In this episode, the first “Book Club” of the Human Friend Digital Podcast, Jacob and Jeff unpack The Art of War, finding in its pages not the call to conquer, but timeless lessons in patience, balance, and leadership that still shape how we work and live today.

When most people hear The Art of War, they picture battlefields—armies clashing, banners raised, empires in peril. But when Jacob opened it for the first time, he found something different. The book begins not with weapons, but with a list: benevolence, discipline, patience. Sun Tzu insists that a general must be kind before he can be strict. It’s an unexpected truth, that even in the language of war leadership begins with compassion.

Jeff remembered reading the book back in high school, when it felt like a relic from a distant age. Yet as they compared notes, its warnings felt strangely present. Sun Tzu wrote that the greatest danger of war was letting it drag on—stretching resources, breaking morale, eroding trust in leaders. Sitting here twenty-five centuries later, it reads less like a manual on troop movements and terrain, but more like a critique of our own age: corporations chasing endless growth, governments prolonging conflicts past reason, leaders mistaking endurance for ambition.

What lingers after the tactics and the talk of fire and wind isn’t the machinery of battle, it’s the philosophy beneath it. Power without balance collapses. Leadership without kindness corrodes. And patience, even in times of urgency, can be the difference between survival and ruin.

To ask questions, or submit topics you'd like us to cover in the future, visit us at humanfriend.digital/pod/