“The light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an illusion. The tunnel is.”
– Unatributted
I still remember my first business trip to Pittsburgh, PA. It was about 2001 and on day one, we drove out of the tunnel from the airport to downtown in brilliant sunlight. To say the view was breathtaking is an understatement. A couple days later we came through the same tunnel on a pitch-black but starry night — only to see that the view had been upgraded by the stadium lights and the decorative light on bridges offset by the peace of the Three Rivers converging there.
On every trip I’ve ever made to Pittsburgh, a colleague, a fellow-traveler or a passer-by has disparaged the city, even though they’d never traveled there.
I could understand if he didn’t like the tunnel — until he emerged from it.
In selling for a living we’re tempted to sprint toward the light — to escape the tunnel and “break out.”
In reality, it might not even be something we need to emerge from, it might not even be the “tunnel” we perceive, so the smart money builds a process that gets us all the way through, instead of choosing to stay underground, in the dark.