Should You Take The Elevator or The Stairs? (NOT a health tip article) :)

You’re standing outside of the restroom, the janitor is inside cleaning and you’ve really gotta go. You know that directly above you there’s a bathroom that is probably open; it’s just one floor up. The stairs are to your right, the elevator to your left, which would you choose?

You would most likely choose the stairs because you can run up them as fast you wanted, not have to wait for the elevator to reach your floor (holding your body still presents another challenge when you have to go this badly), and there is no chance of someone else asking you to “Hey hold up!”. You could dash up the stairs just as fast as it would take the elevator doors to close in most cases, so that is the logical choice in this scenario.

Ah, sweet relief.

But let’s say that you are running late and have to be on the 35^th floor for a business meeting in 5 minutes flat. Stairs right, elevator left. Choice?  ELEVATOR PLEASE. See, in this scenario while you could run up the stairs as fast you could, you wouldn’t make it past floor 13 before your legs started yelling at you and ultimately would give out, not to mention your body would begin to perspire everyone would gasp when you slam into the room only to collapse, vomit as you mumble  “Sorry I’m – Uhwwughhh”, and pass out for 3 hours. The elevator — although does take a few extra moments to get in, close the door, choose your floor, allow others to get off on their respective floors, will get you zipping on up to the 35^th floor in much less time, and less sweat and embarrassment.

Now, I know that these are both very obvious choices and are somewhat silly, but the point behind it all is this: Sometimes you need to grind it out and power through to reach your short-term goal as quickly as possible, and sometimes you need to use some foresight, plan your actions, so you don’t get stuck on the 13^th floor with spaghetti legs and nowhere to go.

Don’t put yourself in a situation where you are in too deep. Sometimes it is best to take a step back, assess the situation, consult some trusted people, and then move forward. We need to look at situations logically sometimes, like puzzles to be solved – requiring days if not weeks or months of preparation before you even take a step forward.

Now, this is not an excuse for procrastination at all! I know that we all fall victim to this terrible beast. My mentor Mark Hoverson said it best when telling me about the pitfalls of this industry; he said “When there is no deadline, procrastination is almost inevitable.” How true is that! And since this business is so wonderful and there are no “deadlines” or quotas or anything — man it is tough to keep a steady schedule, or even start something that we know needs to be done eventually (*see getting fit for my Tuxedo for my Uncle’s wedding coming up in….oh crap). That is where we have to take ACTION and power through. If you find yourself stuck, you know you have to get to the 35^th floor but you don’t know where to start, or you have 800 different ideas of which way to go forth and can’t decide on one, just choose one and run with it! Start sprinting up those stairs and you will soon learn if that is the right way to go, and if it isn’t, stop and change your tactic.

But procrastination aside, planning your first move and subsequent moves is always a good strategy when faced with a big project or undertaking. Let’s say you are putting together a team of Distributors in another city. You would want to plan out when you fly out there, what key leaders you would partner with, what their plan would be to get started up, etc.. You wouldn’t just fly to San Diego and hope to start a team there!

On the other side is just runnin’ up those stairs. If you are faced with a smaller task, maybe a decision that has to do with whether you meet someone one-on-one or invite them to a group overview and you’re wrestling with what would be most effective for this specific lead. But you end up debating for over a week and that lead has just gone cold due to your lack of action — just pick one and go with it! Yes, certain people respond to different styles of presentations and overviews, but you will get a much clearer understanding of what they do respond to WHEN YOU INVITE THEM TO ONE.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a very common phrase, and I think it applies here very pertinently.

Sometimes you’ve got to use some elbow grease and learn as you go, other times you have to meticulously plan out your attack. The key is knowing when to do the right one.

-Clay

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