Tag Archives: quotes

Burn the Ships

Monday blogs will be back for the next few weeks as we take a short pause on our podcast (we are still mad at Josh for leaving us). For today’s blog, I am going to give you some words to live by. I hope they help you in life and lifting.

 

Let’s start by burning the ships, as Nate Harvey of elitefts would say. He loves this saying and I would have to guess he uses it daily. If you do not know the story, here is the (even shorter) readers digest version: In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed on the new world. When arriving, he burned all his ships so there would be no retreat from his armada. Two years later he defeated the Aztecs. The morale of this story is, when you have no other direction to go you MUST move forward. This story also played well, as last night I had the honor of speaking at Shippensburg University. I was the inaugural speaker at their leadership academy. I will share a few words that I shared with their students last night, while burning ships with them:

 

  1. “The tiger of the mind is scarier than the tiger of the jungle”(Tibetian Proverb).            This is an easy reminder that dreading whatever you have to do is usually the worst part of anything that needs done.
  2. Come to the end of each day tired, beaten, and victorious. Unknown. I read this somewhere and could never find who said it. The point is, on our most successful days we should be tired from being active all day. We should come to the end of each day beaten. We cannot and will not win in everything, so lose and get back up. Finally, be victorious in something…ANYTHING!
  3. “America is not perfect, but I will hold her hand until she gets well” (Col. Willam Holloman III). Col Holloman was a Tuskegee Airmen. He returned from fighting for his country and still faced segregation. Yet, he took this as a challenge to help improve our land. I love his approach and will always remember this quote.

 

These were a few of the thoughts that I shared with the fine students of Shippensburg last night. I hope those exposed to this advice find it impactful and helps to guide you throughout your week.

 

Hamer