Get Mentally TOUGH, Achieve Your Goals and Do The IMPOSSIBLE By Doing This TRICK | James Lawrence

That's why people fail is because they rush straight to that big goal and they they miss out on everything in between, which is the most important part. You can't skip those stepping stones and go right to it because that's where you're going to learn. You fail in your preparation so that when you get to the big goal. Dream as big as you can, so big that it scares you and you hear that all of the time. But what people don't do is they don't shelf it, forget about it, reverse engineer it to the point where they build that success and that momentum so they can eventually get to it. And that's the part about doing. If you just read, watch, you don't adapt and evolve. You gain knowledge, but it's not applied knowledge. Once you do, you get closer and closer to that big goal. James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy, welcome back to the show. Man, super pumped, Tom. Thank you. Um thrilled to be here. Dude, I'm excited to have you. You are the epitome to me of hard things, doing hard things, building your identity around that. Why do hard things? Why do they matter? Why in fact, we should tell people what you did. So you sent me an Instagram uh DM and you said, "Tom, I'm going to do 100 Ironman-length triathlons in 100 days." Which is crazy. And then you ended up doing 101 in 101 days, which is absolute pandemonium. Why? Why hard things? Uh why hard things? Great question. I believe that without doing hard things, we will go backwards in life. We'll go backwards in the way we feel, we'll go backwards in the way our mind develops. And let's just take the pandemic for example. When that happened, you could take a look around to your peers or colleagues or associates and say, "They've experienced hard things based on what I'm observing how they're handling this right now." And then flip side of that is I could look over here and say, "Okay, these people have never experienced something difficult in their lives, and they're really, really struggling with this." And we all struggle with different things at different times, but it was it was pretty obvious to me um who had experienced things before and who could handle something like that. And so, for me, doing hard things with intent is preparation for the unknown, because life's life's not easy. Life is not easy, and we all struggle with our own ways. And I truly believe that we all have to go through this life, and we all have to learn the same lessons in order to navigate it. It's like a It's like a board game, and you got to you hit all the check marks, and you got to hit all the squares, and you're going to keep falling down the the the slide in snakes and ladders if you fail that test. And when you pass the test, you get to go up the ladder. You think there are universal lessons that we all have to learn? Absolutely. Yes. Let's hear them. I've never thought of them before. What an actual lesson or be, but I mean, I think we all have to learn things like humility, uh kindness, perseverance, toughness, grit. Uh just off the top of my head. Those are things that I think we all have to learn. And the the more and quicker we learn those, the quicker we can advance through life and gain those experiences. Number one question I get I've traveled around the world, been a lot of stages, it's been a blast. I never thought that this would be my life. But the number one thing is how do I become more mentally tough? Mhm. How do I become more mentally tough? How do I overcome the barriers? How do I climb that mountain? You You cannot read about it. You cannot hear someone tell their experience from it. You have to have an experience. You have to climb the ladder. You have to climb the doing it yourself? I agree, by the way, but I want to know, have you thought about why it is that we have to actually be in the mud doing the hard thing ourselves? Because motion creates emotion. And you have to experience something and feel it in order to have an experience or knowledge with it. And so, if you are backed into a corner, you're beat, you're broken, and somebody says, "When that happens, you can take the next step." Well, do you truly believe you can take that next step if you haven't done it? Because I'm sure in your life with what you've built, you know, momentum is a huge thing, right? Success breeds success and confidence breeds confidence, and so by actually doing, you're creating those small wins in your path, and then you can draw back on those experiences and apply them to now. You can't do that. You can't gain momentum by reading something. It's always by application. All right, let's push on that. I'm going to add a third type of person. So, you said you're looking at COVID and you're seeing people that are handling it well, and you're like, all right, that's somebody who's seen some They've been through something. They've built that sort of mental awareness of what what they're like, what they need to do, that they can survive. You say a lot, "The next step isn't going to kill me." And once you know that next step's not going to kill you, all of a sudden you're willing to take that next step. Then you look around and you see people who are floundering, they're really struggling, and you know that they haven't been pressed in hard times. I think though there's a third category that might be indistinguishable, or maybe you can't tell, but they've been through hard things, and they've been damaged by it. And they haven't learned the lesson. They took the hard knock, like you went through in 2008, they lost everything, and what they decided to learn from that was that they're a failure. And now when something hard comes along, they've got PTSD about it, and they really don't want to face it or engage with it. So, how do you make sure that as you either go through the hard thing or put yourself through the hard thing that you learn the right lesson. Yeah, great example in that category is real and it exists. What happens is a lot of people they want to go from zero to 100. And they fail when they try to do that. And that person that has been knocked down hard, what they do is they try to go from zero to 100 again and they're not ready for it. And it's about everything in between zero to 100. And I couldn't even have conceptualized 100 without doing the 50 prior to. And I couldn't have conceptualized Meaning the actual 100 Iron Man was precipitated by the 50, which before that was the 30, and before that the fun run and the training and fun run. Right? Cuz that's kind of where my endurance history started. And someone tries to miss the skip the four-mile fun run, skip the the first half Iron Man world record, skip the full, skip the 50, and they try to go all the way to 100. Well, you're not creating momentum. You're not learning the lessons along the way to learn the key lessons that we all have to learn. And so that category needs to reassess where they are and be patient with their journey and start to learn the smaller lessons that are meaningful that get you to the bigger ones. They fail the real test. Fail in preparation. And they're not they're not willing to do the prep phase. They're just going right to the test. They fail and that just kills their confidence. All right, I want to get into the lessons and I want to get into like there there's a mental analog to what has to happen, but there's also, at least in terms of what you did, there's a physical analog. So one thing that I think's important like for people to really understand. I want I'm obsessed with this idea of you're having a biological experience. And what I mean by that is one that your brain and your body act in certain ways and there's no way to transcend that. There are ways to deal with it. There's ways to leverage it, but there's no way to transcend it. It is going to happen. You are going to be in the grips of having a squishy wet brain, you know, that evolution has shaped in a certain way. Part of what has allowed you to do what you're doing is that, okay, you start as a wrestler when you're quite young. That strengthens your tendons and your ligaments and your joints. And so, you're laying a physical foundation. And it's important for people to understand that A, that just takes time. Yep. And B, you have to understand where your body is to know if you're going to be able to get to that point. Cuz somebody that starts lifting, for instance, when they're very young, they build groundwork in the connective tissue in their body that somebody if they're picking up weights for the first time in their 40s, they're not going to have that same ability to layer on the same kind of strength. So, just being thoughtful about that. And then, now getting into this idea of the mental lessons that you're going to learn. So, I want to know what those are. So, the small lessons that we begin to learn along the way. What is it that you begin to understand where your own cowardice lies, that you understand the nature of the negative voice in your head, or is it something else entirely? I think the negative voice and learning how to deal with that is literally the most important piece. Because I've been I've been through it. I've been doing this for 15 years. And each time we push that envelope a little further and further. And you would think at this point in the time like I've completely silenced the bully. Dude, he's loud. He's still loud. bully. The internal bully. Yeah, he's still loud. I mean, the outside the outside bully is another totally different topic and conversation. But that internal bully, that internal dialogue, it's always going to be there. And I I I believe I said this the first time we met like, as humans we are most tough on ourselves. Like we are our toughest critic. And for some reason, we don't see ourselves the way that others maybe see us and it's it's typically in a more negative light. And so I think I think mastering that continual conversation and and beat down that we have with ourselves is one of the most important pieces to that puzzle and why if you go from zero to 100 that voice is so loud, it's so dominant, you don't have a chance. And you have to be able to learn how to talk to it uh early early and doing simple things so that you can overcome it and build that momentum like I mentioned before. You you can't you can't take on the biggest thing. Like you don't go from off the couch to climbing Everest. Like there's a there's a process and base camps you got to go through. And and that biggest component is that that self-talk, that conversation that you have. Cuz people always ask, you know, what is it? Is this a mental feat or is this a physical feat? And I say it is a 100% both. As you can probably see, I am obsessed with the future of crypto and NFTs and I want to make sure you are prepared to understand and enjoy this new digital revolution. To help with that, I've launched a new Impact Theory Discord where you can get not only all my information on crypto and NFTs, but also stay up-to-date on everything Impact Theory. You'll be joining a community of amazing impactivists and have direct access to me, early offers and so much more. To join, click the link in the description and I hope to see you in there. The bit you thought I was going to say mental. I wasn't sure which way you were going to be honest with you. a it's a 100% both because the physicality, the groundwork that you that you just talked about, it has to be there. Let's just say I'm I'm a 300-lb man and I try to do the physical feats that I do. It doesn't matter how mentally tough I am. That becomes my limiter. And let's say I'm the most physically fit individual on the planet, but I have a really weak mental game, The mental side of me can't drag that incredibly physically fit person along the way. And so it truly is an equal balance. And I've heard a lot of people say, "Hey, these these things are 70% mental and 30% physical or whatever the ratio is." Dude, it's it's 100% of both. You got to go all in on both sides of it in order to do 14,000 mi in for you know, 140 mi over a quarter of a year. And then you you've got to understand it wasn't just just 140 mi. It was 24 hours a day because you've got the recovery the side of the thing the side of the a project like that that people don't understand is like even when I was sleeping or trying to sleep, it was complete trauma. I mean, I was having intense night terrors. I was having full body tremors. And every night I'd I'd sweat through my clothes and two sets of sheets. That's just that's the the recovery part of the journey that people don't see. And I'm still dealing with the mental side of this post Conquer 100. The the massive drop-off. And so if if you're if you if you don't have a an intently solid mental game, I don't care how physical you are. And if you have an incredibly strong physical game, I don't care if you don't have the mental side. It's it's 100% of both. Yeah. Now, that makes a lot of sense to me. I want to talk about what you have to do as you're building up to this. So, there's a really interesting study that shows that if you set a small goal for yourself, you're actually less likely to accomplish it than if you set this really crazy big goal because the big goal is exciting. Like somebody can get excited about saying, "I'm going to go set world records." which you have done in spades multiple times over and over. It's really incredible. And obviously, that's really inspiring. And you can imagine like cuz I remember part of the early discussion was if I'm going to go into coaching or teaching, I need to differentiate myself. And so there was even an element of like, this is a marketing vehicle, which I think is very smart. And on top of that, I know that if I'm going to stand up in front of people, I need to have done it. So, in the beginning, like you can get excited about, okay, I'm going to totally change my life. I'm going to set records. I'm going to do all this crazy I'm going to be up on stage. I'm going to get paid a lot of money to do this. I'm a clever businessman. Like, all of it plays into how you get excited enough to do this. But, because you can't go from zero to 100, people get totally up because they don't have the why to sustain in these small little increments that are absolutely critical. So, how do you help people have like, hey, here's this big crazy thing that you're going to do, but you have to set that aside for a minute. And now we have to build the tendon strength and get your joints there and, you know, your ability to deal with the mental side. And that's the part that people aren't willing to do because they get so excited, they see they see the headline. They see the headline of what it is and they want that feeling of what it takes. And to be honest with you, I I don't enjoy the business side of stuff. Like I I and and I didn't I set out to do it on the coaching side of stuff just for triathletes. I Trust me, last thing I wanted to be was on stage. Last thing I wanted to be was in front of people. Last thing I wanted to be was the center of attention. Um and like you said, it's so important to have that big goal cuz that's the super exciting thing. But, people miss out on the journey and I It's so cliché and I hate even the words came out of my mouth, enjoy the journey, but it's so true and it's not about enjoying the journey, it's about partaking in the journey and participating in it and being very present in every step of the journey. And that's why people fail is because they rush straight to that big goal and they they miss out on everything in between, which is the most important part. You can't You can't skip those stepping stones and go right to it because that's where you're going to learn, I said earlier in this in this conversation, you fail in your preparation so that when you get to the big goal. I tell my clients all the time, dream as big as you can, so big that it scares you. And you hear that all of the time. But what people don't do is they don't shelf it, forget about it, reverse engineer it to the point where they build that success and that momentum so they can eventually get to it. On a small level, we coach the full distance triathlon all the time. And all the time someone will do their first workout and they say, I can't do an I you know, I can't do an Ironman, I can't do a full distance try. And I say, forget about it. That's not that's not where we're at. Like that's the finish line. And I ask, do you trust me? Do you trust the process? Are you willing to show up every single day? Yeah, absolutely. Great. That's not the goal. Let's just do today because by doing this you're going to adapt and evolve. And that's the part about doing. If you just read, watch, you don't adapt and evolve. You gain knowledge, but it's not applied knowledge. Once you do, you get closer and closer to that big goal. When I started that four of three in that four-month fun run that we've talked about, I could no way my brain could have conceptualized like I couldn't even come up with the goal. It was so astronomically out there, right? I couldn't even have come up with 50. I could come up with a marathon. That was my goal, that was my heart. And as you evolve and learn and continually show up, more becomes possible. When you know this as well as I as I do. One, we wouldn't do it if we knew how hard it was. And and and two, when you're in the middle of it, it absolutely seems impossible. And everybody that's in the middle of their impossible hit it so hard. And it is ruthless and it's brutal. But then, when you accomplish, you you hit that goal, whether it's intermediate or big, then you go, ah, I've learned, I've grown, I've adapted. Now more becomes possible. And then you can continue to push that envelope. That's the thing you never want to do is sit down and go, "Okay, I've made it. I'm there." I would have I would have been content with the 30 30 full Ironmans through 11 countries. That would have been it. But I I just knew deep down in myself like there's more. I'm capable of more and I've I've learned. I'm different than when I was when it when I was in the middle of it and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And then as things evolve and progress, more becomes possible. And it's man, I've learned at the highest level that perception and perspective is an amazing thing. What do you mean? My perception and perspective of 100 is very different than say yours. Uh you've never done an Ironman, right? No. Right. And so to you, that would be holy cow. From where I am today, that would take a lot of effort, a lot of energy, a lot of training. I could probably walk off set and if somebody said, "Hey, go. It's time. Do an Ironman." I'd be like, "Okay, fine. Let's go do one." Right? My perception and perspective of what that is is very different. But over time, now my like my new normal and the way I look at things is very different. My previous world records that were the hardest they could have possibly been when I was in the middle of it are laughable to me. But to the newest member of the community, their heart is my four-mile fun run from 14 years ago. And you need to meet yourself where you're at on your journey. And over time, your perception and perspective will change about what's possible for you. And that's the biggest thing is people want to get intimidated and overwhelmed by oh, he did that. That's impossible. I can't do it. I can't even relate to that. But you have to understand that everybody's journey starts at the beginning. You're never an expert when you start. Like when you exited Quest, your knowledge was so different than when you were like, oh, I'm going to start making bars and do these you know, this get into this nutritional space. How how big of a paradigm shift in your perspective probably changed a lot from conception to exit strategy. And even where you are with this business now, I mean you where you were and what you've learned has completely changed it, but you didn't watch a YouTube video. You did it and experienced it. Uh experimented with it. This worked, this didn't work. You learned, you had failures, you had successes. And now your goal is probably bigger now than it was when you started. And when you started that goal was astronomical and almost unimaginable. But it's because your perception and perspective has changed. Dude, I really hope people listen to that. That's so important. It's what I call frame of reference. So your frame of reference will determine It's a much easier way to put it. everything in that your behaviors follow your beliefs and your behaviors are all that matters, which means ultimately your beliefs are all that matters. So then it becomes a question of, well, how do you shape your belief? And one thing that I love in your story about okay, you have to go out there and do it because I I did watch YouTube videos, I did read books, but my thing is I do that and then that day I'm deploying that knowledge. So that the knowledge isn't abstract, it's concrete, it's allowing me to go do something. Now the reason I think you need to do something for the reasons that you talked about is illustrated so perfectly in your story where at one point, I think this is back in the the '50 uh where you just lay down on the side of the road, curled up into a ball and were like, I I don't want to keep going. Now in that moment, it's really it's a battle with your own self-talk. It's reorganizing your um why, why am I doing this? Like you talked about sort of gathering all those things up. That to me is the juice. That to me is why you do hard things. That that's why I um do cold exposure, right? So I'm not going to do a hundred uh a hundred and one excuse me triathlon length Ironman things but I need to be exposed to my weaknesses. I need to trigger my insecurities. I need to get into fight or flight. I need that part of my brain screaming at me to get out that I'm in danger that this is bad somehow that you know that that you you have that real sense that fight or flight right. I've got to get the out of the water. So like trying to force yourself to stay in ice cold water. I was in 52 degree water I think until I was legitimately worried that I was going to hypothermia. How long was that? I looked it up after and I was so far off I could have stayed like another three and a half hours without actually having to worry about it but I was utterly convinced. So I was in there for over half an hour. And so you know you're in the like your teeth I was worried I was going to bite my tongue or chip my teeth. It was that kind of thing. And in those moments two things happen. One you're confronted by your weaknesses which I think are really important to stare at. So when people say you learn something or you learn about yourself I it isn't a pretty thing that you learn. It's an ugly thing. It's a thing I'll speak for myself. It's a thing that makes me less impressed with myself. But then I push through that. Yeah. And I find defense mechanisms and I find my why or I strengthen my why and I find things that allow me to overcome that. And then I'm like whoa that's a really useful tool. But the the thing that nobody ever says is you are confronting the weakest ugliest least attractive version of yourself humanly possible and in slaying that dragon you move forward. Yeah. Yeah and that and that's that's why people don't do it is because nobody likes the ugliest version of who they are and we and I mean who doesn't enjoy comfort? And, uh, I'll tell you a cold story. Uh, I hate being cold. And I've had two terrible experiences being cold. Um, I did a full distance extreme triathlon in Alaska. Oh, god. And it was, uh, June. Uh-huh. But it's in the ocean. Yeah. Was the swim. And a normal, a normal full distance is 2.4 mi. And they they were going point to point. And so they're like, "No big deal. We'll do 2.7." And there was a a glacier dump about halfway through the swim. Mhm. Now, my normal full distance swim is about 1:05. 2.4 mi. This water was so cold. It was about 51°. Oh, god. And when we swam past that, uh, glacier dump, it dropped to 48°. Oh. The swim took me an hour 53. I could not feel my body. Oof. And it took me the entire bike ride to warm up before we did the, the marathon on the mountain. But it that was that was literally the coldest I've I've been. And then we, um, did a race called the World's Toughest Race in, uh, Fiji. Um, it's on Amazon Prime, 10 episodes. Hosted by Bear Grylls, Mark Burnett production. Totally crazy thing. Way outside of my expertise levels. I You're talking, uh, rappelling, ascending a 1,000-ft waterfall, uh, just jungle trekking. Things I've never done before. And we had to, uh, get up this river system. And at the top was these frozen pools. And, uh, I I've never been so cold in my life. And it felt like 2 days. Um, we were in that for close to 12 hours. Um, in freezing cold cold waters. And I've just I I hate being cold in general. And so those two experiences, um, it's the reason I don't do cold showers and cold therapy. Because I'm like, "I got it. Check. I don't need to do that anymore. push through? Like, what what is your secret sauce? Is it just you have a killer why? Like, how do you get yourself Dude, the idea 101 Ironman length triathlons in 101 night terrors every night. Like, it it's so crazy. Like, I think I'm mentally tough, but dude, that's gnarly. I think the the concept or idea of a challenge like that is so exciting and again, you have no idea Why is it so exciting? It's not exciting to me. Sounds ludicrous. Um I think doing something that nobody else has done before and trying to do it at a level that's so high nobody can deny it. So are we good to talk about why I did the 100? Please. Okay. So So, I was on your show after I did the 50 and that was 50 full Ironmans 50 consecutive days through all 50 states. Young young family. Uh I We've got five kids, an unbelievable wife and um we had this crazy idea to push the envelope. We'd broken a couple world records and we said, "This is what we're going to do." And doctors said it was impossible. They said we were going to die or I was going to die. And the kids are going to have a great time. I was going to die. Um and and when you're doing something that nobody's done before, there's no road map and so you're ultimately going to make some mistakes and we did. We never hid them. We never ran away from them. We faced them head on. But as you know, the internet space is unkind and we were attacked and mocked and ridiculed and they deemed Not everybody. There's a small camp out there that deemed what we did a complete failure. We failed. We did not accomplish it, and I'm so glad we did Because there were a couple days where you had to train indoors because of crazy weather and Yes. We We were chased by a hurricane. We had to go indoors. On day 18, it was 106° outside in um Chattanooga, Tennessee. And we I was so exhausted. I'd never done 18 consecutive before. Uh nobody had. And I lost concentration for 2 seconds, and I fell asleep on my bike. Mhm. When you do that, you eat crash. You crash. And that's no fun, and my hip swelled up. I had road rash. And I made a decision to get back on my bike and finish that day. And there's a whole sub story to that where it was my daughter, my why. She was waiting for me. She was doing a 5K every single day. And I was like, I have I have to meet my daughter so she can accomplish her goal. I don't show up, she doesn't run, she falls short. That's on me. And I felt that responsibility. So, I was so glad that she was on that journey same time I was on my journey. And anyways, long story short, uh we were the following day we were in Mississippi. Massive storms again, inside. I'm I'm physically broken. I'm mentally broken. I'm completely exhausted. We had done most of the day. We were wrapping it up, and I was like, "I'm in a lot of pain." And we had done a lot of our training to minimize the damage on the body on an elliptical machine. It simulates running really well. We could match my heart rate intensity. We were still covering the distance. I called up my coach. I said, "Hey, wrapping today up. Going to jump on the the elliptical. We're going to do a couple miles on there. We're going to take the finish picture and get to the next state. I want to get out of Mississippi." And he was like, "Great. Let's do that." Thinking nothing of it, we took the finisher picture like we did every single day, and we posted it online, got in the car, drove all night, and started the next day, day 20, in Alabama, I think. And I woke up to an angry mob. And um for years, years after that, back up. We decided to continue. We finished. It changed my family's lives. It has given people around the world hope and inspiration. I have gone on to speak in 48 different countries. We have changed the way people think and show up in their own lives. And we uh I almost pulled the plug 1920 because of that incident and because how ruthless people were to us. And then that whole time space of me being on stage, every time I got get off stage, I felt like a complete hypocrite because I was telling people to be mentally tough and to show up in their lives. And just that smallest little voice Again, that voice that never goes away, that beats on us, we give it so much power. And I I finally said, "That's enough." I sat down, pulled out my calculator, did all the math. We covered 7,030 miles. I was like, "Okay, how many miles did I spend on the elliptical?" .24% of the miles. .24% So, then I thought, "Man, if I was in the NBA and I knocked down 99.76% of my shots, Mhm. I'd I'd be the number one player in the entire league. I'd have a $100 million contract. Of all time. Ever. If I was in the NFL and I and I a QB and I nailed 99.76% of my throws, I'd be the best player I've ever Why am I being so hard on myself? Nobody had done what we'd done. We'd moved the bar so much. And I don't know if it was I wanted to prove to myself who I know I am or if part of me was like, "I want to show that less than 1% of the people that have this opinion that I am who I said I was and who I am. And then the pandemic hit and I had gotten out of shape. I have been traveling 9 months out of the year. I've been on stages and coaching and presenting and helping people have hope and get out of their own way and achieve their dreams cuz I'd achieved mine. I I got my dream home. I've got my family. I've got stability. I've got whatever I want now. And I built it all. And the pandemic hit and overnight, literally overnight, speaking goes away, coaching goes away, racing goes away. And I had I didn't know it at the time, but I had an entire year plus zero work, no income. I get to focus on me. I get to be with my family. And everybody experienced the the COVID shutdown in different ways. It blessed my life. It was it was an opportunity for me to go There's one more. I I cuz I the whole time, 6 years post 50, I always said and I'd always wanted, I can do do that better. I got asked all the ti- all the time, if you could do it again, would you? And I said I wouldn't do it again, but I'd do it the first time. And they said, would you change anything? And I always said, no, because I'm the person I am today because of what I learned on that journey. I love the mistakes we made. Like I said, I would never hide it. We put it in the book. It's in Re-Define Possible. It's in the documentary. We highlight it. All of these struggles and mistakes that we made cuz it was part of our journey. There was no road map for this. And so I started thinking and I said, okay, I'm not perfect. I'm a human being. I'm not perfect. But I can try and strive for excellence in anything I do. And I looked back on the 50 and I said, "What What was the 50?" The 50 represented to me chaos, logistics, fatigue. And I said, "Okay. If the 50 was what we did was dubbed redefining impossible, if I remove chaos, if I remove confusion, if I put systems and team in place, if I control my surroundings, can I double what people thought was impossible? Because what I What I initially set out to do on the 50 was how many consecutive full distance tries can the mind and the body do? I didn't find that out because logistics and chaos got in the way. We had no money. We bootstrapped it. And we were relying on the general public to be there when they said they would be there in each state as a volunteer. We're at the mercy of everybody. And we had, you know, the wingman, you've seen them, and they're crazy in the mistakes they made. they they I mean, he hit a deer in the middle of the night, no fault of his own. He was exhausted, but that took out our generator, we couldn't carry food, all these things. So, the 50 was a was was chaos and confusion and logistics. And I said, "If I can remove those, control those, put team and systems in place, financially we're in a different spot, if we did this all in a remote location, can I achieve my goal of finding out what the mind and body can do as far as consecutives is concerned?" And that's where we landed on 100 in Utah because the pandemic wiped my calendar out, and I said, "I've got possibly a year to get ready physically and mentally, to draw from my past experience, and to see if that's possible." And on March 1st, 2021, we set out on a journey to see if that was possible and do 100 consecutive. Now, that there's different ways to fray to frame that goal. Cuz you can say the word 100 consecutive or 100 consecutive days and it's hard to conceptualize that or figure out what that is. It's a quarter of a year. So, now take the Iron distance. It's 140.6 mi. Well, if you just say 146 mi a day, it's hard to conceptualize, too. So, it's 14,000 and 60 mi over 14 weeks. And which is 140 mi a day. And we set her on that journey and again, you wouldn't do something if you knew how damn hard it was going to be and you wouldn't do something if you if you had all the answers and you don't start as as the expert. And so, we did. We set her on a journey on March 1st and the the rest is history and I am so proud of myself. I'm so proud of our team and we left no doubt. We left no doubt to who we said we were and the criticism we silenced everybody and I challenge anybody to find a flaw or an asterisk to what we did. Hey guys, I hope you've joined the Impact Theory Discord, which if you are unfamiliar with Discord, it is basically a more fun Slack. But, if you need another reason to join, here is the ultimate one. On October 13th, we are going to be dropping our most valuable product yet, maybe the most valuable product that we will ever offer in the form of an NFT. This yet-to-be-revealed NFT token will give you unparalleled access to everything I am working on. Special discounts, free access, exclusive access, and much, much more. If all of that was exciting to you and you want to learn more, click the link below to join our Discord community and follow the steps to read my article, The Beginner's Guide to Crypto and NFTs. Reading that and joining the Discord community will make sure you are ready for October 13th. It's so funny that that point 24 would and look it would it it with me as well. So, I completely get it. But, on the outside looking at you, I'm like, "Really? Yeah. Like, you let that with you?" It's so crazy. Like, the story alone of like the first or second night where you have to fly coach with five kids after waking up and not even sleeping, running a triathlon, then flying to the next state with five kids in coach and do the next one. I was like, "Come on, meow. Like, at what point did we say, like, this is so absurd?" In fact, if you want to complain about that, you go do the 50 50 50, and then you can complain. But, it would with me, too. That's the weird thing. Like, and I can imagine you special, though. Does it, or are we just wired like that? Like, what what I think makes me special is I'd find a way to the other side of that. Whether it was doing what you did and finding some even more just absurd thing and like going, "Okay, this time there's not going to be an asterisk, as you called it." Because I think that I think the human mind is just a certain way. And one of those things is we are a social creature, and it absolutely matters what other people think, and it matters what we think, and it's this weird confluence of all the things. So, it didn't bother you until you got the echo back from people that, "Oh, this is an asterisk." But, once it got in your head, then it's all over cuz now it's like you can't escape it. Well, cuz if you remember in our first interview, I said at some point in time, I didn't care what people thought, and I wasn't trying to prove them wrong. I was trying to prove myself right, and I said that's a very different energy. And I don't know when that shifted cuz I still I still believe that. I believe I'm successful in what I do because I don't care what people think. I'm not comparing myself against somebody else's standard of excellence. If I did, I would have been satisfied with 10 in a row, right? And so, why push that envelope? But, I think it's because I know that there's more. I know that that wasn't that that wasn't acceptable. And deep down, I believe I'm a person of integrity, and my my word is my bond. And for some reason, I'll be honest, the 100 was for me. 1,000%. It was for me. Uh because that question was posed to me, it did bring up the conversation that internal dialogue was well, did that point 2.4% matter? If you said you were going to do that, did you do it? And I said, I yes. And then you just have that whole conversation, well, are you rationalizing it? Did you actually do it? Are they Are you right? Do you give them any power? And so, it's that entire conversation with that tiniest bully that we give so much power to. And I I wouldn't have said this before, but I'm so I am so glad I gave that little voice a little bit of power because it brought out the best in me. It brought out a different beast that came out and literally doubled what everybody thought was impossible. I call We defied logic. It was so I don't even know what the word is, unlogical, for what we set out to accomplish. And again, full circle, my perception perspective was different based on the experience that I had learned and how I evolved through that process. When I woke up and I presented the the thing to Sunny and said, uh I I want to I want to tackle 100 consecutive. Her hesitation wasn't it's possible or not possible. It's how is this going to disrupt my life and our kids' lives? And how do I balance and framework that? Even even her perception has changed. Like, no question in her mind the literally the question wasn't is it possible, can we do it? It was like, okay. Ha. How are we going to fit this into our our kids' lives? Cuz we're 6 years removed from the 50, our kids were 6 to 12. Now they're 12 to 18. Now they're very busy, they have their own lives, they're looking at colleges, they're looking at high you know, high school friends, jobs. You can't displace your family. And so, you have to framework, how's this going to work with seven of you? And that's a different conversation. And it's crazy because her perception was the same as mine. Yeah, that's totally possible based on what we've done. Now our preparation needs to match that goal and get it done. Let's talk about criticism and people that throw shade. How did you So, it it brought out the best in you ultimately, but how did that conversation go? How did you begin to switch it? And then as you were doing this, was there ever a time cuz I'm a big believer in what I'll call the the dark side, and I mean that in a Star Wars way, where it's like nature only gave you pleasure and pain. And so, why people don't leverage the anger, the rage, the the bad side of the equation to me is a mystery. I don't understand it. So, I think they're both useful. I think you have to be very careful how much time you spend in the dark energy because it's very corrosive and over time it ends up destroying you and not, you know, the other person. But it gives you some pretty powerful impetus. For sure. Was there any of that like you're going through the 100, you're tired. I mean, you were running on a stress fracture through some massive percentage of this. So, are you saying to yourself there's going to be no asterisks on this? Like I'm going all the way? Yeah, absolutely. What I learned from the 50 was what you say you're going to do is the expectation, and if you deviate from that, it gives them permission to then attack you. So, on our website we said, "These are the rules of the 100. If we deviate from these, come at me full force. I deserve it." And And one of the biggest lesson that I learned is you have to set up the standard and the expectation. And then once I set up those parameters, there was zero deviating from it. And I learned if I do, they will come at me. And I and I was so driven to not give anybody an ounce of power or ammunition to come at me with anything. And so it was every situation I was in was go back to This is a great lesson for anybody in life. And before you go on any journey, whatever you're doing, figure out your ethos, what you truly stand for. Then every decision after that becomes easy. Should I do this? Does it align with my core values? Black and white, yes or no, decision made. Once you set out the parameters for the 100, what that looks like, that's your ethos for this project. Then you go back, you're in a decision, should we do this or that? Go back to the ethos, black or white, easy question, easy answer. And so once we wrote out the parameters, made it public, that's what it was, and it was everything outside. Day number one, huh, 18° outside. Whoa! 18°. Try riding your bike in 18°. When that happens, it's very, very cold. I made a colossal mistake in planning the 100. I looked at the average temperature for March in Utah. I'm like, oh, 50s and 60s. I can do that. That's the high. Never on one day of the 100 was I on my bike during the high of the day. It was on there at 7:00 in the morning. Day number one, 18°. And so we were immediately up against it as far as like your ethos, cuz that would push anybody inside. We We bike through snow. We bike through sleet. We bike through hail. Like you There was a moment and it was so amazing the way the cycling community came out, but there was one day that it was so cold, we called the snow day, and we We stopped several times to either refuel and we went into a gas station and I one of the guys went to take his gloves off and bite it to get the glove off and nearly bit through his finger because it was so cold and he could he didn't he didn't realize he was actually biting into his finger. Wow. That's how cold it was and we were all that cold. Um but it was just a quick stop and he was trying to take his glove off so he could you know, refill his water bottle to get back out on the road. But those are the those are the conditions that we started at and it's a it's an immediate gut check the first week of the journey realizing, "Hey, I'm on day 10. I've got 90 more of these. Uh where am I at?" And you know, you you mentioned that stress fracture that I had in my shin. It started with a a an undisclosed ankle injury that I went into it with that I didn't want to tell anybody about and it quickly exploded up my leg. You know, cuz when you're in training for something like this, you have to minimize the damage. Um you don't want to over train and you don't want to hurt yourself before you even start. And so there's there's an obvious immediate ramp of volume that's unavoidable. And your body has to go through the adaptation phase of doing that. Well, my body didn't handle it. I turned 45 in the middle of this journey. I'm older and I developed a stress fracture. And it got to the point where it felt like I knew I knew my leg was going to break. And I had to manage the pain and every step I was taking on the marathon, I was like, "This is This next step, my leg's going to break. This next step, my leg's going to break." And I'd manage the pain, manage the pain and I'd black out. I'd pass out and Casey was there, one of the wingmen. He did all the rounds with me. He'd catch me and within 5 seconds I'd come back to. And we'd do a little countdown and we made a shirt that says, "Here we go." Because that's what we would say. We'd audibly say it out loud, "Here we go." and we'd get moving again and I'd manage it, manage it, manage it. Black out. Catch me. And he said, "You know, you're you're out those entire last 6 miles." and I said, "I know." But, it's what we had to do because the question I had to ask myself was, "Is the next step going to kill me?" That's one of my major ethos, one of my major mantras is, "Is the next step going to kill me?" And, um it was about day 15. I was at the peak of the shin problem, literally thought like my leg was going to break, didn't know what to do. I was at the completion of the day, and, um I looked at Sunny, and we're back at my house, and I said, "I don't I don't think I can manage that level of pain for 85 more days." And, she gave me some of the best advice that I've ever had my entire career, and she said, "The work is done today. The work is done. Allow the team to do their job. They're a great PT, massage therapist team there. Allow the team to do their job. Go to bed, wake up tomorrow because we have no idea what tomorrow's going to look like, and then let's face tomorrow as it comes." Cuz mentally, I could not conceptualize that level of pain management for 85 more days. We were so early in the journey, and I my my my 45-year-old body was broken. Broken. If the 50 was chaos, exhaustion, and logistics, the 100 was injury, pain, and longevity. Those would be the two the two parallels between the two or contrast. And, and that to me became the the the campaign motto was, "Take every day as it is today because we have no idea what tomorrow's going to look like." Cuz what we've learned on my journey is my body is an Our bodies The human body is an amazing tool if you give it the resour- resources it needs to recover, perform, whatever it takes, same with the mind. And my body could go from great to bad in a 24-hour period, and it can go from bad to great in a 24-hour period. We had no idea. We you deal with what you have when it's given to you. So, on day 15, when she gave me that advice, that kind of became the theme for for the rest of the journey. It was like, we don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. And if you quit now, you're you're never going to find out, and that would be the most tragic thing you do on your journey. To not know what tomorrow brings. And so, every single day we would fight till we got to the point where it was like, you've done the work today. Now, trust your team to take care of you because tomorrow could be completely different. What are your tactics for pain management? That's that's extraordinary to be able to manage the pain to the point where you pass out. So, what do you do? I saw footage um that I don't understand uh because I'm completely blank. I've saw footage where I I develop um a rhythmic pattern with my hands that I'd move them in a certain way to either distract myself or and I didn't know I was doing it. And I would take myself somewhere out and uh somewhere else. And I think over time with dealing with pain, you develop techniques, and everybody's going to be different. I didn't have that technique in 2012 when I broke the world record for official events around the world. I didn't have that technique. I didn't experience that level of pain. I experienced exhaustion and difficulty, but not that level of pain. And as I progressed through my career with crashes and and continuing to push the mind and the body, I developed personal techniques that have helped me. And I I don't know how to flip the switch. Like, I don't I I I I would literally be a multimillionaire if I could write the manuscript on how to flip a switch on the actual act of doing it, I don't think it's a tangible thing that you can teach anybody because it's so unique to an individual and how they do it in their space. And for me, I've watched some videos and I am just like or someone would tell me where the way I was acting and this was crazy for me looking back on the experience now. At some point in time, you slip into this um trauma protective state. And again, it's not a flip. It's not hey, day 35 to day 36 that happened. You're going on a journey that's a quarter of a year and you slowly slip into the state until your mind is completely protecting you from the chaos and trauma that you're experiencing. Protecting you how? Um from the actual experience. Like you're going somewhere else. You're doing your Johnny Moronic finger thing. going somewhere else. Had somebody asked me on day 98 of the journey, "Could you do 200 consecutive?" No question, the answer would have been emphatically yes. Day 102 when I was done in my mind, that go. I couldn't figure out how we did 101. It was so shocking to me and I'm we're we're 2 and 1/2 months removed from the accomplishment now. I'm still struggling physically and mentally. I can't wrap my mind around what we did and it's just proof that you slowly slip into the state and how powerful the mind is to drag a physically fit body through something that everybody deemed was double what impossible was before. Why do 101? Huh. You only promised a hundred. I did. a challenge already absurd enough. Yep. And and 101 didn't come about until the very last week of the campaign. Cuz again, when I'm on 65 and I still have 45 to go and that seems so insurmountable, somebody joked early on, I think it was Casey and he said, "Hey, let's do one on one, just me, you, and Aaron, the wingman, and we'll shock everybody." And I said, "F off. Like, we're not even having this conversation. I can't conceptualize it. Not even on the table. Bring it up again, and you're fired." Like, I was so mad that he would even bring it up. I couldn't conceptualize it. And then, you know, for me, about day 85, I just got into such a flow state. After 85, like, you're you're there, but you're not there. Yeah. Yeah. So easy. It's easy. You're unconsciously conscious at that point, just executing. I knew where every pothole was. I knew the course. I knew the environment. I've got so much confidence having fought through the worst of the worst for 85 days, I'm like, 15 is so manageable to me. Again, perception and perspective. Somebody said, "I'll do 15 consecutive, you're an idiot." But now, we have 15 to go, they're like, "You're so close. It's done. You might as well." Like, it's easy. Wrap It's a wrap. And um and so, once I was beyond 85, I you know, my world now is going around and coaching and and mindset, um strength, and and that's the you know, that's the important part of going on any journey. And I hate speakers that one, are just talking heads, that don't have any experience, have never been on the battlefield, and one of my things is the next step's not going to kill you. And the other big question I got after the 50 was, "Could have you done one more?" And I hated that question. Of course, I could have done one more. I chose not to. Right. And so, during the last week of the 100, I just got the biggest impression. I'm big on intuition, doing what you your gut tells you to, and my gut said, "You have to do one more." And I said, "I don't want to." And it said, "I don't care. You have to do one more. If you're going to get up on stage and tell people you can do one more step, you have to do it." And and here's what I learned about people. You're going to get to a on your journey where you're broke physically, mentally, not not financially, but financially, too. You're beaten. You can't imagine dragging yourself out of your dark corner. You can't imagine pulling yourself off the ground. You have no support system. You You You're You're a corpse walking around. You're depressed. You have anxiety. Everything freaks you out. In order to overcome that, you have to show up on your journey. And I don't know your journey. Uh I don't know how many times you're going to have to show up one more time. Sometimes it's going to have to be on your own. And so we didn't tell anybody that 101 was going to happen. We didn't even know it was going to happen till literally 3 days before the 100. And 100 what finished on a Tuesday, I made the final decision on the Sunday night to do it. And we were just going to go live on that Wednesday morning. And I got in the pool. Nobody was there cuz they thought we were sleeping, celebrating. And I woke up and I got in the pool and I was by myself. And I did the 2.4 mile swim. And I was fully anticipating doing 112 miles by myself and the chat boards went crazy and the the the supporters locally said, "No way is he doing that by crowd by himself." And they showed up and we had an amazing 112 miles and we did it on our terms. And I I just felt like as a person who gets on up on stage and tells people, "You can show up on your journey no matter what." I had I was broken. I was beat. I was defeated. And on the flip side of that, I'd achieved the goal. I'd done what I said I was going to do. But I just felt at the highest level, I needed to lead from the front. I needed to go do one more. Whether that's by myself or with my team, the importance of the I think the 101 was more important than the previous 14,000 miles. It's crazy. Yeah. Because you didn't have to do that one? I didn't have to do it. I didn't have to do it and I was so broken. I I didn't have to I didn't have to do any of them. That was just my my word and my bond. I know what you mean though. So, there's something about and I say this to myself all the time. It's when I do the one that I didn't owe myself. So, you owed yourself the 100 because you said you were going to do it, but you didn't owe yourself the 101 and you still did it. I I did. Um it the 100 was so chaotic. It was so so much media. I mean, we started this conversation with I don't want to be the center of attention. That's not who I am and so to to do 101, it was on my terms. It was with my small team. It was um intimate. It was stress-free. To me, it was the ultimate victory lap. One. Mic mic drop. Galore, you know, to do to do that and then go, "You know what? This one is truly for me. Don't ever ask me if I could have done one more." Mhm. Don't ask that question. Um the answer's always yes. I choose not to. This is my journey. I'll do what I want, when I want, as long as I'm within the parameters I set. And um it was it was truly for me. It's incredible. That's all. How do you deal with the come down of doing something so unprecedented and then what? It's like, do you have a sense of like I need a new purpose or what what's that been like? Not a new purpose. The who coming off the 100 has been very hard for me. Um we were I was heavily cautioned coming off the 50 there'd be this big letdown. Um and there's a lot of letdown of what? That like you don't have the adrenaline? Like I think I think it's achieving the goal. It's your sole purpose. And once you achieve it, there's the next day is nothing. And I I saw and I'm going to post it on my social media this week. It was a letter um, written uh, to from the Olympic athlete standpoint. Had I known it would be like this. And and the whole thing is like you you train for 4 years or your entire career for this one moment. That one moment happens and next thing you know, you're mowing your lawn and nobody knows who you are. And and that's what it feels like and I was cautioned after the 50 cuz it was so big at the time. And then I didn't I didn't experience it because I got whisked away into the speaking into podcast into meeting Tom and all these crazy things. And so I was just on this incredible high that never ended. And that became my new normal. And so when we did the 100, what changed was the duration of it. There's a big difference between going all in being on. I mean on on mentally for 24 hours a day for 7 weeks. And then doing that same ask on on for 14 weeks. And this is the first time in my life I am a very positive person. I'm a very happy person. I'm a go lucky person. I am in the face of adversity, I've got a smile on my face. You cannot tell I'm suffering. This was so dramatic and so drastic and I got into such a protective state that when I came out of it, I've experienced sadness and depression and hormonal imbalance like I have never experienced before. And it's been really hard on me because I have never been on that journey before. And now I'm on a very new journey. If any If every journey has I would say three phases, it's preparation, execution, and post or recovery. Well, I am in that post recovery portion and it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. Like literally when I get home from this trip, I'm going to get brain MRIs done. Woah. Because I'm suffering from such brain fog and confusion. This this is one of my favorite stories. I was It was like a week after the 100 and I was driving somewhere with my wife and we were on the interstate in Utah and my wife looks over and so lovingly and so patient she says, "Hey, you're driving 45 miles an hour." Woah. And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I am." I didn't realize it. I was in this fog of a space and I said, "I think you should drive." I've never experienced that before and I can go through a day where I've either done a virtual presentation or I'm creating content or doing some filming and the day ends and a switch goes off and I go from I am okay to I am not okay. And there's confusion and I don't know what to do. I'll be walking around my house. I've never ever experienced this before and I'm not worried about it because I know it's a hormonal imbalance and we joked prior to turning the cameras on, "Don't ask me the question what's next?" And this is a perfect lead-in to what's next and I've kind of been going down this cool journey of biohacking my my brain, my body, my health and I'm still going to do fun races. Like I'm doing a cool race in Costa Rica in a couple months. It's the hardest mountain bike race. I'm going to Abu Dhabi, Dubai to do the world championships for Spartan. I'm doing some really cool stuff. Um what's next? For me, it's I want to live a sustainable healthy lifestyle beyond 105 years. And to me that is super intriguing and fascinating and I think it's possible. Um and I wouldn't be the first, but for me, I want to go on that journey of like total health and wellness and controlling my mind and giving my body what it it needs because I've learned at the highest level like we are so powerful. Mind and body. But you can't abuse what you have and you have to if you've learned anything about the pandemic like you have to take care of yourself to combat and battle our surroundings. We're in we're in a constant war with the elements around us and I am fascinated especially having experienced what I've experienced coming off of the 100 and the trauma that I went through intentionally mind you. I did it to myself. I'm not comparing myself to anybody else that's been through different types of trauma. But for me it's kind of like opened up this box of like how powerful the mind and body is, how protective our minds can be to our bodies. And now I want to take it on the journey of like how powerful of a human can I be and how long can I live maintaining a really high standard of living and that fascinates me and I know it does you too. Um you want to live to your 500. Want to live till forever. That would certainly be the ideal. I'd push that button, yeah. Yeah, so I'm I'm kind of going down that journey right now. Um it just of of of self-discovery and um just with the emotions that I've had and I mean I I have an unbelievable life. I I have so much to be grateful for and to be in the middle of a workout and just start bawling like for no reason is shocking to me and to have that experience and I I have empathy and compassion now for people that are like no I like something's wrong like it's an imbalance and I I I don't know why I'm sad. I don't know why I'm depressed. And for me the biggest thing that's helped me is like I have to get out and do something. I I can't sit at home and focus on you talk about focusing on that dark that dark space or whatever it is in that dark space and come in many different ways and depression and anxiety is a big one. And for me um getting on my bike and getting up into the Utah mountains has been so therapeutic for me and healthy. Just to get out and just separate and disconnect and breathe air and and and and just do something that I love. And that's been super helpful for me cuz I joked that I joked I did a I did a a quick video on Instagram and I said that tree right there is not yelling at me. It's not judging me. It's just It's just a tree and it's letting me be who I am. And I think that was super important for me um to realize how important like cycling is in my life. And how important it is not to sit in a corner and focus on everything that hurts or everything that is sad. To get outside and to shift that energy. I said it before, motion creates emotion. And for me it's a super important piece to my puzzle. I love it, dude. What you have done is so inspiring and if the next step is to inspire people to live to 105, you can count me in though that's pretty young, but at least it's more than what most people hope for. I love that. Where can people follow on your insane journey? Yeah, we post most everything on Instagram. So Iron Cowboy James and then everything can be kind of plotted and navigated through our website, just ironcowboy.com. I love it, dude. Guys, if you haven't already, man, what this guy has shown to be possible is extraordinary. You can't look at it and think that something in your own life is impossible. It's merely a question of how badly you want it, what price you're willing to pay to get it. And speaking of things that you can get, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.