5.1: Identifying The Unconventional Strategies Required
Unconventional Warfare – is the deliberate use of nontraditional strategies, tactics, and tools to fulfill objectives in environments where conventional methods fail.
Unconventional Fundamental Strategy
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
A fundamental (principles) strategy is a sequence of objectives that, when fulfilled and maintained, will allow an ambitious professional to use their passion to harmoniously produce all of their personal, financial, and professional purposes within competitive and dynamic environments.
Outside Of A Fundamental Strategy…
…your work and effort will either be disorganized, meaning it lacks the efficiency and effectiveness required to fulfill your purpose—or misorganized, meaning it actively works against you,
BECAUSE you’ll be forced to depend on one-size-fits-all methods with no ability to modify or replace them as things change.
Without a fundamental strategy designed for today’s fast-changing environment, there are no reliable “next steps” toward your personal, financial, and professional objectives,
BECAUSE in a dynamic world, only the fundamentals remain solid enough to build on.
When we operate with a Fundamental Strategy…
…that has been designed to work within our specific environment…every bit of our work and effort effectively and efficiently leads to the fulfillment of our purpose,
BECAUSE we always know exactly what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
Operating with a fundamental strategy allows us to lead ourselves and others in a peaceful and powerful way,
BECAUSE we always know what comes next for ourselves as well as for those we love and lead.
An Unconventional Way To Live
How many people actually achieve the kind of life where they are able to use their passion to harmoniously fulfill the financial, professional, and personal purposes they were created for?
Let’s look at just the financial piece first. When you research how many people can accumulate $5 million before the time comes when they can no longer work, you’ll find it’s about 0.1% of the population.
Remember the math from the “2.0 Calculating the Money Required” tactic? That $5 million would only produce around $200K a year to live on—pre-tax.
Even cutting that target in half (and accepting the vulnerability to life’s unexpected events), you’re still looking at less than 3% of people reaching it.
But here’s what’s truly sobering: these numbers only tell the financial story.
What happens when we add in our other critical objectives?
Ask yourself: Of that tiny percentage of the population who accumulated enough currency, how many are also harmoniously caring for all aspects of their personal and professional lives?
Better yet—how many are even trying?
True wealth isn’t just about having enough currency
it’s also about having enough time, energy and creativity as well. Enough power to care for all that impacts not only our ability to live a good and dignified life, but also the ability of those we love and lead to do the same.
That combination? That’s what makes this all so rare. So unconventional.
But that doesn’t mean your chances are that low.
Strategy Beats Effort
Before going into SEAL training, I knew only a tiny percentage succeed. But in situations like that, I’ve always asked myself, “Yeah… but how many people like me make it?”
Before SEAL training, I had already been in Special Operations and learned the strategies required to excel in those types of training environments.
→ They can’t stop the clock.
→ They can’t kill us.
→ I’m just going to do it.
→ If you’re going to quit, do it at the end of the day.
→ If you’re going to quit, do it after you ate.
→ If you’re going to quit, do it after the next evolution.
Conventional Doesn’t Cut It
You can’t rely on conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics to produce what we can all agree is an unconventional way of life.
Failure Rate Doesn’t Apply to Those Using the Right Strategy
The person doing the right things at the right time doesn’t care about the failure rate of people doing the wrong things at the wrong time.
Have you noticed that it’s “common” for new businesses to fail? Why is that?
Could it be because people keep using common strategies while they’re trying to produce an uncommon result like a successful new business?
But what’s the failure rate among those who use uncommon strategies to start a new business or radically transform an existing one?
What’s the failure rate of those who can identify, assess, prioritize, execute, evolve, train consistently, and receive coaching?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s 0%.
Unconventional Goals Require Unconventional Approaches
If we accept that living a life where you use your passion to harmoniously fulfill the financial, professional, and personal purposes you were created for is, both incredibly uncommon and deeply unconventional,
…then it’s clear: you must learn and deploy an unconventional strategy to make it happen.
So What Makes This Strategy Unconventional?
What makes this approach truly unconventional is that it doesn’t start with chasing results—it starts with transforming a person into the type of human who can produce the results.
The results become the byproduct of being that type of person. Strategic Transformation is both the foundation and the strategic objective that must come first.
This is what sets our path apart. It’s what separates us from all those trying to grind and hustle their way into achieving everything they were told to pursue by marketing and social media influencers—using all the methods those same voices are selling.
It’s a rat’s maze designed to keep you coming back for their cheese. It’s not strategy—it’s sales.
You’re no longer trying to build a better life.
You’re not chasing money, dreams, houses, cars, freedom, or even respect. You no longer have to worry about those things because…
…you’re becoming the kind of person who has the right kind and quantity of each—exactly what your purpose tells you to have.
The Assignment
Mindset and Context
As you go through the strategic writing assignment below I really want you to be thinking about not only how each step will transform you, but really get a hold of the pragmatic logic of it all.
Repetition
You’ll notice that what follows isn’t the first time you’ve encountered some of these strategies and purposes—and there’s a good reason for that.
I’m a trainer. And to train someone means to transfer the capacities and skills required to produce intended outcomes.
Well… have you ever heard of any high-level skill or capacity that didn’t require reps? Of course not.
Strategic Writing
When we write, we expand our understanding in ways that produce new thinking—thinking that leads to more powerful distinctions, which allow us to better identify and fulfill the purposes for which we were created.
Below is a link to our “Purpose: Unconventional & Fundamental Template”. It’s an online google document that you can use to start designing and discovering the Unconventional and Fundamental strategies required to fulfill all of the parts of your purpose.
Each part of our unconventional strategy is listed below. These are the one’s I want you to use in the template.
⬇️ Use the list below the link as a reference ⬇️
** Purpose: Unconventional & Fundamental Template **
PHASE 1: Strategic Transformation
Becoming the right kind of ultimate self.
Strategic Transformation – is to have a set of philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics that, when repeated, will transform you into the type of person who can use your passion to harmoniously fulfill your financial, professional, and personal purposes—now and during the 30+ years of old age when you can no longer work.
Purpose – is to know the 50+ parts of your professional, financial, and personal life that you were created to care for, as well as the positive and negative impacts each has on your ability to live a good and dignified life now and during the 30+ years of old age when you’ll no longer be able to work.
Mastery is the ability to design, build, deploy, measure, and modify philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics in a way that allows you to fulfill your intended outcomes.
Expert at Expert – To obtain the ability to design, build, deploy, measure, and modify the Strategic Operating Practices that produce and maintain the positive impacts of a purpose fulfilled, as well as eliminate and prevent the negative impacts of a purpose unfulfilled.
The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday is a way of being that increases our ability to fulfill and maintain the intentions of current strategies in a way that allows us to fulfill and maintain the intentions of new and more powerful strategies at a pace greater than the changes within our environment. pt
Passions are flow state-generating strategic operating practices that produce the tangible products and services that help other human beings care for what impacts their ability to live a good life at a level equal to or greater than the amount of value to others that our financial purpose dictates.
PHASE 2: Luminary & Leadership
Becoming the kind of leader that others are eager to follow
Phase 2: Luminary and Leadership marks the shift from individual effort to influential leadership. The individual begins building a team not simply to scale their output but to multiply their impact—and their freedom.
Their focus turns to producing outcomes that compel others to follow. Their presence becomes sought after in both personal and professional settings. People seek their guidance and are eager to accept their offers of leadership—not because of personality, but because of their accomplishments.
Targeting – What visible accomplishments would earn the trust, respect, and alignment of your allies and stakeholders?
Tribe – A group of two or more people who, when together, automate, protect, and accelerate both the current and future ability to use their passion to harmoniously fulfill the personal, financial, and professional purposes for which they were created.
Freedom – How much time, energy, creativity, and currency is required to produce those accomplishments?
Victory Production – Tangible results that prove your capability, validate your vision, and earn the ongoing trust and respect of your stakeholders.
PHASE 3: Kingdom Builder
Creating environments where passion and purpose become the default way of living
Kingdom Builder – A person who is creating an environment that enables others to use their passions to harmoniously care for their personal, financial, professional and spiritual purposes.
Luminary Creator – Recruits, trains, and develops others to produce visible outcomes that earn influence through accomplishment rather than personality.
Strategic Situational Awareness – The ability to accurately assess current challenges and opportunities in order to protect your purpose, team, and environment before taking action.
Highly Functioning Team – A coordinated set of philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics that ensures each member progresses through the strategy in a way that enables and accelerates the progress of others on the team.
Strategic Writing
When we write, we expand our understanding in ways that produce new thinking—thinking that leads to more powerful distinctions, which allow us to better identify and fulfill the purposes for which we were created.
[_] To be completed after you’re done with the “Purpose: Unconventional & Fundamental Template”.
1: What makes the life you want to live unconventional?
2: Why does that mean conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics alone will not work?
3A: How much peace does no longer having to chase the life you’re after give you?
3B: Why does that give you peace—tell me what is now removed from your life that is producing that peace?
1: What makes the life you want to live unconventional?
It is conventional to concentrate on the results like better life, more money, better job etc. It is unconventional to concentrate on my own transformation that produces these results. This transformation is the core, the results are just its byproducts.
2: Why does that mean conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics alone will not work?
It is not possible to achieve these results without a set of strategies, tactics, philosophies and training that lead to the transformation into the kind of person that uses passion to fulfill their purposes. When people try to achieve these results by conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics, they usually fail because they concentrate just on the results. They don’t know that the core, the main thing is to change themselves. In fact, most people don’t want to change themselves. They are afraid to do it, or they are just lazy to do it, or both of them. But I think that most of people just follow the crowd, there is no one who’s told them that something like this is possible, and it works.
3A: How much peace does no longer having to chase the life you’re after give you?
It is one of the best feelings in my life. It is like life itself.
3B: Why does that give you peace—tell me what is now removed from your life that is producing that peace?
I was very busy, but there were almost no results – because I used conventional philosophies, strategies and tactics. This mindset was removed. I still work hard, but I don’t feel it like work; it is more something like a game for me. And I don’t work on chasing the results any more, but on the transformation of myself. Working hard wasn’t removed from my life, but it was modified.
This topic means a big clarification for me. I’ve started this course and just followed the curriculum. And then, I realized that I changed my job, then I found a better flat, and even cheaper. My financial situation is getting better. I realize how I enjoy almost everything I do. But I just concentrate on the transformation of myself the whole time, and all these things…. just happened somehow. I really love the word “Byproducts”.
By creating my “Purpose: Unconventional & Fundamental”, I’ve used the list as a reference, but I will change and modify this Google document for sure during the course. To be honest, I just guessed the answers about Phases 2 and 3, following my instincts, but the knowledge and skills about them are still missing. I’m sure I will come back to this document later and modify it, probably not only once.
1: What makes the life you want to live unconventional?
It’s unconventional because it’s not built on what’s popular, but on what’s true for you. Most folks are content with surviving day to day—putting in just enough effort to get by. But the life you’re after… it’s rooted in harmony, in passion that overflows into purpose. It’s a life that’s driven by contribution, not just consumption; by mastery, not just mediocrity. You’re not looking for the quick fix or the convenient shortcut. You’re after the deeper well, the kind of life that becomes richer and more valuable as you pour yourself into it.
2: Why does that mean conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics alone will not work?
Because conventional wisdom is built for the average—its very design is to produce predictable results for the predictable crowd. But what you’re after? It demands more than “conventional.” It demands that you find and refine what’s essential—not what’s merely popular. You’ll need to craft your own philosophies that fit the shape of your life, tools that adapt to your unique needs, and strategies that honor both your ambition and your integrity. Conventional thinking is a good place to start, but it can’t be the place you stop.
3A: How much peace does no longer having to chase the life you’re after give you?
Oh, the peace is immeasurable. It’s the kind of peace that comes from knowing you’re no longer sprinting after something you may never catch. It’s the difference between running on a treadmill and walking in a quiet orchard—between motion and meaning. It’s the peace of coming home to yourself, rather than trying to be someone else.
3B: Why does that give you peace—tell me what is now removed from your life that is producing that peace?
Because you’ve removed the noise, the endless comparisons, the striving to meet someone else’s measure of success. Gone is the anxiety of proving yourself to the world—replaced by the quiet confidence of proving yourself to yourself–selling yourself on yourself and believing it because you’re living it daily. You’ve stopped chasing fleeting applause and started living in alignment with what truly matters to you. That’s what brings peace.
1: What makes the life you want to live unconventional?
I want to achieve the financial success required to support health, stewardship, generous giving, travel. I will do it in a way that multiplies resources, leverages teamwork, and balances all other aspects of my purpose including family, church, health, and fitness.
2: Why does that mean conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics alone will not work?
Trading time for money is extremely limited in its ability to create large cashflow. It also results in mediocrity, which is not profitable due to the competitive marketplace. Finally, it results in a lack of balance in addressing all 50+ aspects of a good life.
3A: How much peace does no longer having to chase the life you’re after give you?
A plan is essential to experiencing flow and traction, which result in joy and peace.
3B: Why does that give you peace—tell me what is now removed from your life that is producing that peace?
Building a comprehensive, unconventional life plan (strategic transformation) removes uncertainty, scattered effort and failure, all of which would otherwise sap peace.
1: What makes the life you want to live unconventional?
– I want to become the kind of person who can produce results. Many people pursue results in order to become a kind of person associated with results. This is fundamentally different.
2: Why does that mean conventional philosophies, strategies, tools, training, and tactics alone will not work?
– Our environment is dynamically changes all the time. Conventional strategies alone create formulas that are supposed to work for others who want the same results. While they’re learning and practicing the formulas that worked for someone else, the world has changed and they’re not able to adapt. This dynamic is why most new businesses fail and why it’s dangerous to follow investor trends. Combining conventional and unconventional strategies allows us to be set trends rather than follow them.
3A: How much peace does no longer having to chase the life you’re after give you?
– A lot. It helps shift my focus and attention away from the “hype”. I know too many people personally who are fixated on social media influencers and they’re some of the most anxious people I know.
3B: Why does that give you peace—tell me what is now removed from your life that is producing that peace?
– I feel grounded in the idea that God made me for a purpose and that my passions are intended to be foundational to fulfilling that. I also feel peace from the encouragement that there are others on this journey, too—even if our purposes and passions are all unique. It feels good to be traveling together into and through the challenges.