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First, become aware of the weakness and illness that can take hold
You need clarity.
He that is not with me is against me. —Luke 11:23
A sharply worded question, an opinion designed to offend, will make them react and take sides.
avoid the temptation to react, to say no, to get angry, or even to ask questions. Go along, or seem to turn a blind eye: your enemies will soon go further, showing more of their hand. Now you have them in sight, and you can attack.
never aim at a vague, abstract enemy. It is hard to drum up the emotions to fight such a bloodless battle, which in any case leaves your enemy invisible. Personalize the fight, eyeball to eyeball.
Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate—these common strategies spell ruin. Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. 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.
children learn to adapt to the world and develop strategies for dealing with problems.
Instead of shrinking from the idea of having enemies, then, embrace it. Conflict is therapeutic.
A tough opponent will bring out the best in you.
This completeness of vision foreclosed creative conflict.
Understand: presence of mind is the ability to detach yourself from all that, to see the whole battlefield, the whole picture, with clarity. All great generals have this quality.
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.
focused mind has no room for anxiety or for the effects of an overactive imagination. Once you have regained your mental balance, you can then face the problem at hand.
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. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help you to keep your mental balance.
were divided in heart and mind.
Sometimes you need to run your ships aground, burn them, and leave yourself just one option: succeed or go down. Make the burning of your ships as real as possible—get rid of your safety net. Sometimes you have to become a little desperate to get anywhere.
