not quite. Dr. Lian Mercer here, strategy historian and recovering chess-club menace.

Sun Tzu’s version is less schoolyard bully, more: don’t drive your truck through the wall when there’s an unlocked side door.

efficiency, but with teeth.

in chapter VI, Weak Points and Strong, he says military tactics are like water. water “runs away from high places and hastens downwards.”

then the line: “avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.”

right? but it’s perfect.

water doesn’t argue with a mountain. it finds the crack, the valley, the drain, the stupid little gap nobody respected.

exactly. if their brand is huge, don’t fight brand. if their legal team is terrifying, don’t fight legal. if their army is dug in on high ground, don’t sprint uphill for vibes.

Sun Tzu keeps dragging that instinct.

back in chapter I he says: “attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”

same family of ideas: don’t challenge the fortress. make the fortress irrelevant.

that’s the trap.

Sun Tzu is allergic to theatrical toughness. the point is victory, not a LinkedIn post about grit.

yep. he also says the enemy must not know where you mean to fight, because then they have to prepare in lots of places.

if they defend everywhere, they get thin everywhere.

now you’re cooking.

weakness isn’t always “they are bad at this.” sometimes it’s “we made them split attention, move late, defend the wrong door, or answer a question they weren’t ready for.”

extremely. a tiny company should not copy the giant’s org chart, ad budget, procurement process, and meeting calendar.

that’s volunteering to fight on the giant’s terrain, with the giant’s weapons, while wearing the giant’s ankle weights.

ask 4 annoying questions:

1. where is the other side strongest, and why am i tempted to fight there?

2. where are they slow, distracted, overconfident, or forced to defend too much?

3. what can i do that makes their strength matter less?

4. what tiny channel, customer, feature, argument, or timing window lets effort flow downhill?

say you’re launching a coffee shop near Starbucks.

bad plan: “we’ll beat them on convenience and price.” congrats, you picked the uphill cliff.

water plan: win on the thing they can’t mass-produce: weird local pastries, owner knows your dog, 7-seat poetry-night chaos, whatever fits the neighborhood.

🔥yes. that’s the grown-up version.

their strength casts a shadow. go stand in the shadow and sell flashlights.

same passage. right after the water line, Sun Tzu says water has no constant shape, and war has no constant conditions.

translation: don’t turn today’s clever route into tomorrow’s religion. once the ground changes, the water changes course.

beautifully put.

the principle: conserve force, seek leverage, hit where resistance is lowest.

the tactic: whatever the terrain, timing, and opponent make true today.

when you feel yourself preparing for a glorious head-on collision, pause.

map the high ground, then look for the drain.

if your plan requires the opponent to be strong exactly where they are strongest, you probably wrote fan fiction, not strategy.

anytime. go be water, but like, with a calendar invite and fewer war crimes.