#3 — Act only when you’re prepared.
Imagine that there is a descendant of one of the greatest military geniuses in history who continued the most famous work of his ancestor.
Imagine that this lost manuscript was found thousands of years after his death.
Imagine that it is found in the year 1972 written on f*cking bamboo sticks next to the corpse of a warrior.
Imagine that this descendant of a line of strategists is taught by a guy known as “The Master of the Valley of the Demon,” who, according to legend, lived hundreds of years.
Wouldn’t you want to read that book?
Well, stop imagining because that book exists, it is called The lost art of War II, and it was translated by a Harvard graduate doctor of ancient civilizations, Thomas Cleary.
So let me share three life lessons I learned from reading it because they will blow your mind.
Let’s start.
1. Underestimating your opponent is a mistake.
In one of the anecdotes in the book, Sun Bin — the descendant of Sun Tzu, the legendary author of The Art of War — tells how he once sent soldiers into enemy territory and had them light a bunch of torches at night.
Then, he made them retreat and gradually extinguish the torches so the enemy would believe that his soldiers were cowards and deserting.
He hid his soldiers in an elevated position, cut down a tree, removed its bark, engraved the inscription, “General Wei will die in this tree,” and placed it in the middle of the road.
When the enemy came out of his kingdom to hunt down the so-called “cowardly deserters” and arrived at the place where the trunk of the tree cut off their path, General Wei lit a torch to read the inscription, and Sun Bin’s army began to rain arrows from the air 🙂
Lesson: someone showing weakness, and false humility, can be a strategy to get you where they want in life, and when the situation is promising, to metaphorically finish you off, either by taking away your partner, money, friends, or job 😉
2. The one who gets angry loses.
In the years of Sun Bin’s apprenticeship, the “Demon Valley Master” coached him together with a guy named Yang Pang.
Yang Pang was hired by one of the kingdoms of the time after he finished his training, and as he knew that Sun Bin was a better strategist than him, he called him in.
Sun Bin trusted him, and when he arrived at the kingdom where Yang Pang worked, he amputated both feet at him — after which he would be known as Sun the Mutilated -tattooed his face to humiliate him for life and locked him up.
Sun Bin was not angry with his former companion but with himself for falling into the trap, and when he had the chance, he escaped.
Sometime later, he confronted Yang Pang’s army and drove him out of his temper, angering him by sending horse-drawn chariots in front of his troops to provoke him.
Yang Pang fell into the trap, and let’s say Sun Bin got his revenge 😉
Lesson: Many players in basketball, tennis, football, professional poker, and chess know that making your opponent nervous is your advantage. Once they get on your nerves, whoever keeps his cool can exploit your blind spots and attack you. Don’t let them upset you, or you will lose the game.
3. Act only when you’re prepared.
“No one in the world can be firm and strong if he fights without supplies or without the fighting sense.” — Sun Bin.
It takes both.
Because as Sun Bin says, “When a city is small, but its defense is firm, it means it has supplied.”
And on the other hand, Sun Bin also said, “When there are few soldiers, but the army is strong, it means they have a feeling of the fighting sense.”
It’s not want; it’s can. Companies like Starbucks or McDonald’s know this.
They know that to win, more than resources is needed; they need their employees to feel a sense of belonging to the brand. That feeling makes everyone pull together. And therefore that the brand grows.
Lesson: You need to 1) know why you are fighting (feeling the sense of struggle) and 2) have the means to stay in the game long enough.
A virtual hug
AG
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