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Stanley Bing, the alter ego of Gil Schwartz (1951–2020), was the bestselling author of Crazy Bosses, What Would Machiavelli Do?, Throwing the Elephant, Sun Tzu Was a Sissy, 100 Bullshit Jobs . . . And How to Get Them, The Big Bing, and The Curriculum, as well as the novels Lloyd: What Happened, You Look Nice Today, and Immortal Life. He was a top CBS communications executive whose identity was one of the worst-kept secrets in business.

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A hilarious and tough-minded guide to winning the war of contemporary life.

We live in a vicious, highly competitive workplace environment, and things aren′t getting any better. Jobs are few and far between, and people aren′t any nicer now than they were when Ghengis Khan ran around in big furs killing people in unfriendly acquisitions. For thousands of years, people have been reading the writings of the deeply wise, but also extremely dead Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, who was perhaps the first to look on the waging of war as a strategic art that could be taught to people who wished to be warlords and other kinds of senior managers.

In a nutshell, Sun Tzu taught that readiness is all, that knowledge of oneself and the enemy was the foundation of strength and that those who fight best are those who are prepared and wise enough not to fight at all. Unfortunately, in the current day, this approach is pretty much horse hockey, a fact that has not been recognized by the bloated, tree-hugging Sun Tzu industry, which churns out mushy-gushy pseudo-philosophy for business school types who want to make war and keep their hands clean.

Sun Tzu was a Sissy will transcend all those efforts and teach the reader how to make war, win and enjoy the plunder in the real world, where those who do not kick, gouge and grab are left behind at the table to pay the tab. Students of Bing will be taught how to plan and execute battles that hurt other people a lot, and advance their flags and those of their friends, if possible. All military strategies will be explored, from mustering, equipping, organizing, plotting, scheming, rampaging, squashing and reaping spoils.

Every other book on The Art of War bows low to Sun Tzu. We′re going to tell him to get lost and inform our readers how real war is currently conducted on the battlefield of life.

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Sun Tzu Was a Sissy

HarperBusiness

Beyond Yin and Yang:
The Secret of Yinyang

Fate is both yin and yang. It is ice. It is fire. It is winter
and spring, summer and fall, and then winter again.
Go with it. Go against it. That is victory.
Sun Tzu

You can?t win if you don't play.
Poker aphorism

War is hell. War is glory. You've got to have the ability tosustain small losses between major victories. But like it?No. Take it in stride? Only if you're a loser.

In battle, attitude is all. And true warriors are united in thefact that they hate to lose even more than they love to win.They're nuts about it. Sometimes that hatred of being on thewrong end of the beefstick makes them do nutty things, ofcourse. It pays to think about that for a moment, before we go on.

I don't like to pick on Martha Stewart, because I believe she is,in the end, a teeny newt who has been treated shockingly in comparisonto the enormous, gray toads whose crimes far, far outstriphers and who are now all writing books somewhere waitingfor Forbes to do a positive retrospective on them.

But Martha had a chance, at the very beginning of her ordeal,to admit that she kind of screwed up, acted rather badly forsomeone who is both a genius and a former stockbroker, take whatever tepid punishment the pleased, appeased, and publicityhungryFeds were of a mind to dole out, and then, sadder butricher, soldier on.

Instead, because she couldn't bear to lose to the press, the JusticeDepartment, or anyone else, she brought herself a world ofgrief and, even worse, lost a lot of money pursuing her dreamof perfection.

That's too much Yang.

On the other side, there's Jerry Levin of Time Warner, perhapspound for pound the biggest Tzu-head of the last few decades.So strategic was this teeny warrior that he strategized hisentire company out of, like, 60 percent of its value in themerger with AOL. Come on, he told the ragtag bunch of scrabblyInternet dudes who couldn't find a corporate infrastructurewith both hands, take us. We're yours. He assumed the position.And it took his proud empire years to undo the damage wroughtby his intelligence, foresight, and pure, unadulturated Yin.

Yang never drops its sword until death has made its decisionwho to take.

Yin hopes that the other guy will die of a heart attack whilehe's stabbing you.

As you prepare yourself for the eternal struggle that is thelife of the warrior, you must cultivate both not consecutively,but in unison. You must reach for both inside yourself andmerge the two into the warrior attitude of both strength andflexibility, aggression and strategy, anger and the ability toswallow that anger and make a deal that will enable you to fightanother day. Too much Yang makes you stupid. Too much Yinmakes you a wuss.

What you need is the combo of both. You need Yinyang.

Yinyang is the point where the irrational will to power mergessinuously with the willingness to be reasonable. This mix manifests itself in a variety of ways, and is the determinant of successin war.

Too much Yang gives you war in Iraq. You get an idea inyour head and nobody can turn you off it. It happens to executivesall the time. You may work for one of them. If you do,you know what I'm talking about. The kind of guys who saidthe car would never replace the horse, that cable was a flash inthe pan, that it was a good idea to build a nuclear power plantover the largest fault line in the United States or at the eastend of Long Island, where it takes two hours to go down theroad and buy a blueberry pie on the weekends -- a fact thatmight have some bearing on evacuation plans? No way. Toomuch Yang.

Next down the chart are the executives who have just a littletoo much testosterone for their own good. You can be one ofthose. It means you will win for a while, and then lose playingthe game that got you there.

At the other end of the scale, right after Time Warner, is Estonia, which has been taken over by every invading army sincethe invention of beer.

And in the middle is Warren Buffett, the perfect mixture ofYin and Yang, the apotheosis ofYinyang.Yinyang is never saying Yes to failure. But never being tooproud to listen to reason.

Yinyang means in the face of Yes there is no No. In the faceof No, there is no Yes. There is only what you are fighting for.But if Maybe appears ... not being too big a stiffy about it tolisten.

Yinyang is power. Yinyang is money. Yinyang is more thanpower or money. It is Winning. The feeling ofWinning flowingwithin you and outside you, mussing your hair, if you have hair,and if you do not, mussing the memory of your hair.

But Yinyang is also waiting, patiently, for Winning to comealong.

It is Oneness, Sureness, Obnoxiousness. It is your warrior attitude.Beyond Yin. Beyond Yang. That's so Old School.

It's Yinyang.

Get some.

Excerpted from Sun Tzu Was a Sissyby Bing, Stanley Excerpted by permission.
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