Ok I lied. I promised to shift gears from the emotional sphere to the mental sphere after providing one measly emotional tactic – tapping into fear. But can you really take over the world with this tactic alone? Sure, along with the tactic, I did provide the example of 911 and how the terrorists “owned” us, despite the fact that they had next to no resources ( http://linkd.in/PVNCzZ ) But the outcome of triggering such strong emotions is anything but predictable, much less manageable. I doubt Osama Bin Laden thought he would be assassinated and his organization gutted as a result.
Specifically, taking over the world is a strategic, not a tactical, endeavor. My novel, TERMINAL CONNECTION, (http://amzn.to/1gLdOqZ ) “shows” this. Even the first article of this series (http://linkd.in/1qlcpsM ) tells the reader the same thing. Specifically, the article explains that most Government and Corporate conspiracies are headless. That they emerge from sets of rules put in place by well meaning people that other well meaning people blindly follow way past the implicit expiration date of the rules. The conspiracy is not as much a failure to “fortune tell” the future by our ancestors, but rather a failure of those in the present to own what they have inherited.
So I cannot with good conscious really provide only a single, low-level emotional tactic as an “effective” fight to take over the world. Using tactical tools alone isn’t enough. You have to understand the overall system and trigger things without knowing the exact outcome. There are simply too many moving parts at the bottom and most of these tangible parts are inconsequential in the long run. As such, in order to take over the world, you must place your consciousness higher in the causality chain of events and be prepared that things might not go as planned and that is ok. In short, you cannot think just 10 moves ahead, you must also think 50.
Impossible you say? Do you think there is no way to visualize the “game board” 50 moves from now? If so, then you are a tactician, a hapless storm trooper ripe for exploitation – just watch. (Insert hand wave here.) “This is not the article you are looking for.” Hmm. Still here? Well, if you still don’t know who you are, I can make it easy for you. This article will talk in analogies – the strategic language of the emotional sphere. Ah more storm troopers have wandered off to watch FOX, MSNBC or some other pre-chewed and predictable knowledge source that reinforces their bias and thus their own blindness to the enemy – that is entertainment, not news folks. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t lie to yourself about it – unless you like it that way – then truly your journey to the dark side is complete. But I digress.
What I am trying to say is thinking strategically isn’t about predicting the next move or even the next 10 moves. Rather, strategy is rooted in Chaos Theory and Systems Theory. That is, systems, whether a person or a business, will behave in regular ways over time regardless of either the parts involved or even the medium. Though exact actions in a system cannot be predicted, the range of actions can be. It is about having faith in the natural lifecycle of systems. It is about understanding the law of large numbers that if you take any population from peoples’ weight, to the lifecycle of their anger after 911 – the result will always form the same shape – a normal curve. You can bank on that.
Too vague and mathematical? Well thinking 50 moves ahead is like driving a car down the road. If you drive a car by steering around every pebble, you’ll end up in a ditch. But if you look down the road and follow the general contours, you’ll do fine. That is the same principal here and it works because all large systems behave in similar ways. Predicting exact actions when taking over the world will get you killed within the first 10 moves. But picking the battlefield from all those available and manipulating events so you end up there when the battle breaks out will give you the upper hand. It comes down to the same principal discussed in the article discussing Jedi Trick #1 – fear mongering. You must leverage the energy pent up in the environment, rather than relying on the meager power held within the individual. Fear is just one example.
Some of the best examples of executing this principal come from various military battles. The recent movie the 300 illustrated one such battle where the right location and military processes allowed 300 Spartans to hold off a million Babylonians. The Greek weapons were neither sexy nor powerful – just a shield and phalanx. However they held off everything from elite assassins to elephants by controlling the environmental choke point and acting as a single entity within the gap. They connected themselves together through a common set of rules and processes and as such formed a physically based headless conspiracy. The army acted and responded as a whole, not using conscious thought, but rather following the predetermined rules and processes in response to what the environment presented. This approach was repeated several times in history such as the battle of Watling Street which ended the British resistance to Roman occupation effectively from 60 AD until 410 AD. That period is over 100 years longer than the United States has been in existence. From this example several lessons can be learned in terms of recognizing when a system is on the Greek/Roman verses Babalonyan/British end of the spectrum. The most important trait to recognize is that there are no heroes in the Greek/Roman approach. Everyone does their job as dictated by a process. No one stands out and everyone operates together as a single entity. Thus one of the first questions I ask when I enter a new contract is “Who are your heroes.” The percentage and attention given to these “heroes” directly measures the organization’s maturity.
Hopefully as fellow strategist you have started to connect the dots and articulate what I am “showing” through this tactical example. That is, you must understand an work with the principals to think strategically. You must listen to the environment, understanding the medium in which you work, and articulate its mechanics and your role within it. In the case of the Jedi mind tricks, the larger medium is the emotional sphere. The most basic truth of this sphere is that it is subjectively independent of the other two major spheres: thought and sensation. That is, you cannot feel a thought, or think a feeling. This is why an A student might attack a teacher that gives them a B+. Being a genius doesn’t mean you are emotionally intelligent. In fact much like having a strong left leg, it can hinder rather than help until you are older and have enough experience under your belt. There is a great book written on this subject called Emotional Intelligence that goes into much greater depth on the subject than I can do in this article. But the gist is clear. Like the two halves of the brain – each of these three facets, though objectively derived from a common reality, operate subjectively independently with only limited connections between them. These limited subjective connections enable manipulation. It is why the Jedi mind tricks naturally separate into groups whether they are based on: thought, feeling, or sensation.
Given all this, it became clear to me that taking over the world involved much more than exploiting the fear pent up within the environment. Though a good start, this was just one example of the tools required. Releasing the fear “force” isn’t enough to make you a business Cith. That would be like trying to build a house with just a hammer. Sure you can use a hammer to cut a board, but not very well. If you want to take over the world, the entire tool belt of emotional Jedi mind tricks must be used together and at the right time:
- Know your medium
- Speak the language of emotional strategy – analogy
- Be inspired by the gut, but perspire through your mind
- Trust first, use paranoia sparingly
- Know thyself
- Know your enemy (and friends.)
- When in crisis, leverage the drama triangle
- Redirect pain in the environment and do not suppress it
- Exploit the fear within the environment
This article has actually both “shown” and “told” the first tactic for taking over the world – know your medium. The tactic is rooted in the fact that you cannot know what you do not know and the fact that subjective human emotions are derived objectively from either subjective thought or sensations. As such, keeping your perception of reality in synch with actual reality becomes the major focus. Recognizing failure and getting through the grief cycle quickly to a place of acceptance is critical. In short, it is the ability to evolve and adapt in order to remain in sync with the environment. This is the beachhead from which you can launch a world take over. This article “shows” what this article has “talked” to.
In the last article I only provided a single emotional tactic – exploiting the fear within the environment for world domination. However, as I wrote and tapped into my subconscious, it became clear that reality demanded that I present more, if indeed, I was being sincere about providing the necessary tools. This led to mild embarrassment. I was embarrassed because I had already published the agenda and schedule for the articles. Now, only into the forth article, I was breaking my word and changing the path. However, fighting through these, albeit mild, emotions allowed me to leverage the situation and use it to “show” the Jedi mind trick – know your medium. Specifically that knowing your medium starts and ends with facing embarrassment head on to allow the model in your head to constantly morph in order to match reality. This is the second of nine emotional tools. In the next several articles you will learn 7 more Jedi mind tricks in order to complete your journey through the dark side, to become a Business Cith, and to realize your quest of taking over the world albeit you will lose your soul in the process.
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