How to Face Fear and Achieve the Impossible | with James Lawrence

Michael: James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy. Welcome to Think Unbroken, brother. How are you, man?

James: I am beyond good. Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

Michael: Yeah, I love that, that's such a great answer. I think that so much of life is looking at it through the scope of gratitude and finding reasons to be good. Your journey, your story, man, is like super intense. If anyone doesn't know, the quick highlight is you are the guy famously known initially for 50 Ironmans, in 50 states, in 50 days, you decided that wasn't enough. when to do a hundred of those bad boys. I love it. And there's an intensity to that, that I think that is what really brought me to feel captivated to bring you on the show. And of course, we'll talk about that in the mindset, but to give you a little background, when I remember Tom Bilyeu, one of my mentors and previous guests on this show he interviewed you years ago, I want to say as gosh, six or seven years ago. And I remember watching that in the midst of this really intense physical journey transformation that I was in. Previously in my life, I was over 350 pounds smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep. And I remember there were guys like you and Goggins and Jocko and all these people Tom kept interviewing. And there was something that just stuck out to me about the way that you looked at the world. And I'm just wondering, dude, where in the hell does that come from?

James: An opportunity to be on Tom's show twice once after the 50 and once after the hundred both are really cool experiences. He is a dude, man. He's a good person. And just so much knowledge and that he can impart on us. But man, I don't know. I don't know where it came from. I just love seeking potential, I love putting myself out there and taking risks. What was the question?

Michael: Yeah, we're like that drive that energy that willingness. Here's what I wrote this, I wrote this note and I said ask James about fear ask him about fear, because it's to me, I sit here and I look at a guy like you and I go I would have to assume that he has this uncanny willingness to just face what's in front of him. And I just don't understand how, like it's almost perplexing, because I look at life and journey and so many of the things that we go through and it's but why James? Like, why you?

James: Yeah. It's interesting and it's a great point 'cause I walk around and I'm observing, I've got five kids right now, ages 14 to 21. And so they're like transitioning into life. And I look at all their peers and this new world of social media and everybody's scared, they're scared to be judged, they're scared to be criticized, they're scared to suck at something. And I think early on in my life, I was surrounded by some really interesting characters. My dad was just a blue collar firefighter real hard, intense worker and really not scared of anything. And then I saw my mom who was way ahead of her time in terms of being a homemaker airy fairy energy work, like just not afraid to do that before it was, mainstream, no fear, and then I saw my grandmother who immigrated from Poland, and just took on this I have a big dream and I don't care what anybody thinks I'm going to go do it, and we're living in a space now where fear is literally paralyzing people from doing anything new and having experiences and charging through some difficult things in order to gain that knowledge and experience, and so I've just been, I've just been surrounded by some really cool people that, they just didn't accept fear. And over time, I just learned that fear is just an emotion. And in life, we need to get to a point where we control the emotions in our lives and that's how we propel and move forward. And once I started to recognize that fear is just an emotion and I can either, it can either be fear or it can be excitement. And I always choose to look at the more positive or light side of things, and so I try to turn any fear into excitement and then it just changes every chemical makeup that's happening in my body.

Michael: What does that process look like for you? And the reason that I ask is because this is one of the things I talk about all the time, turning fear into excitement. And then I have my moments. I go get on stage in front of 10,000 people. I'm backstage about to piss my pants, and then I'm like, no, this is like the greatest thing ever, I can't wait to go do this. And for me, I have a process. There's a certain song, a certain movement, a certain priming, a certain this or that, and I, and there is this biological experience I have leading into that. What do you do? How do you turn the fear into excitement?

James: Yeah, I think over time it's just through having experiences and knowing that and recognizing the difference between the two. And for me, when I find myself like in a really in a moment where it maybe could really be fear I just pause for a second, right? Like I shut everything down. I pause, I take a tea, a few really deep breaths, eyes closed, and I just focus on gratitude. And when I do that, you fear can exist in, in the presence of gratitude and just like light, darkness can't exist in the presence of light. And so I just really start to like almost in a meditative state. Just go through the things that I'm grateful for and really ground myself and recognize, man, I think it's gonna be a lot worse, and this isn't that bad, and just have that conversation with myself because really fear is driven by the subconscious based on our past experiences and our mind telling us like, this could be scary, this could be dangerous. We need to seek like a safe place, and it's that constant conversation we're having with ourselves. The good, the bad, the evil, evil, all that stuff, light, dark, angel, devil, that all any way you want to put it. And fear is just the negative voice is trying to get us to be comfortable and not grow, and so I've just learned to like calm, focus on gratitude, and then that opens up the door to have an experience and not be scared of it.

Michael: I think that is the cornerstone. And because you cannot hold those two simultaneously, they just can't exist fear and gratitude, and but it's but James, it's difficult, man. This we're coming out of the backside of probably one of the most traumatic experiences in the history of the world. People growing up without fathers, single mother homes, the situation where Dude, a bag of groceries, a freaking 100, like fear is everywhere right now. How do you continue to leverage that with gratitude? Like even in the light of all the chaos of the world, because the way I look at it, there's a giant poster in front of me. You can't see it, but I read it every day says mindset is everything. And for me, that's become the cornerstone of my life where I'm like, dude, no matter what the universe is going to support me, I'm going to figure this out, but I was also the kid who was homeless when he was eight years old and a drug addict at 12 years old, and lost a million bucks by the time I was 25, like I've seen what it's like to walk life and make, dude, maybe I'm just resilient. Maybe I'm just stubborn, I don't know. But like how do you keep holding onto gratitude in light of all of the chaos that one's life is knowing that no one has an easy life.

James: Yeah. I think recognizing one that nobody has an easy life and we're all walking around this world, like trying to figure it out, having different experiences. And we all don't have the same starting points. And some people come from a little bit more advantage, but I've seen people like the experiences that you just described rise up and overcome, and so it's possible. So many people have done it, and especially here in the United States, we have so much incredible opportunities and recognizing that through experiences, we change and evolve and can change the lens in which we see things and that we always have a choice, and I always go back to this kind of dramatic moment where if somebody says like, how are you doing? And I could go on this entire rant of all the 10 things that are going bad in my life and the struggles I'm having with my business and maybe a relationship or a friend problem or a trial. But I always just sit there again, I take a deep breath and I'm like, you know what? I don't have a terminal illness and I'm not being sex trafficked. And as soon as I say those things out loud, like it, puts everything into perspective. Those two things are really traumatic and unfortunately some people are dealing with those things and that's another, totally different intense conversation. But most people aren't and to have the presence of mind to recognize that. It makes everything we're dealing with so small and I don't care who you are and where you've come from because there's so many incredible stories of people overcoming. There's one. And if there's only one, if there's one and only one moment of joy or happiness, you have to cling on that. And then you have to start creating more moments of joy and happiness and really starting to stack those on top of each other. And eventually you've got this like this beautiful book. And people say, Oh, I can't just decide to be happy. I'm going to, I'm going to push back a little bit on that. And no, in a moment you can't shift everything and all chemicals changing your body. And all of a sudden, just by saying this affirmation in the mirror, I'm happy, but you can start changing, your environment, you can start changing the experiences that you have, you can change where you live, you can we've got two feet. You can move somewhere. If you don't like what in the mirror, change what you do. Start changing the activities that you're doing, which will lead you to your happiness. And so to say that happiness is a choice. No, you can't just think it and affirm it, but you can start making changes in your life. That'll move you towards move that happiness needle, and in that breath it's a choice.

Michael: One of the things, and I agree completely with that, one of the things that I think about is this hero's journey arc that we're on, where we have this ideal about the life that we want to create, the universe positions us to go and face that life, but in that journey, there's this dragon you have to face, right? And that dragon is ultimately the thing that's going to separate you from where you are to where you want to be. And one of the things that breaks my heart is most people. They don't even put on their fucking running shoes, man. They don't even step out the door to go and face that enemy inside of them. And I think about this from like a literary perspective, like everything in life is truly a you versus you journey. Now, of course, there's these moments where there's speed bumps and there's things that happen, but I wanted to stay in this for a moment, ‘cause I think it's so important. People are so scared right now. This idea that they can't or they won't or they shouldn't, or maybe they'll get canceled, or I've been canceled on social media. It's fine, you'll be okay. But the thing that I always come to is it's like you sit here and you look at this and what is it really? What is it really that keeps us trapped in the word that comes to my mind is excuses, when I look at my life at 26 years old, being morbidly obese, smoking two packs, I was 50 grand in debt. And when, and I looked in the mirror, and I asked myself was like, what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have in the answer? Dude, it shot into me like from God, I don't even know where it came from, but it was no excuses, just results. And for almost 14 years, it's driven me, do you think? And look, here's what I will say. There's legitimacy in people's excuses. I don't want to ever take that away. Life is super hard, but I see a guy like you, you're famously known for falling asleep on your bike, crashing that thing out, getting back up and being like, I'm going to finish what I started. 50, a hundred. God knows what you'll do next, man. How do you think about excuses in your life?

James: Yeah. Frankly, in my personal life I don't tolerate them. And I see it as something that's crippling people and you say excuses and I, and the opposite of that to me is accountability and recognizing the role in which we have, and we've been talking about fear and really what fear is just an imaginary scenario that we've created in our minds and typically, and what we're seeing today and the word that I'll use is catastrophizing. And catastrophizing is looking into the future, creating the worst case scenario, and then living there. And it's this mythical place, and as we sit there and stew in that situation, what happens is we start to spiral. Anxiety sets in, now depression, and this little tiny thing that we've created becomes bigger and bigger, and then it almost becomes impossible to start, and I found this so many times in my life, like I find myself like, okay, thinking, worrying about the future and making it bigger and bigger. And then I go do the thing and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that was so easy and so simple, I can't believe that I was giving it so much power and distracting me from, living and having experiences now, because these are the two things that I found that people do is they live in the past in regret and grief, not forgiving themselves for mistakes that they've made or they're living in the future, worrying about something they can't control, and the purpose of this entire life, this experiment that we're all in we all have to learn the same lessons and that dragon that you talked about doesn't have to be as big as it is. And I think the longer we take to go out and face the dragon and have experiences, the bigger and bigger it gets, but it's only getting bigger and bigger here, it's not real. And again, if you have that big dragon in your life, like challenge number one, like just. Go face it head on and run through it as fast as you can. And I promise you, it's not going to be as big as you thought it was. And you're going to be so relieved that you've unloaded that off of your back and your soul, that you're going to be so much happier, everyone's trying to find this happiness and this joy and their purpose and all that. You can't do it if you're carrying a bag of rocks and avoiding the dragon that you need to fight and slay and learn the lessons that we all need to learn.

Michael: I could not agree more. What's a lesson that you've had to learn? As you look at this in this journey, what's one that comes to mind where you're like, man, that was a very intense dragon, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be?

James: I think just the fear of making mistakes and being judged I get asked the question all the time. Hey, where's that? What's a moment in your life where you made a mistake and you failed? And for the longest time, I was like, I don't have any moments where I failed and it's cliche, but it's moments where I've learned and I've just truly believe that I just have this fear. I guess it's a bizarre mindset of, man I'm going to make mistakes and it's okay. As long as I learn from that moment and don't repeat that same mistake. And sometimes it takes a couple of times, but we get hit in the head of the same branch and I've told you like, Holy cow, I need to go on a different path, this isn't serving more. It took you probably more than one try to kick some of the habits you had and reverse some of the toxic things that were happening in your life, but you eventually learn those lessons and look at you today, man, like you're I can just, you're just glowing. You have this sense about you that I imagine looking in the mirror you don't even recognize the individual that you were before, and it's because you were like, okay, I need to learn something from this. And that takes maturity. That takes maturity to, and that accountability that we just mentioned to sit down and go, okay, man, I am not who I want to be. I am not where I want to be, and I'm taking full accountability, now this is going to be scary. And there's going to be some dragons and some demons that I need to fight, but hell I'm ready and let's go. And then just go to battle, man. That's the biggest gift you can do is to recognize that you're not going to die. And it's just a battle inside your head.

Michael: I always try to teach my clients that the worst case scenario is always death, anything shy of that. It's just something you'll learn from and it's just, I think it's a mind game, right? You just look at it. And part of me thinks that 1 of the reasons I've been able to do this is I was like, you know what? I'm willing to So much to put my life in jeopardy for things that bring me no value, would I be willing to put my life in jeopardy to live the life that I'm capable of having? And what happened in that as I was like, James, I was just like, I'm willing to face death for my dreams. I just don't know what else to do. You know what I mean? And you mentioned a word that I think is so powerful and accountability. There, there was a moment you said, look in the mirror. There was a moment, 26 years old, looking in the mirror, asking myself this question what is the life that you want to have? I didn't realize it. Now, you go look back at something that was 13, 14 years ago. You have a very different understanding of it, but what it really did was it sparked this notion of accountability in my life because I realized I was beholden to things that brought no value, drugs, alcohol, women, money, food. It was never me, though, until I decided to make it me. What is accountability done for you? What does it truly mean? Because you know this as well as I do, we're in the same world, we go speak on these stages, we do these podcasts, we have these conversations, people drop the word accountability like it's the next fad. But what does it actually mean?

James: To me, accountability is doing what you say you're going to do. And owning up to you. So like I said, I was going to do a hundred and I kept, especially with all my clients they're all like, Hey, man, what do I do in the situation where I don't think I can continue or I'm tired or I'm exhausted or hurt. And I'm like, is the next step going to kill you? And they're like no, then I'm like just take one more step. Oh, okay. Yeah. Great. And then they start to gain that knowledge and experience at one more steps, not going to kill them. And so accountability to me is really like being a man playing that card and doing what you say you're going to do and follow through with it. Like that's being accountable to your words. I do a lot of business and I don't believe in contracts. I believe in a handshake, and if you're not a person that's willing to do a handshake contract with me, then. I don't think you're a person that has that accountability that integrity to do business with. I've got a lot of business partners, we don't have contracts and we just they know that's who we are. That's what we stand for, and we're accountable for the things that we say. And we follow through every single time.

Michael: Yeah, that's so incredibly powerful. And I think that also there's accountability and other people, right? Because when you, there's, I think there's a turning point, right? And I think that turning point is based in like honesty and truth. If you look at a lot of people's lives, they're great liars. And that's what social media has done to us, that's what society has done to us. This is why you see the guy who's driving the 75,000 car who has no money in the bank account. Has a bunch of girls, but doesn't take care of his wife, all the chaos of the world. And I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, let's be very clear about that. But what happens, and I've seen this in my life, it does require you, when you make a decision, you reach across the table, you shake someone's hand, like your name's on the line. But I think people are so afraid of this idea that they're going to put it out of the universe and feel shame and guilt and judgment. And I know that you went through hell in the 50 just online. And this was what, almost 10 years ago. I couldn't imagine what that would be like now, like how do you navigate like that part of it?

James: Yeah, man, I couldn't imagine the incredible scrutiny that would happen now. I've been canceled just like you and I couldn't imagine the level of being canceled that would have happened. I'm so grateful for again, those mistakes that we made and learning through that experience, because it's given me really the greatest gift that I've ever been given. And it's the gift of not caring. And to me, as soon as you can get to the point where you just don't care what anybody thinks, and it's not arrogance. It's just the perfect amount of swagger to where you're like, that's a you problem, like it's so funny, like people just react and do all these things, and I just like tilt my head. I smirk and I laugh and I'm like, dude, my life is so dang good, your opinion doesn't matter. And there's a great book by Mark Manson called the subtle art of not giving an F, and I love it. And the first chapter, if you listen to audio books, it's one of the best audio listens you can do. Just the use of the F word, and if you can tolerate the effort, go listen to it. But the opening of the book is so spectacular, but it truly is a gift and it's one of the things that I've really tried to impart on my kids is to, to not care what the toxicity of what other people think. And ultimately, we're all so unique and we're all, there's 8 billion people on the planet and we're all looking at life through 8 billion different lenses, and those lenses are all built off of experiences and chaos and moments that we've had. And someone who's like someone who's judging something that I did, I don't know what formed their opinion that got them to this moment. When you're speaking on stage you're speaking to 5,000 people, they're all there in that room at the same time, but we have no idea how they got there. The experiences they had, what's formed this wiring inside of their brain to, to formulate the lens, the camera lens that they're looking through life. And once you recognize that we're all walking around having our own experience. And yours is different than mine and different to his, and it's okay, and your opinion is just based off of the experiences that you've had, and I need to have a little bit more compassion, not knowing the, how you came to that opinion before I like attack and start to argue, and that's the problem is like, there's 8 billion different opinions and there should be because we've all had different experiences to get to this point, but here's also the gift, you can change the lens in which life. And if you're looking at it through a negative lens and just change your start to change the way you're wired through your experiences, change your environment. Most everybody's environment was created because of parenting, neighborhood, social structure, school. Religion, all these things have formed our opinions, right? And that's why there's like really toxic people and people that are really grounded is because they were programmed a certain way because of their environment. And so I hope everybody recognizes too that the brain is super malleable and you can change the experiences that you've had, but you have to get over that fear. And you have to get outside and you have to start interacting with people and you have to start having experiences, but that's the whole beauty of it. One you don't have to care what anybody thinks. And two, if you don't like the way you're looking through the lens, you're seeing, go change it.

Michael: Yeah, truth. We can just…

James: A lot there.

Michael: No, I want a lot because I want to get deep inside your brain because I sit here, I cross from you and I go, Yep, we can end the show now. However, the problem is, and you know this as well as I do like that. I think that particularly this idea of not caring is arguably the hardest thing that people navigate because the world is a microscope around you and you're constantly being scrutinized. Nothing's good enough, your opinion and everyone has an opinion. It's so funny, dude. I don't think I said this on the podcast yet. I hosted this event called unbroken conference. We have 2,500 people. I'm speaking Gabor Mate, Ben Curtis, Leslie Logan, just these amazing humans. And dude, you said something to Rich Roll one time that I resonated with so much.

One comment, this one negative comment, dude, threw me through this crazy loop, got these 2,500 people. And this dude emails me, he goes. Hey, man, you're too ghetto to be doing this. I don't take you seriously. You're not professional because I say fuck all the time, James. It was my first word, I own it, it's who I am, and what's really interesting about that moment. I remember a friend, I text him. I go, dude, this is I try to serve the world and this is what happens to me. He goes, why do you care? I go, actually, you know what? You're right, I don't, you said it's a gift, it's freedom. How do people really okay, reframe this a little bit differently. Cause I think it'll be really beneficial. How do you teach your kids these?

James: Yeah. So you and I, everything we've said, we're both like, yeah, I agree. Oh yeah. You're right. Yeah. We're on the same page. Hey, we're vibrating that same energy. I think like we're a lot, like we're seeing a lot of similarities in our conversation and the language that we use and all these things. And if I look back on it what's the common ground between you and I?

Michael: Don't know.

James: The experience unique experiences that we've had through struggle and adversity, whether it was by choice or the environment that we happen to it. And we both made a decision to fight through that and through that fighting that experience and charging through that adversity, we've learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way. One of the being, we don't care what anybody thinks because that's where you have to get to in the maturity process and to, in my opinion, if everybody's goal and the purpose of this life is to find peace and joy, you, in order to find peace and joy, you have to stop caring what everybody else thinks because in order to move forward in life, one of the things imposter syndrome. And you develop imposter syndrome by listening to the opinions of other people. And for my kids to answer the question is my wife and I just set the example. And we committed early in our marriage to not be the parents that are like authoritarian and tell our kids. To do something and then not live that life. I hate that hypocritical type of parenting. We have open dialogues, very honest conversations, and we allow them to be part of the journey and the struggles that we experienced, the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, all of it. And because of that, they've seen us be canceled. They've seen us have adversity and then they've seen us grow and change and not allow that to affect who we are to our core. And the experiences that we want to have in life. And so we've just modeled it to our children and we haven't hid any of the conversations and stuff. And we've just got really good at like turning down that volume. In fact you may resonate with this too. Dude, I'm on a rocket ship, like I'm in a frigging rocket ship of growth and where I'm going and what I'm building and the faster my ship is going, the few, the fewer and fewer passengers I have. And guess what? I can't hear anymore, the people way down there. I'm getting so far ahead of them, and the mountain I'm climbing is so damn big, and my circle, man, it's small, but it's so damn tight, and we are just like celebrating together. We're cheering each other on, and we're creating our own noise, and our own atmosphere, and this turbulence, and all this thing, and all of a sudden, Guess what? I can't hear anymore. The negative sayers, the people that are trying to drag me down. I can't hear them. I can't hear them. I'm so damn fast. I'm so damn strong. I'm so damn high. Dude, I don't care. I don't care what you're doing. If you want to be part of this journey and this journey is incredible, jump on board. You're welcome. Everybody's welcome. But man, you got to be able to keep up.

Michael: Yeah, dude, I tell people I started laughing because that's what I always tell people like I'm on a rocket ship. You're either on it or you're not. We're taking off.

James: Yeah.

Michael: It's just simply because the way I look at life. It's like, why can't I? Like, why can't like, I think there's so much about it, but it's intentional struggle. You said sometimes this is like either the choice of struggle, or you're born into struggle, everybody's born into struggle. The moment you're born, you start dying. Whether you like it or not, that's the reality, that's the endgame, that's where you're landing. Sometimes the struggle in the beginning, though, is much more difficult. I can tell you, James, there's nothing more hard than being 12 years old and stealing food, it just sucks, man. It's not a fun fucking experience. What is less hard is waking up and eating gummy bears for breakfast, right? That's how you get down this path of 350 pounds, trust me. I did this to myself. I took full accountability for my decisions and then I chose to struggle. But in my choosing to struggle, there were a couple elements that I thought really, I guess I didn't have the rationale at the time, other than I thought it was a thing to do. One, I moved, I left the city I grew up in. Two, I got support and a coach and a therapist mentors. And three, I just went all in. I was just like, screw it, man. Burn the boats here, how important is that choice of struggle? And secondarily, how do you know what struggle to choose silence.

James: Because what it does is the CRM or whatever, that part of front part of our brain, it doesn't expand unless we do something that we don't like doing. So if you enjoy running and you go out running, that's not going to expand that part of your brain. And you hear a lot of these experts talking about it. And so to expand your brain to where your body is acceptance of even more and more harder things. That's incredibly important because there's going to be moments in all of our life, like life happens to us. And we'll use the pandemic, the pandemic happened. And I guarantee you, you could look around and go, Oh, that person's dealt with some difficult things in their life before, because they're handling this really well and they're not being driven by fear. And then you look at this person over here, who's on the ground in a pile of mush because they don't know how to handle what's happening to them, and that person has never done anything hard in their lives, and so some of us like grew up a little bit more privileged and we have to intentionally do those hard things. So our brain expands so that when real life actually happens to us, we can look. We can look to our body to the left and our body of work of all the hard things we've done and we can manage it. I was on this show called the world's toughest race and it was a 10 days navigation. Bear Grylls was the host. Mark Burnett from survivor was the producer teams from 63 countries around the world, and deemed this is the hardest, it was eight days long. And they kept trying to get me to say in these interviews and on TV that this was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I'm like, you guys realize I did a 50 day challenge that was like insane with my five kids navigating the enormity of the United States, averaging four hours of sleep a night, trying to figure out everything that, and it had never been done before. And they're like, yeah, but just say that this eight day thing was the hardest thing you've ever done. And I'm like, I can't say that, and so really the challenge in life is to intentionally do hard things so that What people perceive as hard, it's no, this isn't hard. And in fact, we didn't win the race because there was professionals and this is way outside of our element, but we were the only team that came into every checkpoint with the biggest smile on our face, we were having the most amazing time in the back jungle of Fiji where everybody's suffering because we looked at it in a different way, like this isn't hard, this is an adventure and what's hard for somebody. Is easy for another person who has intentionally done those hard things. So to answer the first question, it's the most important thing to intentionally do hard things, and what was the second part?

Michael: And the second part is how do you choose what hard things to do? How do you choose your struggle?

James: Yeah. Beautiful. This is actually a huge thing that I love to talk about is everybody's heart is different and it depends really where you are on my journey. And from stage, I share this beautiful story about we were raising money for charity. It was a time when I had younger kids. My kids were all in elementary school at the time and we were raising money for the Jamie Oliver Foundation because childhood obesity was and still is a problem. It's a national pandemic. This stat I say all the time and it's terrible that it even exists, but we're the first generation ever where the parents are slated to outlive the kids. That means this generation is incredible amount of trouble because of the food that we eat and the lack of movement and exercise that they do, and also the mental trauma that they're experiencing a lot of it due to social media, but so we were doing a five kilometer 3, 1 mile race. At the end of every single one of our Ironmans that we invited the public to come out and do and to raise that the awareness for the childhood obesity epidemic. And my daughter really early, she was 12 years old early on in my journey, like it was day two or three. And she was like, dad, you're not doing very good. Cause we started in Hawaii, went to Alaska, went to Washington commercial Ironman in between each one of those. And then we all piled into a motor home and she goes, you know what, dad, she'd done the first two, five K's with me. And she goes on day number three, she's you know what, dad? I'm going to do all 55 K's with you. And I'm going to be here every single day, seven o'clock. I'll meet you every night. And it became a huge reason why during, the bike crashes and falling asleep. Like, I had a seven o'clock appointment with my daughter that night. And the point of the story is my daughter's heart was 55 K's. My heart was 50 Ironmans. My mom showed up for the last five who's struggled with obesity her entire life. And she did the last five, five K's with me. So my mom's heart was five, five K's. Lucy's heart was 55 K's. My heart was 50 Ironmans. Everybody's heart is different. In fact, somebody listening to this podcast right now, their heart is going to be waking up tomorrow and starting their day. And so how do you choose your heart? It depends where you are in your journey. And what you do is you just pick something that challenges you, that scares you just a little bit. And then you do it and you overcome it, and what you do is you start to check off, those little boxes that are wins. And even though they seem, maybe seem small, but it's where you're at in your journey. So as long as you're pushing yourself just a little bit and where that is for, everybody's going to be a little bit different. And then what starts to happen is you start to create momentum and you start to associate yourself as a winner. Cause what the problem is people like they set this monster goal, which we're supposed to do. But then they focus just on the big goal and they're missing all the little tiny steps along the way and creating those wins, success breeds success and confidence breeds confidence, so to choose your hard. Be honest with yourself and really make it hard. Don't make it impossible. Make it hard, and then just start chipping away at those and accumulating those wins. And all of a sudden your brain's expanding, right? Your brain's expanding, you're becoming more knowledgeable through experience, and all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're a completely changed person and you don't recognize 13 years ago. But again, that takes consistency and discipline, and like you said accountability.

Michael: There’s an equation I put together years ago that just made a lot of sense to me and it was confidence is built through continuously doing incredibly uncomfortable things consistently, it's just alliteration, right? It's just all these C's and I, my hard James at the beginning, like waking up one day, laying in bed, smoking a joint, eating chocolate cake, watching the CrossFit games, like that was the moment where it broke for me. I know, dude it's laughable, but it's that was the moment. And then the next day, it literally started with me brushing my teeth. That was my heart, like looking at this and be like, right.

James: Exactly.

Michael: Ass up, go brush your teeth. And that was the thing.

James: And that's the beauty of it. And that's what just people need to be recognized. I think really have the humility to be okay with where you're at. I think it's a huge piece of the accountability. It's just okay, man, I do this challenge at our retreats. What we do is we get our and I'm sure you've heard of groups doing this, but we get them to write their eulogy from, the perspective of the person that they love the most. And so it could be your mother, it could be your spouse, it could be your father, it could be your best friend. But they're saying, today we're here to celebrate Michael's life and he was that that, so if, and usually it's very positive and that's, the pinnacle of who we want to be. And my lad says that chasing down the ultimate version of yourself. And then you have to have that humility and accountability to recognize where you're at today. And then it's that, and then it's that gap from this person here to that eulogy, and then you got to go, okay, what's it going to take to bridge that gap? What's the first and one thing that's going to get me closer to that? And that's, and that's where, and that's where everybody has to start.

Michael: Yeah. And then that's acknowledgement, right? It's can you just look at it and tell yourself the truth, man? Just look at it. You're not doing the thing that you need to do, you're not showing up, you're not living your life. And it's difficult because part of that can carry. Which I don't know that necessarily is always the worst thing in the world, a little bit of shame. And that can be like a little bit of rocket fuel to be like, dude, why don't you take care of this?

James: But that little bit of shame that we put on ourselves is the first step. To forgiving ourselves for our past, we can move forward if we haven't forgiven ourselves. And so first is that like maturity and accountability and the recognition that, okay, we haven't been perfect, nobody is and it's okay. But then isolating the missteps that we had a gentleman out to our conference. We just put on a retreat up here in Sundance, Utah at the resort. And it was interesting because everybody's like, trying to figure out their morning routines. They're filling out their list of all the things that they want to do.

And he said I want you to come up with your not to do list. And we were all like, what is that? And the not to do list is the things that are distracting you or that are holding you back from. Maybe getting to your to do list to the things that are important to you. And I really thought that was a genius way to look at it because even me with how productive and then the rocket ship that I'm on, I was like that's a great thing to ponder. And I immediately isolated two things that I was like, yeah, that's an absolute waste of my time. It's not serving me that should be on my not to do list, and it allowed me to be more productive even since this retreat two weeks ago, and so I think that's something really important that people could maybe pause and do right now is stop figuring out what you need to do in order to change. And maybe look at one or two things you need to stop doing. In order to change and grow.

Michael: And I'll add a caveat to that as well as the only, and this is my opinion, right? Of course we can talk this through, but I think the only way that not to do list actually works is that you acknowledge your truth because so many people are like, no, it's okay. I just smoked two packs a day. It's okay. Okay. Do you want to walk your daughter down the aisle one day? Are you willing to tell yourself the truth?

James: Yeah. And I've got four daughters and this will be controversial too. And I'm always ready to be canceled, but I hate that the culture of self acceptance now with love yourself, who you are and you can always love yourself with who you are, but that honesty part that you're talking about and being accountable that maybe I am unhealthy. Maybe I am, I'm not serving myself. And we've created this culture of just it's okay to be a loser. And that's giving people the excuse and the out to make the changes that they need because now we have this belief like no, I'm 500 pounds and I'm okay. And I can love myself for who I am. Yes, you absolutely can, but you still have to be honest with yourself and recognize that you're unhealthy. There's no way around the science of being unhealthy. And just like you said, I've got four daughters. Do I want to walk my daughter? Across the, down the aisle and into her future. Dude, if I'm a young 30 year old that just had a couple of children and in 20 years, I'm not going to be around. If I continue with the habits that I do, even though I love myself, I'm not going to be around to have those moments and those experiences, and I'm going to leave my family with no father and my wife with no spouse and support.

Michael: And I'll take it a level deeper, because I think it's important. This is the conversation that I have. Let's go get canceled together, I'm here for it. Here's the reality. No, it's true, man, because here's the reality. I have understood and experienced firsthand the suffering of my own decisions. It wasn't just 350 pounds smoking two packs. Dude, it was so bad at 25 years old that I was cheating on my girlfriend, it with multiple women, I was 50, 000 in debt, even though I'd made a million bucks. My little brother tells me, never talk to me again, you're not my brother. And my car got repoed, but I loved myself, James. What is the conversation we're really having, and so if you're looking at this journey. And your health isn't in check, your wealth isn't in check, your relationships aren't in checked. Dude, you got to look in this mirror and here's one of the things that I think about has brought me a lot of value in my own personal life, as I coach myself first. Yes. I coach thousands of people every year. The podcast, millions of downloads, like blah, blah, blah. Who cares? The truth is I stand in front of that damn mirror on a daily basis. And I asked myself the question what are you willing to do? But there's this innate, again, I love the conversation about fear. I love that we're going so deep. So thank you for this. There's something that happened to you when you did the hundred that I think ties amazingly into this, and you have a wife that I would have to assume is not only your best cheerleader, but like really your coach, ‘cause she said something to you that I wrote down years ago. And I had to go back through my notes. Cause I like take notes. Even when I'm listening to other people's podcasts, it was the second time you were on rich roll, I think. And she told you, cause you were like, man, I don't know if I can go through this pain for a hundred days, a hundred events, a hundred tribes. She said, the work is done today. I want you to talk about that in the context of what we're speaking about in terms of fear, in terms of being honest, in terms of showing up, like what, like that sentence. Might be the reason you completed that challenge. And so I'm just wondering the power of that.

James: In it. And she's so wise and you're right, nothing greats ever accomplished on our own. And I don't do any of this stuff without the two wing men and obviously my wife, and that moment happened when the hundred, like the 50, it was years and years building and foundational blocks and strength building and one project to the other. And then after the 50, I was really satisfied despite even the missteps that we made, and I was in the speaking career and I'd been, I'd spoken in 56 different countries around the world, and I was an author and all the documentary was a smash hit and all these things were happening, and then the pandemic hit and I was my focus wasn't on pure athletics, it was now raising the business, helping people win conversations with themselves, like really changing my focus and attention. And so I wasn't in peak condition and I'm still in great shape, but not in peak condition to do. The hardest endurance challenge in history at the time, and so the idea came really quickly when the pandemic came, the world got shut down, no more speaking, no more racing, no more coaching, and I only trained for four months. I was going to rely on my mental toughness and my past experiences to get me through those hundred days. And I was like, look, I'll train for four months, which is not enough time. I'll train for four months and then I'll use the first 50 days. I'll use the first 7,000 miles to get me myself ready for the back half. And I'll really showcase my athleticism, I got injured by day number five. I had an ankle injury that swelled up into my shins, I started to develop two stress fractures and I was just going out every single day, just like the most intense pain you can imagine. I was managing and I have a gift to be able to manage pain. Like it's man, it's the worst gift on the planet, but I've got it. And I'm like, okay, this is what I'm going to do, I make it to day 15 and I'm out on the run course and I'm struggling. I'm literally waiting for the step that my leg is going to snap. I'm like, just like you said, I'm willing to die to do what I said I was going to do in honesty and integrity. And so I'm on the run course and I'm like, the pain is just mounting and mounting the pressures building, and I blackout, I lose the battle of pain and I blackout and the wingman, Casey, he was doing all his plan was to do all a hundred marathons with me. And when I blackout, he catches me. And when I came back to consciousness, we were prepared for this moment. And we have a mantra, we would say the words, here we go. And when we said that those words, here we go, it was a total mind and body reset. And we continue to charge down the trail, and then I'd get to the point where that pressure would build and I blackout again, and he'd catch me. And then we'd say the mantra, here we go, and we keep repeating that process till I cross the finish line that night, and it was that night that I was standing in the shower bawling just lost. Worried about the next 85 days and my wife, she peeks in the shower and she says, what's up, are you okay? And I said, no, man, I'm not okay. And I said, I don't think I can manage that level of pain for 85 more days. And she said, I need you to trust in your team. We're world class. The work is done today. And I just need you to do one thing. And I said, man, what's that? And she said, I just need you to show up tomorrow because we have no idea when the next miracle is going to happen. And I just continue to show up day after day, waiting for a miracle, and I won't share the rest of the story with you because I want people to get the new book that's coming out called iron hope. And then we're releasing next month, March 27th, the new documentary conquer 100. And it's this amazing journey of hope and believing that the next miracle is going to happen. And we'll never find out if and when that miracle happens. If we don't continue to show up, continue to face that dragon every single day. And the miracle did happen and we had an amazing journey. We raised over a million dollars to free human beings that are being sex trafficked. And we continue to give hope to people that are suffering or struggling with things that they never asked for and trying to show up with that courage in their own lives. And yeah, that, that moment, that day changed the entire journey where she just basically said, I just need you to show up.

Michael: That's such a great way to just look at life, just show up and it's not easy, you're in the shower crying. Here you are, this guy, the iron cowboy, the dude who has done the impossible. And it's no, but you're still a human, whether you like it or not, and we're all still humans having this human experience and it's not that, and I hope people really will sit and what I'm about to say, it's not that you and I are sitting here as apostles from the pulpit preaching out, we are great and we figured this out and you can too, as much as it's just It's a human experience to want to seek excellence, to want to be great, to want to be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day and know that you've done right by yourself. And you talk about this, writing your own eulogy, like I've done this exercise purse. I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, I've done this personally, and the answer is always one thing. He didn't die with regret, that's it, ‘cause I don't, cause to be honest, James, I don't get the point of life. Otherwise, like, why are we here? If not to go and live and to live is to show up as to honor the journey as to love hard, to do difficult things, to be amazing caregivers to the ones that we love to face the struggle. ‘Cause the next struggles coming, like no matter what, even bestselling author documentary raise a million dollars. It's coming, it's coming. And it's Dude, but you gotta have those people. How important is that community? ‘Cause I think it's brushed over too often.

James: No. And again that's what we're seeing in society today. And the pandemic pushed this and social media is pushing this. We're the most connected we've ever been, but at the same time, the most isolated and alone. Yeah. We started putting on these retreats and I started putting on the retreats because people would always ask me how do I become more mentally tough? And I'm like it's through experiences, and then I recognize people can't put on their own experiences or they'd be more mentally tough, and so I invited them to my experiences and then they have an experience and then. 

Michael: I bet they do.

James: We're a hundred percent, man. They come to our things and they have an experience. Again, I always get off track. Remind me of the original.

Michael: Yeah, community.

James: Community. Yes. And so we're alone, we're isolated. We're community and nothing great. I said this even today, we're nothing great ever happens on our own. And through these experiences and the mindsets masterminds that we're doing, once we started marketing these, trying to figure out who our real avatar is, you want to know what everybody says?

I'm tired of trying to figure out life on my own. I'm isolated, I'm alone. I don't have anybody to lean on. I'm looking for a coach and a mentor. I'm looking for people that I can align with. Dude, that's community and we've stumbled upon us and we're growing our tribe and we love it. And people are just like thriving as humans. We're like inherently, we are tribal people and we're meant to do things as a group. And I've experienced this at a super high level and it's amazing. One of the things I try to help people understand, especially today because people are, they're sitting at home they're isolated. And frankly, they're waiting for passion to knock on their door and slap them across the face. And it's just not going to happen, you have to go out, it ain't common. Nobody's coming and you've got to interject yourself into a community. Go. I don't care what you do, man, if Pokemon's your thing, awesome. If your dungeon dragons, awesome. If it's triathlon, rad, whatever it is, skydiving, cool, go do it. I don't care, rock climbing, great. Whatever it is, go find your people, inject yourself. Your invite, frankly, the invite to life is not coming. You got to inject yourself into it. And then you're going to find your people. Like I grew up as a wrestler. And I loved it, and I tried every sport, but I didn't know I loved wrestling until I did it. And then as I graduated, I got into golf and man, I love golf. I'm a four handicap. I still love it today, I guess what? I didn't know, I loved golf until I did it. And then my wife invited me to run a four mile fun run. And I'm like, nobody runs for fun. That's the dumbest thing you've ever said to me, sweetheart. But I went and did it, and then I found triathlon and it's completely shaped and molded my career and who I am today. And so how did I find my purpose in my passion? Experiences I wanted and I did, and I found my community of people to do and have these experiences with. And now I truly believe I am living my life of purpose, I now get to put on events and create a community for people to come. And it is so dang fulfilling to watch people be, go from isolation, to be part of something, to come to an event and do something hard. And that process, piece of their brain grows and expands and they go, ah, I can do hard things. That's the whole point, like I am so fulfilled in my life right now. And I would have never gone on this journey had I didn't have the humility, to suck at a four mile fun run and inject myself into that race and put myself on that start line.

Michael: It's always about the start line. James, brother, this has been an amazing conversation. Before I ask you the last question, where can everyone find you?

James: Yeah, I'm most active on social media on Instagram and Facebook, Iron Cowboy James. We have all of our stuff on there, I've got a couple of amazing races this year that I'm doing and a big project coming in 2025 that I'm super excited about, that we are not talking about, and so super cool. I'm really excited about the new drop of our book. It's called Iron Hope and then the Conquer 100 Documentary. That's going to appear on all the streaming platforms and it'll be live on our website, March 28th of 2024. So very cool.

Michael: Amazing, brother. Thank you so much for being here. My last question, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

James: Yeah. To be unbroken is to show up in your life and get unbroken to have those missteps, make those mistakes face that dragon. But show up with a little bit of swagger, not giving a rip about what everybody thinks and charge through that son of a bitch. That's what it means to be unbroken because on the other side of unbroken is this mystical, amazing place called joy. And I think it's a gift to be unbroken, ‘cause that's, therein lies the moments where we learn the lessons we need to learn in order to thrive in this life.

Michael: Literally could not have said it better myself again. Thank you for being here. Unbroken nation, thank you for listening. Remember, share this with a friend because when you do, you help them transform trauma to triumph. Breakdowns to breakthroughs and help them become the hero of their own story.

Till Next Time, My Friends.

Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.