The 36 Stratagems of Personal Growth: [Not applicable]

By Danilo Lapegna

Translation from Italian to English of the 36 Stratagems of Personal Growth by Yamada Takumi. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jan 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071526859

Book preview

The 36 Stratagems of Personal Growth

By: Yamada Takumi

The genius and beauty of the ancient Chinese Art of War

applied to your everyday challenges.

The 36 Stratagems of Personal Growth

If you've come this far, then it means that I have managed to get your attention. So, let's just start where it's right to start, that is to say, with ... "The 36 what?" Where have you heard that phrase before?

The Thirty-Six Stratagems is the name of a Chinese treatise on military strategy attributed to the Ming period (1366-1610), that was only discovered in 1939 and entered the public domain in 1961, the year of the reforms in the Chinese Communist Party. This book, which has become increasingly popular since then, has been the object of study by scholars and researchers over the course of the years, particularly because of the numerous and clear influences it shows from other earlier works of Chinese literature, such as the I Ching or the Records of the Three Kingdoms.

A stratagem that is applicable to war, to competition or to social life is presented in each of the chapters of the original book, followed by a very brief commentary that explains how this stratagem can be applied.

And, it is from this that the idea of The 36 Stratagems of Personal Growth begins. In a work that tries to remind you of the original Chinese masterpiece (entirely re-presented here, proverb by proverb, at the beginning of each chapter), the 36 stratagems are taken apart, dissected, and then stitched back together again in order to be applied to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Each stratagem has been cleansed of its original connotation of dark military deception, and its innermost core provides an introduction to a series of techniques for psychological, personal and professional self-improvement.

Yes! Because, if you are reading this now, then it means that you are most likely a person who, like me, firmly believes in the need to improve oneself continuously. It is the need to continuously learn and to build new things as the only genuine way to differentiate yourself from what is common and trivial, to enter into deep contact with your inner nature and, above all, to fight against the difficulties of these times that require us to adapt to rapid, enormous and sudden changes.

And, in point of fact, all the juice, the secret, the core of this work resides in what I call its second reading level: what is achieved by trying to understand the philosophy that shines through the concepts themselves, rather than just the concepts themselves or the applications suggested. The philosophy that we can become something that would now be called a lifehacker in the English-speaking world. Something that has nothing to do with the negative connotations that the word hacker has assumed in some contexts of misinformation, but instead means a person who doesn't resign himself to the state of things and does not submit to the simplest and most common way to understand and to live your daily life. He is someone who always tries to find his own way with ingenuity and creativity, something that is different and better than what already exists, in order to change things.

But, I've already written too much and don't want to go into this any further here. All I can do at this point is to wish you happy reading and to note that this text can gradually guide you towards the awareness that the love for knowledge, the tendency to change, and the desire to never stop are all that you will ever need for a life full of tranquility and satisfaction. So, start now: either read the following stratagems in sequential order, or else jump directly to the ones that interest you the most: you are the master from here on out!

Best of luck!

Yamada Takumi

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The Author

Yamada Takumi is a software engineer who runs a mobile apps team in London. A student of psychology, communications, and the philosophy of self-improvement, he has, in collaboration with the publisher and engineer Danilo Lapegna, sold tens of thousands of copies of his book, Bible of Quick Mental Calculation in the USA, while his 29 Strategies of Genius was the best-selling e-book on Amazon Italy in all categories for June 2015, even attracting the attention of national newspapers such as Il Fatto Quotidiano. Continuously searching for new strategic and philosophical solutions between ancient and modern texts, he founded and still manages the editorial and cultural project, The 101 Stratagems.

The ant can devour the elephant if it plays its cards right.

The size of the hardships we have to face doesn't matter, because an intelligent, creative and ingenious use of our resources can overcome any ratio of forces.

Stratagem I – How to Achieve the Impossible Without Heaven Knowing It

Cross the sea without Heaven knowing it

(瞞天過海 / 瞒天过海, Mán tiān guò hai)

Do something big without attracting attention. Take advantage of what is obvious, common and familiar in order to achieve the new and unexpected.

The first of the thirty-six stratagems represents the basis for the entire strategic pyramid and talks about achieving a great victorious maneuver without the sky above necessarily knowing about. It originally starts from the idea of starting a series of military maneuvers, not only hiding them from the eyes of others, but doing so in the clearest light of day. Victory in this sense is achieved not only through secrecy, but through a secrecy that is perfectly hidden and integrated into every day and ordinary life. When these maneuvers are revealed, therefore, it is too late, and the pieces on the board have already become so fixed that the enemy no longer has room to escape.

Why not start by applying this principle to our goals, to what we call our dreams, to something we consider to be qualitatively great or deeply meaningful? Such a stratagem can in fact be particularly useful in the sense of drawing on two fundamental strategic lines: first of all, by focusing on something that is not necessarily a search for secrecy, but rather a not drawing of unnecessary attention. Or, a not seeking of hype or grandeur at the beginning: and to then achieve all of this by starting from the obvious, from the common, from the simple. By using everyday life to accumulate energy and to make this energy allow us to reach the great and the magnificent – but slowly.

A time comes in life for everyone when we must somehow set a great goal, a great challenge. That something on which all our ambitions are focused. However, many of us also lose ourselves along on the way, allowing the everyday and the ordinary to lead us to alienation rather than to be a set of tools with which to build something new and special. And not just that: the achievement of goals, exacerbated by the social character of our society, becomes more a story told than anything else. The steps that people take towards reaching a goal must become something demonstrable and worth telling, but we wind up losing that shrewd secrecy that we need so much. In fact, not only is the attention of those who might hinder us needlessly attracted this way, but we even prefer the showy way to the practical one. The obvious decision is to favor the shrewd path. The socially acceptable way might perhaps be more unpopular, but it is more deeply penetrating.

So, let's try to find out together how to avoid these mistakes and to successfully cross our sea until we reach the success we long for:

Always aim at achieving, not at trying or showing that you are doing something.

Our minds often drag us down to delusion and lead us to do a lot of useless, redundant, obsolete, and mechanical actions, just to make us feel right with our conscience and to at least let us be able to talk about having done something. How many times have we underlined the books we had to study at university instead of repeating them, without really being certain of how useful the underlining actually was? How many times have we at least sent our resume to that company, without really making certain that the resume was written as well as it possibly could be? How many times have we thought about taking a selfie to show that we were having fun, instead of asking ourselves if we really were where we wanted to be?

And, it is precisely here that the rule of conduct of the wise general intervenes to assist us: in fact, the wise general does not let himself be distracted by this noise or that noise, whether it comes from within or from without. His gaze is not focused on letting an image of his undertaking shine through at all costs, but simply and solely on the act of crossing the sea itself. We must therefore always focus on the perspective of aiming at achieving rather than just doing something. to not fall into the old trap of only doing what is easier, more immediate, or even more sensational. One Zen story talks about a temple where twenty monks lived, as well a nun named Eshun, whom several of the monks were in love with. One day, one of them finally wrote her a love letter, insisting that they meet, but Eshun did not reply to the letter. The next day, however, at the end of a meditation session, Eshun stood up and, speaking about what he had written to her, said to him: If you really love me so much, come here and take me into your arms right now.

In summary: do you want to keep on writing love letters, or have you decided to embrace Eshun?

Focus yourself on crossing the sea, and just on that. Do not repeat it to others or to yourself, just turn around. Do not curse the world if you then allow every obstacle to become an excuse for giving up, for retreating, for hesitating. You know that if it were a matter of life or death, you would fight and win, so it's only you who gives it more power than it actually has. If you want to do something, then just take responsibility for it, choose the most effective path, and continue to pursue it for as long as you need to. Always go to the point of the problem and act there. The point is to be more productive than committed. To complete rather than to act. Remember that noise or visibility, which are also understood to be the noise you address in order to save yourself from feelings of guilt from inaction, are useless. You have to cross the sea, but don't tell everyone you are doing so. And if the idea of ​​telling it turns out to be more attractive to you than doing the act itself, then it means, above all, that crossing the sea probably wasn't what you really wanted to do. It simply means that you just didn't ask the right questions before you even understood what you wanted to do. Or, you just gave yourself the wrong answers. And this is a topic we will discuss in more detail in Chapter XXIII.

What gives value to war is victory. When the war lasts too long, weapons break and morale is lowered. When troops besiege cities too long, they run out of energy quickly.

(Sun Tzu)

The secret ways, the original ones that are sometimes unpopular, are often also the most effective.

Looking where no one else would look and acting in a way that no one else would act are another two fundamental pillars in the art of strategy. This should obviously not lead to performing actions that, while being unpopular, harm no one, but frequently moving away from the obvious or the known uncovers riches that would otherwise be difficult if not impossible to discover. And, this happens both because these actions are more penetrating the more they are unexpected, and because we live in a world in which it is often only the irrelevant or superficial aspects of the circumstances that we encounter that are brought to our attention.

Yes! Have you ever thought about it? Our perception too often lives on distraction, banality and superficiality and, at the same time, all the really important aspects of something are classed as irrelevant, or even completely outside our potential range of consideration. And this happens, both because it has so often been deliberately decided by those who offer us certain messages, and because the preconceptions, instincts and superficial mechanisms of our mind tend to focus primarily on everything it is easier to focus on.

It is like when no one dares to attack a castle because of the extraordinary defenses that protect the front façade, while nobody notices how easy it would be to enter by way of the water drain in the rear. It is like when, as a matter of habit, you drive along road A every day to get from home to work, when road B would take just half as long; and all this, just because road A is wider and more conspicuous. It's like when a magician makes you concentrate on the movement of his one hand while the other one performs the trick. And, at the same time, you are the first to want to suspend disbelief and to then believe that there is something magical about what he is doing after all.

In short, don't take this as an absolute rule, but consider that if a road is often obvious and conspicuous (the Yang side), it might also be able to take you somewhere, but just take one more step, look deeper, peer into the dark and consider the alternatives and try a Yin solution that can lead you to new, surprising, and extraordinarily effective roads.

If your goal takes a lot of work, then start the habit of waking up early in the morning. Or at least before others.

Nothing better confirms the shrewd secrecy of this stratagem than waking up early and starting to work in the morning silence while others are sleeping in order to always have a little extra something and a strategic advantage over others. According to an article published in Forbes that was based on research into the lifestyles of the most influential and successful personalities, the commitment to make the most of your morning time is the key to a rich and healthy life. According to that famous magazine, in fact, to name just a few, Margaret Thatcher was on her feet every morning at 5:00, Frank Lloyd Wright at 4:00, while Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, was up by 4:30.

And Forbes is not the only one to support this theory. According to Inc. Magazine, it would also seem that early risers are generally more active and productive people, even without considering the innumerable benefits for mental and physical health that this kind of habit seems to entail.

Yes, I am sure, like so many others, that you are already starting to feel tired just by reading about the idea of getting up earlier. But, if you don't break out of your habits, your routines and your ruts a little bit, then it will difficult to achieve more than what you have been able to do so far. So, if you are one of those people who already suffer from sleep problems, then I advise you to stop and go to Chapter XIV, where we will talk about just that.

Divide and conquer

We have talked about the importance of starting from everyday life, from the ordinary, and about not looking for the grandiose or the sensational right away. In fact, it is obviously impossible, especially when we face a particularly complex problem or a particularly difficult goal to achieve, to think of dealing with everything that it entails as a whole. It will instead be necessary to divide it, to break it down, and to schematize it in a series of parts to be dealt with separately in such a way that, once that is done, you will automatically manage to solve the original problem in its entirety.

We must, therefore, never repress a particularly strong desire, even if it is too great, nor be discouraged by a problematic or excessively complex situation. But always:

● Let us stop, streamline, and divide and isolate the key components of the situation that concerns us, in order to understand the best actions to perform on each of them in order to reach our final goal. And, this is something that we will study in greater depth in the next chapter.

● Fight for every inch of your everyday life. Yes, it is precisely in knowing how to correctly perform your everyday actions that the seeds of the most important changes are to be found. Thus, whenever possible, take a step that moves you closer to your goal. Even if it is small it doesn't matter: the important thing is to commit yourself to do that daily inch with dedication and perseverance and to keep on doing so. Do your best from day to day and have patience, resilience, and perseverance, even going slowly, but never at zero speed (in other words: You must not stop! You must not stop! You must not stop!). Rome wasn't built in a day, so savor every little result and remember that each one brings you closer to the goal, and always bear in mind, on the other hand, that there is no great goal that is not the result of a continuous struggle for the accumulation of small results.

Just one suggestion: Also try to continuously record your progress in whatever medium you prefer: there is, for example, nothing more beautiful than seeing a journal with a great many X marks, one for each day that you have taken a step forward.

Stop periodically to understand just where and how you can better improve your operating strategies.

The introduction to the Thirty-Six Stratagems talks about one essential concept in any strategic theory: Flexibility. Just note how, in the same way, Sun-Tzu's Art of War remarks over and over again about how failure overtook the general just as he began to pursue fixed strategies, without worrying about the changes in the sky and the surrounding environment. And it is undeniable that 90% of failures occur just when we concentrate mindlessly on what we are somehow programmed or accustomed to doing, without updating ourselves whenever necessary in order to commit ourselves to whatever is most useful. Therefore, whether you are passing through a moment of weariness or not, stopping periodically and redefining the efficiency of your strategies is a truly indispensable practice, one that can even help us avoid fatal mistakes.

Most Important Tasks First, Shortest Tasks First

Whatever the set of steps that helps you get closer to your goal, instead of wasting your resources on a million things at the same time or, worse still, on indecision about which choice to take, focus on what takes less time and on what is on balance more important, namely, what yields the most consistent effects over the long term. Once again, just as the stratagem suggests, avoid focusing your attention on the Sky and on everything that is showy, loud, and sensational, and try instead to set your priorities based on what is most deeply right and reasonable for you. By concentrating on what takes the least time, on the one hand, you will very quickly get through your to-do list whereas, by focusing on the most important things, you will have achieved something that is truly significant. Moreover, in order to clearly understand the most important things to focus on, Timothy Ferriss, an author of books full of excellent ideas, such as The Four-Hour Workweek, Rich and Happy While Working Ten Times Less, and The Four-Hour Body, suggests that you ask the following questions:

If I had a heart attack and could only work two hours a day, what would I focus on?

If this is the only thing that I can manage to complete today, can I say it was a fulfilling day?

Am I making things up to do in order to avoid the important ones?

Hold on, isolate, and move forward

Sometimes crossing the sea becomes difficult and complicated. It seems that the waves are wild and can't be overcome, and that there is no way to deal with them other than to save your own skin. Needless to say, however, victory in battle belongs to the one who knows how to turn obstacles into opportunities and who, when faced with a wave that is impossible to overcome, does nothing but constantly repair and strengthen his boat in order to make it unsinkable.

When, therefore, you encounter an obstacle, a problem, or an unforeseen event of any kind, try not to let yourself be beaten down and not completely reconsider every single thing that has followed you on your journey (such as the generic goal you set for yourself), but instead take it as an opportunity to strengthen yourself. And when you think there is something to change or to reevaluate, don't question everything and don't change direction completely. Flexibility is important, but excess flexibility can be lethal. Therefore, isolate what's not working and prepare to discard only those choices that matter the least to you, those that have so far turned out to be objectively less effective, and all those that redefine the How rather than the What. After all, it's the goal that's of interest, so the road to reach it can be completely redefined, can't it?

Stratagem II – How to Besiege a Situation and Save Zhào

Besiege Wèi to Save Zhào

(圍魏救趙 / 围魏救赵, Wéi Wèi jiù Zhào)

Given a goal to be achieved or a problem to be solved, find the weak point of the context that interests you.

This stratagem insists on what is probably a central element in any strategy manual: the search for the weak point or, perhaps it would be better to say: the focal points of a situation to be addressed in one's favor.

It was in 330 B.C. when General Pang Yuan was commissioned by the king of Wèi to attack the state of Zhào. The clashes that followed were long and bloody and, after about a year, the capital of Zhào was surrounded by Wèi troops. At that point the ruler of Zhào asked for help from the state of Qin, who sent his troops to support his ally.

Qin's troops were commanded by General Tian Ji and his advisor Sun Bin, who found themselves having to come up with the best strategy to save Zhào. They could have deployed their troops to Zhào itself, so as to seek direct confrontation and free the territory from invaders. However, Sun Bin, master of strategy, came to the brilliant insight that at that time Wèi's weak point was the