The Next Step Won't Kill You: Flow Lessons from the Iron Cowboy

I was deemed a failure. And so here is the lesson that I want everybody listening here today to get. Don't let someone else's opinion of 0.24% of your journey impact how you proceed.

Welcome back to Flow Radio. I'm Ryan Wicks, Chief of Staff at the Flow Research Collective, and I'm joined today by our Executive Director and bestselling author, Stephen Kotler. Also, we have a truly extraordinary guest joining us. He's the man known as the Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence. James has redefined the limits of human endurance, most famously by completing 50 Ironman distance triathlons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days. And if that wasn't enough, he later went on to complete the Conquer 100. That's 100 full-distance triathlons in 100 days. Yeah, this dude is on an entirely different planet than Stephen and I are on, especially. His accomplishments have landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records, and I think 4 times.

Is that right, James?

Sure.

Yeah. And it's— he's inspired millions of people around the world. And today we're going to unpack flow with the Iron Cowboy himself. James, welcome to Flow Radio.

Awesome, man. Thanks, Ryan. What's up, Stephen?

Good to see you, James.

James, everyone knows you as the Iron Cowboy, uh, one of the most storied endurance athletes of our time. But Stephen and I are really dying to know, uh, before all of that, how did you become you?

Oh man, 2 minutes or less.

2 minutes or less. Well, I grew up in Canada, um, in an amazing home. My dad was a career firefighter. Thank you to all firefighters right now with what's going on. And that's all I knew was just blue-collar hard work. And then my mom was this amazing dreamer. My grandma immigrated from Poland and was a true entrepreneur. And I was like, man, I don't really want to be this blue-collar worker that works my tail off for not a lot of reward. And then I didn't want to be this just dreamer. And so I combined the two. I became a dreamer that had a great work ethic and just grew up in a, in a just a fun-loving family with a lot of support. I know that's, that's rare nowadays. Um, fell in love with sports, gravitated to wrestling, and that became my pursuit. I believe my coaches and my teammates is, is ultimately what— where I developed my mindset and who raised me. And my parents were great examples. But, uh, and then crazy story, in, in 1999, I rode the Calgary Stampede Ferris wheel for 10 days. I got fired from my job and literally hitchhiked a ride from Calgary to Utah to now where I live and have been married 24 years. We've got 5 kids. I'm going to be a grandpa this year, Stephen. I just found out, which is mind-blowing to me, and I'm so freaking excited. But in the very— I was told 2 minutes or less. I think it was 1 minute.

Go.

That's amazing. That was awesome. I want to— I just want to point out one thing that's often overlooked. I'm going to get to my question in a second. But this is, to me, the most amazing fact about the 50-50-50. In between, like, you run a triathlon all day, and then with 5 kids, you fly coach to the next destination and you do it again. I want you to know, if I tried to fly coach with 5 children for 50 days in a row, forget the triathlon, I would be homicidal and buried. By the end of it. Like, literally, like, if you want to create the endurance sport, I think we can actually— this could be a Survivor show, James. 50 states with 5 kids, flying coach in 50 days. Like, literally, that alone, we got a show.

So it actually gets worse than that. So we only flew a multiple of, uh, 3 times, uh, the— so the journey had to start in, uh, Hawaii, just logistically, right? I didn't want to do— like, I was trying to plan it all and I was like, okay, Ironman World Championships, it's in Hawaii. I want to finish in Hawaii. That would be amazing. We'll have a 2-week vacation with my family. And then I started looking at it and I'm like, if something happens outside of my control with a commercial airplane, I do not want to reset and do 49 more. And so we made Hawaii first. And so we did Hawaii, did the Ironman, flew to Alaska, did the Ironman, flew to Washington. And so in the first 3 days, 3 Ironmans, total of 6 hours of sleep, all on an airplane with those 5 kids. But then here's where it gets crazy. We all piled into a motorhome and then navigated the lower 48 that way. And so you talk about, because we couldn't rely on when I would finish, how I'd finish, proximity to airplanes, travel schedules. It just, it was, that, that would have been, it would have made it impossible.

And so were you bleeding from open wounds, right?

Exactly. And then the logistics of having to be at the airport an hour and a half before and having to pack up your bike every single time. All these things would way complicate it. And so we thought, oh, this would be great, not realizing— I mean, I realized how big the US was, but not when you have to drive every single night after doing 14 to 16 hours of physical activity, 5 kids, making sure they're good, all the logistics. So Ironman a day in the day, travel logistics at night. For 7 weeks, we averaged less than 4 hours of sleep a night, and I had to consume more than 12,000 calories.

That is—

All right, this is not an easy transition into my next question, but it's Flow Radio, so now I got to transition to my next question, at least bring us back to this. And you and I, uh, have known each other a little bit, and we've talked about flow before. Um, I just— for— so, so, so folks can, you know, hear it as, as a way to start us in, because it's kind of extraordinary. Talk about the role flow's played in your life, how it's sort of impacted your career, and how it sort of impacted your perception of what's actually possible for yourself or for humans.

Yeah, for me, I started to realize the concept of flow before, you know, you really brought it to the space, wrestling. And you have to get into a flow state on the wrestling mat. You have to really block out what everybody's doing. And a lot of people don't recognize that in wrestling, you're 3, 4 moves ahead of what's happening in the present moment because it's very reactionary. So I already know that my move is gonna, prompt his counter, then I have to know my counter to that counter to his. And then it becomes this very flow state. And if you're distracted and not be able to get into that mode, you're going to get wiped across the mat every single time. And you really had to get into that mindset. So I think I started to develop it way back then. And I can even take it further back than that. When I was a young man, I grew up in Canada, freezing cold in the winters. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and was doing a paper route every day. And if you don't get into a flow state even then in those conditions at that young age, like it's going to cripple you and you're not going to be able to do your job and then you don't get paid and you can't go to the 7-Eleven and buy your candy. And so I just think everything that I was doing was putting me in learning those flow states to ultimately I experienced the perfect flow once we get to talking about the Conquer 100.

Right. The 100. Yeah. Well, and we'll get there. Thank you for, thank you for not going there. I wanna, two things I wanna, I wanna pull out cuz it's interesting. So when I was a kid, I started out, I was a magician, right? And I started working, I was very young. I was 11 years old and I was doing birthday parties. I was actually working at the Ground Round restaurant where they had threw peanuts on the floor. If you've ever been in one of those restaurants, right? I was the, I was the Saturday and Sunday birthday party musician. I was like 11 years old. The guy who had the job before me went off to college and like I was the only other magician he knew, so I got the job at 11. And I was desperate to start working anyways. Um, and, but to learn magic, I had to learn to focus 6, 7, 8 hours at a time. And it, you can't do that without flow, right? And you also have to like watch your hands in a mirror. So it's this weird kind of focus where you're trying to like watch your hands, like you're an audience member trying to catch yourself, but it was the same sort of thing of like having to turn your brain around to sort of block out pain. My question to you is, because I don't even know the answer for myself, how instrumental do you think that early focusing, blocking out, getting into flow, able to suffer a little bit— in my case, like sitting in the same place for like 6 hours at a time, in your case, deal with the elements— ends up shaping you later?

Yeah, great question. And for me, I'll go back to a moment that I, that I touched on real briefly in the introduction. Was that Ferris wheel contest. And it was a contest where you get on the Ferris wheel and it goes round and round. The Calgary Stampede is 10 days long. And their objective was complete boredom. This was pre-cell phone. You couldn't bring anything on there with you. You couldn't fall asleep during the day. You could sleep from midnight to 8:00 AM, and then other than that, you had to stay awake on the ride. And it became this test of who could manage the conversations they were having with themselves the best. And I was literally shocked when I was watching. I'm 3 days into this and I'm like, this is the easiest $10 grand I'm ever going to make in my entire life. I'm making a grand a day. And I was watching people quit and get off the ride, and I just couldn't believe it. And it took years later to then recognize they simply weren't comfortable having the conversations with themselves. They weren't good at reconciling their past. They didn't know how to dream, and they couldn't sit in that state and control their thoughts And that's why they were quitting. And ultimately, I outlasted everybody, won the cash prize, and that moment changed my life because it put me on this very different trajectory. Because I got fired from my job, I had some cash, and I hitchhiked a ride to the States. And so there's many things before that we touched on that got me to that Ferris wheel. And then I really started to understand the power, the control of the mind, and getting into that flow state and not allowing it to completely derail you from from the task at hand. This sets—

perfectly sets up the next question Ryan and I dreamed up for you, which is, um, I've heard you say, uh, that learning to deal with the negative voice in your head, what you call the internal bully, is, you know, is one of, if not the most important element in peak performance. And now you're giving me sort of an origin story for where this came from. How do you think you're thinking around the internal bully, negotiating with the internal bully, dealing with it has changed from that like Ferris wheel moment? You know, you've done, I mean, Ryan gave you the highlights, but like even before there was the 50, 50, 50, there was the 30 and there were, you know, and it all goes back to, I believe, a 4K fun run that you did, right? Like it all starts there and it builds out. So there's like, like you're an overnight success with like 20 years of endurance sports under your belt. Congratulations, James, you did it the real way.

Yeah, um, sorry, repeat the question.

Oh, I just want to know about your relationship to the internal bully, the voice in your head, managing it, negotiating it with it. And one thing, let me caveat, so I know most of this conversation or what follows is going to be about the negotiation during the races, but I know you sort of really, you got your ass kicked, the post-flow recovery after 100 knocked your head all kinds of sideways and suddenly you were dealing with a very different internal bully. And so if you could talk about both of those a little bit and how you've evolved with that relationship.

Yeah, that's a big deep dive. We'll get into that one in a second. But the first one is, and here's what's interesting and I think you'll agree, Stephen, As humans, as individuals, nobody talks to you the volume and amount that you talk to yourself. I think, I think we can all agree on that. And here's what's interesting is you wouldn't be friends with somebody that talked to you the way that you talk to yourself. And so why do we— tall— ever, right? And so why do we tolerate that for ourselves? And so my relationship with the bully has changed. Initially, I was trying to silence the bully. I was trying to get rid of the bully. I was trying to eliminate the bully. And now, one, I've learned the secret is just managing those conversations and not necessarily keeping them at bay, but just managing the conversations because I now believe—

What does that mean? You got to go at one level, like managing the conversations with the bully. Okay, great.

I will. And here it is. Now it's about if I haven't heard from the bully in a long enough period of time, I'm being complacent and I'm slipping backwards. So the bully is now a barometer if I'm showing up in my life and pushing boundaries, or if I'm trying to run through the fire and become a better version of myself or face whatever it is. And that's through that flow state that we've talked about. And so now that relationship and managing those conversations, I think you can agree, and correct me if I'm wrong, the science shows that we can't have two thoughts at the same time, especially men. And so, and also darkness can't exist in the presence of light. And so a flow state becomes, and the part to answer your question about managing the thoughts is when we get into a negative space or that bully comes in and we start having that self-talk and we're not good enough and the imposter syndrome and all these things, all we have to do is change the narrative. Because if it's true that we can't have two thoughts at the same time, if we bring in light, that darkness, that negativity dissipates and disappears. That's how you manage that conversation. And everybody's like, well, I don't know how to do that, blah, blah. Every single human being has had one positive experience in their lives. And so you just have to be armed with that experience going into it. Me, it's easy. I got 5 kids, had a good upbringing. I can bring in tons of experiences and birthdays and this and that and the toy that I got or whatever it was, right? And so every single human being, I don't care where you are, you've got one and you just have to be armed with that one.

That's an interesting weapon.

Yeah, that really is. I'm— Stephen, we talk a lot at the Collective about using fear as a compass, but James, it seems like you're using that inner dialogue, you know, when the bully shows up, is those are the right signals. Those are—

well, Ryan, did you also get that he's using— I've never heard anybody say this before, it's kind of amazing. Uh, I don't— James, you might just know, you've heard me say this, flow states have triggers, obviously, with the challenge-skills balance being the most famous of them, right? We need the challenge to be slightly greater than your skill set. You're the very first person I've ever heard tell me they're using the absence of the bully's voice as a sign that, oh, there's not enough challenge, turn up the volume. That's super— that's really interesting. I've never heard anybody do that. That's super fresh. That's a really brilliant idea. I'm adopting it. I'm stealing it. That's really good.

Please do. And I think you can agree that in life we're never just standing still. We're either moving forward or we're moving backwards. And I think if that chatter is not happening, We're moving backwards. Now we need to be careful because if that chatter gets out of control and we start to catastrophize, then we start to isolate ourselves, turn out the lights, to get into a dark space, and then we start to create all of these things, which I believe is the opposite of flow state. That's catastrophizing, that's living in the future, that's creating destructive patterns, and then that's where the anxiety sets in, the depression goes, and then we start to spiral, right? And so this is about like— and that's where it comes back to managing those moments. Understand and recognize that emotion. Fear is just an emotion, but it's paralyzing us. It's just an emotion. And to be successful in life and to have breakthroughs, it's about managing our emotions, which means fear is manageable. We just again have to control it in our minds and replace that fear with some positivity, some excitement, and some direction. And then all of a sudden we shift that, we're on a different path.

If we were to go sort of be like as an athlete, right before we— before you had even goals of like world records though. The Ferris wheel kind of tilts that a little bit. What was the, like, you just talked a little bit about purpose. What was it like, what was driving you? What made you say, I wanna do this, I'm going at endurance? I've heard you say that you realized that your superpower was that you could just out-suffer, you could suffer. And did you, was that the, like, was that the thing, right? I mean, even at the 50, when you proposed it, this is, I love this story, doctors told you who was impossible. And the reason I love that is the last runner the doctors said it was impossible to was, uh, Bannister, before he broke the 4-minute mile, right? They said you're gonna die. Same thing they said to you— you're gonna die, this is impossible, it'll never happen, you need a hearse at the finish line. The doctor said, said that to you. So what was it like? Where did it start for you in terms of like, what was the urge to do that? And then by the time you got to that one, How did that grow into, oh yeah, I could do the impossible now? Fuck you.

Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, from the outside looking in, a lot of people that are doing the big endurance, or endurance, or they get into racing or marathons or running, what it is, they're— it's an addiction transfer. And it's great, and it's saving a lot of people. And so initially, people were like, oh dude, I'm so sorry, what trauma did you, did you experience? And what are you overcoming? And what drug were you addicted to? And how— what abuse? Who abused you? And all these things. And I'm like, whoa, like, dude, That's not me. And I had to quickly reconcile that I'm not running from anything. I'm actually chasing potential. And I instantly stopped looking around and comparing myself to what everybody else was doing or experiencing and said, what am I capable of? Where's my ceiling? What are my limits? And I, man, I've heard it said before and I can't remember who said it. It's something that I've kind of adapted. I don't want to get to the finish line and, and regret who I could have been. And, you know, you hear a lot of people saying, hey, you're supposed to chase down the ultimate version of yourself. And I, and I really had a problem with that because I'm like, I, I don't think I'm ever going to catch that person. And I had to reconcile myself because as I evolve, change, and, and gain experience, my perceptive changes, my experience changes, the lens I'm looking at life through changes. And more becomes possible. I believe I'm invincible at this point. And I'm never going to catch him. And I'm now okay with that. But it's now the pursuit of trying to catch that individual. And I get so fired up every single day, waking up going, okay, man, I'm going to try. I'm going to get that son of a bitch today. I'm going to track him down. And he just keeps inching away from me. But that's the point. And I want to get to the end and high-five that guy, that dude, and just be like, oh, I almost got you so many times. And then you just kept changing and I just kept growing. And I want to get to that end and be like, dude, gimme a hug, man. Thank you so much for pushing me.

When I think about, so thank you so much for pushing me. You did the 50.50.50. And for, I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong, it was 2.4 miles or 2.4 kilometers, like some minuscule portion of the race because the weather was so horrific. You decided to bring it indoors. You were very injured. You didn't stop the race, you just rode indoors on a stationary bike, and you got creamed by the general public for it. They said you deviated from your structure. And like, you know, by any— yeah, I heard, I've heard you say that like, you know, it's essentially the same as like a football quarterback coming out and completing like 97.5% of their passes in a game. And you know, which would be the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. But it haunted you so much afterwards that you decided you were gonna do the 100, which brings me to the sort of like—

okay, real quick, let me just tell that story real quick. Do we have time?

Yeah, I want you to tell that. Start there, tell that story, because it's, it's, it's in terms of motivation. And it go— Ry was talking about like using fear as a compass and negotiating with the bully and all that stuff. This is so classic.

Okay, and I think this is super important because we live in a unique time, day and age of social media, and everybody's the coach, everybody's Everybody's the expert. Everybody's posting their best moments. And what happens is, again, it's paralyzing us to do anything great and start anything new and be the newest member to a community and be bad at something because we're just new to it. And here's the thing. So, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 106 degrees outside. I'm riding my bike. I'm so fatigued. I lost concentration for 2 seconds, fell asleep on my bike and crashed. I have no idea how to get back on my bike. My hip is swollen, I've got road rash everywhere. Anyways, I find my motivation, that's another story. I get to the finish line that day. We go to Mississippi the next day. It's hurricane conditions, severe weather warnings, torrential downpour, dangerous lightning. We do a bunch of it outside and for the last few miles that day, we get pushed indoors and I jump on an elliptical machine. Didn't think anything of it. We did all the training on it, we did a ton of stuff. We just wanted to give ourselves a chance to show up the next day to continue to raise money for the childhood obesity epidemic that exists today. I woke up the next morning to hatred, bullies, keyboard warriors telling me that, oh man, we got you, you failed, you didn't do it, you cheated, quit, go home. And I gotta tell you, Stephen, I almost listened. I almost packed up camp, went home and said, you're right, it's over. And then we made a decision. I've got a really smart team. We kept going. We understood what the purpose was. And after the fact, you know, these guys are still chirping online and doing these things and just keyboard warriors from their couches. And I totaled up all the math. 7,030 miles is what we covered that summer. And that moment in Mississippi represented 0.24%.

Yeah, that was it.

0.24%. And so if I'm a quarterback in the NFL, Super Bowl's coming up, My completion rating's 99.76%. Holy hell, I'm a billion-dollar athlete. We just won the Super Bowl. I'm the MVP. I've changed the space. I was deemed a failure. And so here is the lesson that I want everybody listening here today to get. Don't let someone else's opinion of 0.24% of your journey impact how you proceed. Because if you're the one in the arena— one of my favorite quotes— if you're the one in the arena doing the work, getting the mud right on your face, taking the knocks, showing up, trying to raise the bar of human potential. Guess what, fan? You don't get to have a choice. You don't get an opinion. You don't get to decide my destiny, my journey. And I'm so grateful I didn't listen. I'm so grateful I didn't give them any power. And I hope individuals out there— dude, you're so filled with potential and goodness that you don't give away that power. Just keep showing up. Honesty, integrity every day. And my challenge to you is to rise so high within that flow state and above everybody, guess what? You can't hear them clowns anymore.

That's a great point. Um, that's a great point. Hey, so, uh, when the 100 and flow— I'm gonna— you, and then you alluded to this earlier because this is kind of amazing. I've had this experience not while doing an endurance sport, but I had it sort of once writing. I had to write the final— one of my books, Stealing Fire, was like coming up on the deadline. I'd been blocked forever and Suddenly, like, the dam broke and I was like in it.

You wrote Stealing Fire?

I did write Stealing Fire.

Good hell, I love you, man. That's a great read. I didn't, I didn't realize that was you. I just felt like I'm in love with the Superman one, and now you do that. Dude, I, I love your stuff, the way you think, man. You're a great man.

Thank you, James. Um, and by the way, it was the wrong book. I meant A Small Furry Prayer, which you probably haven't read because it's about the relationship between humans and animals, but Um, I, yeah, I wrote it in, in like a nonstop, like couple week flow state, most of it. So I've had a loose experience similar to, to the 100. But first of all, tell people a little bit about the 100. Explain that you didn't just like run 100 triathlons in 100 days. You did, I believe, every one after the 6th one with a stress fracture in your foot that was massively debilitating. Um, and then you had this crazy flow state experience towards the tail end, uh, I believe it was after day 85. So my real question is, what the fuck changed on day 85? Like, what unlocked that for you? But get us up, get us from— get us up to that point so people can hear this story because it's so amazing.

Yeah, so real quick, I'm going to promote the documentary that was nominated for an Emmy. It just hit—

okay, it's great, it's awesome.

Yeah, go check that out and, and you'll By day 5, I was broken. The way that this all transpired was after the 50, I got pushed into speaking and coaching. We wrote our first book and it blew up and all these things happened. And I just kept, I had those regrets from the mistakes that I made, but was so proud of what we had accomplished. And then the pandemic hit and calendar was erased clean. No more coaching, no more racing, no more anything, speaking. And I saw it as an opportunity. I'd always wanted to redo the 50, but I was like, dude, the logistics are crazy and whatnot. And so in my mind I said, all right, Listen, if I can remove chaos, if I can put systems and team in place, if I can control the environment, could I double what everybody said was impossible? Could I defy logic? And in 4 months' time, I went from basically out of shape to starting one of the most difficult endurance challenges in sports history. And by day 5, I was broken. I had massive inflammation. I was developing stress fractures in my shins. I was staring down the barrel of 95 miles 5 more to go and I was broken. And so, so many things happened in between that point. I was learning how to manage pain. A bunch of miracles happened. And day 59, I was—

wait, hold on, time out. I believe you also ran a triathlon where you could go 6 steps at a time, you would black out, you would get caught by your racing partner who would pull you back upright, and you would do 6 more steps and black out from the pain again. Yeah, so that was—

is that—

on that, right?

Yeah, that happened. So that was day 15. And I was literally waiting for the step that my leg was going to break, snap. Because I was like, I'm not quitting. And the public will accept if I continue until I break my leg. They'll be like, OK, yep, you can quit. And so I had to get into this ultimate flow state where I was trying to manage the pain. And it just got so intense that I would lose the battle and I'd black out. And Casey was right there to catch me. And I'd come back to, and we were ready for this moment, and we'd say 3 words. And this was our reset. And we'd say, here we go. And when we did that, total mind and body reset, and we continued down the trail till we blacked out again and catch me. And we just repeat that over and over again. Blackout, here we go. Blackout, here we go. And then we crossed the finish line. And miracles happened after that. I got some carbon-plated shin braces that allowed me to continue and offload those shins and give the body an opportunity to heal. Fast forward to day 59, I'm in a horrific bike wreck. Crack my L5, have a bulging disc, do 41 more Ironmans that day. But we get to day 80, and that's when I figured out ultimate flow state. And early on, when I'm managing the pain, I could like use that tip that I gave before, and I would bring in a positive thought. And it can get to a point where it's so bad that that, that no longer works. And I could get to the ability in the moment where And I do not know how to describe it to you. If science, if we could figure it out together, Stephen, it'd be amazing. But I could get to the point of flow where I was outside of my body, watching myself third party suffer down the trail. And I was able to separate the two and have that kind of experience. And that was for me, the ultimate flow state is because I was in euphoria, almost watching the suffering, but disconnected from it. Which allowed me to continue. And so I don't know where that falls in the flow spectrum, but that's, but that, that's how I survived those moments.

The couple of things in there, just if you're interested in mechanism, because I can, like, um, I've had— so on the pain side, and that there are about 20 endorphins in the brain, the principal one which shows up very much in flow is 100 times more potent than medical morphine. So you're talking about a very potent painkiller. And then you get anandamide, which is the same psychoactive in marijuana, which is also the same drug they give to cancer patients in extreme pain. 'Cause it also, what anandamide does is it dulls the pain, but it also allows you to dissociate from the pain. But the other thing you're talking about is in extreme flow, you get this sort of shutdown and alteration activities when it hits the temporal parietal junction. This is the part of your brain that does perspective. So like when you switch, when I, oh, this is my abundance mindset, this is my scarcity mindset. It does that. But it also does like, I'm looking at things from above or below. And it, it's when it, you overload it. And when you start messing with the energy systems in deep flow, it will produce out-of-body experiences. And we've known this. I think I wrote about it in my book, West of Jesus. But this is like, it's so well known that there's a lab in Switzerland. I'm blanking the guy's name. We'll put it in the show notes. He's duplicated the results with VR. So you like, you can go have this exact experience in VR. So we sort of understand how it happens. We don't, what we don't know or what I don't know, and I've never seen anybody be able to figure out is how do you turn, how do you turn up flow to automatically produce it. Like, that I have— that I haven't figured out. But I've had— I've had a couple of out-of-body flow bits. The first time I went skydiving. This was a very early experience that I spent a lot of my life trying to explain, and ultimately led me to the flow work. I jumped out of a plane. I was like 17. We like lied to our parents, snuck away from school. This is in Ohio, back like you know, when there are dinosaurs. And so that we were jumping on rounds, which the old Army round parachutes, you can't really steer very much and you need a static line. There's no instructor on your back. You like crawl out of the wing of the plane and they're like, look, dude, if you don't jump, you'll take the plane down. So we're going to kick you off the plane. So when we say 3, 2, 1, go, either go or get— you're getting a boot to your face. And it was like, you know, this was Ohio skydiving in Ohio with old like drill sergeants, right? And I'm so fucking terrified. I jump out of the plane. I jumped right outta my body and like, and the chute was starting to open and my body was tilted totally sideways and upside down. And in my brain, my, the voice says, oh, if you don't totally relax, you're about to have whiplash, maybe break your neck. And I just, I relaxed and the chute opened and it caught me and, and I was fine. But that was the first time I ever had that experience. I spent most of like 20 years trying to figure out like, was I crazy? Did that really happen? That was so insane. Is that even possible? And this was back before anybody had done research on out-of-body experiences, so you couldn't even— I couldn't say it out loud. Like, if I went— I came home and I was like, Mom, Dad, I had an out-of-body experience, they'd be like, you're going to a psych ward, dude.

That is wild. And I, and I fully resonate with that because before I even told that story and said those words, I was going to say Sometimes I have to look back on social media or documentary footage or whatever it is because sometimes I question if the 100 even happened because I was in such a flow state and it was so, so out there that I'm like, wait, did we, did we do that or was that just a dream that I wanted to do and, and then it didn't? And then I go look at the footage and I'm like, holy shit, we did do that, right? And I'm like, am I making stuff up in my head? Do I need to go to a psych forward. Like, is this crazy? Because I, I had to check out in such a capacity. And, and I think this is so important, Stephen. That's how powerful our brains are, is you can do extraordinary things on a, on a, on a subconscious level, you know, when you're, when you're almost not even present. And that's how powerful it is. And then the, the flip side of that that is dangerous is your brains are so powerful, it protects us from the damage that we're doing And post-100, dude, it's taken me 3 years to recover, reset the neurological pathways of my brain to get to the point where I believe I'm invincible again. But I mean, I was, I was broken, and I now fully understand, like, dude, we need to be careful with how we, how we show up, how we interact, and how we operate with our brains.

Yeah, there's— I, I was thinking about, uh, in prepping for this, I was listening to you talk about the post-100 depression. I was thinking 2 things. That I've certainly experienced. And I think you're right in the devastation. One is you're coming, you know, what goes up must come down. And the greatest flow high in the world is going to— you're right, there's a recovery period on the back end of a flow state. And when you have like a nonstop 100-day flow state for survival, right, you've just exhausted a massive amount of reserves on level one. The other thing is we have an unconscious governor, right? And it doesn't like, there's physical healing, but the unconscious governor goes, you know, with skiing, when I get in a ski accident, it may, I can break something and it'll take 3 months to heal technically medically, but it's a year and a half before my body will let me, the governor will let me ski at top speed again. 'Cause it doesn't want that kind of injury again. And so I'm like, it's holding me back from maximum performance. For protective reasons also. And I think there's a, there's a hangover that comes from that too, because you've also got all kinds of expectations for yourself post, oh, I did this heroic thing. And then suddenly there's a governor that says, no, no, no, no, maybe you didn't do that. 'Cause you definitely can't do it again, which is, I think, difficult debilitating also.

Well, I look back at it and I, I have no idea one, how we did the 50 and then how we did the 100. Like I look back at these things and I'm just like, No idea. Like, I have no idea how. And here's what's interesting is, you know, you talk about that, that, that comedown, and in my mind I was like, no, I can go back across the country right now. Like, I'm totally fine. And then my wife was like, hey, you know, the house was chaos after the 100, and she was like, hey, I just need you to organize these socks right here. And she came back an hour later and I'm just kind of staring at the socks and she's like, what the hell are you doing? And I'm like, I don't know, I can't figure it out. And she's like, they're socks, just match them up, put them together. And it was kind of the first time that we realized that something was wrong. And then we went to some neurologists and some doctors. And what had happened was, is my brain got stuck in fight or flight. I couldn't get to parasympathetic. And because of that, my eye movements were incredibly at a high rapid rate. And I couldn't, from the outside looking in, it looks like I could function, but I was so exhausted all the time. I could do my job, do my stage presentation, I could do a podcast, but then I was wiped the rest of the day. And in fact, we, we then figured out I was having spatial awareness issues and my brain kept crashing over and over and over again. And so we couldn't, we couldn't erase that, that traumatic moment. And that, that's where a lot of the PTSD comes in and how important it is to rewire those neurological pathways in your brain and get that help. And so I've been on a fascinating post-hunter journey for the past 3 years. In fact, just last week I went to Cognitive FX down here in Provo, and they specialize in trauma and brain concussions and therapy and all those. And they— we just redid some tests, and I could look great in a lot of areas, but we're still struggling in these key things. And so I'm actually going back. I'm now not doing injury type of therapy. I'm doing human potential and brain therapy. And so now I'm taking it to another level because I like, I gotta run stages and we gotta do all these things and I really want to impact. And we've got these courses and curriculums and events and all these things that we're doing. Dude, I want to be the sharpest. I want to be superhuman. And that takes effort. And it's same with physical exercise. It takes effort to shape your brain and fix your brain and reactivate everything that we do. You know this, we use what, what, it's 10% of our brain, 5% of our brain. Dude, I want to tap in. Like, could you, Imagine we tap into 50% of it. Like, it's wild to think.

So I wanna, I wanna roll this back to something because I've heard you talk about it and it's such a hard thing in peak performance. I want— the question is going to be about how you think about adapting and evolving, but the point, like, I wanna, I wanna get it, is it's really impactful on flow training. When people come in to train with us, I can tell you flow is going to increase productivity by 500%. Those can increase creativity by 700%. But I can also tell you peak performance is compound interest, right? It's a checklist. You do everything on the checklist today, get a little better. Everything on the checklist tomorrow, a little better. And then at a certain point, it gets fucking exponential. And it's amazing, it's so hard for people to believe that on the front end. I sort of wrote my book in our country, which was my, uh, my endurance my attempt to teach myself to park ski, but it was also kind of an endurance contest for myself. Um, and, uh, but one of the reasons I wrote it is I just wanted people to see what it looked like on a day-by-day basis, because it's so hard to convince people what their potential is because it's emerging, right? You put yourself into a flow state, you extend what's possible, you come back, you do it again the next day and the next day, and after, you know, a couple hundred days suddenly you're an entirely different human. But it's so hard to convince people that on the front end. You think about adaptability a lot, and you're also coaching a ton of people. So how are you coaching this? How do you think about it? How do you, how do you talk to the people you get to work with about it?

Yeah, one, one of the things is to be superhuman, you have to master the monotony and you have to do those tasks that nobody sees. That are happening and just those checklists that you're talking about. I teach that you can't go from 0 to 100. You can't go off the couch and go, oh man, I'm massively inspired by that guy, I'm gonna go do 100 Ironmans. You mentioned it early on, my first thing was I suffered through a 4-mile fun run and then I did the 50 and everybody was like, oh man, you're so genetically gifted, that's how come you were able to do it, because they see the headline. I went and got all the genetic tests done, the results came back and they said, dude, you're an average white Canadian. Like, that's the peak that you got here, right? And then, I started looking back and when we made the announcement for everything that we're doing, bike across the country, bike up Kilimanjaro, run across Greece, the 50, the 100, all these things that we've done, they were just foundational pieces and all the little work. This is something I truly believe in. The secret to success is doing a lot of little things consistently over a long period of time. You said it right at the beginning of the thing, congratulations, you're an overnight success from 20 years ago, you did it right. And that's, if that's one thing that I could really hone in on people, look, you got fat over 20 years, you ain't gonna get fat, you ain't gonna get thin over 90 days. And it literally is that compounding effect that you're talking about. It's the same thing with money. I mean, that's the easiest example. You put $20 in an account every single day, by the time you're 65, you're a multimillionaire. Those compounding effects, both in physical and mental and preparation and whatever you want to be an expert in, violinist, whatever it is, all of a sudden you're going to wake up 20 years later and you're like, I'm the damn best in the world at this. And so you can't go from 0 to 100. It's about those foundational pieces. And every time we announced we were doing the next big project, everybody freaks out. And I'm like, dude, that's just the next natural progression in what we're doing and where our belief system is. And so we were never surprised when we made an announcement, but it just like shook everybody. And so I think it's something really important that we need to understand. Like it's those foundational, it's discipline, it's consistency, it's showing up, it's doing the work that nobody else wants to do. That's how you separate yourself. That's how you be a dog.

And as a corollary, I've heard you say, I wanted to ask you about this, that when you're in the middle of impossible, it feels impossible. It's not like you're in the middle of it going, oh yeah, I got this. You're literally impossible. Like, I am getting my ass kicked in every possible direction in like 17 dimensions I didn't even know existed for me to get my ass kicked at. That's been my experience.

You literally can't see the next challenge until you're ready for it, and you'll never be ready for the next challenge until you're showing up, gaining the knowledge. Number one question, Stephen, I've spoken around the world, 57 different countries and stages everywhere. You name it, from accountants in Sri Lanka to NFL players, number one question I get. How do I become more mentally tough? It's only through having experiences and showing up and doing that work. Then we change the lens in which we experience things, and we change the way we think because our experience now is what shapes our perspective and our perception. And so by showing up and having all these experiences, all of a sudden, you know, everybody says, you know, we get to the top of the mountain, holy crap. You're there, but you can see a mountain you couldn't see before. And so every mountaintop is the beginning of a new mountain to climb because we've changed and now we do that. And that's the whole point that we talked about before about chasing down the ultimate version of ourselves. It's a continual mountain climb, but it's an evolution of peaks and valleys and climbing experiences and boulders and traversing and doing all these things until we get there. And you're like, "Shit, he's on the top of the next mountain. How did he do that?" So I wanna—

I'm gonna ask you a question about Sunny and your family and relationships in a second, but I want to back into it. I was talking about— from Peter Diamandis, uh, uh, earlier this week we were— I was on his podcast, and Peter in the Abundance 360 community and in our books, he's very concerned with the question of legacy, which is not really— I don't think much about legacy. I think legacy is for other people to think about me. It's not something I think about, but Peter thinks about it a lot. And I said to him, I said, Peter, you know what, the truth of the matter is whatever you might call Stephen's legacy is really the byproduct of my, like, in tight relationships with, like, visionary creatives. Like, I— and I pointed to Peter, I was like, because, like, my friend Peter helped unlock the space frontier and build a trillion-dollar industry like, and I watched him do that from the age of like 25 on with the X Prize on and all that stuff. It's sort of— it level set my like, okay, well, what's possible? My friend Peter helped unlock the space frontier, and I've got these athlete friends who are total fuck-up misfits, Shane McConkey and whatever, but they're redefining what's possible for the human species. So my brain, just like what I thought was possible, was totally outta whack because these long relationships I've had with amazing people, my 20-year relationship with my wife is the reason we've been able to help 1,000 dogs through hospice care and our hospice care dog sanctuary, right? It's these partnerships that really, like, if you're going after these impossible challenges, even, you know, even with flow built in, you need, I, I think you need those relationships. And I'm coming around to believe that you need them more Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

And my legacy, I don't want it to be the $100,000, the $50,000, the whatever it is. There's a cool saying in Utah that there's no success outside your home that'll ever compensate for failure inside your home. And I want my legacy to be my kids being outstanding and them passing on it to their kids. Because, you know, I look at— I don't think I'm that bright. I don't think I'm that special. I mean, I barely got out of high school. I couldn't have a conversation with you about quantum physics and all these different things. Like, you're so much smarter than I am. I've just figured it out in my little space. Um, and so like, I'm not going to get on a massive scale and have these incredible debates about politics and all these things because I don't believe I can have an impact there. But I know I can have an impact with these 5 kids, and I know there's going to be an an amazing ripple effect with it because I'm comparing them against their peers. And man, the current standard today is pathetic. And the level of soft individuals that are out there, especially age 25 and under, is borderline catastrophic. And I'm not worried about my kids at all. Like, they've had a front row seat to suffering and pain and grit and toughness and teamwork and love and compassion and all these things And man, I've humbly, I've got 5 frigging incredible kids and that I want that to be my legacy. And I told you before, I don't know if it was on air or off air, I'm going to be a grandfather this year and I couldn't be more excited about that. And I want to coach that kid and I want to help him understand that he's super special and he's got worth and value in this life. That's what my legacy is.

I can't control— I got to interrupt you. Are you Grandpa Iron or you Grandpa Cowboy?

Iron Grandpa.

Iron Grandpa. Iron Grandpa. Okay, good. All right, I got it.

Thank you for clarifying.

James, James, is your family or your kids picking up, uh, endurance athletics? Is some— is, is that a part of their life?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, I get that question a lot, and I've, you know, I've got 4 girls And not that girls aren't into endurance racing, because there's a lot of phenomenal female athletes out there. In fact, I really respect the, the women and what they're dealing with today in terms of what a woman is, and, and, and men coming into women's sports. And, and just—

oh, by the way, James, speaking of, the next time you're on, we're going to get you on with my friend Rebecca Rush, the Queen of Pain. Oh, I know Rebecca, right? I, I don't know, I gotta bring you on together. You guys, literally, it's a chain for me to pay.

That would be so fun. I would love to rap with Rebecca. I've done her race once, and I actually purchased a signed jersey for charity, and it's up on my wall in my office. But we've never really had a conversation.

Yeah, let's do that. So then the next year, let's bring James back with Rebecca because it's literally like the king and queen of pain, and we can have more discussions about suffering and pain.

That'd be so fun. My kids, they have their own passions, their own pursuits, and my job as a dad is to support them in those and let them be who they are and not try to live my life vicariously through them. I do have one daughter though. She just, if I could pick a child that is most like me in terms of like mindset, she's super procrastinating like I am. And this is what a lot of people wouldn't understand from the outside looking in. In. I'm complacent sometimes and whatnot, but when I flip the switch and I decide to do it, I'm invincible. And she has that ability. And she is my one daughter who hates running, has done multiple marathons, and she is going to hate the entire process of an Ironman. In fact, probably the, the day itself. But she's like, I want to know what that feels like, Dad. And so I, I, I, and I think my son will do it too. I think I'll have two kids, maybe three that'll eventually do it, but not as a career, not as a passion, not a pursuit. I think they just want to know what Dad went through.

I'm curious, James, we've got a lot of parents in our audience. What's that look like on a day-to-day supporting those passions that your kids have? Because I mean, you said it, the benchmark for toughness and mental toughness and grit encouraging our kids and young people to push through things is pretty low. What's that look like for you on a day-to-day basis, Dad?

Yeah, great question. I've got, you know, I've got 5 different parenting styles because I've got 5 very unique kids, and I'm always amazed at like, how did these same— how did these 5 kids came from the same 2 people? And, but, but it's just about communicating with them, loving them, supporting them, and, and And I think the greatest thing that parents can do is ask a lot of questions, allow their kids to start problem solving. And then the hardest thing to do is to watch them and let them suffer through things as they navigate and figure it out, as they stumble and fall. Give them opportunity and allow their drive to be internal. We don't give any of our kids, hey, we'll pay you whatever if you do this, or we'll give you this if you do this. We kind of push them in ways ways that it becomes eccentric and they want to do it. And I could have pushed my son 3 or 4 years ago to start strength training, but I think it would have wrecked him. And now he's in the gym every single night and he's like, Dad, I am, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And he's super excited about it. He loves to come to report to me now. And for me, it was setting the example for him. Sometimes I, like, a lot of days I don't want to go to the gym, but I know my son's watching and I can't expect him to do that and 'cause he wants to be a professional or a collegiate lacrosse player. And so when I come out of the gym, I'll intentionally walk by my son so that he sees that I just did my workout. And now he does it on his own. And I think that's how you can support your kids the best is don't be the parent that tells them what to do. Do it first and then they will emulate what you're doing. And I'm not gonna go do nails for my daughter, but I'm gonna do things in my life that would want her to rise up to a level and be exceptional in whatever she's doing.

Right on. Yeah, model it first.

Similar, related, you've heard me talk, you mentioned a couple times already, heard you talk a lot about mindset. Also, um, I also know that your mindset seems to be defined by, uh, the mantra, the next step is not going to kill me. So, um, talk to me a little bit about how you develop that, how you think about training that. And, um, one of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is the kind of interrelationship between bias, mindset, and framing. They're very overlapping, but they're essentially our three biggest knobs for tuning our experience of reality. Right? And I don't think most people actually understand how flexible things like framing and bias and mind— like, you can actually play with those knobs a lot and really sort of shift your experience of, uh, of reality. Talk to me a little bit about how you think about mindset, developing mindset, coaching mindset, and, you know, anything else that my diarrhea of the mouth might have provoked.

Yeah, for, for me, I think it was an early realization, and I want to point out too that everybody Everybody's heart is different. And, and the next step won't kill you means like you're going to wake up on a day and feel completely defeated and you're not going to summit the mountain on that day. But it's about doing whatever you can to just progress a little bit and not slip backwards. And sometimes just very small wins create that momentum because when we start to fail and spiral, we get that mindset of I'm a failure and then we start to identify identify as that. And so that's why we have to do that next step won't kill me and keep that momentum going, even though we're not going to accomplish everything in one day. I was never going to do 100 Ironmans in one day, but I knew in my weakest, darkest moment I could be perfect for one second. And, and that allowed me to frame, okay, I could be perfect for one second again, and I can be perfect for one second. And nobody could ever convince me, no matter what doing, what space you're in, you can't figure out how to be mentally tough for one second. And in those darkest moments, that's all you can do. But you get into points where you're in a flow state and you're like, wow, I just had a perfect day. I just had a perfect week, man. Where did that month go? I was in such a state of flow, right? And so we get into those things, but that next step won't kill you. It's the concept of, okay, I'm broken, but I know I can be perfect. For one second. And as soon as we start framing it that way and approaching life that way, everything changes and more becomes possible. And we just have to curb and change and disseminate our expectations from time to time depending on where we're at and how we're feeling and what we're facing and the mountain and how many rocks are in our bag and all those things. And sometimes we completely offload them and sometimes we're carrying ours and 10 other people's. Well, our expectations have to change during those those things, or during those moments, in order for us to progress and keep going.

I, I so think— I've had this conversation a lot because there's a lot of, you know, when you talk about peak performance, resiliency comes up a lot. And I think you, you just hit on something that I thought for a long time. Oftentimes, like, resiliency, it gets— there's all kinds of fancy definitions around, and sometimes I just think it's the ability to, like, get up the next day, no matter how much yesterday sucked, and just try it again. Just run the experiment. It's going to suck again. Maybe it'll suck again, but maybe it won't suck again. And you just sort of get up and have enough courage to just run the experiment a little bit.

Um, and I love that concept because— and that's why people quit, is because we don't see those incremental gains day to day to day. And you get up today and like, you just— I love the way you just framed it. You have to courage to get up and do, do that again and try that a little bit different and see if this sticks in this moment. And it's just that thing. It's about taking that one step. It's being perfect for one second and having that courage the way you just said it to do it. And then all of a sudden, boom, we hit a tipping point. And it's that way with weight loss. I work with a lot of people that are trying to change their lives and get their lives back. Your body doesn't trust you yet. I said it before, you— it took you 20 years to put on the weight, and so it's going to take some while and some time and some adjustments and trust for your body to let go. Best example of this, I was training for a half Ironman, trying to get to the world championships, and I was doing the work every single day. And I finally got frustrated and I was like, man, coach, I think we're doing it wrong. Like, I'm not seeing any progress. And he was just like, trust the process, stay the course, do the work. And I was like, fuck you, man. And I was just like, okay, I'm gonna calm down a little bit, trust him. And there was one day, dude, my mile repeats dropped by 20 seconds. And it was just my body. We don't get to choose when our body absorbs and then translates and adapts to that workload that we're doing. And that's why everybody quits because they don't trust the process. They can't stay the course. They don't believe that it's going to happen. And I've just found time and time again that next step's not going to kill you and that's going to be one one small thin layer to progression and one step closer to that tipping point to where boom, my body adapts and it gives me all the rewards at once. And then once you feel that dopamine and get into that flow state in that one moment, you're like, okay, I want to do that again. So I'm just going to continue to trust the process, trust the process, boom, another breakthrough. And next thing you know, you wake up and you're like, dude, I think I can do 100 Ironmans.

Laird Hamilton once said this to me, it might be in Rise of Superman, Um, he was talking about surfing Jaws. He's like, most people, you know, they— the brain, it's a comparison engine. So they look at me surfing Jaws and they think, I could never fucking do it. It's a 50-foot wave. I can't surf that. What the fuck? What they forget is that the day before I surfed a 50-foot wave, it was 49.5 feet, and it was 49 feet, and then it was 48.5. He's all the way back to when I was 2 years old and my father took me, you know, into the beach and it was a half a foot wave. And you can't see all— that's invisible. That's invisible to everybody. So the thing I'm doing looks impossible, but in reality, for me, I'm just going like a tiny little bit harder and farther than I went yesterday. That's what's actually going on, and that's what it actually feels like. It doesn't feel like I'm doing the impossible. It feels like I'm just catching a bus, but I had to run a little bit for it.

James, I want to ask, besides, besides rest and quality sleep, um, what recovery methods are working best for you physically and mentally? I imagine you have to have so many different modalities and experiments you've run over time. Um, what are you doing these days?

Yeah, again, the, the secret of success is doing a lot of little things consistently over a long period of time, and I, I can't— it's hard for me to quantify because I try to do so many things and I just don't know which one is really working. You know, I, I bought into the cold plunge and the sauna and the therapy and the hyperbaric chamber and the red light. I have it all at my house. And it comes down to this. Our coaching philosophy is how high can you soar? Stress, optimize, adapt, and recover. How high can you soar as an eagle? Stress your body, optimize environment, stress, optimize, adapt, and recover. And it's only through recovery that you can adapt. So we have a huge emphasis on recovery, and it doesn't look like it in the 50 and the 100. Those are just like hold on for dear life and then figure it afterwards. But in training, massive emphasis on it. In life, massive emphasis on it. So to me, I can't exclude the things that you said because they are the most important. Food, recovery, community, and faith. To me, those are the biggest things, and if you have those, everything else falls in line. You've got to get at least, you know, as much sleep as you can. You've got to eat really quality foods. You've got to surround yourself with people in community. You have to do service, and it'll really all start to come to place. There's a really cool documentary on Netflix called Blue Zones, and they kind of took the highest concentration of centenarians and then pulled what was common between all of them, and it was service, it was motion, it was activity, it was community. It was all these beautiful things that we've gotten away from as a busy, crazy society with technology and all these things. And so I just think that those are the most important things. I think it's taking time for yourself, grounding yourself, unplugging is super important, and getting inside your own, your own brain. And forgiveness, I think, is a huge thing. We can do that and not carrying all the rocks I talk about this in my books all the time. The greatest gift anybody will do and to get yourself to a point of peace is forgiving yourself for your past. And to me, you do that and it opens up endless doors for you.

It's definitely— there's a lot of research in, in successful aging, and I wrote about a little bit in NAR that says we gain all these really cool cognitive skills in our 50s, 40s and our 50s. More intelligence, more creativity, more empathy, more wisdom, better perspective-taking, a bunch of stuff with it. It's an if-then, you know, it's not automatic. You have to do certain things to get it. One, you have to learn how to think creatively a little bit, but two, you have to forgive yourself and others. If you can't do that, which makes sense, like if you can't forgive yourself or others, you can't start perspective-taking or gaining more empathy or gaining more wisdom, right? Like if in a real, like in a legitimate neurobiological sense, the sages were right. Like the path to wisdom begins with forgiveness. Legitimately biologically is what we're learning.

Oh man, I absolutely love that. And you're right, as we age, perspective changes. And, you know, I talk a little bit about how we need more compassion and empathy for others because we have no idea where their mindset comes from, where their experiences have, which experiences have led them to the beliefs. We don't know what happened to them this morning that made them react in that way because we don't have that perspective. And I heard a great quote the other day and I think it was something to the effect of, your level of understanding falls to the belief or perspective that you have. And I think it's true. And we all— there's 8 billion people in the world, which means there's 8 billion different perspectives because we've all had different experiences that have molded and shaped us as people. And so I just try to, you know, the old saying of put yourself in someone else's shoes. I try to do that all the time and I try to extend compassion. And I understand that everybody hasn't had the same upbringing that I had or the opportunities or the experiences. And so I try to extend extend as much compassion and empathy as I can for others, um, in hopes that I can reach out to them and help them in any way, or just to give them the space and the respect that they need.

Do you— I'm just— this question Ryan, Ryan, Ryan asked, uh, Ryan wrote up. I'm going to ask his question for him, but, uh, are there any really— I, I'm interested. We just pushed out a paper on flow and intuition, so I'm looking 4 really memorable intuitive moments. We know flow amplifies intuition. So, and I know in, uh, in these kinds of, you know, con— endurance contests, intuition plays a really important role. So I was wondering if you had any sort of wild flow and intuition experiences along the way where like the voice in your head started telling you things that you were, you're like, whoa, this is absolutely right. And how did you know this?

Yeah, I'll tell you this, Sunny gets terrified when I jump on my bike and disappear in the mountains for 4 or 5 hours. That's my true flow state because I disappear, I'm totally unplugged, I'm vibing, I'm flowing, I'm cruising on mountains, I'm suffering up, I'm chilling down, and I just get super creative out there. In fact, every crazy, call it dumb, whatever idea, intuition, any of those things that I come home moment, she's like, oh damn, he's been gone for a while. What did he come up with? Right? And I'll just, I'll just come on. Like, I get so fired up from a ride and I literally, my entire career has been shaped from those flow moments that you just mentioned. Um, and I'm so grateful for them. I seek them. I try to get them when I need clarity. I gotta, I gotta unplug. I gotta go outside. I gotta escape in these beautiful Rocky Mountains here in Utah and just, just, just allow my brain to open up and think and, and just be creative. I think as a society, forgotten how to dream. We've gotten so inundated by technology and endorphin hits and social media and 8-second reels and all these things, like, it's really stifled our ability to, one, get into that flow state, but two, dream. I think dreaming is the greatest gift that we've ever been given, and I've watched so many people just, like, collapse and, and stop doing it and just settle for mediocrity and checking the daily box and the grind and they're doing themselves a massive disservice. And I, I challenge anybody listening today, dude, figure out flow and figure out how to get creative and dreaming again. It'll be one of the greatest gifts you ever do for yourself.

I could not agree, uh, agree more. Um, it, uh, the, the, the— so one of the things that I always— I think that's always— it's hard to navigate. We wrote about it a little bit in Stealing Fire, is that like you dream up these ideas in flow and because flow compresses time, you don't really have a good sense of how hard they're gonna be or how long they're gonna take. So you're like, I'm sure you've come back, I've done this to my wife where like I come back from a ski day where it's like my ski day is your bike day and I'll be filled with this idea. And as I'm like laying it out for my wife, I'll start to realize that this is not the 2-week project I dreamed up, that this was like, I'm talking about 2 years of my life, an intense amount of commitment it's still a good idea and I'm still gonna do it, but like, oh wow.

Yeah, I, I'm the same way. I've really had to start, being cautious with these ideas and understand, one, it's gonna take infinitely more time than you think it is. And that's something that we've been talking about this whole time. There's a common thread here, like it takes time and there's gonna be moments that you have to do these things in order for it to open up the other doors. And I think that's something That a lot of people don't understand too is you're not going to be ready ever to start. And if you come up with the dream, you just have to start because as you evolve through it, this idea is going to morph and this dream is going to change. And the reason it morphs and changes is because you get introduced to people down the road that you wouldn't have been introduced to if you didn't start. And they open up a door and make an introduction. That's why we're sitting here now on this call. I would've never met you had I had not been open to going to this event and having a conversation with you, and that opened a door, then now we're having an amazing conversation and we're going to continue on and it's going to open other opportunities for both of us. And so that's the whole point in life is just you have to show up, you have to participate, you have to act on those dreams. You'll never be ready to execute everything. And you learn and change along the way. I look at it as a river. And I see a lot of people fail because they're so rigid and strict on how they're going to get there and the way that they believe it's supposed to happen. And I believe you got to go with the ebbs and the flows and the ins and the outs and the ups and the downs and the banks and the curves. And that's where the true beauty of the entire journey unfolds.

Adaptive flexibility.

Adaptive flexibility. You make it sound so bucolic too. When in fact, like, I know it's a war zone, buddy, but you make it sound like, like, oh, we're gonna go walk through the meadow and it'd be nice.

Dude, if we paint the picture of a war zone, nobody's gonna have the courage to do it. So we have to make it at least look appealing for them to come and participate with us. Because you and I both know how epic and euphoric the rewards are, but if we don't at least lie to them a little bit, that they're never going to come on board and join us.

Man, I totally— I, you know, I— it's Stuart Brand once said, and I— it always sticks with me forever, that the, the, the only sustainable happiness is the satisfaction of a job well done. And I don't know if he's entirely right, but what I do know is that, like, the most interesting thing isn't the, like, I always try to tell people when they— I train a lot of people to write books, right? And everybody gets very precious about their first book. It takes forever. They want it to be right. And books are about careers. It's about what does it feel like on the fifth or the sixth one or that sort of thing in my mind, 'cause everything starts to change when it goes from this like Herculean project that is gonna completely define me to, oh, this is what I did with this 2 years, or this is what I did with this year. Rather than, oh, this is the thing that's gonna define my, my life. And it's when you start stacking up accomplishments that for, I think for other people might be a lifetime accomplishment. Like any one of your feats would've been a lifetime accomplishment for a lot of people. One or two books might've been a lifetime accomplishment for certain people. But there's something that happens when you've done, you know, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15 of these kind of things in a row. Um, that to me is— that's the thing I want people to have, because that's the— that's the like, holy shit, I had no idea I had this. Like, I had no idea. Like, none whatsoever. Um, I was thinking the other day that like, I started fear training in a sense. I was in 6th grade and I realized that I wasn't tough enough. And I like, I started by like, first I was going to expose myself to horror movies That's where I started. Then I went to roller coasters, then I went to martial arts and, you know, started getting punched in the face. And then I went hard into action sports. It was really like— but it was like, I was like, oh, I'm really not tough. And it's a long— like, it took me like 15 years to get to a point where I was like, okay, a little bit, you got a little grit now.

It does, man. It's, it's stacking those wins and creating momentum, and it's also realizing, like you just ran through, there's—

you're—

we're going to change a ton and do a bunch of different things.

I think what—

I think a big disservice kids are doing today coming out of high school or college or whatever it is, they're like, okay, what am I going to be for the rest of my life?

Oh dude, they think they should be able to have their purpose in like 10 minutes, like a weekend.

Yeah, it's insane. And I wish I could— I could wish I could drill that into kids' heads is like, you're gonna change careers 5 times. And if you're doing passion projects, it's gonna change and evolve. I would've never thought I would've been an author. Trust me, coming outta high school, I barely got outta high school. No way I was gonna, you know, we just wrote our second book. There's no way that would've happened. No way I would've said to be a subject of 2 documentaries or writing a screenplay.

Yeah, you're an extreme introvert. I know you like, just, yeah, man, I am. I like everything else, but like, I know you're like me.

You're terrified of people.

I know, man, we're cracked out of the same mold. And I've done some events where some high school friends have come and they were like, who the hell was that on stage? You know? And, uh, and it's just— I've— we, we just don't know. And I just, I just, I implore kids these days, like, it's okay to not know who you're gonna be yet. You just gotta— you're gonna evolve and change. It's gonna change 10 times. And so— and boys, I hate to do this, but I, I've got to jump on another— I got to jump on another call. So— but what this does is this just tease up another conversation that I, that I definitely want to have with you guys because I've really enjoyed today. So I just can't thank you enough, Stephen, for, for having me on the show.

This was delightful, uh, James. Um, it's always delightful, but, and I always learn just so much. But I like, I just thank you for everything you've done. Thank you so much for your humility and your humanity. It's just, it's just amazing to be around. I appreciate it so much.

Awesome, man. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Ryan. And I just want to take real quick, this is our new book, Iron Hope. It. I don't know when this is going to drop, but it comes out January 21st. As you know, Stephen, any pre-orders help us authors out, and then anything that we do just massively helps. I think this book— actually, I know, I know what's in this book. I know it's going to help people change life. We named it Iron Hope for a reason. And as I've traveled around the world, I've just recognized that people have lost hope. And there's some stories in there, but it's really prescriptive. There's some things in there that'll really help give you guidance, give give you counsel and help you take charge of your life. And at the end of the day, start winning the conversations in your head that you're losing.

Two things before you go. Yeah, one, we'll put it in the show notes. Two, send me the stuff you need to send me so I can pimp your shit on social media when it comes out, because that's worth celebrating. And three, um, let's also, uh, tell people where they can— Nick made a great movie about— Nick Naja made a great movie about you, Emmy Award filmmaker, friend, friend. Made films about a lot of people with Period Madness, for that matter. But, um, where can people check it out? Because it's awesome.

Yeah, that documentary, Emmy-nominated, it is on Amazon Prime right now. We're super excited to do it. And then Iron Hope is available anywhere books are sold, but we'll put the link in the show notes.

And Iron Grandpa, guys, it'll be the VR version of all this. It's coming soon. James, I love you. Thank you. Be good.

Thanks, Stephen. Have a great day. Thanks, Ryan. Bye.