Author: Matt

Rituals and Routines: How to Stay Consistent When Life Gets Loud

There’s a reason militaries train drills, martial artists bow before stepping on the mat, and serious lifters follow the same barbell warm-ups and setups every rep: ritual anchors action.

Every time I approach the snatch or clean and jerk, my warm-up is identical. But more importantly, before each lift, my mantra is the same: strong, smooth, execute. Strong off the floor. Smooth through the transition past the knees. Execute the finish as fully and explosively as possible. That’s not superstition, it’s neurological priming.

And it’s not because rituals are magical but because they’re neurological.

Your brain craves predictability. When you repeat a behavior in the same context, you create neural pathways that make the action automatic. Decision fatigue drops. Willpower becomes irrelevant. The ritual does the thinking for you.

Routines are what you do. Rituals are what you become. And what you become is what earns you success in everything you do.

As we move into the tail end of the year, that time when holidays, social demands, stressors, and schedules swirl into chaos, it’s tempting to believe our nutrition, training, or recovery practices must go on pause.

That belief isn’t just unnecessary, it’s counterproductive.

What keeps progress intact isn’t perfection; it’s persistent, ritualized behaviors that stabilize and center the day, no matter what’s going on around you.

Build the Day on Behavioral Anchors, Not Outcomes

When people ask me how to stay consistent in “real life,” they usually mean: how do I not fall off the wagon when life gets chaotic?

The answer is simple: build it from the inside out.

Here are four anchors that form the bedrock of consistency:

  1. Movement Before Screens:
    It doesn’t have to be a full workout. But 5–10 minutes of movement (walk, stretch, bodyweight flow) before checking the phone, laptop, or email changes the tone of your entire day. Why? Because you’ve claimed the first decision. You’ve told your nervous system: I control my attention, not my inbox. That psychological win compounds throughout the day.
  2. Hydration Habit:
    A full glass of water (ideally with a pinch of sea salt and lemon if you don’t get enough salt in your diet) within 10 minutes of waking kickstarts your digestion, cognitive function, and blood pressure regulation, before that first dose of coffee.
  3. Protein-Priority Breakfast:
    Especially when life gets hectic, humans skip meals or over-rely on convenience. Anchoring your day with 30–40g of protein early (eggs/egg whites, Greek yogurt, turkey sausage, et cetera) improves neurotransmitter production and blood sugar regulation for hours. This isn’t bro-science, it’s biochemistry. Protein provides the amino acids needed for dopamine and serotonin synthesis. Skip breakfast, and you’re running on cortisol and caffeine until lunch. That’s not energy. That’s borrowed time.
  4. The 3 pm Prep Pulse:
    Set an alarm. Use it as a check-in: have I eaten enough? Do I need to prep dinner? Can I cut back on caffeine now to improve my sleep later? It’s not a full pause, just a quiet calibration. Most people crash in the afternoon because they’re reacting—grabbing sugar, slamming coffee, pushing through. The 3 pm pulse is proactive. It’s a moment to course-correct before the evening gets away from you.

None of these is radical. That’s the point.

The fitness industry profits from extremes. Thirty-day challenges. Transformation programs. Biohacking protocols that require a PhD and a trust fund. More complexity means more products to sell, more content to consume, more reasons to feel like you’re not doing enough.

But rituals win because they’re repeatable. And what’s repeatable is sustainable. And what’s sustainable is what actually changes your life.

Field Notes: Coaching in the Chaos

A few years ago, a CrossFit athlete of mine was juggling a full-time job, coaching mornings, and training for her first comp. Time was tight. Energy was tighter. She came to me overwhelmed, trying to follow a six-day training split, meal prep on Sundays, and track macros down to the gram.

“I’m doing everything right, but I feel like I’m failing,” she said.

The problem wasn’t effort. It was sustainability. So we simplified everything down to three non-negotiables:

  • Never skip breakfast (30g protein minimum)
  • Get one quality training session per day as prescribed (not six mediocre ones)
  • Set the coffee pot timer at night as a small win (and a moment of morning Zen)

That’s it. No macro tracking. No six-day splits. Just three rituals she could execute even on her worst days.

It wasn’t flashy. It was ritualized. She podiumed in her first comp three months later. Not because the rituals were magic, but because they were repeatable.

Full transparency: we also got her front squat, deadlift, and strength endurance up during that time. But here’s the thing, the PRs didn’t come from complicated programming. They came from consistent execution. Higher protein intake and quality training sessions made both the podium and the PRs possible. The rituals created the conditions for everything else to work.

Chaos Is the Test, Not the Excuse

Everyone can follow a plan when life’s calm. But performance, in sport, work, or life, is forged when conditions are not ideal.

Chaos doesn’t care about your goals. It doesn’t wait for January or “when things settle down.” Chaos is constant. Which means your rituals must be too.

The path forward isn’t motivation. It’s not willpower. It’s intentional design backed by disciplined repetition.

As the holiday season ramps up, resist the all-or-nothing mindset. Build your day on anchors, not apps. Choose a few small rituals, do them well, and repeat them until they’re part of who you are, not something you have to remember to do.

Then repeat them until you can’t get them wrong.

Consistency doesn’t come from a spreadsheet or a thirty-day challenge. It comes from rituals that show up for you when everything else is falling apart.

The reward isn’t external. It’s internal. And that’s something worth protecting.

Security Without the Pessimism: Cyber Hygiene, The Daily Routine You Actually Need

The Myth of the “Security Checklist”

If you believed every cybersecurity headline, you’d think staying safe online takes a PhD, three apps, and a daily ritual in front of your firewall.

The security industry profits from this complexity. Vendors want you to believe that protection requires their latest tool, their proprietary solution, their 27-step implementation guide. More complexity means more products to sell.

But real security doesn’t look like that. It’s not about chasing every threat or memorizing every acronym. It’s about simple, repeatable habits. It’s the digital version of brushing your teeth.

Here’s the truth they don’t want you to hear: You don’t need to do everything. You just need to do the right things, consistently.

That’s cyber hygiene. And it’s boring on purpose.

The Habits That Actually Matter

Most people already know the broad strokes: use strong passwords, update software, don’t click weird links.

But here’s what actually moves the needle:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Still, the single best defense against credential theft.
  • Software updates. Patches close the doors that attackers love to walk through.
  • Password managers. Better one secure vault than 20 weak logins.
  • Backups. One local, one in the cloud, test them once in a while.
  • Device lock and encryption. Lost phones shouldn’t equal lost data.

That’s it. No mystery. No 27-step plan. Just a few habits that, when done daily, make 95% of attacks irrelevant.

In 2017, Equifax was breached because they didn’t patch a known vulnerability for two months. 147 million records compromised. The fix? A software update they already knew about. That’s not sophisticated hacking, that’s skipped hygiene at a catastrophic scale.

The basics aren’t basic because they’re easy to remember. They’re basic because when you skip them, everything else fails.

Why We Skip Simple Stuff

It’s not that people don’t know what to do. It’s that security doesn’t feel urgent until it’s too late.

You don’t see or feel the benefits of good hygiene, but you definitely avoid the pain of neglect. No one cheers when you floss. But everyone will notice that broccoli in your teeth if you don’t.

But there’s more to it than just invisible benefits. Three psychological forces work against cyber hygiene:

Optimism bias. “It won’t happen to me” is a powerful drug. You read about breaches happening to other people, other companies, other industries. Your brain quietly files those stories under “someone else’s problem.” Until it isn’t.

Decision fatigue. You have 47 accounts, each with different password requirements, different MFA setups, and different update schedules. The sheer volume of security decisions creates paralysis. So you do nothing, or you take shortcuts, the same password everywhere, “remind me later” on every update.

The invisible threat problem. You can see a locked door. You can’t see a botnet probing your network. Physical security has visual feedback like locks, gates, cameras. Digital security is abstract until the moment it fails catastrophically. And by then, it’s too late.

Cyber hygiene fails for the same reason flossing does: it’s easy to skip, hard to see the benefit, and the consequences feel distant. But unlike cavities, breaches don’t announce themselves with pain. They’re silent, patient, and devastating.

The trick is to make it small enough that you’ll actually do it, and easy enough that you won’t skip it.

Where Good Intentions Break Down

Even security-conscious folks sometimes miss the basics. Not because they’re careless, but because these gaps accumulate slowly, invisibly:

Outdated hardware. That router you set up five years ago? It stopped receiving security patches three years ago. Old devices become permanent vulnerabilities.

Shadow data. Files saved “temporarily” on random drives, USB sticks, or that personal Dropbox you forgot you created. Every copy is another attack surface.

Forgotten accounts. That forum you joined in 2014. That trial subscription you never canceled. Dormant logins are open doors with your email and password sitting in some leaked database.

Public Wi-Fi comfort. You use a VPN at the airport but not at the coffee shop. Inconsistent protection is predictable behavior and attackers love predictability.

You don’t have to fix everything today. Just start closing one gap at a time. Audit your accounts quarterly. Replace hardware that can’t be updated. Consolidate your data.

Security isn’t perfection. It’s progress. And progress happens one boring habit at a time.

Think of it this way: cyber hygiene is like compound interest, make small deposits now, get massive protection later. Skip the deposits, and you’re borrowing against a future breach.

Make Security Boring (That’s the Point)

The goal isn’t to turn security into a project, it’s to make it routine. Boring. Automatic. The kind of thing you do without thinking, like locking your car.

Here’s a weekly checklist that actually sticks:

  • Monday: Check updates and patches. Five minutes. Coffee in hand. Start the week secure.
  • Wednesday: Backup your files. Set it, forget it, verify it works.
  • Friday: Review new apps or accounts, prune what you don’t use. Close the week by closing gaps.

That’s 10 minutes a week. Three touchpoints. No drama. No heroics.

If you can manage that, you’re already ahead of most organizations. Not because you’re doing something extraordinary because you’re doing something sustainable.

Security should be quiet. The less you think about it, the better it’s working. The moment it becomes a production, it becomes optional.

Culture Over Blame, Turning Awareness Into Habit

People don’t need more fear. They need better routines.

I’ve seen teams transform their security posture not through mandates, but through modeling. One security lead I worked with started every Monday standup by sharing what he patched over the weekend, not as a flex, just as routine. Within a month, the team was comparing notes on password managers and backup strategies. Security became a shared practice, not a compliance checkbox.

Encourage coworkers, friends, or family to treat digital hygiene like health hygiene, it’s a shared standard, not a personal burden. When one person in a household sets up MFA, others notice. When a team lead mentions their weekly backup routine, it normalizes the behavior.

When leaders model small, consistent habits, teams follow. Security doesn’t start in policy documents; it begins in daily rhythm. And rhythm spreads.

Make it normal. Make it boring. Make it easy.

Final Thought

Cyber hygiene isn’t glamorous, but it’s the backbone of every good security posture.
You don’t need to understand encryption or chase every breach headline.
You just need to do the basics, on time, every time.

The security industry wants you to believe protection is complicated because complexity sells. But the truth is simpler and cheaper: consistent habits beat expensive tools every time.

Prevention doesn’t shout. It just works.

That’s not pessimism, that’s just daily discipline. And it’s boring, and effective, on purpose.

The Art of Cyberwar | Part VIII | Variation in Tactics

The principle: “There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.” — Sun Tzu

Adaptation Over Assumption

In Maneuvering, we learned the art of movement and how to turn posture into progress. Now Sun Tzu takes the next step: variation.

Variation is the discipline of adaptation. Not improvisation for its own sake. It’s controlled flexibility and fluidity; the kind that keeps a force alive while in motion.

Sun Tzu’s warning is ruthless: Predictability is the slow death of strategy. Every organization that wins too long risks repeating itself.

Every CISO, every architect, every nation-state faces the same danger: When your patterns stabilize, your adversary’s job gets easier.

Attackers study rhythm.
They hunt repetition.
They exploit formula.

What you repeat becomes your weakness.

Static Defenses, Dynamic Threats

In cybersecurity, repetition feels like discipline:

  • the same checklists
  • the same daily, weekly or quarterly assessments
  • the same scanning cadence
  • the same unchanged playbooks

It feels stable but it’s stagnation dressed as process.

Meanwhile attackers evolve hourly.

Their payloads morph.
Their lures update.
Their timing adapts to human fatigue cycles.

They don’t overpower blue teamers; they systematically outlearn them.

Sun Tzu’s guidance, “alter your plans according to circumstances,” isn’t merely poetic.

It’s operational doctrine. Security isn’t a system. Security is a cycle.

  • Every breach teaches.
  • Every false alarm reveals.
  • Every routine day hides patterns waiting to be broken.

The teams that adapt fastest aren’t the biggest.

They’re the most fluid and adaptable.

Variation is awareness in motion.

Red Teams, Blue Teams, and the Dance of Adaptation

Variation is the heartbeat of adversarial testing. Red teams live in uncertainty: improvisation, deception, broken rhythm. Blue teams train in structure: detection, containment, resilience.

A mature organization doesn’t let them exist as siloed tribes. It merges them into purple teaming, where the creativity of offense and the rigor of defense evolve together.

  • Red exposes blind spots.
  • Blue turns discovery into discipline.
  • Together they adapt.

This is the martial logic of sparring:

  • Wing Chun’s angle changes, where the same attack comes from different entries vs simply straight lines.
  • Muay Thai’s broken rhythm, where timing destroys expectation.
  • BJJ’s transition → position → submission sequence, where variation becomes game, set, match.

Each engagement becomes rehearsal for reality. You’re not preparing for yesterday’s threat. You’re learning from tomorrow’s rehearsal. That’s Sun Tzu’s Variation: adaptation as preparation.

Cloud Security: Adaptation as Architecture

Cloud environments shift constantly:

  • APIs update
  • services deprecate
  • compliance rules revise
  • identity models evolve
  • integrations multiply

Static thinking is fatal in a fluid system. Cloud security is variation embodied.

Infrastructure-as-code lets architecture evolve at speed. Automation turns intent into consistent action, but without visibility, variation becomes drift.

Sun Tzu’s metaphor of water fits perfectly: Water adapts to its container yet always seeks its level.

Cloud engineers do the same:

  • change with the environment, without losing alignment
  • allow flexibility, without losing control
  • evolve configurations, without losing accountability

Adaptation is necessary. Principles are non-negotiable.

Foreign Policy and the Trap of Predictability

Nations decay when their doctrine ossifies.

The American foreign policy establishment has often fallen into this trap over and over again:

  • Cold War containment repeated even after the context changed.
  • counterinsurgency tactics applied to environments that defied them
  • interventions driven by reflex rather than awareness

Vietnam: A doctrine built for conventional warfare in Europe applied to guerrilla conflict in jungle terrain. The U.S. measured success through body counts and attrition, while the enemy measured it through will and time. Same playbook, wrong war. Predictable escalation met adaptive resistance.

Afghanistan: Twenty years of rotating commanders, each bringing their own tactical variation, but all operating under the same strategic assumption—that nation-building through military presence could succeed where it had failed for empires before. The tactics changed every 18 months with each new general. The doctrine never did. The enemy simply waited.

Iraq 2003: Intelligence assumptions treated as certainties. A swift conventional victory followed by the assumption that democratic institutions could be installed through force. When insurgency emerged, the U.S. applied a counterinsurgency doctrine designed for different conflicts. By the time adaptation occurred (the Surge), years of predictable responses had already created the conditions for ISIS.

But perhaps the most revealing pattern is the rhetorical one: every emerging threat becomes “the new Hitler,” every conflict the next World War II.

  • Saddam Hussein was Hitler.
  • Gaddafi was Hitler.
  • Milosevic was Hitler.
  • Assad was Hitler.

The framing never changes. The enemy is always being Chamberlain in 1939 and being “appeasers of Hitler.” The infantile argument is always to stave off the newest existential threat to humanity. This isn’t strategy, it’s intellectual predictability masquerading as moral rectitude and always sticking by the banal cliche “never again,” whether is really applies or not.

World War II was a unique conflict: a mechanized, industrial-scale war between nation-states with clear battle lines, total mobilization, and, foolishly, unconditional surrender as the objective. Applying that framework to insurgencies, civil wars, and regional conflicts doesn’t just fail tactically, it reveals a dangerous inability to see the situation as it actually is.

The Hitler analogy serves a purpose: it short-circuits debate, frames inaction as appeasement, and makes intervention seem inevitable. But it’s also the ultimate form of strategic predictability. When every threat is Hitler, every response becomes World War II, and variation dies.

Variation in statecraft means reading each situation fresh, not recycling last decade’s doctrine into a new century, and certainly not recycling a doctrine from 80 years ago. In each case, tactical adjustments happened but strategic doctrine remained rigid. That’s the opposite of Sun Tzu’s teaching: vary tactics, never principles. These conflicts varied neither.

The Global War on Terror: The Ultimate Failure of Variation

And then there’s the final, most damning example of strategic predictability: Ahmed al-Sharaa, originally known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who once led al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria and spent years detained by U.S. forces as a terrorist in Iraq, was welcomed to the White House in November 2025 by President Trump.

He once had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. He founded al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch. Now he’s a partner in the Global War on Terror.

This isn’t adaptation. This is strategic incoherence dressed as pragmatism.

Twenty-four years after 9/11, after trillions spent, after Afghanistan and Iraq, after “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” became doctrine, the United States now supports the former head of the very organization we invaded multiple countries to destroy.

The justification? He helps combat ISIS. The same ISIS that emerged from the predictable chaos of the Iraq War. The same conflict where al-Sharaa himself fought as a leading al-Qaeda member against U.S. forces.

This is what happens when doctrine ossifies while reality shifts. When every threat is framed through the same lens (“the new Hitler”), when every intervention follows the same playbook, when strategic thinking atrophies into bureaucratic reflex you end up shaking hands with yesterday’s enemy because you can’t recognize that your framework has failed.

Sun Tzu’s warning rings clear: predictability invites exploitation. The GWOT’s predictable responses—invasion, occupation, counterinsurgency, withdrawal created a cycle that adversaries learned to exploit.

They adapted. We repeated.

And now, the former al-Qaeda commander who once fought U.S. forces receives a hero’s welcome at the seat of American power. Not because the threat changed. Because we ran out of variations on the same failed strategy.

Predictability in diplomacy invites miscalculation.
Predictability in force posture invites escalation.
Predictability in cyber deterrence invites probing.

Again, as an example, at the extreme end of predictability lies Pearl Harbor.

Japan didn’t strike out of pure ambition; it struck because the U.S. cut off:

  • 90% of its oil
  • vital steel
  • food
  • rubber
  • machinery
  • industrial materials

A nation deprived of resources enters what Sun Tzu called death ground, the place where maneuver becomes inevitable.

  • Predictable embargo.
  • Predictable deterioration.
  • Predictable desperation.
  • Predictable strike.

Sun Tzu understood the principle: the more rigid your doctrine, the more your opponent will shift. Nations, like networks, must evolve, or decay through repetition.

Variation Without Confusion

Adaptability is not inconsistent. Sun Tzu warned that blind variation, change for its own sake,
creates disorder.

The rule is simple: Vary your tactics. Never vary your principles.

In cybersecurity, the principles are visibility, trust, and accountability.
In cloud architecture, they are governance and clarity.
In foreign policy, they are restraint and realism.

Change how you respond.
Never change why you respond.

That’s how variation becomes strength rather than noise.

Modern Lessons in Motion

Across every domain, the real art lies in learning faster than you decay:

  • In cybersecurity, adapt playbooks to every alert, not just every quarter.
  • In cloud: treat configuration as a living organism, not a static diagram.
  • In diplomacy: update doctrine before circumstances force your hand.

Predictability invites attack.
Curiosity creates resilience.

Sun Tzu didn’t worship flexibility. He prized awareness in motion, responsiveness guided by principle.

That is how you survive modern complexity: move → learn → realign → repeat.

That’s variation.

From Variation to Awareness

Variation teaches movement. The next lesson teaches perception.

In Chapter IX, The Army on the March, Sun Tzu turns to the signals that guide a force in motion,  how to read the terrain, sense morale, detect fatigue, and recognize when momentum turns into danger.

If Variation in Tactics is about adapting to survive, The Army on the March is about understanding the signs that tell you whether your adaptation is working.

Bringing us full circle to our opening principle: “There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.”

In our next installment, we’ll discuss perception and reality in networks, in nations, in martial skill, and most critically, in ourselves.

BCAAs Are Overrated — Here’s What to Do Instead

There was a time when tossing a neon scoop of BCAAs into your shaker cup felt like a secret code, like a sign that you were truly “dialed in.” Fast forward a few years, and the science is pretty blunt: if you’re already eating enough high-quality protein, those branched-chain amino acids aren’t doing much besides lightening your wallet.

Let’s break it down.

1. You’re Already Getting Plenty

BCAAs (leucine, isoleucine, valine) are just three of the nine essential amino acids your body needs to repair and build muscle. They’re naturally found in every solid protein source: meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and even plants. In fact, most whole protein sources already contain the 2-3 grams of leucine per meal needed to maximize muscle protein synthesis, making isolated BCAA supplements redundant.

If you eat real food and hit roughly 1.6–2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, you’re already covered. Studies keep confirming it: supplementing with BCAAs doesn’t outperform simply consuming complete protein. Here’s why: muscle protein synthesis requires all nine essential amino acids to activate mTOR signaling, the metabolic pathway that triggers muscle growth. BCAAs alone can’t complete the job. Without the full amino acid lineup, your body can’t finish the muscle-building process.

Unless your diet is severely lacking protein, that fancy powder isn’t rescuing anything.

2. Pop Culture Made It Cool — But Not Useful

Let’s be honest: a lot of this stuck around because of marketing and muscle culture. The fitness industry turned hydration into a brand identity with bright colors, bold claims, and goofy influencers sipping between sets like it’s rocket fuel.

It looks serious. It feels like doing something extra. But feeling busy isn’t the same as being productive. In truth, most BCAA use today is psychological, the ritual of “recovery in a cup” more than any measurable physiological edge.

Field note: I’ve worked with hundreds of lifters and athletes and not one of them ever turned a corner in strength, body comp, or recovery because they added BCAAs. But I’ve seen countless athletes break plateaus when they fixed their sleep schedule, added 20 grams of protein to breakfast, or simply trained with more consistency. The wins come from the boring fundamentals, not the colorful supplements.

3. The Paleo/Keto Twist

Here’s where a lot of people overcomplicate it.

If you’re following Paleo or keto and already eating quality animal protein, steak, tuna, salmon, eggs, you’re getting plenty of BCAAs naturally. The supplement is redundant.

But here’s the real issue: many low-carb folks turn to BCAAs because they’re afraid strategic carbs will derail their progress. They won’t. If you’re training hard two or three times a week, your muscles need readily available fuel. Natural carb sources like fruit, bananas, berries, oranges, apples, et cetera, around your training window will do more for performance and recovery than any BCAA powder.

That’s not breaking Paleo. That’s being smart. And it’s cheaper than another tub of supplements.

4. When Supplements Actually Make Sense

To be fair, there are scenarios where amino acid supplementation has merit but even then, BCAAs aren’t your best option.

If you’re training fasted (early morning workouts before you can eat), recovering from an injury where whole food intake is compromised, or genuinely struggling to meet your protein needs through diet alone, a full EAA supplement or quality whey protein makes far more sense than BCAAs.

Why? They deliver the complete amino acid profile your body needs to rebuild tissue and trigger muscle protein synthesis, not just the marketing-friendly three. You’re getting the full toolkit, not just a hammer.

Otherwise? Eat real food, train with purpose, sleep hard, repeat. Oh, and if you’re a vegan or vegetarian, you will need to use supplements to meet your BCAA and EAA needs, but that’s a story for another time.

The Takeaway

Most people sipping BCAAs are already getting what they need from their plate.

The supplement industry thrives on making simple things feel complicated. They profit when you believe that food alone isn’t enough—that you need their powders, their timing protocols, their proprietary blends to unlock results.

But the truth is simpler and cheaper: eat quality protein, train consistently, sleep well, and your body will handle the rest. The fundamentals work. They’ve always worked. And no neon powder changes that.

Save your money for real food, a good night’s sleep, or maybe a new pair of shoes for the trail. If you’re eating enough quality protein, you’re already doing what BCAAs promise — only better, and for less.

Security Without the Pessimism: The VPN Comfort Myth

The Digital Blanket We All Love

Few tools in cybersecurity inspire more misplaced comfort than the VPN.

We picture it as an invisibility cloak or a tunnel of safety where no one can see us, track us, or touch our data. Turn it on, and suddenly you’re “secure.”

That feeling of control is powerful, especially in a world that never stops reminding you how unsafe the internet supposedly is.

But here’s the quiet truth: a VPN protects you from some things, not from everything.
It’s a tool, not a shield.

What VPNs Actually Do

At its core, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through a secure server. It hides your IP address and protects your data from casual snooping, especially on public Wi-Fi.

That’s useful, but not magic.

VPNs do not:

  • Protect you from phishing or malware
  • Stop you from logging into fake sites
  • Prevent data collection once you’re signed in somewhere

If your VPN provider keeps logs or has weak security, your trust shifts from the ISP to them.

So yes, a VPN helps. But only if you understand where its power ends.

Safety Theater for the Digital Age

VPNs scratch a deep psychological itch: the need to feel safe, even when we can’t verify it.

They’re the digital equivalent of locking your front door but leaving the windows open, a visible act that soothes anxiety without addressing every risk.

That invincibility leads many to take more risks online. This risk compensation means perceived safety can spark riskier behavior.

Real security isn’t about hiding. It’s about awareness.

Where Comfort Becomes Complacency

The most significant problems with VPN use aren’t technical; they’re behavioral.

  • Blind trust in providers. Some “free” VPNs monetize your data rather than protect it.
  • Performance trade-offs. Slower speeds lead people to disable it, often forgetting to turn it back on.
  • Assumed anonymity. Logging into your personal accounts still links behavior to identity.
  • Neglected basics. Users skip updates or MFA because “I’ve got a VPN.”

The tool becomes a crutch, and that comfort can cost you more than the subscription.

Layer, Don’t Lean

A VPN should be part of a layered defense, not its foundation.

Here’s how to use it wisely:

  • Choose providers with no-log policies and independent audits
  • Keep software updated. VPNs rely on encryption protocols that age fast
  • Use MFA everywhere. A VPN won’t save a stolen password
  • Understand context. VPNs are best for travel, remote work, and untrusted networks — not daily browsing at home

Security isn’t about hiding behind one tool. It’s about stacking the right ones.

Culture Over Blame — Moving Past Security Myths

The VPN story mirrors how we approach most security advice: quick fixes over long habits.

Instead of mocking people for misunderstanding what VPNs do, we can use that comfort as a bridge: “Good start. Now let’s talk about the rest.”

Awareness grows when education feels empowering rather than condescending. The goal isn’t to shame people for feeling safe; it’s to help them feel safe for the right reasons.

Final Thought

A VPN isn’t a vault; it’s just a smaller door to the same big house. Use it, respect it, but don’t mistake a single layer for complete protection.

Real protection isn’t invisible. It’s intentional. That’s not pessimism, that’s just good sense.

The Art of Cyberwar | Part VII | Maneuvering

Chapter VII’s artwork conveys the essence of Sun Tzu’s Maneuvering with clarity and grandeur. A lone commander surveys a vast, unfolding landscape of troops in motion, symbolizing disciplined rhythm rather than frantic pace. The terrain’s natural flow mirrors the movement of cloud-age systems, and the light breaking across the valley evokes strategic awareness dawning before action. It is a rare blend of historical resonance and modern metaphor, a visual philosophy.

Movement After Position

The Principle: “We may take it then that an army without its baggage-train is lost; without provisions it is lost; without bases of supply it is lost.” — Sun Tzu

The Art of Coordinated Movement

A cybersecurity team detects a breach at 2 AM. They have the skills, the tools, and the authority to act. But without coordination, that capability becomes chaos, analysts duplicating work, containment efforts conflicting, and communication breaking down. By dawn, the advantage is gone.

In February 1943, American forces faced German tanks at Kasserine Pass in North Africa. They had the weapons, the numbers, the training. What they lacked was coordination between units and effective air-ground communication. The result? The first major American defeat of WWII was not due to a lack of capability, but to failure to maneuver as a unified force.

Fifteen months later, those same American forces learned the lesson. On June 6, 1944, D-Day coordinated 12 nations, over 7,000 vessels, and 160,000 troops across five beaches in a single operation. Not because they suddenly acquired better weapons, but because they mastered maneuvering. Kasserine Pass taught them that capability without coordination is chaos. Normandy proved that coordination transforms capability into victory.

Eighty years later, the battlefield is digital, but the lesson remains the same.

Sun Tzu called this the difference between movement and maneuvering.

Maneuvering is the discipline of transforming positional advantage into progress without depleting resources. Though movement may appear straightforward (advance, pivot, respond), it demands careful coordination. Without coordination, movement breeds confusion and disorder, undermining any initial advantage.

In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, there’s a fundamental principle: position before submission. A novice rushes for the choke. A master secures the proper position, seeks control, applies the proper pressure, isolates the arm, and then the finish is there for the taking. The submission becomes inevitable because the position made it so.

Maneuvering works the same way: structured movement from an established position. Not frenetic action. Coordinated, calculated movement in advance.

Whether in military operations, government, or cybersecurity, the true challenge lies in maintaining momentum while preserving balance. Effective teams favor structured, intentional movement, not just speed.

This is the heart of maneuvering: composure, intent, and clarity. Act from principle, not anxiety.

The Maneuvering Decision Matrix

Sun Tzu understood that effective maneuvering requires reading the moment, knowing when to accelerate, when to pause, and when to let the environment dictate pace.

Modern leaders need the same discernment:

When to Accelerate:

  • The advantage is clear and actionable.
  • Resources are sufficient.
  • Team alignment is strong.
  • Opponent is vulnerable

When to Pause:

  • Visibility is degraded
  • Fatigue is setting in across the team.
  • Purpose has become uncertain.
  • Information remains incomplete

When to Let Environment Dictate:

  • The opponent is making mistakes.
  • Terrain is shifting faster than you can control
  • Patience offers a strategic advantage.
  • Reactive movement would expose weakness.

This isn’t indecision. It’s tactical discipline. The fighter who controls tempo controls the outcome.

Tempo and Terrain

In both war and cybersecurity, timing determines outcomes more than sheer speed. When to act matters more than how quickly you act.

Sun Tzu cautioned that armies advancing too rapidly become fatigued, while those moving too slowly forfeit initiative. Balance requires understanding rhythm, discerning when to accelerate, when to pause, and when to let the environment set the pace.

Today, that terrain is digital.

The modern battlefield consists of networks, cloud environments, and global systems. Effective cybersecurity professionals study the digital landscape to move with intent, not to avoid movement altogether.

In the cloud era, terrain isn’t geography, it’s architecture.

Latency, visibility, and complexity shape what’s possible. The most secure organizations extend beyond perimeter defense by developing a comprehensive understanding of their operational landscape. They design systems where quick tactical movements don’t create strategic vulnerabilities.

The Cyber Battlefield: Coordination Over Chaos

In cybersecurity, effective maneuvering means more than quick patching or immediate responses. It requires aligning teams, especially during high-pressure situations.

  • Incident response represents maneuvering under pressure: containment, communication, and recovery.
  • Threat intelligence involves maneuvering through uncertainty—transforming fragmented information into actionable insights without prematurely acting on incomplete data.
  • Automation functions as the logistical backbone, the supply chain supporting frontline operations. When automation fails, even highly skilled analysts face burnout.

Many security operations centers (SOCs) miss this point. Constant urgency and nonstop action may seem productive, but endless motion risks exhaustion and reduced effectiveness.

Authentic maneuvering is characterized by calm, control, deliberation, and focus.

  • Wing Chun’s centerline theory offers a simple, direct, economical model. SOC analysts don’t need fifty tools—they need the right three, automated properly, with clear escalation paths. Economy of force.
  • The central point: when your playbook drives decisions, you maneuver. When alerts drive decisions, you react.

Cloud Mobility: The Terrain in Flux

The shift to cloud computing redefined what “maneuvering” means. In the old world, servers stayed put. Now, data, workloads, and identities move across providers, borders, and legal frameworks.

In this environment, organizational strength comes not from rigidly restricting movement, but from orchestrating secure and transparent operations.

Cloud maneuvering looks like:

  • Workloads shifting across regions without breaking compliance
  • Data flowing securely through APIs without leaving blind spots
  • Teams pivoting incident response playbooks across hybrid environments in real time

Cloud environments reward planning for motion. Organizations win by designing for agile, secure movement, not by resisting change.

In 2023, a Fortune 500 company’s cloud migration stalled not because of technical limitations, but because their security team designed for a static perimeter. When workloads needed to shift regions for compliance, every move required manual review.

Organizations that assume static conditions are at a disadvantage.

This aligns with the martial principle of flow: Rigid fighters’ break. Rigid systems break faster.

Foreign Policy and the Cost of Motion

Nations, too, confuse movement with progress. America’s 20th-century record is full of lessons in tempo and fatigue.

But no example better illustrates the danger of resource-driven maneuvering than what led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Pearl Harbor Lesson: When Resources Force Your Hand

Japan’s attack wasn’t born from ambition, it was forced by logistics. The U.S., Britain, and the Dutch enforced the ABCD embargo, cutting off:

  • Oil
  • Rice
  • Steel
  • Rubber
  • Machine parts

Japan imported 90% of its oil. Cut off from fuel, it faced two choices: fight or run out of energy and food entirely.

Sun Tzu wrote: “Throw your men into death ground, and they will fight.”

Japan was placed on death ground by resource denial. Their maneuver, the attack itself, was coordinated brilliantly. Six aircraft carriers, 353 aircraft, precise timing across multiple strike waves.

Tactically, it was masterful.

But strategically? Admiral Yamamoto knew: “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant.”

A lingering question remains: was America truly sleeping? WWI had concluded only 20 years earlier. Before WWII, WWI was considered the deadliest war in human history, earning the moniker “The Great War” for its immense scale and death toll of approximately 20 million lives. Its unprecedented destruction set it apart from previous conflicts. So, America was hardly asleep. Back to Pearl Harbor.

The lesson isn’t about the attack’s execution. It’s about what happens when maneuvering is dictated by desperation rather than position. When resources force your hand, even perfect coordination can’t save you.

Sun Tzu’s calculus applies: survival-driven movement, no matter how well-executed, is still reactive. And reactive maneuvering rarely wins wars.

The United States later encountered similar challenges in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where rapid action outpaced strategic learning. Momentum itself became a compelling but hazardous force.

Diplomacy is maneuvering in another realm.

In contrast, contemporary policy frequently equates reaction with strategy, prompting responses to every crisis even when restraint or delay might prove more advantageous.

Sun Tzu’s wisdom cuts through centuries: “If you know neither the terrain nor the season, you march to fatigue, not to victory.”

The Logistics of Cyber Power

For cybersecurity professionals, logistics consists not of physical supplies, but of bandwidth, personnel, and operational clarity.

Sustained operations aren’t feasible if systems are overburdened, personnel remain on constant alert, and every issue is treated as critical.

Good logistics in cyberspace means disciplined prioritization:

  • Which assets are mission-critical?
  • Which alerts deserve escalation?
  • What response cadence prevents burnout?

Sun Tzu would call this “feeding the army.” In today’s language, it’s resource stewardship.

An effective CISO ensures security professionals maintain resilience and don’t become exhausted before adversaries lose their resolve.

The data shows progress. Organizations took an average of 241 days to identify and contain breaches in 2025, down from 287 days in 2021. Not because threats got easier, but because purple-teamers got better at coordinated response. They learned to maneuver.

Maneuvering the Human Factor

The most challenging aspect of coordination isn’t the technical infrastructure; it’s the human element. While individuals contribute creativity, they also introduce unpredictability.

The numbers confirm what practitioners already know: 88% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. Not zero-days. Not sophisticated malware. Human mistakes. The technology isn’t the weak link—the coordination of people using that technology is.

Sun Tzu understood morale as a weapon system. He coordinated hearts and minds before he coordinated units.

The same applies to martial arts and security culture.

  • In Muay Thai, they call it ring generalship, the fighter who controls space controls pace. The same applies to security teams. Leaders who set tempo, who decide when to press and when to absorb pressure, create the conditions for team effectiveness.
  • The most effective cybersecurity teams operate like jazz ensembles, distributed but synchronized. Training, communication, and trust are the modern equivalents of morale.

This is modern maneuvering: achieving precision in movement without relying solely on hierarchical control.

The Risk of Endless Marching

Sun Tzu cautioned that armies remaining in the field for extended periods experience internal decline. This phenomenon appears today as burnout, alert fatigue, and continuous red team exercises that fail to produce lasting improvements.

Organizations that never rest eventually turn on themselves. This applies equally to companies and nations.

Movement should support strategic objectives, not substitute for them. Effective leadership requires recognizing when to pause, regroup, and restore organizational strength.

Without periodic rest, strength deteriorates into strain, and resilience devolves into attrition.

The Bridge to Variation

The final lesson of maneuvering emphasizes humility: movement does not constitute mastery; it serves as its test.

Any army, individual, or system that acquires the ability to move must subsequently develop adaptability: the capacity to alter rhythm, diversify tactics, and confound adversaries who anticipate predictability.

Leading us back to the initial principle: “We may take it then that an army without its baggage-train is lost; without provisions it is lost; without bases of supply it is lost.”

Maneuvering determines survival. Variation determines victory.

But first, you must learn to move without falling apart. Master coordination before you attempt improvisation. Secure your supply lines before you advance.

Because, as Sun Tzu understood, an army that moves with discipline can adapt. An army that moves with chaos can only collapse. The next chapter explores variation, but only those who’ve mastered maneuvering will recognize when to use it.

Meal Prep for Real Life: How to Cook Once, Eat All Week

Meal prep isn’t just for the ultra-disciplined or Insta-famous. Sure, you’ve seen those photos: Tupperware lined up like soldiers, meals color-coded, macros counted. But let’s be real, that’s not most people’s life.

What if you could meal prep without spending eight hours every Sunday or needing a second fridge? Real meal prep isn’t about perfection; it’s about persistence and readiness. It’s about building a system that fits your training, work, and flexibility needs. When you fuel your life with intention, everything else sharpens into place.

Step One: Choose Your “Prep Style”

There are three main approaches to meal prep, and the one that’s best for you depends on your schedule and personality:

  1. Batch Prep (Traditional): Make full meals ahead of time. Roast a tray of chicken thighs, cook up a pot of rice, and steam some broccoli. Stack them, label them, done. Good for those who like structure and predictability.
  2. Buffet Prep (Modular): Prep components instead of full meals. Think proteins (ground beef, eggs), starches (sweet potatoes, oats), and fats (olive oil, avocado). Mix and match daily based on cravings or training demands.
  3. Half-Prep (Hybrid): Prep only the time-consuming tasks, like chopping vegetables or marinating proteins, so cooking during the week is more efficient but still flexible.

Step Two: Focus on Your Macro Anchors

Every meal should hit three pillars:

  • Protein: This is your building block. Prep double what you think you need. Think grilled chicken, grass-fed, slow-cooked pork shoulder, hard-boiled eggs, and Greek yogurt.
  • Smart Carbs: These are your fuel tanks. Rotate between your favorite veggies, white rice, potatoes, and fruit. Make them in bulk and store flat in zip-top bags to save space.
  • Healthy Fats: Olive oil, nuts, avocado, seeds. Never forget flavor is fuel, too. Keep these on hand for fast drizzles or topping swaps.

Make meals that tick the macro boxes without requiring a calculator. Example?

  • Ground turkey (who doesn’t love leftovers?) + sautéed kale + roasted sweet potato + a sprinkle of feta and olive oil.
  • Scrambled eggs + pepper and onions + chopped spinach + avocado.

Easily repeatable, nourishing, and delicious.

Step Three: Make Friends with Your Freezer

Your freezer isn’t just for waffles and ice cream. It’s your long-term meal prep MVP. Here’s how to make it work for you:

  • Buy bulk frozen vegetables and fruits.
  • Freeze leftover portions of chili, stew, or curry in single-serve containers.
  • Portion “smoothie” bags with fruits, nut butters, and protein powder. Blend them up and freeze them ahead of time – easy-peasy.
  • Store cooked rice or roasted veggies flat in freezer bags for quick reheats.

Pro tip: Label and date everything. No mystery meals!

Step Four: Build In the “Rescue Meals”

Life happens. You’ll miss a prep day, forget your lunch, or get stuck in traffic. That’s when “rescue meals” save the day:

  • Package tuna or salmon + cucumber and tomato slices + olive oil
  • Grilled steak + half a sweet potato with a dash of cinnamon + two slices of crispy bacon.
  • Hard-boiled eggs + fruit of your choice + handful of almonds

Not fancy. But fast, macro-friendly, and better than skipping meals or panic-ordering pizza.

Step Five: Keep it Repeatable

The secret to success isn’t variety, it’s consistency. Most people thrive on 2-3 breakfast options, 3-4 go-to lunches, and 4-5 dinner templates. Boring? Maybe. But boring builds bodies. Save your culinary creativity for the weekends if that’s your thing.

Meal prep isn’t about being a hero. It’s about staying disciplined and staying in the fight.

The win is showing up to train with fuel already in the tank. The win is making your life easier, one container at a time. Prep is something to be proud of and it’s a version of self-respect you can see every day.

Pick your style and start prepping, your future self will thank you.

Security Without the Skepticism: Password Managers – Modern-Day Trust Issues in a Zero-Trust World

Trusting the One Tool Rule Them All

Cybersecurity presents a paradox: we are taught to be wary of everyone online, yet we’re expected to trust one application with all our passwords.

That’s a BIG ask.

Password managers claim to offer both convenience and security. They eliminate the need for sticky notes, memory tricks, and risky repeated logins. Yet, handing over the credentials to your digital life may feel risky, as if you’re leaving your house key under someone else’s doormat.

Even people who are good with technology feel this hesitation. Trusting one place with everything can seem like putting all your eggs in one basket.

How Password Managers Actually Work

At their best, password managers create a secure vault for your passwords. This vault is protected by a master password that only you know.

They use zero-knowledge encryption, so even the company that stores your vault cannot see your data.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. In reality, people hesitate because of things like:

  • High-profile breaches (e.g., LastPass, 2022)
  • Syncing fears (“What if my vault gets intercepted?”)
  • Human error (“What if I forget my master password?”)

Even though the underlying technology is strong, public trust wavers each time a major breach is reported. People remember negative headlines more than encryption details.

Control vs. Convenience

Using a password manager isn’t just a technical choice; it’s also a psychological one.

Humans like to be in control, especially when it comes to security. We equate manual effort with safety. Typing passwords ourselves feels safer than letting software do it, even when we know the software is objectively smarter than we are.

However, for many, convenience ultimately prevails: after trying a password manager, the newfound ease often surpasses early distrust.

This dynamic shows that modern security requires balance: people want independence, but security improves with some delegation to trusted tools.

When Trust Breaks Down

No password manager is immune to risk, but relying on weaker alternatives such as reused passwords or predictable patterns leaves you even more vulnerable. Minimizing trust is about minimizing risk, not eliminating it.

If a vault provider is breached, attackers still face encryption. But if you reuse one password across five sites, there’s no barrier at all.

So, it’s less about trusting the tool absolutely, and more about managing where that trust sits:

  • Choose providers with open security audits.
  • Enable MFA on your vault.
  • Keep the master password offline, not saved, not synced.

The core issue isn’t the tool itself, but the risk of blind faith. Sometimes, people subconsciously seek blind faith from such tools.

Zero-Trust Starts with You

Zero-trust isn’t just a corporate buzzword; it’s a mindset. Assume every system can fail. Build layers so failures aren’t fatal.

For password managers, apply zero-trust this way:

  • Separate critical credentials (server logins, service accounts, etc.) from general logins.
  • Regularly export and back up encrypted copies to an offline location.
  • Keep MFA active everywhere.

Aim for persistence and resilience, not perfection.

Culture Over Blame

We often criticize people for using sticky notes, but we don’t always show them better ways.

Security maturity grows when using a password manager feels normal, not nerdy. Encourage colleagues and family to use them and to question them. Healthy skepticism keeps systems honest.

A culture of curiosity always beats compliance.

Final Thought

Zero-trust is about choosing where to place your trust, not avoiding it altogether. Good judgment is at the heart of modern security.

Password managers aren’t a magic fix. They’re just one important layer of security, and they work well if you stay alert.

In the end, good security comes from making careful, informed choices about trust, not just believing in technology without question.

That’s not being skeptical, that’s working to overcome modern-day trust issues in a zero-trust world.

The Art of Cyberwar | Part VI | Weak Points and Strong

matt shannon art of cyberware chapter VI weak points an strong

The principle:
“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.”

Strength and Weakness Are Temporary

Sun Tzu emphasized that strength and weakness are dynamic rather than static. Although this principle may seem self-evident, it is often overlooked in practice. Many individuals disregard straightforward strategies, mistakenly believing that complexity is required. This oversight often leads to the violation of previous strategic principles or “lessons learned”, indicating a lack of genuine understanding.

It is essential to recognize that what appears robust today may become fragile in the future, while seemingly vulnerable elements can become decisive with time and increased awareness.

Power, whether military or digital, shifts with context.

The critical factor is not the quantity of resources, but the ability to perceive the entire operational landscape. Vulnerabilities arise not only from an adversary’s strengths, but also from areas where situational awareness is lacking and the speed at which adaptation occurs when new realities emerge.

In contemporary contexts, both nations and security architects often neglect this fundamental principle. There is a tendency to focus on constructing increasingly formidable defenses rather than developing adaptive strategies. Regardless of the scale of these defenses, adversaries require only minor vulnerabilities to compromise their effectiveness. Always remember, your adversaries only need to find a tiny leak in the walls to bring the entire system down.

Predictability: The Modern Weakness

Even the most secure fortresses eventually become familiar terrain for attackers. Cyber adversaries do not rely on brute force; instead, they employ strategic analysis. They examine organizational habits and exploit vulnerabilities such as unpatched servers, unmanaged privileged or service accounts, unchanged passwords, and the susceptibility of executives to social engineering.

Their success depends not on force, but on the predictability of organizational behaviors.

Nations exhibit similar vulnerabilities. Bureaucratic routines solidify into doctrine, which can devolve into dogma. Adversaries exploit these predictable patterns, waiting for repetition before executing successful attacks.

Historical events, such as the Pearl Harbor attack, the September 11 attacks, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and numerous cyber intrusions, demonstrate that deficiencies in critical thinking, complacency, rigidity, and hubris significantly increase the likelihood of successful surprise attacks.

When Comfort Masquerades as Strength

Many organizations and governments allocate excessive resources to familiar areas, fostering a false sense of security. This environment allows risks to proliferate unnoticed, undermining overall resilience.

Cybersecurity teams often spend millions fortifying infrastructure while leaving users untrained.

Organizations frequently monitor technical metrics while neglecting human behavior. The most significant vulnerabilities often arise from areas presumed to be under adequate management.

System failures are typically attributable not to insufficient funding, but to misaligned priorities.

This pattern is evident at the national level as well. Large militaries and substantial budgets often obscure underlying fragilities, including slow adaptation, reliance on outdated assumptions, unstable alliances, and insufficient strategic foresight regarding emerging forms of conflict.

Historical Lessons of Misguided Strength

The First World War began with nations convinced that industrial might and rigid plans guaranteed victory. Those plans dissolved within months under the weight of modern weapons and static thinking.

During the Vietnam War, a major power misinterpreted its capacity for endurance as a guarantee of superiority. The Viet Cong’s guerrilla tactics transformed conventional advantages into significant liabilities.

Even the rapid success of Operation Desert Storm fostered complacency. Efficiency was mistaken for enduring security, and the perceived triumph was erroneously interpreted as evidence of invincibility.

Each era reaffirms the principle that the most conspicuous assets are not necessarily the most powerful.

Flexibility as True Power

Sun Tzu’s insight was to conceptualize power as dynamic movement. He advocated that a general should emulate water, seeking the path of least resistance and adapting to the terrain.

Within the cyber domain, the operational landscape evolves rapidly, with new threats, actors, and vulnerabilities emerging on a continual basis.

In this context, strength is defined by agility:

  • Rotate keys and credentials regularly.
  • Automate but verify.
  • Decentralize authority so teams can act without waiting for hierarchy.

The most effective defenders are those who demonstrate the greatest adaptability, learning and evolving more rapidly than adversaries can adjust their tactics.

Lao Tzu’s Echo

Lao Tzu put it simply:

“Water overcomes the stone not by strength, but by persistence.”

Endurance surpasses dominance. Properly understood, flexibility is not a sign of weakness but of resilience, characterized by the capacity to absorb disruption and recover to an original state.

In the digital context, resilience is reflected in recovery planning, redundancy, and organizational culture. The true measure of strength is not the infrequency of failure, but the speed of recovery following a compromise.

Turning Weakness Into Insight

All systems possess inherent flaws. Denial of these vulnerabilities allows them to remain concealed until a crisis occurs. Proactive defenders employ audits, red-team exercises, and transparent communication to identify weaknesses at an early stage.

Transparency transforms potential liabilities into opportunities for organizational learning.

Nations could use the same humility.

Public acknowledgment of mistakes enhances credibility, whereas concealment increases risk. The most resilient governments are not those without flaws, but those capable of adapting transparently before their constituents.

From Awareness to Action

Identifying vulnerabilities constitutes only part of the challenge; addressing them effectively demands both discipline and restraint.

In cybersecurity, this approach entails prioritizing remediation over self-congratulation, thorough preparation prior to disclosure, and critical evaluation before taking action.

In policy contexts, this requires deliberate prioritization, engaging only in actions where the anticipated outcomes justify the associated costs.
Misapplied strength can become a source of vulnerability, whereas a thorough understanding of weaknesses can provide strategic foresight.

The Next Step: The Flow of Force

Sun Tzu ends this chapter with motion: the strong shifting to the weak, the weak transforming to the strong.

He implies that awareness must evolve into timing. The wise general aligns his force with the moment, not against it. And that, “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

This concept serves as a transition to the subsequent lesson, which focuses on the dynamics of energy in motion and the strategic management of power with balance and rhythm.

We’ve learned where to stand. Next, we’ll learn how to move. As Master Tzu concludes Chapter VI:

Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

Leading us directly back to this lesson’s seemingly simple principle: “So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.”