THE WOLF VS THE SPARTAN

The strategy side of business and life that everyone is doing but is too scared to talk about.

This is likely to gin up a few unfollows, so let’s get started, shall we?

I’m a big believer in conflict. I love it. Rather than avoid conflict, the most personal growth I’ve gone through has come from leaning into conflict wholeheartedly. But all conflict IS not created equal. The right type of conflict builds empires, and the wrong type topples them.

THE WOLF

There is a popular trope of the Lone Wolf. And while true, the real power of wolf society imparts from tight-knit, tribal behavior and cooperative hunting techniques. But wolves fight, specifically over who will be the Alpha. How they fight however is what’s important.

Wolf packs aren’t large, made up of a handful to a low-teens amount of members. Every wolf, from the smallest cub, to the Alpha leader is important and necessary to the intricate functioning of wolf society. So what happens when two big wolves fight?

Well, one wins and one loses. And the loser ends up with their neck between the razor-sharp, hot, snarling teeth of the winner whos jaw can isntantly summon thousands of pounds of force that would snap that neck like a toothpick.

From there though, something interesting happens. The newly crowned (or defended) alpha… stops. They don’t bite down.

Why?

The point was made. We had our tiff, we came to an agreement. BUT NOW I NEED YOU TOO. We hunt together, we fight together, but most importantly, we ALWAYS eat together, even if you’ve come for me once or twice in the past. That’s just life, and nature, and alphas understand this

THE SPARTAN

Unfortunately, society can’t always work this way. Certain types of conflict, rather than being an agent of truth, become an agent of chaos. It is marked by an opponent who crosses a fundamental line. What is that line? I define it as my Bread Line.

If you are using the conflict to enrich yourself at my direct and tangible expense, if you’re playing zero-sum games that don't end with us ALL eating, then you are trying to take food off my and my families’ table. You’ve crossed my Bread Line, and I just can’t abide by it.

In Steven Pressfield’s stunning 1998 historical fiction novel Gates of Fire, he tells the story of Xeones, a young spartan soldier and one of the only survivors of the Battle of Thermopylae. Gates of Fire is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Reading list and changed my life.

In it, he talks about how the need arises from time to time to Stomp on the Throat of your Enemy. And if that time comes, the need to do so with EXTREME PREJUDICE. This is a zero-sum game, there are no winners, merely survivors. And I’m a survivor.

If someone threatens my livelihood, they’re threatening my ability to feed my family and protect my tribe, the sanctity of my ancestors and the future of my progeny. Sorry not sorry, but ya just gotta go.

So while this is a bit dark, it’s also the emergent reality of nature and the psychology of human society. I don’t make the rules, I just observe them and act, the rest you gotta take up with Gd.

THE KING & QUEEN

Okay tech/finance/whatever bro pejorative you wanna paint me with. Is there a third way? There is. But you’re not gonna like it.

This is the Way of the King & Queen.

Lot of people out there calling themselves Kings & Queens. I like the sentiment, but I don’t buy it. Why? This is what a King & Queen is to me:

A King or Queen is the person willing to take the most pain the longest for the greatest amount of people with the least direct benefit to themselves period full stop. It has nothing to do with YOU. It has everything to do with Those You Serve.

How do you become a King or Queen?

First, you serve, then you keep serving + serve some more. Of course it’s more than that. You get your crown when you learn to distinguish between Wolf and Spartan conflict. And you only learn by being wrong a whole, unbelievable, heckuva lot.

How do you be so wrong so many times but still get your crown?

Like I said, you’re not gonna like it.

YOU TAKE THE FIRST CUT. Always, every time, no exceptions.

When you’re wrong + mad, you get a feeling in your gut when you hit that realization point that “oh, CRAP, I, uh, really misjudged this situation and as it turns out I think I am in fact the bad guy”

When that happens, you STEP UP. IMMEDIATELY. YOU DO NOT WAIT.

Pain of being wrong has a very high half-life and decays quickly. You gotta dig deep and say you’re wrong RIGHT then and there and you gotta own it. Over and over and over again. To the point where you’ve admitted you're wrong so many times that you think you’re a crazy person.

Do that, practice that, and one day you can unlock the power of the merciful, ruthless King & Queen.

And that is the story of the Wolf, the Spartan, and the King & Queen.