This was republished from my Weekly SITREP email.
I started thinking back to my days in the Army as a young Tank Platoon Leader and beginning a mission. The mission never really started until you crossed that imaginary line on a map called the Line of Departure.
In Army and Marine Corps terms, Crossing the Line of Departure is a start point for attacking the enemy. It is basically saying, after this point the planning stops and the fight begins. I am not sure if there is a similar term in the Air Force or the Navy but I would guess that there is something similar. Marine General James Mattis said to his Marines on the eve of the invasion of Iraq
“When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them”
So what does this have to do with starting and running a business? To me, it says that at some point you have to stop planning, preparing and analyzing. You have to get in the fight. You have to start building your company or your next product, basically you need to cross that Line of Departure and go from planning to doing. That is what I did when I started Command Your Business. The enemy that Mattis speaks about is not our competitors, but it is really ourselves. We have to fight and destroy the doubt within.
