A brief motivational talk by Donald Burns (recorded Nov 20, 2023) advising leaders to eliminate fallback options—illustrated by Hernán Cortés’ "burn the boats" tactic—to force commitment, increase self-expectation, and raise expectations for their teams.
And I want you to take something out of the playbook of Hernan Cortez, the famous explorer in Conquistador. One of his things. I always say, if you want to take the island, burn the boats. Because when you burn the boats and you give yourself no other option but to go forward, what holds most people back? We want guarantees from other people, but we are not willing or we don't ask for guarantees from ourself. When you make a decision that I'm going to start expecting more from myself, and then I'm expecting more from my team.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
