Historically, great leaders like Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great have deployed psychological warfare. Psychological warfare is anything done to affect a person’s mental status. Sounds, sights, stories, or ideas can all have a powerful effect on an individual. For example, sometimes in war, adversarial groups would launch the heads of their strongest opposing warriors into their opponent’s camp. Fighters who knew they were not as strong as these dead warriors would ponder surrender.

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Psychological warfare involves using the emotions of an individual against themselves. These emotions can also affect a person physically. The mental stress caused by manipulation can harm the heart and organs. Scientists are beginning to quantify the effects of psychological warfare and coming to realize its true potential.

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Deploying psychological warfare against another nation always comes down to the lowest common denominator, which is the individual. It doesn’t require violence to conquer a country if using psychological warfare. Delivering a message to the people in a way compatible with their cultural understanding is the first step. Then, the narrative is controlled. The result is a nation that chose to react in line with the message that was initially delivered. Psychological warfare reduces expenditures on war machines. It’s like a virus. It’s a small idea or rumor that infects others, and they, in turn, affect others. During WWII the Allied forces used fake soldiers with cardboard covered vehicles and a soundtrack to fool the Germans into believing they were attacking from somewhere else. Also, soldiers dressed in regular clothing were deployed into bars to talk with the locals and disseminate information.

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People often do not realize the manipulating effects of psychological warfare. Humans have a built-in protection mechanism that causes them to lean towards their pre-established biases. Nobody likes to think they are controlled by someone else. Everyone wants to believe they are in control of themselves and are not capable of being controlled in this way. They are not willing to take the time to study the information and themselves enough to learn the impact.

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A good example is when Facebook took personal information to customize media messages to encourage a particular behavior. There was also the movie The Creepy Line, which highlights how Google uses these theories to manipulation individuals through suggestions. The belief is that the individual chose their path, but often it was one preset by Google.

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Successful individuals can deploy psychological warfare to encourage a reciprocating behavior. In this case, the manipulators want the manipulated to know what was done for them. It is a sneaky way of doing things, but at least the manipulation is made known. Other times, the manipulation is done in the background to make others behave in a certain way. When people believe that they have chosen on their own, they are less likely to rebel. They will not want to admit that they made a wrong choice in the past.

If you control someone with a drug, as is often the case in human trafficking scenarios, someone else can provide it. To truly control someone, you need to become the drug. Great leaders maintained the culture of the people they conquered and asked for a mutual assistance submission. These historic leaders provided for the people and allowed them to thrive in exchange for their assistance when it was needed. Trying to wipe out an individual’s culture and sense of self is usually ineffective.

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In a grid-down situation, when survival depends on a strong community, remember, one material can’t build a castle. To complete the project, lots of different types of materials are needed. People are just like that; all different kinds are required. Leaders need to understand how those people tick to know how they interlock together.

Leadership brought through fear alone is short-lived. However, if that leader also understands how people work, they can develop a strong backing of individuals. Understanding how people operate can be used for great good or great evil. Physical reality is a combination of all of the individual emotions, thoughts, projections, and mental statuses. Cultural relevance is the filter that individuals see through. Instead of having an emotional reaction, try to think of why people are doing something. What influence are they trying to achieve?

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Great leaders have a cause, and everyone underneath them understands that vision. These leaders stay flexible and work with people. They try to learn how to motivate them. Sometimes this requires putting aside personal points of view. In society today, it is easy to tune out the opinion of others and stay in a bubble, but in an emergency, it may be necessary to interact will people from all walks of life. Those who do not learn to communicate are going to be left out.

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Hakim teaches the five personality types from the ancient teachings of Ninjitsu. There are five elemental types: earth, water, wind, fire, and void. The void is your ability to move through the other four elements. An individual who is an earth type can be confident, strong and disciplined, but negative earth can be arrogant and overly confident, even when they know they are wrong. A positive water type will be analytical. They can see a problem and move through it. Negative water will have lots of great ideas but no action. A fire type is passionate and connected socially. They can make things happen, but a negative fire type will burn up their resources and connections. A wind-based individual is a person free to serve. They do much good in many different places. A negative wind person is so flighty they can’t stay still or commit. They are a jack of all trades and a master of none.

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After learning the types, perform a self-analysis and to reveal your personality type. It is essential to know what element you represent and be able to recognize the personality types of others to understand how to deal with them. For example, when an earth type defends a water type, earth needs to build a barrier or a dam to misdirect the water. The water would want to erode the earth slowly. Persistency would be the key to victory. If wind is facing fire, the wind would want to starve the fire of the resources it needs to burn, but the fire would want to absorb the wind and eliminate it. If an individual’s element is not effective against another, other elements can be called upon to assist.