James Lawrence: Iron Hope

Iron Hope

The secret to gaining new heights is a bulletproof mentality.

I forged an iron will by making and keeping small promises again and again. I amassed experiences and built momentum until giving up became impossible.

Get Up and Start

Here we go — my chosen mantra to reset my mind and body.

IRON HOPE: Whenever you struggle, you have a choice — slip into victim mentality or learn and grow and become better from the struggle.

Every moment is a gift. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

When you focus on how much you have — versus how much you don’t have — your mindset shifts from victim to victor .

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When you’re deep in a struggle, you won’t have all the answers. You will only know you need to keep going. So forget about the finish line for a while.

The finish line will overwhelm you. Just take care of today. Then get up tomorrow and start.

You’ve got to be willing to do the grunt work now, to do some things you don’t want to do, so one day you can do the things you want. You must endure some pain and discomfort on the road toward your dreams. That’s a huge part of the iron mindset that will change your life. Many goals can be accomplished if you simply endure.

PAIN CAN’T WIN

Every day for one full season, March 1 through June 8, 2021, I will complete one full distance triathlon.

I’ve long ago learned to push through cramps. Pushing through pain hurts, but it won’t kill you.

Pain is a signal something is wrong. Listen to pain. Don’t ignore it. But don’t let pain win! Pain is not your friend, but it’s not your enemy either.

A triathlon is most definitely a physical challenge. Triathletes can develop bad blisters. Muscle pain. Dehydration. Soreness. Fatigue. Brain fog. Nausea. Blackened toenails. Toenails that fall off. Neck and back pain. Shoulder bursitis caused by rotator cuff and shoulder blade rubbing together. Wrist, hand, and forearm pain from too much time on the bike. Saddle sores and hemorrhoids from the bike seat. Hurt knees from the run. Hurt ankles. Hurt hips. Hurt heels. Tibial stress fractures. Bleeding nipples. Bleeding underarms. Spiked cortisol levels. Oxidative stress from too much oxygen in the body. Kidney damage due to lack of blood flow around your organs. After one triathlon, a body can be destroyed. It takes a normal person about a month after a triathlon to return to regular activity.

To navigate difficulty, you must convince yourself to defy logic. Your body will want to quit, but your mind must order your body to keep going.

I recognized my internal bully. He’s the voice who shows up and sneers — especially in moments of tiredness and pain — telling me I’m not good enough. You’re an idiot, my internal bully said. You have no business being here. You should sit on a couch and eat potato chips. Everybody knows you’re a phony. You don’t belong in the world of athletic success.

Some call this the imposter syndrome, that state of mind that robs you of confidence, falsely judges your capabilities, shoves self-doubt in your face, and insists you’re not up for the task.

Whatever your goal is, the beginning of your journey will suck.

In 2015, I set out to do the unthinkable — fifty full distance triathlons in fifty days in fifty states. We dubbed it the “50.50.50.” I started in Hawaii, completed a triathlon, flew to Alaska, completed another, flew to Washington State, completed another, then drove around the states in a motor home, doing one triathlon each day for the rest of the endeavor.

We learned a ton in the process, and the 50.50.50 changed our lives.

Public speaking took over my life completely. It felt like someone stuck me on a horse then smacked it with a whip. Fortune 500 companies began to call. I spoke at Audi. Red Bull. Nike. McDonald’s. Dell. Microsoft.

For the next five years, I averaged sixty events annually.

Thanks to COVID, my entire schedule of speaking and coaching went belly-up. In just four days, my calendar was wiped completely clean.

One surprising benefit of COVID was the gift of silence. As I began to reassess my life, the shutdown showed me I had become complacent. After the 50.50.50, I had stopped challenging myself.

We’re never standing still. We’re either progressing forward or slipping backward.

I had to do one hundred.

What You Tell Yourself Matters

Have you ever worried about a situation that’s far in the future? It might never happen, but you’re giving it full energy and attention. Your anxiety about the future distracts you from excellence in the present.

Positivity alone won’t win races. You must show up daily with honesty, integrity, and willingness to do the work. But positivity helps.

A journey can’t be judged by a single moment.

Greatness is measured in your ability to kick your limits to the curb.

Bag of Whys

Sometimes when you think you’re at your worst, you’re actually becoming stronger. All the difficulty you’re pushing through is doing its job. The pain is unlocking doors of new and spacious rooms within you. The house of your body and spirit is being recalibrated into something far better.

Spend time today articulating your whys to yourself and your inner circle. List your motivators on paper. Refine the list and get it as sharp as possible. Don’t rely on memorizing all your whys; when you encounter difficulties your memory can slip.

If a dream stays with you and doesn’t go away, don’t ignore that dream.

Manageable Pieces

It’s March 1, 2021, and today is Day One of the Conquer 100.

Three months equals approximately 2,190 hours. If each moment is one minute long, that’s 131,400 moments

I should master swimming, biking, and running at least 10 percent of each distance, respectively. Then, each week as I trained for a normal event, I would gradually increase distances by about 10 percent. That’s the accepted wisdom.

But the math to increase training didn’t work. To begin training for the Conquer 100, I couldn’t run ten triathlons in one week. Nor could I increase that distance by 10 percent each subsequent week.

Deliberately, I had chosen not to do much running to prepare for the Conquer 100. Running can break a body down like no other sport, at least it does for mine.

My training regime was more scientific than everything I just mentioned may sound. I mean, we track everything. We monitor power output on the bike very closely. It’s the most reliable, unbiased form of feedback. When I run, I try to set pace limits, and I track vertical oscillation and ground-contact time. Lower numbers are good. Most swim coaches try to tease increased stroke speed out of their athletes, but I seldom let my stroke rates get above sixty strokes per minute. We track my heart-rate variability, and instead of training at the conventional 80 percent of maximum, I make my workouts really hard, then recover properly. I track my sleep time, knowing that sleep is one of the best ways to repair a body. I even track my breathing, measuring the rise and fall of my abdomen while working out and resting.

During the 50.50.50, the number twenty was the point when things had grown extremely difficult.

I would go to twenty, get miserable, push through, grow stronger, and make it to fifty. After fifty, I would get miserable again, push through, grow stronger, and make it to one hundred.

The place of real difficulty is where most people quit.

Part of our plan is for me to use each day’s swim as a recovery from the day before, and a preparation for the day ahead. 100 meters every two minutes.

I had just begun training for the Conquer 100 on November 1, 2020.

How can you effectively manage the pursuit of your dream? Start small, which will help you gain momentum and confidence. Deliberately break down a big goal into manageable pieces. Then tackle and complete each piece with assurance, knowing you are building on experience and establishing foundational patterns that create momentum.

I’m confident I can run a marathon because I know I can run a 5K. So one way I can run an entire marathon is by telling myself all I need to do is run a 5K eight and a half times.

Here’s the winning mindset: START SMALL. TAKE THE NEXT STEP. FUEL YOUR MOMENTUM. CELEBRATE SMALL WINS. LINK SMALL WINS TOGETHER TO CREATE BIGGER WINS. SUCCESS UNFOLDS. WINS MULTIPLY. REMEMBER: THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY OUT … AND THAT’S THROUGH.

The Rule of 100

When you’re living your best life, you don’t need to struggle every moment of every day. Occasional struggle is beneficial, especially when you get to choose your hard.

My advantage is what I call the Rule of 100 — and you can follow this rule too. Nobody succeeds by going from zero to one hundred overnight. The rule is this: You must take one hundred small steps first. You succeed by putting in preparation work. That’s how you create momentum.

Regrettably, I see people attempt big things without preparation, and they fail, because they neglect the foundation work. They don’t take the series of baby steps to get started and help them build momentum.

Envision Your Best Life

My body screams at me to quit. But I can’t. I won’t.

You will never increase your resiliency by sitting around doing nothing. You must take action.

Discomfort can prompt growth if you let it. Discomfort develops endurance, and endurance develops strength of character. This leads to growth, and growth is good.

You have to grasp “passive recovery” first to understand how it’s different from active recovery and why it’s so important.

Active recovery involves low-intensity exercise. It actually aids recovery because it keeps muscles moving. Blood flows to the affected areas, reducing lactic acid buildup and removing metabolic waste. Walking and swimming are two of the best forms of active recovery.

Passion often occurs after something begins, not before. We’ll never know if we enjoy triathlons until we tackle one.

You have to convince yourself that instant gratification isn’t in the cards for some activities, yet the reward of learning something challenging is worth the effort.

I want people to undertake their own challenges, to tackle their own sense of “hard.” The hardest thing you can do is the hardest thing you can do.

Your Ever-Moving Target

Think of a movable target as a living benchmark of success. You set a goal and achieve it, then set another goal and achieve it.

But I’m honestly not worried about tomorrow. I can rest knowing that tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own, but the trouble doesn’t need to consume me.

Drill this idea into your mind so it becomes second nature. Every day you wake up, you have one job. To be better than yesterday. You push yourself, strive for improvement, and embrace the challenges. Keep raising the bar, because greatness is achieved one step at a time. So rise, grind, and give it your all.

Never forget: Someone important is counting on you.

100 Percent Hard-Core You

“This too shall pass.” The good will pass soon, so we need to enjoy every second of it. The bad will pass soon, so few things are worth getting worked up about.

One of my core beliefs is in the power of mentally shifting gears.

Imagine you have $ 10,000 in your bank and somebody steals fifty bucks. Would you throw away your remaining $ 9,950? Of course not. But we do this with valuable moments.

Pulling positive thoughts into your brain helps your nervous system recalibrate and adjust. As negative thoughts are pushed from your mind, the positive thoughts help to send strong, calming signals to your body, lessening the release of stress hormones, allowing you to relax and focus.

I don’t feel like running at all today. But I choose to take the first step, then the next, putting one foot in front of the other.

Then I hit Day 15. My world explodes. Every problem skyrockets. The new agony of the stress fractures appears. The bones in my legs are being hit by hammers. The pain ratchets up to twenty. The intense, overwhelming pain stays with me for Day 16. Day 17. Day 18. Day 19. Day 20. A week of hell.

Falling asleep momentarily on the move is nothing new. I have fallen asleep when I’ve ridden or speedwalked, when I’ve been lying on the massage table, when I’ve been eating, and even midsentence while giving interviews to reporters.

I strain to focus, to clear my head, but fog fills my brain. I feel a new, incredibly strange inner tug, and my perception no longer comes from my senses. It’s like my spirit is shoving against the insides of my body, eager to fly away. Then it happens. Something so incredibly bizarre. Like a ghost, I rise up out of my body. I float in the air above myself.

My first ever out-of-body experience. Yes, it is real.

Day 21 is when the orthotics arrive. My pain level begins to move downward. By Day 22, my pain has plummeted to a four. The relief is almost unbelievable. The orthotics are working.

Why would I willingly undergo pain so intense I actually need to navigate an out-of-body experience?

I’ve always had an uncanny ability to endure.

Be 100 percent hard-core you.

Cartwheeling Through Blue Collar Days

Some days the hours stretch so long we struggle to remember if a day is starting or ending.

“Be the kind of person who you want to be around.” Everyone is filled with energy, and whatever kind of energy we send out, that kind returns to us. Be careful who you hang around with.

If the people you hang around with are always down , that may damage you. If the people you partner with aren’t ethical, that’s going to affect you. But if they’re passionate, benevolent, optimistic, flexible, trustworthy, and true — that’s good for everybody.

Whenever a new endeavor is announced, there’s starting-gate excitement. There’s anticipation, buildup, eagerness to get going. Then you get into the quest and routine settles in. People lose their initial excitement and experience harder moments. You encounter unanticipated challenges and have to get creative and figure things out. This happens whether starting a new job, setting a big goal, or experiencing a life change.

Blue Collar Days are part of the necessary work of being successful.

The internal bully is that voice that shows up and sneers — especially in moments of tiredness and pain. The bully asks: Do you really think you’re good enough to do this? Do you really have what it takes?

You Gotta Sacrifice

My nightmares are nothing new. They happen because my body is undergoing physical and psychological trauma, and this seeps into my subconscious.

You have to both add and subtract things from your life. At times, that means doing things you’d rather not do; at other times, it means not doing the things you’d rather do.

What are you willing to sacrifice to reach your goal?

Undertake your own hundred-day challenge. Choose any challenge that will make you a better person, deepen your perspective, or make you stronger, healthier, or more compassionate. Don’t be afraid to give up something to make it happen.

When you look at your entire to-do list, it can cripple you. But if you break a to-do list down into small steps, then you need to do only one thing — the next thing — whatever that is.

Sacrifices are easier to make when you do them with a community.

The Conquer 100 feels like the ultimate Groundhog Day.

Obstacles build the bold. Trials train the brave. Battles strengthen the warriors. Storms shape the courageous.

The Road To Purpose

If somebody is not giving their best effort, it means I am not managing them effectively, and my leadership must improve.

Consuming information without acting on it is missed opportunity.

Passion will never knock on your door while you’re sitting on the couch.

You might not be passionate about an activity at first. That’s okay. Often you must sample the same activity more than once. Passion develops the more accomplished you become. You have to press through discomfort.

If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. Your passion can lead you into your purpose.

Art of the Quick Turnaround

Three lessons emerge.

First, it’s good to surround yourself with loyal people.

Second, there’s great value in owning a mistake. When something goes wrong, few are willing to take responsibility for an error.

Third, we can learn to do quick emotional turnarounds.

One key to a quick turnaround is learning not to overlay a problem with catastrophe. Too often when a difficulty arises, we mentally push it to the darkest place it can go.

Learn the secret of quick turnarounds. Realize that as humans we all make mistakes, and a mistake doesn’t mean we’re finished. Learn from past mistakes and vow to do better in the future. Meanwhile, concentrate on the moment.

Part of a quick turnaround is being able, mentally, to put on our uniforms quickly.

WHEN YOU’RE BROKEN

When my alarm goes off the morning after the crash, I pray before I get out of bed: “God, please let today be boring, uneventful, and forgettable.” That’s what I would love, although it probably won’t be so.

When I started the Conquer 100, my goal was to reach my limits, then go beyond. Sustaining injuries and working through them is part of reaching and surpassing limits.

Your past doesn’t need to define your future. Your brain can be healed and retrained. One way to do this is through visualization techniques that replace traumatic memories with new, positive memories. Give each memory a short name so you can swap them quickly. Ingrain the new memory into your brain by deliberately thinking about it often.

If you show up only when you feel like it, you will never go as far as you would if you decide to show up regardless of feelings.

One huge secret of success is discipline. Everybody wants something good for free, but almost everything worthwhile requires effort and an expenditure. You don’t develop discipline by deciding one day to be disciplined. You develop it little by little, by putting routines and structures in place, then adhering to them day in, day out. Discipline becomes a by-product of routine and structure.

On Day 70, our team happily says goodbye to the sixties and begins a new deca, the term used for a set of ten triathlons. But in the early morning when we arrive at the pool , the manager is frantic . Last night the water heater broke, he explains, and instead of the pool being its normal 84 degrees, it’s down to 72. That’s room temperature, but I don’t have any body fat. The swim feels so cold I think I’m turning into an icicle.

That’s the paradox of evolution at work again. Surely my body is becoming stronger. Yet it’s taking a whole lot of pain to evolve.

Today we have a blistering bike ride of 5:55:40, dipping under six hours and outpacing our regular times. I’m still aching but seeing those numbers infuses me with new hope. Nothing’s going to stop me until I finish. The following day we do even better, flying through the route in 5:46:50. We beat it the next day, finishing the ride in 5:26:00, our fastest time yet.

The nightmares are back, showing up regularly now, although I try not to let them rule. These aren’t about drowning, like they used to be, but about crashing.

Emotionally, I have reached the most fragile point I’ve ever experienced.

Sometimes rock bottom is the exact place you need to hit. When you hit rock bottom, you discover the courage and power to rise. Falling down and getting back up can redefine you.

Rising To New Heights

I tell myself, I get to do this. I don’t have to do this. I want to. Today might be Day 81, but I can approach it as if it is Day One — with the same vision, joy, and enthusiasm as when I began.

Tremendous power comes from adopting a “Day One” mindset. You set a goal, then envision each day on the way to that goal as the first day of your endeavor. Deliberately you bring the same enthusiasm for the goal to each day. You develop habits, routines, and structures that help.

If all we have in the end are memories … we need to deliberately create those memories today, and celebrate them along the way.

So many people have come out in the last eighty-three days. Lucy has kept a rough tally and estimates more than a thousand people have joined us at one point or another. They swim, they bike, they run, and have their own experiences.

True accountability happens when we show up for each other, when we’re there for each other through thick and thin. When you are responsible to someone, and they to you, then you are both more empowered to show up and bring out the best in each other. You can do much more together than you can in isolation.

When you deliberately subject yourself to difficulty your confidence soars.

When You Triumph

The air feels electric when I awake on Tuesday, June 8, 2021, Day 100. My entire life has led to this morning.

On my one hundredth consecutive swim of 2.4 miles, I have finished in 1:21:45, still going strong at the end.

I have finished the one hundredth ride in 5:06:59, one of my fastest times of the entire Conquer 100.

We run this last lap at an intense clip, a six-minute-mile pace. With about fifty meters to go on the track, I break into a sprint, a pace no one expects.

The Conquer 100 is over!

I finished every single one of my triathlons under the official seventeen-hour cutoff.

Can you envision your finish? Whatever your own “hard” is, one day you will reach the end of it. You will succeed.

You won’t know everything when you start, so stop worrying about it. Just start, and everything else will follow. Surround yourself with supportive people. Keep doing the hard work. Refuse to quit. Learn to appreciate the grind. Keep going, one more hour, one more minute, one more moment. Keep showing up and be the best version of yourself. Keep fighting. Be relentless. One day soon, you will cross your finish line. You will triumph. Because you, my friend, are far stronger than you think.

Untapped Reserves

You can always do one more. That’s what Day 101 is about. The power of doing “one more” can be a game changer in achieving your goals.

Forrest Gump’s words after his zigzagging cross-country run come to mind. He said simply, “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.”

I am definitely done after today. There will be no 102. I feel humbled yet triumphant. I have completed 101 full distance triathlons in 101 consecutive days.

The Priority of Recovery

My body was handling the shock of tremendous wear and tear on muscles, bones, connective tissues, and joints. But this exhaustion lay beyond the physical. My mind was exhausted. My spirit, drained. I was leveled. Floored. Wiped out. Emotionally emptied.

What’s one of the simplest, best things when you’re in a low place? Get outside and do something active.

About a month after the endeavor, my lower back was still killing me. A tiny hairline separated my L5 vertebrae. Almost certainly it had happened during the bike crash on Day 59. “You completed forty-two full distance triathlons with a broken back.”

Pain can be protective. Pain can motivate you forward. Pain can push you toward better things.

I know that doing anything worthwhile requires 100 percent mental effort, as well as 100 percent physical effort. Both parts must work together. You might have all the mental strength in the world, but if your body isn’t ready, you’ll struggle.

I had wildly underestimated the amount of damage the Conquer 100 did to my mind. I still felt extremely fatigued. I could fall asleep just about anywhere. My brain seemed stuck in hyperdrive. I had lived for so long in fight-or-flight mode, now I couldn’t get back to normal parasympathetic brain function.

I became increasingly frustrated, and frustration can be a really good thing if it’s followed up by action. You have to be frustrated enough with whatever’s bugging you so you get up and do something about it.

It’s a misconception that people who are struggling to recover need to be pumped up. Motivation has its place. But I needed a more thoughtful, systematized approach.

I had arguably the worst findings in eye and brain function he had seen in more than twelve years of practice. Neurological tests showed that my eyes were twitching twelve times every five seconds. A normal person shouldn’t twitch at all. The twitches were a marker of my brain’s inability to calm myself.

There is no growth without recovery. It’s a necessary part of moving forward. Do the same things for your recovery as you did to achieve your goal. You don’t have to tackle your entire recovery at once. Start small. Take the next step. Fuel your momentum. Celebrate the small wins. Watch the big wins emerge. There’s only one way out … and that’s through.