I hated sport at school. But if there was someone that just picked up somewhere at my school and said 'you think differently to other people.' 'There's something you can do with this.' But I didn't really ever have that as a kid. And that's why I'm so passionate about trying to open that up in other young people's minds and give them the opportunities to grow.

So I went to prison when I was 18. I got arrested for nine counts of armed robbery. And the police, when you're under the age of 21 years old in the UK, you can't be kept with adults, but the police made me a Category A prisoner as a teenager. And it's very unheard of in the UK. They don't really do it. And then they had to sort of do this thing called star me up, which then meant I got put in a male adult, maximum security prison. I was potentially looking at 16 years in prison. I was 18 years old, to me that was like, when my solicitor told when I was like, I couldn't even fathom it, because I really been alive that long. I got offered a plea bargain at the Old Bailey. They offered me five years, I accepted it. By that point, I'd served a year in this maximum security adult male's prison. I got the five years, then they couldn't justify holding me in that prison anymore. So they downgraded me to a young offenders institution. I got moved there. And then when I got moved there, because I just come from an adult prison as a Category A prisoner they then thought I was an escape list. Now I, growing up in my very core, by again what the projection of the adults around me. I had absolute disdain for the system and the state. I had no respect for it whatsoever. And suddenly I'm in prison. I've got this female locking me in this box. My hatred just festered even more. And they tried to come to my cell one night and they wanted me to strip naked and put me in this special yellow suit. So when I walked around the prison, that the prison officers could identify I was an escape risk prisoner. And I refused to give him my clothes. They put me in segregation cell for seven days, after seven days was up, they said to me, 'When you go on the wing you're going to be a wing cleaner.' And I refused, I said, 'I'm not cleaning up your crap all day.' Because again, that hatred being very anti-authority. They put me back in front of the governor. The governor said to me, basically, 'I'm giving you another seven days confined to cell in a segregation unit, because you're refusing a lawful order.' In prison, they've got their own rules. And he smiled at me and he went, 'You're in my world. I'm not in your world. I tell you what to do.' And that was like a red rag to a bull. So when I went back to the segregation cell, they can't stop you reading books. And the librarian used to come around with a trolley. And one day I just picked this book up and was about Nelson Mandela. And I remember reading it, as at this point I was 19 and there was a part in it where he was speaking about when he was in Robin Island at the beginning, he used to be a smoker. And he realized one day that the prison officers was using the fact that he smoked cigarettes as a punishment to take something away from him. So he said, 'If I don't smoke again, I relinquished that power you've got over me.' So in my mind, as a 19 year old, I thought, well, if actually, if you, by putting him in this tiny little room, if you think this is a punishment, I'll take it away from you. So I then stayed in that room for 365 days solid. I didn't come out for exercise. They come around and remember on Christmas. And I look back now, like he wasn't, he was a good man. He was a prison officer. He was a Welsh guy. And he opened up my door on Christmas day. And he said, 'Do you want to phone your mum up?' I said, 'No.' And he said, 'Look, this isn't good for you.' I said, no. And I refused, I wouldn't use the phone Christmas day.

But that was where the journey of exercise started, because I started doing the cell circuits and it made me feel alive. Like I was a human, that I didn't exist. I was actually living being and up to this point, I didn't do any exercise. After the year had passed. I'd done a year and a bit on remand. They opened up the door and they let me walk out to the street. And I was a hundred times worse than I was before I went in. I was even more determined to make money. I thought I hate them even more. And I used to think. Every day I woke up in that cell, for every year you've taken of my life. I want a million pound when I get out. And that was my motivation to get through that sentence. Like that first one. And I got out, I was out for four days, found tracking devices on my car. Police are watching me. I think, well it's inevitable that I'm going to go back to prison, because I know they're going to do everything they can. And then I lived this typical lifestyle that you can imagine I went out of the Netherlands, went down to Spain, I was going out.

Yeah, I was hanging out with criminals. There were businessmen down there. I remember there was a businessman, he just sold a business for 75 million pounds. Bottles of champagne, beach parties and I was 22 years old. High-octane taking drugs. I had no respect for my body, really. And then I come back to the UK, for a week for a friend's birthday. And it's probably like something you would see in a film. I go, come back to the UK. One of my stepdad's friends asked to meet me. I went and met him at a cafe in Kent. He asked me if I wanted to commit a robbery with him. Initially, I said, no, I didn't want to do it. And then he basically said the sum of money that we would earn and it was easy. And the greed overcome me again, I thought well it's easy, best decision I've ever made in my life. What I didn't realize there was a hundred man police surveillance operation, watching him from the Serious Organized Crime agency. Four days later in south London, I'm laying face down on the floor. 20 machine guns pointed at my head, we was going to ambush a security van. I thought my life, to be honest with you. When I was having that car chase, I genuinely, genuinely would have died to try to get away from the police. I remember in my head. I had this, like as I'm talking to you now, this voice in my head going, 'I'm not going back to prison.' Because the first time I went, I didn't know what to expect. But this time I knew that segregation unit was coming. I knew what was coming. And I remember it, man. That when they tried to ambush me, I just was having this car chase. And I just kept this voice going. I'm not going back to prison. I'm not going back. And then I crashed the car, got out, ran off and I did get away briefly. And then I ran into a cul-de-sac and yeah, they come running up with the machine guns. And then when I got arrested, the police officer and I actually sent him a copy of my book actually, my book come out to not to thank him. And it wasn't arrogance. It was to say that people do change their lives. I wanted him to see that I did start my life. So this police officer arrested me when I was a kid, when I was 18. And he was angry that I didn't get longer than what I should have got. What he thought I should have got.

And when I was in the back of the police car, I pretended I had a concussion. Because I thought, if they think I've got concussion, you have to take the hospital. If they take me to hospital, I'm going to try to escape because I've got nothing to lose. I'm pretending I'm drifting in and out of consciousness because when I was on the floor, my face was scratched up because of the car accident stuff. And I sensed someone get into the front seat of this unmarked police car, beside me in the back of it. And he kept saying my name and I looked up and I recognized him instantly. And he looked at me and he smiled. He went, 'You didn't learn your lesson did ya?' And then he went, 'You are going to go back to prison for a long time.' And I remember we had this armed escort going to Wandsworth Police Station, Wolf Road, sorry. Wolf Road Police Station. And again, it was one of these summer days in September. And as we were driving there, he said to me, look out the window, John, he went, you won't be seeing this for a long time. And what we were talking about at the beginning, in the regards of like people being sheep, I would have done anything at that moment to swap places with those people, walking down those high streets, going to Tesco's or Waitrose, in that moment. I got transferred to the police station. I was there for three days. It starts again, the no comment interviews. And I didn't really realize then the journey that I was going to go on and I didn't realize the lengths, the gravity of what the police were doing. But the police made an application to The Ministry of Justice and they made me a level two, AA category prisoner. So my escape had to be made impossible because they believed I had the capability, the means and the will to escape from lawful custody.

So I got transferred to Belmarsh Prison. And then when I was in the reception area of the prison, where they process you, they put me into a holding cell and then a prison officer come up to me and again, I was just being difficult. I wasn't giving him my address. 'Where do you live?' 'No fixed abode.' 'What religion?' Wouldn't tell him. I was just being hard work. And he put me in this holding cell. When he come, he said, 'You're going on the HSU.' And at the time I just heard H and I thought it was the hospital, because I pretended I had a concussion. I thought I must've gone down somewhere. And he walked off and then an hour or so later, loads of prison officers come, handcuffs. And they said, 'You're going on a high security unit.' And the high security unit in Belmarsh is the highest security unit in the whole of Western Europe. They built in the 1990s for the IRA. Because they built a tunnel from the prison, under the road to go into Woolwich Crown Courts. They didn't have to transport you out of the prison because the escape risk was so high. And then they put me on this unit. And then I walked out in the exercise yard because, it was the first time I was like that for three and a half days. And the prison officer went, 'Look, you've got an opportunity. Now you either go back to your cell, or you go out and exercise.' And they walked me on the wing and everything was electric doors. So you can't take hostages, so you can't take them with their keys. So all these air locked doors are opening and then he let me put my little bit of property I had in my prison cell. And then they walked me through all these electric doors, again, airlock, go outside. And you had this sense that, you was outside because the air temperature had changed, but it felt like you was inside because when you looked up, there was so much anti-helicopter wire and metal mesh to stop the helicopters coming over the top of it, that you could see the sky, but you could only see it through like a hamster cage. And I remember he opened up the doors. I mean, let me go out to the yard. And then I'm looking around And the 21/7 suicide bombers were on there. Tried to blow up the tube and Sheikh Abu Hamza that was fighting extradition to America and one other guy. And I really realized in that moment, the trouble I was in and how long they obviously went in to keep me in prison for, and I was on that unit for two years. I'm waiting to go on trial, went back through the process again, of exercising in my cell doing the cell circuits, going through my case and then it was 2007. I go to Woolwich Crown Court and I've got two life sentences.

And then-

Yeah. Like when I was in prison, I was fueled by hate. That was one thing, it was hatred towards the state and the system. So it was never showing weakness. I always never, ever showed weakness. Wherever they take off you, just don't even let them see it bothers you. I remember I did have a fear. I was young. I was young still. So I knew I had time on my side, but if you got ill and I died in prison, I didn't want to be that person. There was quite a few occasions where people committed suicide, caught cancer in prison and died. And I didn't want to die in a prison cell. But it wasn't that I wanted to like, change. I just wanted to get out of prison. And also that whole theme, like when I was in there, I was always looking for angles to get out, because I wanted to be free. I used to remind myself when I was in there, Damian that I used to repeat a mantra to myself every day: 'These people have kidnapped me. This is not my life. They have kidnapped me. This is not my life. I will not accept this as my existence. I will not be institutionalized by them.' Because I used to watch guys in there, that have been in there for 20 years. And they have this glazed look like they just have eyes just like mirrors. And they become so detached from the real world. And I was, I'm never becoming like that. And I remember when my uncle went to prison, he was in prison for 16 years. And I asked him that question, once I said, 'How did you not become institutionalized?' And again, he said it, 'I never allowed that place to become my existence.' And he used to stay connected to real world, listen to current affairs programs on the radio, reading the newspaper, reading anything he could to stay connected to reality. Because that wasn't reality, but it was like the death element, definitely like when I was in, it was a conscious thought, that I didn't want to die in prison. I didn't want to go to bed one night and never wake up ever again. And that be the end of my life, like locked in a cage.

I think any person and individual in the world that has any element of success has a moral obligation to reach back and help other people. I was one of these most entrenched, fixated, goal-orientated individuals you could ever imagine. I like literally, I gave up 10 years of my life going to prison in the pursuit of greed and money. But I think it's my responsibility as a person that's come out the other side of that and grown and seen how colorful the world is. And how beautiful people are and meeting incredible people. I do genuinely believe it's a moral obligation to myself to help as many people as I can have that awareness that there's a better life out there. And even like recently, I've gone across in the summer holidays. I was going across the country and I was visiting different schools and seeing children mate, and like. I went to a school in Newham and we picked this school in Newham to go into to work in the summer holidays to make them into like youth centers. Young kids from that area could engage in sport and have healthy food. And my friend was with me and we picked that school because it was most deprived in London, like the highest rates of inactivity. It ticked every single box as a red, red, red, red. And my mate was in there and these are babies. These are four or five-year-old children. Me and you could go in there tomorrow. And statistically nearly all of those children will fail. I shouldn't be able to tell you look at a four year old and say that child is probably going to fail in life. And that's not them going to prison. That's them not reaching their true potential in life. And in I've seen the extreme other end of that, when I've seen children in prison and again, these talents and abilities that they didn't know they had, and they'd been expressed while still in prison. But they've already made the bad life choice. And the bad life choice has meant they're going to spend the next 15, 20 years of their life in prison. I sat across the table once, I went in to Rainsbrook Young Offenders Institution or an STC Secure Training Center for children. And there was these two young men in there, they're 15 years old and we're sitting there having dinner. Both of them are serving life for a minimum of 15 years. And talking to me, went to me, 'I'm going to be your age when I get out.' And it threw me, I couldn't even fathom, like I've in prison for 10 years. And I was trying to say to him, 'Look, like you're going to serve five years longer than I did, but what I've gone on to do in my life. This isn't the end for you. You're still a child, you can learn and you can go to education. You can better your existence. Utilize this time, while you're in here. Don't just waste it and squander it.' But I do, I think in general terms, I think of any person's got any profile, any platform, any resources. I do think it's an obligation that we all have as humanity to lift other people up and help them.

I think he's about belief, installing belief in them. Again, I could tell you any litany of stories, where children are told that they can't do stuff. I was with a young girl at a charity, and our dream was to go to Cambridge University. And she was told she wasn't good enough to do it. She wouldn't be able to do it. She's like 14, 15 years old. I think it's about installing belief into people that you can do these things. It is possible. Like, the only limits you ever imposing yourself is yourself. It's your own limits. Sometimes society is a reflection of other people. They don't want you to grow, like the amount of people since I got released from prison, I met at the beginning, shall I say? Not so much now, but the beginning of it doubted me, leopard never changes its spots. He's going to go back to his old ways. He's never been asked to do and grow as a person. You're too old. You're not good enough. You're a scumbag. You're this you're that. But I just used the blank it all out and I created this ecosystem. Well, not ecosystem. I created a bubble around me, of people that were positive, that wanted me to grow and develop and supported me.

If I was in a social situation, like we was at an event, I always watch how people treat the person in that place that they would value as being the lowest in there. So that might be the tea boy, something like that. I think that shows us a lot about someone's character. By the way they treat people that can't do anything in return for them. And I'm very observant with that, I watch how people are respectful to people. Certain people, maybe not so much others. I think again, having conversations with people and I think people, again, they will reveal themselves. They will reveal their true intentions. Like, is this a transactional relationship that we're engaging in? Or was it an authentic one? Do you genuinely care about what you're saying to me? Or is it because you feel like I can benefit you in some way? And then that transactional relationship once it's done, I never see or hear from you ever again.

Well, it is quite, so what I'm about to say now, and again, I did struggle with this a little bit when I got out. So like they say, there's no honor among thieves, and that's true to a certain degree. But, some of the most loyal people I've ever met in my life, were in my past and then I really struggled when I got out. And especially as my life started progressing and sort of like, I become like successful in what I was doing. And I then really struggled with like people, again the transactional nature of relationships. They wasn't really strong relationships with other humans. And that was really hard for me at the beginning, because years ago, my circle was really tiny. It was really tight. And literally, we would all trust our lives in each other's hands. And then when I went from that into this new world, that was hard for me to adjust. That was really, really, really hard for me to adjust.

I just had to accept, in certain regards, in certain things that you do in your life, you are going to come across people like that. And it doesn't eat me up like so much. It might have done it at the beginning. Because I just couldn't understand why someone wasn't loyal and I couldn't really get why, if you don't like me? Just say, you don't like me to my face. Like that years ago, people would, I don't want to be with you. I don't trust you. I don't like you. Go away. Where you could do stuff in this world. People won't say that, but they stab you in the back, or they talk behind your back and the gossip behind your back and that, and I didn't like that characteristic. So I just had to let go of it and go look, I'm walking on this new path. I'm going to surround myself with the best people I can, in this new world and cut the dross out as much as I possibly can and interact with as little people in that world then I have to.

Again, trust, loyalty. That was another big thing as well. Like trust when I got out, I didn't trust people. Because I was bought up to be distrusting of people. So like, again, it was this tight group of people that I was always, like, I got myself really sick when I got out. When I got released, I was so driven to be a good athlete. I felt that if I had anyone help me, they didn't want it as much as me. So I didn't have a coach. And I coached myself and I literally dug myself into this hole. And because I had this ability to suffer or hardly get up in the morning and wake up with a worst headaches, the worst sleep. I was, over-training massively. My body wasn't recovering, like. I used to basically run a marathon

Every single Sunday around Battersea Park, and I'd be riding stupid distances, swimming stupid distances in a week. And my body wasn't recovering. And I didn't want to get a coach because I kept thinking that if I had a coach, he wouldn't want my dream as much as me. And it was only when I got myself into this massive hole of over-training and got a viral infection, a guy that was observing me that I trained with once. He was an Ironman triathlete and a coach. And he saw me performing a race and I didn't perform. I fell apart. I was walking the marathon, it was one of the most embarrassing experiences in my life. I put all this time and energy into this event, got myself really sick getting into it. I wasn't in a good starting point. And he reached out to me after he said, 'You're not getting anywhere near your potential. Even I know how fit and good you could be.' And then that was where that trust element begun and working with my friend, Terry. Met him in prison and we developed this trust at the beginning. Like it was learning about each other and realizing that I needed other people to help me along my journey. I couldn't do it on my own.

Yes. Without a shadow of a doubt.

The drive, the focus, the craving to be successful at something. Not to be average. The suffering, the fact that when I was in prison, I was able to do stuff, like I could put myself in segregation cell for 365 days. So I drew on that.

Oh, without a shadow of a doubt. Like when I was in that environment, one of the biggest drivers was the fact that you can strip me of everything. Like, I had everything taken off me, literally. I didn't have the clothes. I didn't own anything in that place, basically. And it didn't matter what they took from me. They could not control my mind and body, they could not stop me from doing exercises in that cell. They could not stop me from going on that journey. And I was on in my own mind at that point, they can't control me. And it's definitely, there was that feel within it. And then I even, like when I was doing some of the records, I was highly motivated. Like, even though I went through this process of, because the catalyst was my friend dying, for the fact that I wanted to turn my life around. But when I was on that rowing machine and I started breaking those records, I remember I broke the world record for a 100,000 meters. And I remember I got to like 85,000 meters, so 85 kilometers. I have never physically been in so much pain in my life. Like my muscles in my back were tremoring with cramp. Because I didn't have electrolyte drinks. And all I kept thinking about was the policemen that arrested me. And I kept thinking, my life means something. I'm not going to let you people just, cause at that point I felt like he just thought I was a piece of shit. He could lock in prison and I'm finished. And I was so highly motivated when I was doing it to prove them wrong, that I am good at something. And when I was at 85,000 meters, I just remember being so much pain and I was on the record and I knew I could beat it. And I thought, 'I just got to suffer 15 kilometers.' That's all I got to suffer and I was breaking it down to 500 meter chunks and just chipping away. And then I did it. But as I noticed, as I carried on growing, I started letting go of that and I started let go of it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's like poison in your body. It poisoned your soul.

It was actually the prison officer Darren that helped me. And he was the one that identified that I was good on the rowing machine. He walked behind me one day and saw, and he was the man, first time in my whole life I'd ever had a male in my life, that genuinely cared for me and wanted me to be successful just for the sake of me being successful. He had no vested interest. There was no contracts, no money, no nothing. It wasn't like by having himself linked to me, we were going-

Yeah, I couldn't, it was very like, bear in mind as well we're in prison. So for up to this point for six years, Darren is my sworn enemy. I had no respect for people like Darren at all. And it pains me saying this to you today, because the way I perceived what he did and what he did for a living, he was my captor. Like he kept me in that place. I hated him. And suddenly I go through this, like this moment of awakening when my friend dies. Again, this triggering of my mortality.

Yeah. He died. He did a job. And as they were getting away in the getaway car, the tire on the car blew out and the car flipped. It was in the Netherlands. And because it was English, UK people, criminals, abroad in the Netherlands. It made News at 10. So then I watched the last moments of my friend's life. The following night on News at 10. And literally like the CCTV, they did a still of the CCTV footage. And it was like, I was looking at my friend's eyes through the CCTV camera, that they took the still on the news. And, and that was this moment of like, again the realization of my own mortality. And it triggered because I never lost anyone being alive, that I loved. It was the first time I've ever experienced that, that loss I've I never experienced my dad dying. Because I wasn't born. I didn't know what he's like, but then suddenly my mate, my best friend that I loved and trusted with my life had died. And it had a massive, massive impact over me. And then, so when I went through this transition of, wanting something different in my life. And then Darren identified this talent in me, the prison officer. And the support, he helped me with him and the way that he used to come in on his days off to help sit with me to do these records. And he went above and beyond like what he needed to do. He'd bring me in books from outside about athletes. And we used to sit in there. I remember I used to go down to the gym and just sit in the sports hall with him. And we'd talk about life and families. And he tells me about his wife and kids and the prison officers, I think used to look at him and think maybe I'm corrupting him and manipulating him. And we built up this powerful rapport with each other and friendship. And one day, when I did that record, it was just me and him. They let a couple of prisoners come in and watch me finish it off. A couple of prison officers come in from the gym. And when I finished it, I was laying down on this blue gym mat. And Darren sat down beside me and he went to me, 'You've got an ability and a talent that you can suffer.' 'If you get out of prison and waste that talent' 'It's the biggest travesty, I've ever seen as a prison officer'. He said, 'Do not waste it.' And those words stuck with me. And then that was the motivation from that moment onwards everything else I went on to do, I always remember him saying about having an ability. Having a talent, don't waste it. And that stuck me to the present to where I am right now.

I would say in life, you have to make it happen. You've got to create it. You've got to put yourself in the room and create the opportunity. The opportunity might be hard to get, but you can get it. Like I was in a concrete coffin. And I remember like, when I was doing the cell circuits and the training on the rowing machine, like it was these small incremental steps. It isn't, you don't jump from A to B. It's tiny, so small that sometimes you don't even notice you're getting better. But it's just that constant pursuit of making sure you put yourself in the position when it's ready to take the opportunity when it presents itself. And having resilience, it isn't easy, mate. Like it is hard. We all know it's hard. It's not easy. Like no one gives you anything in life for nothing. Like when I got out of prison, I was sleeping in my mum's spare room. I had no money. I was training people in local park for 35 quid, but I had this absolute belief that I would become successful being an athlete. And you're talking about a man that was like, and locked in that cage, got released from prison. I had nothing, I couldn't even afford rent when I got released from prison. And my mum was letting me sleep in the spare room, but I used to get up every morning. And I remembered sitting there talking to my mum once. And I said to my mum about, I knew I had the ability because I did what I did in prison. And I said, I don't just want to be a builder. And my mum said, 'Just keep doing what you're doing.'

Letting go of the ego, letting go of the ego. Because I, and again, I will say this, that I think this is one of the biggest things that people struggle with the most to overcome when they get released. Like, especially people involved in more high-end criminality. Their whole ego gets wrapped up in this reputation, respect in their little universe, their bubble, they are the king of their world. And then they don't just want to then be normal and average. And it's how you deal with problems in life. When they present themselves. Again, people don't challenge them because of who they are. They got respect and suddenly you're just a normal person. Then people will challenge you. And they don't like that. And I remember when I got out, like, if you just said to me now, when my friend died, 2009, I knew from that night in November the 14th, I would never commit a crime in my life again. That was me done. I was out, right? They're not just gonna let me walk out of prison, but I knew myself. I was finished I'm out of that world. But when I was on the journey of get going to get released, what was always in my head was, I had never been challenged and no one have ever spoken to me disrespectfully. So it was like, I remember when I got out and in 2012 and I joined a rowing club, High-Performance Rowing Club in London, in Putney. It was like a feeder system for GB Rowing. And I went down there and one of the coaches said, 'Look, we take you out in one of the coaching launches.' 'So you get to understand how the tide works on the Thames.' 'And you can watch the crews go and row' 'And then next week you can come down' 'And we put you in a boat and we teach you how to row.' And there was a rowing coach there called Brian Ulliott and he was coaching this crew. And I remember, I'm sitting with them in his little speed boat and he's coaching them and it was in a men's four. And one of the athletes has said something to one of the other athletes, coaching them. He stopped them from rowing, and I'm not joking. He gave him the biggest bollocking that you can imagine. And I'm like, 'Oh, wow.' 'I don't know how I would respond' 'If he spoke to me like that.' Because no one had ever spoken to me like that. And then I was like, I have to kind of make adjustments here because that could easily be me. Like all the kid did, the kid was just coaching an athlete in front of him and saying you're doing something wrong. But because he didn't say it to him, the coach. The guy that did the coaching he said, you're not the effing coach.

Yeah, mate. Massively, massively. I hadn't any like, even stuff like money management. Like I remember like when I joined the rowing club, we used to go for breakfast after Saturday sessions. And the bill would come, it'd be like 50, 60 quid. Right, for like six of us or five of us. And I was so used to just paying the tab years ago. Like when I used to go out with friends from years ago, everyone's arguing the bill might come. It might be 500, 600, 1000 pounds. Everyone's arguing who wants to pay it. So your turn, my turn. No, it's your turn, everyone's arguing. Then I've got released from prison and I've still got this mindset of like, money's like water. And then I realize money isn't like water and it doesn't just come and go and come and go. And it's suddenly, if it goes, it isn't coming in and suddenly you've got no money to live off. And it was these little adjustments that I and it took time like. When I went into like clothes shops, like the choice of color, I wasn't used to being able to choose what color t-shirts I wore. Like all these things, like it was these readjustments that you have to make coming out of prison.

I totally agree with you. I think it is hard, but I think that's why it's very important to have an open mindset and go on that journey of growth and development. Like look and try different things. I say this to children all the time, and that's why like, again, I'm so passionate about trying to put things in front of them and open up doors. Like couple years ago, I remember I did an event at a TV production company, a very big one that does all this stuff around cage fighting. And I did this talk and I didn't realize in the room, the guy that was one of, he owned it somehow and he heard me and he said, 'What can we do to help?' And I said, 'You know what? You haven't got to give money.' 'Open up your doors, do some work experience.' He said, 'Yeah, all right. Done.' So his PA was there, connected him up with a local school in Essex. They took this group of kids down in a bus from Basildon, the kids walked in and some of you guys might laugh today. First thing they said they couldn't believe some of the people like the cameraman, had shorts and flip flops on. They just thought everyone that had a job, had to wear a suit and tie. And these kids were like, 'I'm going to want to be a TV cameraman.' 'That's what I wanna do for a living.' And it's just about, but that could change their lives now, because now they understand there's something out there other than what they thought was out there. And that's why it's so important to have that open mind. But then, you can't just open the mind and not present the opportunity. The opportunity has to then be there for them to sort of walk through that. And again, it comes back to when you are in a position in life and you can open up doors. I do think it's very important that we do do that.

It's consistency, isn't it? It's the consistency day in and day out. Even when things are tough and hard, having the belief that things will get better. They will get better. They do, they do. As long as you're persistent and consistent in what your approaches to life and what you're doing every day. And even when things do get tough, you can revert back sometimes. I have bad days, we all do. It isn't all sunshine and roses. I had bad days, but I just have this belief that I know I'll get through it, I'll work through it and my life will be better. Tomorrow will be a better day than what today was. And again, the way I live my life is being in the present as well. Not overthinking, right.

Because it's helped me get through most of my life. I think you have to be, tomorrow is not given to any of us, mate. And I believe that and I think sometimes people, like they bet on the future and they might not that future might not ever come. And that's why it's so important to like, when you get up, where you are and what you're doing, you are happy and content in that. In what you're doing every day, Like Steve jobs said it when he looked himself in the mirror and he was like, for three days consecutively, if I didn't like what he was doing, I would stop doing it. And I would do something different. And I do believe that cause it's your life on earth, right. Tomorrow my life might end and I'm happy now, content, I'm having an engaging conversation with you guys. And that's what I think is so important to make sure that you create that life. That you're just happy and content in that moment, in that present.

Well, I believe life is a journey. I believe life is a journey and like the way even I've ended up here today, talking in front of you guys, I've been very open and susceptible to opportunities in my life. And that's how I am where I am today. What I come to realize a few years back, I didn't ever really understand the power of giving back. I didn't. So what I was saying about opening up doors for people, I was always generous, but I didn't, it wasn't really like, I didn't really go out of my way, if it was an inconvenience to me doing what I was doing as an athlete. And in what I come to realize a few years ago was actually, everything I've been speaking about today has always been about legacy. And it's about leaving something and achievements and my life having meaning. It's very selfish. It's all about me. It's about me being a millionaire. It was about me being a really good athlete, how quick I could run a marathon and I fast I could ride a bike. How quick I could swim. All the records. It doesn't mean anything in the bigger picture of what life is in the universe. Legacy is about helping other people that their lives are better. And if their lives are better, their children's lives are better. And it's a living legacy, it lives on. It's not a piece of metal. It's not a piece of paper. You hang up on the wall and stuff like that. And when I started going into schools, I've had some man, some of the most powerful experiences in my life. Where children would come up to me at the end crying and stuff. And I'm not an emotional person at all. And obviously I understand why I'm not, because that not showing weakness as a kid, the way my stepdad bought me up, don't cry. Don't ever show any emotion. But some of the interactions I've had with young people, where like I've triggered something in them and it sparked something inside their minds. And they're like, 'I can do something with my life.' When I'm gone, that kid's life is going to be better because he interrupted me when he was at that school. And he could go on.

And I remember one story in particular and I've spoken about it before. There was a young man called George and I did a school talk in Basildon, in Essex. It was the same school that I opened up that door for that production company. I'm not going to say it just in case sponsors. And I remember at the end of this talk, they basically brought in four assembly loads of kids. I think in total, I spoke to a thousand children in the morning. And at the end, the headmaster was walking me out of school to have a debrief. And this young kid walked out behind him and he said, 'Sir, can I talk to John?' And Simon Cox, Headmaster looked at me, he said 'Are you comfortable?' I said, 'Yeah.' He went 'I'll stand in earshot.' 'Just want to see what he says to you.' And he stood there and George looked at me and he started crying and he said, 'I'm like you.' And I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I'm like you.' 'My dad's getting out of prison.' 'My mum and my sister bring me up.' 'I don't want to go to prison.' And I said, 'But you don't have to go to prison.' 'Because you've got something that I didn't have when I was a kid, you've got awareness of the situation.' 'I didn't have that awareness.' I said, 'What do you want to do with your life?' And he said, 'I want to work in sport.' And it at this school in Basildon was a real big sports academy and he said, 'But I'm not really good at sports.' 'But you don't have to be.' 'You could work, be a physio.' 'You could be a sports psychologist.' 'There's a lot of different jobs you can do in the sports industry.' 'But you're in the greatest environment to flourish and grow.' Anyway, he wiped his tears away and stuff. And then he went back and I got in a car and it was really powerful mate, honestly. Like I was like, wow. And this was the real trigger then that I realized the power that I had then to help people. Like that, like young people. And it was a few months later, Simon phoned me up. Like it was very abnormal. Simon said, 'George is in the office. Do you mind talking to him?' I said, 'No.' So he put me on loudspeaker. I'm in my car, driving along. George is on the phone now and he's in the headmaster's office. We're chatting about, how are you He said 'My dad got released from prison' 'and he's not living with me and my mum.' He's telling me things and I said 'Look, just keep doing what you're doing' 'and work hard and stuff.' And them a few months after that, Simon phoned me up. When George was sitting in his GCSEs, he was doing, I think it was his English. And Simon was in the assembly hall, walking up and down. And he looks at George and George put his pencil down and stopped writing. And Simon went over and said 'What's wrong?' He said, 'I can't do it.' And he had a block. And Simon went to him, 'What do you think John would do now?' 'If John was here with you.' And Simon said he walked away and looked around, he picked the pencil out and carried on doing it. And he got, I think he got a B in English. Now that when I heard it mate, honestly, I remember my throat in the car, but it just triggers something inside me. That that purpose again, was like, my life has a greater significance to whatever I'm doing as a sportsperson. That doesn't mean anything. It's about what I can contribute back to the world and have a positive impact over people's lives. And draw down on leverage my relationships with brands and open up doors to other people, through those relationships. Because like it's little things that can make such a big difference to their lives. And sometimes people don't get that.

I think sometimes, cause I've come across this quite a lot with people. I don't think people like, lots of time people want to help. I do, but I think there's more good people in the world than bad. I do think that, it's just that the loudest, the bad people are more loud than the good. And I noticed this quite often with people that go work, they got jobs, they work nine to five. They'd kind of think you need to be like Nelson Mandela or Barack Obama, that massive platforms. And they don't like, it can be just going to volunteer, going down and like going into like a local community center and telling the kids about your job and what jobs, or open up a pipeline, taking some kids onto a local work experience, take them out for a day. It is such small thing. You don't even need to give money. It isn't even a monetary thing. It's about creating the awareness of these opportunities are there and opening up these young minds to these opportunities. That potentially they could have open to them. Like, I remember I went to a charity in Lambeth called Fight 4 Change. And I remember the youth worker was saying to me at the end about like with young black males. It was like, either you're a football player, a musician, or there was another occupation. And she said like, 'We want accountants to come down and doctors,' 'we want these people to come' 'and speak to these young men to show them that there's these careers they're possible for you.' 'You can go to these places.' 'You can have these jobs.' Cause some of them don't want to be football players. They don't want to be musicians. They just want to have a job. Like and that's the thing sometimes. It's like, yeah, athletes, musicians, they do inspire millions of kids and they do. But not all of them want to do that when they get older. And again, it's been able to create these moments of awakening for these young people to say, well, 'I come from like this council estate in Lambeth' 'And now I work at one of' 'the biggest accountancy firms in London.' 'And this is how I did it.' And one of the kids might sit there and it's like that spark of imagination that then says, that's what I want to do when I get older.

Just mate, one good deed a day. Just be kind to someone. Say hello and goodbye. Be polite. You could just make someone's day by doing it. Do you know what I mean? And I live by that, like. Whenever I say I try to engage with everyone that I'm with in the room and try to talk to people and be pleasant to them in the coffee shop. And have eye contact with people. Because you can lift up their day or you could make you make that day a terrible day.

Yes. Exactly and always be respectful of other people's opinions. Even if you don't agree with it.

If everything in my life through regret would have been me, I would have said no. So the issue is my situation, it wasn't about, I inflicted stuff onto other people by my mentality to life. I regret that massively. And that's one of my motivators today and the reason I am the way I am and if I can stop other people, making the bad life choices I made. They weren't mistakes, they're poor life choices based on what I thought was right and wrong at that point in my life. So I deeply regret what I did, because it inflicted on other people's lives. If you said to me today, I had the power to rewind my life back and not spend 10 years in prison. I wouldn't not do it. I would go back there and spend every single one of those 10 years sitting in that cage. Because through that journey, I feel like I growed and grew as a human. I learned more about myself. I had so much time to think, about the way that I perceive the world, how privileged I am. To be able to be free to live in the mountains. Like I have such and it isn't just, these aren't just words. I mean, it, like. I feel so fortunate that I've had another shot at life because technically when you go to prison, you do technically and in some sense die. Because you're taken out of society. You haven't got a normal life and you are locked in a concrete coffin. So it's like when you get out, you have this such great awareness of your freedom and how beautiful things are in life and cherishing things and being at one with where you are in your environment. And so I wouldn't change that part of my life. But I would definitely change, I regret the part that led me to going into that place.

Do you know what, I've got really got one really. If I'm honest, but I would say it's just integrity. Of being who you are as a person. And just yeah, it's integrity. Like I would never sell myself out. I would always be who I am as a person. And if people liked me or they don't like me, you have to just let go of that. And you are who you are as a human being. I've probably not answered to that question.

Do you know what? It would probably be when, so one of my most vivid memories in my whole life is the last time I was with my mate that died. We were in this car and we were in Spain and I remember the sun was coming up. It was 5:30 in the morning. And we had the roof down and I remember we had this Hed Kandi song on and it was the last time I ever saw him alive. And then I left and come back and then that was it, he died and stuff. And that, yeah that, sorry, I didn't think I'd be like that. Yeah, that was, that was one of my, one of my happiest memories because it was the last time I was ever with him.

Mate, I said it when it happened. I'm not religious. I was when I was younger. And then I lost my faith years later. And I remember when I found out he had died, the chaplaincy come and saw me because of my surname, the Roman Catholic, like they come. I used to be quite dismissive of him in prison. I never used to really engage and didn't go to church or anything like that. And he comes to my cell and he sat down on the bed. And again, you started saying about, would you, when he's having his funeral, would you like to come down to the chaplaincy and we say a prayer for him? And I said, 'No.' Again, that, I didn't want to engage. And he went to me and I said to him about how unfair life is. I said, cause my friend did a bad thing, but he was a good person. And I said, he's lost his life at 26 years old. And I'll never forget this. He said to me, you was blessed that you had him in your life. And you had that interaction with him while he was alive. And then everything I've gone on to do with my life. And I remember I wrote a letter to his mum, said everything, whatever I do in my life, it will be because your son. Cause without your son, I wouldn't be who I am today. And he is not going to be that kid that died in that field, in the Netherlands after committing a bank robbery. His life would have more meaning to that. And without Aaron Cloud, without him, there'd be no me.

The book that a fundamental impact told me in prison was The Secret. The law of attraction. You are what you project into the world. It's like an antenna, it'll come back to you. So if you're violent, violence will come back. You're positive, positivity. And I read that book and that had a massive, massive impact on my, the way I perceived the world and how I was as a human. And TV series. I do love a documentary. I do. There's a filmmaker called Adam Curtis. And I can sit there and watch everything he does, but I don't think that would probably, it's more political.

The Secret.

Belief. Absolute belief. No matter how bad things get, how difficult, whatever hole you are in, or you perceive that you're in, you believe you can always get out of it. Belief, belief, belief, belief. And sometimes it's not just one step. It could take a month, a year, but you will get out of it. Don't just accept that's it. Just keep believing and keep marching forward.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me on guys. I appreciate it.