THE DREAM IN ACTION

I recently had a conversation with my friend Miguel (of BookVim.com) about the classic book 33 Strategies of War and I wanted to share my favorite strategy that the book discusses and that Miguel and I broke down a bit. The strategy is called Guerrilla War of the Mind Strategy. Below are some lessons I took away from the strategy and from our conversation.

Guerrilla War of the Mind Strategy

“Do not fight the last war”

This is the gist of the guerrilla war concept, don’t repeat your effort and don’t treat every new situation or challenge the way you treated the last. It won’t work out. Every challenge has a different set of conditions. In short, one solution won’t solve another issue, once size won’t fit all.

Your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different.

Again, this a great lesson for folks who say, “man we did it so well before, why are we sucking now?” I’ll tell you why, because 100% of the time, now is different that before. Change your strategy, change your approach and don’t let you past be an obstacle.

What limits individuals and nations is the inability to see things for what they are.

When I’m faced with a challenge, problem, obstacle whatever, I sometimes take a minute to break down the problem before I try and tackle it. (This almost always helps me find the correct solution) A lesson I learned sometime ago was when faced with an problem, especially a problem in business, you have to find the levers to the problem. Basically, that means identify what is in your control, and don’t worry about the rest. Then you’ll know what approach to take in solving the problem. So when the book says, “see things for what they are” I immediately break things down into their most basic, controllable form so that you can attack wisely.

It can be valuable to analyze what went wrong in the past, but it is far more important to develop the capacity to think in the moment.

Keys:

• Reexamine all your cherished beliefs and principles – don’t be a one trick pony, constantly reevaluate your approach to a problem
• Erase the memory of the last war – a new perspective is never a bad thing, even if you have to ask someone else for that perspective.
• Keep the mind moving – duh.
• Absorb the spirit of the times – don’t get caught up with when I was a kid it was this way type stories, you’re not a kid and it’s not that way, it’s today, you’ve got a problem, so fix it.
• Reverse course – sometimes you have to take 2 steps back to take 1 step forward. Shoots and Ladders anyone?

If you haven’t yet, please go check out BookVim.com, I’m hoping to have Miguel do a guest post on this blog soon because his insights and perspective as such an avid reader he adds true value.

image via lptl081