More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Our successes and failures in life can be traced to how well or how badly we deal with the inevitable conflicts that confront us in society. The common ways that people deal with them—trying to avoid all conflict, getting emotional and lashing out, turning sly and manipulative—are all counterproductive in the long run, because they are not under conscious and rational control and often make the situation worse.
The self is the friend of a man who masters himself through the self, but for a man without self-mastery, the self is like an enemy at war. THE BHAGAVAD GITA, INDIA,
Look at things as they are, not as your emotions color them.
In strategy you must see your emotional responses to events as a kind of disease that must be remedied. Fear will make you overestimate the enemy and act too defensively. Anger and impatience will draw you into rash actions that will cut off your options. Overconfidence, particularly as a result of success, will make you go too far. Love and affection
When you have success, be extra wary. When you are angry, take no action. When you are fearful, know you are going to exaggerate the dangers you face. War demands the utmost in realism, seeing things as they are.
Judge people by their actions.
What people say about themselves does not matter; people will say anything. Look at what they have done; deeds do not lie. You must also apply this logic to yourself.
Depend on your own arms.
true strategy is psychological—a matter of intelligence, not material force. Everything in life can be taken away from you and generally will be at some point.
if your mind is armed with the art of war, there is no power that can take that away. In the middle of a crisis, your mind will find its way to the right solution.
“Being unconquerable lies with yourself.”
Worship Athena, not Ares.
Your interest in war is not the violence, the brutality, the waste of lives and resources, but the rationality and pragmatism it forces on us and the ideal of winning without bloodshed.
Elevate yourself above the battlefield.
Keeping your overall goals in mind, it becomes much easier to decide when to fight and when to walk away.
Tactical people are heavy and stuck in the ground; strategists are light on their feet and can see far and wide.
Spiritualize your...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
You must declare unceasing war on yourself. As a warrior in life, you welcome combat and conflict as ways to prove yourself, to better your skills, to gain courage, confidence, and experience. Instead of repressing your doubts and fears, you must face them down, do battle with them. You want more challenges, and you invite more war.
Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended. RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
At every step of the way, to give her the contrast she needed, Thatcher marked out an opponent: the socialists, the wets, the Argentineans. These enemies helped to define her image as determined, powerful, self-sacrificing.
Let some of the public hate you; you cannot please everyone. Your enemies, those you stand sharply against, will help you to forge a support base that will not desert you.
Do not be lured by the need to be liked: better to be respected, even feared. Victory over your enemies will bring you a more lasting popularity.
Register any change in the emotional temperature: unusual chumminess, a new desire to exchange confidences, excessive praise of you to third parties, the desire for an alliance that may make more sense for the other person than for you. Trust your instincts: if someone’s behavior seems suspicious, it probably is.
people tend to be vague and slippery because it is safer than outwardly committing to something.
Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies. Feeling wronged or victimized is equally futile. In both cases you are looking inward, concentrating on yourself and your feelings. Instead of internalizing a bad situation, externalize it and face your enemy. It is the only way out.
Being attacked is a sign that you are important enough to be a target. You should relish the attention and the chance to prove yourself.
Keep your suspicions to yourself, so that if you’re wrong, no one will know.
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. Habit takes over. Something that has worked for us before becomes a doctrine, a shell to protect us from reality. Repetition replaces creativity.
Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue into the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today. You must cut yourself loose from the past and open your eyes to the present. Your tendency to fight the last war may lead to your final war.
Thus one’s victories in battle cannot be repeated—they take their form in response to inexhaustibly changing circumstances. —Sun-tzu
Reexamine all your cherished beliefs and principles.
In the midst of combat, the trained mind may fall a step behind—focusing more on learned rules than on the changing circumstances of battle. 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.
Erase the memory of the last war.
If you were victorious, you will tend to repeat the strategies you just used, for success makes us lazy and complacent; if you lost, you may be skittish and indecisive.
Attention to the details of the present is by far the best way to crowd out the past and forget the last war.
Keep the mind moving.
superior strategists see things as they are.
Do not waste time on things you cannot change or influence. Just keep moving.
Absorb the spirit of the times.
Reverse course.
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.
Expose yourself to conflict.
Be self-reliant.
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 balance.
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.
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.
Unintimidate yourself.
Develop your Fingerspitzengefühl (fingertip feel).
