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Music.

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Welcome to the Engineering Influence Podcast from the American Council of Engineering

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Companies, coming to you from New Orleans in our 2024 annual fall conference

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programming brought to you and sponsored by Bentley.

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Very proud to have them as our sponsor. And I'm joined today by our closeout

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keynote speaker, James Lawrence,

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who has, I mean, just, it's a perfect,

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I think actually what you did today was a great capstone to

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an event because we've had a couple of speakers who

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were talking about you know perseverance and kind of pushing limits

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but your story i think really puts

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a capstone on it because there are a few people well actually

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you are the record holder so you are the individual who has it to go from you

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know realizing that you wanted to challenge yourself identifying the fact that

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the iron man is probably one of the toughest if not the toughest a test of human

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endurance and then doing one, no, just doing two, no,

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going from record breaking 30 to 50 to 101 after the victory lap of accomplishing

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that in, in consecutive races.

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And, and just, I, I just, I don't know.

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Why, I guess, was it because the Ironman is known as just the toughest one?

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Is that what really attracted you to that range? Yeah, I mean,

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just that single day challenge. I think we should clarify that an Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim,

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a 112 mile bike ride, and then concludes with that full marathon run,

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26.2 miles, 140.6 miles.

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And, you know, like I said, my journey started with one.

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Yes. just like, oh man, that seems really hard, almost impossible.

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Right. And then, and then as, as I started that journey, my belief system changed

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and, and the, the purpose of it all was to truly find out what me,

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myself was capable of mind, body, and spirit.

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And man, we ended up really pushing some boundaries and some limits.

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I mean, it was, you showed that one slide of the first race the swimming portion

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yeah and you know i guess you know mentally you think okay.

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You swim the first part and you don't really think

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about how many other athletes are taking part in the race with you and you're

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on the water together and it's just unorganized chaos i mean and then you said

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you were pulled under and you didn't realize if you're going to get be able

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to get back up i mean how what how was that as an initial shock to say okay

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well i'm in it now and This is, this is real. Yeah. That was, that was the first real gut check. Yeah. You know,

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because you're under the surface of the water, you've been kicked in the face,

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you've been punched in the mouth. Yeah. And now it's, it's decision time. What am I going to do next?

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Yeah. And I, and I think there's, there's two options to go in life,

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right? We're either the victim or we become the victim. Yeah.

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And those are the two paths that a lot of people or that are options for people to take.

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Yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of people decide to choose upon themselves to become the victim.

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Yeah. And I hope people listening recognize or understand that it is a choice.

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Yeah. And I think that's the important thing, especially in today's society.

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It's a little too easy to give up. There are a lot of exit ramps that you can take.

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You can kind of hit a point. you know that the path to giving up has become

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so easy so comfortable so direct uh i mean.

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There was fast food and now there's fast food delivered to your home like you

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don't have to you don't have to like pause your video game and it gets delivered

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to you right yeah it's just so much ease so much comfort and again all of the

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technologies and options we have today,

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are a blessing and a curse yeah and we can either leverage them for good or

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we can allow them to cripple our lives and bring us down. Yeah.

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You know, there's a, there's a point where it's a discover can be greatly clear,

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frightening or clarifying. Um definitely clarifying and i you know

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that and you talked about the

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fact that in the back of your mind you know that voice would come back up all

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regularly no matter how many races you ran it

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was always there to say you know what no there's no

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point stop yeah and what you're talking about is is the you know i do a little

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bit on stage about how it's the bully inside of our heads and it's the conversations

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that we're having with each other and early in my career and earlier my journey

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i wanted to silence the bully i wanted to completely turn him off.

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And i've learned over time he's now my ally yeah and what i mean by that is

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if i haven't heard from the bully inside my head in a long enough period of

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time dude it flat out means i'm not showing up on my life i'm not pushing boundaries

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i'm not wrong yeah something's wrong and so i now use it as a barometer to,

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Oh, I'm sharing with my life because I'm getting pushback.

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I'm getting that conversation. It's starting to spike.

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And the trick is just learning how to quickly navigate and change the narrative

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instead of like allowing it to beat you down and take you on a path of quitting

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or despair or all of the things that lead us to giving up.

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And it's all a question of, I mean, it's, it's passivity or active living.

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It's, it's either you're a passenger in your own life and you're allowing that

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voice to guide you and take you where you need to go or where it wants to take

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you rather. Not a passenger, a conductor. Yeah. Or a conductor.

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Yeah. You want to be the conductor because either life is happening to you. Thank you, man.

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Either life is happening to you or life happens to you and then you decide what

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the outcome is going to be based on your effort and involvement.

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Absolutely. And I, I think that the, uh, the interesting thing,

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I also noted with the end slide that you had at the presentation of your family, um.

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And, and throughout the process, all of those races, your daughters,

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you know, really pushing you, keeping you going and noticing that,

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you know, when, when you got the, when, when you were at the point of can't

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go any further and talking to your daughter, um.

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At a younger age when that idea of quitting or stopping

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doesn't really register because you know with kids

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is that boundless optimism or there is no no it's like keep

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on giving you options to finish the race yeah

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it's interesting we were born as master problem solvers

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yeah i mean everybody at this convention i'm

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looking around and everybody can walk yeah and no

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baby in the history of babies have ever gone like oh man i should probably

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quit walking because i've failed so many times yes

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and we learned that over time but no

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we were born as master problem solvers for some

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reason again it's that path of least resistance to

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quitting and and comfort yes right and we just

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that becomes the new normal and then the problem quickly becomes the more we

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choose to not show up the the more often we fail yeah and then now we have a

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condition because now we've we're starting to associate ourselves as a failure

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and it becomes part of our identity, which now we're getting closer and closer to being that victim.

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And that's a path that we, nobody wants to go down or should go down.

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And that's, that's, that's the point of realization. Hopefully people will make that.

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Yeah. You can have it. You can have a resistance to taking a risk or pushing

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yourself the extra mile, but when that voice conducts your

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life and when that starts becoming your identity

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as a personality it's a good plan that's where

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everything changes that's when everything shuts down yeah and then like

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i said earlier um on from stage i mean i've

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had opportunity super fortunate i've spoken

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in over 50 countries and literally the number

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one question is how do i become more mentally tough yeah and it's

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it's through choosing experiences that'll challenge

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you or or create growth or discomfort yeah

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and then figuring out how to navigate that yeah there's actually

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a part of our brain i can't remember what it's called right now but it only grows

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when you intentionally do difficult things in your life yeah and and by doing

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those that part expands and now when real life happens an actual situation yeah

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you're ready to tackle it right take it take it take the pandemic you could

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look around and go oh man that's chaos that's confusion nobody knows what's happening.

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But why did we all handle it so differently? My belief is the individuals that

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intentionally did difficult things in their lives prior to that moment were

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armed and ready with the capacity to handle that and navigate it in a totally different way.

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Is this a situation that's how we're going to handle it? And you come out at

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the end and it's a learning experience. But you can't go from zero to a hundred.

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You got to start wearing the nose plug in the pool, gripping to the side of

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the, the, the wall gasping for air. Right.

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And slowly move that needle to the point where you get like,

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oh man, an Ironman a day is now routine. Yeah, absolutely.

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And I, you know, from a personal aspect, hopefully, you know,

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that, that people walk away from the, from the talk with that idea of,

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of, of pushing themselves professionally. I imagine that it's also equally transferable.

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The fact that, you know, you want to be in a position in business to be able to say,

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okay good we do x y and z very well but

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here's this other thing we want to do and there's a

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risk involved but we shouldn't

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be afraid to go out and try it because you

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know failure it's just you learn something along the way any

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invention that we experience today is because people have failed

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and continue to try to develop things in any

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category that's how we have new things

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that's how we have growth is because people failed and then made a

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conscious decision to show up and continue to face adversity

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until they had a breakthrough and learn from the

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mistakes that they made in the past it's it's really

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something you know to to think that um you

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know looking again going back to that last photo your your daughters your family

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grew up really around your racing yeah you know how just seeing that how is

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that in your opinion shaped who they are as people and just like how they approach

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challenges in their lives. Yeah, great question. And I have, you know, I'm very involved with my family and obviously this will

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sound totally biased, but I have five incredible kids. Yeah.

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And I have huge sample size in terms of like their friends and family members

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and whatever, who didn't choose to intentionally make themselves uncomfortable.

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I chose a path of least resistance. Yeah. And my kids thankfully are standouts. Yeah.

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And I'm, you know, I just had two of my daughters get married this year And

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I wasn't hesitant or nervous at all to send them into the real world because

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they have, they participated in challenge and adversity and growth and understand that failure is okay.

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And they, man, I have five very confident children and man, I'm just so excited

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for them to take on the next chapter of the lives. And we attribute it to literally giving them a front row seat to all of the

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emotion, all of the success, all of the failures, not sugarcoating any of it

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and allowing them to be part of that journey. Because a lot of times people want to hide that from their kids.

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They want to be able to say, inoculate themselves from, from,

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okay, that's, you don't want to see failure because that's going to,

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you know, but actually having that front row seat from failure to success.

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Actually gives them an idea of what success could be and also what,

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what, what not to give up and just keep on pushing.

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Yeah. And then, and then being able to communicate what's happening with them, they grow.

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There's so much, kids are so resilient and they're, they're massive sponges.

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In fact, man, I, I've learned more from my kids than my kids probably have for me.

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And, and I think that's, that's one of the gifts of, of parenting and having

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kids is it, it'll, it allows us to pause for a moment and say, why is this happening?

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How do I deal with this personality type how do i deal with this uh

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complication or this you know

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adversity all these things i think kids are a great avenue to

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learn those things yeah and become a more cohesive

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unit so i know you have two

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documentaries right yes so the both

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are available online streaming and netflix

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right amazon prime amazon prime yep uh

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so um the first the first one's about the 50 the first

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one's about the 100 and it just got released and super pumped

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it was just nominated for an emmy oh congratulations and so we uh

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that's awesome uh the the uh the banquet is

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next month in all right in november and so we're gonna go

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claim our emmy yeah congratulations that's big that's big yes so what what is

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next i guess the big question is you i mean you conquered the hardest endurance

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test that we have physically what what is the next thing that you want to try

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to push a limit on yeah it's a great question and for me.

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I'm satisfied with that effort. Um, made mistakes on the 50.

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I got to reset that on the a hundred. Um, and for me, I now have to ask myself a question anytime an opportunity or

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a challenge or what's next comes about, what's the sacrifice it's going to take.

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And then what's the benefit to my family, my community, myself,

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if I can't make those two things line up, like I have to pass.

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And what's next for me is truly doing this type of thing,

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trying to reach as many people as we can give hope to

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people that have lost hope yeah um our new book that's uh

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coming out in january of 2025 is called iron hope

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yeah um and that's you know what my whole presentation about

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it's giving people hope on on their journey where they maybe

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um didn't have it and so what's next for me

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is more of this yeah spreading the message more stages more

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coaching more mentoring giving people the hope

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to tackle their version of whatever we did

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because you also heard me talk about everybody's heart is different yep and

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so everybody most people don't

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want to do a iron man let alone a hundred consecutive and

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so it looks and feels very different for each person yeah and that is my hope

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is that i can reach as many people as possible yeah get people to start dreaming

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again that's the big thing i know i know start thinking actually imagining and

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and like you said imagination like there's something that is the greatest gift

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that we've forgotten how to do yeah and actually taking the time to actually

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follow it and just not live life like every.

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Day is the same you look back and you're like what happened in the last six months it's

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just a blur because you were just kind of just riding the same things and checking

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boxes yeah uh the greatest gift that people can do is to start showing up in

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their lives to have zero regret as morbid as it sounds tomorrow's not guaranteed

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yeah start living today man because we just we just truly never go nobody in

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the history of death has ever been like oh man. I'm so grateful I did less in my life. Yeah. I'm so grateful I didn't take those risks.

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I'm so grateful I had like, even my dad is super conservative and grew up.

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And I, I recently asked him, he's 76. I recently asked him, Hey, what's, what's a regret you maybe had in your life?

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And he was like, I didn't live more. Yeah. I was too conservative. I didn't take those chances. I forgot how to dream.

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Yeah. And that was so like, oh my gosh, how many people are living that to where

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they get to the end and they're like, oh man, I wish I would have taken more.

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I'm going to get to the end. And then I'd be like, man, I laid it on the line. Yeah. I lived life.

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And I tried to bring as many people to the mountaintop with me as I could.

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Yeah. I mean, how many stories haven't been told? How many films haven't been made?

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How many pieces of art haven't been produced? How many ideas?

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How many ideas did I realize? Yeah. Because people didn't decide to say, I'm going to take the risk and see what happens.

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That's the biggest gift I can give anybody is just start tomorrow. Yeah. Wake up tomorrow.

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This is the fact. If forgive yourself for your past and wake up every single

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day with a blank sheet of paper and create whatever that day is going to be,

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if you can do that, forgive yourself for your past and show up,

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show up tomorrow and every single day and live the life you designed for yourself,

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you're going to be a very happy individual.

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Yeah. It doesn't take a huge change of style. Like I'm going to run a marathon today.

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It could be, I'm going to do one small thing. Well, and it's interesting you

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say that because that's the problem that people do is they're like,

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okay, I'm now motivated. I'm inspired.

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I heard James speak and I'm going to go make 20 changes tomorrow.

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And then they, they miss 18 of them. And then they beat themselves up and now

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what do they become? They associate themselves as a failure. So again, let's simplify it. Let's choose one thing to change and start doing

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that one thing tomorrow. And, and really this would be a great challenge for people.

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Like let's, let's choose 12 things and only add one every single month.

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And by the end of the year, could you imagine the different person you would

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be? Yeah. It's an entire year of change. Right.

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You're changing the next month. You're only doing two things and now you've,

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that's become a habit in the next month. Now, okay, I'm doing three things, but they're manageable because you're growing

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in to that change in that individual. Right.

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And you would look back and again, nobody's going to look back and go,

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man, I wish I wouldn't have made those 12 changes in my life and been patient with it. Exactly.

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Right. Instead. They're like, oh man, a year ago, I quit on the 12 things I wanted to do.

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Yeah. Simplified and make it a little bit easier for yourselves so that you

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can, because now you start associating yourself as a winner.

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You've created momentum and now you become unstoppable.

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There you go. Perfect. So watch James's documentaries on Amazon Prime.

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Get his book coming out very soon and start making that list of things you can

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change and take control of your life. James Lawrence, thanks again for taking the time to speak with us. Thanks, brother.

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Really appreciate it. I think the crowd's left energized and I think it's a

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great way to cap off the program. Good, man. Thank you. Fantastic. And again, this has been Engineering Influence,

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a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. We'll see you next time.

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Music.