Strategy is scarcity’s child and to have a strategy, rather than vague aspirations, is to choose one path and eschew others. There is difficult psychological, political, and organizational work in saying “no” to whole worlds of hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

Michael Porter’s best, when he said, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

• The strategy gets better as you grow. Anyone can sprint, but elegant strategies are something that you can maintain. • Systemic advantage defeats heroic effort. Heroic effort is thrilling, but long-term elegant strategies rarely require miracles on a daily basis. • They’re simple to explain and difficult to stick to. Over time, the pressures to v

we always hope that a brilliant insight or very clever design will allow us to accomplish several apparently conflicting objectives with a single stroke, and occasionally we are vouchsafed this kind of deliverance. Nevertheless, strategy is primarily about deciding what is truly important and focusing resources and action on that objective. It is a

Each layer of complexity you add to a symbol allows one more opportunity to get stuck overthinking. Cut that off at the pass by aiming for simple.

craft your positioning entirely on your strategy and not your execution. Barely mention the latter, don’t feature it on your web site, and don’t give it any prominence in your presentations. Quit hiding behind the things your hands do and learn to stand naked