Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
that's why people fail is because they
rush
straight to that big goal and they they
miss out on everything in between which
is the most important part you can't
skip those stepping stones and go right
to it because that's where you're going
to learn you fail in your preparation so
that when you get to the big goal dream
as big as you can so big that it scares
you and you hear that all of the time
but what people don't do is they don't
shelf it forget about it reverse
engineer it to the point where they
build that success and that momentum so
they can eventually get to it and that's
the part about doing if you just read
watch you don't adapt and evolve you
gain knowledge but it's not applied
knowledge
once you do you get closer and closer to
that big goal
james lawrence the iron cowboy welcome
back to the show man super pumped tom
thank you
i'm thrilled to be here dude i'm excited
to have you you are the epitome to me of
hard things doing hard things building
your identity around that
why do hard things why do they matter
why in fact we should tell people what
you did so you sent me
an instagram
dm and you said tom i'm going to do 100
iron man length triathlons
in 100 days
which is crazy
and then you ended up doing 101 in 101
days which is absolute pandemonium
why why hard things
uh whiteheart things great question
i believe that without doing hard things
we will
go backwards in life
we'll go backwards in the way we feel
we'll go backwards in the way our mind
develops
and let's just take the pandemic for
example
when that happened
you could take a look around to your
peers or colleagues or associates and
say
they've experienced hard things based on
what i'm
observing how they're handling this
right now and then the flip side of that
is i could look over here and say okay
these people have never experienced
something difficult in their lives and
really really struggling with this and
we all struggle with different things at
different times
but it was it was pretty obvious to me
who had experienced things before and
who could handle something like that and
so for me doing hard things with intent
is preparation for the unknown
because life's life's not easy
life is not easy and we all struggle
with our own ways and i truly believe
that
we all have to go through this life
and we all have to learn the same
lessons
in order to navigate it it's like a it's
like a board game and you got it you hit
all the check marks and you got to hit
all the squares
and you're going to keep falling down
the
the the slide in snakes and ladders if
you fail that test and when you pass the
test you get to go up the ladder you
think there are universal lessons that
we all have to learn absolutely
yes
let's hear them
i've never thought of them before
what an actual lesson or b but i mean i
think we all have to learn things like
humility uh kindness perseverance
toughness grit just off the top of my
head those are things that i think we
all have to learn
and the the more and quicker we learn
those the quicker we can advance
through life
and gain those experiences
number one question again i've traveled
around the world been a lot of stages
it's been a blast i never thought that
this would be my life
but the number one thing is
how do i become more mentally tough how
do i become more manageable how do i
overcome the barriers how do i climb
that mountain you you cannot read about
it you cannot hear someone tell their
experience from it
you have to have an experience you have
to climb the ladder you have what is it
about doing it yourself i agree by the
way
but i want to know have you thought
about why it is that we have to actually
be in the mud doing the hard thing
ourselves
because
motion creates emotion
and you have to experience something and
feel it in order to have an
experience or knowledge with it
and so
if you are backed into a corner you're
beat you're broken
and
somebody says when that happens you can
take the next step
well do you truly believe you can take
that next step if you haven't done it
because i'm sure in your life with what
you've built you know momentum is a huge
thing right
success breeds success and confidence
breeds confidence and so by actually
doing you're creating those small wins
in your path
and then you can draw back on those
experiences and apply them to now you
can't do that you can't gain momentum by
reading something it's always by
application
all right let's push on that i'm going
to add a third type of person so you
said you're looking at covid and you're
seeing people that are handling it well
and you're like alright that's somebody
who's seen some they've been
through something they've built that
sort of mental awareness of what what
they're like what they need to do that
they can survive you say a lot the next
step isn't going to kill me and once you
know that next step's not going to kill
you all of a sudden you're willing to
take that next step
then you look around you see people who
are floundering they're really
struggling and you know that they
haven't been pressed in hard times i
think though there's a third category
that might be indistinguishable or maybe
you can tell but they've been through
hard things and they've been damaged by
it and they haven't learned the lesson
they took the hard knock like you went
through in 2008 they lost everything and
what they decided to learn from that was
that they're a failure
and now when something hard comes along
they've got ptsd about it and they
really don't want to face it or engage
with it
so
how do you make sure that as you either
go through the hard thing or put
yourself through the hard thing that you
learn the right lesson yeah
great example and that category is real
and it exists what happens is a lot of
people they want to go from zero to 100
and they fail when they try to do that
and that person that has been knocked
down hard what they do is they try to go
from zero to a hundred again and they're
not ready for it and it's about
everything in between zero to a hundred
and i couldn't even have conceptualized
a hundred without doing
the 50 prior two and i couldn't have
considered the actual 100 iron man was
precipitated by the 50 which before that
was the 30 and before that yeah the fun
run and the training went back down to a
four mile fun run
right because that's kind of where my
endurance history started
and someone tries to miss the skip the
formal fun run skip the the first half
iron man world record skip the full skip
the 50 and they try to go all the way to
100. well you're not creating momentum
you're not learning the lessons along
the way to learn the key lessons that we
all have to learn and so that category
needs to reassess where they are and be
patient with their journey and start to
learn the smaller lessons that are
meaningful that get you to the bigger
ones right the real test fail and
preparation
and they're not they're not willing to
do the prep phase they're just going
right to the test they fail and that
just kills their confidence all right i
want to get into
the lessons and i want to get into like
there there's a mental analog to what
has to happen but there's also at least
in terms of what you did there's a
physical analog so one thing that i
think is important like for people to
really understand i want i'm obsessed
with this idea if you're having a
biological experience
and what i mean by that is one that your
brain and your body act in certain ways
and there's no way to transcend that
there are ways to deal with it there's
ways to leverage it but there's no way
to transcend it it is going to happen
you are going to be in the grips of
having a squishy wet brain you know that
evolution is shaped in a certain way
part of what has allowed you to do what
you're doing is that okay you start as a
wrestler when you're quite young that
strengthens your tendons and your
ligaments and your joints and so you're
laying a physical foundation and it's
important for people to understand that
a that just takes time
and b you have to understand where your
body is to know if you're going to be
able to get to that point because
somebody that starts lifting for
instance when they're very young they
build groundwork in the connective
tissue in their body that somebody if
they're picking up weights for the first
time in their 40s they're not going to
have that same
ability to layer on the same kind of
strength so just being thoughtful about
that and then now getting into this idea
of the mental lessons that you're going
to learn so i want to know what those
are so
the small lessons that we begin to learn
along the way what is it that
you begin to understand where your own
cowardice lies that you understand the
nature of the negative voice in your
head or is it something else entirely i
think the negative voice and learning
how to deal with that is literally the
most important piece
because
i've been i've been through it i've been
doing this for 15 years and each time we
push that envelope a little further and
further and you would think at this
point at the time like i've completely
silenced the bully
dude he's loud he's still the internal
bullet the internal yeah he's still out
i mean the outside the outside bully is
another totally different topic and
conversation but that internal bully
that internal dialogue it's
always going to be there and i i believe
i said this the first time we met like
as humans we are
most tough on ourselves like we are our
toughest critic
and for some reason we don't see
ourselves the way that others maybe see
us and it's it's typically in a more
negative light
and so i think i think mastering that
continual conversation and beat down
that we have with ourselves is one of
the most important pieces to that puzzle
and why if you go from zero to a hundred
that voice is so loud it's so dominant
you don't have a chance and you have to
be able to learn how to talk to it
uh
early early and during simple things so
that you can overcome it and build that
momentum like i mentioned before you you
can't
you can't take on the biggest thing like
you don't go from off the couch to
climbing everest like there's a there's
a process and base camps you got to go
through
and and that biggest component is that
that self-talk that conversation that
you have
because people always ask you know what
is it is this a mental fee or is this a
physical feat
and i say it is a hundred percent
both
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i bet you thought i was going to say
mental i wasn't sure which way you're
going to be honest it's 100 both because
the physicality the groundwork that you
that you just talked about it has to be
there
let's just say i'm i'm a 300 pound man
and i try to do the physical feats that
i do it doesn't matter how mentally
tough i am that becomes my limiter and
let's say i'm the most physically fit
individual on the planet but i have a
really weak mental game
the mental side of me can't drag that
incredibly physically fit person along
the way and so it truly is an equal
bounce and i've heard a lot of people
say hey these these things are 70 mental
and 30 physical or whatever the ratio is
dude it's it's a hundred percent of both
you got to go all in on both sides of it
in order to do
14 000 miles for you know 140 miles over
a quarter of a year and then you you've
got to understand it wasn't just
just 140 miles it was 24 hours a day
because you've got the recovery the side
of the the side of a project like that
that people don't understand is like
even when i was sleeping or trying to
sleep it was complete trauma i mean i
was having intense night terrors
i was having full body tremors and every
night i'd i'd sweat through my clothes
and two sets of sheets
that's just that's the the recovery part
of the journey that people don't see and
i'm still dealing with the mental
side of this post conquer 100 the
massive drop off
and so if you're if you if you don't
have
an intently solid mental game i don't
care how physically you are and if you
have an incredibly strong physical game
i don't care if you don't have the
mental side it's 100 of both yeah
now that makes a lot of sense to me
i want to talk about what you have to do
as you're building up to this so there's
a really interesting study that shows
that if you set a small goal for
yourself you're actually less likely to
accomplish it than if you set this
really crazy big goal because the big
goal is exciting like somebody can get
excited about saying i'm gonna go set
world records which you've done in
spades multiple times over and over it's
really incredible and obviously that's
really inspiring and you can imagine
like because i remember part of the
early discussion was if i'm gonna go
into coaching or teaching i need to
differentiate myself and so there was
even an element of like this is a
marketing vehicle which i think is very
smart
and on top of that i know that if i'm
gonna stand up in front of people i need
to have done it
so in the beginning like you can get
excited about okay i'm going to totally
change my life i'm going to set records
i'm going to do all this crazy i'm
going to be up on stage i'm going to get
paid a lot of money to do this i'm a
clever businessman like all of it plays
into
how you get excited enough to do this
but because you can't go from zero to
100 people get totally up because
they don't have the why to sustain in
these small little increments that are
absolutely critical so how do you help
people have
like hey here's this big crazy thing
that you're gonna do
but
you have to set that aside for a minute
and now we have to build the tendon
strength and get your joints there and
you know your ability to deal with the
mental side and that's the part that
people aren't willing to do because they
get so excited they see
they see the headline they see the
headline of what it is and they want
that feeling of what it takes and to be
honest with you i i i don't enjoy
the business out of stuff like
i i and and i didn't i set out to do it
on the coaching side of stuff just for
triathletes i trust me last thing i
wanted to be was on stage last thing i
wanted to be was in front of people last
thing i wanted to be was the center of
attention
um and
like you said it's so important to have
that big goal because that's a super
exciting thing
but people miss out on the journey and
it's so cliche and i hated the words
came out of my mouth enjoy the journey
but it's so true and it's not about
enjoying the journey it's about part
taking in the journey and participating
in it and being very present in every
step of the journey and that's why
people fail is because they rush
straight to that big goal and they they
miss out on everything in between which
is the most important part you can't you
can't
skip those stepping stones and go right
to it because that's where you're going
to learn i said earlier in this in this
conversation you fail in your
preparation so that when you get to the
big goal i tell my clients all the time
dream as big as you can so big that it
scares you and you hear that all of the
time
but what people don't do is they don't
shelf it forget about it reverse
engineer it to the point where they
build that success and that momentum so
they can eventually get to it on a small
level we coach the full distance
triathlon all the time and all the time
someone will do their first workout and
they say i can't do and i you know i
can't do an iron man i can't do a full
distance try and i say forget about it
that's not that's not where we're at
like that's the finish line
and i ask do you trust me do you trust
the process are you willing to show up
every single day yeah absolutely great
that's not the goal let's just do today
because by doing this you're going to
adapt and evolve
and that's the part about doing if you
just read watch you don't adapt and
evolve you gain knowledge but it's not
applied knowledge
once you do you get closer and closer to
that big goal when i started that four
through in that four month fun run that
we've talked about
i could no way my brain could have
conceptualized like i couldn't even come
up with the goal it was so
astronomically out there right i
couldn't even have come up with 50.
i could come up with a marathon that was
my goal that was my heart
and as you evolve and learn and
continually show up more becomes
possible
when you know this is what i as i do one
we wouldn't do it if we knew how hard it
was and and and two when you're in the
middle of it
it absolutely seems impossible and
everybody that's in the middle of their
impossible
hit is so hard and it is ruthless and
it's brutal
but then
when you accomplish
you you hit that goal
whether it's intermediate or big then
you go ah
i've learned i've grown i've adapted now
more becomes possible and then you can
continue to push that envelope that's
the thing you never want to do is sit
down and go okay i've made it i'm there
i would have i would have been content
with the 30 34 iron man's through 11
countries that would have been it
but i i just knew deep down in myself
like there's more i'm capable of more
and i've learned i'm different than when
i was when it when i was in the middle
of it and it was the hardest thing i've
ever done
and then as things evolve and progress
more becomes possible and it's man i
have learned at the highest level that
perception and perspective is an amazing
thing what do you mean
my perception and perspective of
a hundred is very different than say
yours
uh
you've never done an ironman right no
right and so to you that would be holy
cow from where i am today that would
take a lot of effort a lot of energy and
a lot of training i could probably walk
off set and somebody said hey
go it's time do an iron man i'm like
okay fine let's go do one right
my perception and perspective of what
that is is very different
but over time
now my
like my new normal
and the way i look at things is very
different
my previous world records that were the
hardest they could have possibly been
when i was in the middle of it are
laughable to me
but to the newest member of the
community
their heart is
my four-mile fun run from 14 years ago
and you need to meet
yourself where you're at
on your journey
and over time your perception
perspective will change about what's
possible for you
and that's the biggest thing is people
want to get intimidated and overwhelmed
by oh heated that that's impossible i
can't do it i can't even relate to that
but you have to understand that
everybody's journey starts at the
beginning you're never an expert when
you start like when you exited quest
your knowledge was so different than
when you were like oh
i'm gonna
start making bars and do these you know
this get into this nutritional space
how how big of a paradigm shift and your
perspective
probably changed a lot
from
conception to exit strategy even where
you are with this business now i mean
where you were and what you've learned
has completely changed but
you didn't watch a youtube video
you did it and experienced it
experimented with it this worked this
didn't work you learned you had failures
you had successes
and now
your goal is probably bigger now than it
was when you started and when you
started that goal was astronomical and
almost unimaginable
but it's because your perception and
perspective has changed dude
i really hope people listen to that
that's so important it's what i call
frame of reference so your frame of
reference will determine it's a much
easier way to put everything
in that
your behaviors follow your beliefs and
your behaviors are all that matters
which means ultimately your beliefs are
all that matters so then it becomes a
question of well how do you shape your
belief
and one thing that i love in your story
about okay you have to go out there and
do it because i i did watch youtube
videos i did read books but my thing is
i do that and then that day i'm
deploying that knowledge so that the
knowledge is an abstract it's concrete
it's allowing me to go do something now
the reason i think you need to do
something for the reasons that you
talked about is illustrated so perfectly
in your story where
at one point i think this was back in
the the 50
uh
where you just laid down on the side of
the road curled up into a ball and were
like i i don't want to keep going
now in that moment it's really it's a
battle with your own self-talk it's
reorganizing your
why why am i doing this like you talked
about sort of gathering all those things
up
that to me is the juice that to me is
why you do hard things that that's why i
um do cold exposure right so i'm not
going to do 100 uh 101 excuse me
triathlon length ironman things but
i need to be exposed to my weaknesses i
need to trigger my insecurities i need
to get into fight or flight i need that
part of my brain screaming at me to get
out that i'm in danger that this is bad
somehow that you know that that you you
have that real sense that
fight or flight right i've got to get
the out of the water so
like trying to force yourself to stay in
ice cold water i was in 52 degree water
i think until i was legitimately worried
that i was going to hypothermia how long
was that i looked it up after and i was
so far off i could have stayed like
another three and a half hours but i
actually having to worry about it but i
was utterly convinced so i was in there
for
over a half an hour
and so you know you're in there look at
like your teeth i was worried i was
gonna bite my tongue or chip my teeth it
was that kind of thing
and
in those moments two things happen one
you're confronted by your weaknesses
which i think are really important to
stare at so when people say you learn
something or you learn about yourself
i it isn't a pretty thing that you learn
it's an ugly thing it's a thing i'll
speak for myself it's a thing that makes
me less impressed with myself
but
then i push through that
and i find defense mechanisms and i find
my why or i strengthen my why and i find
things that allow me to overcome that
and then i'm like whoa that's a really
useful tool
but the the thing that nobody ever says
is
you are confronting the weakest ugliest
least attractive version of yourself
humanly possible and in slaying that
dragon you move forward yeah
yeah and that's
that's why
people don't do it is because nobody
likes the endless version of who they
are
and we
and i mean who doesn't enjoy comfort
and uh i'll tell you a cold story
i hate being cold and i've had two
terrible experiences being cold um i did
a full distance extreme triathlon in
alaska oh god and it was uh
june
but it's in the ocean yeah was the swim
and a normal a normal full distance is
2.4 miles
and they they were going point to point
so they're like no big deal we'll do 2.7
and
there was a glacier dump
about halfway through the swim now my
normal full distance swim is about 105
2.4 miles
this water was so cold it was about 51
degrees
and when we swam past that
glacier dump it dropped to 48. oh the
swim took me an hour 53.
i could not feel my body and it took me
the entire bike ride to warm up before
we did the the marathon on the mountain
but that was that was literally the
coldest i've been and then we
did a race called the world's toughest
race in fiji
um it's on amazon prime 10 episodes
hosted by bear grylls mark brunette
production totally crazy thing way
outside of my expertise levels you're
talking
uh repelling uh
ascending a thousand foot waterfall
uh just
jungle trekking things i've never done
before and we had to
get up this river system and at the top
was these frozen pools
and uh
i have never been so cold in my life and
it felt like two days
we were in that for close to 12 hours
in freezing cold cold waters and i've
just
i hate being cold in general and so
those two experiences um
it's the reason i don't do cold showers
and cold therapy because i'm like i
gotta check i don't need to do that how
did you push through like what what is
your secret sauce is it just you have a
killer why like
how do you get yourself dude the idea a
hundred and one
iron man length triathlons in 101 night
terrors every night like it's so crazy
i think i'm mentally tough but dude
that's gnarly
i think that the concept or idea of a
challenge like that is so exciting and
again you have no idea
why so exciting it's not exciting to me
sounds ludicrous
um i think doing something that nobody
else has done before
and trying to do it at a level that's so
high nobody can deny it so
are we good to talk about why i did the
hundred please okay
so
so i was on your show after i did the 50
and that was 50 full ironmans 50
consecutive days
through all 50 states
young young family
uh
i we've got five kids
an unbelievable wife
and
um we
had this crazy idea to push the envelope
we'd broken a couple world records and
we said this is what we're going to do
and
doctors said it was impossible
they said we were going to die or i was
going to die
and the kids were going to have a great
time i was going to die
and and when you're doing something that
nobody's done before
there's no road map and so you're
ultimately going to make some mistakes
and we did
we never hid them we never
ran away from them we faced them head-on
but as you know the internet space is
unkind
and we were attacked and mocked and
ridiculed and they deemed
not everybody there's a small camp out
there that deemed what we did a complete
failure
we failed we did not accomplish it and
i'm so glad we because there were a
couple days where you had to train
indoors because of crazy weather yes we
were chased by a hurricane we had to go
indoors
on day 18 it was a 106 degrees outside
in
chattanooga tennessee
and i was so exhausted i'd never done 18
consecutive before
nobody had
and i lost concentration for two seconds
and i fell asleep on my bike
when you do that
you eat crash you crash and that's no
fun and my hip swelled up i had road
rash
and i made a decision to get back on my
bike and finish that day and there's a
whole sub story to that where it was my
daughter my wife she was waiting for me
she was doing a 5k every single day
and i was like i have i have to meet my
daughter so she can accomplish her goal
i don't show up she doesn't run she
falls short that's on me and i felt that
responsibility so i was so glad that she
was on that journey
same time i was on my journey
and anyways long story short
we were
the following day we were in mississippi
massive storms again inside
i'm i'm physically broken i'm mentally
broken i'm completely exhausted we had
done most of the day we were wrapping it
up and i was like
i'm in a lot of pain and we had done
a lot of our training to minimize the
damage on the body on an elliptical
machine
it simulates running really well we
could match my heart rate intensity we
were still covering the distance i
called up my coach i said hey
wrapping today up
gonna jump on the the elliptical we're
gonna do a couple miles on there we're
gonna take the finished picture and get
to the next day i want to get out of
mississippi and he was like great let's
do that
thinking nothing of it
we took the finisher picture like we did
every single day and we posted online
got in the car drove all night and
started the next day day 20 in alabama i
think
and i woke up to
an angry mob
and
for years
years after that
back up we decided to continue we
finished it changed my family's lives
it has given
people around the world hope and
inspiration i have gone on to speak in
48 different countries we have
changed the way people think and show up
in their own lives
and
we
i almost pulled the plug
day 1920 because of that incident and
because how ruthless
people were to us
and then that whole time space of me
being on stage
every time i got get off stage i felt
like a complete hypocrite because i was
telling people to
be mentally tough and to show up in
their lives and just that smallest
little again that voice that never goes
away that beats on us we give it so much
power and i finally said that's enough
i sat down pulled out my calculator did
all the math we covered 7030 miles
i was like okay how many miles did i
spend on the elliptical
0.24 percent of the miles
point two four percent so then i thought
man
if i was in the nba
and i knocked down
99.76 percent of my shots
i'd
i'd be the number one player in the
entire league i'd have 100 million
of all time ever if i was in the nfl and
i and i qb and i nailed 99.76
of my
throws
i'd be the best player i've ever
why am i being so hard on myself nobody
had done what we'd done we'd move the
bar so much
and i don't know if it was
i wanted to prove to myself who i know i
am
or if part of me was like i want to show
that less than one percent of the people
that have this opinion that i am who i
said i was and who i am
and then the pandemic hit and i had
gotten out of shape
i have been traveling
nine months out of the year i'd been on
stages and coaching and presenting and
helping people
have hope and get out of their own way
and achieve their dreams because i'd
achieved mine i i got my dream at home
i've got my family i've got stability
i've got whatever i want now and i built
it all
in
the pandemic hit and overnight literally
overnight
speaking goes away
coaching goes away
racing goes away
and i had
i didn't know it at the time but i had
an entire year plus
zero work no income i get to focus on me
i get to be with my family
and everybody experienced the the kovid
shut down in different ways it blessed
my life
it was it was an opportunity for me to
go
there's one more
i
i cause i the whole time six years post
i always said and i'd always wanted i
can do do that
better
i got asked all the time all the time if
you could do it again would you
and i said i wouldn't do it again would
i do it the first time
and they said would you change anything
and i always said no because i'm the
person i am today because of what i
learned on that journey i love the
mistakes we made like i said we've never
had it we put it in the book it's in
redefine apostle it's in the documentary
we highlight it all of these struggles
and mistakes that we made because it was
part of our journey there was no road
map for this
and so i started thinking i said okay
i'm not perfect i'm a human being
i'm not perfect
but
i can try and strive for excellence in
anything i do
and i looked back on the 50 and i said
what what was the 50
the 50 represented to me chaos
logistics
fatigue
and i said okay
if the 50 was
what we did was dubbed redefining
impossible
if i remove chaos
if i remove confusion
if i put systems and team in place if i
control my surroundings
can i double
what people thought was impossible
because what i what i initially set out
to do on the 50 was how many consecutive
full distance tries can the mind and the
body do
i didn't find that out because logistics
and chaos got in the way we had no money
we bootstrapped it and we were relying
on the
general public to be there when they
said they would be there in each state
as a volunteer we're at the mercy of
everybody and we had you know the
wingman you've seen them and they're
crazy and the mistakes they made and
they
i mean he hit a deer in the middle of
the night no fault of his own he was
exhausted but that took out our
generator we couldn't carry food all
these things so the 50 was it was was
chaos and confusion and logistics
and i said if i can remove those control
those put team and systems in place
financially we're in a different spot if
we did this all in a remote location
can i achieve my goal of finding out
what the mind and body can do as far as
consecutives is concerned
and that's where we landed on 100 in
utah because
the pandemic wiped my calendar out and i
said i've got
possibly a year
to get ready physically and mentally
to draw from my past experience and to
see if that's possible
and on march 1st 2021 we set out on a
journey to see if that was possible and
do 100 consecutive now that
there's different ways to fray to frame
that goal because you can say the word
100 consecutive or 100 consecutive days
and it's hard to conceptualize that or
figure out what that is it's a quarter
of a year
so now take the iron distance it's 140.6
miles well if you just say 146 miles a
day it's hard to conceptualize too so
it's 14 000
and 60 miles over 14 weeks and which is
140 miles a day and we set out on a
journey and again
you wouldn't do something if you knew
how damn hard it was going to be and you
wouldn't do something if you if you had
all the answers and you don't start as
as the expert
and so we did we set it on journey on
march 1st and
the the rest is history and i am
so proud
of myself i'm so proud of our team and
we left
no doubt
we left no doubt to who we said we were
and the criticism we silenced everybody
and i challenge anybody to find
a flaw or an asterisk to what we did hey
guys i hope you've joined the impact
theory discord which if you were
unfamiliar with discord it is basically
a more fun slash but if you need another
reason to join here is the ultimate one
on october 13th we are going to be
dropping our most valuable product yet
maybe the most valuable product that we
will ever offer in the form of an nft
this yet to be revealed nft token will
give you unparalleled access to
everything i am working on special
discounts free access
exclusive access and much much more if
all of that was exciting to you and you
want to learn more click the link below
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the steps to read my article the
beginner's guide to crypto and nfts
reading that and joining the discord
community will make sure you are ready
for october 13th
it's so funny
that that point two four
would just
it would with me as well so i
completely get it but on the outside
looking at you i'm like really like you
let that with you it's so crazy
like the story alone
of like the first or second night where
you have to fly
coach with five kids
after waking up and not even sleeping
running a triathlon then flying to the
next state with five kids in coach and
do the next one i was like come on meow
like at what point did we say like this
is so absurd in fact
if you want to complain about that
you go do the 50 50 50. and then
you can complain
but it would with me too that's the
weird thing like and i can imagine
that's what makes you special though
does it or are we just wired like that
like what what i think makes me special
is i'd find a way to the other side of
that
whether it was doing what you did and
finding some even more just
absurd thing and like going okay this
time there's not going to be an asterisk
as you called it
because i think that
i think the human mind is just a certain
way
and one of those things is we are a
social creature and it absolutely
matters what other people think and it
matters what we think and it's this
weird confluence of all the things so it
didn't bother you until you got the echo
back from people that oh this is an
asterisk but once it got in your head
then it's all over because now it's like
you can't escape it well because if you
remember in our first interview i said
at some point in time i didn't care what
people thought and i wasn't trying to
prove them wrong i was trying to prove
myself right and i said that's a very
different energy
and i don't know when that shifted
because i still i still believe that i
believe i'm successful in what i do
because i don't care what people think
i'm not comparing myself against
somebody else's standard of excellence
if i did i would have been satisfied
with
10 in a row
right and so why push that envelope but
i think it's because
i know
that there's more i know that that
wasn't that wasn't acceptable and deep
down i believe i'm a person of
integrity and
my my word is my bond
and for some reason
i'll be honest 100 was for me a thousand
percent
it was for me
uh
because that question was posed to me
it did bring up the conversation that
internal dialogue was
well did that point two for four percent
matter if you said you were going to do
that did you do it
and i said i
yes and then you just have that whole
conversation while you're rationalizing
it did you actually do it are they are
you right do you give them any power and
so it's that entire conversation with
that tiniest bully that we give so much
power to
and i i wouldn't have said this before
but i'm
i am so glad i gave that little voice a
little bit of power because
it brought out
the best in me it brought out a
different beast
that came out and literally doubled what
everybody thought was impossible i call
it we defied logic it was so
i don't know what the word is unlogical
for what we set out to accomplish and
again full circle my perception
perspective was different based on the
experience
that i had learned and how i evolved
through that process
when i woke up and i presented the story
the thing to sonny and said
i want i want to tackle a hunter
consecutive
her hesitation wasn't
it's possible or not possible it's how
is this going to disrupt my life in our
kids lives
and how do i balance and framework that
even even her perception has changed
like no question in her mind the
literally the question wasn't is it
possible can we do it it was like okay
how are we going to fit this into our
kid's life because we're six years
removed from the 50 our kids were 6 to
12. now they're 12 to 18.
now they're very busy they have their
own lives they're looking at colleges
they're looking at your high school
friends jobs you can't displace your
family and so you have to framework
houses going to work with seven of you
and that's a different conversation and
it's crazy because her perception was
the same as mine yeah that's totally
possible based on what we've done
now our preparation needs to match that
goal
and
get it done
[Music]
let's talk about criticism and people
that throw shade how did you so it it
brought out the best in you ultimately
but how did that conversation go how did
you begin to switch it
and then as you were doing this was
there ever a time because i'm a big
believer in what i'll call the the dark
side and i mean that in a star wars way
where it's like nature only gave you
pleasure and pain and so why people
don't leverage the anger the rage the
that side of the equation to me is a
mystery i don't understand it so i think
they're both useful i think you have to
be very careful how much time you spend
in the dark energy because it's very
corrosive and over time it ends up
destroying you and not you know the
other person but it gives you some
pretty powerful impetus for sure
was there any of that like you're going
through the 100 you're tired i
mean you were running on a stress
fracture through some massive percentage
of this
so
are you saying to yourself there's going
to be no asterisks on this like
i'm going all the way z yeah absolutely
what i learned from the 50 was
what you say you're going to do is the
expectation and if you deviate from that
it gives them permission to then attack
you so on our website we said these are
the rules of the hundred if we deviate
from these come at me full force i
deserve it and that's one of the biggest
lessons that i learned is you have to
set up the standard and the expectation
and then once i set up those parameters
there was zero deviating from it and i
learned
if i do
they will come at me and i and i was so
driven to not give anybody an ounce of
power or ammunition to come at me with
anything and so it was every situation i
was in was
go back to you this is a great lesson
for anybody in life and before you go on
any journey whatever you're doing figure
out your ethos what you truly stand for
then every decision after that becomes
easy
should i do this does it align with my
core values black and white yes or no
decision made
once you set out the parameters for the
100 what that looks like that's your
ethos for this project then you go back
you're in a decision should we do this
or that
go back to the ethos black or white easy
question easy answer
and so once we wrote out the parameters
made it public that's what it was
and it was everything outside day number
one
18 degrees outside whoa
18 degrees try riding your bike
in 18 degrees when that happens it's
very very cold i made a colossal mistake
in planning the hundred i looked at the
average temperature for march in utah
i'm like oh 50s and 60s i can do that
that's the high
never on one day of the hundred was i on
my bike during the high of the day it
was on there at seven in the morning
day number one 18 degrees
and so we were immediately up against it
as far as like
your ethos because that would push
anybody inside
we would bike through snow we bike
through sleep we like through hail like
you
there was a moment
and it was so amazing the way the
cycling community came out but there was
one day it was so cold we called the
snow day
and we we stopped several times to
either refuel and we went into a gas
station and
one of the guys went to take his gloves
off bite it to get the glove off and
nearly bit through his finger because it
was so cold and he could he didn't he
didn't realize he was actually biting
into his finger whoa that's how cold it
was we were all that cold
but it was just a quick stop and he was
trying to take his glove off so he could
you know refill his water bottle to get
back out on the road but those are those
are the conditions that we started at
and it's a it's an immediate gut check
the first week of the journey realizing
hey i'm on day 10 i've got 90 more of
these
uh where am i at and you know you
mentioned that stress fracture that i
had in my shin
it started with a an undisclosed ankle
injury that i went into it with that i
didn't want to tell anybody about
and it quickly exploded up my leg you
know because when you're in training for
something like this you have to minimize
the damage um you don't want to over
train and you don't want to hurt
yourself before you even start and so
there's there's an obvious immediate
ramp of volume that's unavoidable and
your body has to go through the
adaptation phase of doing that well my
body didn't handle it i turned 45 in the
middle of this journey i'm older and i
developed a stress fracture
and it got to the point where i felt
like
i knew i knew my leg was going to break
and i had to manage the pain and every
step i was taking on the marathon i was
like this is that this next stop my
leg's going to break this next step my
leg's going to break and i'd manage the
pain manage the pain and i'd black out
i'd pass out and casey was there one of
the wingmen he did all the runs with me
he'd catch me
and within five seconds i'd come back
too
and we'd do a little countdown and we
made a shirt that says here we go
because that's what we would say we'd
audibly say it out loud here we go and
we'd get moving again and i'd manage it
manage it manage it
black out catch me
and he said you know you're blocking out
those entire last six miles and i said i
know
but it's what we had to do because the
question i had to ask myself was is the
next step going to kill me
that's one of my major ethos one of my
major mantras is is the next step going
to kill me and um
it was about day 15.
i was at the peak of the shin problem
literally thought like my leg was going
to break didn't know what to do i was at
the completion of the day
and
i looked at sunny and we were back at my
house and i said i don't i don't think i
can manage
that level of pain for 85 more days
and she gave me some of the best advice
that i've ever had my entire career and
she said
the work
is done today
the work is done
allow the team to do their job at a
great
pt massage therapist team there
allow the team to do their job
go to bed
wake up tomorrow because we have no idea
what tomorrow's going to look like and
then let's face tomorrow as it comes
because mentally i could not
conceptualize that level of pain
management for 85 more days we were so
early in the journey and i my my my 45
year old body was broken
broken if the 50 was
chaos
exhaustion
and logistics
the hundred was
injury pain and longevity
those would be the two the two parallels
between the two contrasts
and and that to me became
the
the the campaign model was
take every day
as it is today because we have no idea
what tomorrow's going to look like
because what we've learned on my journey
is my body is in
our bodies the human body is an amazing
tool if you give it the resort resources
it needs to
recover perform whatever it takes same
with the mind
and my body could go from great to bad
in a 24 hour period and they can go from
bad to great in a 24-hour period we had
no idea you deal with what you have when
it's given to you so on day 8 15 when
she gave me that advice that kind of
became the theme
for for the rest of the journey was like
we don't know what tomorrow's going to
bring and if you quit now you're never
going to find out and that would be the
most tragic thing you do on your journey
to not know what tomorrow brings and so
every single day we would fight
till we got to the point where i was
like you've done the work today
now trust your team to take care of you
because tomorrow could be completely
different what are your tactics for pain
management that's that's
extraordinary to be able to manage the
pain to the point where you pass out
tucks
so what do you do
i saw footage
um
that i don't understand
uh because
i'm completely blank i've saw footage
where i i develop
a rhythmic pattern with my hands that
i'd move them in a certain way to either
distract myself or and i didn't know i
was doing it
and i would take myself somewhere else
and somewhere else and i think over time
with dealing with pain you develop
techniques and everybody's going to be
different i didn't have that technique
in 2012 when i broke the world record
for
official events around the world i
didn't have that technique i didn't
experience that level of pain i
experienced exhaustion and difficulty
but not that level of pain and as i
progressed through my career with
crashes and and continuing to push the
mind and the body i developed personal
techniques that have helped me
and i i don't know how to flip the
switch like i i
i would literally be a multi-millionaire
if i could write the manuscript on how
to flip a switch
on the actual act of doing it i don't
think it's a tangible thing that you can
teach anybody because it's so unique to
an individual and how they do it
in their space
and for me i've watched some videos and
i am just like or someone would tell me
where the way i was acting and this was
crazy for me
looking back on the experience now at
some point in time you slip into this
trauma protective state
and again it's not a flip it's not hey
day 35 to day 36 that happened you're
going on a journey that's a quarter of a
year and you slowly step into the state
until your mind is completely protecting
you from the chaos and trauma that
you're experiencing
protecting you how um from the actual
experience like you're going somewhere
else you're doing going somewhere
yeah absolutely going somewhere else had
somebody asked me on day 98 of the
journey
could you do 200 consecutive
no question the answer would have been
emphatically yes
day 102 when i was done in my mind
i couldn't figure out how we did 101.
it was oh shocking to me and i'm we're
two and a half months removed from the
accomplishment now i'm still struggling
physically and mentally
i can't wrap my mind around what we did
and it's just proof that you slowly slip
into the state and how powerful the mind
is to drag a physically fit body through
something that everybody deemed was
double what impossible was before why do
you only promised a hundred i did that
was a challenge already absurd enough
yep
and and 101 didn't come about until the
very last week of the campaign because
again when i'm on 65 and i still have 45
to go and that seems so insurmountable
somebody joked early on i think it was
casey and he said hey let's do 101 just
me you and aaron the wingman and will
shock everybody and i said
f off like we're not even having this
conversation i can't conceptualize it
not even on the table bring it up again
and you're fired like that i was so mad
that he would even bring it up
it couldn't conceptualize it and then
you know
for me about day 85 i just got into such
a flow state
after 85 like you're you're there but
you're not there that's all it took
you're 85. yeah yeah so easy it's easy
you're unconsciously conscious at that
point just executing i knew where every
pothole was i knew the course i knew the
environment i've had so much confidence
having
fought through the worst of the worst
through 85 days i'm like 15 is so
manageable to me again perception
perspective somebody said i'll do 15
consecutive you're an idiot but now
we have 15 to go there like you're so
close it's done you might as well like
it's easy right it's a wrap
and um and so once i was beyond 85
i you know my world now is going around
and coaching and meant mindset
um strength and and that's the imp you
know that's the important part of going
on any journey and i hate
speakers that
one are just talking heads
that don't have any experience have
never been on the battlefield
and one of my things is the next step's
not going to kill you
and the other big question i got after
the 50 was could have you done one mo