By Debra Wallace
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 8/15/22 – One day Cheryl Ecton stepped into her closet to pick out clothes for work and her mind went blank. In the throes of an acrimonious divorce and worried about the solvency of her company, she was shaken to her core.
“Suddenly, I can’t stand. My legs are shaking and my hands tremble. I take a deep breath and sit down on the closet floor,” Ecton writes in her new book. “Leaning back against the wall, I begin to sob uncontrollably. I say to myself, “I can’t do this. I am worn out. I don’t even care.”
While many of us would have been paralyzed with fear and doubt and crawled back into bed for days or weeks, Ecton believes you have to tackle any and all obstacles in your way and choose to keep going in spite of adversity.
The book, Choices Change Everything: Choose to Get Up When Life Knocks Us Down,” continues. “Minutes go by this way. I’m weeping and gasping for air. The sobbing slows, and I’m beginning to breathe normally. I realize that nobody is going to save me from this closet floor.”
The dynamic entrepreneur and speaker figured out during that dark day that no one was going to run her business or help with her two children. “I am truly all that I have, and I have to keep going. If I don’t get up and fight, then I will lose everything.”
These vital life lessons are why Elite Building Services, her Delaware-based commercial cleaning, and building company that she started at age 19 in 1989 with one employee (herself) is thriving with more than 600 employees.
Elite is one of the largest women-owned businesses (in a male-dominated industry) and has earned numerous awards, and she has many loyal employees who have been with the company for decades because she values her employees as much as she does her clients that are located in 19 states.
They are also why she survived her divorce, raised two thriving children, and found her way to motivate groups around the U.S. as a truly inspiring motivational speaker.
“Never give up,” Ecton emphatically advises us. “Curveballs are always going to come our way. But I thoroughly believe that with hard work, determination, and a positive attitude you can overcome what life throws at you. We learn from these struggles as we work towards making the right choices.”
Read on for more on how Ecton can inspire us to make choices that help us thrive and why we all need the determination to live our lives to the fullest.
Why is having control over our choices so important to our well-being?
Cheryl Ecton: Choice is the most powerful tool that we have. Everything boils down to the choices we make. We exist in a field of infinite possibilities. Every choice that we make shuts an infinite number of doors and opens an infinite number of doors. At any point, we can change the direction of our lives by simple choice. It is all in our hands, our hearts, and our minds.
How difficult is it, especially for women, to juggle business, and family, and still have any time for ourselves?
Cheryl Ecton: We try to balance everything we can; never sitting down, pushing forward because we want to give our families everything that we can. We can do ANYTHING we want, but I’ve learned that we cannot be great at everything. So, we need to give ourselves a little break and let ourselves off the hook.
Why didn’t you retreat into that closet and your life when it looked like everything was stacked against you? Where did your vim and vigor come from in the face of so much difficulty?
Cheryl Ecton: I didn’t feel like there was another choice. I had two children, one in college and one needing medical attention. I had a business where people’s livelihood was dependent on my company surviving. I realized that I had to get up from that point on and “it was game on.” I had to fight for my family, the families I employed, and my dreams. I realized from that moment that no one controls my happiness, my goals, and my destiny, but me. The only person who can stop me from achieving what I want in life is me. Me alone.”
What are some of the more difficult lessons to learn?
Cheryl Ecton: Fear is normal, but do not be controlled or paralyzed by fear. Setbacks will come. Rejection and failure are inevitable. Fear sometimes leads to the greatest lessons we learn. When I’m told no, I hear “not yet, and not right now.”
Talk about your journey and how it is not a ladder ascending to the top.
Cheryl Ecton: My journey has been more like a lattice, not a ladder up to the top. I’ve had to go to the side and deal with major issues in my life. Sometimes you have to take a step down or to the side to regain your footing and move forward.
Please start from the beginning of your story.
Cheryl Ecton: I was a young, newly married woman in the late 1980s looking for extra income to supplement my receptionist salary when I started to clean the office building where I worked after hours. I did not know it then, but it was the very first choice I made that led to my company, Elite Building Services. There have been many challenges, but I love to motivate other women with my journey so they feel comfortable taking their own risks and realizing their own dreams.
How do you define success?
Cheryl Ecton: Living and loving in the present, spending time with my family, being content with what I have, and being healthy to pursue my dreams and goals.
Why is a positive work atmosphere so important to you?
Cheryl Ecton: A positive environment allows you to thrive, be creative and stay emotionally healthy.
What is the best part of running your company?
Cheryl Ecton: It is rewarding to look back on where the company started over 30 years ago to where we are now and the limitless opportunities that we have.
What is your overall advice to anyone having difficulties in their professional or personal lives and feeling like giving up?
Cheryl Ecton: Don’t let anyone control your happiness and your destiny because you make your choices, be passionate about your dreams and goals, always continue to strive for what you want in life, and when you fail, which we will at times, fail fast and choose to ‘get up!’
These are choices Ecton feels strongly about as outlined in her book and motivational speeches:
Be courageous – enough to get up and fight for your dreams and goals
Be flexible – enough to adapt, to change, to adjust.
Be yourself, be authentic. Don’t try to be someone else. Don’t compare yourself to others because that takes the focus off of you.
Be vulnerable – this is a tough one, but some of the best leaders are vulnerable
Be positive -make a list of positives in your life and read them daily
For more information on Ecton, her new book, and motivational speaking opportunities please go to these links:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVaIzI_n2ciaEIUH5cfCz2g
https://www.facebook.com/Cheryl-Ecton-100989932471381
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheryl-ecton-54b04726/