Javeno McLean | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:11Hello, my name is John Reynolds. Welcome to Extraordinary Life Stories. On this episode I'm talking with Jovino McLean. Jovino is an award-winning fitness trainer and community champion known for his boundless energy, positivity and dedication to helping others. Jovino has made a profound impact by offering free fitness classes for the elderly and people with disabilities, showing his passion for inclusivity and making fitness accessible to all. With a background in professional sports training, Jovino has worked with athletes at the highest levels, but his true calling has been transforming the lives of everyday people through physical health, mental well-being and community spirit.

0:53His infectious enthusiasm and heartwarming approach have earned him recognition far beyond the gym with a viral impact on social media, solidifying his reputation as a true force for good. I'm really looking forward to talking with Jovino, so let's get into it. Jovino, thank you for joining me. Pleasure. I've been looking forward I've been looking forward to it. I'm trying to hold my excitement in. I'm trying to be professional. Let it out, man. Let it out. Tell me, who is Jovino McLean? Good question.

1:27Jovino is a man that had a vision to try and change the world, put a stamp on the world, influence the world in my way. Unapologetically me. In all honesty, John, I'm a cheerleader for happiness. That's all I am. I just try my best to... Everyone's got amazing inside of them. Everybody. I just try and expose it. Sometimes people forget that they've got that amazing inside. I just try and remind them. The world isn't in the greatest state right now. So a lot of people have lost their confidence. I just try and give them that back. Give them their pride back. A lot of people have forgotten how to smile and laugh again.

2:13I just try and give them the smile back. I don't think I am doing anything amazing. I don't, John. I just generally believe that this is what everyone should be doing anyway, treating people nice. But they're not. But they're not. So you are doing something amazing. Where did this come from? Where did this passion and purpose that's just like pouring off you? I don't know man. This is, this is why I say these kind of things are so fair to me because if I'm honest, I don't know. It makes no sense. This is where when we're talking about, we're talking to one of the boys outside, I've got two kids, two young boys, right?

2:51Love makes no sense. Real love makes no sense. I can't explain in words how much I love my two kids. I know that I do anything for them and they are everything to me. I don't, it doesn't make no sense. It's impossible to work out, let alone explain, and that's the only way I can look at my work. I've got nobody in my family that I know that's severely disabled, but from an early age, I just knew that I could give people that are disadvantaged a reason to smile and an experience that will fill their day with so much joy. And I've done it for, from when I was 16 years old, I've done it for 23 years since I was 16 and I never took a penny off anybody because it's never been priority to take money off somebody who's going through cancer or disability.

3:37My priority has always been can I give you an experience now that will live forever, something that we can both own and I don't know why. Was there like a defining moment when you were younger where you did help someone or you watched someone help someone and it almost stood out because we've just agreed it doesn't happen enough right no so you must have been noticing that you would have been fully present growing up thinking you know well's not particularly friendly and so on is there something that stands out where you were like and also it unashamedly that felt good it wasn't this there's if i'm honest with you so i've been doing this since i was 16.

4:12it's never been priority for me it's something that i've done and i've been doing other things it was something that i've always done, it's only in the last say 10, 15, 10 years where people have kind of gone whoa. So the first instance was that I remember and I love telling this story man, this story is, it makes me smile every time I think about it because as a dad, as a husband now, you know what that real human touch feels like when you get, when you've been away from your kids or your wife and you get that hook, it's just something that words can't, I remember I was doing a cricket coaching session at a local park and I looked over to my left and there was a family, a big Asian family playing cricket.

5:00I couldn't take my eyes off them because there was this one gentleman, Ishmael, rest in peace, he was in his wheelchair and he just wanted in John. I'm looking at him and he just wanted in every time the ball got hit. He was like this. I'm looking and I couldn't take my eyes off it and I said to the guy, one second I need to go over. I had no business going over. As a 16 year old I should have, somebody should have said, this ain't your place mate, go away. I had no issue, no right to walk over to a family and intervene. But I said to him, I asked a question, I said who is this man to you? One person said it's my brother, one person said it's my cousin, one person said it's whatever.

5:37So I said how dare you not get him involved. How dare you not get him involved. Everyone's having the greatest time, the sun's the ice cream man's there and everyone's singing and dancing and laughing and having the greatest summer how dare you not getting me involved i took so much offense to it i don't know what made me go over i can't tell you the reason i just knew that i had to john how did they react it was awkward but then something happened that i think kind of set the platform the foundations i took them all over to the cricket wicket and I got my lads and I got the family together and said we're going to play a big cricket match.

6:17Ishmael, I rolled him over to the cricket wicket, gave him his cricket bat and I said you're going to bat and I said every single person this is what we're going to do. If somebody bowls at Ishmael and he misses the ball, nothing happens. If he hits the ball, everybody does one press up or one burpee. John, for two hours we had the greatest game of cricket, we laughed our heads off. He's the only person that batted for two hours. At the end of that, his wife came over who spoke no English. She gave me a hug that I knew exactly what she wanted to say. She didn't let me go for about ten minutes and that made me, I had no words spoken.

6:59He came over, spoke broken English and he said he wasn't born disabled, there was an accident that unfortunately that paralysed him and he said it's the first time in 10 years that he's felt human, he's felt alive and I never forget the look in his eye, the joy I was proud of myself that I had the courage to come over I don't know what's said to me, go, oh, courage and that, you know, the brother, the cousin is there an element of, because I'm dwelling on that whole like why are we not all helping more people and is it a conformity that goes to society living in fear stroke again conformity and you've broken that and you're and you're creating a movement that is demonstrating that by doing these things and breaking stigma breaking tradition which particularly in britain right so it's been so stiff upper lip and this is how we do it yeah Whereas you are literally the opposite.

8:00You're a change maker. You're a force of nature, but a force of good in how you're now helping people that in the nicest possible way have been sidelined, ignored. Would you agree with that? 100%. I've always believed in breaking the patterns. I've always been being a change. I'm a rule breaker. I'm so bad. I break all the rules. But I think this is... Without being bad, what I mean by that is there's rule breaking that can get you into trouble. Of course, there's rule breaking where you're demonstrating and showing other people that almost shows them a way that they didn't even know. Yeah, definitely.

8:35I've had a few situations and examples that are exactly what you're saying there. Listen, it's all about breaking patterns, John. To me, disadvantaged people, disabled people, elderly people, they're used to a pattern of abandonment, a pattern of people claiming that they're difficult or hard to work with. I bring them issues to the front of the conversation straight away. and destroy them, to let that person know that I'm not going to claim that you're difficult or hard to work with, and I'm not going to abandon you. I've had a few situations over the last few years where I've had to really show the world, if you break the rules with love and care, amazing things will happen.

9:18I had a young girl, I'm not going to name her, who she broke my heart when the first time she came in, she's suffering with leukemia, she's recovering from leukaemia. John, she's like a Disney character, she's gorgeous, she's beautiful, she's so sweet, and I give her a hug, and as I'm pulling away, she said, no, no, no, don't let go, I don't get any hugs anymore. And I just went outside, I went outside, my dad just broke down, because it was about 15 minutes earlier for the session, I went outside, and I went, you don't get any hugs. And then she went, no, no, when I came back in, she went, no, not from mummy and daddy, from the hospital, they're not allowed to touch me.

9:56Human touch is one of the most important things. Human touch is so powerful and it's so needed. I'm going to break the rule. If the rule says I'm not supposed to touch you, you're a young girl who's going through leukemia, I'm going to give you the greatest hug every time I see you. And she'll feel that as well. She'll feel the heartfelt. She loves it. So when I say breaking the rules, never to endanger anybody or to make anybody feel any kind of way. If I believe that there's something greater on the other side of that, I'm going to break the rule. So for context of anyone watching and listening, because of course I've had the pleasure to get to know you, read about you, and we'll come onto the social media following, but what is it that you are doing that is helping people?

10:48I believe that everyone should be valued I believe that everyone should be seen Whether you're able Whether you're disabled Whether you're black, white Race or politics This is God's medicine This is what I see And it's not just exercise People I hate when people Belittle or dilute the stuff that I'm doing And never say It's not just exercise The world right now is very segregated. The world right now is broken. Humanity is broken. There's a lot of hate. There's a lot of hate caused from religion, from race, from politics. We're all humans going through the same stuff. So I look at the stuff that I'm doing as medicine for humanity.

11:32I'm giving people who may have lost themselves, who may look in the mirror and not recognise the person that's looking back at them. people who have been kind of shunned by society people who which breaks my heart to say sometimes feel like they're not worthy of living a happy life it breaks my heart that anybody will ever feel that way, that people feel like they're not worthy of being happy I have to change that John and you are, and I think in the short time that I've been connected to you, I've been looking at what you put out on social media and the people that you're affecting and helping in your immediate sphere and it's powerful it's um inspirational but then what you've done is captured a community so clearly although we were both agreeing only there's not enough people trying to help and doing what they can to help you found a community you built kind of a tribe of people that sort of thrive on what you put out do you feel that because um jovino as jovino right you're one man and you're giving elderly and disabled people free gym membership and personal training i think i even heard you sort of some days you might give six personal training sessions in a day in a day and some of these might not it might not be paid for at all none of them are paid for so yesterday i did 12 for free this morning before i came here i did seven and then you come from Manchester to London where we are now.

13:04Are you travelling back later? Yeah. And the thing is, John, you know why I do it? Like I said, it's not for money. I always believe that to help somebody from the pure. We're in a society now, people love chasing money. Money's not my God. If I'm going to help somebody from the purest part of my soul, I've said it a million times, there's no Nat West, there's no Lloyd CSB. That's me helping you because I want to. So let's... I want this to ripple out to people from an entrepreneurial point of view. there's people watching this going I'd love to be like Jovino I want to do this I want to make money you are making money so there's an inspiration you're not doing any of this to make money I can you can feel that I knew before I even sat down you can feel it you know you enjoyed doing those seven training sessions so to someone that's now saying I want to be like Jovino and I want to help people I want to have that purpose and I want to have what I can see Jovino has which is a contentment, no arrogance, contentment, and I've found my passion and purpose, but I wanna make money.

14:05Elaborate on that, so almost like, I guess my point being, you clearly set out on a journey to help people, and then the money has come. They're not even linked, and what I mean by that is, fall in love with the craft, fall in love with what you're doing. I fell in love with what I'm doing a long time ago, it's accumulated to a monster ball of love and care. I love what I do. In order for me to love what I do, I've had to learn to be unapologetically me. I don't negotiate my personality or character for nobody. And because that's allowed me to just be truly myself, I'm assuming people watching other people who I interact with get it, they feel it, and it allows them to go let me follow and be myself.

14:59And because I really, truly love what I do, it's just opened up other doors because I'm genuinely so happy and I believe that sometimes, obviously people want to make money and want to build your business. My business has grown because of my love for what I do, but the section that we're talking about hasn't brought me any money, not brought me a penny. and I just love that I love I love the social media now because I'm like I said I'm late to social media these youngsters that I train and even the elderly people I'm supposed to tell you that you're amazing and that you're gorgeous and that you're this and that and sometimes it's a bit it's like I'm like a big brother figure to a lot of them and it's like oh yeah whatever like when you think about when we was younger and your mum and dad, your mum and dad are supposed to tell you that you're this and that.

15:56Sometimes you go, whatever. So now, I tell people all the time how amazing they are, how inspirational they are. And they kind of sometimes go, yeah, you're supposed to say that. Now, social media has allowed people to, even this morning when my girls went, have you seen the TikTok? I had 3 ,000 comments, I had people from around the world telling me that I'm beautiful, that I'm strong and I'm this and I'm that. And I can go, I told you so. And that there to me is the great side of social media. There's bad sides of it as well, but that there means everything to me. That means more than money.

16:32And on that, with the social media side of things, I mean, you said you're late to the party, but you've exploded on it. And that tells me that you are doing something that others aren't because social media is saturated. And there's so many people that are aspiring to be big on social media. and dare I say the lack of authenticity is probably why they're not you're being you yeah and by being you you're actually helping people and you're it's storytelling everything I've watched you're setting a scene where someone thinks they can't do something you know there's a lady that was putting her leg up onto one running machine and then or a bench and then another one and she didn't do it quite right and you didn't you didn't know to get away with it no come on back she's struggling and so it's encouragement it's you know inspiration again and it was just war on authenticity yeah did you know that was going to happen with social media and although although it's been super positive because of how you're you're effectively controlling it it can have such negative effects of people with the 3 ,000 comments and so on one of those comments is really negative and that person dwells on the negative how do you deal with that and how do you brush out the negatives in your life?

17:43I'm unavailable John, which is, I'm a bit of a nightmare with emails and text messages and things because I try and protect my own mental health. I try not to be available to negativity. That's one of my, I think this is one of my positives but it's also can cause issues because I don't see comments. I never go through the comments section. I don't do it for that. If other people want to go through the comments and stuff, I just try and create an amazing experience that's going to live. Because you've got to think, I'll just think of legacy when Jovino's gone. If I'm gone, my words, my actions, the experiences that I've created, that's what's going to live forever.

18:27The comments, I couldn't care less, even though I know that 99 % of them are amazing. I don't go through the comments and the way I protect my mental health and the way I keep my work ethic and the work really pure and organic is I film, I send it out, I'm done. If it goes where it goes, cool. And it was hard to say to the guys, and after that, the bigger and the more successful, and this is obviously so global now with what I'm doing, and it's amazing, every single session I have to remind people, with all due respect to the social media platforms, it's not about the likes or shares or retweets, it's about us working today to improve your health.

19:12That's priority. Keeps it present, keeps it relevant. That's what's priority. If you're doing amazing and I feel like we can capture something magical that could inspire the world, we will do it. A lot of times I don't record, I've even had to ban a few people. Well, not ban him from the session, but I've had to ban a few. I'm not going to name him. They know who they are. I've had to say to him, I'm not recording you for a month because you're taking your eye off the ball. It's not about, Jake, can you film me because I want to get this many views or comments. The conversation, the narrative should be your health, your fitness, your mobility, what we started.

19:51Everything else is secondary. It's a by-product. If I ever see a client kind of go in the other way where, can you film me because it'll give me this many more new followers or likes or nope you're not no so if Jovino was hit by a bus yeah tomorrow how are you going to protect this because what you're doing is super special right now and you are right finding authenticity in in the people around you that aren't going to get they might come in with the right um purpose and intentions but then there's the opportunity oh my god I actually just done this video with Jovino in the session and it's just hit 100 ,000 likes, whatever is a big number to them.

20:29And then you watch them, you watch the head turn and you bring them back. So much of what you're doing right now, you control. How do you scale J7 Health? How do you scale Jovino to make this something far bigger, far more needed? That's a good question, John, and it's a hard one to answer. and I'll be generally honest with you and please don't judge my answer as regards because I don't originally I would have loved to open another J7 in franchise but then I've come to realise I do not know how to teach and I don't mean it boastfully I don't know how to teach I could go get 20 personal trainers now who are the most knowledgeable people they know every exercise possible if you can't connect with a human on a level that's so deep that everything else becomes irrelevant because the only thing with the stuff that I do it only works because we've built a forever friendship that they know that what we've got if J7 was to go today if I was to get hit by a bus mine and J's relationship is so solid we're here a lot of people can't do that and you've got to really be able to connect with humans.

21:51It's not about your physique, it's not about your qualifications, it's about humans and I've had trainers over the years who have come into my facility who have now gone, I've had to get rid of because they don't get that. They think it's not a gimmick, this is real life, these are real people with real emotions and real challenges. You have to connect in a way. I'm not sure I know how to teach. and I found one lad who's absolutely amazing who gets it, he's just got the greatest heart he gets it, there's certain things that he does where I look and go that's what I would have told him to do and he's done it without me provoking him sitting with people, can you sit with a lady who's maybe 85 or 45 minutes and just talk to her about a day can you sit with somebody who's going through terminal cancer and make her forget that she's dying and she's got four months to live.

22:47These are real scenarios. Can you sit with somebody who's got a degenerative disease that is killing her mobility month in, year in, year out, and she's now 25 by 31. She knows that she will not be alive. life, can you sit with her and make something so beautiful and present where she just laughs and she forgets that on the other side of this session, reality is you've got six years left to live. That's something that I'm not sure how to teach, that's something that is, that just comes from a really warm calm heart, like really nice big hearted person and they say, I'm hoping to find one or two more.

23:37You need to. It's empathy. It's natural curiosity and it's giving time. That comes naturally to me. I've done that where I have the opportunity to be with someone. I'm naturally curious. I naturally want to help people. It's probably a massive why about how everything at Shorn Life Stories has come together. And Jack, J-A-A-Q, just asked a question, the social media mental health platform, and you've just been talking to a couple of the guys out there. Putting that back to you, there's more conversation now, even from a man-to-man point of happening than there was before. It's a bit of a stigma.

24:12We might have talked about pulling a muscle in personal training, but I'm not going to talk to you about anything that's sort of mental health. Whereas it feels to me like probably the word is disarming. You do that. You just cut through. You just be you. I've always done that, which is why I was so looking forward to talking with you. do you think that through what you're doing and I'm going to call it that sort of a movement again that you'll draw those sorts of people to you and you almost need to call them out you almost need to almost ask for help to form this tribe because you know you can't teach someone to be Jovino but you can bring the character traits out of people that you're inspiring and these if these people come through you could form something bigger and bigger because it's working it's working I mean you've had you've got the day-to-day experience and you live and breathe it passionately every day I can see that will never change but if you can have more people supporting sharing that mission it's mission-led right yeah which creates a movement creates habit forming I mean you could you could you could affect massive change just beyond what you do every day because it's seriously powerful and it's real it's almost a shame to say it but it's relatively unique.

25:27Once I found out about you and you were filming today, I can't think of anyone else that's... There is nobody that I know. There are people that I've been training. I don't want to diss people. Don't train people for a gimmick. Don't train people for likes or shares. But this is the head turning thing, right? So people will copy you. You're a trailblazer. You've pioneered something that works. And this is the world we live in now, especially But they'll look at it and go, so look at me, look what I'm doing. People will see through that. It's dangerous. You will see through that. If you were able to choose those people to grow the tribe, that would be formidable.

26:10It's every single day, I have hundreds of trainers from around the world who will tag me and stuff. And I'll be honest, I ignore it because I see through it. A teacher becomes a teacher because they want to teach and educate. a nurse becomes a nurse because he or she wants to really help people. This ain't a gimmick. So a lot of the people that tag me every single day, I ignore it because they're doing it because it looks cool and trendy. I turn away so many celebrities. So many celebrities. Do you think that's because they're coming to you because you're getting these viral... Exactly, because it looks honourable to come and help a bunch of people going through cancer or dementia, and I see right through it.

26:51I'm very protective of it. and what you said before I totally agree there's so much power in conversation and you know where the power comes from there's a section of uncertainty and what I mean by that is there's a skill I've had to learn to develop a skill that I'm so proud of I find it very hard to kind of give myself compliments but one of the things that I'm proud of John is check this out if me and you are doing a session like even this morning I did a session with a young boy and I said to him I don't know how this is going to work out but guess what we're going to do it together and that's why I like the videos it's genuine excitement because I didn't know it was going to work but I think think about how powerful that is when you commit to something with somebody where you're going to go listen you know that Jay's got you I'm going to keep you safe I'm never going to let anything hurt you I'm never going to let you fall I'm going to be right here but I'm going to do something with you.

27:51I don't know if you can do it. I generally don't. It's not a set-up. It's not fake, but we're going to do it together. So win, lose or draw, me and you, we're together. Let's see what happens. And then when somebody kind of understands that and they kind of look at me and go, you're willing to do that with me? You're willing to roll the dice with me and see what comes out? They give me everything, John. You've got in the trenches with them, right? Yeah. And also, they're not isolated. and actually people don't like letting people down right yeah so if this was me with you um even though you've taken the pressure off actually you said look let's just see what happens you could argue that's like oh i don't need to worry so much but also i've now got a pressure that i want this to work yeah because um we're both we're sort of aligned um that's clearly working really well for I want to know about Jovino and how you actually look after your own mental and clearly physically.

28:50You're in unbelievable shape. But of course, that's a priority to you and you've got access to it. You clearly have the discipline to see that through. But you have an outpouring of other people's emotions every day. That has its toll. You've got to process that. How does Jovino look after his own mental health? What do you do? Do you have a quiet place? Do you go for a walk in nature? Do you just have a... And what do you actually do physically? He's good, isn't he? He's getting it out of me. He's good. You're good, son. Do you know what? You do so much for people, right? No one's doing anything for you necessarily.

29:26So what do you do? I feel like Javina's got to look after himself big time, right? Because you are a man-mountain in physical frame, but also there's so much in here. It's a... I'm honest, but I'm working it out, John. I'm lucky and blessed that I've got a wonderful wife that does so much for me and my kids. I'm working it out because I can't let people down. I've got too many people. I train... Obviously, I'm an ex-athlete, still an athlete. I train every day for two hours, which I know I shouldn't. I think that's my only escape because I know what people are going through and I know what it means to them, what I do for them.

30:15So you ain't never going to see me sad. Even though I go through things like other people, my clients will never see that. I go through ups and downs like any other human, but my people that I train, I know what they're going through and when you compare gratitude and the things that we've got compared to what they've got there's no comparison I'm not going to say one word because I know what you're going through and it's going to crush mine and I'm working it out man there's certain things that I go through every day John that I don't know the answer I'm trying my best to work it out this morning I had a situation and I feel that in order for you to understand me, you have to fully understand.

31:05And I have to tell you, there's a lady, man, that, she's a person that I trained that's for breast cancer, not going to name her. She came the other day to, she's a good woman man, she's a good woman, who's just an amazing mum, amazing mum. Two young beautiful kids. She knocked on my office a couple of weeks back just to basically say goodbye. She didn't tell me what, I just said to her, when are you coming in, auntie? And she just looked at me and I knew.

31:55So it kind of broke my heart and I went home and my wife kind of, you know what I mean, looked after me. I cried for a bit. No words were needed. But I remember when my auntie passed away, many, my auntie passed away four years ago. Broke my family. Even to this day, every now and then I'll ring a mobile. because you hear her voice note. Voice note. Yeah, and she's a Jamaican lady. She's like, I die now. Leave a message for me. That's what she's here. And I still do it to this day. And the other day, her message, this lady's phone. Don't know why. I don't know whether she's here. The most horrible feeling is not knowing if the person that you text is still alive.