Three types of enemy we have to face, and using fear to conquer fear

I have an ex-colleague who once complimented my LinkedIn posts but commented that the subjects were ‘a bit negative’. If she reads this post, it certainly won’t change her opinion. I was thinking the other day about the enemies we face in our lives. As nations, governments, companies and individuals. Enemies can be companies, nations, people, groups, internal feelings, thoughts, etc. I think there are at least three kinds of enemies: 1. False friends. False friends are stakeholders we think are friends, but turn out to be enemies. There are at least three types: (a) They have good intentions, but they actually achieve the opposite. (b) They always were enemies. We just misinterpreted their intentions, sometimes because they disguised them. (c) They changed from friends to enemies, for various reasons. When we realize we have false friends, we have to decide whether we can convert them (back) to being true friends, or we need to move them to the category of known enemies. 2. Known enemies. Enemies we know, and maybe understand to some extent. If we can't convert know enemies to becoming friends, e.g. by identifying common interests/ sources of value, we have to have/ develop strategies to at least neutralize their effects on us, or maybe even directly attack them with the aim of weakening or destroying them. 3. Unknown enemies. Unknown either because we didn’t look/ listen carefully enough, or because they haven’t yet emerged into the light. Our dual defence against unknown enemies is a) continually broadening and deepening our sensing skills, allowing us to sense weak/ early signals, and b) creating as much agility as possible in advance, so we can react as quickly, cheaply, safely and effectively when our unknown enemies become known to us. Sometimes we're too afraid of enemies to engage them. When I think about times when I have been involved in engaging enemies, to be honest it has not been by being courageous. It is typically because I am more afraid of the things I envisage happening if I don’t address them. I have been thinking of developing a comedy routine about why older people are less afraid of the supernatural – ghosts and monsters and stuff. The comedic conceit is that they are even more afraid of staying alive, because they know how terrible that can be. It may not (yet)  be great comedy, but you get the point, right? For those who found this post too violent/ not sweet/ win-win enough, I would like to note that no children, puppy dogs or pronouns were injured in the making of this post. I would also like to apologize for the scariness of the image attached here. It seems I have mastered the art of dark prompt engineering. #unthink #unask #unlearn #strategy #stratagems