Latest / The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young / The Long View: Seeing the Battle Before It Arrives

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The Long View: Seeing the Battle Before It Arrives · The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome back to strategize, adapt, and overcome.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm brad young, and I am genuinely glad you are
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: here with me today. Let me start with a question,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and I want you to be honest with yourself, because
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: nobody hears your answer but you. If you looked at
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the way you live right now, the choices you make
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: on an ordinary day, the way you spend your hours
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and your energy and your attention, who exactly are you building?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Not who you hope to become someday when things settle down.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Who are you actually building right now with the life
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you are living today. Sit with that for a second,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: because most people never ask it. Most people live entirely
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: inside the next few days, the next deadline, the next paycheck,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the next small fire to put out, and they wonder
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: years later why they ended up somewhere. They never chose.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: That shortsightedness, that habit of living only in the moment
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: right in front of you, is exactly what we're going
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to fix today. We have walked a long road together
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: in this series. We learned the patience of the warrior
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: who waits for the right moment. We faced the enemy
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: inside our own heads. We learned to bandle like water
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: when everything changes. We master the art of the unseen.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We learned to read our ground before the fight. We
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: learned that no warrior wins alone. We learned that discipline
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: beats motivation. And last time, we learned how to lose
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: without being destroyed. Today we lift our eyes off the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: ground in front of us, and we look at the horizon.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Today we talk about strategic vision. Sun Su understood this
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: better than almost anyone who ever lived. He taught that
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the wise general wins the battle long before it is fought.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: He knew that the outcome of a war was mostly
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: decided in the quiet season of preparation, and the positioning
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and the planning that happened while the enemy was still asleep.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: The victory was not born on the day of the fight.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: It was born in the months of foresight that came
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: before it. That is the mind we are building today,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the mind that sees the battle coming and gets ready
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: long before it arrives. So let us get into it.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Here's the first truth I need you to sit with today.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: The life you will live in ten years is being
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: built by the person you are on ordinary tuesdays, not
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: on the dramatic days, not on the days when everything
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: is on the line and everyone is watching on the plane.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Forgettable days, the small choices you make when nothing seems
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to be at stake are quietly deciding the size of
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the life you will one day stand inside. Most people
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: cannot see that, because the connection is slow. The choice
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: you make today does not send you the bill until
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: years down the road, and by then most people have
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: forgotten they ever made the choice at all. Think about
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a farmer planting an orchard. When he plants that little tree,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it gives him nothing, no fruit, no shade, just a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: thin stick in the dirt that demands water and care
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and patience, while it offers no nothing back. A foolish
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: person looks at that and asks why bother. But the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: wise farmer is not planted for this year. He's planning
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: for ten years from now, for the season when the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: thin stick has become a tree heavy with fruit, feeding
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: his family, long after he has forgotten the afternoon he
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: first put it in the ground. The best time to
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: plant that tree was twenty years ago. The second best
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: time is today, And the person who understands that lives
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in a completely different world than the one who does
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: not which one? Are you right now? Are you planting
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: trees you will one day sit under, or are you
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: only picking the fruit that happens to be within arms
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: reach today? Let me bring this out of the orchard
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and into a real life, because this is where it
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: truly matters. I want to tell you a story. I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: am going to change some of the details to protect
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the people in it. But this happened, and it has
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: stayed with me for years. I once watched two people
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: work inside the same industry, at the same level, starting
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: at almost the exact same place. We will call the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: first one the reactor. And the reactor lived entirely in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the present moment. Whatever was loudest that day got his
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: full attention. He chased whatever was paying well right now,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: with no thought for whether it would still be paying
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: well in three years. He never studied where his industry
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: was heading. He never once asked what the world was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: going to need tomorrow. He was talented, and he was busy,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and he was always moving, But every bit of his
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: energy was spent reacting to the wave that was crashing
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: on him that particular morning. And for a while, the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: reactor did fine. He rode the good years He looked successful,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: but slowly the ground began to shift under him, the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: way it always does. The thing that paid so well
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: started to fade. The world moved on into something new,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and the reactor never saw it coming because he was
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: never looking. He was so buried in the present that
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the future arrived and caught him completely off guard. When
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the change finally hit, he was scrambling, unprepared, forced to
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: react to a battle he could have seen forming years
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: earlier if he had only lifted his eyes. No, tell
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you about the second one. We will call her the gardener.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: And the gardener moved through her days with one eye
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: on the present and one eye fixed firmly on the horizon.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: She did her daily work, yes, but she was always
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: asking a deeper question underneath it. Where is all of
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: this heading? What is the world going to need five
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: years from now that it barely wants today? What skills
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: should I be quietly building right now before anyone else
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: realizes they need it? So while the reactor chased the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: fruit that was ripe that season, the gardener planted trees.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: She learned things that offered no reward at first. She
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: built relationships that would not pay off for years She
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: positioned herself patiently and deliberately for a world that had
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: not arrived yet. And when that world finally did arrive,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: when the ground shifted and everyone else was caught scrambling,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: she was already standing exactly where she needed to be.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: She was not lucky. She had simply seen it coming,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and she had spent years quietly getting ready. Same industry,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: same start. One lived in the moment and got ambushed
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: by the future. One studied the horizon and walked calmly
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: into a world she had prepared for. That is the
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: difference vision makes. So ask yourself, honestly, which one Are
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you right now the reactor buried in today and blind
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to tomorrow, or are you becoming the gardener planting trees
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: you will one day be grateful for now. I want
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to break this down into something you can actually understand,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: because strategic vision is not some mystical gift a few
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: lucky people are born with. It is a way of thinking,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and any of us can learn it. The first thing
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you have to understand is that vision is a discipline,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: not a daydream. There is a difference between wishing and seeing,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and most people confuse the two. Wishing is passive. It
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: is lying back and imagining a nicer future while doing
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: nothing to build it. Vision is active. It is studying
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the direction things are actually moving, reading the early signs,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and then positioning yourself today based on where the world
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: is going, not where it happens to be right now.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Sansu did not wish for victory. He studied the terrain,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the seasons, the movements of his enemy, and he saw
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the shape of the future forming before it fully arrived.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: That is not fantasy. That is discipline foresight. The Stoics
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: understood this in their own quiet way. They practiced looking
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: ahead at what was likely to come, so that no
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: hardship would ever catch them unprepared. They rehearse the difficulties
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of tomorrow in the calm of today, not to torture themselves,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: but so that when the difficulty finally arrived, they met
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it as an old acquaintance instead of a stranger. That
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is the heart of vision. You look far enough ahead
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that the future stops being able to ambush you. You
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: trade the false comfort of ignoring tomorrow for the real
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: strength of being ready for it. The second thing you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: have to understand is that you must think in seasons,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: not in days. This is the shift that changes everything.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Most people measure their lives in days and weeks. Did
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: today go well? Was this week productive? And living that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: way you become a slave to the small ups and down,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: celebrating every tiny wind and collapsing at every tiny setback.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: But the strategist measures life in seasons and in years.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: He knows that one bad day means nothing across the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: arc of a decade. He knows that the small patient
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: work he's doing now, work that shows almost no result today,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is quietly stacking into something enormous over time. Think again
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: about that orchard. A single season tells you almost nothing
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: about a tree. In one season, it might look like
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: nothing is happening at all, But across ten seasons, that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: same tree becomes something that feeds a family. Your life
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: is exactly the same. To judge it by a single day,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and you will always be discouraged because a single day
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: is too small a window to show you the real growth.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Judge it by the season, by the year, by the decade,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and suddenly all those small patient efforts reveal themselves as
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the roots of something that lasts. Zoom out. Stop measuring
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: your progress with a ruler. When you were meant to
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: measure it with a calendar. The third thing you have
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to understand is that vision requires sacrificing the immediate for
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the important. This is where vision gets hard, and this
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: is where most people quietly quit. To position yourself for tomorrow,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: you almost always have to give up something today. You
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: have to say no to the easy reward that is
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: right in front of you so that you can build
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the greater thing that is still years away. And that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: is genuinely difficult, because the easy reward is loud and close,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: while the greater thing is quiet and far off. Your
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: feelings will always vote for what is close. Your vision
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: has to overrule them. Son Su understood the price of preparation.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: He knew that the army which invested in its readiness
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: during peace time, when it seemed unnecessary and expensive, was
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the army that survived when war finally came. The cost
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of fore side always feels wasteful until the moment it
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: saves you. The Stoics practiced a similar discipline, willingly giving
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: up small comforts in the present to build the strength
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: of character they would need for the trials ahead. They
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: understood that a person who cannot delay a reward will
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: forever be ruled by whatever is nearest, and a person
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: ruled by what is nearest can never build anything that lasts.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Vision is the willingness to plant what you will not
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: harvest for years, trusting that the harvest is coming. So
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: let me give you something practical to carry out of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: here today. Because I never want to just fill your
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: head with ideas and send you off with nothing to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: actually do with them. Here's your framework for this week.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Three moves. Run them and watch your vision begin to sharpen.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: The first move is to project yourself forward and look back.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Set aside some quiet time this week and imagine yourself
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: five years from now living the life you would be
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: proud to live, see it clearly, and then, from that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: future place, look back at today and ask one question,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: what did I start doing back then that got me here?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever answer rises up, whatever tree that future version of
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you is grateful you planted, that is your instruction for today.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: This simple exercise pulls the future into the present and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: shows you exactly what needs to begin now. The second
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: move is to name one tree and plant it this week.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Vision means nothing until it touches the ground of an
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: ordinary day, So pick one thing, one skill you should
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: start building before the world demands it. One relationship you
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: should begin investing in before you need it. One small
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: patient habit that will pay off years from now. Just
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: one and do the first small piece of it this week,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: understanding that you will see no reward yet. You are
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: not planting for this season. You are planning for the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: person you are becoming, and that is enough. The third
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: move is to protect your long view from the noise
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of the day. Every day, the loud and urgent will
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: scream for all of your attention, and if you let it,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: it will steal every hour you meant to spend building
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the future. So this week, reguard a small piece of
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: your time for the important things that are not urgent,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: even a little block it off, defend it, treat that
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: time as sacred because it is the only time you
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: will ever spend building tomorrow instead of merely surviving today.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The urgent will always find you. You have to go
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: looking for the important on purpose, project yourself forward and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: look back. Name one tree and plant it. Protect your
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: long view from the noise. That is how you stop
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: reacting to the future and start building it. Now. I
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: want to say something important before we close, because I
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: never want this to be twisted into something it is not.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Thinking long term does not mean neglecting your life today,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and it does not mean postponing every ounce of joy
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: until some distant finish line that may never come. That
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: is not wisdom. That is just a different kind of imbalance.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: The Stoics were very clear that this present day is
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the only one you are ever actually guaranteed, and it
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: is meant to be lived fully, not sacrificed entirely to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: a future that has never promised. So hold both truth
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: at once, Live today with your whole heart, and build
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: for tomorrow with a steady hand. Plant the tree, yes,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: but also sit in the shade of the trees you
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: have already grown. Vision is not about escaping the present.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It is about making sure the present you are living
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is quietly building the future you actually want. Let me
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: leave you with this before we go. The world will
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: always try to shrink your view. It will fill every
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: moment with something loud and urgent and immediate, and it
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: will convince you that the little fire in front of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you is the only thing that matters. And so most
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: people spend their entire lives reacting, running from one urgent
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: thing to the next, never once lifting their eyes to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: see where all of it is actually taking them. Then
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: they arrive decades later at a life they never chose,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: and they wonder how they got there, since so knew
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the answer twenty five centuries ago. The battle is won
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: or lost long before it is fought, in the quiet
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: foresight of the one who saw it coming. The stoics
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: knew it too. The prepared mind is never ambushed because
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: it has already walked the road ahead in its imagination.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: You do not have to be one of the people
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: who gets ambushed by their own future. Starting today, you
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: can lift your eyes. You can think in seasons instead
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of days. You can plant trees who shade you will
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: one day be grateful for. And you can position yourself
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: patiently and deliberately for a world that has not arrived yet,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: so that when it does, you are already standing exactly
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: where you need to be, calm and ready, while everyone
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: else is scrambling. So this week, project yourself into that
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: future and let it tell you what to begin. Plant
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: one tree, knowing you will not see the fruit for years,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and defend a small piece of your time for the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: important things that never shout, because the person you become
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: is not decided in the loud, dramatic moments. It is
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: decided in the quiet ones, on the ordinary tuesdays, when
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you choose to build for a horizon that only you
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: can see. Thank you so much for spending this time
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: with me today. If this episode gave you something real,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: do me a favor and share it with someone who
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: is stuck living day to day, someone who needs to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: hear that the future belongs to the one who plans
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: for it, and make sure you follow the show, because
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you are not going to want to miss what comes next.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: In our next episode, we take this long view and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: we point it straight at the one thing every strategist
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: must eventually confront. We're going to talk about legacy, about
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: what you are truly leaving behind, About how the wisest
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: warriors fight not just for the victory of today, but
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: for something that last them entirely. Because vision decides where
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you march, but legacy decides what remains standing long after
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: the march is over. Until then, lift your eyes, plant
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: your trees, and keep moving forward.