Sun Tzu teaches that we listen to people to learn their plans, but that we judge their words by actions. The world has always been divided between doers and talkers. While our modern media is dominated by those who do the talking, the future is being created by those who are busy doing. A good example is what is happening on the energy/global warming front. A great summary is offered by this article in Forbes. While politicians talk about non-carbon energy, the world of doers is embracing it.

Sun Tzu's strategy teaches the predicting the future is very dangerous. The most important aspect of competition cannot be predicted. Most events are unexpected and what really matters is knowing how to react to them. Recently this article predicting a landslide for McCain got a lot of attention but its main thesis is simply that there is a lot of time left for Obama's arrogance to create opportunities.