Ordinary people see successful people as gifted, special, and different from birth, but successful people are ordinary people who developed a specific set of skills. Often these skills seem as simple as the ability to see opportunities and to act upon them correctly, but that process requires nine different skills.

The Nine Areas of Skills

Sun Tzu's strategy consists of teaching these nine different skills. None of these skills are natural or inborn. They all must be learned.

We can list these skills: understanding positions, developing perspecitive, identifying opportunities, leveraging probablility, minimizing mistakes, situation response, creating momentum, winning rewards, and understanding vulnerability, but this list explains little since each area has its own surprising secrets.  Some of these skills are very specialized, such as understanding the key elements that define strategic positions. The benefits of others are obvious, such as the ability to recognized a opportunity or minize mistakes. Many are simply practical, such as the ability to know how to respond to the nine most common strategic situations. All nine skills flow together, with the development of skills in one area leading naturally to the need for skills in the next. (For a detailed description of the nine skills, it is described in the organization of our Sun Tzu's Rules here.)

Putting Your Unconscious Mind to Work

Learning this skills in an interest process. At first, we use Sun Tzu's system consciously. However, by studying and practicing these methods consciously, we reprogram our minds 6.1.1 Conditioned Reflexes. Like learning to type, at first, we have to "hunt and peck" through the rules of Sun Tzu's strategy using analysis tools. Over time, our habits take over as a reflex. When trained, our unconscious mind makes the right decisions effortless, improving our position every day. Learn more about these stages of learning here.

Special Decision Making Abilities

The decision-matrix used by Sun Tzu's system requires the parallel processing capabilities of your brain to cut through the complexities of a situation in a flash. Once mastered, this is called "thin-slicing." When you develop this ability, you gain three specific powers: 1) a finely tuned sense of position awareness, 2) the ability to see invisible opportunities that most people miss, and 3) the skill of picking the exact right response for a given situation. More about those three skills here.

A New Kind of Creativity

The more of Sun Tzu's strategy you know, the more creative you become. The path from where you are to your goals is unique. Seeing that path requires a different form of creativity. When you are trained, you develop a heightened sensitivity to the openings around you. You are find creative ways to move into those openings. Like a puzzle master, you learn how to rearrange your existing knowledge into new, more powerful forms that are both valuable and practical. Your constant stream of new ideas and perspectives unlocks entire new worlds of opportunity. More about this special kind of creativity here.

The Science Behind Sun Tzu

This all sounds pretty fantastic. How can you know that these ideas really work? How can a 2,500 year-old thesis on competition offer all these benefits? The latest scientific research explains how Sun Tzu's system works. A little thinking about linear planning and its limits explains the rest. More about the science and logic of Sun Tzu here.

If you want to enjoy these benefits, don't forget our books, CDs, and DVDs, on-line courseware, and our on-site live workshops.