The Ironman Triathalon doesn’t take just anyone. You not only have to know how to swim, bike, and run, but you have to be really good at all three to win.

The mindset of the successful Ironman competitor is simple. If you’re naturally talented at all three skills, you’ve got it made. You’re lucky and rare.

If you’re great at running and biking, but need to improve swimming, you have a hard road ahead. You don’t wince about the extra effort spent swimming because you realize it’s part of the race. If you don’t swim well, you don’t win, no matter how great you bike or run.

These competitors tell themselves “I’m going to get good at it” in order to accomplish their goal. Putting in the extra effort and concentrating on swimming, they often decrease their overall time in the race. They know the power of focused attention in the direction of a challenge; the extra time spent swimming is time well spent at the end of the race.

If you’re not good at all 3,why not win at something else?

We talk a great deal about shapes. Boxes and lines and filling vacuums. Drawing yourself inside or outside the box, stepping outside of the lines, and filling up space when there is space to fill.

I also hear “We’ve come full circle” which amuses me even more.

It’s interesting how these shapes describe simply and elegantly our framework for how we view the world. You’re not left ruminating about what type of a person you are, or where you should stretch yourself, or where you feel most comfortable.

You’re either inside the box or on the outside. You either fill the space or you don’t.

Sometimes you’re a square, sometimes you’re not.

Shapes put a moratorium on thinking and analyzing and anxiety. They tell you quietly and directly what shape you should take next. Maybe your current shape is confining something another shape may enhance.

They motivate without being in your face. They’re just shapes, after all.

Sometimes it’s not intellectual discourse that you need, or analysis or feedback or lessons. Sometimes it takes a shape to help you see what you already know. A box or triangle or line that helps you come “full circle.”

Reading Zig Ziglar’s “Secrets,” I was amazed to find the story of the “Gloomy Gus” shoeshine man.

Seeing Zig approach the shoeshine station, Gloomy Gus asks “Well, I suppose you want the regular shine?” (as opposed to the “Best shine” or the “Spit shine” etc.)

Zig-(incredulously) “I can’t believe you said that! Why would you offer me the Regular instead of the Best?

Gloomy- “People don’t pay for the Best on rainy days because their shoes get muddied up later.

Zig- “It seems to me that if the Best shine gives the best protection and your business is down on rainy days, you would work awfully hard to increase the sales of your Best shine.”

It sinks in a little for Gloomy. Zig gives him a few words that improve his sales pitch and Gloomy feels better.

The lesson behind the story woke me up. Why do we sell (or pitch, or talk about) anything less than the best for our clients and consumers? Why would we assume that they didn’t want the best for themselves?

I think it’s because we’re scared. We’re scared that we’re not delivering the best and that consumers know it. We stretch to sell (reluctantly) because we don’t believe we’re delivering value to the customer.

What if we switched our framework slightly? What if we realized it’s about confidence, yes, but also about the inherent belief that we’re delivering something of value to the person; that we’re helping them acquire something they need. That we’re not only selling them something, we’re helping them by selling them something.

Gloomy’s assumption that people wouldn’t want to pay for the Best shine undermined his profession, his respect for himself, and the respect for the customers. He should have understood that people want the best for themselves and they’re willing to pay for it. Why undermine it when they aren’t?

When you think about it in this way, it feels lovely to want to sell. To want to get the other’s permission and give them what they want.

I wonder how often I’ve sold to people with a lackadaisical attitude, a less-than-enthusiastic pitch, not believing what I was saying. How many times have I decreased my chances just because I assumed someone wouldn’t want the best for themselves?