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Today’s intention is:
To begin.
Even if you have only two minutes to give today, give ‘em. You’ll be drastically closer to being the person you want to be than if you don’t.
He wasn’t born to cover 14,000 miles in one spring season.
But after 17 years of trial and error, it can look like it.
James Lawrence AKA The Iron Cowboy wants everyone to know his secret,
“Nobody’s the expert at the beginning of their journey. Nobody. You have to meet yourself where you’re at today… the hardest thing to do is to start. Because that’s where the highest amount of struggle is. That’s where our experience, momentum, and success is at its lowest.”
I stumbled across James’ mind-blowing journey a few different times this year. Most recently, I heard him speak on the Rich Roll Podcast.
During the conversation, he details his humble beginnings as an endurance athlete,
“Our journey started as a 4-mile fun run that I struggled through.”
That was 2004. Then he spent four years working his way to completing just a single, half Ironman (which I completed myself last month. Trust, it’s plenty hard!)
A full Ironman involves swimming 2.4 miles, cycling 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles.
Earlier this year, James completed that 140.6-mile journey - 101 DAYS IN A ROW.
And while that feat inspires and impresses, it’s not what strikes me most.
What does?
James really is just a regular guy.
He isn’t some endurance-freak-of-nature purpose-built to crush distance races.
He was well into adulthood when he completed that first 4-mile race.
Day by day, race by race, and seventeen years later, he manufactured The Iron Cowboy,
“You can’t go from 0 - 100 and miss all of the moments in between… Everybody has a beginning, middle, and end to their journey.”
He started just like the rest of us: clueless, incapable, and lost.
But, he started.
And so can you.
Remember,
Don’t wait. Start small. Learn as you go.
🙏🧡🤘
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Feeling extra intentional? Listen to the Student of Intention Podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The one idea that helped a regular guy complete 101 Ironman triathlons in 101 days