The Art Of War | 5 Most Important Lessons | Sun Tzu
TheArt of War By Sun Tzu Summarized by Jacob Steve. I needed to compete with hundreds of
other entrepreneurs in a certain business. If you were in my shoes, what would
you do? Even before I ventured out, I decided to research about every single
competitor I was able to find. With this meticulous research, I easily figured out
some common weaknesses upon which I could build a niche and a business. The number one major lesson in the Art of War is; If You Know Your Enemy as Much as You
Know Yourself, You’ll Win 100% of time. The second lesson. But wait! The Art of
War was written by Sun Tzu more than 2,500 years ago and it was written to
teach military strategies, so, why should you ever try to read this book if
you’re not a soldier? Well, almost everything we do today has the element of
war. Whether you’re an athletes, an employee or an entrepreneur, you have
opponents and competitions in one way or the other. In our day to day
activities, we negotiate and try to claim whatever we think it’s ours. Unfortunately,
many people in our world today aren’t so nice or kind, hence, we all may have
to guide ourselves from being the victims of their callousness.
That’s
why you may want to understand the concept of this book. Now, let’s move to the
second major lesson in the Art of War. The other day I watch a video of Oprah Winfrey where she was talking about how she became one of the world’s most
famous TV celebrities. She talked about what she always told her team; “Hey
guys, we cannot always control what the other people do, but we can always
upgrade our games”. Either in business, sport or war, you cannot control what
your opponent or competition does. Yes, as explained in the first major point of
this book, you can spy your opponent and you should do it to ensure your
victory. However, when it comes to your own defeat, you’re the only one who can
defeat yourself. If this confuses you, here is the point; Armies are not
defeated because of the strengths of their opponents, they are defeated by
their own weaknesses. Now, I really need you to understand this, so let me
explain with a simpler analogy. If you’re an entrepreneur (for instance), you
may be tempted to think that your competition has power to destroy your
business. But that’s not true. You are the only one who can destroy your own
business by refusing to learn and grow. Like Oprah, if you’re always learning,
always growing and always upgrading your business games, your competition’s
best strategy is to run after you.
The
second most important lesson in the Art of War is; Work on Your Weaknesses
Because Your Weaknesses (Not Your Competitors’ Strengths) are What Can Destroy
You After it has become the biggest search engine in the world, Google started
attacking it perceived enemies by going to their territories. Were you surprised
that Google started making phones, cars, etc.? Do you think Google really care
about those market they recently started entering? Probably No. In my opinion,
Google’s major business is Search Engines and that has to do with Google and
YouTube. Dominating these two markets is the heart and priority of Google, but
the company knows that other giant companies are potential threats. Pretending
you can attack a threat before its attack you makes him feel unsecured. With
this insecurity, he may never have the courage to come to your territory. It’s
a deceptive strategy to keep your opponent unbalance.
The
third important lesson in the Art of War is; Deceive Your Enemy and Keep Him
Off Balance There about 25 banks in my country, many of which are old
generation banks with billions of dollars as their capital base and hundreds of
branches all across the country. Here comes a modern day bank with the
intention to compete with those who have been in the business for decade.
Building branches all across the nation to beat the existing banks would not
work and trying to capture the market share using the traditional method won’t
either.
For
this bank to win, they have to concentrate all their resources on building the
best modern banking technologies and that makes them become the most popular
bank within a decade or two. What is the lesson here? The fourth important
lesson in The Art of War is; If your enemy has the strengths to fight on the
mountains, fight with him in the valley After failing in the business world for
about six months, a friend of mine advised me to go and get a job.
Unfortunately, I have no certificate so I was unemployable. This was not by
accident as I intentionally did away with certificates because I knew having
certificate could make me to easily run away when the business world becomes
tough. You see, every war is serious and it has to be approached with DO OR DIE
mentality.
If
you don’t need it as much as your life, you probably don’t need it that much. War
and every other serious thing in life is tough, so if you want anything
meaningful in life, you must want it badly enough. The fifth important lesson
in the Art of War is; Warfare is a Matter of Life and Death.
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| "Opportunities multiply as they are seized." Quote By Sun Tzu in The Art of War |
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