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Entity interviews Lina Ramos, mother and Ironman triathlete.

Lina Ramos isn’t your traditional superhero. Instead of a cape, she dons running shoes. Instead of fighting crime, she conquers the business world and raises a family.

This real life superhero has recently been named Woman Entrepreneur of the Year by the Golden Bridge Awards thanks to her work as Chief Business Officer and Executive Vice President at Source Intelligence, a software-based global network of businesses designed to increase companies’ communication and transparency.  She’s been married to what she calls her “True North” nearly 25 years and is mother to three children. She’s also an Ironman Triathlon champion who has competed in the Ironman World Championships multiple times.

While Lina Ramos may not have actual super powers, she proves that women can really “have it all” – at least in terms of being a businesswoman, a wife, a mother and a dedicated athlete. ENTITY sat down with Ramos to learn her secrets for succeeding in the business world, falling in love with exercise and balancing a family and a successful job. Keep reading for tips on how you can find your inner superwoman and, as Ramos says, “reach for the future and embrace life.”

ENTITY: What opportunities did you take and what challenges did you overcome to get where you are today at Source Intelligence?

LINA RAMOS: Without a doubt, my most valued opportunity was to join the founding executives of a company that makes the world a better place. There’s a saying I tell my team: “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” Joining Source was my opportunity to get into the “right room” with a seasoned team of brilliant and passionate executives dedicated to sustainability and social responsibility.

If you’re feeling like you’re the smartest person, it’s time to raise the game and bring some smarter people into the room.

If you surround yourself with excellence, see it as an opportunity to learn more. It’s not about competition; it’s that there’s value about being surrounded by the best and it’s not necessary to be the best if, as a team, you can become the best.

As for challenges, hands down, it has been coming to peace with the cost of not spending more time with my “True North” – my wonderful husband – and our children. They are my world. In fact, I actually “retired” in 2000. I put my plan in motion when I had a two-year-old who was turning three and I was pregnant with my son. All I could think was that their memories of childhood would be nothing like my memory of my childhood since my mother stayed home with me. One day, after getting back from a long run, I told my husband, “I know what we need to do! We need to leave the corporate world and move to that place where we took that road trip on the coast of California.”

Entity interviews Lina Ramos, businesswoman, Ironman triathlete and mother.

Lina Ramos with her “True North” and children.

However, within six months of moving to La Jolla, I was already doing something. The important part is that I was doing it on my own terms. I would walk the kids to school, work like crazy from 9:15 to 2:45 and then change back into play clothes and pick them up from school like all the other full-time moms. I wanted the kids to feel like I was never working and was there for them.

ENTITY: What’s the most important thing to do when faced with a challenge?

LINA RAMOS: Success is getting up one more time than you fall down. When you hit challenges, the first step is committing to getting back up. I learned the best lesson on this topic from a stranger – who turned out to be a cycling champion – I met biking on the coast of California. I had just completed Ironman’s World Championship (Kona) and then broke a record racing in a Century Ride. As a result, I felt a lot of pressure to qualify again and racing was starting to feel like I was doing it for other people and not just me.

His advice? “Whatever you’re doing, you need to take a lifetime view of it. Total success or total failure isn’t determined by this one race, ride or season. If you take a lifetime view, it’s much easier to get back on that horse.” When faced with challenges, I take a lifetime view and remind myself that overcoming a challenge starts with getting up, ready to succeed.

ENTITY: You also act as a Drucker School female mentor. What mentorship techniques do you consider important or helpful?

LINA RAMOS: The most important for me is sighting to the buoy – knowing where your mentee is trying to go – agreeing on the goals, agreeing on the drivers for success in achieving those goals, regularly asking the right questions and encouraging the building of a stakeholder group, instead of just a one-on-one relationship.

Lina Ramos

Lina Ramos wins “Maverick of the Year” Women in Business.

READ MORE: Why Every Millennial Should Have a Mentor

ENTITY: Speaking of goals, were you always interested in exercise? What is the most rewarding aspect of participating in Ironman events for you?

LINA RAMOS: My philosophy, and certainly my family’s philosophy, was that a balanced life meant athletics, religion, education and family. I always played a sport in high school and after I graduated college I started doing marathons. Then I heard about the Nike World Champion of Step Aerobics teaching at my gym. Looking into that window of a group of at least 60 women and men perfectly synchronized, I thought they were badass! It was excellence in motion.

Ironman racing has become a “chapter two” of exercise for me. My husband says it was my graduation from gym rat to athlete. I’d have to say that the most rewarding aspect of participating in an Ironman event – hands down – is the opportunity to inspire and show by example that anything is possible. My first Ironman I credit to my middle son, since we had been discussing this concept of “being able to do anything.” He was selected by a national organization called Triabuddies as part of a 2009 documentary which paired eight Ironman athletes with eight boys. But even after he was paired with an athlete called Bill Carlson, the first type one diabetic to ever do an Ironman, my middle son still wasn’t convinced he could do anything. He actually thought Bill Carlson was “super human.”

I asked, “If I could do one, would you believe you could do anything?”

He said, “But you don’t even know how to swim…”

That’s the reason I decided to try and do it.

I unexpectedly did well. By my third Ironman, I took “podium” in Zurich. That’s when I first thought that if the moon and stars aligned, I might qualify for Kona one day. During training, my middle son told me, “You know what I love most about you? How you live your life with passion.” As soon as I finished Kona for the first time, my oldest son, who watched me cross the finish line via live-stream from his college dorm room, texted me, “Thank you for showing me dreams come true.”

ENTITY: You recently completed another Ironman at Kona. How did this race go compared to others?

LINA RAMOS: This year’s race was my most memorable by far because, for the first time since Ironman Austria in 2011, my husband and all three of our children got to see me cross the finish line. My family being there definitely made the race less stressful because there’s a certain comfort in a support system whose only desire is to see you achieve your goal.

It was an amazing experience because it’s more than just the race; it’s all the events that lead up to it. For example, on Tuesday, they have the Parade of Nations. You line up with your country and the athletes and families march with them. By Friday, you have an assigned “concierge” as you drop off your bike and race bags. Former pros and featured celebrities go in the same time as the other athletes and the manufacturers are logging all the equipment athletes are using so it seems like a red carpet media frenzy.

Things aren’t real until I share them with the people I love.

I really just wanted the kids and my husband to have that experience with me. Things aren’t real until I share them with the people I love. The journey to Kona was not just mine; it was ours.

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Lina Ramos biking in 2016 Kona Ironman.
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Lina Ramos biking in 2016 Kona Ironman.
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Lina Ramos after completing 2016 Kona Ironman.

ENTITY: What was the biggest lesson this race taught you – and what are your future plans regarding Ironman training?

LINA RAMOS: Every race takes a different theme and this year’s was “KUPA’A.” The theme talks about staying true to yourself, respecting your environment and enduring. These ideas are how I feel about Ironman and my work at Source Intelligence. We are enduring to change the world. We are being true to ourselves because we are so passionate about what we do. We are respecting our environment because we seek to work all stakeholders in the ecosystem of product stewardship and compliance. Our goals at Source Intelligent are not dissimilar to the kind of dedication, passion, commitment and grit it takes to do things that some people may think are impossible – like Ironman races. It’s also how most disruptive change happens in this world.

As for my future plans, for me, Ironman is a lifestyle. I hope to live each day tackling things that seem impossible, including participating in Ironman events for the rest of my life. One day, I want to be the oldest woman competing at Kona.

ENTITY: What would be your advice to girls who want to make similar achievements as you?

LINA RAMOS: Be the best version of YOU that you can be, find a mentor and model yourself based on how you define success.

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