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Burning Boats or Burning Bridges

As I sat in my office to prepare for the week, I was reminded of two metaphors I hear all the time. They are “burning bridges” and “burning boats.” When I hear those terms many things come to mind.

Burning bridges implies severing ties and cutting off any possibility of return. It’s a decisive, often negative move that can leave relationships damaged and opportunities lost. In professional settings, burning bridges can mean leaving a job on bad terms or ending partnerships in a way that prevents future collaboration.

While there are moments when it’s necessary to leave certain situations behind, burning bridges should be a last resort. We should aim to part ways respectfully and professionally, keeping doors open for future opportunities and maintaining positive relationships.

On the other hand, burning boats is a bold strategy where retreat is not an option. This concept comes from the story of Hernán Cortés, who allegedly burned his ships upon reaching the New World to eliminate the possibility of retreat. In modern terms, it means committing fully to a course of action, ensuring that all your energy and focus are directed towards success.

Burning boats can be a powerful motivator. It requires courage and confidence in your vision and capabilities. By removing the safety net, you force yourself and your team to innovate, adapt, and persevere through challenges.

When to Burn Boats:

Starting a new venture: When launching a startup or embarking on a new career path, committing fully can lead to remarkable breakthroughs.

Strategic pivots: When making significant changes in business strategy, it’s essential to be all-in to inspire confidence and drive success.

Personal development: Committing to personal growth and improvement often requires leaving old habits and comfort zones behind.

Balanced Decision-Making: Understanding when to burn boats and when to preserve bridges is crucial. Each decision requires careful consideration of the context, potential outcomes, and long-term impact.

As leaders, let’s strive to make decisions that foster growth, innovation, and positive relationships. Let’s be bold enough to burn boats when necessary but wise enough to preserve bridges whenever possible.

What are your thoughts on these two approaches? Have you ever had to burn boats or bridges in your career? Share your experiences in the comments!
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Content Indigestion is a Real Thing

Coming off a great weekend of eating whatever I put my eyes on I came to this realization: indigestion is a real thing.

I didn’t get indigestion after eating turkey, dressing, collard greens, sweet potatoes, barbecue, macaroni and cheese, honey-baked ham, shrimp, fish, corn on the cob, and slaw (that was exhausting remembering everything I ate.). I did think that if I were not careful I could easily get sick and feel miserable.

Today I thought about how much content I inhale. Just like that delicious food I ate, here are the things I had to think about:

Do not consume content for the sake of consuming content

There are pie-eating contests and hotdog eating contents where you race to stuff as many servings of something in your mouth and down to your stomach (don’t try these at home by yourself.). At a given time it may be okay to flex your gastro superpowers. However, you don’t eat like that every day unless you are training for an event.

Consume the content that helps you achieve what you want to accomplish

Some people like buffets. Some people like fine dining. Some people like to go to casinos for the food. Some people like to eat at the state fair. It doesn’t matter where you eat but if you want porkchop on a stick (paying homage to the Minnesota State Fair where I ate porkchop on a stick for years) you have to go where that is served. Do the research to find the best content that is applicable to what you are trying to do and consume that.

Implement the Content You Consume Before Consuming More

You can’t eat all the food I ate for Thanksgiving and then go somewhere and sit down. You have got to go outside and walk around the neighborhood after that meal. If you don’t the pounds will find you. Just like real food, you have to work off the content you consume and then go for more after you have digested and implemented it. How many times have you read that article on how to write a post to sell a product or set up a business and you still haven’t done it? You need to go on a content diet until you get your muscles built up to consume more.

Hopefully, everyone has come out of their food coma and is now back to their routine. Take some time to do the same with the content you consume. Go work out what you have taken in and learn from it. Follow me for more ideas like this.

Why Eucalyptus Spearmint is my Favorite Product from Bath and Body Works

I know everyone is going crazy about AI and how computers will take over the world.

One thing they haven’t figured out yet is how to replicate good-smelling aromas in the digital world. We can create things we see and we can create things we hear – but smell, feel, and taste are lagging behind.

Until we can tell Alexa to make something smell like a fragrance we like, I’m going to keep buying and using eucalyptus spearmint products from Bath and Body Works. Here’s why:

The Product Comes in Dark Green Packaging

I don’t know if you have had an art appreciation class in high school or college but I did. I first learned about color psychology in one of our sessions. Green is one of the cool colors – like blue and purple. It has a calming effect when you see it so having a product in green packaging it a great way to market this fragrance.

The Smell Reminds Me of Good Chewing Gum

Growing up my mom wouldn’t let my brother and I have a lot of candy. But one thing she did let us have is chewing gum. Juicy Fruit chewing gum was one of my favorites but my all-time favorite gum is spearmint. I love spearmint gum, spearmint candy, and mints that taste like spearmint. Having that love for that flavor of gum set me up for liking the spearmint essence of the product.

The Product Comes in An Air Freshener for My Car

Not only can I use the eucalyptus spearmint body wash, lotion, oil, and room spray products, but I can also put the fragrance in my car with the air freshener containers. I kept the anti-bacterial spray and a small lotion in the glove compartment. Now when I get in for a drive I am welcomed by the beloved aroma I enjoy.

There you have it. This was not meant to be a commercial for Bath and Body Works but I will say you might want to try this product for yourself. If sales go up I will be asking for my royalty like Mr. Wonderful Kevin Oleary does on Shark Tank.

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The Coolest Thing I Did in High School that Helps Me Today

When I was just 15 years old, I entered a contest to do something I had never done and it ended up giving me an awesome life lesson.

Here’s the story:

I was a part of a student engineering club that had different events to explore engineering as a career. We had speakers come in, we went on field trips, and we had projects and challenges to keep us prepared for applying to engineering colleges.

During my junior year, we had a contest where all the student groups participated. The contest was to develop and launch a car that was powered by the spring of a mousetrap. We had several entrants but my design won the contest. I competed at the regional level and won a scholarship for college.

Use what you have

The car could be made from anything just as long as the spring made the car move. I went home and tore up the house to find things to use. I ended up using 2 records for the back wheels, 2 canning jar lids for the front wheels, and clothes pins for the suspension.

Don’t be afraid to try something new

I had never built a car before, except for those wooden box cars we used to build and race as Cub Scouts. What qualified me to do it wasn’t that I did it before. What qualified me to participate was my creativity and enthusiasm to make it happen. Experience sometimes isn’t everything.

Iterate Until You Get the Results You Want

At first, I used a fishing line to tie the axles to the spring to power the car. Then I tried a rubber band but the rules said you couldn’t use them. Then I tried taping a string to the axle and rolling the axle until the bar from the mousetrap was set. That works the best. I would trigger the trap, the bar pulled the string, and then the string detached when the bar from the trap came to a rest.

The car went 70 feet which was a record for the contest.

Those three lessons taught me a lot and I still refer to them today.

What were you obsessed with when you were younger? And what life lessons did it teach you?

Let me know in the replies!