James Lawrence

And eat better food all the fixed menu All right, man, very start Mr. Lawrence, welcome to the podcast

Right. Yeah, 100%.

Thank you, sir. And all joking aside, but this is funny because we’re doing this again for the second time. Sometimes in life, we have to learn lessons the hard way. And you, sir, forgot to hit record. And so we get to do this one more time.

Absolutely, and maybe it was meant to be because honestly talking to you is pretty awesome and we different during the first session of this we talked a lot about how much We suck at doing new things and how that’s a normal process of life And we laughed about it a lot and you know the first podcast I ever did I didn’t record so there’s real real evidence of that

I love it. Yeah. And it’s a true and real conversation that we could maybe even start right there about doing things for the first time that scare you or that hard. And when we do something new, we’re going to suck at it and we’re going to make mistakes. And I’m actually really proud of you because most people would have just been like, I’m not even going to tell the dude that I didn’t hit record. And we’re just going to pretend it didn’t happen. We were super humble. And you’re like, dude, I am so sorry. I didn’t hit record. But that’s what. But.

I’ll do it.

But that’s what’s paralyzing society from doing anything new because they’re scared to maybe make a mistake or have a misstep. And so I actually appreciated your humility in it and you’re just like, man, I screwed up. Can we do that again?

And honestly, I thought that was the only way to get a second shot because I thought you know what you gave me his time Super sweet conversation. We did a lot. I hope I get to do it again, and I’m glad we did So if you don’t listeners a little bit about mr. Lawrence and who you are

Here we are.

Yeah, my name is James Lawrence. The public actually knows me as the Iron Cowboy. In fact, our book is right there called The Iron Cowboy, Redefine Impossible. I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I grew up a wrestler. My dad was a blue collar firefighter worker. Just taught me how to really work hard, how to not make excuses. Just a really gritty generation. And then my mom was just a homemaker, super loving, just taught us how to…

how to share our emotions and talk about things. And just, I had a really good balance between the two. Three sisters, no brothers. Grew up in Canada and now living in the United States, living Utah and living that so -called American dream. And just been on a wild ride. I’m sure we’ll get into some of it, but I’ve dabbled in endurance racing, broken a couple of world records. We’re about to release our second book and our second documentary.

which we’re super excited about and yeah, we’ll dive into those as well.

Speaking of super humble, you broke in a couple of world records. You want to tell our listeners about these world records that you beat?

Yeah, sure. You know, my journey started so simple. In fact, I talk, my career now is public speaking and I hate to use the word motivational speakers because I think like when I hear that, I think of like just the rah -rah hype kind of fakey kind of guy and that’s not me. And so I like to call myself an empowering speaker because…

When I get off stage or get on stage, my goal every single time is to make you feel something so that it moves you to take an action in your life. And that means I’ve empowered you to do something. And so that’s always fun. But my journey kind of started with my wife. We got into triathlon, I’m sorry, running together. She challenged me to a four mile fun run, which was terrible. I didn’t enjoy running. I now really enjoy it. I’m getting ready for another marathon in multiple different races this year.

couple world championships. But we started running together, then we found Triathlon, and I started to go down the road to an Ironman. And in 2008, I ended up doing my first Ironman. And then I just really wanted to push limits and boundaries. I always wanted to raise money for people and organizations less fortunate than I am. So in 2010, I set out on a journey to raise money to build dams in Africa.

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And it was going to be the world record for the most half Ironmans done in the world. And so we did 22 half Ironmans in 30 weeks and we called it the Try and Give a Damn project. We ended up building a bunch of dams in Africa, an orphanage feeding center and a couple of women’s groups. And so really big impact over there. And it was just like, this is amazing. Like, I want to do more of this. And it ended up in 2012 breaking the world record for the most full Ironmans done.

around the world, we did 30 Ironmans, all official events through 11 countries, which was an incredible learning experience. And I was, I was maturing in, in my abilities and in my strengths and figuring out my weaknesses, really getting into strength training and nutrition and eventually becoming an expert in mindset. And based on those experiences, we went and tackled what everybody said was impossible. And this journey is actually on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Apple TV, YouTube.

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and it’s the documentary called The Iron Cowboy, The 50. And what that is, is it was 50 Ironman races or events, 50 consecutive days, one in all US states. And so it’s lovingly known as The 50, 50, 50. And that journey really changed our lives. And more about our story, we just celebrated 23 years of marriage.

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Great.

We’ve got five kids and we were talking before we hit record that my oldest daughter just got married and that’s why there was a little delay between the first and second recording. Had that journey, broke that world record, got pushed into speaking and coaching and mentoring and it was just this wild ride for five or six years. And then the pandemic hit. And when the pandemic hit, it took away any live event, as you know, like public gatherings. So racing, gone. Speaking.

Gone. Coaching people to race? Gone. Like all these things just like poof, disappeared. And yes, it affected everybody. But my job specifically, like it didn’t exist anymore. It like disappeared in 24 hours. And then I saw an opportunity. And I’ve kind of lived my life away to where I push boundaries. I raise the ceiling to what’s possible. And when the pandemic hit, you know, we didn’t execute the 50 to perfection because we didn’t know what we were doing. We’re the first in the world to ever do such a thing.

And I looked at it as an opportunity to reset my own history, do that again, but do it better. But I was like, I don’t want to do the 50, because I’d already done that. The chaos and confusion from all 50 states. My kids were a little bit older. I got daughters in high school and graduated. And I just can’t uproot the family again. And so I thought to myself, OK, if I put the same team back together, if I removed chaos and put systems in place, could I double?

What everybody said was impossible. Could we defy logic and do a hundred consecutive Ironmans? And so in 2021, starting on March 1st, we started on a journey to do 14 ,000 plus consecutive miles, no days off, 14 weeks, 140 .6 miles a day. And that’s the documentary we’re about to release. It’s gonna release on March 27th of 2024.

here in Sundance, Utah, and then it’ll go on all the streaming platforms. And then right following after that, shortly after that, is when the new book, Iron Hope, will come out, and we’re super excited about that as well.

Thank you.

Very excited about both. I’ve read the book, I’ve seen the documentary, and they’re both great pieces. More telling into your incredible story. We’ll get into the races, but I wanted to touch on something that you mentioned a little earlier, your evolution as a person into more of a public speaking role, mentoring and empowering. Can you talk about the role of leadership and how…

Thank you.

Did you foresee yourself getting into this role or did the course of your life naturally draw you to this?

Yeah, I think the course of my life actually drew me to it. I firmly believe that leaders lead and they lead from the front and I also believe that nothing great is ever accomplished on our own and but every group needs a leader and someone that has the courage to to step out in front and kind of you know beat that path down and It was interesting because I after I’ve been doing this career for a long time I got together with an old friend from high school and she was like

I’m not surprised you ended up doing this. And I was like, why do you say that? And she’s like, man, when we were in PE fitness class, I like, when the coach turned away, I stopped doing pushups. And you looked at me and you said, her name was Claire. And she said that I said, Claire, you know, you’re only cheating yourself by not doing all the reps. And I was just trying to like encourage her and motivate her. Back then I was in elementary school.

Thank you.

Okay.

And it was just really cool for her to recognize back then that like, it’s who I was, but I didn’t know it at the time. And I’ve just really, really tried to go out of my way to bring people together and to get to the mountaintop. In fact, I’m big on the more you help other people, the faster you’ll reach your goals. And the more you bring people together, the faster you’re gonna get to your goals. And so it truly is about team, it truly is about leadership.

I mean, these types of things. And I learned a lot about leadership from my wife. And we’ve got five kids, four of them daughters. And so there’s a lot of situations where I was like, hey, maybe you should handle this daughter situation. And you know, daddy daughters have a special relationship, but my wife’s name is Sunny and she just did an incredible job of raising these girls and truly being a leader to them. And I believe a leader doesn’t tell you what to do. They set the example.

That’s sweet. You also touched on something.

and do it themselves and then model it for others.

about being an expert in mindset. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yeah, I mean, I believe that everything comes from our minds and the way we think and the thoughts that we have. In fact, I’m big on energy and the way we think is actually what we vibrate and the energy that we put out there. And in anything, there’s an opposite and equal reaction. And so if we’re thinking negatively or destructive or whatever it is, that’s the energy we’re sending out and that’s the energy that we’re going to get back. And so…

being a mindset expert is the ability to control your thoughts and emotions at all time so that you can navigate life in a different, or through a different lens than maybe most people are walking around doing. Because if you watch media, it’s fear, it’s anxiety driven, it’s bad news. Like nobody watches the news and walks away from that going, man, I feel so much better after watching that episode of the news, you know? It just doesn’t happen.

No one feels empowered to do anything. You’re 100 % right. Everyone gets scared and wants to shelter.

Yeah, they’re scared and they’re driven by negativity. And unfortunately, society is drawn to these type of stories. And so the media just says, OK, this is what we’re going to lead with.

So being a mindset expert, did that take practice? To be able to control your thoughts, put that little bully away in your head, and to put that no -stay aside, did that take practice? Was it natural to you? How did you learn to control the demons?

Yeah. Yeah, I like the, I like that you use the word bully because I talk about the bullying side of our head. And when we’re doing something difficult or challenging or new, right? The bully comes in our head and he starts telling us all the reasons to validate why we shouldn’t do what we’re doing and maybe to seek that path of least resistance or ease. And, and really I’ve just learned over time, you have to, in fact, I did a post today on my social media today about this.

that you intentionally have to do difficult things on a daily basis because that’s how you sharpen the mind. It’s like physical fitness. You have to do certain things consistently over time in order to change your body and change your physical appearance and your health. Exact same thing with the mind. You can’t just like, okay, I’m gonna decide to be mentally tough. No, you have to do something hard and then you start to callous and become able.

to have those conversations with your mind and start winning those conversations. Cause ultimately it’s just a conversation we’re having with ourselves. And we get to choose how we navigate those moments in those conversations. And as you get better and better at having those conversations, you start to become invincible and bulletproof to what you believe you can do. Because life is just, it’s just a series or a set of beliefs that we have.

And a lot of it was formed by our teachers, our parents, our childhood, the environment, the neighborhoods that we grew up in, and that forms our opinions. And so really, this is really an incredible gift that we can impart on people is if you don’t like the way that you’re waking up and feeling and the environment that’s around you, if you’re living in the United States, dude, you can go anywhere you want. You know, we live in a very free country. I’ve traveled around. I’ve…

Okay.

I’ve experienced over 50 countries and different cultures and people and religions and governments and all these things. The United States is pretty remarkable and I just get a little bit frustrated when people are complaining about the lack of opportunity they have here or their circumstances. Dude, move, change. Change your surrounding. Change the input that’s coming in and that’ll change the output that’s going out. It’ll truly reshape your mind and change the lens at which you see life.

Levin & Nalbandyan, LLP (15:26.693)
What you just said resonates so hard with me because I came to this country as an immigrant, so did my family. And having the old country experiences and coming here and just seeing what’s around, it’s a lightning, man. It’s the land of opportunity. It still is, and I think it’s going to continue to be.

Don’t you wish you could like get the people that were born here and maybe take that for granted? Don’t you wish you could like impart that vision or where you came from to them and just go, hey man, look, this is a really good spot and you’re still complaining about it. And I just, sometimes I just wish I could be like, I’m going to pick you up. I’m going to drop you in the middle of this war zone and see which one you like better and see which one you feel more comfortable at. And I think, I think if that was possible, man, the world would be.

Yeah.

or the United States would be totally different because there would be less entitlement, there’d be more happy people, there’d be more people doing things that they want to do, recognizing that they’re free and that there’s an incredible amount of opportunity to be had.

Yeah, there’s no limit here other than, you know, ourselves, I think, to be honest. Let’s talk about the world record -setting races that you’ve done. Can you think of moments in these races where you had to take that bully, where maybe it came out in the worst way? I can think of one story that you told us when you were on your bike and you fell asleep. I think you can…

We drop with that.

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I think the reason I was able to be successful and win a lot of those conversations is because, you know, and I’m going to kind of contradict myself a little bit because I tell people to set big, big goals that scare them. But what the little asterisks beside that is take the time to to reach that goal and respect the enormity of whatever that goal is. And there’s steps in between that we all have to take. And so I’m so glad that my.

My journey started with that four mile fun run that I struggled through before tackling those world records because all of those little moments in between, like it was a decade between everything that happened and you gain a lot of knowledge and experience from those times and that’s what gets you ready for those moment and yeah during the 50 we were on day 18. It was 106 degrees outside in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was so hot. I was like fatigued. I was falling into anxiety, depression.

. . . . . .

And I lost concentration for two seconds and I fell asleep on my bike and I crashed. And when you come back to, you know, knocked unconscious, and when you come back to and your bike’s like upside down, up against a tree and you’ve got 32 more to go and you don’t even know how to get back on your bike in this moment. And then all of a sudden that bully in your head starts coming. It’s like, I told you you weren’t good enough. I told you I’m prepared enough. You haven’t sacrificed enough. You know, all these things that we tell ourselves. And you know, nine out of 10 people are like, yeah, who?

I like this is a great excuse to end the suffering and the pain and I kind of snapped out of it in that moment. I was like, you know what? I just I just need to be perfect for one second. I don’t need to do 32 Ironmans in one in one moment. I just need to get up and get back on my bike. I need to turn the pedals over one, you know, one rotation at a time. And sometimes that’s how it is in life. And you just have to be like so focused in on the very moment, the next step.

and not be distracted by the enormity, the paralyzing size of the rest of the journey. And that’s how you survive those really, really tough moments. You win the conversation, and then you just get back on your bike. Right? That’s a great analogy, and it was real for me. Get back, literally get back on your bike and turn the pedals over one time. And I haven’t found a person anywhere in the world in any situation.

that can’t be perfect for one second, no matter what you’re doing. As a resilient species, like you can get up no matter what you’re doing. And there’s countless examples of people of survival and overcoming hardship and difficulties and trauma and difficult situations. They all made it. And so why can’t you?

Yeah, I love that.

Does, when you set these records, I mean, let’s talk about the logistical challenge, first of all, of doing 50 Ironmans in 50 states in that amount of time. How did you overcome that accent?

Yeah, I think being naive about how big the US was at the time, you know, I came from another country, didn’t realize how big, I mean, I knew how big it was, but you really get to know how big the United States is when you try to drive it and you’ve got to go to a new state every single day and do a 14 plus hour physical activity. And I think not knowing it was a gift. And I just had a really small team. It was me, my wife, two best friends that we now call the wingmen and my five kids, they were just five to 11.

and we all piled into a motor home and just really started to figure it out. But it took me two and a half years of planning. And so, although I was naive to what it was actually going to be like, I put a lot of effort and emphasis on planning and getting ready for this. And then I see a lot of people, the mistake that people make is they’re waiting for the perfect plan. They’re waiting for everything to be in place. And I’m here to tell you right now that there’s never going to be a perfect plan.

Because things are always going to happen along the way that we didn’t anticipate, that we didn’t know, that we couldn’t plan for. And here’s the secret to life. You have to become a master problem solver. And you have to understand that there’s always a solution. And the way things happen aren’t always going to be the way that we dreamed it up, or the way that we thought it, or the way that we planned it. And to be open to the ebbs and flows of life is just how it’s going to be. And the sooner you can…

come to the realization that that’s how it’s going to be, the greater you’ll be, the faster you’ll have a chance to be successful. And so we just, literally it was chaos and confusion every single day and once we realized, okay, that’s just what this journey is going to be, it’s going to be riddled with some chaos and confusion, but we are going to figure it out and we never quit and we just continue to solve the logistical problem. And lo and behold, we made it.

Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s uh, you talked about something there, and I think it was…

The fact that no matter how good your plan is, Mike Tyson has a famous quote, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And then the plan goes out the window and you fall onto your basic training of the foundation. Were there any failures or obstacles that you had to overcome that you think were significant that were a learning point for you along this journey?

Yeah, it’s interesting that you said first you answered the question, were there any failures? And then you followed it up with that were learning points. And so when somebody asks me the question, have you ever failed or what were some failures? I can’t come up with any because none of them were failures. They were exactly like you said, they were learning points. And so that’s how I choose to look at everything we’ve done. And it’s a failure if you don’t learn the lesson and navigate through that.

differently the next time it happens, right? Then it was a failure because you didn’t absorb anything and you didn’t become better from it. But for me, when things happen and we took the opportunity and paused and really dissected it and, okay, why did that happen? How do we avoid that in future? We could move on. But every day was loaded with that, like chaos, confusion, just, I mean, you name it. We hit a deer in the middle of the night and wrecked the motor home and tore the generator out and…

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Averaged four hours of sleep a night. We had to consume and source 12 ,000 calories a day just for me to eat. And we had a crew, we were filming a documentary, and there’s just so many moving parts. And you know, most people when they get faced with those missteps, they do look at it as a failure. And we look at it as an opportunity to become better. Persistence and resilience only come from having been given a chance to work through difficult situations. And so when you have a difficult moment in your life, you have two choices. You can either look at it and go,

Oh yeah, that sucks and we’re done. Or, oh man, this is a great opportunity for me to learn so that doesn’t happen again. Because this journey and our lives, they didn’t get easier, we just got stronger. Life’s not gonna get easier, you, in order to navigate it successfully, are going to get stronger. In fact, I love that quote, I use it in some of my presentations. Because last year I was actually in my very first ever USA boxing fight.

and it was a quote unquote celebrity boxing match, an influencer match. They called me up and wanted me to be the main event. They were raising money for our charity, which goes to combat and free human beings that are being sex trafficked. And so I, you know, this is interesting too because we talked a little bit about this. They called me up and they wanted me to fight and instantly I’m like, no man, I’m not a boxer. I don’t fight and that terrifies me. So no, thank you. And I hung up the phone and I immediately, I went, ah, dang it. I have to say yes, cause that scares me.

Nice.

And I’ve learned in life that anything that scares me is like worth doing and there’s something in me that I need to learn. And it was an eight week training camp to get ready for this fight. And man, did I ever learn a ton about myself and fighters and life during that training camp? I grew up a wrestler, but I’d never been really punched in the face. And I grew up a wrestler and I never punched anybody in the face. And so during training camp, like I…

There was a lot of emotion in both of those exchanges. And to live Mike Tyson’s quote, I squared up, it was the main event, there was 2 ,000 people in the audience. And we go to the center of the ring, we touch gloves and go back to our corners. And then that bell goes, and man, he came storming at me and literally for 10 seconds beat the crap out of me. And I…

I took a standing, like my game, like you talk about a quote and it becoming real to you, my game plan went out the window as somebody, cause he didn’t punch me in the mouth once, he punched me 10 times. And in the first 10 seconds of this fight, I got a standing eight count. And I’m like, holy crap, like I have a decision to make. I can either cower and stay in the corner and like take a knee, coach throws in a towel, or I’m gonna make a decision. I’m gonna square back up to the middle of the.

middle of the ring despite the failure and experience that I just had, I can square up now and be back in the fight. And the fight ended 33 seconds later because I knocked him out. And so very different outcome, but it’s because I made a choice that even though I got overwhelmed, mentally I had those two decisions to make. I had those two options. And in life, every single time I choose to get back up,

and square myself back in the middle of the ring and fight for a different outcome.

I love that story. Especially because I think the celebrity fight was another litigation attorney in Ohio. Would you be interested in doing a grappling competition?

It was a litigation attorney, yes.

You know, we put on these weekend retreats, we put on these three day retreats and part of the, part of the weekend retreat, one afternoon we go to a gym and we do a different discipline of fighting. And our last one that we did here in Utah, we went to, it’s called Wasatch Combat, and we did Mu Tai fighting. And at the same gym, they do Jiu Jitsu and all these things. And so,

It really got me back to my original roots of wrestling. And yeah, I think once I have a few years left of things that I want to accomplish in this career in terms of like endurance racing, I’m almost 50. But I think when I turn 50, I want to get back into wrestling and do jiu -jitsu just as a hobby, just for like my health, mental and physical. And yeah, I think I’ll enter some tournaments and just roll on the mat again.

Yes.

just really get back to that grassroots, because I loved it growing up, but just got into doing other things. I think I’m going to get into jujitsu and golf again.

Nice. I practiced it to a pretty consistent basis. It’s one of the best things I’ve done for myself in my life, for sure.

Yeah, in fact, I can’t remember if we talked about this before, but man, if I could wave that like universal wand and create this law, it would be that every young person, male and female, either has to do two years of military service or two years of mixed martial arts training. And you don’t necessarily have to go fight, but like train where you’ll learn discipline, confidence, body control, discipline, how to protect yourself. I think it would, to be honest with you, I think it would solve a ton.

of the problems that we’re seeing today in terms of health issues, childhood obesity, we’re the first generation ever where the parents are slated to outlive the kids, terrible statistic, confidence, bullying, all these things, like I think a lot of that disappears with military training or fight combat experiences.

But I don’t have that magic wand. I wish I did. But my son, he gets trained. We have a fighter come to our house every week and he’s learning Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu every single week. And he hates it right now, but I don’t care. It’s one of those things where I’m not trying to be your best friend and I’m teaching you a life skill that’s gonna benefit you down the road. And there will be a day where he’ll be like, thank you, dad. I’m so glad.

you made me do that. And even though he can’t see it, I can see a change in his confidence, the way he carries himself, things like that, respect, all those things. And I think it’s super important for this, any generation, but this generation specifically, I have kids in this generation, five of them. And so I’m very active and I can see what’s going on. And so I just think it’s important for those individuals or kids of all ages to go through that. And to your point, like,

You’re loving it as an adult and I think it’s a great outlet for people. It’s a good physical thing. And as we’ve talked about, it’s incredible for your mind.

Oh yeah, I mean the different decision points that you have on a daily basis, you talk about being a master problem solver and being an entrepreneur, a trial attorney, that’s kind of all you do all day is just problem solve. And being aware that you have different choices in the moment,

that may lead you to different outcomes based on how you’re feeling. Maybe you can make a different choice in a different setting. If you weren’t this, for example, you always have the option to tap when somebody’s on top of you, the pressure’s uncomfortable. You don’t have to, you’re not in any danger of any limb damage or anything, but it’s just uncomfortable. You have the option to back out and leave or to fight through it, right? One of our core values at the firm is to be a solution chart.

is to always find a solution and if you identify a problem and if you’re going to bring a problem to a different team member, come up with solutions for that problem before you do. How has your team around you being Master Problem Solvers helped you in your journey?

Oh man, it’s been absolutely critical to become that master problem solvers. And we had to learn really quick to become master problem solvers. In fact, it came a rule on our team. Like if you see a problem, don’t come and just tell someone there’s a problem. Come up with three solutions before you come to the table and tell us there’s a problem. And then we’re armed and ready. And now, okay, let’s dissect which one of those is the best one. And maybe someone’s going to suggest something new. But like,

We got really good of like, okay, this is going, anticipating a problem, right? Before it even happens. But then when it happens, like, okay, these are the three things I’ve thought up to solve this, not be like, oh man, there’s a problem. What do we do? Right? That’s what we see a lot of people do. They just put their head in their sand and, oh, maybe if I turn away, the problem’s going to go away. The problem’s not going to go away, homie. The problem exists. Yeah. And it’s just going to get bigger and more problematic. Right? And so, yeah, that was one of the things that we learned and became pivotal is like, we were like, okay.

Yeah.

Bigger.

321, what are the three solutions to the current problem that we have and how fast can we solve that problem?

A lot of our team members in the legal field get notorious for having long hours, some of the workers drug, you know, some of the workers drug drink and a lot of the people, a lot of the pitch from some employers has been work -life balance. But my philosophy is that at least at the firm when the client only has one shot to get things right and it’s up to us to do it, there is no balance anymore. The balance is getting them the result.

And so if there’s moments in time where you’re not going to have balance, you’re going to have to work late, maybe you’re going to have to work a weekend, that’s okay. That’s what you have to do. What’s your perspective about balance and accomplishing great things in your life with balance or without balance?

Yeah, it’s a great question and a topic that I’ve been hearing more and more about lately. And there’s definitely two camps out there on this thing. And to be frank, I’m with the camp that there is no balance. It’s not a realistic expectation. And in order to be successful or high level at anything, you need to come out of balance at certain times in order to complete the task and see it through. And…

The problem quickly becomes if you go out of balance and stay out of balance for a really long period of time. And so I think in family, in business, and in personal, there’s extremes that happen and then we have to be conscious to recenter ourself and recenter the situation, regroup, take that pause when the unbalanced situation has resolved itself. Take that moment.

bring yourself back to balance and then go back to work and you’re going to get out of balance again and then you’re going to bring it back. I always think it’s funny people like what I’ve got. I’ve got a family and my hobby and my job and I got to keep all three of them balanced and I’m like no I’ve got a family I’ve got four daughters and they don’t want 33 percent of my time I promise you that like they they but they want they want all of my time for the moments that I’m with them right and and during the the big projects we do the 30 Ironmans the 50 consecutive the hundred in a row like.

Okay.

My life was extremely out of balance in order to achieve those goals. But those are just like, like big cases, right? Those are big cases in my life that I had to go all in on and man, did my life slant the other way. But when those projects are over, that case is over. Like it comes back into balance. We reset. We, we, and, but, but the reality is, is because of that experience, because of whatever we did, we we’ve changed, we’ve grown, we have more knowledge and that makes us stronger to go into the trenches again.

And we get better at solving problems and doing what it takes to win that sometimes the out of balance can be faster than it usually is. And so it just comes from experience and knowledge. But ma ‘am, the whole family life balance, I think, is bogus. It doesn’t exist. The key, the absolute key is coming back to center, taking time for self -care, and not burning yourself out. Because when you stay in that state of unbalance, now you’re leading to burnout, which will lead to failure.

Yeah, I love that. I love the way you explained that. Because there are big game days and for the big game days you’re just going to have to work at 9 ,000 RPM for a while and then you come back.

Yeah, it’s like an NFL season, right? It’s 14 weeks, 16 weeks, whatever it is, plus playoffs, and then you got your off season. But during, like, those guys’ lives are not in balance. And especially as you get closer and closer to the playoffs, like, if you watch LeBron James, like, he’s active on social media, come playoff time, like, dude shuts it down. And he’s out of balance because he has, he’s in his big court case, right? He’s in that moment.

Yeah.

where everything is on the table. And then once that’s over and the championship trophy’s hoisted and he’s got the MVP ring, well, now he can go back to his normal life. He’s resetting in the off season, right? So life is about seasons and how we navigate them.

As an endurance athlete, this is probably second nature to you, but for the audience that listens to this, how important is recovery for your ability to be able to get out of that balance, to be able to go 9 ,000 RPM for two, three months when you need to, and then come back?

Yeah, recovery is everything, man. I put a huge emphasis on sleep. I mean, I do eight, nine hours a night. In fact, right before this podcast, I was taking a nap because I was feeling a little bit of a lull. I’m building an entire new project. We’ve got the documentary releasing. We’ve got the book coming out. And so like my stress is up. I’m in a time of a little bit of unbalanced because I’m building something really, really cool that’s going to be launching. But I also recognize like, oh man, I, I don’t want to.

disrespect the host today, I need to come game ready. And so I need to, I need to, I need to pause and recover for a minute so that I can show up and give them 110%. And, and so I think it, I think it’s important to recognize those moments and, and shut it down for a second. And so I, I, my life right now is out of balance. When I recognize the moment where I’m like, okay, if I keep pushing today, I’m going to, I’m going to perform non -optimal. And, and I don’t like to show up in that capacity. And so I was like, you know, it just take 30 minutes.

shut it down, do some meditation, some breathing, hit the reset button, and then come out strong. And so we’re huge on recovery. In fact, in my house, we do cold plunge therapy every single morning. We have a sauna that we crank up to 200 degrees to reset and meditate in. I have a red light therapy bed. I have a hyperbaric chamber. I have electric stem machines. I have a vibration plate machine. I have a full gym at my house.

I mean, my home is a recovery center. That’s how I mean, I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars on my health and my performance and which ultimately leads to my longevity. I just had an epigenetic test done and my physical age is lower than my actual age. And it’s because of the massive emphasis I put on health recovery and the foods that we eat and the activities that we do.

Thank you.

What’s your call, Puntruty?

So I do five minutes a day, seven days a week. And so just I get in there and I’ve started just filming videos in there to occupy my mind. We’ve got it set at about right now it’s about 43 degrees. It’s a plunge called King Cool, which I love because it’s got a filtration system in it. The water is always clean. I can set the temperature to whatever I want. It just holds it there year round. I can adjust it up and down.

It’s got a cover, it’s a one encased unit. I just have to change the filter every three months. And so it’s just a really, really cool thing. So yeah, five minutes every single day, non -negotiable. And when I’m not at home, I’ll just crank the shower as cold as I can get it and stand there for five minutes.

Thanks.

Nice. You said you were reporting on some big projects. Can you tell us what those are now? Or is that kind of under the wraps until you’re ready?

No, no, for sure. Like super excited. Obviously we’ve talked about the book, the documentary, that that’s work that’s been done. And now we’re working on the PR and the execution of it and the release of it. Red Carpet private event coming up again, like I said, March 27th of 2024 is when that’s premiering. And then the book will come out shortly after. But we just recently launched our retreat series and we’ve done two successfully and have a couple more this year. Three day retreats where we.

We have physical experiences, we have mental experiences, we have emotional experiences. We talk a lot about community, togetherness, gratitude, breath work. We do tons of stuff, it’s just a lot of fun. And people come from all over the country to participate. Anybody that’s interested can go to our website, ironcowboy .com and just check those out. And then we’ve recently started a mastermind group. Just at a super high level, I’ve recognized that…

People are trying to figure life out and grow businesses and navigate their family life and everything that they’re doing on their own. And people are just, I think the pandemic really drove this home of being in isolation and people didn’t like that. As humans, we’re a tribal community and we’re tribal by nature. And so we’ve started this group, basically it’s just a mentorship group where we get together and.

talk about different concepts and share ideas and network. It’s just been incredible the last couple of months doing this. Our group is slowly growing and that can also be found on our website ironcowboy .com. We’re relaunching our training platform. We train athletes around the world. So just a lot of really cool things coming, just helping people mentally, physically and spiritually to overcome and deal with life as we know it. That’s ever -changing and evolving and challenging and shouldn’t be done on our own.

Love it. Thank you for that. One final thing I want to talk about, something that really resonated with me when I saw you speak in person was…

You… It’s not that…

Let me try to remember the quote again. It’s that you get to, not that you, can you, yeah, you don’t have to get to. Could you give our listeners a little context about that, maybe give the story?

You don’t have to, you don’t have to, you get to. Yeah.

Yeah, in the 2012 world record, I saw a young man with cerebral palsy being pulled through a race with his friend. It was just a sprint triathlon, the shortest of the sport. And I saw that video and I was like, man, I wonder if that young man wants to become an Ironman. And if we could do one together, if he wants to be part of this world record. And so his name is Dayton and he has cerebral palsy and he’s just trapped inside of his body. And super long story short, I got to do race 27 of 30 in that year with him.

And so many things happened on that day that we needed to become master problem solvers in order to overcome. And I just recognized as I was looking back and complications were happening and difficult situations were presenting themselves. I just said to myself, Dayton can’t ride a bike and I get to ride my bike today. Dayton can’t run and I get to run tonight. And just really, I mean, that was over 10 years ago that I had that experience and…

Every single day I wake up and the first thing I say is, I get to. I get to do it one more time today. And I think we forget that life is a gift and that we have no idea when it’s gonna all end and be over. In fact, two days ago as of this recording of this podcast, came across my social media that the world record holder of the marathon that was just broken in Chicago, he passed away. He was in a tragic car accident, 24 years old.

24 years old, his whole life ahead of him. World record holder, the fastest man on the planet ran a 435 marathon for 26 miles. 435 mile for 26 miles. Like, I almost guarantee with a thousand percent confidence there’s not a single person listening to this, including myself, that can run one mile at a 435 marathon. That’s the world record. Two hours and 35 seconds for 26 .2 miles.

Incredible.

Point is, is he passed away tragically in a car accident. He’s not, he’s not around anymore. And we have no idea when that’s going to happen to us, whether it’s old age, whether it’s an accident, whether it’s an illness, whether, whatever it is, tomorrow’s not guaranteed. And I’m finding as I travel around the world that, that people fall into two traps. They’re living in the past.

living in regret and grief, not forgiving themselves for mistakes that they made and just sitting in that space that they don’t need to sit in. And two, worrying about the future. It’s called catastrophizing. Worrying about the future, worst case scenario, and just sitting and stewing in that moment too. And ultimately what you’re missing out on is right here, this moment, experiencing the present.

And it’s cliche and people say enjoy the journey, but man, it is so true. And the older I get, the more I appreciate that sentiment. And trust me, I wake up every single day and I’m like, yes, I get to do it again today. And so I challenge everybody that’s listening to this now and into the future, like, please recognize that life is a gift. And hopefully you don’t have a terminal illness and you’re not being sex trafficked. And whatever problems you’re dealing with today are pretty minor.

And if you’re living in the United States, we live in a free country and opportunity is abundant. And if you don’t like who you see in the mirror, if you don’t like the circumstances that you’re existing in, have the courage to change them. Have the courage to change you. Have the courage to change the way you think, the way you feel. It’s not going to happen overnight. If you’re overweight and struggling, it’s going to take time to reverse the damage you’ve done to your body. If you’re sitting there,

I’m depressed and unhappy. You can’t just think and be happy, but you can change the activities that you’re doing that will lead to your happiness. So yes, you can choose to be happy and you’re choosing through the activities that you do every single day. So yes, happiness is a choice.

I love that man. I think that’s a very profound and great way to end this. Anything else that you want our listeners to know, let us know. But otherwise, I really appreciate your time again.

Yeah, man, just everything we’ve talked about just really keeps showing up in your life. The only way to fail is to stop showing up. If you want to follow any adventures that we’ve done or have coming up, you can follow us on social media at Iron Cowboy James and go to our website. Check out the things that we do and the experiences that we provide at ironcowboy .com. And just thank you, man, for the opportunity to come back on the show and have another great conversation.

I appreciate you so much, James. Thanks a lot. Have a great day. Let me see if I can.

Thank you.