President of ERA Real Estate Alex Vidal Wants His Team To Have An Ironman Mindset

An Ironman Triathlon consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. It stands to reason that someone with the mental toughness and resilience to complete an Ironman would be able to overcome almost any obstacle in life. That’s close to the truth, argues Alex Vidal, who is the president of ERA Real Estate. 

After completing more than 30 triathlons in the run up to his monumental Ironman achievement, Vidal says that the margin between success and failure is mindset. “You can work on your mindset the same way you work on your business, the same way you work on your fitness or your nutrition,” explained Vidal, who says there are four key principles the discipline of completing an Ironman has taught him—and they apply equally to the challenge he faces daily overseeing operations for more than 40,000 affiliated brokers and sales associates across 2,400 offices worldwide. 

1. Believe in yourself. “As long as you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”

2. Choose the right coach or mentor, one “who has accomplished what you want to accomplish” and can take the guesswork out of following your plan.

3. Have a plan. “I woke up every day knowing exactly what I needed to do,” said Vidal, “and having somebody in my life who had that experience made the process easier, especially when problems arose, which they always do.”

4. Enjoy the journey, since it will be long and arduous. Vidal recommends “stacking your wins” both in training and competition.

“When an ankle injury prevented me from doing my favorite discipline, running, I spent more time with my least favorite, swimming. As a result, I had the best swim I’d ever done,” he noted. Whether you are competing in a triathlon or a tight real estate market, the chance of experiencing setbacks is high. “Because the risk is so big, you have to enjoy the journey,” counseled Vidal.

Local ERA offices operate independently from their headquarters, but Vidal regularly communicates with his remote teams about developing the Ironman mindset in their work. Podcast listeners will get to experience the power of Vidal’s motivational messages about discipline, including: 

• Turning the extraordinary into the ordinary by stacking your wins. 

• One strategy to monitor personal and professional goals.

• Identifying a mentor who believes in your potential and holds you accountable.

Vidal had his biggest “a-ha moment” when he realized that a triathlon was not, after all, a lonely sport, despite the commitments it entails. “You know that if you’re going to achieve anything big in life, you’re going to have to have a team around you,” he said of those who joined him to log in long hours in the pool or on the road, or cheer him on at races. “There’s just no way you’re going to do it by yourself.”