Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Author of Strategy Is Attitude, Founding Chairman of Mandal Financial Group
Strategy Is Attitude: Why the Best Strategists Rely on the Subconscious Mind
| Episode Type | Expert Insight Interview |
| Guest | Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Author of Strategy Is Attitude and Founding Chairman, Mandal Financial Group |
| Guest Website | strategyisattitude.com |
| Listen | View on Sales POP! Podcast Page |
Key Takeaways
- Ganzorig Ulziibayar argues that strategy is a subconscious attitude, not just conscious frameworks like SWOT analysis or executive retreats.
- Ganzorig Ulziibayar says three attitudes- giving, customer perspective, and productivity- awaken the strategic capability every person is born with.
- According to Ganzorig Ulziibayar, humans read each other subconsciously in one tenth of a second, so a sale often closes before it starts.
- Ganzorig Ulziibayar believes everyone is born a strategist, and he wants a new education system to awaken that innate skill.
Episode Overview
What makes someone a strategist, and can strategic thinking be learned? Ganzorig Ulziibayar, author of Strategy Is Attitude and founding chairman of Mandal Financial Group, joins Sales POP! to argue that strategy is less about frameworks and more about subconscious attitude. He traces his thinking to a childhood herding on the Mongolian steppe and two decades turning around troubled companies.
Key Insights
1. Why does strategy belong in the subconscious mind, not just frameworks?
Ganzorig Ulziibayar argues that strategy lives in the subconscious mind because strategy always deals with immense complexity, and the conscious mind cannot carry that load. He compares the conscious mind to a 1990s computer and the subconscious to a supercomputer. Frameworks like SWOT analysis help, but Ulziibayar says real strategy forms and executes below conscious awareness.
2. What are the three attitudes that make someone a strategist?
Ganzorig Ulziibayar identifies three attitudes that awaken strategic capability: the giving attitude, the customer perspective attitude, and the productivity attitude. He says every person is born with these, and once activated, admirable traits like confidence, discipline, and grit emerge on their own. Ulziibayar tells leaders to stop chasing 200 separate traits and simply become a giver.
3. How is selling your ideas a strategic skill?
Ganzorig Ulziibayar connects strategy to sales because a strategist spends every day selling ideas, visions, and beliefs to employees, shareholders, and customers. He says people read each other subconsciously in one tenth of a second, so a sale is often closed before it starts. For Ulziibayar, sincerity and goodwill move people more than product features.
4. Is everyone born a strategist?
Ganzorig Ulziibayar believes everyone is born a strategist, thanks to a brain shaped over four million years of human evolution. He points out that people with no money, technology, or inherited advantage still have their minds, which are built to produce strategy. Ulziibayar wants a new education system that awakens this innate capability in every person.
5. What can Genghis Khan teach leaders about building strategists?
Ganzorig Ulziibayar studied Genghis Khan for two decades because the leader turned ordinary nomadic herders into world-conquering generals. Ulziibayar credits a system of ruthless meritocracy, where Genghis Khan demoted his own brother and promoted an enemy slave soldier to general. That servant-leadership mindset, he says, grows from the giving attitude at the heart of strategy.
Pull Quotes
“In sales, the sales is closed before it even starts.”
Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Founding Chairman of Mandal Financial Group
“Conscious mind is like a computer from nineteen nineties. Subconscious mind is a supercomputer we own.”
Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Founding Chairman of Mandal Financial Group
“Just become a giver. Just become a perspective-taking person. Just become a productive person.”
Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Founding Chairman of Mandal Financial Group
“Strategy is the only means that humans have that can produce disproportionate results when you have nothing.”
Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Founding Chairman of Mandal Financial Group
Subconscious Strategy: Key Statistics from Ganzorig Ulziibayar
| Statistic | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1/10 of a second | Time it takes humans to read one another subconsciously and gauge trust or threat. | Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| Hundreds of times | How much more processing power the subconscious mind has than the conscious mind. | Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| 99% | Share of strategies that fail because they stay plans on paper. | Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| 20% to 30% | Estimated success rate of formally trained strategists, for example MBA graduates. | Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| ~200 traits | Admirable traits psychology has cataloged over 70 years that stem from just three attitudes. | Ganzorig Ulziibayar, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| 1,000+ artifacts | Size of the World Financial History Museum that Ganzorig Ulziibayar founded, spanning two millennia. | John Golden, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Resources
- Explore Ganzorig Ulziibayar’s work and book (Strategy Is Attitude, free resources)
- Sales POP! Podcast: salespop.net/media/podcast/
- Coevera: coevera.com
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Coevera. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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