The Three Universal Strategies For Success: Resist It, Redirect It, or Go With The Flow
How alignment with universal principles determines whether you burn out, break through, or flow effortlessly toward success.
Everything in existence follows principles.
Gravity pulls. Momentum sustains. Entropy dissolves.
Life, business, health, and creativity all obey these same invisible rules. When we act in alignment with them, things feel effortless, as if the universe is helping. When we act against them, every step feels like swimming upstream.
There are only three ways to interact with these forces:
Resist them.
Redirect them.
Go with them.
And all success, from ancient empires to modern entrepreneur, comes from mastering when and how to do each.
The High Cost of Constant Resistance
Most people live in constant resistance.
They try to outwork gravity instead of designing lift.
They try to force motivation instead of cultivating momentum.
They mistake friction for progress because it feels like effort.
But resistance consumes the most energy.
Redirection consumes less energy.
Flow takes advantage of energy.
The problem isn’t lack of ambition or intelligence, it’s misalignment with universal principles. When your strategy fights the forces that govern reality, exhaustion is inevitable.
The Core Principle: Alignment, Not Effort
The secret to sustained success is alignment.
Every challenge you face has an underlying force at work: economic, psychological, social, or natural. Once you identify the force, you can choose the right way to interact with it. You can resist it, redirect it, or go with the flow.
Think of yourself not as a warrior fighting the world but as an engineer working with it, designing systems that cooperate with universal laws instead of ignoring them.
1. Resist It
Resistance is necessary when the force in front of you is fundamentally destructive, when “going with the flow” would erode your integrity, health, or long-term vision, or when it is a structural obstacle that must be overcome directly because no path for redirection exists.
It’s the act of standing still when the current is pulling you somewhere wrong, or the act of breaking a necessary barrier.
Examples:
Resisting addiction, distraction, or consumer temptation.
Saying “no” to short-term gains that sabotage long-term growth.
Maintaining discipline when the crowd chooses convenience.
But resistance is energy-intensive. You can’t resist forever.
That’s why all effective resistance benefits greatly by using leverage. The Roman legions resisted chaos through discipline and formation, using order (a universal stabilizing force) to counter disorder. A rocket resists gravity not by denying it but by aligning with a stronger principle—thrust.
When you resist, ensure you’re supported by something more fundamental than what you’re opposing. Otherwise, you may run out of energy and your resistance will crumble.
2. Redirect It
Redirection is the calculated strategy of harnessing the force in front of you.
You don’t fight the force, you use its momentum for your own aim. Aikido practitioners don’t block attacks; they guide them. Great entrepreneurs don’t oppose human nature; they harness it.
Examples:
Elon Musk leveraged existing political and economic incentives (EV subsidies, NASA contracts) to propel Tesla and SpaceX.
Steve Jobs redirected consumer obsession with technology toward beauty and simplicity instead of complexity and specs.
In marketing, good copy doesn’t suppress emotion, it channels emotion into action.
Redirection is the middle path between control and surrender. You acknowledge the force, understand its direction, and build a structure that turns its power into propulsion.
When you redirect, you’re cooperating with reality—steering instead of rowing.
3. Go With the Flow
Going with the flow is alignment in its purest form.
Surfers don’t resist the wave, they ride it. Warren Buffett doesn’t fight market cycles, he invests according to compounding and human psychology. Stoic philosophers didn’t fight emotions, they understood and acted through them.
It is the lowest-energy, highest-output strategy. It’s what people call flow.
Here, the mastery lies not in effort but in selection. You aren't generating the force; you are identifying the most powerful, beneficial current, the universal principle that naturally moves toward your goal—and positioning yourself within it. This is pure, leveraged movement. The key to effortless success is finding the flow that is already going where you want to go, and then simply protecting that alignment from interruption.
Leverage Is Alignment
Leverage is what turns understanding into power. It’s the multiplier that allows small, well-placed actions to create massive effects.
Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I shall move the world.”
The “place to stand” is alignment, the lever is universal principles.
When resisting, align with universal principles to increase energy.
When redirecting, align with universal principles to help you redirect.
When going with the flow, you are aligned with that universal principle.
All forms of leverage are forms of alignment:
Physical leverage: Tools, machines, and systems that align with physics.
Psychological leverage: Beliefs, persuasion, and momentum that align with human nature.
Social leverage: Networks and reputation that align with trust and reciprocity.
Information leverage: Code, media, and knowledge that align with scale.
Leverage doesn’t create force; it repositions it. That’s why the smartest creators can do more with less. They’ve learned to align their efforts with amplifying principles.
Don’t Stop It
Here’s the most underrated principle: momentum.
Momentum is alignment sustained over time. It’s what happens when effort compounds instead of resets.
When you’re in motion, the universe helps you. You build inertia, flow, and feedback loops that lower the cost of continued action.
But stop and you lose alignment. Starting again costs exponentially more.
I learned this the hard way. For weeks, I was in perfect rhythm writing essays. Ideas flowed effortlessly. I thought, I’ll pause, read a few books, come back stronger. But when I returned, the flow was gone. The same work that felt effortless before now felt uphill.
Momentum had evaporated.
Momentum is a reward for alignment, a by-product of flow and discipline compounded over time. When you have it, protect it like oxygen.
Don’t interrupt what’s working. Don’t “optimize” what’s flowing. The universe taxes every unnecessary stop.
Applying the Framework: A Practical Guide
If everything is governed by universal forces, and your success depends on alignment with them, how do you apply this practically?
1. Learn to Identify the Universal Principles at Play
Behind every challenge lies a principle.
Ask yourself: What’s the real force here?
A coworker’s attitude? → Ego and status hierarchy.
A market shift? → Supply, demand, and technological evolution.
Creative burnout? → Entropy and loss of momentum.
Once you name the principle, you can choose the correct strategy. Misdiagnose the force, and you’ll waste energy fighting the wrong battle.
2. Choose the Right Strategy for the Force
Force Type Optimal Strategy Example Destructive (addiction, manipulation, injustice) Resist it Refusing to participate despite cost Neutral but powerful (market trend, social movement, emotion) Redirect it Turning energy toward your purpose Beneficial and aligned (creative rhythm, compounding system) Go with the flow Preserving flow and momentum
Mastery isn’t about always choosing one , it’s about knowing which one to choose and when to switch.
The Dutch Water Defense
The Netherlands provides the ultimate example of resistance with leverage against nature.
The force resisted is the constant, destructive power of the sea, a pure form of natural entropy. Fighting the sea with sheer human effort would lead to inevitable exhaustion and collapse.
Instead, the Dutch aligned with the universal principles of physics and engineering. They built dikes, dams, and polders, using earth and concrete to cooperate with gravity and hydraulic pressure.
This systemic alignment allows them to resist the force of the ocean permanently. Their success is not due to constant effort but to structural alignment, designing systems that turn the water's pressure into balanced stability.
The Netflix Subscription Model
Netflix provides a powerful modern example of redirection using market and psychological forces.
The force was the universal customer aversion to inconvenience and financial friction (i.e., late fees). Blockbuster tried to resist this force, punishing customers for being late.
Netflix chose to redirect the force. They didn't fight the customer's nature; they harnessed it. By eliminating late fees and introducing the subscription model, they redirected the energy associated with customer pain and resentment into predictable, compounded revenue. They turned the negative force (fear of friction) into a positive, effortless force (monthly subscription flow).
Their success wasn't about having better movies; it was about superior alignment with human psychological principles.
Every major technological leap follows this same pattern: identify a principle, align with it, and let the universe multiply your effort.
Key Principles
Alignment Over Effort - Force applied against reality burns energy; force applied with reality compounds it.
Three Universal Strategies - Resist destructive forces, redirect neutral ones, and go with beneficial ones.
Leverage Multiplies Alignment - Tools, systems, and knowledge expand the power of correct positioning.
Momentum Is Fragile - Never interrupt a successful alignment; restarting costs exponentially more energy.
Energy Efficiency Wins - The universe always rewards efficient cooperation over inefficient struggle.
Key Takeaways
Success is not about force; it’s about form. The shape of your alignment with reality.
When something feels impossible, ask whether you’re fighting a universal force instead of cooperating with it.
Leverage is alignment with universal principles.
Momentum is the compounding effect of consistent alignment. Once found, guard it fiercely.
The ultimate game is not control but cooperation: learning to live, work, and create in harmony with the principles that govern everything.
Because the universe doesn’t reward effort -
It rewards alignment.
Thanks for reading my stuff,
MJ