SUN-TZU AND MACHIAVELLI LEADERSHIP SECRETS

INTRODUCTION

– For decades leaders of all types have been using the teachings of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli

to their benefit.

– One reason many people arent as successful at it is because of how hard their lessons are to

understand.

– This new book takes the lessons from the two classical masters and presents them in an easy

to udnerstand way.

– Be warned: the lessons contained within deal only with effectivness, not morality.

– Almost all areas of life can be improved upon by using the teachings contained in this

books.

– As you read through be constantly thinking how these lessons can be applied to your life

and your suitations.

KNOW YOUR WAR

– Start with the end in mind. Know what you want the outcome to be so you can plan

effectivly.

– War comes in many forms: business, politics, personal relationships, etc.

– Make your wars winnable by knowing where the end point is and when to stop.

– Not all wars are winnable. Avoid wars with no realistic shot at victory.

– You likely wont win at life if you alsways strive to do only the "morally correct" thing. To

get ahead you must do what is effective regardless of morality.

SUN TZU'S FIVE FACTORS FOR SUPERIOR LEADERSHIP

– The Way: Its essential to command a unified force.Those you lead must be pulling in the

same direction and must be loyal and be willing to do what you ask without question.

– Heaven: This refers to the factors and elements outside of the leaders direct control. Luck is

one example of such a factor.

– Earth: The conditions on the ground which enables victory to occur. This includes things

like resources at a persons disposal, their alliances, current political climate, etc.

– Command: How effective and talented the leader is at knowing when to have a soft or firm

touch, how wise the leader is, how inspiring, etc. An effectuve leader can adapt his approach

and be formless, and be (and do) what is needed at the time.

– Discipline: Refers to the structure and the rigidity which is in place on behalf of a leader in

order for his intentions to be carried out. Many modern leaders are more worried about

being liked and being a friend to everyone than being effective. While a leader shouldn't be

hated, he should be feared. There should be a system in place to encourage obediance and to

discourage disobediance.

– Sun Tzu says its possible to predict, with decent accuracy, who will win a war by looking at

the five factors and seeing which side has a better control on them.

DECEPTION AND PERCEPTION: YOUR SECRET WEAPONS

– Being able to deploy deception and control perception will lead to a massive advantage.

– Sun Tzu once said "When able to attack, seem unable." This can be applied in the modern

world by hiding your intentions.

– If people arent away of your true intentions and plans then they wont be able to defend

against them or try and stop you.

– One example in the corporate enviorment is to not let people know your interested in the

promotion. Office politics can be dirty and people who do want it will try and sabatoge

others who are interested as well. Let people know you arent interested and you will be left

to complete your power moves and manipulations in the shadows.

– Example two: if you are seeking to get someone fired do not act like their enemy. Pose as

their friend and they will never suspect a thing.

– Example three: Apple kept its developemnt of the iPhone secret so Motorola and Blackberry

would have no time to prepare. Suddenly Apple annoucned the iPhone and quickly attacked

the market share. Competing companies had no time to mount a defense.

– Play on people's perceptions: create a stunning reputation of being good and wholesome and

become loved by the people and you can get away with almost anything.

– Even when caught doing something that counters the good name of your reputation many

people will still rush to defend you if you have done a good enough job at establishing a

great enough reputation.

– Its vital that you keep your true nature a secret. In todays world its eaiser than ever to

uncover a persons dark secrets and find who they really are. As a result you must take

precautions to ensure your true self and motives remain covered.

– When plotting something its important to create a false trail for people to be misled by. For

example: if you want to fire someone and not make it look like a personal vendetta, make it

seem like you are on that persons side and that you simply had no choice but to fire him.

BE RAPID AND RESOURCEFUL

– Stay keenly aware of resource management. Protracted conflicts and sutiations can be very

resource draining.

– Sometimes is nessescary to enter into a suitation that will use and drain the majority of your

resources. Before doing so you must consider these three things: Are the rewards worth the

resources that will be used? Can some less taxing method be used to achieve the same

results? Are they any ways to mitigate or remove the negative effects?

– Always be looking for ways to reduce the number of resources needed whithout sacrafcing

effectivness.

– When entering into any conflict be sure to have a clear objective and end it as quickly as

possible (unless your goal is to make them expend their resources at their detriment).

– Define what victory is and what it looks like before entering into a war else you could be

sucked into an endless course of action not knowing how and when it will end.

– Be sure your decision to enter into a war is based on cauculated logic and not emotion. Do

not be provoked into a conflict/war. Be pragmatic and make the decision with a calm clear

head.

– If you wish to win a war you must plan effectivly. Plot a range of different scenarios that

could occur and devise a course of action in the event of each. In otherwords think of each

possible outcome for every move and think of plan and response for each one.

– Once a range of scenarios have been explored, and the likleyhood of them considered, think

of responses that would best counter each outcome. Consider how your enemies will try to

respond and counter your moves.

– Seek to make enemies expend resources while conserving yours. If possible have your allies

use their resources to fight the war so you can further conserve yours.

DISSENT IS DEATH

– For effective leadership to be possible, dissent and disobediance must be nonexistant.

– Many leaders mistakingly believe they must be like friends or family members to those they

lead. Instead people need to be led by someone with a firm and decisive direction in mind.

– Being firm and decisive doesnt mean being a dictator. Dont be unfair or unkind for no

reason.

– Its possible, but hard, to be both loved and feared. If you can only be one then chose to be

feared but strive to be both.

– You should be feared but not hated. Being hated is a good way to destroy morale and

effectivness while creating enemies.

– To much punishment leads to hate, to many rewards leads to them not respecting you.

– Leaders must be as wise as they are strong. Intellect, discretion, and judgement must all be

used by a wise leader.

– A weak leader will indirectly cause chaos in the ranks and will again kills morale and

effectiveness. Those who are led depend on a strong leader to keep peace and order so that

they may prosper.

– To keep obediance you may have to resort to "force" and "violence."

– Make it clear there are consequences for going against you.

– If someone violates your rules be sure to come down on them with full force and make an

example out of them.

– Take decisive control and establish yourself as a leader as soon as you move into a new

leadership position.

– Crush dissent as soon as it starts or it will grow. If you allow people to get away with it then

others will start disobeying you as well.

INDEPENDENCE IS STRENGTH

– Being independent and self-reliant is one key factor in being a strong leader.

– When it comes down to it, you are all you really have so putting yourself first is

strengtheing your position in life.

– People come and ago and depending and relying on any one of them gives them power over

you.

– For example: what do you do if an employee you depend on quits? It must be set up so that

everyone is replaceable.

– To be self-reliant its vital you take care of your finances and health. Also cultivate skills that

can aid you and seeking employment at other places so you arent tired down to any such

place. A good example is sales. Learn the art and science of sales and you will always have a

job.

KNOW WHAT IS NECESSARY

– Win without fighting: Achieving the outcome with the least amount of effort possible. Also

can mean to win your enemy over thru charm.

– Know yourself and your enemy: Know yourself and how you react in certain suitations and

what your strenngths are weakneses are. Know your opponets pyschology, what motivates

him, how he reacts to certain things, his strengths and weaknesses, etc. Information is

power.

– Use Resources Wisely:How you expend resources depends largley on the suitation at hand in

relation to how many resources you have.

– Extreme is effective: Extreme acts a leader wishes to encourage should be met with extreme

rewards whereas extreme acts a leader wishes to discourge should be met with extreme

punishment. By making examples out of people for both positive and negative deeds a

leader is able to influence peoples behavior and deeds.

EMBRACE CHAOS AND EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

– Many leaders fail because the dont take into account that life is unpredictable.

– You must be able to adjust, be flexable, and responsive.

– Taking to long to plan is a deadly mistake. Many opportunites can be lost when you take to

long.

– A 'one size fits all' approach to planning is a mistake as well. Dont overplan simple

suitations or underplan complex ones. Strike a good balance between to much and to little

planning.

– Plan for your plans to fail. Due to unforseen things your plans will sometimes fall to peices.

You will have to institute a backup plan or readjust on the fly. This is why a backup plan is

essential.

– Your plans need to be realistic and flexable. For example your plan should be: "If A occurs

then we can do B, C, or D depending on the following considerations..." and not "If x

happens then we do Y and then do Z." Shoot for flexable and not linear.

– Failed plans are great teaching lessons. Exmanine your plan and keep asking "why" until

you get to the root cause of why it failed.

– Luck is out of our control. Sometimes we have good luck, sometimes bad. The best defense

against bad luck is having a flexable plan.

– When planning be sure to consider your enemies possible reactions and counters to your

plans.

PROTECT WHATS YOURS

– Acts of leaders can broadly be put into two categories: Attack (expanding) and Defense

(protecting).

– Having a strong defensive foundation to secure your power is vital.

– Always protect what you already have before trying to expand and take more. Secure first

then expand.

– Keep that in mind but dont be overly cautious. Calculated risk are sometimes vital to

advance.

– One way to keep your power secure is to make people rely on you and need you.

– Make people need you more than you need them.

– Appeal to peoples self interest and incentives, never to their mercy or gratitude.

– Offer positive incentives to encourage positive behavior and negative incentives to

discourge negative behavior.

– Think in term of risk/reward. Generally, any action you take should offer you more to gain

than you have to lose.

CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES

– You must think of yourself like a master chess player and always ask yourself "what will the

consequences of this move be? What will happen as a result? What further move does it set

up down the road?"

– Its not only important to consider not only the change itself but how people will react to the

change. When you know how people will react to your moves you will know what kind of

spin to put on it.

– When evalutating the likley impact of any decesion to be implimented you must do so on

pragmatic logic only and not what you wish to happen.

– When evaluating the likley impact consider: The impact of similar decisions in the past in

the same orginization, the impact of similar decisions in the past in comparable

orginizations, and a rational evaluation carried out according to the leader, or someone hes

trust, expert opinion.

– Sometimes seemingly obvious choices are not the best. Only after deep thought and careful

strategic planning do we sometimes arrive at the real best choice.

– Its important to be openminded and consider all options and rule none out until its been

properly thought over.

– Its often useful to conceal the real reason for making any choice or decision.

– An example of choices and consquences considering: If you want someone to leave the

orginization is it better to fire them or make it seem like they are leaving on their own

accord? How will people react to the firing? Will it create power struggles? Will it make

people fear you? Hate you? Will they become more loyal or more distant? How will others

react if he seemingly leaves on his own?

– Leaders must remain respected by those who he leads. The fastest way to lose respect is to

make decesions that seem to have no intentions behind something that takes place. For

example: imagine you have to pull out of a regional market due to poor sales performance.

Instead of admitting you failed and that it was out of your control its often better to put a

spin on it and make the pull out seem intended and strategic.

– Many times when one of your plans fail you should make it seem like the outcome was one

you intended all along. Put a spin on it if possible. Be cautious though, dont insult their

intelligence. If it was an obvious failure dont try to hide it.

WIN FLAWLESS VICTORIES BEFORE FIGHTING

– Place yourself in a strong position to win before the war starts

– Leader should always be aware of the variables which impact upon the chances of victory.

– You should only enter into a conflict if you are likley to win.

– People Follow winners. As soon as you progress to a leadership position be sure to get a few

easy victories under your belt as soon as possible. This inspires your men and shows them

your a winner and you will gain their trust and faith.

– When you first start out as a leader your followers must have faith in your abilities. To get

this you must do whatever it takes even if that means setting up false flag problems and then

riding in to solve them and save the day.

– Set up an "us vs them" dynamic and create a common enemy to unite your people together

against.

– People can and should be manipulated into following you by any means necessary.

– Anything is justifiable if it gains you the trust of those who you need it from.

– The best way to make people do as you wish is to make them rely on and need you in some

way

– Just because you should be certain of the win doesn't mean you only have to enter into easy

battles. Some battles will be hard but they must be fought. Ensure you have planned well

and have done what needs to be done so that you win.

– There are five steps to a flawless victory. By adhearing to each step and doing them in

sequence, victory will easier to obtain.

– Measurement: Measure the various aspects of conflicts which can be measured. This is any

variable that can impact upon the success or operations of an orginization/individual.

Money, allies, power they have, etc.

– Estimation: Sometimes data is imcomplete and we cant measure things so they must be

estimated as accuratly as possible.

– Calculation: It is possible to quantify some aspects of success in any given suitation. You

must calculate how much money any given conflict will cost you and your opposition.

– Compairson: Its vital to take all data gatheres in previous steps and compare it to the same

data of the opposition. By doing this you will know who has the better chance of winning.

– Victory: If the following steps are done well then victory is likley. Be sure to define what

victory is and what it looks like before embarking in a war.

ETERNAL INVULNERABILITY

– Make your position as strong as possible before trying to exploit others.

– By making your self a hardened target, to be invelnerability, increase your chance of

success.

– Plan for the long term by looking far ahead and and consider the strategic impact of any

choice or course of action in terms of the bigger picture.

– Execute plans that build a strong foundation for future years,

– Analyize yourself/your orginization and see what points are the weakest. Seek to improve

them first.

– Everyone has blindspots so to enure you have discovered all weaknesses you should consult

a trusted advisor or professional consultant (online communitites such as

r/The48LawsOfPower make it asy to find people to consult for ideas) and get his advice and

opinions on weaknesses he discovers.

– Knowing the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of both you and

your opposition can aid in laying plans.

– Make constant progress in every area of your life and your will reduce your weaknesses.

KNOW WHEN TO PUSH AND PULL

– Its vital to know when to act and when to sit back and be patient.

– A good time to strike first is when you see a glaring weakness of your opponet that you can

easily use to your advantage without giving your opponet a good way to defend or stike

back.

– As soon as you attack they will take counter measures. Attack in a way that cannot be

countered.

– To sit back and wait and to lure your enemy, appear weak in an area in which you are

actually strong. When they attack that area deploy a lethal trap and counter attack.

– A weakness in one area is enough to make you weak overall.

– One way to increase power is to conceal your intent so your enemies have nothing to guard

against.

– Know your countermeasures: Just as you sometimes go on the attack or sit back and wait to

spring a trap your enemies will do the same. Its vital you try and foresee what actions your

enemies could possibly take and have planned countermeasures in place.

– To plan countermeasures you must think several steps ahead. Always ask yourself if your

actions leaves you open for a counterattack.

STRATEGIC STUDY

– You must always seek to expand your knowledge and skills and to improve yourself. Always

be the student.

– Keep your end goals in mind when you study so you know what to study and what

knowledge to take in.

– Look at people who are where you want to be or acheieved what you want to achieve and

figure out how they did it, what they did right, what they did wrong, etc. Learn from their

successes and mistakes.

– As you climb the ladder to success you will encounter many enemies along the way. You

must seek to understand your enemy so you can exploit them.

– By analyzing your past wins and losses you will gain insight into how you perform and

perhaps even encounter patterns of how you come out on top or what you do wrong that

causes you to lose.

– See things as they are instead of how you wish them to be.

– Perform a SWOT analysis on both you and all possible adversaries.

BE LIKE WATER TO DROWN YOUR ENEMIES

– An effective leader is flexable and adaptable and knows when and how to modify his

approach at any given time.

– Some of our habits and traditions are unproductive and hold as back. We must examine our

habits and see if doing something else is more productive.

– The suitation dictates your behavior. You must modify your approach, actions, and behavior

to the suitation.

– Failing to be formless, flexable, and adaptable will lead to ruin.

– Trust nothing, question everything, and find new and better ways to accomplish things.

– Your way of thinking and problem solving must be flexable too. Come at problems from

new angles.

– You must be able to carry our calculations in a rational pragmatic way without being

impacted by emotion.

– When thinking about any suitation, seperate your rational judgements from your emotional

judgements. Always be asking yourself "Do I think this or do I feel this?"

RESPECT EVERY TERRITORY

– At no time can we assume the way we see things are the way things really are.

– A persons enviorment will influence their behavior. A person will not act the same at the

office as they do at home with family or at the bar with friends.

– Always try to see things as clearly and logically as you can and not through the lens of bias,

emotion, assumptions, etc.

– Its important to have spies placed within opposing orginizations to gather information and

knowledge.

– Its important spies dont get caught but always assume they will and cover your tracks so that

it cant be proved they work for you.

– The quickest way to control spies is to appeal to their self interest.

– Always seek to be rooting out enemy spies within your orginization. If you suspect one feed

them false info and see if that info gets out.

– There is no "right" and "wrong" only whats effective and not effective.

MASTER MORALE AND EARN RESPECT

– One of the most difficiulat and complex task of a leader is inspring those he leads and

bringing out their best capabilities.

– When planning never overlook the human element. The morale, motivation, and other

factors of your people can play a large part in success or failure.

– People can have all the skills in the world but if they lack motivation they won succeed.

– When compairing your team/army tho the oppostions you should look at numbers of people,

their experiance, skills, morale, motivation, work ethic, etc.

– Keep in mind, just like a sports team who appears weaker can win a game, a leader can win

any conflict with good strategy and luck. Make the strategy use the strengths of your team

and play against the weaknesses of the other team.

– Sun Tzu says that dicipline can only be implimented once the people being led feel genuine

loyality to the leader.

– A leader must strike a balance between loyalty and dicipline.

– Its better to discipline too strongly than too weakly.

– Machiavelli says that if you must chose between those you lead loving you or fearing you,

choose fear. Careful not to be hated though as that kills morale and can lead to you being

removed/overthrown as the leader.

– A leader must earn the respect of his team/troops by being wise and decisive and valuing the

troops effort.

– Only enter into conflict when victory is ensured and troop morale will stay high.

– If possible delay fighting until your troops have high morale. This will make them more

effective.

THE POWER OF NO

– The modern world gives you an abundance of options and often the way to success is to say

no to all the wrong things while saying yes to the right things.

– Sun Tzu says there are roads that shouldnt be taken (courses of action), armies that shouldnt

be attacked (people/orginizations not to be messed with) , towns that shouldnt be beseiged

(markets that shouldnt be entered), terrains not to contest (competitive conditions to avoid),

and orders not to obey (advice that shouldn't be followed).

– Saying "no" is a way to save valuable resources.

– Strive to expend the least amount of a resource to achieve the desired outcome.

– Machiavelli says nothing should be done for its own sake but rather for a purpose.

– Say no to the things that dont serve you and your goals so that you can say yes to the things

that do.

– Spend your time wisley and dont waste it. Time is a precious resource which is very limited.

A second wasted is a second you will never get back.

DONT NAIL YOUR OWN COFFIN

– Many leaders cause their own downfall by standing in the way of their own success.

– Sun Tzu gave five ways to ensure your own downfall:

– Recklnessess: Dont let success inflate your ego leading to arrogance and over confidence.

This will lead to recklesses from the belief they wont ever have a downfall. This also leads

to bullish leadership that makes your people hate you. Stay humble and always calmly

evaluate suitations instead of making decisions in the heat of the moment.

– Cowardice: This is a fear of acting which often stems froma lack on confidence in ones

own abilities or the fear of the possible consequences or even the fear of failure. This is

poison for a leader. A leader must have a strong bias for taking action and not shy away from

difficiult suitations.

– A Hot Temper: Making an emotional snap decision is never a good idea. Basing a decision

on how we feel, which are often changing, is never as good as basing it on rational and

pragmatic logic. Always give yourself time to cool off before deciding on a course of action

and never let your enemies provoke you.

– Delicacy of Honor: Never let your honor or ego hold you back from doing what needs to be

done. Example: Sometimes you may have to play dirty to win. It may not be honorable to

fight dirty but if thats what it takes to win, do it.

– Concern for Men: While you should care about those who you lead your concern for them

should never become so great that it stops you from making the decisions that need to be

made.

– Machiavelli states that the only constant in life is the need to take action which will result in

your goals being met.

EMPHASIZE THE EXTRAORDINARY

– Grand spectacles and performances can help a leader persuade the masses.

– To reward and punish effectivly you must find people who embody both extraordinary

positive and negative traits and deeds.

– The reward and punishments, and the message it sends, should be used to reinforce the

interest of the leader.

– A reward must be valued by those who receive it and a punishment must be harsh enough to

serve as a deterrant to others while still being socially approiate to the times.

– If someone undermines and goes against the leader that person should be punished in a

public way to send a message to everyone else.

– The leader should carefully cosndier what messages he is sending out when rewarding and

punishing behaviors. Make the message coheasive.

– What matters is how you are preceived as a leader and not how you really are. For example:

even if you are highly manipulative and duplicit its important that your people see you as

honest.

– Any behavior you wish people to associate with you should be displayed as public and

threatically as possible. For example: if a CEO wants to be seen as generious he can go on

TV in front of many people and talk about making a donation to a charity. Politics of all

sorts is theater.

– Adjust your persona to the audience you are speaking too. You want to be relatable.

– Always be asking yourself, "How will this action be preceieved by the people?"

– If you have to do something which may be unpopular you should find a way to put a "spin"

on it. Propaganda techniques can be useful here.

– Your behavior should be fluid. Sometimes you need to come across as kind and

compassionate and other times and strong and bold. You should be a little unpredictable so

your opposition will fear you and never know what to expect.

– Often (but not always) the general rule is this: The more positive the deed, the bigger the

reward. The more negative the deed, the more severe the punishment.

– Dont make rewards so common that people come to expect them. They should be as rare as

possible while still being effective. If they are to rare people will feel there is no hope of

being rewarded no matter how well they do. To common and they dont care to slack off

because they know they can get a reward any time they decide to do something good.

– When it comes to expectations your people should feel that they are slightly highger than

what they actually are. To high howveer and they feel hopeless.

– Manipulate events as needed. Sometimes a leader cant wait for an event to happen to

showcase the behavior he wants rewarded or punished so the leader must set such an event

up so they could set up or blame/reward someone for the type of suitation they want

featured.

– To reward and punish effectivly you must have an overall message you wish to convey.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

– The choices you make are like a ripple; they can have serious consequences down the line

and can influence things in ways you may not expect. You choices do not exist in isolation.

– Always be asking yourself how any choice you can make will effect and influece things

later on.

– Three factors should be present when making decesions: Calmness, Clarity, and Judgement.

– Calmness means making decesions in a rational and pragmatic manner instead of acting out

in a rage of emotion.

– Clarity means the orders you give, the rules you put into place, the roles, jobes, and

responsibilites you assign, etc must all be clear and understood. Make sure there is no room

for misinterpertation or misunderstanding (unless of course you want them to mess up so

you can punish/fire them).

– Judgement means being wise and seeing things for how they really are so you can make

accurate choices.

– You can manipuate people by leading them to making a choice that seems to help them but

really helps you in the long run.

– A mixture of strictness, punishments, and rewards are the key to making diciplined troops.

ADVISORS AND INTELLIGENCE

– A leadership challenge is striking the right balance between seeking advice and making

independant judgements.

– The wise ruler observes all sides of a situation in order to obtain what is authentic.

– The wise ruler listens, but makes speakers responsible for what they say.

– The wise ruler investigates matters by maneuvering information, in order to use the known

to find out the unknown.

– The wise ruler listens to an adequate variety of sources, and does not only take advice from

high-ranking ministers.

– The wise ruler does not allow ministers to spread gossip and rumors.

– The wise ruler investigates and verifies the information he receives.

– The wise ruler is discreet, does not allow secrets to become public, and does not tell every

minister what the others said.

– The wise ruler is not easily swayed.

– The wise ruler knows, but avoids being known.

– A wise ruler is able to seek out advice in a way that doesnt make him appear weak.

– A common mistake is seeking out to much advice and treating everyones advice as equal.

– Be open to advice of trusted advisors but only seek it when required.

– Many advisors will only tell you what they think you want to hear. You must create an

atmosphere that encourages your advisors to give their total and honest opinion.

– Retain advisors for as long as they are useful to you.

– Machiavelli states its vital for a leader to only receieve advice when they specifically request

it. Being too open and approchable is a surefire way for a leader to lose their mistique,

becoming to everyday and normal.

– Being open to some advice from some advisors is not the same as being open to anyones

advice at anytime.

– Advice is input, not direction. Your advisors input is simply information to compare to your

own, an additional perspective.

– As the leader the ultimate decision is yours and yours alone.

– Dont be afraid of offending people by not taking their advice.

– A key principal of "The Prince" is to always manipulate peoples perception to work in your

favor.

– Know, or appear to know, your enemy. The appearanece of knowing what your enemy is

doing often as useful as actually knowing. If your enemy thinks you know their plans they

will often take less oeffective courses of action.

– Its possible to maniplaute perception to make people believe you know more than you really

do. If you make a decision that happens to coinside favorably with a choice the enemy

makes, you should put across that you made that decision based on knowlegde you have of

the enemy (even if it was just luck and you had no such knowledge).

– Doing this multiple times will make your enemies believe you are able to get insider

information and will cause them to become paranoid.

– Cause your enemies to fight amoung themselves by casuing discord and doubt between

them,

– Purposfully putting on wrong and inaccurate information about your courses of action will

often cause your rivals to act against their own best interest.

– A large part of avoiding mistakes as a laeader is to remain mysterious and impossible to

understand or interpert meaning your opposition will never get a read on you.

ATTACK BY FIRE

– There are five vulnerabilities to be aware of to defend and to attack: Enemy Troops,

Supplies, Equipment, Storage, and Systems.

– Attacking enemy troops simply means disrupting or destroying the human element in a

competing orginization.

– Supplies are the things the enemy needs to operate and carry out successful operations. On a

smaller level it can mean taking out a persons source of power and things that give them

confidence and strength.

– Equipment can be seen as the more permanent , less disposable aspects of what the

opposition needs to function.

– Storage refers to any place an enemy considers a safe space. It can also be literal and refer to

any place an enemy stores useful things to them.

– Systems are the processes and precedures the opposition uses to operate effectivly and carry

out their plans. It also refers to the chain of command itself. Seek to destory or disrupt their

process.

– You must defend your five areas while attacking the enemies five areas.

– One tactic is to find a key person in your enemies operations and find a way to make them

ineffective or to bring them over to your side. (This is one reason why its important to never

rely to heavily on one person for anything).

– In your personal life you should identifiy anyone whos standing in your way and make their

life hell. Seek out their vulnerabilites and ruthlessly exploit their weaknesses. Sometimes

you want to be known inorder to intimidate them and other times you want to do your work

from the shadows.

– Find the core componet your opposition needs to operate and eliminate their access to it. For

example: a buisness can shut down a supplier to a rivial business. In smaller suitations, place

a person in uncomfortable suitations to make them weak.

– Pretend to be the enemy and look for weaknesses in your own orginization and self and see

how one could attack.

– Always have multiple ways of doing things so if an enemy disrupts or takes out one you

have a backup.