Part Four – The Three Masteries – Mastery of Thyself and Thy Foe
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
- Sun Tzu, 《The Art of War, Chapter 3 – Attack by Stratagem》
SWOT Analysis, taught in many business and management schools, is a strategic planning framework used to evaluate the competitive position of a business, project or organization by analysing its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
There is much we can learn from this framework, and much we can apply it to. But our interest at this particular time is to relate it to the Self and its Foes.
SWOT Analysis helps us understand our current position in the Domain of Conquest we engage in and to identify potential areas of improvement and growth. The four components of a SWOT Analysis can be divided into two categories: internal (Strengths and Weaknesses) and external factors (Opportunities and Threats).
The TL; DR of all we’ll discuss in this post is this:
LEVERAGE YOUR STRENGTHS TO EXPLOIT OPPORTUNITIES AND MITIGATE YOUR WEAKNESSES TO FORTIFY AGAINST THREATS.
But first, let me tell you about Mambwe.
Mambwe was a striking young man, with a confident stride and a magnetic personality that drew people to him like moths to a flame. He was born into a devout Christian family and was raised with strong Christian values and was taught the importance of living a virtuous life.
He was blessed with both intelligence and good looks, and had a way of communicating that made everyone around him feel seen and heard. It was no surprise, then, that Mambwe found himself in multiple leadership positions throughout his early life. He had a natural charisma that inspired others to follow him, and a keen mind that helped him make sound decisions.
Mambwe's success only continued to grow as he started his career. He landed a high-paying job and quickly climbed the corporate ladder. His charisma and leadership qualities served him well as he ascended the ranks and eventually landed a managerial position.
However, with great success came great temptation. Mambwe found himself in social situations that he never imagined he would be in. He was exposed to alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity, and he found himself succumbing to these vices. He began to distance himself from the Christian values that had been instilled in him from a young age.
It was a slow and insidious process, this descent into debauchery.
Mambwe's tale is a fictional but familiar one. Swap out the names, the opportunities, and the vices, and you could end up with countless stories of men and women who have gone down the same path. They had all started with such promise and potential. They all had the world at their feet. And yet, somewhere along the line, they lost their way. They, perhaps unknowingly, walked into a Domain of Conquest ignorant of the enemies in that Domain and also ignorant of their weaknesses and so they fell.
With this context in mind, let us look at what a SWOT Analysis might look like for a person concerned about fighting a good fight and finishing well.
STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Strengths are the internal factors that give you an advantage over the competition and opposition you face in the Domain of Conquest and help you achieve your goals. They can be leveraged to exploit opportunities before us, and tend to open up opportunities for us too.
In Mambwe’s case, these are his intelligence, good looks, ability to communicate and charisma. These strengths worked to his advantage when the opportunity of a career presented itself to him, and also helped him excel and be distinguished among many others in his Domain of Conquest.
More often than not, we are better off picking careers, businesses or ventures in which we can use the strengths that come naturally to us or that we have cultivated all our lives. Many people, for instance, find themselves frustrated because they picked careers that don’t play to their natural strengths but that they only picked because other people told them to pick them, or they were restrained to pick because of circumstances in their lives.
The average height of an NBA player is around 198.6cm or 6’66’’. It’s okay for someone as short as myself to have Basketball as a hobby, but it would be unwise for me to pick Basketball as a Career path and expect to be as successful as the best professional players. The odds just would simply not be in my favour. Recognising that and pivoting to a battle I actually would have a chance of winning is the best course of action for me.
What are your natural talents and strengths? What skills have you found yourself becoming fairly good at as you practised them throughout your life? Examine yourself and these very well, and begin to leverage them to exploit opportunities to your benefit.
WEAKNESSES AND THREATS
Weaknesses are the internal factors that give you a disadvantage in the Domain of Conquest and make you vulnerable to the foes you will encounter.
Many of us usually are unaware of these weaknesses until the opportunity for them to be manifested presents itself. These opportunities are usually referred to as temptations. Mambwe only may have discovered he was vulnerable to lust and addiction to alcohol and drugs when he started having money and power.
Money and power tend to provide the opportunity for vices or weaknesses to express themselves in us. That’s why many people “change” when they become wealthy or powerful. Usually, they didn’t change, but just had more opportunities to express their bad vices because of the money and power. You may have always been weak to the interest and the flirtations of women, but because you never had money or influence, women never had the reason to give you a second look. You never had to practice self-control and set boundaries because you never faced this challenge.
Some of us are weak to things we didn’t have exposure to growing up. Maybe you never had the assurance, acceptance and affection of a father in your life and so you seek it in every male that seems to show interest in you and find yourself sinning to please them.
The weaknesses we have are what the threats we encounter will always try to exploit to defeat us.
I find that the Apostle John, rather perfectly, managed to sum up the vices or weaknesses that plague the majority of humanity into three categories [1 John 2:16]:
1. The Lust of the Flesh (Craving for physical or emotional pleasure)
2. The Lust of the Eyes (Covetousness)
3. The Pride of Life (pride in our achievements and possessions)
Which of these do you think you are usually weak to? Begin to mitigate these things to fortify yourself against these things.
Things that generally help us mitigate our weaknesses are:
1. Honesty and integrity:
Try your best to live your life honestly and with integrity. Vice usually thrives in dark and hidden places. Let your life in private be as if you were always in the audience of God because you are.
2. Accountability
To whom do you answer? It’s important to keep a few people always in the know of what’s going on in your life—your victories and failures. Let there be voices of authority in your life whom you esteem and that you willingly and readily report to when you have fallen.
3. Boundaries
Prevention is often better than cure. If you know that most people fail because of such and such things, set up boundaries around your life that will guard you against such. If many married men fall into adulterous relationships, set up boundaries in how you speak to and relate with women other than your wife. Let there be a clear distinction in your mind and manner between what exists inside the boundaries and outside the boundaries.
It is important to be acutely aware of one’s strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge arms you in the face of threats that seek to attack you at your point of weakness, and can also give you an advantage in benefiting from opportunities.
There is so much more to be said about this matter, but here’s where I’ll end it.
I hope you’ve been blessed.
=== THE END ===
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