How To Slay Dragons

Apple doesn’t launch products. They launch belief systems.

Most leaders think competition is about features, pricing, or speed. It’s not. It’s about who controls what the market expects before anything even ships.

While you’re busy improving specs, Apple is shaping anticipation. While you’re comparing features, Amazon is building credibility in stages until even the CIA trusts them. You’re reacting to reality. They’re engineering it.

Control the belief cycle. Seed speculation. Shape perception. Stage proof. Then reveal. AWS didn’t win enterprise trust overnight, they built belief with startups, then transferred it upstream. That’s not growth. That’s orchestration.

If you’re still competing on “better,” you’ve already lost. Read the full memo and learn how real strategy rewrites the game. Stay dangerous. Link in comments.

If your strategy fits neatly into a template, it’s probably not strategy.

We’ve trained leaders to believe that filling in blanks equals thinking. So we produce 3-year plans that align teams…and miss reality.

The market shifts. The enemy moves. And your “strategy” can’t adapt because it was never designed to. It was designed to look organized, not to win.

META-Strategy changes the game. It’s not about better plans, it’s about seeing differently. Redefine the battlefield. Rethink the enemy. Break the rules before they break you. Then and only then build your tactical plan on top of that.

Read the full memo and start thinking like a strategist again. Link in comments.

We’ve been playing strategy with one instrument. And wondering why it sounds off.

Companies rely on what I call TACTICAL Strategy plans, metrics, timelines to drive ex*****on.

Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? No.

I’ve seen organizations with flawless ex*****on still get blindsided. Not because they moved too slow but because they were playing the wrong game.

They had rhythm. No melody.

There’s another layer most leaders ignore, a deeper form of strategy rooted in how humans think and compete. Not spreadsheets. Not templates.

I call it META-Strategy. It’s what’s missing when your plans look right but fail anyway.

I introduce this in my latest memo. Read the full postbecause your competitors are already building their next failed plan. Link in comments.

I don’t believe in “bad luck” anymore. Just bad preparation.

Most professionals wait for problems to teach them. Expensive strategy.

Coffee spills. Condensation drips. Bartenders fumble. Life isn’t out to get you, it’s just consistent. And if you keep getting burned, it’s not randomness. It’s a system failure, yours.

Build stupid-simple safeguards. Not grand systems. Not complex frameworks. Just practical fixes. Mine? A plastic keyboard cover that’s saved me more times than I’d like to admit.

Want fewer “lessons learned” and more problems avoided? Read the full post. Link in comments.

If you’re fighting harder than your competitors…you’re probably already losing.

Leaders obsess over outperforming inside the same arena, pricing wars, feature races, market share chest-beating.

Congratulations. You’ve accepted their rules. And their strengths. Which means you’ve volunteered to lose on their terms.

Scipio didn’t build better elephants, he made elephants useless. Airbnb didn’t compete with hotels, they rewrote what “lodging” meant. META-Strategy flips strengths into liabilities by shifting the battlefield entirely.

If you’re still optimizing instead of redefining, you’re late. Read the full post before someone else redraws your map for you. Link in comments.

Patagonia told customers “Don’t buy this.” Sales went up 30%. That’s not marketing. That’s psychological warfare.

Most companies scream values. “We care.” “We’re sustainable.” “We’re different.” Nobody believes you because everyone says the same thing.

So you spend more on branding, more on messaging, more on campaigns… and still sound like white noise. Worse, your customers assume you’re lying. And they’re usually right.

Belief beats messaging. Patagonia didn’t claim values, they sacrificed revenue to prove them. That contradiction rewired customer belief: “These guys actually mean it.” That’s the game. Create a belief your competitors can’t fake.

If your “values” aren’t costing you anything, they’re worthless. Read the full breakdown and if you’re serious about strategy that actually works. Link in comments.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: your strategic plan might be the reason you’re losing.

You’ve got the mission, vision, SWOT, KPIs, all the right boxes filled in. It’s clean. Logical. Impressive.

And completely insufficient. Because none of that tells you how to win. It just tells you how to operate. History is full of companies that executed flawlessly…and still died.

Winning requires META-Strategy, the messy, intuitive, uncomfortable art of redefining the battlefield and outmaneuvering the real enemy (hint: it’s often not who you think). Strategy isn’t a template. It’s perception.

Read the full post if you’re ready to rethink how winning actually works and if you’re tired of strategies that look good but go nowhere. Link in comments.

You don’t have a strategy problem. You have a thinking problem.

Executives rely on templates, SWOTs, mission statements, KPIs to “create strategy.” Feels productive. Looks sophisticated. It’s neither.

I’ve watched thousands of leaders build plans that check every box and still fail. Because no template has ever produced an epiphany.

Without insight, you’re just organizing mediocrity faster.

Real strategy doesn’t come from spreadsheets. It comes from understanding how humans actually compete, adapt, and survive under pressure.

Planning executes. Strategy wins. Know the difference.

If this hits a nerve, good. Read the full post if you’re serious about doing strategy differently. Link in comments.

Leadership lesson: Gravity always wins.

We love to think we’re in control of meetings, outcomes, even our coffee cups. But physics (and reality) doesn’t care about your confidence.

A fancy conference room. A “designer” mug. A split-second of inattention. That’s all it takes. Not a crisis. Not a failure of strategy. Just a predictable, preventable mess you didn’t prepare for.

Stop overthinking leadership and start managing the obvious risks. I now travel with a keyboard cover everywhere. Why? Because I got tired of relearning the same dumb lesson.

The full blog breaks this down (with a few painful stories). Link in comments.

Your competitor just beat you. Not because they’re smarter because you showed up to the wrong fight.

Most executives double down when threatened. More budget. More features. More meetings. Same battlefield.

That’s exactly how you lose, slowly, expensively, and while convincing yourself you’re “being strategic.” Meanwhile, someone else already changed the rules while you were arguing over tactics.

Caesar didn’t outfight Vercingetorix, he outmaneuvered him. Netflix didn’t out-store Blockbuster, they made stores irrelevant. META-Strategy isn’t about better moves. It’s about changing the gameboard before the first move.

Read the full breakdown and see what you’re missing. Then subscribe on Substack because your competitors won’t stop at “working harder.” Link in bio.

Your strategy isn’t failing because it’s wrong. It’s failing because your competitors don’t believe it.

Most leaders obsess over what they think, vision decks, SWOTs, KPIs while ignoring the only thing that actually drives competitive behavior: what the OTHER SIDE believes about you.

That blind spot is expensive. You launch initiatives assuming logic wins. Meanwhile, your competitors are reacting to assumptions, reputation, and half-baked perceptions about you. You’re playing chess. They’re hallucinating and still beating you.

META-Strategy fixes this: shape their beliefs, then exploit them. Cambyses didn’t defeat Egypt, he weaponized their beliefs about cats. Zhuge Liang didn’t fight, he let reputation do the killing. Stop managing reality. Start managing perception.

Want the uncomfortable truth about how belief, not brilliance wins? Read the full memo and subscribe on Substack. Stay dangerous. Link in bio.