There is a belief out there that people will only change when it’s a change or die scenario. Folks in business use this belief to motivate people to do things they want. They tell you that if you don’t do _______, there will be dire consequences. This idea is called The Burning Platform.
The burning platform idea comes from a story where a man jumps off a an oil rig 100+ feet above water to escape an inferno on the platform. The theory is that people need a “burning platform” in order to change.
I believe the burning platform approach is true for some people, but not for all. In particular, I think highly successful people don’t wait until things to become a crisis before doing something. They don’t wait for the burning platform before making change. This is one of the reasons they are successful.
I think living in such a way that it requires a burning platform before we do something is a terrible way to live. We wait until it’s a crisis, where we must change or die. Then the crises just pile on, and it seems like we just go from one crisis to another. We are stuck in survival mode.
Life needs to be more than just survival. What’s the point if we’re just taking up space and using up resources just to exist? It’s not really much of an existence, in my opinion.
When we get proactive, things start to change. When we start to happen to life rather than life happening to us, we can get away from those burning platform situations. We can act and change because it serves us and those around us. We can pursue things that are aligned with our deepest values and greatest passions. And we act out of love and concern for people rather a need to survive.
Living a legacy would be pretty much the opposite of waiting for a crisis to act. To discover our calling, live a legacy, and really thrive in this world requires that we be motivated by something other than survival.
What about you? What do you think about the burning platform idea?
