Iron Ambition: My Journey from Seat 2A to Ironman [Paperback]

John D. Callos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2009

UPDATED: Iron Ambition chronicles a CEO's mid-life odyssey from corporate excess and sloth, to completing the Ironman Triathlon. This is NOT a book for those looking for training advice. It is the story of all the mistakes made trying to do too much, too soon, and wasting thousands of dollars on unnecessary equipment that made little difference in the end. This book is really targeted toward mid-career, 6-figure executives who struggle with the daily battle of balancing work and family while harboring the guilt of broken promises and delayed dreams. The wildly-mixed reviews reflect the disappointment of athletes who were seeking training advice or who misinterpreted the author's intention of helping others avoid his costly mistakes by candidly acknowledging his near-obsession with Ironman and how this costly pursuit took over much of his life. Since completing the Ironman, the author has also completed the ULTRAMAN, a 3-day stage race format triathlon consisting of a 6.2 mile swim, 260 miles of cycling and a 52-mile double marathon run on the final day.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John D. Callos is an ULTRAMAN, Ironman, ultra endurance athlete, Marathon des Sables participant and President & CEO of IdeaBridge, a management consulting and training company based in southern California. He advises CEOs and their executive teams, on leadership issues relating to corporate strategy, executive effectiveness, sales process and growth. His work involves confidential advisory services, speaking engagements, executive coaching, team building facilitation and corporate training programs. Mr. Callos is internationally-recognized for his confidential advisory work with CEOs and his expertise in the areas of leadership development, corporate transformation, sales process methodology and executive accountability programs. Mr. Callos works exclusively with senior business executives to improve both their effectiveness as leaders and the results of the companies they lead. Mr. Callos received national recognition as "Business Guru of the Year," finishing first in his category in a nationwide competition and his articles and White Papers have been distributed internationally. Mr. Callos earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from the University of Southern California (USC) and graduated from USC's Entrepreneur Program. When he's not meeting with clients, conducting research or developing program materials, he will likely be found training and competing in Ironman Triathlons or Ultra Endurance events. The author can be contacted via email: [e-mail]

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Iron Ambition (April 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615278914
• ISBN-13: 978-0615278919
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #423,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Egotistical, unedited mess, July 5, 2009

By 

WonderWmn (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Iron Ambition: My Journey from Seat 2A to Ironman (Kindle Edition)

The first tip-off that you should avoid this unedited mess of a book: it's a vanity publication. Despite his repeated claims of his enormous financial worth, the author apparently did not spend any money on a professional editor to whip this book into shape and it shows. (For example, an editor would have likely caught and prevented the same passage concerning Botox and wet needling from appearing in two parts of the books.)

The lack of editing can be confirmed simply by looking at the table of contents. The author spends 75% of the book in a meandering account of his injuries and the very expensive (and often unnecessary) equipment that he uses in order to finish in the middle of the pack and then he gives a cursory overview of different events he entered, leading up to his ultimate goal of the Tempe Ironman in November 2008 (Chapters 10 and 11 out of 14). So little attention is paid to this race that it was ultimately anti-climactic.

I agree with the reviewer who advises that one cannot use this book as a primer for triathlon training -- mostly because it is impossible to do so. The author does not give a chronological account of how he developed his training in running, cycling or swimming. For example, he suddenly goes on 100+ mile rides without any mention of a gradual increase in mileage. On one page, he mentions he is sidelined by injury for more than a week and a few pages later, he is crowing about how he completed an event -- which is completely disorienting unless you flip to the end of the book to read his brief overview of the event. There is no continuity or development that would give the reader any sense of the author's increasing physical abilities. This book is of limited value to triathlon newbies - even a newbie knows better than to go running for long miles in new shoes, yet this author does it repeatedly with predictable results. Also, although the author mentions that he has lost a great deal of weight, he does not give any indication of how he accomplished this or managed to keep the weight off. It's a complete mystery.

I completely disagree with the reviewer who states that the author does not endorse products. This book was one long fawning ode to the Endless Pool. (My Kindle finds 39 references to the Endless Pool.) It's ironic because the author was indicating how well prepared he was for the swimming portion of the Ironman Triathlon because of his use of the Endless Pool but he developed a debilitating cramp that nearly caused him to drown. The author's repeated efforts to search out "the best" (read: most expensive) products and coaches is tiresome and leads one to dismiss his judgment.

I seriously question anyone who finds inspiration in this author's account. He sacrifices his family and business in the pursuit of becoming an Ironman. This is not something he does for his own satisfaction, he simply wants the satisfaction of bragging to others that he is an Ironman. Similarly offputting is his goal of beating a certain percentage of participants ("I wanted to beat 200-300 participants so that I actually was faster than a bunch of participants; that would be really great." Even though he finishes in the bottom 25% overall in the Ironman, he still takes pains to mention that he "crossed the line in front of 600 other entrants..."). Rather than focusing on beating his own personal bests, he derives satisfaction only from comparing himself to others.

Finally, I wonder how anyone can find inspiration in the author's macho and unsportsmanlike conduct. For example, the author gives this account of his response to a cyclist who was drafting behind him on a windy day: "[T]his joker on the riverbed trail had no problem drafting behind me and he wouldn't get around me. Finally I just pulled over and stopped... until he finally ventured out into the wind on his own. With that, I jumped on his tail and drafted right behind him yelling at the top of my lungs for him to be a man, take his pull and show me what he had. I taunted him mercilessly by yelling, 'Is that all you've got?!' I got him so worked up (or scared) that he went out really fast, totally burned out and then as he pulled over gasping, I took the opportunity to blast by him so quickly that he had no chance to bridge the gap and I dropped him." Really nice behavior, is that what was inspirational to the other reviewers? Perhaps the others found it inspirational that the author has to be told that when he is engaging in poor sportmanship? ("I also learned that it was sort of poor form for an age-grouper like me to sprint the last bit of the race trying to pass everyone. Apparently, that rookie move was sort of poor sportsmanship, but I really didn't know any better.")

I typically only write reviews when I find that the existing reviews are misleading and have lured me into purchasing something I would not otherwise purchase. This is one of those instances. I found the author's tone to be so arrogant, egotistical and self-congratulatory that it was difficult to finish this book.

This is not to take away from the author's admirable dedication to mastering the triathlon - it takes extreme dedication to get up at 4:30 a.m. (or even 2:30 a.m.) to fit in a workout and to train so hard. However, I take issue with the organization and overall tone of the book.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not sure quite what to think..., September 29, 2009

By 

W. J. Bryan "Dadslad" (Manhattan Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Iron Ambition: My Journey from Seat 2A to Ironman (Paperback)

OK, so in the end while I did enjoy parts of this book potential buyers beware! This was not a tale of an average 40+ father & executive's "struggles" to successfully complete an Iron Man event.

I bought this book because like the author John Callos, I'm an older athlete and a mid-life weekend warrior with aspirations of re-capturing my youth through a triathon. While I'm not a CEO, I am a fairly senior level executive in at a SoCal based company and my wife and teenage son support me wholeheartedly. But here the similarities end. John has the benefits of great wealth and access to (almost) unlimited resources. Whatever he needs he gets, be it bikes, coaches, tests, expensive off insurance medical treatment, nutritional aids and so on.

At no point is John constrained by budget. Far from it, at what seems like every opportunity he celebrates his ability to throw whatever cash he needs around to solve a problem. Personally I was looking for guidance & advice on how to manage family, work and training but what I actually got was an ode to gratuitous self indulgence. His description of his home training set up is priceless (I doubt if Chris McCormack has access to home facilities like this and he's a past Kona winner) and his constant mentions of his expensively acquired possessions start to drag, such as his bike set up that makes the boys in the bike shop drool and his top of the line BMW. It just never ends....

All to often this book feels like a hastily thrown together combination of you incredibly self obsessed emails (where John whines on & on to his world famous coach about either his lack of self confidence, vast array of injuries, ever present fear of failure, and long diatribes on over & under training), dubious self motivation statements and the previously mentioned lists of money is no object purchases. Around page 5 I realized that this story was not reflective of the 99.999% of 40+ executive athletes I know and race against. Was this book a self publishing exercise, another vanity project? It certainly feels that way.

John, at least to this reader, does not outwardly appear to be humble man, and I guess that the point he's really trying to make. The sport of Triathlon is by nature self obsessive, something John illustrates splendidly.

My personal reservations aside, this book absolutely reinforced what I think it must be like to complete an Iron Man event and the toll it takes on all participants. Since reading "Iron Ambition" I've stepped up my training and that's solely down to John Callos. If he can finish an Iron Man with all that he has at his disposal then I feel compelled to do it on my shoe string budget. If John's aim in this book is to motivate me then he's succeeded.

In conclusion, John seems to have achieved a great deal in life and my hat is off to him on all fronts. He's a winner and he's done something I only dream of right now. But you cannot help but come away from reading this book without thinking that with all that money, support and access to whatever he needed to succeed, he should maybe have achieved more than just comfortably finishing the event. To be fair John recognizes that. Like John's Iron Man, this book could of and should have been better.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could benefit from better writing, but I still enjoyed it., September 4, 2009

By 

Joshua J. Steimle "IronmanDiet.com" (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Iron Ambition: My Journey from Seat 2A to Ironman (Paperback)

Cons: If you want the super-negative review, go read the 1-star review. It's harsh, but a lot of it is accurate. The editing of the book was not done very well. I was surprised to find out it was edited at all, since I noticed at least 50 errors while reading it, and like the negative reviewer I found much lacking in the general form of the book. I think if the author were to re-read the book now, after having let it site for awhile, he would find numerous areas to improve.

Pros: But so what? Even though I'm a bit of a critic when it comes to books, I still enjoyed reading the book. Just because it's not the highest quality writing it didn't turn me off. The book is not intended to teach you everything you need to know about doing an Ironman, but it is helpful in communicating a sense of the sacrifices that may be necessary in order to pull it off. But like any other biographical book, it's one man's experience and may or may not relate to the experience of anyone else. In my case I found it highly relevant because I'm from SoCal, I've swam at the Boy Scout camp at Cherry Valley on Catalina Island, I'm also a business owner, I've experienced the same sense of shame at my fatness, and I'm walking the same path towards an Ironman. I think if you're a beginning triathlete interested in doing an Ironman then you'll find the book interesting and helpful. I came away from the book feeling a sense of hope, the feeling that "Man, if this guy could make it with all his injuries and setbacks, this certainly isn't impossible for me." To me, that's the primary theme of the book.

Could the book be better from a technical perspective? Sure, there's no doubt about that, but the technical issues don't ruin the content.