Do you ever feel like you are spending your life, including your career, trying to go up the down escalator? Does it seem as though all the forces are driving against you? Do you feel as though the rest of the world is easily going up while you are struggling just to maintain your position, much less get ahead? Life and career, including the profession of sales, have a unique comparison with the struggle of fighting opposing forces in order to get ahead.

If you are stuck on the down escalator trying to go up, you have several choices. You can give in to the opposing forces and simply surrender. You can keep exerting the same energy as the escalator and maintain your position. You can wait for the escalator to stop, seeing who will be first to give in to defeat. You can exert more energy and move faster than the escalator itself. Or you can get off the escalator and look for another one that is heading in the right direction.   

Realistically, if you want to accomplish your goals, there are only two approaches. Get off the escalator and find one that is heading the same direction as you want to go, or exert more energy and achieve the ultimate goal of reaching the top no matter what the opposing forces may be. Finding another escalator may be a difficult chore—you never know where and when you might find it. To save time and to reach the top in the shortest amount of time I say, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” 

In our personal life and our business life, we have choices that we need to make every day. We can stop, stay the same, wait, or give it all we have got. No matter what opposing forces we might face, ultimately we are in complete control of our own destiny. Through extra effort and perseverance we can achieve anything if we want it badly enough. Your destiny is in your own hands. What you do with it is up to you.

JCK