Stairway to Success: The Complete Blueprint for Personal and Professional Achievement

PRELUDE TO STEP ONE

WHAT DO YOUWANT TO DO?

Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens.

—WILFREDM A. PETERSON

The road to success begins with the question: What do you want to do? You’ve heard that question often. You come home Friday evening and your spouse asks, “What do you want to do this weekend?” and you shrug and say, “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

And since neither of you is willing to make a decision, you end up doing nothing in particular. Before you know it, it’s Monday again and all you’ve accomplished is getting the Sunday paper read.

You heard the question when you were in high school. Maybe you were on summer break and your best friend asked, “Whatta you wanna do?” and you shrugged and said, “I dunno. Whatta you wanna do?” and because neither of you came up with an answer you spent the summer goofing off. Soon it was time to go back to school and you had little to show for the summer, except perhaps a sunburn.

Many people let their early adulthood slip away in just this way. They party through their twenties, drifting from one good time to another, never really answering the question “What do you want to do?” Then suddenly they’re facing their thirtieth birthdays, or their thirty-fifth or their fortieth. They begin to feel the weight of responsibility. They know they can’t keep drifting through life. They have families, mortgages, and orthodontist’s bills. They have to do something with their lives. But what?