Close a few doors!

John Tierney’s article in the New York Times should really resonate with entrepreneurs.

“Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. “

General Yu closed the door on his troops. He enabled them to succeed because he left them no other option. To often options paralyze decision making in entrepreneurs.

Close a few doors!