Eddie Pinero

Understanding the notion that you've already won the lottery.

You're here on earth against all odds with your strengths and the greatness that makes you, you.

Venturing deeper into life's potential, asking more of the world and from yourself is not to compensate for anything.

It's not an obligation.

It's not even required of you.

No, it's an extension of the human soul, the best of life, the magic all around us, an invitation to live fully.

That pressure like water through a channel will flow in the direction you lead it.

It's nothing more than your vehicle to distant shores, your process for crafting diamonds

with the adversity most would refuse.

That pressure doesn't always indicate where it's taking you or even guarantee that its destination will be preferable to where you are now.

But it does promise quite the ride.

And that, for me, is enough.

In 1519, Hernan Cortes arrived on the shores of Mexico with roughly 600 Spaniards, all of whom quickly realized that a mighty empire waited for them not too far inland.

And Cortes, inspired by Spain's current golden age and the encompassing sense of ambition and adventure that gave life to the whole journey to the New World,

He pushed his men forward into the unknown, ordering them, as Winston Reynolds writes in Hispania, to destroy the ships behind them.

Symbolizing the valiant push forward with no return, everything would be on the line.

And over the years, this act has become folklore, evolved into the famous phrase we all know, burn the boat.

Burn the boat.

Why is this an important idea?

Well, I look at it in very simple terms.