Start of Strategy

Alexander the Great is known as one of best strategist the world has ever seen. How did he become one?

Alexander's real education in strategy began when he was 13 years old. His father, King Philip of Macedonia searched far and wide to find the best teacher that could educate his son. And found Aristotle.

Before then, Alexander was taught like everyone else during that time were taught: he was taught to be a parrot and mug up everything - learn by rote. But Aristotle changed Alexander's entire viewpoint. Aristotle focused on 3 main issues to make Alexander think clearly and quickly on his feet:

1. Learning

Aristotle made sure that Alexander understood what he learnt. And he demanded that Alexander show an interest in everything - and not only in the fields of warfare and weaponry. Alexander was taught various arts and sciences (everything from poetry to paintings to physics to astronomy to meteorology to politics.) Because of this Alexander developed a curious mind. And he found answers when others were stuck.

Eg 1: Because Alexander studied the sciences, when faced with capturing the island of Tyre, he boldly built a half mile causeway from the mainland to the island and captured it!

Eg 2: Another time, when two of his generals were arguing over the best course to cross a hilly terrain and face an enemy in an unknown territory, Alexander simply called a sheep herder from that region and asked him about it.

Whether the problems were simple or complex didn't matter - Alexander found solutions to them all with his curious mind.

2. Competing

In those days, young princes had their own private tutors and were taught alone. But Aristotle knew that Alexander wouldn't be the best he could be if he wasn't challenged by others. So Aristotle demanded that Philip find other students the age of Alexander who could study with him and compete with him.

Ptolemy and Selecus both studied with Alexander and became his best generals and trusted advisors. And they went on to create the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt and Seleucid dynasty in Asia after Alexander's untimely death.

3. Reverse Engineering

Aristotle put great emphasis on historical analysis. For eg: He would showcase a historical war scenario to his pupils and ask them to figure out the strategy the winning side used. Or he would tell them about a scientific discovery and ask them to break it down to its simplest form.

This helped his students master ideas by reverse engineering! By seeing how things were done in the past, they became master strategist in the future!

Action Summary:

• Focus on learning. It’ll pay huge dividends in the future.
• But don’t just learn from websites in your own industry. Learn from websites in other industries too.
• Set benchmarks. The reason Toyota became such a great company is because when they were young, they had a simple two word mission statement: “Beat GM.” Find the best websites and companies in your industry and decide to give them a run for their money.
• Only by healthy competition can you become the best you can be.
• Break down the success factors of other websites and analyze them. Study them and find out what they had to do to become so successful.
• (You could start by studying the two most visited websites online: google.com and ebay.com)