Stories of failure resonate more than stories of success. Few people reach the top, but everyone has failed—including those who eventually succeed. If you're teaching people how to succeed in a given field (or talking about your own success), start with how you failed.

The success of a strategy depends on doing many things well – not just a few – and integrating among them.

The principles of strategy are written down here in terms of single combat, but you must think broadly so that you attain an understanding for ten-thousand-a-side battles. Strategy is different from other things in that if you mistake the Way even a little you will become bewildered and fall into bad ways.

When reading books or listening to podcasts or taking advice, remember that everyone is biased to their personal history.

The world is complex and there is no single path to a success. Look for patterns that are repeated across many successful people, not single stories.

So there’s no shortage of evidence that stories rule our thinking and predict success in so many arenas. But how do stories work?

Your tactics can make a difference, but your strategy — your commitment to a way of being and a story to be told and a promise to be made — can change everything.

KEYS TO WARFARE The world is full of people looking for a secret formula for success and power. They do not want to think on their own; they just want a recipe to follow. They are attracted to the idea of strategy for that very reason. In their minds strategy is a series of steps to be followed toward a goal. They want these steps spelled out for them by an expert or a guru. Believing in the power of imitation, they want to know exactly what some great person has done before. Their maneuvers in life are as mechanical as their thinking. To separate yourself from such a crowd, you need to get rid of a common misconception: the essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does. Instead of grasping at Option A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B, or C depending on the circumstances. That is strategic depth of thinking, as opposed to formulaic thinking.

Telling effective stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals.

Good Stories Always Beat Good Spreadsheets” “Whether you are raising money, pitching your product to customers, selling the company, or recruiting employees, never forget that underneath all the math and the MBA bullshit talk, we are all still emotionally driven human beings. We want to attach ourselves to narratives. We don’t act because of equations. We follow our beliefs. We get behind leaders who stir our feelings. In the early days of your venture, if you find someone diving too deep into the numbers, that means they are struggling to find a reason to deeply care about you.

The math of success…

Results = (Hard Work*Time)^Strategy

Working hard is important, but working on the right thing is more important. A great strategy can deliver exponential results.

Of course, the best strategy is worth nothing if you never get to work. Zero to the millionth power is still zero.

“Copy success” is good generic advice.

That being said, there are a lot of ways to play any game, and the way to become number one is often not the same way to become second third fourth and fifth.

And most people are simply happy doing well rather than being the best.

To be number one, you won’t be able to follow the playbook to the top. At some point, you have to write your own rules and do it your own way.

Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but most importantly, what's your plan to read?

If you master the principles of sword-fencing, when you freely beat one man, you beat any man in the world. The spirit of defeating a man is the same for ten million men. The strategist makes small things into big things, like building a great Buddha from a one foot model. I cannot write in detail how this is done. The principle of strategy is having one thing, to know ten thousand things.