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Always keep the search for and use of enemies under control. It is clarity you want, not paranoia. It is the downfall of many tyrants to see an enemy in everyone.
Keep your suspicions to yourself, so that if you’re wrong, no one will know.
What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. Be ruthless on yourself; do not repeat the same tired methods. Sometimes you must force yourself to strike out in new directions, even if they involve risk. What you may lose in comfort and security, you will gain in surprise, making it harder for your enemies to tell what you will do. Wage guerrilla war on your mind,
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What limits individuals as well as nations is the inability to confront reality, to see things for what they are. As we grow older, we become more rooted in the past.
your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.
turned their rigidity into their downfall.
Let go of all fetishes—books, techniques, formulas, flashy weapons—and learn to become your own strategist.
What makes us go astray in the first place is that we are unattuned to the present moment, insensitive to the circumstances.
Knowledge, experience, and theory have limitations: no amount of thinking in advance can prepare you for the chaos of life, for the infinite possibilities of the moment.
Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy.
Reexamine all your cherished beliefs and principles.
Your only principle, similarly, should be to have no principles.
Be brutal with the past, with tradition, with the old ways of doing things.
When you are faced with a new situation, it is often best to imagine that you know nothing and that you need to start learning all over again.
your present experience—the best school of all.
Erase the memory of the last war.
after a successful campaign, he would convince himself that it had actually been a failure.
Keep the mind moving.
Absorb the spirit of the times.
As you get older, it is best to periodically alter your style.
Reverse course.
This can take the form of reversing your course, doing the opposite of what you would normally do in any given situation, putting yourself in some unusual circumstance, or literally starting over.
Relationships often develop a certain tiresome predictability. You do what you usually do, other people respond the way they usually do, and around it goes. If you reverse course, act in a novel manner, you alter the entire dynamic. Do this every so often to break up the relationship’s stale patterns and open it to new possibilities.
Think of your mind as an army. Armies must adapt to the complexity and chaos of modern war by becoming more fluid and maneuverable.
Apply no tactic rigidly; do not let your mind settle into static positions, defending any particular place or idea, repeating the same lifeless maneuvers. Attack problems from new angles, adapting to the landscape and to what you’re given.
But while you’re eliminating that pernicious tendency, you must imagine that your enemy is trying to do the same—trying to learn from and adapt to the present.
In the heat of battle, the mind tends to lose its balance. Too many things confront you at the same time—unexpected setbacks, doubts and criticisms from your own allies. There’s a danger of responding emotionally, with fear, depression, or frustration. It is vital to keep your presence of mind, maintaining your mental powers whatever the circumstances. You must actively resist the emotional pull of the moment—staying decisive, confident, and aggressive no matter what hits you. Make the mind tougher by exposing it to adversity. Learn to detach yourself from the chaos of the battlefield. Let
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studied his opponent more thoroughly. (That knowledge helped Nelson to sense when the enemy was ready to crumble.) But once the engagement began, hesitation and carefulness were dropped.
Our greatest weakness is losing heart, doubting ourselves, becoming unnecessarily cautious.
In moments of turmoil and trouble, you must force yourself to be more determined. Call up the aggressive energy you need to overcome caution and inertia. Any mistakes you make, you can rectify with more energetic action still. Save your carefulness for the hours of preparation, but once the fighting begins, empty your mind of doubts. Ignore those who quail at any setback and call for retreat.
All great generals have this quality. And what gives you that mental distance is preparation, mastering the details beforehand.
we like to think we govern our actions through reason and thought, what most often dictates our behavior is the emotion we feel in the moment.
your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity—precisely the time when you need strength.
What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness. No one can teach you this skill; you
The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for it—to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it.
Expose yourself to conflict.
First, it is better to confront your fears, let them come to the surface, than to ignore them or tamp them down.
By deliberately putting yourself in situations where you have to face fear, you familiarize yourself with it and your anxiety grows less acute. The sensation of overcoming a deep-rooted fear in turn gives
Being a leader of even the smallest group gives you something to live up to: people are watching you, judging you, depending on you.
Be self-reliant.
we tend to overestimate other people’s abilities—after all, they’re trying hard to make it look as if they knew what they were doing—and we tend to underestimate our own. You must compensate for this by trusting yourself more and others less.
Suffer fools gladly.
When working alongside fools, do not fight them. Instead think of them the way you think of children, or pets, not important enough to affect your mental
Crowd out feelings of panic by focusing on simple tasks.
When circumstances scare us, our imagination tends to take over, filling our minds with endless anxieties. You need to gain control of your imagination, something easier said than done. Often the best way to calm down and give yourself such control is to force the mind to concentrate on something relatively simple—a calming ritual, a repetitive task that you are good at.
A focused mind has no room for anxiety or for the effects of an overactive imagination.
Unintimidate yourself.
The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you’re facing is a mere mortal, no different from you—which is in fact the truth. See the person, not the myth.
Develop your Fingerspitzengefühl (fingertip feel).
Presence of mind depends not only on your mind’s ability to come to your aid in difficult situations but also on the speed with which this happens.
