Burn the Boats Before the Battle

"So, despite the fact that we were about to bring a baby into the world, I resigned from Telecom; sold our townhouse in Takapuna, a block of flats in Hamilton, and my Jag; and invested all we had into this new move. Blue Star was turning over $12 million at that point, and my investment bought me seven percent of the company. It took me a while to realise my misstep. Eric had put it on a hugely inflated valuation, which meant I had massively overpaid. That was my fault, not his. In my naivety, I didn’t know better, nor did I do enough due diligence. Now it was too late. I was properly invested. You might have heard this old story about Julius Caesar. Having arrived on the island of what is now England, he and his men were confronted by an army of the local Celts. He told his men to burn their own boats. It meant that they had no chance to retreat. Make it work, or die. Those were the options. Selling my Jag and our home was very much burning my boats. I was committed now. I had to make the money back, because there was no fallback."

"we were living in half of a grotty rental property in Herne Bay – an old place that had been split into two flats. I was driving a Ford Telstar in the meantime. It was a bit of a disappointment, and I certainly no longer felt like a winner. Not only that, but there was also an urgency to the situation that sharpened my focus and drove me harder, because failure meant losing everything."

"We didn’t let it stop us, however. We were so far in, boots-and-all committed by that point, that we had no choice. We couldn’t go back, so we had to carry on and fight. Looking back, I think if there was an easy way that we could have got out of it, we probably would have done so. But that sort of option didn’t present itself, so on we went."