What are the essential principles of grand strategy needed to become a master of forethought? Why is it important for a grand strategist to be perceived as cold and detached? How can the tendency to become drunk on victory be detrimental to a grand strategist's success? Why is flexibility considered the greatest strength in achieving long-term strategic goals?
In this episode, we will explore the four fundamental principles of grand strategy that are crucial for mastering the art of forethought. We will discuss why it is important for grand strategists to be seen as cold and detached, and the potential pitfalls of becoming overly celebratory after a victory..
Hope you enjoy and if you like my content, drop me a follow and find me on Instagram @stoicspirituality, Tiktok @stoicspirituality, and Youtube @stoicspirituality
Find my other podcast episodes and platforms here: https://rss.com/podcasts/stoicspirituality/
If you would like one-on-one mindset coaching, schedule a sample session with me:
https://calendly.com/stoicspiritualitylifecoaching/sample-session?month=2023-04
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What are the four principles of grand strategy that we should have in order to become a true
(00:06):
master of forethought?
Why is it important and why is it a characterization that a grand strategist is someone who is
seen as cold and detached, but why is it also important to not grow drunk on our victory
as a grand strategist and always look toward the next goal using flexibility as our greatest
(00:29):
strength?
Hello and welcome back to Stoics Virtuality, a podcast where I look through, analyze, and
dissect various books, quotes, and experiences that I've had over the last few years.
My name is Juggan and I'm a student of the human experience trying to spread some knowledge
out to the rest of the world.
And so this episode is kind of the second part in the two-part series regarding grand
(00:51):
strategy.
Through this episode, I hope to discuss some important facets or some important parts that
we discussed from the previous episode regarding grand strategy and then continue our discussion
into four important principles that kind of make up our overall grand strategy, completing
it with a little bit of a stoic and a spiritual sprinkle on top of the end of this episode.
(01:16):
So let's begin.
So kind of summarizing a little bit of grand strategy in the past.
So back then with grand strategy, we used to kind of have an animal and a rational part
of our brain.
Evolutionarily speaking, what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is the
(01:37):
amount of depth and kind of investment our evolutionary self has put into the generation
of a rational prefrontal cortex compared to that of other animals.
While similar mammals like monkeys or even whales or dolphins also have a similar investment,
our rational thinking is really what separates us and puts us at the top of our food chain.
(02:03):
However, there is still the evolutionary part of us that has an animalistic, irrational
portion of our brain.
And so a lot of what we find ourselves in conflict between is between our rational sense
of self and our irrational and emotional sense of self.
And in this kind of new world of social media, instant gratification and dopamine, that kind
(02:28):
of animal portion of our brain is getting more prevalence.
That extended vision, that prudence, that forethought and the knowledge of the future
in great depth and detail is kind of being eclipsed, is being taken over by this irrational,
animalistic portion inside of us.
(02:50):
And so one kind of ideological figure that is kind of illustrated in Greek mythology
is Odysseus.
So while there are stories of Odysseus doing irrational things, the kind of stereotypical
prudent man is one who conquers the rational, who is in control of his emotions and uses
(03:12):
the idea of forethought, kind of like when he slips into the room full of these suitors
as a beggar, waiting for the right moment to win the challenge by shooting an arrow
through seven rings and revealing himself to be Odysseus.
So you may think that when you see your wife being courted by a hundred suitors all at
(03:34):
once that your first instinct would be to charge into the room and yell and get really
mad and create a big scene in order to assert the fact that you are back at home.
However, this potentially will lead to your destruction and your assassination in the
case of Odysseus.
So what he does instead is he kind of receives the disguise from the Greek goddess of a beggar
(04:03):
and kind of detaches himself from the overall scenario, kind of cutting off the, and curtailing
the emotion of the situation that might have caused him to charge in rationally and boldly
and instead be a prudent, cold man with the detachment and the true vision of knowing
(04:24):
what to do properly.
And so what comes with this idea of knowing what to do properly is not taking yourself
so seriously.
And this seems counterintuitive to what you may think because the grand strategist must
look at everything comprehensively and understand every single facet of every single plan that
(04:47):
they're doing.
However, the paradoxical necessity to not take yourself so seriously is more in the
sense of humility.
So humility and ego kind of stand at opposite ends of a spectrum, and a grand strategist
must be aware that his ego is the source of many of his irrational actions, a source of
(05:09):
an outpouring of emotion that people later categorize as that was not me or that was
not who I really am.
However, by adding a sense of laughability, by adding a sense of humor and levity to a
person, you allow yourself to tamper or temper rather your ego and look at the world through
the eyes of a prudent but humble man doing what is necessary, not for the sake of boosting
(05:35):
your own ego, but because this is the plan that will make you the most victorious.
And so now that we kind of understand the emotion versus rationality, there's one
other facet of strategy that is important to look at.
The same way that our lives are not really a linear line, but is rather a web where one
word we say to one person, or one quote per se we say to one person, can spawn a set of
(06:00):
thoughts in their head, creating a theory in their head and a philosophy in their head
that they eventually espouse to a few people who kind of spin off their own interpretations,
ideals, or attribute certain quotes to their own life.
Strategy is a very web-like, non-linear kind of methodology.
(06:25):
Because we think that a failure means a setback.
We think that a failure means that we must continue on the same path.
And we always look at strategy as one single goal, reachable by only one single path, with
one set of objectives.
However, this is the recipe for disaster, because it's kind of like the quote, putting
(06:48):
all your eggs in one basket.
The idea of strategy is back up plans.
The idea of strategy is kind of offshoots, deflections, and an understanding that if
something is meant to go wrong or if something can go wrong, it most likely will.
Murphy's law.
But the power of a grand strategist as opposed to a strategist is one who has many weapons
(07:12):
quote unquote as disposal.
Being able to look deeply into themselves and the world around them, understanding what
people will do in response to something or a situation and what people will act in response
to that.
For example, if you want to kind of use a work analogy for this, you're trying to get
to the kind of end of a project or presentation.
(07:35):
However, you have a roadblock in the form of someone who wants to take credit for your
actions, who wants to kind of demean your work and damage your reputation.
Regular strategists may kind of put more vesting or like put more like investment into their
own project and kind of just charge through kind of ignoring the damage this one person
(07:58):
could do.
However, a grand strategist would find a way to mollify this person, having predicted from
a lot of forethought that this kind of situation might or would arise, and eventually get to
their end goal, not allowing for any mistakes that could spawn greater problems in the long
(08:21):
run to persist.
And sometimes, remember, you will use things like knowledge and understanding about those
around you to get what you want.
And that is the idea of seeing things clearly.
But this vision could be clouded and can be clouded because there are many other things
that could potentially factor into your final decisions that you cannot be aware of.
(08:44):
And so a strategist kind of seeks to control everything and looks at everything that he
cannot control as consistent factors that will not change in a linear sense.
However, a grand strategist will allow for these many fluid factors they have no control
over and work toward accounting for them in their overall plan.
(09:08):
And the reversal, one potential reversal of this is growing drunk on your own success.
So a strategist will look for a goal, will look to finish something or get something
completed and then they will make it to the end, grow drunk on their victory and lose
track of what they fought for the entire time.
However, a grand strategist will have planned for the eventual victory and will have understood
(09:35):
that they should temper whatever they're doing and not be so kind of drunk on their
own success.
And this leads back to the point I said before about the levity and the kind of laughability
that one who is a grand strategist should have for the spawn of a very successful project
(09:56):
or a very successful plan is happiness and confidence in your own abilities.
However, what results from an overdose of confidence is ego, conceit, and pride and
these are damaging characteristics in the long run for your own self.
In the quintessential game that kind of illustrates grand strategy is chess.
(10:19):
So a common strategist, we like to say common to kind of differentiate between a grand strategist
and a regular strategist, but a common strategist would have a snapshot of the board in front
of them, would see their opponent acting in some way and would react accordingly to kind
of save their pawns and maximize how many pieces they take and so on and so forth.
(10:43):
But a grand strategist will understand that the end goal is a checkmate of a king and
the winning of the game, not necessarily maximizing their pieces.
So they might sacrifice a few important pieces, pawns or knights or bishops in order to achieve
their end goal.
(11:05):
And so why chess I see as a quintessential game is that there are so many ways that this
game can go, there are so many ways that life can be played, and if you react to situations
instead of responding to them and understanding what role they play in your overall plan,
you may be strategic, but you are not someone who sees the whole picture.
You are not someone who sees the big web.
(11:27):
You are not someone who sees many steps in advance to see what things could arise when
you move your pieces in a certain way.
That's what differentiates a grand strategist from a strategist.
And so now let's go into kind of four principles that can help you maximize your strategy.
(11:48):
Four kind of tenets that you can adhere to to get to where you want to get to.
So the first one is focus on the war, not the battle.
Similarly to how we talked about, our first step is to kind of outline our end goal.
Is to outline where we want everything to end up at.
(12:12):
To find out our clear purpose or clear goal in our head.
Our emotions have a very powerful effect of drawing us off course, trying to celebrate
little wins that mean nothing in the long run.
May it be fame, or may it be temporary sources of money at the cost of reputation, or even
(12:37):
something like temporary security to give yourself peace of mind.
But this unbalances us from our true goal, and our emotions will plead us to take an
easier option, our insecurities will beg us to give up for the sake of temporary happiness.
(12:57):
But it's always important to understand that with a clearly defined purpose and understanding
that there will be setbacks, failures, and roadblocks in our way, we can find ourselves
doing actions toward the war effort as opposed to a temporary satisfaction of a battle effort.
Because one is based on prudent forethought and one is based on an egoic necessity to
(13:19):
win no matter what.
And so an example of this is when Lyndon B. Johnson disapproved a bill from Texas for
civil rights.
And as a result, while he may have decreased in popularity in a red state like Texas, someone
like John F. Kennedy saw his potential, saw him as someone who was kind of a harbinger
(13:42):
of change and decided to choose him on his campaign.
So in the case of someone who was focused on the initial battle at hand, they would
choose to see the fact that they are supporting something that will cause them disapproval
amongst everyone else as a bad thing and would instead give up the idea of fighting back
(14:04):
against a bill of this sort that would be deeply unpopular in the state you were in.
However, Lyndon B. Johnson saw beyond that initial craving, that initial understanding
of disapproval and predicted the fact that he would be noticed by the near future president
of the United States and would springboard himself into popularity.
(14:29):
So some objectives, if you kind of realize them without fully thinking them through,
can hurt you in the long run.
But if you account for everything and allow for something to develop as a part of your
plan and are calm, cool, and rational in such creations, these little events will not have
(14:50):
the ability to throw you off in terms of your direction for the future.
The next thing is kind of linked to fighting the war instead of the battle, which is widening
your perspective.
Similarly to how we discussed how strategy is linear, widening your perspective is one
of the key tenets of having grand strategy.
(15:14):
It's the idea of seeing something in the future, in space and time, further than the
enemy does.
And this vision of foresight is unnatural because we are used to living in the present,
and a lot of spiritual texts claim and illustrate the benefits of living in the present.
(15:35):
But we must widen our overall experience, subjectively speaking, to include other factors.
We must widen ourselves to this field of objectivity because the better your strategies in the
long run in that field, the better you will do in seeing the big picture and understanding
(15:57):
all the facets to a master plan.
So remember that the best way of looking in the eyes for understanding other people is
to fill in their shoes, is to look at the world as they look at it, widening your perspective
not only for your own sense of self, but to shift your perspective into other people.
(16:19):
Understanding what their motives are, understanding what actions they will take to boost said
motives and also understanding how they will kind of layer that with the sense of people
pleasing or flattery or whatever you may call it.
And so what's important is that you must understand what interests people are promoting,
(16:40):
look at their perspective, look at their war that they're fighting, look at the battles
that they're going for.
You must attune yourself to their eyes and shift your perspective accordingly so that
you account for all that and reach your objective regardless.
The next step in grand strategy is sever the roots.
(17:02):
In a world filled with social media, a large source of our problem is appearances that
are placed, kind of thin veneers of an illusion that people place and the most important platform
where that even happens is social media.
And so to become a grand strategist, you must trace people back to their roots, you must
(17:26):
look behind or beyond the kind of illusion or veneer that they put in terms of the words
they speak or the kind of like illusion they portray over all of us and you must look to
who they are as a person.
Never take appearances that people provide for reality and uncover the roots of who they
(17:52):
are to strategize properly because everyone has a mask, everyone is wearing a social mask
to kind of like hide who they are as a person and portray the best version of themselves
and it's our responsibility as grand strategists to see dangers as they sprout and the only
way we can do that is by seeing people for who they are.
(18:12):
And you need to cut these roots down before they get too big, however people that are
very good at hiding their true intentions, motives, and emotions will be very good at
growing without your knowledge and the grand strategist will know the value of said preemptive
action.
And finally, the fourth one is take the indirect route to your goal and this is also another
(18:39):
principle that differentiates a strategist from a grand strategist.
So a lot of your benefit and a lot of what makes you a grand strategist as a person is
not your ability to follow the predetermined path and follow the path that everyone would
expect for you to take and be ready for in terms of your enemies.
(18:59):
It's kind of going in a different path using different tactics, different methods that
no one would expect and preventing your opponent from seeing the purpose of these actions to
get to where you want to get to.
So if you look at the game like chess, one example of something that people could do
(19:20):
is by sacrificing a piece that the other opponent may see as an important piece to capture but
is rather a setup for you to kind of engage a bigger plan that you have in mind.
So what you kind of have to do is you have to visualize your moves in advance and set
the chessboard according to your knowledge, according to your expectations and according
(19:45):
to what you want as your end goal.
And so if you look at all these videos of chess grandmasters that find themselves kind
of planning 7-8 moves in advance, it's with the expectation that people will react in
a specific way or respond to what is being done in a specific way.
And so what will differentiate a grand strategist from a strategist is the forethought to that
(20:09):
extent, the knowledge of what people are going to do in response to their actions.
And remember, when something goes wrong, which it will, you should have the ability to trace
it back to what caused it in the first place.
And emotions cannot be an example or a reason as to why everything went down.
(20:32):
I mean they can be, but rather they shouldn't be because you should have had the forethought
to not rely so much on them.
And remember that if you can trace it back, which you should be able to, you are largely
the agent of anything that could have gotten wrong.
Because if you had kind of planned out for something, if you had allowed for these factors
(20:56):
that caused whatever to go wrong prior, you would have been able to kind of decrease the
chance of this failure.
Obviously certain things we can never control in our lives, many events that transpire in
our lives we don't have any control over.
But little things that we could have forethought or foresaw in the game of politics, maybe
(21:20):
dirty or clean politics, could have been avoided if you would have been more prudent.
And so these are kind of four principles to look at in terms of grand strategy.
Remember that the most important principle of grand strategy is not to act first and
wait for disaster to come back later.
(21:41):
It's the idea of stepping into the light first, planning out all of this, counting
for failure setbacks, but playing the bigger game, the game of war, not the game of a battle.
However, there are a few issues that can arise from being a grand strategist.
The first one is indecisiveness.
(22:04):
So someone who is a grand strategist, someone who is able to foresee a lot of events and
understand certain events that are happening, the cause, the purpose, the reaction and everything,
will hesitate to choose a path, will be so stuck on the contemplation of the plan that
they will never actually execute it.
(22:25):
So it's important to balance planning with execution, not investing too much time in
one field or the other, but planning the right time to execute your objective.
And the second one is the one that we've discussed a lot before, being drunk on your
successes.
Sun Tzu, who is the author of the art of war, talks a lot about not only fighting and strategically
(22:52):
planning, but when the end has come that you have planned all the way till the end so that
you do not find yourself so drunk on your success that you miss out on all the benefits
that you were looking for in the first place.
Robert Greene in the 40 laws of power, one of his laws of power is plan all the way till
the end, and all the way till the end includes your success, includes the levity you should
(23:17):
have but the humility you should also have with your success.
Not only planning all the way to your goal, to the top of the mountain, but rather the
graceful descent from the top to the next mountain you want to find.
And so now let's dip a little bit into the stoic perspective onto grand strategy.
(23:40):
And so kind of going into one of the reversals or one of the issues that can arise from grand
strategy is in flexibility or in decisiveness.
A lot of us kind of follow a route or a discipline every single day, a routine that kind of gives
a structure and that kind of allows us to pursue what's important.
(24:05):
And that is one of the most important things we can find in ourselves.
But investing too much time in a specific routine without questioning it every so often
kind of locks you and makes you a prisoner unwilling to get better than how you are right
now.
When your life is on the line, and when everything you stand for is on the line, you want to
(24:31):
be able to leverage as many weapons as you can in this battle or war.
But when all you have is your set routine, you're kind of limited, imprisoned by your
own restrictions you put on yourself.
This is not kind of a plea to dissolve all routines, to get rid of everything that gives
(24:56):
you structure in your life, but it's also healthy to understand and question whether
what you're doing at the current moment is best for yourself.
Because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Temperance, self-discipline, and unrestrained moderation is not about committing to a regime
(25:18):
or routine no matter what, but it's also committing so much to the idea of flexibility
knowing that what you're doing right now may be the best today, but it could be better
tomorrow.
Our principles cannot and should not change, especially if they're important to who we
are as a person and are based on prudent rationality, but other things, other things that are simply
(25:44):
the way they are because that's how they were in the past, doesn't necessarily have to
stay the same.
Because time is never going to be the same, what is today is not going to be tomorrow.
We have to adjust as philosophers who are living in the real world, being flexible to
any realities of the moment, and the most susceptible people to this are those who are
(26:06):
so rigid in their way of life, who are so set on one particular perspective or set of
circumstances that as soon as life throws them a curveball, they shatter.
Self-control is not really a life sentence, we are not bound to kind of set our ways of
life in stone.
It's a way of living that should allow for flexibility, formlessness, and improvement
(26:33):
for without flexibility, you don't really have discipline.
Because discipline is not only about setting your mindset in one particular way and not
allowing anything to happen to it, but it's allowing your mind to be open to new perspectives.
Being flexible enough to adopt your current perspective provided the next one has the
(26:54):
virtues of stoicism and represents who you are as a better person, and it also involves
being willing to change but not sacrificing who you really are for the sake of it.
It sounds like a series of paradoxes, but that's what makes it so difficult.
Because you must find the balance in flexibility and rigidity, find the balance between routine
(27:18):
and learning new things.
You must find the balance between enjoying life and being strategic overall.
And that is what self-control and understrain moderation is.
Because it's not about self-whipping yourself and curtailing any pleasures in your own life,
but it's also not about living a life of frivolous frolicking in the fields.
(27:42):
So that's what self-control teaches you to do.
And grand strategy allows and accounts for that.
A grand strategist will look at everything single-dimensionally, look at something that
is kind of good for you or like rather pleasurable as something bad because it takes you away
from your overall goal.
But a grand strategist will allow for rest days, will allow for days where you can frivolously
(28:06):
frolic quote-unquote if you use the same language, but will always keep the main goal at mind.
And the flexibility of strategy is not as present as the flexibility of grand strategy.
And that's what differentiates a strategist from a grand strategist.
Flexibility.
(28:26):
Accounting for not a linear process or a linear set of progress to a goal, but a web and an
indirect way of reaching the goal.
And finally, being unchanged by success.
And not becoming so drunk on it that you lose track of what you fought for in the first
place.
(28:47):
Because the paradox of success is that when we think we've earned the right to relax
our discipline, it's when we need it the most.
When our payoffs are in our hand, that's when we need to relax the kind of grand strategy
but not our discipline.
Because the height of power is where you must have the greatest and clearest mind.
(29:12):
You must take the most responsibility for your actions.
Because that's when it really does matter.
It's easy to be humble and modest when you're on the bottom of the food chain, but as soon
as you make it to the top, that's where you must be unchanged by the success that you
have got.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode on the idea of grand strategy.
(29:36):
Along with a few principles necessary to maintain grand strategy.
Differentiating yourself between a regular strategist to a grand strategist.
If you'd like to hear more content feel free to drop me a follow at Stoke Spirituality
on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
And if you're free to follow me on whichever platform you're listening to this podcast
on.
Thanks so much for listening and see you guys next time.
What are the four principles of grand strategy that we should have in order to become a true
(00:06):
master of forethought?
Why is it important and why is it a characterization that a grand strategist is someone who is
seen as cold and detached, but why is it also important to not grow drunk on our victory
as a grand strategist and always look toward the next goal using flexibility as our greatest
(00:29):
strength?
Hello and welcome back to Stoics Virtuality, a podcast where I look through, analyze, and
dissect various books, quotes, and experiences that I've had over the last few years.
My name is Juggan and I'm a student of the human experience trying to spread some knowledge
out to the rest of the world.
And so this episode is kind of the second part in the two-part series regarding grand
(00:51):
strategy.
Through this episode, I hope to discuss some important facets or some important parts that
we discussed from the previous episode regarding grand strategy and then continue our discussion
into four important principles that kind of make up our overall grand strategy, completing
it with a little bit of a stoic and a spiritual sprinkle on top of the end of this episode.
(01:16):
So let's begin.
So kind of summarizing a little bit of grand strategy in the past.
So back then with grand strategy, we used to kind of have an animal and a rational part
of our brain.
Evolutionarily speaking, what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is the
(01:37):
amount of depth and kind of investment our evolutionary self has put into the generation
of a rational prefrontal cortex compared to that of other animals.
While similar mammals like monkeys or even whales or dolphins also have a similar investment,
our rational thinking is really what separates us and puts us at the top of our food chain.
(02:03):
However, there is still the evolutionary part of us that has an animalistic, irrational
portion of our brain.
And so a lot of what we find ourselves in conflict between is between our rational sense
of self and our irrational and emotional sense of self.
And in this kind of new world of social media, instant gratification and dopamine, that kind
(02:28):
of animal portion of our brain is getting more prevalence.
That extended vision, that prudence, that forethought and the knowledge of the future
in great depth and detail is kind of being eclipsed, is being taken over by this irrational,
animalistic portion inside of us.
(02:50):
And so one kind of ideological figure that is kind of illustrated in Greek mythology
is Odysseus.
So while there are stories of Odysseus doing irrational things, the kind of stereotypical
prudent man is one who conquers the rational, who is in control of his emotions and uses
(03:12):
the idea of forethought, kind of like when he slips into the room full of these suitors
as a beggar, waiting for the right moment to win the challenge by shooting an arrow
through seven rings and revealing himself to be Odysseus.
So you may think that when you see your wife being courted by a hundred suitors all at
(03:34):
once that your first instinct would be to charge into the room and yell and get really
mad and create a big scene in order to assert the fact that you are back at home.
However, this potentially will lead to your destruction and your assassination in the
case of Odysseus.
So what he does instead is he kind of receives the disguise from the Greek goddess of a beggar
(04:03):
and kind of detaches himself from the overall scenario, kind of cutting off the, and curtailing
the emotion of the situation that might have caused him to charge in rationally and boldly
and instead be a prudent, cold man with the detachment and the true vision of knowing
(04:24):
what to do properly.
And so what comes with this idea of knowing what to do properly is not taking yourself
so seriously.
And this seems counterintuitive to what you may think because the grand strategist must
look at everything comprehensively and understand every single facet of every single plan that
(04:47):
they're doing.
However, the paradoxical necessity to not take yourself so seriously is more in the
sense of humility.
So humility and ego kind of stand at opposite ends of a spectrum, and a grand strategist
must be aware that his ego is the source of many of his irrational actions, a source of
(05:09):
an outpouring of emotion that people later categorize as that was not me or that was
not who I really am.
However, by adding a sense of laughability, by adding a sense of humor and levity to a
person, you allow yourself to tamper or temper rather your ego and look at the world through
the eyes of a prudent but humble man doing what is necessary, not for the sake of boosting
(05:35):
your own ego, but because this is the plan that will make you the most victorious.
And so now that we kind of understand the emotion versus rationality, there's one
other facet of strategy that is important to look at.
The same way that our lives are not really a linear line, but is rather a web where one
word we say to one person, or one quote per se we say to one person, can spawn a set of
(06:00):
thoughts in their head, creating a theory in their head and a philosophy in their head
that they eventually espouse to a few people who kind of spin off their own interpretations,
ideals, or attribute certain quotes to their own life.
Strategy is a very web-like, non-linear kind of methodology.
(06:25):
Because we think that a failure means a setback.
We think that a failure means that we must continue on the same path.
And we always look at strategy as one single goal, reachable by only one single path, with
one set of objectives.
However, this is the recipe for disaster, because it's kind of like the quote, putting
(06:48):
all your eggs in one basket.
The idea of strategy is back up plans.
The idea of strategy is kind of offshoots, deflections, and an understanding that if
something is meant to go wrong or if something can go wrong, it most likely will.
Murphy's law.
But the power of a grand strategist as opposed to a strategist is one who has many weapons
(07:12):
quote unquote as disposal.
Being able to look deeply into themselves and the world around them, understanding what
people will do in response to something or a situation and what people will act in response
to that.
For example, if you want to kind of use a work analogy for this, you're trying to get
to the kind of end of a project or presentation.
(07:35):
However, you have a roadblock in the form of someone who wants to take credit for your
actions, who wants to kind of demean your work and damage your reputation.
Regular strategists may kind of put more vesting or like put more like investment into their
own project and kind of just charge through kind of ignoring the damage this one person
(07:58):
could do.
However, a grand strategist would find a way to mollify this person, having predicted from
a lot of forethought that this kind of situation might or would arise, and eventually get to
their end goal, not allowing for any mistakes that could spawn greater problems in the long
(08:21):
run to persist.
And sometimes, remember, you will use things like knowledge and understanding about those
around you to get what you want.
And that is the idea of seeing things clearly.
But this vision could be clouded and can be clouded because there are many other things
that could potentially factor into your final decisions that you cannot be aware of.
(08:44):
And so a strategist kind of seeks to control everything and looks at everything that he
cannot control as consistent factors that will not change in a linear sense.
However, a grand strategist will allow for these many fluid factors they have no control
over and work toward accounting for them in their overall plan.
(09:08):
And the reversal, one potential reversal of this is growing drunk on your own success.
So a strategist will look for a goal, will look to finish something or get something
completed and then they will make it to the end, grow drunk on their victory and lose
track of what they fought for the entire time.
However, a grand strategist will have planned for the eventual victory and will have understood
(09:35):
that they should temper whatever they're doing and not be so kind of drunk on their
own success.
And this leads back to the point I said before about the levity and the kind of laughability
that one who is a grand strategist should have for the spawn of a very successful project
(09:56):
or a very successful plan is happiness and confidence in your own abilities.
However, what results from an overdose of confidence is ego, conceit, and pride and
these are damaging characteristics in the long run for your own self.
In the quintessential game that kind of illustrates grand strategy is chess.
(10:19):
So a common strategist, we like to say common to kind of differentiate between a grand strategist
and a regular strategist, but a common strategist would have a snapshot of the board in front
of them, would see their opponent acting in some way and would react accordingly to kind
of save their pawns and maximize how many pieces they take and so on and so forth.
(10:43):
But a grand strategist will understand that the end goal is a checkmate of a king and
the winning of the game, not necessarily maximizing their pieces.
So they might sacrifice a few important pieces, pawns or knights or bishops in order to achieve
their end goal.
(11:05):
And so why chess I see as a quintessential game is that there are so many ways that this
game can go, there are so many ways that life can be played, and if you react to situations
instead of responding to them and understanding what role they play in your overall plan,
you may be strategic, but you are not someone who sees the whole picture.
You are not someone who sees the big web.
(11:27):
You are not someone who sees many steps in advance to see what things could arise when
you move your pieces in a certain way.
That's what differentiates a grand strategist from a strategist.
And so now let's go into kind of four principles that can help you maximize your strategy.
(11:48):
Four kind of tenets that you can adhere to to get to where you want to get to.
So the first one is focus on the war, not the battle.
Similarly to how we talked about, our first step is to kind of outline our end goal.
Is to outline where we want everything to end up at.
(12:12):
To find out our clear purpose or clear goal in our head.
Our emotions have a very powerful effect of drawing us off course, trying to celebrate
little wins that mean nothing in the long run.
May it be fame, or may it be temporary sources of money at the cost of reputation, or even
(12:37):
something like temporary security to give yourself peace of mind.
But this unbalances us from our true goal, and our emotions will plead us to take an
easier option, our insecurities will beg us to give up for the sake of temporary happiness.
(12:57):
But it's always important to understand that with a clearly defined purpose and understanding
that there will be setbacks, failures, and roadblocks in our way, we can find ourselves
doing actions toward the war effort as opposed to a temporary satisfaction of a battle effort.
Because one is based on prudent forethought and one is based on an egoic necessity to
(13:19):
win no matter what.
And so an example of this is when Lyndon B. Johnson disapproved a bill from Texas for
civil rights.
And as a result, while he may have decreased in popularity in a red state like Texas, someone
like John F. Kennedy saw his potential, saw him as someone who was kind of a harbinger
(13:42):
of change and decided to choose him on his campaign.
So in the case of someone who was focused on the initial battle at hand, they would
choose to see the fact that they are supporting something that will cause them disapproval
amongst everyone else as a bad thing and would instead give up the idea of fighting back
(14:04):
against a bill of this sort that would be deeply unpopular in the state you were in.
However, Lyndon B. Johnson saw beyond that initial craving, that initial understanding
of disapproval and predicted the fact that he would be noticed by the near future president
of the United States and would springboard himself into popularity.
(14:29):
So some objectives, if you kind of realize them without fully thinking them through,
can hurt you in the long run.
But if you account for everything and allow for something to develop as a part of your
plan and are calm, cool, and rational in such creations, these little events will not have
(14:50):
the ability to throw you off in terms of your direction for the future.
The next thing is kind of linked to fighting the war instead of the battle, which is widening
your perspective.
Similarly to how we discussed how strategy is linear, widening your perspective is one
of the key tenets of having grand strategy.
(15:14):
It's the idea of seeing something in the future, in space and time, further than the
enemy does.
And this vision of foresight is unnatural because we are used to living in the present,
and a lot of spiritual texts claim and illustrate the benefits of living in the present.
(15:35):
But we must widen our overall experience, subjectively speaking, to include other factors.
We must widen ourselves to this field of objectivity because the better your strategies in the
long run in that field, the better you will do in seeing the big picture and understanding
(15:57):
all the facets to a master plan.
So remember that the best way of looking in the eyes for understanding other people is
to fill in their shoes, is to look at the world as they look at it, widening your perspective
not only for your own sense of self, but to shift your perspective into other people.
(16:19):
Understanding what their motives are, understanding what actions they will take to boost said
motives and also understanding how they will kind of layer that with the sense of people
pleasing or flattery or whatever you may call it.
And so what's important is that you must understand what interests people are promoting,
(16:40):
look at their perspective, look at their war that they're fighting, look at the battles
that they're going for.
You must attune yourself to their eyes and shift your perspective accordingly so that
you account for all that and reach your objective regardless.
The next step in grand strategy is sever the roots.
(17:02):
In a world filled with social media, a large source of our problem is appearances that
are placed, kind of thin veneers of an illusion that people place and the most important platform
where that even happens is social media.
And so to become a grand strategist, you must trace people back to their roots, you must
(17:26):
look behind or beyond the kind of illusion or veneer that they put in terms of the words
they speak or the kind of like illusion they portray over all of us and you must look to
who they are as a person.
Never take appearances that people provide for reality and uncover the roots of who they
(17:52):
are to strategize properly because everyone has a mask, everyone is wearing a social mask
to kind of like hide who they are as a person and portray the best version of themselves
and it's our responsibility as grand strategists to see dangers as they sprout and the only
way we can do that is by seeing people for who they are.
(18:12):
And you need to cut these roots down before they get too big, however people that are
very good at hiding their true intentions, motives, and emotions will be very good at
growing without your knowledge and the grand strategist will know the value of said preemptive
action.
And finally, the fourth one is take the indirect route to your goal and this is also another
(18:39):
principle that differentiates a strategist from a grand strategist.
So a lot of your benefit and a lot of what makes you a grand strategist as a person is
not your ability to follow the predetermined path and follow the path that everyone would
expect for you to take and be ready for in terms of your enemies.
(18:59):
It's kind of going in a different path using different tactics, different methods that
no one would expect and preventing your opponent from seeing the purpose of these actions to
get to where you want to get to.
So if you look at the game like chess, one example of something that people could do
(19:20):
is by sacrificing a piece that the other opponent may see as an important piece to capture but
is rather a setup for you to kind of engage a bigger plan that you have in mind.
So what you kind of have to do is you have to visualize your moves in advance and set
the chessboard according to your knowledge, according to your expectations and according
(19:45):
to what you want as your end goal.
And so if you look at all these videos of chess grandmasters that find themselves kind
of planning 7-8 moves in advance, it's with the expectation that people will react in
a specific way or respond to what is being done in a specific way.
And so what will differentiate a grand strategist from a strategist is the forethought to that
(20:09):
extent, the knowledge of what people are going to do in response to their actions.
And remember, when something goes wrong, which it will, you should have the ability to trace
it back to what caused it in the first place.
And emotions cannot be an example or a reason as to why everything went down.
(20:32):
I mean they can be, but rather they shouldn't be because you should have had the forethought
to not rely so much on them.
And remember that if you can trace it back, which you should be able to, you are largely
the agent of anything that could have gotten wrong.
Because if you had kind of planned out for something, if you had allowed for these factors
(20:56):
that caused whatever to go wrong prior, you would have been able to kind of decrease the
chance of this failure.
Obviously certain things we can never control in our lives, many events that transpire in
our lives we don't have any control over.
But little things that we could have forethought or foresaw in the game of politics, maybe
(21:20):
dirty or clean politics, could have been avoided if you would have been more prudent.
And so these are kind of four principles to look at in terms of grand strategy.
Remember that the most important principle of grand strategy is not to act first and
wait for disaster to come back later.
(21:41):
It's the idea of stepping into the light first, planning out all of this, counting
for failure setbacks, but playing the bigger game, the game of war, not the game of a battle.
However, there are a few issues that can arise from being a grand strategist.
The first one is indecisiveness.
(22:04):
So someone who is a grand strategist, someone who is able to foresee a lot of events and
understand certain events that are happening, the cause, the purpose, the reaction and everything,
will hesitate to choose a path, will be so stuck on the contemplation of the plan that
they will never actually execute it.
(22:25):
So it's important to balance planning with execution, not investing too much time in
one field or the other, but planning the right time to execute your objective.
And the second one is the one that we've discussed a lot before, being drunk on your
successes.
Sun Tzu, who is the author of the art of war, talks a lot about not only fighting and strategically
(22:52):
planning, but when the end has come that you have planned all the way till the end so that
you do not find yourself so drunk on your success that you miss out on all the benefits
that you were looking for in the first place.
Robert Greene in the 40 laws of power, one of his laws of power is plan all the way till
the end, and all the way till the end includes your success, includes the levity you should
(23:17):
have but the humility you should also have with your success.
Not only planning all the way to your goal, to the top of the mountain, but rather the
graceful descent from the top to the next mountain you want to find.
And so now let's dip a little bit into the stoic perspective onto grand strategy.
(23:40):
And so kind of going into one of the reversals or one of the issues that can arise from grand
strategy is in flexibility or in decisiveness.
A lot of us kind of follow a route or a discipline every single day, a routine that kind of gives
a structure and that kind of allows us to pursue what's important.
(24:05):
And that is one of the most important things we can find in ourselves.
But investing too much time in a specific routine without questioning it every so often
kind of locks you and makes you a prisoner unwilling to get better than how you are right
now.
When your life is on the line, and when everything you stand for is on the line, you want to
(24:31):
be able to leverage as many weapons as you can in this battle or war.
But when all you have is your set routine, you're kind of limited, imprisoned by your
own restrictions you put on yourself.
This is not kind of a plea to dissolve all routines, to get rid of everything that gives
(24:56):
you structure in your life, but it's also healthy to understand and question whether
what you're doing at the current moment is best for yourself.
Because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Temperance, self-discipline, and unrestrained moderation is not about committing to a regime
(25:18):
or routine no matter what, but it's also committing so much to the idea of flexibility
knowing that what you're doing right now may be the best today, but it could be better
tomorrow.
Our principles cannot and should not change, especially if they're important to who we
are as a person and are based on prudent rationality, but other things, other things that are simply
(25:44):
the way they are because that's how they were in the past, doesn't necessarily have to
stay the same.
Because time is never going to be the same, what is today is not going to be tomorrow.
We have to adjust as philosophers who are living in the real world, being flexible to
any realities of the moment, and the most susceptible people to this are those who are
(26:06):
so rigid in their way of life, who are so set on one particular perspective or set of
circumstances that as soon as life throws them a curveball, they shatter.
Self-control is not really a life sentence, we are not bound to kind of set our ways of
life in stone.
It's a way of living that should allow for flexibility, formlessness, and improvement
(26:33):
for without flexibility, you don't really have discipline.
Because discipline is not only about setting your mindset in one particular way and not
allowing anything to happen to it, but it's allowing your mind to be open to new perspectives.
Being flexible enough to adopt your current perspective provided the next one has the
(26:54):
virtues of stoicism and represents who you are as a better person, and it also involves
being willing to change but not sacrificing who you really are for the sake of it.
It sounds like a series of paradoxes, but that's what makes it so difficult.
Because you must find the balance in flexibility and rigidity, find the balance between routine
(27:18):
and learning new things.
You must find the balance between enjoying life and being strategic overall.
And that is what self-control and understrain moderation is.
Because it's not about self-whipping yourself and curtailing any pleasures in your own life,
but it's also not about living a life of frivolous frolicking in the fields.
(27:42):
So that's what self-control teaches you to do.
And grand strategy allows and accounts for that.
A grand strategist will look at everything single-dimensionally, look at something that
is kind of good for you or like rather pleasurable as something bad because it takes you away
from your overall goal.
But a grand strategist will allow for rest days, will allow for days where you can frivolously
(28:06):
frolic quote-unquote if you use the same language, but will always keep the main goal at mind.
And the flexibility of strategy is not as present as the flexibility of grand strategy.
And that's what differentiates a strategist from a grand strategist.
Flexibility.
(28:26):
Accounting for not a linear process or a linear set of progress to a goal, but a web and an
indirect way of reaching the goal.
And finally, being unchanged by success.
And not becoming so drunk on it that you lose track of what you fought for in the first
place.
(28:47):
Because the paradox of success is that when we think we've earned the right to relax
our discipline, it's when we need it the most.
When our payoffs are in our hand, that's when we need to relax the kind of grand strategy
but not our discipline.
Because the height of power is where you must have the greatest and clearest mind.
(29:12):
You must take the most responsibility for your actions.
Because that's when it really does matter.
It's easy to be humble and modest when you're on the bottom of the food chain, but as soon
as you make it to the top, that's where you must be unchanged by the success that you
have got.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode on the idea of grand strategy.
(29:36):
Along with a few principles necessary to maintain grand strategy.
Differentiating yourself between a regular strategist to a grand strategist.
If you'd like to hear more content feel free to drop me a follow at Stoke Spirituality
on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
And if you're free to follow me on whichever platform you're listening to this podcast
on.
Thanks so much for listening and see you guys next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com