Born Dead, Choose to Burn Bright: A Paralympic World Record Holder on Passion, Pain and Purpose | Mikael Avatar

In this episode of Journey to Purpose, Pippa is joined by Mikael Avatar — Paralympic long jump world record holder, life coach with over 20,000 hours, cerebral palsy researcher, painter, poet, film-maker, and founder of the Avatar Resurrection app. Mikael was born clinically dead for up to 45 minutes. He grew up in Sweden in a household so full of people from across the world that nobody had time to teach him how to have cerebral palsy — so he didn't. He broke his first world record in Nottingham in 1991, his second in front of 98,000 people in Atlanta in 1996. Then he felt completely empty. What came next — painting a hundred canvases, moving to Thailand to escape chronic pain, building a coaching method from 40 years of handwritten notes, and launching a free app designed to rebuild joy 30 seconds at a time — is the real story. Pippa and Mikael explore:Being left with the dead children at the hospital — and the nurse who noticed he was breathingWhy growing up without anyone treating him as disabled was the greatest gift he never asked forBreaking a Paralympic world record in front of 98,000 people and feeling nothing but emptyThe difference between motivation and passion — and why finding the right angle changes everythingWhy 5,000 hours of anything gives you a skill that can make you money, and what happens at 15,000Painting 100 canvases as a framework for testing whether you actually love somethingMoving from Sweden to Thailand three months after discovering the humidity cured his chronic painThe Avatar Resurrection app: 180 days of golden pauses, starting with 30 secondsA conversation about what it actually means to be alive — from someone who spent 45 minutes deciding whether to bother. Connect with Mikael Avatar: michaelavatar.com (free app and second book available there)Journey to Purpose is a personal transformation podcast featuring real conversations about mindset, trauma recovery, self-worth, spiritual awakening, resilience, and finding your life’s purpose. New episodes every week. 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Of0Na1qWovS8Aw2X2FU8M 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philippa.bagley/ 🌐 Website: https://philippabagley.com/ Subscribe and leave a review — it helps others find the show.About your hostPippa Bagley is a clinical hypnotherapist specialising in burnout and sleep, and the host of Journey to Purpose. Based in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, she is passionate about helping people reconnect with what truly matters — and build lives and careers that feel genuinely sustainable. Pippa is also studying for an MSc in the Neuroscience and Psychology of Mental Health at King’s College London. Find out more at philippabagley.com