Member-only story
Don’t Burn the Boats: Why You Need a Plan B
There’s a story motivational speakers like to tell about Spanish commander Hernán Cortés burning his ships so there was no choice but to fight. By burning the boats, as the story goes, Cortés created a point of no return. There was no going back. They either had to fight or die. So they fought. And they were victorious.
I heard this story for the first time in 2004. I had been listening to real estate investing training courses and motivational tapes on the way to work and back every day for months. I had listened to them so many times that I had them mostly memorized, and I was hungry for more.
To help satisfy that hunger, I signed up for a subscription from a real estate investing radio show. Every month, for a low fee, they sent me two cassette tapes containing recordings of the previous month’s shows. One of these tapes contained the story that would lead to my downfall.
You see, the story achieved its purpose. It motivated me to make it impossible to turn back. But burning the boats doesn’t guarantee success.
After listening to that tape, I decided it was time to go full-time into real estate investing. I had been doing it as a side hustle for several months and I was doing OK. I figured if I had more time to work at it, I’d do even better.
