I Have a Strategy (No, You Don't): The Illustrated Guide to Strategy

Acknowledgments

I grew up in a family that loved words.

We loved debating their meanings and pronunciations at the dinner table; we loved discovering and learning their etymologies; we loved using and sharing new and “big” words with one another, sometimes just to show off in front of Mom and Dad.

As the youngest of seven kids, I was at a disadvantage for a few years. My older brothers and sisters were busy building their vocabularies long before I showed up on planet Earth. Sometimes, they used strange and exotic words at the table that left me dumbfounded. Whenever I'd ask, “What does that mean?” I was encouraged to excuse myself and look up the word in the massive Webster's International Dictionary on the wooden stand in my father's study. ...