This exercise has a very long history. It's been described - using various symbols and names - in places as diverse as Crowley's Book of Toth (the Tarot) and Van Hoeck's "A Whack On The Side Of The Head" a book, on creativity.

Here it is here presented according to the 3000+ year old version handed down by the Jaguar-kings of Mesoamerica.

Introduction:

"Strategic thinking" is a behavioral technique that will help you shape new input into creative ideas and projects. It's based on the natural working of the quadrant brain, and involves seeking out new information, treating it on both conscious and subconscious levels for insight, analyzing it to provoke creative breakthrough, implementing the fruit of that labor and adjusting it to the real world before communicating your intent.

Method:

The following formula shows that the personality can be influenced by role play or by adopting a specific "identity". Inspired by the list of suggestions that the following roles suggest, seek out new information and shape it into a winning idea. Then try it. Adjust where needed. Tinker until it's perfect and then sell the idea to some one who'll buy it.

The strategic formula:

Ego: What we are (education, knowledge, experience, etc...)

Identity: The strategic role (the attitude) we can adopt

Personality: The fusion of the ego and the id

SELF-Empowerment: MASTER STRATEGISTS learn to play 5 roles - STALKER OF INFORMATION, DREAMERS OF POSSIBILITY (+ -), SEER OF OPPORTUNITY, WARRIOR IN ACTION TO ADJUST AND PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATOR - and to change them according to need.

Stalkers seeks out information. In their continuing search to fulfill their needs (personal, cultural, social, professional, global, etc...) they must:

• Have clear goals
• Transcend their fears
• Be as curious as possible
• Look for many different ideas
• Be extremely broad minded
• Participate in various kinds of networks
• Open their closed loops (i.e. paradigms of thought)
• Understand their "whole" quest
• Let themselves become inspired by all kinds of things
• Understand and use obstacles
• Etc...

Dreamers transform information into creative concepts. They dream of the result of what they are stalking and must therefore:

• Put order into their findings (classify information)
• Summarize
• Imagine the impossible
• Visualize/meditate
• Identify contradictions
• Become extravagant with hope
• Consider change as a precursor of utopia
• Be "open" to every potential
• Avoid getting hooked on a particular idea
• Adapt and change continuously
• Etc...

Seers judge the pertinence of concepts and of their application. They question information and different facets of an idea/project by questioning themselves:

• What am I trying to accomplish?
• On what aspects of my idea/project must I build?
• What are the disadvantages of this idea?
• Have I thought the idea through to a realistic conclusion?
• Am sure of the information I am using?
• If my idea/project cannot be developed, what aspects of it could I salvage?
• What am I assuming? Are my assumptions still valid?
• Has this idea/project been done before?
• Of what facts am I unconscious?
• Am I ready to make a decision?
• Etc...

Warriors take action and actualize their ideas/projects. They know that they are their own main obstacle and battleground. They are aware that as a strategist, they must:

• Have a battle plan
• Go from "if it..." to "it is..."
• Be ruthless, cunning, patient and kind
• Take responsibility for every detail
• Vanquish procrastination
• Get rid of all their excuses
• Let go of all defensive attitudes
• Be extremely persistant
• Master the win/win/win scenario
• Be pragmatic
• etc...

Communicators are the "word" of creation. Authors of their own good fortune, they must therefore:

• Understand the nature of, and the resistance to change
• Put their emotions in "neutral", ie. resonate love as self-esteem
• Speak with the light of passion in their eyes
• Give directions as clearly and as simply as possible
• Realize that "speed kills"
• Be totally receptive at all times
• Continuously re-establish a link with their "Creative Intent"
• Promote excellence and "the idea of good"
• Understand the power of silence
• Separate questions from objections
• Etc...