Survival on Your Own Terms as Strategic North Star

“This is the connotation of “survival on your own terms”—people don’t put in this amount of effort and passion for somebody else’s terms. For this reason, the first task of strategy is to define and…”

““If you don’t know where you’re going,” runs a saying I first heard in the Air Force, “any road will take you there.” In a competitive environment, not knowing where you’re going may well lead you to some place you didn’t want to be. Your ultimate purpose is to survive in a threatening and confusing world. But survival per se will hardly arouse the passion and commitment you need to win. Prisoners survive. Hostages survive. Your goal is to survive on your own terms, or, echoing Faulkner, to prevail, however you define the term.”