The Golden Key to Strategy: 101 Lessons in Winning Small Victories Every Day

By Gary Gagliardi

Book Overview

This book takes an entertaining approach to teaching practical strategies for success in everyday decision-making. In its 101 two-page lessons can change your life by teaching you to see competition from a completely new perspective. Fully illustrated, the book is full of stories, jokes, and quotes based on strategic principles that go back 2,500 years to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the book takes competition out of the realm of conflict and redefines it as a matter of making the right choices based to improve the ways you are compared to others.

The original edition of this book was the Winner of the Ben Franklin Book Award as Best Self-Help Book of the year.

This tenth-anniversary edition contains has been greatly improved based on the author's recent nine-volume work on the various aspects of competitive strategy.

What is the Golden Key?

The concept of the "golden key" comes from the ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu. He wrote the world's first book on strategy 2,500 years ago. He made success easy by breaking choices down into a series of comparisons. "Winning is a matter of balancing a gold coin against a silver one," he wrote. "Losing is a matter of balancing a silver coin against a gold one.".

So, the "Golden Key" is comparison. Golden Key Strategy is a system of comparisons that lead to making the right choices to succeed in life.
Why should you care? Because you can use this strategy every day to make better decisions. These decision will improve every aspect of your life. They depend on four basic comparisons..

Listening: Sometimes, we must compare "what we have heard" with "what we need to learn" before we make a decision.Aiming: Sometimes, we must compare "what we choose to do" with "what choose not to do." We can no longer make this decision unconsciously, as most people do.. Moving: Sometimes, we must compare "using the best response" with "using a creative approach." The first requires recognizing situations and the second leveraging surprise.Claiming: Sometimes, we must compare "our ability to get more" with "our need to protect what we have.". Table of Contents

Part IGolden Key Strategy, the Universal Tool. 13
1. Life's Swiss Army Knife. 14
2. The Golden Key and Why You Need it . 16
3. A Million Little, Tiny Decisions. 18
4. Why Our Instincts Stink. 20
5. One Key to Rule Them All. 22
6. How Not to Accept Your Position in Life. 24
7. The Mission You Can Never Forget. 26
8. Doing Something About the Climate. 28
9. It is Good to Be Grounded. 30
10. Taking Command of Your Character. 32
11. Everyone has Skills in System Management. 34
12. Putting the Pieces Together. 36
13. Why Life Never Goes as Planned. 38
14. More About The All-Purpose Tool. 40
15. The Basic Keys to The Golden Key. 42

Part II. Progress Advances Your Position. 41
16. Even a Child Can Do It. 44
17. Pride Is Expensive; Progress Is Cheap. 46
18. The Engine of Manufacturing Luck. 48
19. Listen to Map Your Position. 50
20. Aim to Make Each Move Count. 52
21. Move It or Lose It. 54
22. Claim Without Shame. 56
23. Pistons of Power, Balancing Opposites. 58
24. Master the Power of the Machine. 60
25. Campaigns for the Long and Winding Road. 62
26. All the Directions of Progress. 64
27. More About Progress. 66
28. The Keys to Progress. 68

Part III. Listen to Discover Opportunities. 67
29. Listening to See What Isn't There. 70
30. Learn to Listen by Stop Listening. 72
31. Playing Games With Listening. 74
32. The Game of "Finding Friends". 76
33. Learning Leadership By Example. 78
AND 68 more lessons.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1929194951
• ISBN13: 9781929194957
• Release Date: October 2016
• Publisher: Clearbridge Publishing
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

One of the Best books I've ever Read!

This book was so invaluable. It started of slow. A lot of the information in the first few chapter of this book was shared on his free podcast on itunes. The information in the later chapters was so simple and digestable that .... well it's on of those books that you keep next to your bed and constantly review. Lessons are fun, Information simple, an awsome book!!!

Great summary of principles of strategy.

This is a great introduction to the principles of strategy. I have read a number of books on business and war strategy. Most books show examples of strategy in action, but don't explain "the system". This book does an excellent job explaining what strategy IS at a high level, so that you can analyze examples and understand what aspect of strategy is in use. (e.g. explains stategy at a meta level) The information is also presented in a way applicable to every day usage. Sun Tzu will be a much more valuable read AFTER reading this book. More information on the book is available here http://www.scienceofstrategy.com/golden_key.htm.