What defines the concept of grand strategy and its significance? How does adopting a bird's-eye view contribute to effective decision-making and long-term planning? What stoic principles are integral for cultivating a strategic, higher perspective?
In this episode, we delve into the multifaceted concept of grand strategy and its pivotal role in achieving success in various endeavors. We will discuss the importance of transcending immediate concerns to adopt a strategic perspective that encompasses broader objectives and considerations. Through the lens of stoic philosophy, we will explore the principles necessary for cultivating resilience, wisdom, and clarity in navigating complex situations.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What really is grand strategy? What is the purpose of zooming out looking at the view from above and fighting the war instead of the battle?
(00:14):
And what Stoic principles are necessary in order to cultivate this objective, higher, superior point geographically kind of view?
Hello and welcome back to Stoic Spirituality, a podcast where I look through, analyze, and dissect various books, thoughts, and quotes that I've read over the last few years.
(00:42):
My name is Juggen and I'm a student of the human experience trying to spread some knowledge out to the rest of the world.
So this episode is going to be dedicated to the idea of grand strategy in a two-part episode.
So the first episode is going to be a little bit of setup, dedicated to laying down some Stoic-based principles through the lens of the obstacle, through the lens of discipline, through the lens of courage, and through the lens of ego,
(01:10):
to kind of encapsulate what are the requirements to maintain this visage of grand strategy, along with a bit of a beginning into Robert Greene's illustration of the strategies of war, tied up with a little bit of spiritual and Stoic principles.
(01:31):
And so, let's begin.
So the first thing with grand strategy is a bit of a definition. So grand strategy is kind of looking at the world from above.
So a lot of us, we fight battles per se. We wake up every single day. We go about our lives trying to complete some task and just look at the day on a singular level basis or look at the week on a singular level basis.
(02:00):
Meaning, we work to get objectives done to maintain our finances, to maintain our career, or to maintain our family and other parts of our life on a much smaller scale.
We look at everything in terms of days or weeks or maybe even a month.
(02:22):
But beyond that, a lot of us don't really try to span our lives out in many years, in decades.
With the purpose of waiting for many years for the gratification that we seek, fighting a battle that doesn't span just weeks or months, but years, is what the idea of grand strategy is.
(02:51):
It's the idea of plotting out a portion of your life, a strategy, or a war, but looking at it from a much higher perspective.
Looking at it from an entire illustration over multiple years, as opposed to looking at everything on a weekly or daily basis.
(03:17):
So that's kind of like a bare bones definition of what grand strategy is.
But in order to even get yourself in the mindset of being able to look at things on a much higher scope with a much more objective view, and over a greater time span, there are a few principles we kind of want to set up.
So the first thing is seeking solitude.
(03:40):
So a lot of times, we have to disconnect in order to better connect with ourselves, in order to better reconnect with the world around us.
Solitude is something that is almost seen as a breach of protocol, something that is seen as unacceptable by a lot of people.
(04:01):
It is seen as something that is unhuman nature-like, is unsociable, and it doesn't fit into the standard that social media has created.
This quote unquote inner connectivity that makes us so close to each other, globalizing the world.
However, sometimes what you need to do is you need to disconnect to better connect.
(04:26):
Because solitude, contrary to popular belief, is a school not of those who have no one to talk to, but even that of the genius.
The busy world where there's constant stimuli floating around you, visual, auditory, olfactory, is a kind of purgatory, where we have no space to really be left alone with our thoughts, and be left alone with our ideas.
(04:52):
So what we need to do is we need to give ourselves, we need to give our bodies a space of our own, with quiet and solitude.
We need to give ourselves the allowance to be able to think abstractly, to be able to think on a bigger scale, to be able to conceptualize grand ideas for our own selves.
(05:14):
And the only way we're going to do that is by seeking solitude, or by seeking stillness.
And you may or may not have experienced this, but solitude and stillness are always there with us, like may it be a drive we're taking to work, or on the way back.
And these kind of solitude bits are really pockets of time. They aren't really anything impactful in the sense of being able to spend so much time with yourself that ideas come naturally, plans come naturally, and strategies come naturally.
(05:49):
So what we need to do is we need to be able to seek it, we need to consciously make an effort to create the solitude, this area or region inside of us, schedule it, grab it, and culture this to become a regular habit of yours, to prepare yourself to think on a much more bigger scale, to conceptualize these abstract ideas.
(06:12):
The next thing is as any general before a war does, you must prepare.
Preparation is something that is necessary and important to lay the foundations of grand strategy, but the other benefit of preparation is in the lens of courage.
Preparation as a concept makes us more brave.
(06:37):
Think of the last time you had to give a presentation, or you had to give some kind of like talk about something.
And there may or may not have been a time where you would have prepared well enough versus when you wouldn't have prepared.
And something you may or may not have noticed during said preparation or lack of preparation is your nervousness level at the time.
(07:02):
You would have felt a little more shaky with your topic of choice or your subject of matter that you're talking about, as opposed to when you were prepared, confident, and ready to speak, you wouldn't be able to hesitate, stammer, or stutter your way through a presentation as much as if you were nervous.
(07:24):
In this concept of preparation, this concept of training ourselves, giving ourselves the space to be competent and to not let the fear of how much we have to plan for control us, we prepare.
We give ourselves space, we sketch out our ideas, we allow our thoughts to form with stillness, and we move forward.
(07:52):
Because whatever we don't have prepared for in our lives, or don't have anticipated in our lives, has an advantage over us.
If we don't prepare for a greater war, it has the ability, unexpected events have the ability to throw us off kilter, and have the ability to mess with our current plans that are more short-term in nature.
(08:15):
However, if we allow and account for these kinds of setbacks with an overall plan or grand strategy, not only do we disable the power of fear to take us out for multiple weeks at a time, but we also increase the courage, a contagious characteristic and quality in ourselves and those around us.
(08:41):
And so, the next Stoic principle, the next consideration before we even begin the idea of grand strategy is from the lens of ego, the disease of me.
So, when we think of grand strategy, we have a set of qualities we want to accomplish, a set of accomplishments or a set of things we want to get done in the space of a few years, or a set of qualities we want to become, a kind of person usually egoless, humble, down to earth, grounded, but very determined, very impactful in their work, and very much, like I said before, egoless.
(09:24):
However, the ego is very, very good and making you see short-term.
It's kind of like, imagine a horse race, if you've seen a horse race on TV or something, you will see that some horses will have little flaps over their eyes before the race begins, or even sometimes during the race, in order to stop them from looking at other horses and feeling a bit of competitive nature and the desire to be recognized and the desire to dash forward using up all their energy before the race has even begun.
(09:58):
And this kind of idea is what the ego is and what it can do to destabilize our grand strategy.
Because the ego needs recognition, it needs validation, it needs honors, and it needs them constantly, because the more you get, the more the ego will require in order to function properly.
(10:20):
And, if we allow ourselves to give in to this constant requirement, this constant feeding of ourselves, and the constant feeding of our ego, in order to feel good, we will never be able to get to where we truly desire.
It doesn't make you that much of a bad person to want to be remembered, but if you choose to sacrifice something that will be more beneficial for you in the long run, for the sake of a short-run recognition or short-run benefit, that's ego speaking, not grand strategy.
(10:58):
So, being able to kind of deflect off of this egoic principle of focusing everything around yourself and rather making sacrifices, or in the case of war, making sacrifices in certain battles, but allowing yourselves to win the war, is something that Sun Tzu, Robert Greene, and many other great strategists make it a point to emphasize.
(11:25):
However, the ego will only see the current battle. It will only localize your pain to the current moment in time, relying upon the past and what will be or what could be to drag you away from what your true focus is.
For example, ego can manifest as you trying to seek recognition for having completed a project, for having completed a presentation to your coworkers or to a senior leader in your organization.
(12:02):
However, if you hand this recognition off to someone else, even though you presented, but you allow yourself to be in the good books of the person you handed it off to, you have the opportunity to rely upon them as a resource in the future for a bigger project.
It's kind of like letting go of a smaller fish to catch a bigger fish. And so someone who is focused on this idea of ego will seek recognition, seek validation, and take the credit for themselves, not seeing past their own nose.
(12:35):
But however, someone who is dedicated more to grand strategy, looking at everything in a rational, objective way, on a bigger scale or scope of things, will not be so tethered by this need for recognition and will be more easily willing to give it up for the sake of a bigger battle or the bigger war to win.
And finally, the main kind of motivation, discipline, enthusiasm that will craft your grand strategy is the big why.
(13:08):
So there is something different, something kind of unique or something a little bit off putting to your own self initially about dedicating yourself to something that doesn't assuage your immediate self interest.
That doesn't make you the center of attention, the spotlight, or give you the recognition that you feel you deserve, the validation that you feel you deserve.
(13:33):
However, when you have a big why, when you have an overarching goal, your ability to kind of let go of these smaller quote unquote wins in the eyes of others will become far easier.
So by crafting such a big why, you will be able to understand certain actions that other people do, you allow yourself to see everything on a bigger scale and not be so bogged down by singular events that don't have much of a definition in the long run, and it will allow you to make sacrifices for the greater good in terms of your own grand strategy.
(14:17):
So overall, before we get into the idea of grand strategy, it's important to understand that you must seek solitude, prepare properly, understand that there will be a cost to becoming a quote unquote grand strategist in terms of giving up victories and battles,
(14:39):
and understand that you must have the lens that disables your ego along with the big why to lose some battles and win a bigger war.
And remember, battles, war, and these are like kind of militarized terms, but are very applicable in terms of major initiatives, major qualities you want to gain inside of yourself, and major characteristics you want to develop in your overall lifetime.
(15:10):
So by using militarized terms such as war and battle, my purpose is kind of to put it in perspective of short-term goals versus long-term goals, and prioritizing the long-term goals and giving up some short-term victories for the sake of pursuing these long-term strategies.
(15:33):
And so, let's begin with the idea of grand strategy itself, with an example of Alexander the Great.
First, if you want to follow a kind of strategist path, let's take Alexander the Great as a good example.
So in order to become someone with a great campaign, a great strategy, you must clarify your own life, kind of like finding out the big why.
(16:00):
You must figure out what it is you want to achieve, and which way you want to go about achieving your goals and aims.
Remember that each of us has our own unique set of DNA.
In a spiritual sense, each of us has a set of karmic energy we carry from a previous lifetime, if you believe in the concept of reincarnation.
(16:25):
That kind of leads us to certain actions, towards certain behaviors, and towards certain impulses.
So you must kind of clarify your life, define your principles, figure out what you want to achieve, and which way you want to go about achieving it, and how you want to go about achieving it.
(16:47):
While ignoring the conventional wisdom that society has given us as to the way to work, by kind of becoming so self-aware that you are willing to take your own path to reach your goal.
And obviously, this does not mean that you will have to like, blaze your own trail, and then disregard all of societal conventions, but also be cognizant that there will be certain parts of your life, and certain parts of the way you operate, with a certain level of self-awareness that will be unique to yourself, or unique to a smaller cadre of individuals that you may or may not know.
(17:29):
So, you also have to understand that the path to your goal is not going to be a straight line. You will have crossroads, you will have zigzags, you will have drop-backs, and then fall-downs.
But it's not really important about what you kind of experience, you just have to keep trudging toward the goal, picking yourself up as the time goes on, and never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.
(17:54):
And remember that with your kind of indirect path, your actions may be strange to the outsider's view, and that's all to your benefit.
Because the grand strategist never likes their plans being revealed, or their plans being deciphered, so the more you confuse those around you, the less they understand, the easier it is to kind of play them off each other, deceive them, manipulate them, and get to where you want to get to.
(18:26):
And so, if you kind of have this north star at the top of your visage, you will have a calm, Olympian, objective, Stoic way of life, or Stoic perspective, that will see advances or drop-backs, pain or pleasure,
(18:47):
not through the lens of the immediate satisfaction and gratification you will or will not have, but through the lens of objective philosophy.
Marcus Aurelius says, one way to look at everything is in the calm light of mild philosophy.
And so by allowing yourself to look at the world from a strategist's standpoint on a much higher level, you look at everything through the calm level of mild philosophy.
(19:18):
By not zooming in to every single little wrong that has been done to you, or every single happy moment you have, but instead seeing if it contributes to the goal or not, you gain this calm Stoic perspective on your overall direction of your life.
And so, our inclination though, as we have already mentioned, is to look at what's most immediate to us, taking the most direct route, thinking in terms of small terms, may it be a daily or weekly, or even sometimes monthly basis, and reacting to events, not really responding to them with rationality, but this is strategy that wins battles, but not wars.
(19:59):
Remember that nothing is isolated. The impression you leave on someone does not really disappear after the next time you spend time with them.
An event, especially with people that have good memory, especially with people that are influential, will stick. And you have to remember that nothing is really isolated.
(20:21):
So by giving up credit, for example, using an example from previously, of a presentation, a project, or something you worked on to someone else, you not only gain someone who owes a debt to you at the cost of something you'll be able to, at the cost of an impression you'll be able to recoup in the future, potentially,
(20:46):
but you'll also be able to confuse those around you who are not sure of what play you're trying to fill, what your ploy is in the long run.
And so if you kind of zoom out, look at the interconnectedness of everything, both on a spiritual sense, in terms of energetic levels, and on a strategic sense, in terms of logic, rationality, and certain events corresponding to others, you will see further into the future and know what steps you have to take to reach your overall final destination.
(21:20):
And so by looking at everything on a much higher level, you kind of disassociate your emotions to an extent from your overall strategy. You become very difficult to thwart with strategy, and you will harness these relationships, these interconnectedness, and the disabling of your ego, using one battle to set up the next.
(21:41):
Using the results of one battle to set up the next, all while having an overarching strategy to encompass them all.
And so back then, and even right now, we have an animalistic portion of our brain from a biological perspective. We have an animalistic, survivalistic portion of our brain.
If you kind of look at Maslow's hierarchy as an example, with five different levels, we have our survival traits on the bottom with food, shelter, and a bit of socializing necessary.
(22:11):
Food, water, shelter, as kind of basic elements in order to survive. And that kind of thing we can define as an animalistic portion, the one that requires basic tenants of survival.
However, if we kind of localize ourselves only to that level of this hierarchy, we lose track of our most beneficial kind of quality that has given humans the ability to stay at the top of the food chain, which is our rationality, our prefrontal cortex's work.
(22:44):
However, social media has a very powerful effect of dragging us back down to these lower levels.
Not in the sense of not having shelter or food, but in the sense of quick dopamine, really quick results, immediate satisfaction and gratification, and a kind of disassociation of our own rationality.
(23:11):
Because when you're on Instagram reels, you're just scrolling up and up and up, waiting for the quick laugh, the quick spike of happiness, or the immediate gratification you get from any sort of reel, any sort of video, or any sort of confirmation bias that may support your current worldview.
(23:33):
However, by allowing yourself to seek solitude, disassociating from said social media, you kind of allow the prefrontal cortex, the most powerful part of your brain, to kick in more regularly.
Remember that a prudent man, a grand strategist may seem cold, they may seem like they have their emotions in complete regulation and are unwilling to react to anything, but the prudent man who has this perspective, this detachment, and this idea of viewing everything on a much grander scale, is what we call the grand strategist.
(24:13):
We all have a strategy in our own self, we all have these kind of goals we want to achieve, but one fallacy we all fall into a lot is thinking of strategy in a linear sense.
It's kind of looking at initiatives on a singular line basis. You present something to someone, they present it to their senior leaders, and a senior leader makes a decision.
(24:42):
However, strategy doesn't work that way.
Because there are multiple facets to a simple presentation, than simply a linear presentation of one presentation to one presentation.
For example, you present something to your direct supervisor. They like your approach, they like your methodology, and you make a good impression on them.
(25:11):
Why can't you give credit to someone else for helping you with this idea?
They mention this to their senior leader, and they present something that is an offshoot of what you appreciate by giving you credit because you gave someone else credit.
This is kind of a fringe example, but it's more like instead of looking at everything on a one to one to one ratio, look at the multiple facets that make up a kind of event.
(25:43):
Understand the offshoots that can occur as a result of said events, and plan for all those accordingly.
Sun Tzu has one of my favorite most simplest principles of warfare.
He said if the number of troops, their training, and the other factors number far more in the enemy's favor than yours, you will lose the battle.
(26:15):
However, if the number far more in your favor, you will win the battle. A very simplistic way of looking at a battle or a war, but yet very telling.
Because all you have to do to ask yourself if you're going to win this battle, if you're going to win this kind of thing you're striving for, you have to align up your qualities, your strengths, your weaknesses, and any other factors that may or may not be in your favor.
(26:44):
Then you have to align the opposing sides, benefits, weaknesses, and potential to win.
Just measure everything in a calm, cool, objective fashion.
It's associating ego and looking at everything on a bigger perspective to find out whether or not you're going to win a battle, win a situation, win a confrontation.
(27:08):
More than you feeling like you're going to do better, seeking recognition to disassociate yourself from if it works or not, and just giving up on it if it doesn't.
And my favorite game that kind of illustrates grand strategy is chess.
Because a grandmaster in chess, someone who is a grand strategist in the game of chess, does not focus only on one move at hand.
(27:36):
Because each piece has multiple directions it can move in, depending on situations.
And in order to win at chess, you must not look only at the reaction of the other player, but you must figure out your own strategy for winning and understand how to respond to events to reach your end of war strategy, which is winning the game.
(27:57):
And so being able to look at an entire chessboard yields us the benefit of grand strategy. Because when something unexpected does happen, we will have a solution ready and multiple kind of backup plans at the ready when we look at everything on a grand strategy basis.
But if you fight a battle, we rely upon our strength and our current state of mind in order to win the battle.
(28:23):
And if we lose, we blame the opposition sometimes, and we lose track of our greater goal at hand.
And so quintessentially, the difference between fighting a battle, fighting a war, the difference between strategy and grand strategy is forethought.
Preparation created mostly by solitude, a dissociation of the ego, and an allowance of courage to instill tempered by discipline to craft a strategy relatively infallible and very prone to change over time.
(29:08):
And this strategy will give you calm, perspective, flexibility and adaptability without losing track of the goal in mind.
This allows you to take losses and allows you to adapt to change that happens without losing track of what you really want to achieve in the end.
(29:29):
And the main way you do that is by maintaining your own scorecard.
So a lot of times we kind of judge ourselves and give ourselves a rating based on what everyone else thinks of us or what society thinks of us,
but that is the incorrect way to go about fulfilling a bigger strategy.
(29:50):
Because great people hold themselves to a standard that exceeds what society might consider to be an objective success.
Success is a concept in my opinion is something that is determined by oneself because by definition of success could be very different from society's.
And your definition of success could be very different from society's too and it will be very different from mine.
(30:14):
So if we kind of understand that what we consider to be good or what we consider for our standard to be proficient or beneficial should not match society, that means you must maintain your own set of goals, your own scorecard and your own objectives to reach your end goal.
(30:37):
So you must distinguish between the external recognition and validation that makes you feel good temporarily and the internal scorecard that you hold to your internal metrics to determine whether you succeeded or didn't.
And you must evaluate yourself like an indifferent spectator and disassociate once again from the ego.
(30:58):
Because the moral gray area of the no one will know or no one's going to find out if I do this or what's the point of doing this will threaten your overall strategy.
So you must objectively kill your pride, kill your conceit and kill your ego and ensure that no excess of wrongdoing is done and is tolerated by you.
(31:24):
Smash your ego, continual high standards, humility and the understanding that you must become 1% better the next day will have astounding effects on your ego.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
On the first part of Grand Strategy, in terms of maintaining your own scorecard, looking at everything through the lens of a game like chess, applying war military terms like war and battle situations you find in daily life and scoping yourself out in terms of years, not days, weeks or months.
(32:02):
If you'd like to hear more content, feel free to drop me a follow at Stoics Spirituality on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram and feel free to drop me a follow on whichever podcast you're listening to this on.
Thank you so much and see you guys next time.
What really is grand strategy? What is the purpose of zooming out looking at the view from above and fighting the war instead of the battle?
(00:14):
And what Stoic principles are necessary in order to cultivate this objective, higher, superior point geographically kind of view?
Hello and welcome back to Stoic Spirituality, a podcast where I look through, analyze, and dissect various books, thoughts, and quotes that I've read over the last few years.
(00:42):
My name is Juggen and I'm a student of the human experience trying to spread some knowledge out to the rest of the world.
So this episode is going to be dedicated to the idea of grand strategy in a two-part episode.
So the first episode is going to be a little bit of setup, dedicated to laying down some Stoic-based principles through the lens of the obstacle, through the lens of discipline, through the lens of courage, and through the lens of ego,
(01:10):
to kind of encapsulate what are the requirements to maintain this visage of grand strategy, along with a bit of a beginning into Robert Greene's illustration of the strategies of war, tied up with a little bit of spiritual and Stoic principles.
(01:31):
And so, let's begin.
So the first thing with grand strategy is a bit of a definition. So grand strategy is kind of looking at the world from above.
So a lot of us, we fight battles per se. We wake up every single day. We go about our lives trying to complete some task and just look at the day on a singular level basis or look at the week on a singular level basis.
(02:00):
Meaning, we work to get objectives done to maintain our finances, to maintain our career, or to maintain our family and other parts of our life on a much smaller scale.
We look at everything in terms of days or weeks or maybe even a month.
(02:22):
But beyond that, a lot of us don't really try to span our lives out in many years, in decades.
With the purpose of waiting for many years for the gratification that we seek, fighting a battle that doesn't span just weeks or months, but years, is what the idea of grand strategy is.
(02:51):
It's the idea of plotting out a portion of your life, a strategy, or a war, but looking at it from a much higher perspective.
Looking at it from an entire illustration over multiple years, as opposed to looking at everything on a weekly or daily basis.
(03:17):
So that's kind of like a bare bones definition of what grand strategy is.
But in order to even get yourself in the mindset of being able to look at things on a much higher scope with a much more objective view, and over a greater time span, there are a few principles we kind of want to set up.
So the first thing is seeking solitude.
(03:40):
So a lot of times, we have to disconnect in order to better connect with ourselves, in order to better reconnect with the world around us.
Solitude is something that is almost seen as a breach of protocol, something that is seen as unacceptable by a lot of people.
(04:01):
It is seen as something that is unhuman nature-like, is unsociable, and it doesn't fit into the standard that social media has created.
This quote unquote inner connectivity that makes us so close to each other, globalizing the world.
However, sometimes what you need to do is you need to disconnect to better connect.
(04:26):
Because solitude, contrary to popular belief, is a school not of those who have no one to talk to, but even that of the genius.
The busy world where there's constant stimuli floating around you, visual, auditory, olfactory, is a kind of purgatory, where we have no space to really be left alone with our thoughts, and be left alone with our ideas.
(04:52):
So what we need to do is we need to give ourselves, we need to give our bodies a space of our own, with quiet and solitude.
We need to give ourselves the allowance to be able to think abstractly, to be able to think on a bigger scale, to be able to conceptualize grand ideas for our own selves.
(05:14):
And the only way we're going to do that is by seeking solitude, or by seeking stillness.
And you may or may not have experienced this, but solitude and stillness are always there with us, like may it be a drive we're taking to work, or on the way back.
And these kind of solitude bits are really pockets of time. They aren't really anything impactful in the sense of being able to spend so much time with yourself that ideas come naturally, plans come naturally, and strategies come naturally.
(05:49):
So what we need to do is we need to be able to seek it, we need to consciously make an effort to create the solitude, this area or region inside of us, schedule it, grab it, and culture this to become a regular habit of yours, to prepare yourself to think on a much more bigger scale, to conceptualize these abstract ideas.
(06:12):
The next thing is as any general before a war does, you must prepare.
Preparation is something that is necessary and important to lay the foundations of grand strategy, but the other benefit of preparation is in the lens of courage.
Preparation as a concept makes us more brave.
(06:37):
Think of the last time you had to give a presentation, or you had to give some kind of like talk about something.
And there may or may not have been a time where you would have prepared well enough versus when you wouldn't have prepared.
And something you may or may not have noticed during said preparation or lack of preparation is your nervousness level at the time.
(07:02):
You would have felt a little more shaky with your topic of choice or your subject of matter that you're talking about, as opposed to when you were prepared, confident, and ready to speak, you wouldn't be able to hesitate, stammer, or stutter your way through a presentation as much as if you were nervous.
(07:24):
In this concept of preparation, this concept of training ourselves, giving ourselves the space to be competent and to not let the fear of how much we have to plan for control us, we prepare.
We give ourselves space, we sketch out our ideas, we allow our thoughts to form with stillness, and we move forward.
(07:52):
Because whatever we don't have prepared for in our lives, or don't have anticipated in our lives, has an advantage over us.
If we don't prepare for a greater war, it has the ability, unexpected events have the ability to throw us off kilter, and have the ability to mess with our current plans that are more short-term in nature.
(08:15):
However, if we allow and account for these kinds of setbacks with an overall plan or grand strategy, not only do we disable the power of fear to take us out for multiple weeks at a time, but we also increase the courage, a contagious characteristic and quality in ourselves and those around us.
(08:41):
And so, the next Stoic principle, the next consideration before we even begin the idea of grand strategy is from the lens of ego, the disease of me.
So, when we think of grand strategy, we have a set of qualities we want to accomplish, a set of accomplishments or a set of things we want to get done in the space of a few years, or a set of qualities we want to become, a kind of person usually egoless, humble, down to earth, grounded, but very determined, very impactful in their work, and very much, like I said before, egoless.
(09:24):
However, the ego is very, very good and making you see short-term.
It's kind of like, imagine a horse race, if you've seen a horse race on TV or something, you will see that some horses will have little flaps over their eyes before the race begins, or even sometimes during the race, in order to stop them from looking at other horses and feeling a bit of competitive nature and the desire to be recognized and the desire to dash forward using up all their energy before the race has even begun.
(09:58):
And this kind of idea is what the ego is and what it can do to destabilize our grand strategy.
Because the ego needs recognition, it needs validation, it needs honors, and it needs them constantly, because the more you get, the more the ego will require in order to function properly.
(10:20):
And, if we allow ourselves to give in to this constant requirement, this constant feeding of ourselves, and the constant feeding of our ego, in order to feel good, we will never be able to get to where we truly desire.
It doesn't make you that much of a bad person to want to be remembered, but if you choose to sacrifice something that will be more beneficial for you in the long run, for the sake of a short-run recognition or short-run benefit, that's ego speaking, not grand strategy.
(10:58):
So, being able to kind of deflect off of this egoic principle of focusing everything around yourself and rather making sacrifices, or in the case of war, making sacrifices in certain battles, but allowing yourselves to win the war, is something that Sun Tzu, Robert Greene, and many other great strategists make it a point to emphasize.
(11:25):
However, the ego will only see the current battle. It will only localize your pain to the current moment in time, relying upon the past and what will be or what could be to drag you away from what your true focus is.
For example, ego can manifest as you trying to seek recognition for having completed a project, for having completed a presentation to your coworkers or to a senior leader in your organization.
(12:02):
However, if you hand this recognition off to someone else, even though you presented, but you allow yourself to be in the good books of the person you handed it off to, you have the opportunity to rely upon them as a resource in the future for a bigger project.
It's kind of like letting go of a smaller fish to catch a bigger fish. And so someone who is focused on this idea of ego will seek recognition, seek validation, and take the credit for themselves, not seeing past their own nose.
(12:35):
But however, someone who is dedicated more to grand strategy, looking at everything in a rational, objective way, on a bigger scale or scope of things, will not be so tethered by this need for recognition and will be more easily willing to give it up for the sake of a bigger battle or the bigger war to win.
And finally, the main kind of motivation, discipline, enthusiasm that will craft your grand strategy is the big why.
(13:08):
So there is something different, something kind of unique or something a little bit off putting to your own self initially about dedicating yourself to something that doesn't assuage your immediate self interest.
That doesn't make you the center of attention, the spotlight, or give you the recognition that you feel you deserve, the validation that you feel you deserve.
(13:33):
However, when you have a big why, when you have an overarching goal, your ability to kind of let go of these smaller quote unquote wins in the eyes of others will become far easier.
So by crafting such a big why, you will be able to understand certain actions that other people do, you allow yourself to see everything on a bigger scale and not be so bogged down by singular events that don't have much of a definition in the long run, and it will allow you to make sacrifices for the greater good in terms of your own grand strategy.
(14:17):
So overall, before we get into the idea of grand strategy, it's important to understand that you must seek solitude, prepare properly, understand that there will be a cost to becoming a quote unquote grand strategist in terms of giving up victories and battles,
(14:39):
and understand that you must have the lens that disables your ego along with the big why to lose some battles and win a bigger war.
And remember, battles, war, and these are like kind of militarized terms, but are very applicable in terms of major initiatives, major qualities you want to gain inside of yourself, and major characteristics you want to develop in your overall lifetime.
(15:10):
So by using militarized terms such as war and battle, my purpose is kind of to put it in perspective of short-term goals versus long-term goals, and prioritizing the long-term goals and giving up some short-term victories for the sake of pursuing these long-term strategies.
(15:33):
And so, let's begin with the idea of grand strategy itself, with an example of Alexander the Great.
First, if you want to follow a kind of strategist path, let's take Alexander the Great as a good example.
So in order to become someone with a great campaign, a great strategy, you must clarify your own life, kind of like finding out the big why.
(16:00):
You must figure out what it is you want to achieve, and which way you want to go about achieving your goals and aims.
Remember that each of us has our own unique set of DNA.
In a spiritual sense, each of us has a set of karmic energy we carry from a previous lifetime, if you believe in the concept of reincarnation.
(16:25):
That kind of leads us to certain actions, towards certain behaviors, and towards certain impulses.
So you must kind of clarify your life, define your principles, figure out what you want to achieve, and which way you want to go about achieving it, and how you want to go about achieving it.
(16:47):
While ignoring the conventional wisdom that society has given us as to the way to work, by kind of becoming so self-aware that you are willing to take your own path to reach your goal.
And obviously, this does not mean that you will have to like, blaze your own trail, and then disregard all of societal conventions, but also be cognizant that there will be certain parts of your life, and certain parts of the way you operate, with a certain level of self-awareness that will be unique to yourself, or unique to a smaller cadre of individuals that you may or may not know.
(17:29):
So, you also have to understand that the path to your goal is not going to be a straight line. You will have crossroads, you will have zigzags, you will have drop-backs, and then fall-downs.
But it's not really important about what you kind of experience, you just have to keep trudging toward the goal, picking yourself up as the time goes on, and never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.
(17:54):
And remember that with your kind of indirect path, your actions may be strange to the outsider's view, and that's all to your benefit.
Because the grand strategist never likes their plans being revealed, or their plans being deciphered, so the more you confuse those around you, the less they understand, the easier it is to kind of play them off each other, deceive them, manipulate them, and get to where you want to get to.
(18:26):
And so, if you kind of have this north star at the top of your visage, you will have a calm, Olympian, objective, Stoic way of life, or Stoic perspective, that will see advances or drop-backs, pain or pleasure,
(18:47):
not through the lens of the immediate satisfaction and gratification you will or will not have, but through the lens of objective philosophy.
Marcus Aurelius says, one way to look at everything is in the calm light of mild philosophy.
And so by allowing yourself to look at the world from a strategist's standpoint on a much higher level, you look at everything through the calm level of mild philosophy.
(19:18):
By not zooming in to every single little wrong that has been done to you, or every single happy moment you have, but instead seeing if it contributes to the goal or not, you gain this calm Stoic perspective on your overall direction of your life.
And so, our inclination though, as we have already mentioned, is to look at what's most immediate to us, taking the most direct route, thinking in terms of small terms, may it be a daily or weekly, or even sometimes monthly basis, and reacting to events, not really responding to them with rationality, but this is strategy that wins battles, but not wars.
(19:59):
Remember that nothing is isolated. The impression you leave on someone does not really disappear after the next time you spend time with them.
An event, especially with people that have good memory, especially with people that are influential, will stick. And you have to remember that nothing is really isolated.
(20:21):
So by giving up credit, for example, using an example from previously, of a presentation, a project, or something you worked on to someone else, you not only gain someone who owes a debt to you at the cost of something you'll be able to, at the cost of an impression you'll be able to recoup in the future, potentially,
(20:46):
but you'll also be able to confuse those around you who are not sure of what play you're trying to fill, what your ploy is in the long run.
And so if you kind of zoom out, look at the interconnectedness of everything, both on a spiritual sense, in terms of energetic levels, and on a strategic sense, in terms of logic, rationality, and certain events corresponding to others, you will see further into the future and know what steps you have to take to reach your overall final destination.
(21:20):
And so by looking at everything on a much higher level, you kind of disassociate your emotions to an extent from your overall strategy. You become very difficult to thwart with strategy, and you will harness these relationships, these interconnectedness, and the disabling of your ego, using one battle to set up the next.
(21:41):
Using the results of one battle to set up the next, all while having an overarching strategy to encompass them all.
And so back then, and even right now, we have an animalistic portion of our brain from a biological perspective. We have an animalistic, survivalistic portion of our brain.
If you kind of look at Maslow's hierarchy as an example, with five different levels, we have our survival traits on the bottom with food, shelter, and a bit of socializing necessary.
(22:11):
Food, water, shelter, as kind of basic elements in order to survive. And that kind of thing we can define as an animalistic portion, the one that requires basic tenants of survival.
However, if we kind of localize ourselves only to that level of this hierarchy, we lose track of our most beneficial kind of quality that has given humans the ability to stay at the top of the food chain, which is our rationality, our prefrontal cortex's work.
(22:44):
However, social media has a very powerful effect of dragging us back down to these lower levels.
Not in the sense of not having shelter or food, but in the sense of quick dopamine, really quick results, immediate satisfaction and gratification, and a kind of disassociation of our own rationality.
(23:11):
Because when you're on Instagram reels, you're just scrolling up and up and up, waiting for the quick laugh, the quick spike of happiness, or the immediate gratification you get from any sort of reel, any sort of video, or any sort of confirmation bias that may support your current worldview.
(23:33):
However, by allowing yourself to seek solitude, disassociating from said social media, you kind of allow the prefrontal cortex, the most powerful part of your brain, to kick in more regularly.
Remember that a prudent man, a grand strategist may seem cold, they may seem like they have their emotions in complete regulation and are unwilling to react to anything, but the prudent man who has this perspective, this detachment, and this idea of viewing everything on a much grander scale, is what we call the grand strategist.
(24:13):
We all have a strategy in our own self, we all have these kind of goals we want to achieve, but one fallacy we all fall into a lot is thinking of strategy in a linear sense.
It's kind of looking at initiatives on a singular line basis. You present something to someone, they present it to their senior leaders, and a senior leader makes a decision.
(24:42):
However, strategy doesn't work that way.
Because there are multiple facets to a simple presentation, than simply a linear presentation of one presentation to one presentation.
For example, you present something to your direct supervisor. They like your approach, they like your methodology, and you make a good impression on them.
(25:11):
Why can't you give credit to someone else for helping you with this idea?
They mention this to their senior leader, and they present something that is an offshoot of what you appreciate by giving you credit because you gave someone else credit.
This is kind of a fringe example, but it's more like instead of looking at everything on a one to one to one ratio, look at the multiple facets that make up a kind of event.
(25:43):
Understand the offshoots that can occur as a result of said events, and plan for all those accordingly.
Sun Tzu has one of my favorite most simplest principles of warfare.
He said if the number of troops, their training, and the other factors number far more in the enemy's favor than yours, you will lose the battle.
(26:15):
However, if the number far more in your favor, you will win the battle. A very simplistic way of looking at a battle or a war, but yet very telling.
Because all you have to do to ask yourself if you're going to win this battle, if you're going to win this kind of thing you're striving for, you have to align up your qualities, your strengths, your weaknesses, and any other factors that may or may not be in your favor.
(26:44):
Then you have to align the opposing sides, benefits, weaknesses, and potential to win.
Just measure everything in a calm, cool, objective fashion.
It's associating ego and looking at everything on a bigger perspective to find out whether or not you're going to win a battle, win a situation, win a confrontation.
(27:08):
More than you feeling like you're going to do better, seeking recognition to disassociate yourself from if it works or not, and just giving up on it if it doesn't.
And my favorite game that kind of illustrates grand strategy is chess.
Because a grandmaster in chess, someone who is a grand strategist in the game of chess, does not focus only on one move at hand.
(27:36):
Because each piece has multiple directions it can move in, depending on situations.
And in order to win at chess, you must not look only at the reaction of the other player, but you must figure out your own strategy for winning and understand how to respond to events to reach your end of war strategy, which is winning the game.
(27:57):
And so being able to look at an entire chessboard yields us the benefit of grand strategy. Because when something unexpected does happen, we will have a solution ready and multiple kind of backup plans at the ready when we look at everything on a grand strategy basis.
But if you fight a battle, we rely upon our strength and our current state of mind in order to win the battle.
(28:23):
And if we lose, we blame the opposition sometimes, and we lose track of our greater goal at hand.
And so quintessentially, the difference between fighting a battle, fighting a war, the difference between strategy and grand strategy is forethought.
Preparation created mostly by solitude, a dissociation of the ego, and an allowance of courage to instill tempered by discipline to craft a strategy relatively infallible and very prone to change over time.
(29:08):
And this strategy will give you calm, perspective, flexibility and adaptability without losing track of the goal in mind.
This allows you to take losses and allows you to adapt to change that happens without losing track of what you really want to achieve in the end.
(29:29):
And the main way you do that is by maintaining your own scorecard.
So a lot of times we kind of judge ourselves and give ourselves a rating based on what everyone else thinks of us or what society thinks of us,
but that is the incorrect way to go about fulfilling a bigger strategy.
(29:50):
Because great people hold themselves to a standard that exceeds what society might consider to be an objective success.
Success is a concept in my opinion is something that is determined by oneself because by definition of success could be very different from society's.
And your definition of success could be very different from society's too and it will be very different from mine.
(30:14):
So if we kind of understand that what we consider to be good or what we consider for our standard to be proficient or beneficial should not match society, that means you must maintain your own set of goals, your own scorecard and your own objectives to reach your end goal.
(30:37):
So you must distinguish between the external recognition and validation that makes you feel good temporarily and the internal scorecard that you hold to your internal metrics to determine whether you succeeded or didn't.
And you must evaluate yourself like an indifferent spectator and disassociate once again from the ego.
(30:58):
Because the moral gray area of the no one will know or no one's going to find out if I do this or what's the point of doing this will threaten your overall strategy.
So you must objectively kill your pride, kill your conceit and kill your ego and ensure that no excess of wrongdoing is done and is tolerated by you.
(31:24):
Smash your ego, continual high standards, humility and the understanding that you must become 1% better the next day will have astounding effects on your ego.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
On the first part of Grand Strategy, in terms of maintaining your own scorecard, looking at everything through the lens of a game like chess, applying war military terms like war and battle situations you find in daily life and scoping yourself out in terms of years, not days, weeks or months.
(32:02):
If you'd like to hear more content, feel free to drop me a follow at Stoics Spirituality on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram and feel free to drop me a follow on whichever podcast you're listening to this on.
Thank you so much and see you guys next time.
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