There is a big buzz around commitment and its importance.

Is commitment important? Of course it is, and it’s important regardless if you are a student, a husband, a wife, a parent, an entrepreneur or an executive… Commitment is crucial.

But how a former U.S. Navy Seal Commander would define true commitment?
To learn that l went to Mark Divine’s book “The Way of The Seal” which is an amazing book by a really powerful and amazing guy.

In there he tells us that true commitment, the type your teammates can rely on as if their lives depended on it, requires us to burn the boat upon the shore of action.

I love this phrase… Commitment requires us to burn our boats upon the shores of action.

And commitment – Mark Divine explains – is an one way street. We can’t partly commit or potentially commit. When we deliver a ‘Yes, I’ve got this!’ we inject a positive intent and energy into a project that is palpable.

Conversely, ‘I’ll give it a try’ is a dull thud of defeatism.

He mentions that as a society we’ve crept from insisting that ‘you do what you say, period,’ to honouring ‘I tried and gave it my best’ or to accepting ‘I meant to get to it, but something else came up.’

We have to follow Yoda’s example, who forcefully mentored Luke in Star Wars:
‘Do or do not; there is no try!’ You must commit with everything you have; otherwise say ‘no’ or ‘not now.’”

So, are you committed?…

Are you truly committed?

If yes, it means that you have burnt the boat upon the shore of action. And hopefully you have already done that.

That’s the idea of today’s episode.

Take care!

All my best,
Konstantinos Karypidis