Latest / Industrial Advisors / Breaking Limits with Purpose: Inside the Mind of The Iron Cowboy

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Breaking Limits with Purpose: Inside the Mind of The Iron Cowboy · Industrial Advisors

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The concept quickly became if I removed chaos, confusions, logistics,
0:03
and I put systems, teams and learning in place, could I double
0:07
what everybody said was impossible?
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Could I defy logic?
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And that became the push behind what we were doing is I can do this better
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and I wanna learn from my mistakes in the past, and I really wanna showcase
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that I did what I said the first time, and I'm gonna double it and I'm gonna
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put my entire career on the line and every accolade that I've ever had.
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I'm gonna put that on the table and let's go.
0:43
Welcome to our Industrial Advisors podcast.
0:46
You have Bill Condon and Matt McGregor.
0:48
We have a guest that.
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We both are extremely, uh, excited about today.
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Uh, James Lawrence also, uh, known as the Iron Cowboy.
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We saw and listened to James give a keynote presentation at the IAMC
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conference in Indianapolis this year.
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One of my favorite keynotes I've ever heard.
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We hear a lot.
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My favorite for sure.
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Yeah, I mean, it was really, really impressive.
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So it's great to have James here.
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James has a phenomenal story.
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Uh, I did 50 Ironmans in 50 states in 50 days, and then further after that
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fact, and I'll let James kind of tell the story, did a hundred Ironmans in a
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hundred days and just a great message.
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By the way, I thought it was 101.
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It is.
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That's why we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't advertise 101 because
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it's a massive teaching point when I'm on stages to kind of drop that
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because, and I'll share this real quick if it's okay at this juncture.
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Yeah, please.
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Day 1 0 1 was incredibly significant for me personally and also for.
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My messaging going forward.
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So there's this really cool story and it's, it's true.
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It's called the Marathon Monks.
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And you know, bill, you're into running and so you'll really like this, these
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monks in Japan, it's called Mount He and I, and they would run, I, I'm not sure if
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that's the pronunciation, but they would run the circumference of it and it's 20.
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It is.
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It is about a marathon.
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And these monks, they take on a thousand day challenge.
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To do a marathon, a day, a marathon, to an ultra marathon a
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day with meditation and practices.
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Now, here's the kicker.
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Any monk can start at any time and commit to this process.
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But when you can quit anytime between day zero and day 100, but if you start day 1
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0 1, you have to go all the way through.
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And if you don't, it's self-sacrifice.
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Take your own life on the trail, and if you go to the mountain
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now and walk the circumference, there's actual monuments of.
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Marathon monks that didn't make it and took their own lives as a ritual.
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And so day 1 0 1 was symbolic of a level of excellence and
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a commitment to the process.
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From now going forward, you did something incredible, but
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now whatcha are you gonna do?
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You're gonna keep talking about that.
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Or are you gonna continue on your journey and do amazing things?
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And so day 1 0 1 is insanely symbolic.
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For me, it was a message to myself, to my family, to my community.
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Excellence doesn't stop when you reach a goal or accomplish it.
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It is a commitment for a long period of time that you stay tuned and
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you keep showing up and performing.
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That's unbelievable.
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Wow.
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Yeah, I mean, the, the message was great that you delivered,
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but just mental toughness, right?
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And like the ability and just believing that you can go do things
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that you didn't think you would ever have a chance of, of doing, um,
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was really just a powerful message.
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Um, so the whole.
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Presentation was great, but just a lot of, a lot of good key takeaways for me.
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Yeah.
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Thank you.
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There was so much positive and, and I was following your story live.
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I was doing triathlons during the time, so I was totally into what you were doing.
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You hit on, I mean, everything you.
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You were talked about on stage was it was, you know, positive.
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So I hate to kick off with my first question on the negative
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side, but I think it was so moving.
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When you outlined the fact that you did, you were, you did the 50 and there was
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criticism online because one day there was a storm, I think it was a typhoon, right.
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And you did some of the stuff.
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Inside because of this typhoon, it was for the listeners, again, it was 50 Ironmans
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in 50 states in 50 days, and one of the days you went inside and were doing it.
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I think a combination of the pool and treadmill because of the
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typhoon and the amount of criticism.
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That you got online was so significant.
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It was ridiculous.
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And so talk to us about that, if you would.
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Yeah, I think there's an incredible lesson in this.
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And you know, in the moment I was super embarrassed.
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I was a failure, I was all these things.
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And it's been one of the greatest gifts that come from the 50 because of
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the message that I get to share now.
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And what had happened was we were in North Carolina the day before.
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It was, it was super hot and I, we were obviously massively fatigued.
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We were doing something that nobody in the world had done.
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And I fell asleep while riding my bike and I crashed and had some injuries and some
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stuff, so we didn't know if we were gonna be able to continue finished that Ironman
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that day, drove to Mississippi through the night and woke up to hurricane conditions
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and we, we'd been chasing and following this hurricane for three, four days now.
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So we knew it was out there, but we were in the eye of it when we hit Mississippi.
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And, and it just, it, it was a moment where we were just like, okay,
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we, we know what the end goal is.
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Perfect game plan is always don't go to plan, and you have to have the
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ability to adapt and pivot and deal with what's happening in the moment.
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And we, at the time, it made the best decision we could to continue
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the campaign, to, to try to raise the funds and awareness for the
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charities that we were working with.
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And, and really the alternative was pack up and go home and do what, right?
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And so this wasn't a sanctioned event, this wasn't all these things.
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And so it was, our rules are trying to do the best we could.
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And you know, in the moment it was just devastating because
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the public came after us.
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And I've just really learned that whether you're doing
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great, are you doing terrible?
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The public's gonna come after you either way, right?
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And so you have to be okay with the decisions you're making.
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And we can only base those decisions off of the experiences
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we're having in the moment.
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And what we believe is right for the moment.
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And not all decisions work out and, and some are, are bad.
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But that decision, I still stand by it.
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It was the best decision for my safety, my team safety.
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The participants that came to show up with us that day in
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Mississippi for their safety.
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I mean, I can show you the footage it's in the documentaries that are on prime.
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I mean, it was very dangerous.
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Like, don't go outside, you will die.
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And we, we'll put the footage of the footnotes by the way.
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There you go.
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So yeah, it was just an amazing thing that happened that in the
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moment I was just devastated.
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But I'm so grateful that it happened.
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Yeah.
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And on that, I remember you gave a statistics, and if
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you could remember it, great.
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If you can't, that's okay, but you gave a statistic like that.
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Percentage of time that you spend inside versus the percent
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of comments that it was, right.
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Something like that.
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Yeah.
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What It wasn't, again, very valuable moment here, that moment in Mississippi
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for some of the miles, 'cause we did a lot of the miles outside
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and we were like, this is crazy.
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The two dangers we gotta go inside.
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It ended up being 0.24% of all of the miles completed that year.
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And that's how a lot of people operate in life, is they allow.
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0.24% of an entire a hundred percent impact.
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How they show up impact, how they navigate.
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And typically it's someone else's opinion like it was in my position, it was their
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opinion on how we were navigating it, but it was their opinion from their couch
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at home, probably in sunny Florida when we were in a hurricane in Mississippi.
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And so how could you possibly have an opinion if you're not even in,
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in vicinity that we're in, right.
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But that's the thing with life, like with parenting and with spouses and
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with business, one thing could complete, one moment, could completely derail us,
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and then we're willing to throw away 90, 99 0.76% of everything, all the
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efforts and all the whatever we're doing.
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One my point is someone else's opinion of 0.24%.
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And so the quote that I set on stage is my quote and I says, don't let someone
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else's opinion of 0.24% of your journey.
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How you proceed.
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If you're the one showing up with honesty and integrity with mud on your
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face, you are the one in the arena.
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They don't get to have an opinion, and most people get derailed in
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life because they give in to someone else's opinion when that other person
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didn't have the courage to show up.
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Yeah, I mean, I think it, I think it's, it's such a valuable lesson.
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It's also, you know, positive energy.
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Negative energy are both, both very, very contagious.
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Right?
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And it's like, who do you wanna be associated with, right?
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Yeah.
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People that are uplifting you or people that are, that
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are bringing you down, right?
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Um, so you do the 50 and 50, which is incredible, I mean, remarkable.
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And then you decide, talk to us about the decision, then to say,
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all right, I'm gonna go for.
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A hundred and a hundred, which ended up being 101 and 101.
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But tell us about that thought process and then how you jumped into
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it and just, and, and conquered it.
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Yeah.
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It's a great segue from the last, last bit of, of information we
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were talking about because those, those were quote unquote mistakes.
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That we had made in the public's eye, and they were that we
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didn't execute the perfection.
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We, again, we were doing something that nobody had done before.
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And so there was no rule book.
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We were creating the blueprint for this kind of thing, and I love it
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now because we were pioneers in this.
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I mean, we started doing this in 2010 and social media wasn't even a thing.
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And now we're starting to see so many people attempt really big adventures and
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things to push their mind and their body.
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And so the decision to do the 100 was, I live my life in a way
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that I've never made a mistake.
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Now that's a lie.
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I've made a lot of mistakes, obviously, but when I make a mistake, I try to
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learn from it and I want to do it better.
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And when the pandemic hit, it erased my calendar.
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Like everybody, it's like no more speaking, no more
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coaching, no more racing.
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All of it disappeared overnight and always in the back of my mind
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I was like, ah, I wanna redo the 50 because I can do it better.
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Five years had elapsed and my kids were older and they're in high school.
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It would just be, it would've been impossible for our
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family to duplicate that.
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And so I thought to myself, well, I don't wanna do the same thing again.
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I wanna do it better and I wanna do it bigger.
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And so I thought, well, let's do 75.
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'cause I'm good friends with Andy, Priscilla, and I was a small catalyst in
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the 75 hard program, so I was like 75.
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That would be really cool.
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But then I'm like, well that doesn't really scare me.
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And so then I finally settled on a hundred and I was like, the concept quickly
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became if I removed chaos, confusions, logistics, and I put systems teams
10:14
and learning in place, could I double what everybody said was impossible?
10:18
Could I defy logic?
10:20
And that became the push behind what we were doing is I can do this better and I
10:25
wanna learn from my mistakes in the past.
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And I really wanna showcase that I did what I did, said the first time.
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And I'm gonna double it and I'm gonna put my entire career on the line and
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every accolade that I've ever had, I'm gonna put that on the table and let's go.
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That's incredible.
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Yeah.
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I mean, there's some clips of like what you were going through that you showed and
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just the ability to like fight through it.
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It was really, really cool to see.
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So cool.
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It was so, it was so funny.
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I went and spoke to a risk management company, um, this
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last year and a couple of the.
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A couple of the comments and feedbacks was like, that was an amazing speaker,
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but we're not sure if he was the best example of how to, how to do risk.
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Risk man, risk risk management.
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And so I kind of took a step back and I was like, oh yeah,
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I can kind of see that point.
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But then at the same breath I was like, you also missed the point in the
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messaging that I was trying to convey.
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Yeah, I will say, so a few weeks after you spoke.
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I was running the New York marathon and I, and I was limping in with like a, a,
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a hamstring, so I couldn't, I couldn't train for more than, like, as much as I
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wanted to with the hammy, but I was like, as I was running the marathon, I'm like,
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man, this is nothing I can hobble through with a, with a screwed up hamstring,
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you know, for one, you know this marathon and I thought about the 1 0 1.
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So, anyway, good stuff.
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Well, well, you guys heard me say from stage as I was closing that my, my, i,
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I start with it and I finish with it.
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Then my goal is to do two things.
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One, give you hope.
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On the journey that you're on.
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And then two, I think is more important, it's to remove excuses
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that may exist on your journey.
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And just like you, you were like, I don't have an excuse.
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I've gotta get across the finish line at the New York City Marathon.
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This is just the situation I'm in, and this is what I have to do.
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And navigate and figure out.
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It's not an excuse to stop going.
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There's options in order for us to move the needle forward.
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And that's the same way with life and in business and all the things.
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So I, I appreciate you.
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Uh.
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Limping across the New York Marathon finish line.
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It's one of the races I still wanna do.
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I've heard the energy's amazing to run through all the five
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boroughs is really cool.
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It's awesome.
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I've done it five or six times now and like it's, oh, cool.
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I've done all the big ones.
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It's probably my favorite.
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Yeah.
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I, I, I might try to get in this next year.
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Yeah, you should.
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So James, uh, you know, bill and I were going over your resume and obviously you
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have so many awards and accolades and Guinness World Records and everything.
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If you, you had to boil it down to one thing, what are you most proud of?
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Oh man.
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Recently it's being a grandfather.
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I mean, grandfather, it's so cool to, it's so cool to see your, your kids
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come into a space, come into their own.
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Knowing that all the hard work and sacrifice that you've done with those kids
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is now, you know, allowing them to start to have their own lives and their own
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thoughts and process and all these things.
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And so I, I really, at the end of the day, I really wanna be known for the
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hero in my own home and raising a great family and, and, and being the husband
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and then, and then now being a grandfather and, um, living life, having experiences.
13:11
You may remember me saying this too.
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It's not about getting to the mountaintop.
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It's how many people can you bring with you?
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To the mountain top.
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Mm-hmm.
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Lot.
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And a lot.
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And I think a lot of people, uh, yeah, I tried to, and I think a lot of people
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miss that point, is they're like, try like pound your chest and get to the
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mountain top, and then when you're there, do the like, hero pose and all that.
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And I'm like, that's, that's not it.
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You're gonna get to that mountaintop by yourself and you're gonna be miserable.
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Just ask David Goggins.
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Yeah.
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Great point.
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Good reference.
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You know, I'm not surprised you said family, 'cause watching your
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documentary, listening to you on stage before the show, you talking about
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family, you're a huge family guy.
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Tell us about, you know, your family went on this journey with you.
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I don't know if, I assume they did the 101 as well, but I know certainly they
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were with you every day in the 50 50.
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Uh, what was that like having your family as a part of it
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and what are they doing now?
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Massive part of the entire journey.
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Um, and we took a lot, again, we took a, there's always criticism, but we took
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a lot of criticism when we announced the dates of the 50 because it was end
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of May, all of June and all of July.
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And I dunno if you've ever been to the south, but it's damn hot.
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And, uh, it's humid and it's like the worst two months of the
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year to do this kind of campaign.
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I said, I refuse to do this without my family.
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And that's when they're out of school and they're coming with, and we got
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that motor home and we all piled into it and we had an amazing adventure.
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And each kid rose to their own level at their own desires to pitch in and help out
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and have the experience that they wanted.
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And then fast forward to the hundred.
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Even your mom, right?
14:41
Even your mom.
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Yeah.
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My mom, my mom came out and ran some of the five Ks with us and
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did, did, did a bunch of things.
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We, we had thousands of people come out across the country and
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my, my kids got a front row seat.
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In fact, one of the compliments we got all the time was like, we are like,
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my two oldest daughters were 11 and 12 and the, the comments kept being, we're
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like, we're so impressed with your kids.
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'cause they were running the shirt stand and they were running the 5K and like
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they were involved with all the people that came out and they were just like.
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We can't believe your kids looked at us when we talked to them and
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they are, you know, we're articulate and all these things, and I'm like.
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That's incredibly sad that that's the observation and that says something
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a lot about to today society and the problem at the problems with
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phones and, and uh, social media.
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And so that was just such a great compliment.
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And then during the a hundred, when it was all based here at my home, it was so
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beautiful because again, my kids got to participate at the level they wanted to.
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My 11-year-old son ran.
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Seven marathons with me and all my kids ended up doing certain courses with it.
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My oldest daughter ran the entire campaign from start to finish
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and she's now full-time with my company on, on this side of things.
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And so all my kids are great.
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My two oldest are married, three grandkids this year.
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My third oldest is serving a church mission, um, in
15:48
Toronto, Canada for 18 months.
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I've got a senior in high school still, and then my son, those are four girls now.
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My son is the youngest and he's big into lacrosse.
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And he, uh, just wants to go, wants to go play at a college,
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and they're all great students.
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And so it's just a lot of fun to watch them and, and have them be part of this.
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You really get a front row seat to chaos, confusion, but also goals, desires,
16:08
passions, purpose, all of the things.
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And so I, I think it was a gift for them to have, have front row seat
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and be on that journey with us.
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Yeah, no, that, that's in incredible and.
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Talk about like teaching grit, you know, firsthand.
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That's, that's it.
16:22
You know it right there.
16:23
So you've done a lot what we're here just starting kind of the new year, 2026.
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What are your goals for this year?
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Yeah, it's interesting.
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So we are four coming up on five years removed from the Conquer 100
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and it took me a very long time.
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To heal, recover emotionally, mentally, physically, family, like just everything.
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It was a massive recovery, two, three years to do that.
16:45
And I'm really done with, with big challenges where I'm
16:49
just intentionally suffering.
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Um, it just, it, it just doesn't change the, the messaging or the
16:54
purpose of why I was doing that.
16:56
And I kind of sat down and just in my soul, I was like, why
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did I start this whole journey?
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Like, what was the beginning?
17:01
And it was, it was fun.
17:03
It was passion, it was community, it was racing.
17:05
It was.
17:06
Pushing limit.
17:07
It was all these things, but like in a single day, right?
17:09
All the training and everything you learned to go to, to the event.
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And so 2026, I turned 50 this year, and I, I want to kind of go back to
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my grassroots beginning and just get back to speed and health and balance.
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I want a PR late this season in an Ironman.
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I think I can go sub 10 as a 50-year-old, and I think that'd really make me happy.
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And this one's for me.
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This, this, this one's, this one's solely for me.
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It's gonna be a different kind of pain, a different kind of sacrifice.
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It's gonna take a lot of work between today and that race in October.
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And then I, I, I'm just gonna do something really fun every single month
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just to challenge myself, whether it's physical or mental or relationships
17:45
or spiritual or whatever it is.
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I'm just gonna do a unique challenge every single month.
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That'll kind of finish with that full Ironman.
17:52
Awesome.
17:52
And October that, that's, that's a little early.
17:55
Right.
17:55
That must be California.
17:57
Yeah, it is.
17:58
It's Sacramento, California.
17:59
October nine.
18:00
October 19th.
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Awesome.
18:02
Excellent.
18:03
Well, James, I'm, I'm betting on you, so, um, yeah, me too, for sure.
18:07
Um.
18:07
But no, this is, uh, it's been great to have you on.
18:10
The message is great.
18:12
I know you have, it's incredible.
18:13
You have a book as well, don't you?
18:15
Do you have a book?
18:15
Yeah, we have, we have two books.
18:16
We've got Redefined Impossible, and we've got Iron Hope.
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The Redefined Impossible is the first one.
18:21
It's autobiography and the Adventure of the 50 Ironmans, 50 days, 50 states.
18:25
And then Iron Hope is lessons I've learned over my entire career and then
18:30
really leaned into some very pivotal moments that happened on the Conka 100.
18:34
So this one is autobiography storytelling, and then this one is storytelling, but
18:38
with some prescriptive, really valuable life lessons that you can take away.
18:42
And then there's also the two documentaries on Amazon Prime
18:44
Iron Cowboy, and, um, conquer 100.
18:48
Excellent.
18:48
We'll put the links to all of this.
18:50
Uh, cool.
18:51
In the footnotes here.
18:52
Uh, James, we were really excited to have you on, you, uh, fulfilled
18:57
everything we thought it would be.
18:58
Thank you so much.
18:59
Can't wait to hear, hear what your PR is in October and, uh, happy New Year
19:04
and best of luck to you this year.
19:06
Awesome man.
19:06
Thank you, Matt.
19:07
Thank you, bill.
19:07
Happy New Year to you guys and everybody listening as well.
19:10
Thanks a lot.
19:10
You bet it.
19:11
Have a great year.
19:12
Awesome.
19:12
All right, man.
19:13
Thanks guys.
19:13
Appreciate it.
19:13
Thanks a lot.
19:14
Thanks a lot.
19:15
Appreciate it, James.