James Gardner | Persevering Through Hardship

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by Ghostwriters & Co.  Earn more money by publishing better content and learn how do we increase your thought leadership so you can build your brand head over to ghostwritersandco.com for more information that’s ghostwritersandco.com. And now your host Joel Mark Harris.

Joel: Hello, and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host Joel Mark Harris. We are interviewing James Gardner today who is a high-performance coach with LeapZone Strategies. He has a very interesting background. He was a world-class athlete as a rower. He got into acting, moved to New York and LA and then up to Vancouver.

We talk a lot about what motivated him. We talk about who he hopes to help as a high-performance coach and what he’s up to today. He is in the process of writing a memoir, a book, so that will be released shortly. We talk about how he wrote it and his writing process. So this is a great interview. He’s a super interesting guy, and so hopefully you enjoy it.

Hi, James, welcome to this show. How are you today?

James: Hey, Joel, I am fantastic. Great to be here and thanks for having me.

Joel: Awesome. I want to start off with rowing and I was listening to a podcast that you were on and you started your rowing career because of a Rob Lowe movie that you saw. I mean, there’s got to be a great story to that.

James: Well, there is, I suppose, the end result was great.

Joel: I love eighties movies.

James: Yeah. I know some of them are definitely heavy on the cheese. It was called Oxford blues and it’s a story about, Rob Lowe’s character who’s this brash young American who was a rower and he is a single rower.

He rose by himself and he falls in love for this English lady and wants to go to Oxford. And when he goes to Oxford, he learns and joins the rowing team. It was love at first insight into the world of rowing in terms of the cultural history, the tradition behind rowing, which I had no idea, was there and neither did neither does Rob Lowe in the movie. And it’s kind of a hard journey for him to put his ego aside for the good of the team.

Joel: You had quite the career as a rower. Can you tell us a little bit about that because you went into coaching as well? You got quite into it just because of this one movie, it seems.

James: It’s true. The movie was a catalyst, rowing is one of the few sports. Still to this day where you can walk on as a freshman at university, without ever having touched an or in your life. Most people come into rowing without ever rowing before the university level, especially in the States where I’m from.

And, I wanted to play sports and it was an opportunity and I’m very much of a team guy, so it seemed like a natural fit. And, and then it, it just, I fell in love with it. Its beauty, its rhythm, its power its team. It’s selflessness. It’s all these amazing things that come together. And, and yeah, when I went all in and I spent about seven years.

Going on the university circuit, including a couple of, metals at the nationals in the university circuit. And then I get invited into the U S national system development system. So, I’ve you know, I’ve won a ton of metals, in that journey, which culminated in, in 1991, I was, I was representing the North squad at the United States Olympic Festival.

And so what that is, is, in the States, every, every non-Olympic year, they have North South East, West, East, West. They bring people together to participate in pre-Olympic games and it’s. I mean, it’s decked out, just like it’s the Olympics. We went to LA, there was an Olympic village. We were decked out in all the swag, the music, the Olympic Anthem is playing everywhere and it was an amazing experience. My partner and I won the gold medal. So it was. it was my Olympic moment, even though it wasn’t quite the Olympics, if you will. And then that evolved into coaching as well. I became a head coach for a number of years. ironically I left the sport for about 15 years and reconnected, just shy of.

Of 40. And then I, I got back into competing and coaching and, and then I went on the international circuit as a masters athlete and, did, did quite well Canadian champ, second in the US and my age category. And so it was, it was a good end of a journey to a, a chapter of my life, if you will.

And have you always enjoyed, I mean, I’m assuming that you’re, you know, for lack of a better term, a bit of a jock, enjoy athletics growing up. What other sports did you play?

James: Well, thank you because I never considered myself a jock.

Joel: I say it in the most endearing way.

James: I want it to be the jock when I was a kid. I grew up with asthma and so I was very timid and frail. I was always in the hospital and so I played basketball and I played little league baseball, but I never could really. It was never really good. Good. And even though I wanted to be, and I nor could, I feel like I could always participate because of my asthma.

I can look objectively at myself. I have the ability I have coordination, so I can do a lot of things. I can try sports that I had never done and do pretty well at them. So obviously that was there from a, from a younger age, of course. but it’s funny. I always want it to be the jock and I talk about this in my book that I’m writing.

I assumed. Being a hero with being the jock who had the varsity jacket, because when I was in high school and even in middle school, that’s all the girls would talk to with those guys, you know? So anyway, there’s money, jock story.

Joel: So, did you grow out of your asthma? you know, again, listening to you talk about it.

I really connected with the stories about your asthma. Because I had asthma growing up as well. Not nearly as severe as you did. My dad had really severe asthma and he told me about how he, would be in bed days and days. And he would not be able to go out or do anything.

That’s where his love of reading came, which he passed down to me. So in a way, the reading, writing, aspect of his life is from the asthma.

Joel: How did you overcome that challenge, to become, you know, Oh, you know, world-class athlete.

James: Well, to answer your first question, I’m looking over there cause my asthma inhaler is still in the County. I still deal with it.

It’s more of an itch that scratch is one that I need to scratch once in a while. It’s not it’s, it’s definitely not been in the driver’s seat for a long time. it was an interesting journey, Joel, because what, what culminated before I joined rowing. And there’s a reason why I joined rowing too, was, I got to the point in my senior year.

It was my senior year in high school. And I had an asthma attack in the middle of the night, as you know, I mean, asthmatic allergies, all of these things kind of change of seasons and, you know, like, so I could sneeze and have an asthma attack. I could cough, my nose would get solid. My sinuses would swell up and I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t breathe.

Well actually I was just having an asthma attack. I went to the bathroom and I woke up with paramedics around me. And so what had transpired was I had stopped breathing and my dad took a spoon and had to prime my mouth open to give me mouth to mouth. The paramedics came and I was kind of when I came to, I was fine, I felt completely normal other than I was basically naked on my bathroom floor with strangers around me.

Right. So, but it was a defining moment for me, Joel, because that very next day, the very next day I had a tennis match, in high school that I was playing in. And so I was, there was no way in hell I was not going to that tennis match. And so I remember distinctly it was the one time in my life where I played way above my pay grade.

I was playing out of my skin. It was almost as if I was playing against the asthma on the other side of the net, if you will. And I was dying, I had bloody knees. I was diving. I was making all these shots that I would never make it a normal day. And then the match went on where everyone else had finished their matches.

So now the whole two teams are watching me and this guy go to five sets in the, in the final or yeah, in five sets, a tiebreaker in the final. And I lost. And, to this day, though, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a loss because I won. And from that moment I vowed that I would never. Let asthma take control of my life again.

And, and that’s why that summer when I saw Oxford Blues, I’m going to row. And my asthma specialist said, no, you shouldn’t row. And I’m like, I’m going to row, I was called to do it. And it wasn’t easy. Thankfully that’s what I got my inhaler. So I got my inhaler right before I joined the growing team.

So that helped. I would have it in my spandex, my tights, and I’d have it in the boat, duct tape to the side of the boat. It was still a process because I was still cardiovascular weak. But what you ask the question you asked in terms of how did I overcome it?

It was the physical demands of the sport that strengthened my, my heart and my lungs ability to when I started to have attacks, they weren’t as profound because my lung capacity was getting stronger. My heartbeat was getting stronger, and the ability to allow me to breathe even through an attack.

So, and as that, as that started to grow, and my fitness started to really peak it. It just didn’t seem to have a stranglehold on me as much.

Joel: What is it that you really enjoy about rowing?

James: Oh man, you got a few hours.

Joel: I do. Yeah.

James: Go ahead. Good. All right. You know, Joel, I may be biased here, but I’m going to give you my opinion.

Cause you asked, rowing to me, rowing to me is the ultimate team sport. I don’t care what anyone says. There are no time outs. There’s no offense/defence. There’s no someone can, the play’s over here so that person can fuck off. Pardon my French for two, for 30 seconds or five seconds or whatever, while the place whistled dead.

You’re in a boat. And when you’re in an eight-man boat, there’s eight, there are nine souls, there’s eight rowers and, and a Coxen and every move is inextricably linked to the next. If you’re off a millimetre, your partner has to compensate that and feel the boat and feel. And so, and you’re on the water and you’re against the wind and there’s all these elements.

If you have 12-foot oars that extend out with all these variables. And so, and. You’re giving everything you have on it. It’s like doing a leg, a thousand problem, a thousand-pound leg press on a tight rope. That’s exactly the way to think of it. 250 times in a row. And so it’s, it’s such a, it’s such an aggressive, violent sport in a shell of beauty and rhythm.

And a team dynamic where everything, once you step foot in that boat, ego goes, there’s no, there’s no room for it. rowing shell does not suffer ego and, you’re in it when you’re in that boat. You’re not in it for yourself. You’re in it for the guy in front of you, the guy behind you, the guy up at the back of the boat, wherever it is.

And that’s what I love about it. It’s going into. Into battle for the man next to you. Not, not for self-glory, a hundred percent.

Joel: I think this is a good segue to my next question is obviously being a high-performance coach, you coach a lot of high performers. What is the similarities between rowing and business?

James: Oh yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot. And I was talking about the CEO of the day on a show, There’s no, it’s not a coincidence that many Olympic athletes end up teaching leadership training going in and working with companies. Because when you, when you put on the hat of a high-performance athlete or coach, you do things that are very strategic.

There’s a lot of moving parts. It’s understanding how things are positioned, how to get team buy-in and solidarity, understanding a common goal, creating a strategy for training quadrennial, creating a strategy for business growth for creating an online program to coincide with a brick and mortar location.

And, and you have to, you have to put on a strategy cap. It’s no different. It’s what is your end goal? Olympics. What is your end goal? Online program. Okay. Then we go into periodization training. Okay. What’s your one of a quadratic. What’s your two. And you map it out into quarters, same things strategically in business, reverse engineer back.

What’s your, what’s your year one objectives. Great. What’s your, your quarterly objectives let’s work back was the ebb and flow of training. And so here’s a huge similarity. Athletes train themselves as you at a high level. And it’s a chessboard. It’s understanding different elements of training at different times so that they maximize their ability and understanding the power of recovery.

Right when adaptation happens in, sorry, growth, excuse me. Growth happens in the adaptation phase and we act, we adapt when we recover, how do we reduce our fatigue index, our residual fatigue as an athlete so that we can come back and then adapt and grow in business. It’s the same. I have entrepreneurs that are, that are go, you know, that are just go, go, go, go, go.

And yet. You know what they need the recovery time. They need to put, pump the brakes, take, take the gas off reassess, let their body spirit, mind, decompress recharge, examine your business. Okay. What’s working well. What’s not working well let’s course. Correct. You know, and, and I, I say this, I use Gary V as an example because when Gary V came out, you know, years ago I’ll go back five or six years, he was all about, I sleep four hours a night, I’m going to work all this.

Now he’s like, that’s four hours has gone to eight hours. Right. So, and there’s a reason because it, no one can sustain that. At the end of the day, you cannot red line all the time. You need to understand priorities, strategize athletes and business owners. Also, I truly believe they need to understand their business and an athlete.

Their business is I’m not just showing up to do what the coach tells me. I understand this training is for this purpose. This is design. This is the physiological effect it’s going to have on me. This training that I do off the water is going to allow me, this is going to bring in the strength gains is going to, you know, and so you smart athletes, good athletes understand the process.

And I feel the same for successful business owners and entrepreneurs out there. You have to understand the elements of your business. especially Joel, the creative types out there. I’m very fortunate enough to be involved with a Heartland company and leaves on strategies and, and me being a heart-led human being.

I understand energetics and I understand all that. And we work with a lot of those companies. But you still got to put the strategy, work in, you need some of that kind of rigidity, some boundaries in there. You can’t just be like, Oh, well, you know, the universe will have it mapped out. Well, the universe isn’t just going to let an Olympic athlete win a gold medal. Right. So there you have it.

Joel: Before you became a coach, you went into acting and that seems kind of like a weird, career path from, you know, you know, trained athlete, someone who, you know, has gone to the pinnacle of their, you know, of rowing. Y can you explain a little bit about the thought process behind the decision to going to acting and, and we, you know, kind of a little bit of why you decided to do that?

James: I know I have a few kind of zigs and zags along the way. Well, the thing was, is, is when I first took up my coaching. Mantle. I was still young. I was, I was fresh out of university. I was a head coach at 21, 22, 23 years old. And I knew instinctively though.

There was always a calling for me to do more and instinctively I’ve always, I, you know, ever since I was a kid, I either wanted to be an athlete or I wanted to be an actor. It was those two things. And, and the one thing that rowing instilled in me. Was, I can do anything I want to do. If I can overcome laying on the bathroom floor, you know, peed my pants and sitting there half-naked and get up and play a tennis match and then come out of that.

And all of a sudden do one of the most demanding sports in the world and succeed at it. I’m like, no, I can, I can do anything. The unknown doesn’t scare me. And so I, I got, I honored that adventure spirit in me. I truly did. And so I went to New York. I had a manager, I got a manager and I just started to make shit happen.

I met a publicist and we put together a one-man show. and so with zero acting experience, all of a sudden they had a one man show that ran off Broadway, Broadway for nine months. And, you know, and I, I started to kind of live that dream and that’s really what I wanted to do for a number of years.

And of course, though, over time, it’s a very, it’s a very difficult industry and a lot of rejection, and there’s a lot of egos and there’s all these things that can beat you down. And I will say that back then, I was not equipped as a human being to really handle the limelight that occurred periodically.

Yeah. And the rejection and the lack of self-worth that occurred. So as most people know, many, most people know that actors always are either waiters or they’re bartenders or they’re. Right. So, so for me, what I was doing on the side to get steady income, as I started bartending. And what had happened was the natural progression is all of a sudden I became a bar manager and all of a sudden it became a lounge manager.

I started opening up kind of high profile places in New York. Being a manager is coaching you’re. You are a coach. And so I was able to kind of, I always had leadership in my blood. And so now I was really coaching, but just in a different arena. And New York led to LA and same thing.

And so I opened up a few properties in LA and when I moved up to Vancouver, I started to become a director of operations and a general manager and running resorts. And it’s like being a head coach. It’s the same. So it’s you learn the performance of, I had the performance of sport. Now I learned the performance of, of the business dynamic of running a team, you know, how, how to, how to do all those things and understanding finances and allocating budgetary things and all of that nature.

Right. And so it was kind of a natural progression of the coach that I think has always been in me.

Joel: How do you overcome these challenges? Beause I think a lot of people get stopped by the fear of like, Oh, I can’t go to New York and become an actor. I can’t become a world-class athlete. Is it something that’s just innate in you or is it something that you learned?

James: It’s a great question. It’s a really good question, Joel, because I think it’s a bit of both. I do feel everybody has that ability. I do. I’m not cut from a different cloth. We’re all genetically the same, in a sense. I feel that we have that ability.

I think what started for me though, is little Jimmy, I was always a dreamer, always a dreamer. I looked at dreams and, and movies. And, and when I was, you know, swept away by heroes and situations on the screen, and now I’m like, well, why not me? Why not me? And so I’ve always adopted that mindset of like, well, really, what have I got to lose?

When you’re younger the stakes of life aren’t that grand. And even like even moving to New York, even though it was a big deal at 23. Three. It really, it really wasn’t in the grand scheme of life compared to some of the some of the heavier decisions that I’ve made later on in life.

I mean, it’s like freaking Sesame street versus an Academy award-winning drama at that point. I always go back to the dreamer and I do believe why not me? That’s a tool and a mantra that I’ve used a lot. And because I can’t who’s to say I can’t. And, you got to find that courage start first step starts with courage period

Joel: Going back to you. So you’re a manager. And then how did you make the leap into a performance coach?

James: For business and personal and business development? Yeah, well, it was, it was really interesting actually, and very serendipitous. This is where the acting came back in and, and opened up another door for me. So. while I was running a resort we decided to do a marketing campaign with, with, with Shaw TV, which is a local cable company, all boats, all across Canada at this point, and do a series of commercials or a series of things where we promoted the resort and it was going to be done.

And so I was like, okay, this is really great. I love this avenue. The owner told me to gave me the green light, but I told Shaw, I was like, you know what though? The caveat is because I was in this world, I want to host that. I feel exemplifies what our resort is about and so I couldn’t, I couldn’t sign off on some of the hosts that they were bringing to me.

So finally I said, you know what? I’ll do it. Why not? I mean, okay. I’m uncomfortable in front of the camera. Okay. So the exact, the show executives were like, and I said, just trust me. I did it and we shot an episode and they were like, Renee was the sales rep. And they were like, Renee, where’d you find this guy?

Where’d this guy come from. Right. And not to toot my own horn, but I’m just. Uncomfortable in front of the camera. Right. I’ve had some experience, so I get it. And, and so I started to do those spots. And what had happened was at that time, Joel, I was in definitely in a life transition. I was like, you know what, the six figure corner office salary wearing my suits and that’s not floating my boat anymore.

And I was really wanting more of that. Personal growth development and inspirational content. And so to feed that and honour that creative spark, I said, you know what, I’m pretty sure originally I was going to do a podcast actually is what I was going to do. And then I’m like, why don’t I approach Shaw by having my own television show, where I sit down and maybe interview people.

So I did and, the inspirational 30 was born. And so I had a show that ran for a couple of seasons. I had 24 episodes, 23 episodes, where I sat down with inspirational people from all walks of life, Olympic athletes, authors entrepreneurs, well wellness advocates. And as I was searching for. My guests, I ran into Isabelle Mercier who had just moved to Vancouver Island fresh off a very empowering Ted talk that she, she had done.

So she was my guest on season one, episode number three, and we hit it off. We hit it off, of course. And, and lo and behold, I think it was, four months after the show aired. I ended up working for her and working for leaves zone company, leaves those strategies for her company, doing exactly that taking my performance sport background, like performance business background, my end, my inspirational self-growth and all that.

And my acting experience, if you will tying that all in, because now I actually w when I work with clients, I do a lot of on-camera stuff with them. Right. I helped them with their videos and create scripts and contact. And so it’s all played out perfectly, which is beautiful. When you think about it. Hmm.

Joel: It kind of ties itself altogether. Right? All, all your different, jobs, all your different hats that you wore, come into play here, right?

James: I all roads lead to something and it was just, it was a reminder to me of just that. And I gave a lot of gratitude for that.

It’s like everything served a purpose, you know, places that I lived, cities that I lived and mistakes failing forward moments that, that led to different doorways of opportunity or, or, or. No self check-ins get my head on straight and elevate myself. It all led to led to where I am now, which is finally is I can truly say an amazing, an amazing place. And, it, it took some, it took some deep.

Joel: What did you learn?

James: How amazing the human condition is that is as how vastly different we truly are. And, and in the way people view the world, the way that each of us handles hardship, pain, disease, victory, defeat, all of those things at the end of the day, though. You know, we’re still, we’re still a soul and we’re a heartbeat.

And I think, I think that’s the beauty of it is that we’re all connected. And, and, and especially in this time, you know, I feel like we’ve probably never been more connected with each other. And that’s, that’s a beautiful thing. when you can shift your perspective to what the chaos is surrounding us and realize, you know what, there’s some beauty. There’s some beauty in everything.

Joel: And is there a typical client that you work with?

James: Oh, well with leaps, those strategies we predominantly work with business owners or business startups. So it’s, it’s geared towards that way, like geared towards that. However, I always say, I ultimately, I never coach a business. I coach people, I coach the person behind the business. we, a brand is built on someone and somebody’s energy and their personality.

And, and so we are in the business of making human beings better. And, yeah, in terms of clients. So, you know, it’s, we have a CrossFit Electrum we, you know, we, predominantly business heavy. We don’t do, we don’t do a lot of executive-style coaching or life coaching. We have some clients that seek that. Usually that’s part of what we do with our business, our business sector.

Joel: Gotcha. And is there a roadblock that you commonly see people come up against and, and how do they, overcome those?

James: Yeah, well, there’s definitely a, there’s definitely a few, for sure. Wow. How do I narrow that down to a couple?

well, yeah, so business owners, many business owners are not clear on how to, how to accurately differentiate themselves from their competitors. And it leaves only use the term brand DNA which is a series of markers, cornerstones that we put together that we work with clients to understand because it becomes a.

It becomes a Rosetta stone as language marker that creates congruency in everything they do, because ultimately you can have the best product under the sun, if you can actively convey that and convey how that product is different and why someone should desire to work with you regardless of price, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

So clear, concise language is huge because many human beings, many of us don’t necessarily. Like to talk about ourselves. So they don’t want to, they don’t want to embellish. They feel like it’s, Oh, it’s my ego. And you know, it’s, it’s, it’s learning to coax that out of the say, Hey, you are unique. We need to create that uniqueness to the language which will serve your client base.

So that’s a big thing that I see. the second one would be a lot of people are not crystal clear on whom they’re talking to. They’re ideal clients. So we use the term, the jungle, and a lot of times, especially business owners that are startup. They want money for that.

I’m not going to turn away any business. And so they just start speaking to the entire jungle and, you know, if they can get clear that, you know, my services. Can best serve a lion, a tiger and a draft. And I understand equivocally what, what each of those three, three animals, what their pain points are, what their client avatars are.

Then when I do my marketing, I know how to speak to that lion, which is going to be different than how do I speak to the giraffe and how I speak to the tire. So ideal clients, and the power of saying no, there’s so much freedom and saying, no. These are my boundaries. These are my clients. This is my time.

I honour myself. I’m not going to work 12 hours every day. Right. The power of knowing, creating boundaries.

Joel: Mm. I think figuring out who you’re talking to and. Look like you, who, how you are, different from your competition. I think that’s super important, you know, especially now where, you know, you know, the economy is just growing and growing and, you know, You can hire somebody in Asia, you can hire somebody in South, you know, South America, Europe, there are no limits to who you, can hire or who you can, work with.

And so I think that. Though, you know, it’s very hard because now instead of competing with, you know, somebody in Vancouver, let’s say, or Vancouver Island, you’re competing against the whole world. And that’s very daunting, I believe for business owners because you know, they have not to S distinguish themselves from their competition and locally, but globally as well,

James: Yes, Joel, a hundred percent, especially now that the rules have changed where now everything is remote.

And, and now it’s like, you need to, you need to speak, you need to speak clearly, concisely, impactfully, and, and really get to the emotional thread of, of your clients. Because people at the end of the day, people work with us. People work, people buy, whatever it is, they it’s through emotion. Are they emotionally there?

They don’t buy with their intellect. They buy with their heart. And so, you have to find those clear ways to have that communication and own it. It’s ownership. You need to own your identity that you’re creating just, just like the personal brand walking around. So, you know, it took a while. And the James Gardner that you see now is the same James Gardner you’d see it Starbucks or the same James Gardner that’s coaching a million-dollar client or the same James Gardner that’s at the gym. You know, there’s, there’s no differentiation. It’s like I’ve shown up and owned who I am now. Yeah.

Joel: How do you work with clients typically and get to where they want to be?

James: We work with clients and get to where they want to be in terms of, achieving goals.

Joel: It can mean, you know, if somebody comes to you and says, you know, I’m not sure where my brand positioning is, you know, I’m, I’m unclear about what we represent, what are some concrete ways that you work with them to, you know, help them, you know, see those markers in, you know, in the pathway.

James: So you just said it right there. Oh, well I’m only clear of something. And at the end of the day, I think step number one, that we work with. Every person that we work with business person doesn’t matter. We have to get clear on what it is. We want human beings to tend to get caught up in the house. I don’t want to do that.

I can’t do that. I can’t do it. How am I going to do that? How am I going to move to New York and be an actor? No, it’s just, I, this is what I want. And so we always say, once you get crystal clear on what you want, how will show itself. So it’s, that would be the first thing. and then it is breaking it down.

It is reverse engineering. Once you’re clear, I have a client that wants a bucket list. I want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I want him 50 great, clear, reverse engineer back. When’s the timeframe, Ari and eight months. Okay. So what’s, what’s the plan, right? What do we do? Break it down. Okay. This is the plan for this week.

This is the plan for week two. It’s the same in business. I want to create two new program offerings in this year. When are we going to launch? Okay, well, quarter one is going to be this. We have to create this type of thing and you break it down into its smallest bite sizable chunk that you’re going to eat the elephant.

It’s no different. and just taking the very first step, whatever step that is because, you know, I think we all know that first step sometimes is the hardest we’re creatures of momentum. Then businesses thrive on momentum. And so momentum doesn’t have to be these big needle movers. It can literally be a baby step and then it’s inertia.

And then you start to trust. You start to trust the work. And that’s a huge component of what we do getting, getting someone to trust their truth. 10%.

Joel: How do you use your vast experience, you know, through the different hats that you’ve worn, to help your clients. And I’ll tell you why I ask this is because I’ve seen there’s so many coaches, who’ve just done.

One thing. They’ve just, their experience is very narrow and it, and it strikes me that it’s, it’s hard to be a coach when you’ve just have a very narrow experience. so. Somebody who has, you know, so, but you know, done so much and being so many places, I think. You can draw on that to help clients shift perspective or see things clearly or see things in a different way.

James: Yeah, that’s a really great point and I recognize that about my journey and I give gratitude about it a lot because I mean, I have a lot of street life. It’s like street credit. you know, it’s not like I’m going to go and get a coaching certificate and put it behind my wall and say, Oh, James Gardner is a certified life coach.

It’s like, no, I could, you know? And so, so I understand that. And, and I think you’re right in terms of having different hats or different life experiences to draw on. Okay. So. It’s a, it’s an inter it’s a deeply interwoven tapestry. And I feel that what that does is it allows for object objectivity. So I can come at situations with my clients from a multiple angles of understanding and awareness or, or intellect to, to see, okay, how am I going to tackle this?

Or how, how am I. She’s not, you know, he, or she’s not understanding this, okay, how are we going to come in? How am I going to circumvent? Doesn’t come in backdoor and have it lands of it. It’s all those things that I think add to the colour that I truly believe that I bring to, to clients and, A lot of that’s why a lot of people continue to grow and I continue to grow.

Coaches will continue to grow and I have coaches have a bookshelf with all their books. Right. And I have one over there. Got my books. Okay. But what you don’t see is I have a bigger bookshelf, which is truly a book of life. And I got my book here from being a child with asthma and being weak. And I have my book of being in the dreamer and I had my book of courage to overcome a disease and whatever it is.

And I never forget that. so. I just, I don’t know how I paint that brush with my clients. All that I know is it’s there. And that library serves me, to, to give clarity to my clients. Yeah. Inspire and to just say, why not me?

Joel: So speaking of books, you have a book coming out. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

James: Yes. thank you for asking. It’s been an amazing process, Joel. I’m still in the editing phase. it’s called a conscious warrior, going all in with love and it is my it’s my life journey of, of little Jimmy who, in, Rhode Island, you know, growing up in Rhode Island on the East coast of the States and it Chronicles five major arenas that I, I showed up in and learn.

And, and, and, you know, from, from wielding a sort of ego in New York and LA and getting caught up in superficial things and expectations and, and some. So major life events that have shaped me, including kind of stepping into my persona now, which is the conscious warrior, which is bringing grace into the warrior mindset, because I was always that, that guy in the battlefield, just kicking ass and bodies lying on the floor, you know, some deservedly, some not, and because my ego and so.

And now it’s, it’s all about love. And so I’m still that Epic human. And yet I do everything with grace and love. so it’s that journey, and culminating in, you know, in a, in a, an event where I decided to, to leave my family to honour my truth and to really walk to. Unpack and try and go into the jungle, as I say, and find my truth and, emerge two and a half years later into who I am now.

It’s my story.  It’s told with different voices of my life. There’s little Jimmy’s voice there’s Jim’s voice. And then there’s James, you know, it’s this evolution of, of my soul. and, I bring in the dreamer, I bring in the inner child. And so it’s really been an amazing process of reconnecting for me to, and, and I, and that’s been the most fun for me as well.

Joel: And so what were the five arenas that you talk about?

James: Yeah, it centers around the areas that I lived. So it was Rhode Island. There’s New York city, there’s LA there’s Vancouver, and then there’s Vancouver Island. And in each of those arenas, the warrior went in. I waged war metaphor, you know, metaphorically in terms of battling life and learning things and gaining scars and, and.

And, you know, massing, superficial expectations and creating a false persona over the years. And, and so, you know, I talk about in the book where the moment, the moment I moved to New York was the moment that I said goodbye to little Jimmy. It was the moment that I lost my innocence. And, and over the years I get emotional talking about it.

I, you know, that, that Fisher. Just grew wider of my authentic self of who I thought I was, who I was destined to be and the type of person and the person that I was. And, with that jungle event came the ability to reconnect. And now honour the man that I always knew a little, little Jimmy. I always knew he would grow up to be.

Joel: I mean if you don’t have to talk about this, but if you want, what created that divide between your authentic self and the person you were trying to be?

James: I think my unanswerable question, we all have an answer, a real question, and mine is can my dreams be a reality?

I think it was the, that coupled with my adventurous spirit to seek and to be curious in life and to never settle, yet, yet. When you, when you step on stage, when you step on the stage of life. And when I stepped on the stages of New York and I started to model and I started to get accolades and then run these resorts and, and the attention group and the ego responds well to attention.

And then I started to want to become things and have things for all the wrong reasons. I, I, you know I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to make people feel and cry and laugh and escape the mundane. And I got away from that. And then I wanted to be a Negro, an actor because I was hanging out with celebrities all the time.

And I was having, you know, going to Epic parties and I had the beautiful woman, you know, on my arm and it’s all superficial. And so. It’s I never, I never got into drugs, but it was a drug, you know, that, that, and I, and don’t get me wrong, Joel. It’s not like I was a celebrity by any stretch. I had glimpses of that on my level.

I had glimpses of that fame of being a high profile general manager or everybody wanting my time and my attention, whether I was an acting gig or just in life, it was there. And so, and then with that though comes

okay, it’s not me. And then what happened to me? And then while I’m stuck, How the fuck am I going to get me back? And then, and then life becomes half a glass, half-empty, and then you start what I want to get out of bed today. Or, you know, I’m only going to go. I’m not going to go all in. That was my mantra.

I always went all in and then some now, and then later in life, I started going to half-ass in on things. I’m like, that’s not me. Yeah. It took.

Took me destroying my family for a time to allow me to sit in this very place that I’m in now and, and just sit it. Wasn’t, you know, we’ve heard the term dark night of the soul while it was a dark two years of the soul and it was a repair on, it was a groove stuck in a record and that needle wasn’t budget and, Finally I clawed out of it.

And, and when I did that, when I searched long and hard in the jungle, I used the term tree of life. I arrived at this tree of life. It was this creation of me. It was this rebirth where all the scars and the expectations and the ego-driven, all of that melted off of me. And so when I started to reemerge, which is a process, it’s not like I woke up and was like, Ooh, right.

I know, right when I started to reemerge though, now I was consciously aware to just bring back things that serve me and say no to the things that didn’t. So it was like, I, and now I that’s what I do. I only choose to have things attached to me. Or my energy that are at the same frequency or higher, that’s it?

Joel: And how was going back, during the writing process and revisiting those times in your life?

James: You know, it was amazing in a short word is amazing. And the long answer, if not the long answer, but it’s something that I think would serve everybody. They don’t have to write a book, but if they could go and just journal and sit down with themselves and just, just write about some memory that comes to mind, because for me, honestly, that that was, a new lease on life.

It, it reinvigorated my soul more than I ever thought it would. And even when I had to relive a lot of the shit sandwiches that I. Then I had to eat and digest. It’s like, no, this has shaped me. It’s ownership of all of that. And it’s empowering process. I spent the first draft. I took me exactly five months and, or tween at 20 weeks and one day and for 20 weeks and one day I wrote every single day and, and, and I have it it’s in my notebook.

I would write down my little numbers at the end of each day and my, and then my week tallies. And so it was an amazing timeframe for me to do that. And the amazing thing about it, Joel is I did it in some of those arenas. So when I started the book, I ended up going to Rhode Island. I spent five weeks in Rhode Island where I wrote the Rhode Island and like halfway, because I already started the Rhode Island, but I finished the Rhode Island arena.

And I wrote all the East coast arena, which was amazing. And then. I finished the New York arena one day before I hopped on a plane to come to the West coast. So very next day at the airport, I started riding the journey to the West Coast, where I went across. I drove across the country. I landed here. I sat on my balcony, started writing in August when I came back and now I was writing LA, I was writing Vancouver, coming up to Vancouver and all of that.

So it’s been a very, a very serendipitous moment, so much. So. And, and I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried the 20 weeks and one day that I finished well a year ago, November 9th, sorry, November 2nd. 2019 was when I stepped out into the James Gardner, who I am now. I finished the book exactly on November 2nd, 2020.

I didn’t plan it that way. I did not plan it that way. It just happened. So, so that was the long wind to say amazing experience. If anybody, you don’t have to write a book, you just need to write it’s a window to your own soul. It’s a way to self-love to reconnect to the inner child that I think a lot of us lose.

When, when life, when real life comes calling and it doesn’t have to be that way, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Joel: What inspired you to start this book in the first place?

James: It was a podcast. I think it’s probably the podcast that you listened to. Was it the obstacle course podcasts? Was that the one that you listened to?

Joel: Yes

James: John and Andrew are amazing souls. They sat down with me and before we knew it, we had a two-hour podcast. It was a long one, right.

Because they want, like, we just started riffing on my life and it was just sequential. And, and that was the seed of like, Man, you, you, you got some interesting stuff there and, and, and, you know, a lot of great kind of breadcrumbs and sprinkles of unique things in your life. You should, you should, you should write a book and I’ve had a few people mentioned that, but it wasn’t until I did that podcast where I got to relive my, that was the first time that I actually talked in length about my journey and all of a sudden I’m like this is pretty cool.

Like I know, I mean, everyone has their own story. Mine’s unique to me. And I do know that it’s different than a lot than a lot than different than many so. And I thought because of my journey to whom I was from the little kid to the, to the gym, to now, to the James and the work that I do, I thought it would be a great inspiration.

Joel: I’m curious to delve a little bit deeper on this, but did you set? Cause I mean, you know, you’re must be a goal setter and, and you know, you achieve so much, so do you, did you set like daily targets of how much you want to write? You know, and, and you know, when you want it to finish the book.

James: I am definitely a strategist for sure. I, I gave myself permission originally. I wanted to finish the book, with my writing coach, Tina, over Barry, who was amazing, you know, over race, a godsend in this. And she’s a great friend and colleague of mine as well.

She’s been steering me and originally I told her that. I wanted to finish the book by the end of September, at least the first draft, the heavy lifting. And, we thought it was doable. And in retrospect, I finished November 2nd. Like I said, the thing is, is though I had days I just wrote, I just channeled what I wrote. So I was going to say, Oh, I want to at least do 500 words a day or whatever. And I gave it was more of time. So for me, because I have a full client roster, I would always get up and I’d have a two-hour window in the morning.

And because I was very blessed to be channeling this, my story, I would be able to bang out a thousand words or 1500 words some days, in the, in that timeframe. And, which is a lot when you’re writing, like, you know, writing can be. Meticulous sometimes, but there were days where I was like, you know, you know, it’s a 500 word day.

This is a two 50 we’re a day. I think I did set the bar. It was like a minimum 250. I got to sit down and just write to if I have a crazy day or something. And I, and I did it, I had, I don’t know, maybe. Four or five of those low bar days and the whole process. And then there were great days, Joel, where I because I have a wifi lifestyle with coaching, I can reorganize clients, I can pad days and, and, and kind of create my own schedule.

So when I was in Rhode Island for the summer, Man. I was, I, all my colleagues and friends were laughing, cause I’d be sending selfies at the office and I’d be on the beach. I’d be on the Bluffs by the lighthouse. And I’d be writing for five hours, like just sitting there, giving her. Right. And, and so I had those Epic days where I was kind of Hemingway ish, where I was just lost in my own world.

And, so. It was, it was an ebb and flow. so to answer your question, I mean, I had a strategy, but it was a loose framework. The non-negotiable was right every day. That’s what the non-negotiable.

Joel: And do you have a publication date?

James: No, no, no. We’ll have to circle back around with that. It’s okay. I don’t know.

It’s just, it’s going to depend on the rewrites. And, which is an amazing process in of itself now it’s, it’s like, you’re all of a sudden I’m making, making stuff better. I’m like, Whoa, this is really good. But it’s interesting because now the channeling is gone and now we’ll sit here for two hours, but I’ll just, I’ll just work on like half a page rewording and then changing it back.

But then when you hit it, you’re like, Oh man, That’s way better. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the part of the process too. I’m not as much as I would love to have this out in the next three months. It’s not going to happen nor do I want to rush it. I want to honour the journey of this. Because it’s still teaching me a lot.

Yeah. Cool. And it gives me great stuff to talk about with people like you.

Joel: Well, James, I’m going to ask you one last question. We’ll wrap it up. you know, keeping on the theme of books, is there a particular book that has inspired you or a favourite book or one that you like to gift? You can name a couple. If you want.

James: Look, I’m looking over there because I’m looking at my bookshelf. So, well, the inner child in me who never leaves my side now, I would give everyone a copy of a book and a non no one knows this book. It’s called scuttle the stowaway mouse. And it’s a picture book about a mouse who wanted to go on a pirate adventure and got herself mixed up with a bunch of war fracks and ended up saving the day, becoming his own captain on a pirate ship.

And, that book is heavily influenced in my, in my book because as a young child in the hospital, that book was always under my arm. And I would read from that book and I would do performances for the candy stripers and the nurses on the pediatric ward, who all knew my name cause I was there all the flipping time.

So that book was super inspiring, super instrumental in me, standing here today. Obviously that would be my inner child pick. you know, I’m going to go back to that thinking grow rich

Joel: Classic.

James: It is a classic and it’s time tested time-tested and I think it will always stay. The test of time, that would be a big one, essential ism by Greg McCown.

Yeah, that would be a gift or for me, I feel that there’s a lot of power in the simplicity and understanding what serves one and what doesn’t and, and what we really need and how funny and what we need and, and diminishing some of that can really increase our units of happiness. That would be a big one.

And. lastly say this is a good book, but I haven’t finished it yet. So I won’t, I won’t pitch McKinney’s book cause I haven’t finished it, but it’s flip it. Amazing.

Joel: Okay. Yeah. I’ve I have it to read for sure. It’s on my to read, to read list

James: and I, you know what I’ll do, I’ll stick with that because I’m halfway through and there’s a ton of value in there.

It’s a great read. That’s a great unique lens on life and, and very similar to what we, what you asked about writing for me, the journey. And I want, I’m talking about journaling. It stems from him, his 35 years of keeping journals. I think it was. Of all his just musings. There’s a lot of power in and just getting stuff out of our noggin and down. So yeah, definitely that for sure. Right.

Joel: That’s a great place to cap it off. James, where can people find you?

James: Sure. James Gardner obviously, leaves zone strategies.com. we can also find me on Facebook, James Gardner. I have a public figure page and a personal page. Of course, Instagram is James Gardner.

Underscore three. It has to be three underscores. Cause that was the only way you get James Gardner. So, but yeah, I know, right. There’ll be, there keys in there, like rowing and leap zone and you’ll find the James garden you need to find, so yeah, absolutely.

Joel: Perfect. Well, James, thank you so much for your time for sharing your stories.

They are super impactful and have a great day.

James: Thank you, Joel. I really appreciate, sharing me, giving me the space and allowing to me to show up and be heard and seen.