There’s a line I’ve carried with me since I was a teenager: if you want to take the island, you have to burn the boats.
It means once you commit, you take away your own exit. No retreat, no fallback, no quietly planning for failure while you pretend to chase success. For me, there has never been a plan B. It’s always been succeed or go bust. Is that risky? Of course it is. But that’s exactly what made me relentless.
I started my personal development early — five years of it, beginning at 19, pouring every dollar I had into events, trainings, and seminars. I learned one thing fast that has never left me: a strong mind is your most valuable asset. Not your truck, not your tools, not your marketing budget. Your mind. Protect it, sharpen it, and point it at something worth doing, and you can build almost anything.
When I launched my first company at 20, I had no clue about business. What I had was total commitment. I loaded up a used Ford Ranger every single day, knocked doors until I had work, and reinvested every dollar back into the company. There was no safety net underneath any of it — and honestly, that’s the point. The safety net is what lets people quit. When quitting isn’t an option, you find a way.
I want to be careful here, because “burn the boats” gets misused. It doesn’t mean be reckless. It doesn’t mean skip the planning or ignore the numbers. It means make the decision fully. Stop hedging. Stop keeping one foot out the door. The people who win aren’t necessarily the most talented — they’re the ones who committed all the way and then refused to look back.
Every day I walk past the first truck I ever bought, still parked in the company lot. It reminds me of the version of me who decided there was no going back, and it keeps me honest about how that decision built everything that came after.
If you’re standing on the shore right now, deciding whether to go all in on something you believe in, here’s my advice: make the call. Then burn the boats.