Growing up, many of us are taught to have something to fall back on. A fail-safe in case our plans for life don’t go exactly as planned.
This can be a useful strategy, but sometimes having a fall back plan can shoot you in the foot. Some of the most successful people found their footing when there were no other options.
This episode will discuss when it’s appropriate for you to “burn the ships.” This phrase refers to a story about Hernan Cortes. He had aspirations to conquer Mexico, but his men were fearful. They wanted to sail back to Cuba where there was an established settlement.
Sensing the anxiety in his men, Cortes secretly ordered that his ships be destroyed. His men found him out, but by that point, the ships had already been destroyed. He told his men that they could either be lords of Mexico, or they could sit there and die.
Focused and motivated to avoid death, his men fell into line, and Cortes conquered Mexico with just a few hundred men.
I learned this strategy from Robert Greene’s 33 Strategies of War. I recently spoke to him in an interview for the Warrior Soul Podcast, and it will be published on September 16.
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Transcript
Machine-generated from the episode audio and lightly edited — may contain errors.
Chris Albert (link to this point)
Hey, guys. Before we get into this week's announcements, I'm just gonna throw an extra one up here, and I hope you'll forgive me because it's important. I wanna talk to you about a marine named sergeant Simon r Lakey. And sergeant Lakey served with Echo Company second battalion fourth marines. He served bravely amongst his peers.
He was recognized as being one of the best. And these are some of his words. He said, remember this, there's nothing in nature that respects weakness. Stay strong. Hard times are here, and more are coming.
And though sergeant Lakey served honorably, he served with bravery and with distinction. Many people didn't know that sergeant Lakey was fighting his own battles. And on a day in the year 2015, after long after he fired his last shot, he took his own life. And I don't talk much about suicide here on this podcast because this podcast is about life. But I wanna tell you about an organization that is helping veterans to truly live, and that's Save the Brave.
They're an awesome organization I had. One of the founders on actually, one of the founders and one of the board members on last week, Nick Velez, he is the founder of Save the Brave. He's also the owner of Bastards Canteen. Major Scott Huesing, who is the author of Echo in Ramadi, and who detailed his marines actions in the battle of Ramadi in 2006. They're hosting a golf tournament.
It's gonna be on Friday, 10/04/2019 in Temecula, California at the Temecula Creek Inn. Now, I don't play golf. I probably am awful at golf, but I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna be playing. So if you guys are interested in this, you can get tickets or you can send your support. It's up at savethebrave.org/events.
That's savethebrave.org/events. And I'll have a link to this up on the show notes. Alright? Really important. Again, I'm sorry for the interruption, but let's get into this week's announcements in this week's episode.
This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.
You need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.
Hey. What's going on, guys? I got a really quick one for you today. It's only gonna take a few minutes, but what I wanna tell you and talk to you about today is burning the ships. Now this is a concept that I got from one of our recent guests, mister Robert Greene.
He wrote a bunch of books, the 48 Laws of Power, the Laws of Human Nature. But the book I'm getting this from is called 33 Strategies of War. And what's great about this book is he lays out, the strategies of war and applies them to how people actually live their lives. And the concept of burning the ships comes from this idea. A lot of us try to go after more than one big thing in our lives at the same time.
Right? So we'll have a bunch of different goals, and and we'll have a and, yes, you want different goals for each area of your life, but we'll have a bunch of different professional goals, and we'll try to go after all of them. Maybe you're trying to open up a business. Maybe you're trying to to to, you know, start a career. Maybe you're trying to lose weight, build muscle, do all these different things.
Right? But the problem is you're trying to do them all at the same time. And one of the one of the reasons reasons why is to give ourselves a fallback, to create a safety net. And the reality is that we do that out of fear a lot of time. We do it because we don't think we're actually gonna get to that goal that we wanna get to.
Now I'm not telling you to give up your job and and go to Hollywood or or to to quit your job so that you'd start a business that you haven't properly planned for. But what I am telling you is this. Once you've done your initial planning, once you've decided upon a goal, get rid of the safety net. Right? Get rid of the safety net.
If you've been in your business for a couple of years now and you're not putting a 100% effort into it because you've got something else going on, Well, if you wanna find success, you need to burn the ships. You need to say, you know what? There is not going to be a reason for me to quit. And when I think about this, I think of what was probably the scariest but happiest time of my life. Few years ago, there was a point where I had absolutely no other option except to open up another business.
Now why was that? Well, I had just gone through a divorce. I no longer had a place to live. I had lost my ownership over another business. I didn't have a resume that was gonna allow me to get a job that would help me to pay my bills.
So I was forced into a situation where I either had to move forward with this business or I wasn't gonna have any other option. So that put me into a situation where I was completely focused on what I needed to do to survive. And that's the reason why Warrior Soul, why this podcast, Why anything to do with what I'm doing now exists today? That's the reason. If I had a safety net, if I had been able to go out and get, you know, a quick office job, what would have happened?
Well, I probably would have taken that job. I probably would have hated my life, and I probably would be nowhere. This podcast would be something that that I was always dreaming about. Right? Instead, I was forced into a situation where I had to act.
Right? And if you know my story, you can go check out my about page. I'm very open about where I came from and what I did. And, my point is this. I'm not telling you to put yourself into a position where your livelihood is in danger, but what I am telling you is this.
Stop pussyfooting around your goals. If you know that you want something, go out there and get after it. Be relentless in your pursuit of it. Because that's the only way in a world where living things have been tested since the dawn of time to see if they're fit to live on this earth. In a world where tragedy happens all the time, in a world where bad things happen to good people, the only way that you're going to be able to find success is if you're putting a 100% into what you're doing.
And you're not living off of fear, you're living off of the desire to make this thing happen. So that's my point for today. I know that that it's super high level, like, thousand feet up in the air. I'm not saying high level like I'm so smart, but, like, thousand feet up in the air. But it's it's a mental tactic that you can do to put yourself into a better place.
And I highly suggest you check out that book, Robert Greene's 33 Strategies of War. I'm gonna put the link to it in the show notes for this episode. And that's what I got for today, guys. If you're new to this podcast, my name is Chris Albert, and this is the Warrior Soul podcast. What I do here is I provide tools, tactics, ideas, strategies, and content that helps The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to push forward to live their absolute best lives.
We don't ask for anything in return here. All we ask in exchange for the show is that you spread word about it. Please share these episodes out, and please head over to iTunes and write us a written reading and review. Let us know what you think about the show. We're really trying to grow this movement.
We're really trying to put ideas and tools that are going to translate to making this country, this society a much stronger, better place for our children to grow up in. Alright? Because that's what it's gonna take. It's gonna take all of us stepping up to become leaders. I wanna say that this podcast would not be possible without the good people over at F Bomb Nutrition.
They make delicious packets of macadamia nut butters. They smoke salt with with with pecan butter, with sea salt, with chocolate. They're so good. They also have other fat fueled snacks like cheese crisps and and meat sticks. Awesome stuff, and and they're great people.
They're sending boxes of this stuff overseas to the troops on the front line to supplement their MREs. You want 20% off your first order, head over to www.dropanfbomb.com. Use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. Finally, I wanna say this. We've got the Warrior's Obituary Society kicking off right now.
We've got members across 11 time zones ranging from Hawaii all the way to troops serving in Afghanistan. What is the Warrior's Obituary Society? It's a group that empowers men to live lives worthy of epic obituaries. Really, really awesome project that I've been wanting to do for a while. Wanted to create a community of men that were going be there to support each other, push each other, to be their absolute best.
Starts with an eight week development program where you're working on your vision, your goals, your fitness, your finance, your career, your business, your relationships, your spirituality. Once you're through that eight week development program, take your seat as a full brother in the society. And from there, you're there being held accountable to those goals you laid out. We're doing live calls each week. We're doing challenges each week.
Each month, we're we're doing hot seat session. We're we're holding members accountable to their goals. And, it's a paid program, but I tried to keep this to a really, really reasonable price. It's not one of those things that you're gonna be paying thousands of dollars for. It's literally not that expensive.
And it's a we got a great group of individuals in there ranging from active duty military to veterans to really awesome, highly productive, and like minded civilians. So if you're interested in this, we're not looking for any for for just anybody. We're looking for men of high value, of high grade, who are looking to do their absolute best. If you're interested in this, just email me over at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com or DM me on Instagram. It's Warrior Soul Agoge on Instagram.
Alright? With that guys, go ahead and have an awesome weekend. I wanna thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll be back at you next week with some more awesome programming. We got actually mister Robert Greene. He's gonna be on the show on Monday, and then we'll have some more awesome content laid out for you for the rest of the week.
Talk to you guys soon.
Host of the Warrior Soul Podcast and founder of Warrior Soul. Worldwide trainer and nutrition coach, contributing author at Testosterone Nation and Muscle and Strength.
