Burn Your Boat Philosophy

burn-the-boat-philosophy

“You won’t understand it, until you focus on it.” Li Zongwu

Nothing much, what’s going on with you?

Working full-time and trying to build something part-time. Tried that before?

Nah, I go by the burn your boat philosophy. Go all the way or don’t bother.

Have you ever held a full-time job?

Yeah, a couple of them, more than couple actually. Then I parted ways with some of the founders, started a company got a small percentage, then left those clowns and got a partner and went all in. Then I left that partner, now I’m here by myself. They were stepping stones at best. Weights at worst. People waste time and held me back.

What’s the lesson? should I decrease number of coworkers which will result in increased revenue?

Well, no, it’s about constantly reinventing and improving yourself. The problem is not the co-workers, it’s that, that stage in the process of my life was simply over and you have to move forward.

I still have business partners that I go 50/50 with, but overall, I’m not dependent on another person at any level, if people fuck around, it won’t be my money lost. It sounds cruel but some people are pawns and you have to treat them that way and as you know in chess pawns have to get killed off for the bigger moves by the bigger pieces. Once you detach yourself from the emotion, decisions are a lot easier.

I’ve got a full time and doing my side stuff part time, what do you think?

Problem is, that part-time, full time mentality isn’t going to cut it, eventually you’ll have to go all in. Remember, the 99%, those faggots crying about life being too tough and rough, all are working on Plan B. Going to college to get a job to fall back on and shit, they don’t believe in themselves or their ideas, fucking peasants.

Trying out ideas and executing them by yourself – how did you do it?

By doing it, What kind of question is that?

What about if capital is low?

Capital? man I’ve started from scratch a dozen times, every time I left a partnership I left them with all the revenue, and didn’t look back fuck them. What do you need for capital? Traffic – traffic leaks are free. web design? conversion? Meh, doubt it, it all can be learned in a weekend.

Yeah, but you have a truckload of experience.

nah, that’s bullshit, I just grind morning till night. this one guy in October (2013), asked me a question, he wanted to do SEO and content – had this long ass plan of setting shit up like the stars are going to align, I made one comment, “you know there are faster ways of getting traffic than SEO right?” told him he might want to check those other ways out. One month later he comes back thanking me for that one fucking sentence. I hit him up on Skype, and we get to talking, he was making $600 a day in profit. then one day he said he hit $800, then $900 a couple of days later, then $1200, then, $2500, then 40K in profit in a single day. So yeah, there goes your ‘experience’ excuse out the window, now he’s averagig $1 to 2K a day in profit, with huge spikes every now and then. Small business would only dream of such a level, it’s all about grinding, everything else, meh

When you started how did you keep grinding?
I told everyone around me to go fuck themselves. I went at it day and night, weekends, holidays. I kept going and going and going, didn’t give a fuck what was going on around me, I just wanted to make it and survive, blocked all that noise out, Facebook, the news, Twitter, forums, all that bullshit, that’s what you have to do, no partying, no hanging out, just grind until you strike it – then when you hit it, KEEP GRINDING until you finally automate it. Then maybe, take a one month vacation. The people that are left around you are your true friends. Others will flock back, but those will be the leeches. At the end of the day, you can sit around fucking around with your friends and family, who are most likely in the 99% – or you can become the 1% and grind your way to the top. You’ll come to that fork in the road and hopefully you’ll take the road less travelled, IF you want it, like truly want it.

I got the desire.

Desire is bullshit, action is all that matters, So what are you going to do now?

18 thoughts on “Burn Your Boat Philosophy

  1. Awesome post. Nothing ground-breaking for me personally, but it totally resembles my way of thinking in a few paragraphs. Will send this out to a few people who could make great use of it. Thanks brah!

  2. awesome.
    i have a full time right now (seo agency). when you left your full time, were you already stacking it? i feel like the agency gives me lots of experience and pretty good $.. so, having hard time figuring if i should stay or go all in just yet

    1. First full time job I left I had 6 months of savings. First partnership I left I had 1 month. One partnership I left I had 4 months of savings, and the most recent one I left I had none. I knew of my ability and believed in myself to make it.

      This entrepreneur life is not for everyone. Eventually IF you want more, you’ll take it. I knew I wanted more from early on in life, and most of the people around me where idiots for the most part, so it was really a no-brainer leaving them behind.

  3. Some interesting points here Carter. Care to comment further?

    1. When you discuss your night/day grind work ethic to get yourself to success, it seems to contradict your stance on working (I believe you wrote more about it in “why i hibernate”). Basically, not that much work is needed, just a lot of careful planning and realizing what is real work vs busy work. When you scrape away all the BS – did you still end up working your ass off day and night? I thought that wasn’t too healthy because you just end up getting burnt out and not doing much…

    2. What’s with the “all in” philosophy? Why can’t hustle be on the side while one comfortably makes a living at an agency (esp. a work from home agency). What’s the real bonus of going all in versus casually keeping an eye on stuff and experimenting at a slower rate?

    Thanks,

    Zach

    1. 1. When I’m hibernating, essentially it’s complete downtime. I’m not working at all – no 9 to 5, nothing, just resting and mentally preparing myself. Since when the hibernation is over, like animals in the wild, it’s nothing but “Go time” – no vacation, no partying, no wasting time, just going until next hibernation season. When I started I didn’t have the luxury of having an off season, and if you are struggling to get out of the mud, there is no off-season until you “get out” of the mud, so to speak – When you are comfortable enough to think ahead and plan to makes your future moves.

      Burning your bridge is really when you are starting out on a brand new venture. You can’t win with one foot looking forward and one trying to cling on to the past. Once you decide on something – no matter what, even if you have fear, go all in and give it 100% until you simply can’t. If you need to blow off some steam a day or two do it, but in the beginning I went all in and concentrated 100% of my efforts on getting what I wanted. Study the really successful people in history, you’ll notice a pattern they follow – their passion becomes almost an obsession.

      2. Let’s be serious on why you would want to do that – Fear. You either don’t believe in your vision, yourself, or your ability to make it. That’s really the only reason for holding back and doing a ‘day job’ route – till one day ‘you have it all figured out’. Problem is, in this industry and especially the SEO aspect, once you have almost everything figured out someone (Google for SEOers) will come and update their algo and throw your perfect planning out the window. The stars are never going to perfectly align, you have to ‘create your own luck’ so to speak.

      In life, there really is no in between, either you go all in or don’t. You can wait around and learn here and there like I did for my first jobs to get a sense for the water – it’s like being in the kiddie side of the pool first, but eventually, you’ll have to go into the deep end, otherwise, what’s the point of even living if you are constantly doubting your own ability?

    2. Regarding your second question: I learned it the hard way.
      You just HAVE to focus on one thing. You gotta understand that you’ll be likely competing with people who have:
      a) more money / resources than you,
      b) more experience than you and
      c) definitely more time than you.

      Where is your upside? How do you want to compete with a guy that is 110% determined to dominate his niche / industry / vertical / whatever you want to call it? If you have a job that occupies 75% of your time and energy it is very hard to build a solid foundation in a competitive area. I tried to do this years back when I was starting out and it didn’t work out. Just when I quit my job and relieved myself from all the negative energy that was blocking my productivity I was able to build a great business. After that I tried to get involved in multiple ventures at the same time (both outsourcing and being the sole-owner and teaming up with other people) and every single project failed. Not because of poor due-dilligence or planning, but because I couldn’t focus on more than one project at the same time. Our mental capabilities are limited, so you have to decide what is important to you. I’ve never met people that could build multiple successful businesses at the same time.

      Also, quitting your job knowing that you only have enough savings for the next 3 months is a huge motivation. Getting outside your comfort zone completely transforms your mind and your attitude. Hope I could help!

      1. Glad to see you again Ibanez!

        It’s like a hunter that knows if he doesn’t catch the next meal, he’s not going to eat. When the human body stops eating, the senses become alive – because of that ancient hunter brain that’s in us. A great way of getting into that mind set is to try fasting for a week, you’ll notice you’ll have more energy and be way more alert than you’ve ever been – after you break through the mental barriers of ‘food, food, food’ of course. You’ll be able to smell at levels you’ve never been able to, hear things, everything becomes crystal clear – there will be moments of fog though. That’s the hunter brain becoming alert to get the next meal – that’s what’s active. You can’t imagine the amount of ideas you’ll have to make money once the knife is dangling over your head and you create pressure to make it.

        And back to the one foot in both camps – “Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.” – Margaret Thatcher

  4. Thanks for the explanations guys. I had further comments, but keep deleting them because they sound too peasantish. There just isn’t much else to say do it or don’t do it.

    1. There is no such thing as a stupid question. It took me a long time to get out of the wrong mentality towards business and I think I was rather lucky the way I learned everything.

    2. As long as you’re not asking where to find the best Walmart coupons so that you can pay your next months lease for your Ford GT, I don’t think why you should be ashamed of your question.

  5. Hi Carter excellent post,Love your way of thinking . Direct. Real. Ferocious. brave.

    ; ) Respect.
    Miya

  6. you know there are faster ways of getting traffic than SEO right?

    like? PPC?

    Would like more elaboration on this if possible.

    Excellent post, as this is where i currently find myself in life. Full time, part time mentality

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