The Historic Origins of Burn The Boats
In our community, there is no turning back. Our only option is Plan A. We are dreamers and imposters doing hard new things. Sometimes dismissed. Often derided. But never deterred.
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Greetings boat burners!
Since writing the book, I now get asked all the time, who first said burn the boats?
It's one of my favorite topics to discuss because history has credited the wrong crusader. Most attribute the phrase to the ruthless Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés whose brutal campaign to seize Mexico in 1519 destroyed the Aztec empire. True, in the face of waning morale, Cortés lit a fire under his army by burning 10 of his 11 boats. But Cortés was simply anointed by historians as the father of “burning the boats”, when in fact, he was merely its most recent disciple.
We can only assume that growing up in Spain, a young Cortés would have once learned about Tariq bin Ziyad, the freed slave and Muslim convert from Algeria who conquered the Iberian peninsula in 711 AD. Outnumbered 10 to 1, and his troops terrified and dispirited, Tariq gave the command to burn the boats:
“We now stand in a foreign land, in a land that is not our own. It is said that in such situations, the best thing to do is to burn your boats so that you can never turn back. If we go forward, we will prosper and if we go back, we will perish. In the face of such a choice, there can be only one answer.”
Well that settles it right? Not so fast.
We have to go back even further to ancient China in 206 BC. The Chinese general Xiang Yu grew tired of his complacent and outmatched leader, killed him, and took command of the Chu Army. He crossed the Yellow River, ordered his troops to burn the boats and destroy the cooking pots, and despite being vastly outnumbered, defeated the Qin army. In honor of Xiang Yu, the Chinese have their own word for burn the boats - 破釜沉舟.
But before Xiang Yu, there was Alexander the Great, who upon reaching the Persian shore in 334 BC, ordered his men to burn the boats.
And before Alexander the Great, the brilliant Chinese military strategize Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War:
"When your army has crossed the border, you should burn your boats and bridges, in order to make it clear to everybody that you have no hankering after home.”
I'll stop here but the truth is, the concept of burn the boats goes back to the beginning of recorded history. It is hardwired into our primitive factory settings - humans perform at their best when we simply have no other choice. The clarity of crisis decision-making is what makes this strategy so effective. All energy is devoted to Plan A.
The simplest way to understand the power of “burn the boats” is to think back to childhood when you got your first magnifying glass. Your target was probably a dried leaf in the backyard. At first, the big weak circle of light projected on that leaf did nothing, frustrating the budding pyro in you. But you fiddled with the angle of the glass until the ray of light sharpened into a white-hot spec. Smoldering at first. Then fire!
Concentrating the sun's radiation on a very small surface area, the magnifying glass will heat a surface hundreds of degrees. The same effect is achieved through the concentration of human attention toward a singular purpose by burning the boats.
Now we don't need to be in a life-or-death situation in order to benefit from this human predisposition. We simply need to set the conditions that preclude mental retreat. In my book, the boat is used as a metaphor for all the internal and external forces that conspire against us, triggering our brain to conjure a backup plan. We will delve into each of those forces in this newsletter. But for now, once you've committed to a goal, the most important task is to prevent energy leakage that happens when you revisit what's already been settled.
Don't ask: “Do I want to do it?”, “Can I do it?”, “Am I going to do it?”
Tell yourself: I'm doing it! Non negotiable.
So why does it matter that just about every culture on earth has a fabled leader who literally sabotaged their retreat in order to prevail? To prove to you that it has always worked. Before there were TED Talks or MasterClasses, we had to rely solely on wisdom passed down from generation to generation, augmented by our own instincts.
Today, we are conditioned to play it safe, to believe that having a backup plan is prudent. We are rarely presented with the alternative: that the mere contemplation of Plan B diminishes our chances for success and degrades our will to pursue our true purpose. But yet that's exactly what a landmark 2014 scientific study proved (more on that later).
For now, just do as the Romans (Vikings, Turks, Greeks, Chinese, Spaniards) did and burn the boats once for all! Start by reading the one book that will show you how.
Lighting the Match:
One of the reasons I wrote Burn the Boats was to speak to an underserved community: the creators. Artists, musicians, and creative types are all tasked with making a threshold decision to take their “hobby” seriously and fully commit to their art. It requires a total leap of faith - that what they alone believe is marketable art will be ratified by the masses tomorrow.
I received a message from an artist in Paraguay whose work is inspired by her love of soccer. Her dream was to move the U.S. to fully commit to her career because the next World Cup will be held in states. But she was paralyzed by the enormity of this daunting decision. She couldn't bring herself to burn the boats, even though every fiber in her being told her it was the right next decision for her career. After reading Burn the Boats, she made the decision to move to the U.S. and sent me this DM on Instagram:
“This book came to my life in the right moment and I’m feeling really inspired to action after reading it. I’m doing the homework and already burning the boats! Burn the Boats really came to my life like an angel in the right moment.”
To submit your story of how you’re burning your boats, share your story here!
