Rating & Review - 6/10
If you miss your high school wrestling coach telling you to "man the fuck up” whenever you whined and motivated you to shut up and work harder, this might possibly be the literary version of that. A short read that pumps the reader with some testosterone stories of warrior culture.

Though I’ve never read Pressfield’s novels, I love the War of Art and his writing style. I also knew he was a military history fanatic and assumed this would be a fun read on such a topic. This was true. It probably won’t disappoint someone in it to read a fun, light book. If the intent was some deep book of substance and gaining of knowledge….I would recommend somewhere else.

It wasn’t a book that gave me an intellectual orgasm but more so a chest bump and a high five from a teammate after scoring a goal. Possibly one to help someone get out of a rut.

Book Notes:
Fear rules the battlefield. Phobos, the god of fear. It is not that soldiers are devoid of fear but that they acknowledge it’s existence and are able to move forward despite being scared out of their minds. Anyone who isn’t afraid is lying.

Cyrus the Great of Persia believed “soft hands made soft people.” As he said: “Better to live in a rugged land and rule than to cultivate rich plains and be a slave.” It seems akin to the view of never letting up the pressure in one’s life. To continuously push towards the struggle and hardship that is innate in the state of being and to choose to revel in it instead of running away from it. Similar is the proverb that pressure creates diamonds.

Apparently, Lycurgus of Sparta outlawed money and made coins that could be exchanged for a loaf of bread but the coin was made of iron and weighed 30lbs. That would definitely dis-incentivize obsession to accumulate wealth.

Spartans who lost their sword/spear were punished with a fine but those who lost their shield were punished with death. The shelf protected the other men on the line and this put the group above the individual.

Leading by example. Israeli officers are taught the leadership principle of “follow me” and this led to officers making more proportionally more of the causality than enlisted men in the Yom Kippur War. Leading is an action, not a theory with words.

The warrior ethos could be defined as the desire and embracement of adversity. A realization that “the payoff for a life adversity is freedom.” It’s about those who yearn to struggle and suffer as they find freedom in such an act.

Sometimes, battles are really won by those who have a greater capacity to suffer. Seems the case in business too. It’s the ones who will survive the dogfight who end up owning the entire industry.

Views of rationality and logic seem to run counter to the belief of honour and actions that focus on the preservation of honour. But what if upholding honour and acting for the sake of honour is the rational decision? To act honourably might be considered the rational choice when part of a society. Simply, a business decision that results in high $$ ROI might be the rational move but it might cost the loyalty and loss of faith of people in the business and showcase the leadership as dishonourable. The rational decision would not be making the decision that data would consider logical.

The final goal in life should probably include a form of "die while laughing."

Carry yourself so that people realize it’s great to be your friend but awful to be your enemy. This was what Cyrus and Alexander employed to their own men.