Industry Magazine Get JACK'D Magazine Summer 2018 | Page 6

IRONMAN LESSONS
IRONMAN
LESSONS
LEARNED
With Jack Daly
WHEN I took on the Ironman sport about six years ago, I didn’t
know how to swim and I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a teenager.
Now, I’ve competed in the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-
Kona, Hawaii, and the Half Ironman World Championships, and I
represented Team USA in the Long Course World Championship
Triathlon.
I find a lot of the same themes in both of these sports that I
love—that is, the Ironman sport and the sport of sales and sales
management. Growing oneself and growing one’s business have
much in common, as I have learned in my journey.
Attitude is central to success, for example. Fifty percent or
more of success at anything in life is a head case. It has to do with
getting up in the morning and saying, “Give it everything that
you’ve got.” If you bring that to your business, or if you bring that
to the Ironman sport, you have the differentiated advantage.
There are many days in the Ironman world when I don’t want to
get up in the morning and do that 5 a.m. run, and it’s not easy to
sit on a stationary bike for three hours watching some television
show that I’d rather not see just because I need the training to
prepare for that great day.
It’s the same in sales. Some days, salespeople just have to
make themselves get out in the field and make those face-to-
face calls. You have to pick up that phone and take that share of
rejection that you know will be coming. I say this: if you go about
that business with a negative attitude, then your performance is
going to be lacking. Whether it is race day or sales day, a positive
attitude improves your game. Fifty percent is in your head.
You need a goal. Long before I knew how to swim, I set a goal
to be in Hawaii competing in the Ironman World Championship.
That goal dates back to some thirty years ago when I watched
Julie Moss crawl across the finish line in an Ironman competition.
I waited a long time before moving to fulfill that goal
because I didn’t have the time to train adequately when I had
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