Burning Boats... Got A Match?
John Jantsch (of Duct Tape Marketing fame) recently posted a blog entry about how it's sometimes necessary to "burn your boats" in order to force yourself into forward motion.
The concept is borrowed from a legend about a great military leader who landed his ships on an enemy shore and demonstrated to his troops that retreat was not an option by destroying their only avenue of escape. The actual attribution varies -- some say it was Alexander the Great, some say Cortez, some say Napolean, and some insist all ancient Greek generals used this technique -- but who may (or may not) have practiced this technique is unimportant in applying it to your own situation. John suggests using this method in order to spur yourself forward in creating products, writing books, developing business seminars, etc.
I was recently on the other end of this equation while trying to complete a recent project with co-author Jon Petz on Boring Meetings Suck. We'd progressed to a certain point in completing the book and simply seemed to stall. To stay with the boats analogy, we'd run ashore and couldn't get unstuck and wouldn't get off the ship.
A friend finally saw a way to help us get re-motivated by setting the S.S. BMS ship afire. He found a opportunity for Jon to present at a seminar and distribute copies of our book to the audience. With the seminar only a month or two away, we needed to move forward at a rapid pace in order to complete the project and still be able to have the books printed in time for the presentation date.
Burning your boats is a great technique to use on yourself, but sometimes the biggest favor you can do for a colleague is to lend them a match.
The concept is borrowed from a legend about a great military leader who landed his ships on an enemy shore and demonstrated to his troops that retreat was not an option by destroying their only avenue of escape. The actual attribution varies -- some say it was Alexander the Great, some say Cortez, some say Napolean, and some insist all ancient Greek generals used this technique -- but who may (or may not) have practiced this technique is unimportant in applying it to your own situation. John suggests using this method in order to spur yourself forward in creating products, writing books, developing business seminars, etc.
I was recently on the other end of this equation while trying to complete a recent project with co-author Jon Petz on Boring Meetings Suck. We'd progressed to a certain point in completing the book and simply seemed to stall. To stay with the boats analogy, we'd run ashore and couldn't get unstuck and wouldn't get off the ship.
A friend finally saw a way to help us get re-motivated by setting the S.S. BMS ship afire. He found a opportunity for Jon to present at a seminar and distribute copies of our book to the audience. With the seminar only a month or two away, we needed to move forward at a rapid pace in order to complete the project and still be able to have the books printed in time for the presentation date.
Burning your boats is a great technique to use on yourself, but sometimes the biggest favor you can do for a colleague is to lend them a match.
Labels: Insight, Inspiration
2 Comments:
I heard a story about Eddie Murphy talking about starting out in the comedy business. He said that while all of his friends went to college and got degrees to have something to fall back on, he was out pounding the pavement and working in clubs. He knew he HAD to make it. And he said that of all of his friends, he's the only one still in the business.
If you have something to fall back on, you most certainly will fall back on it.
Burning your boats is a great strategy to make something happen. While creating my first version of MetaMemes, I got talking to a fellow game designer and we both committed to share a booth at the Chicago Toy and Game Show (2004). This was a great opportunity to share the cost of the booth, but the challenge I had was that I had only 5 weeks to take my prototype to a complete product (including designing a booth!). This definitely provided 'focus' and no options for retreat. Needless to say it was a frantic few weeks! Being naive is another great strategy for making things happen!
Kes Sampanthar
Inventor of ThinkCube
www.metamemes.com
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