From a Belgrade Sandbox to the Strait of Hormuz
April 8, 2026
I learned about power long before I ever stepped into a boardroom, a war zone, or a presidential palace.
I learned it in a sandbox.
🎭 Lesson One: Belgrade Sandbox
At Studentski Trg park in Belgrade, when I was a kid, the rules were simple. There were bullies, and there were those who preferred to flee rather than fight. The methods were primitive but unmistakable — intimidation, noise, threats. Sound familiar?
But there was one rule that mattered above all:
If you pushed back against a bully — even if you lost — he would never touch you again.
Years later, I found that the same rule applied in the boardrooms of the world’s largest corporations, and even in conversations with heads of state or military chiefs. Power does not change with scale. Only the costumes do.
🎭 Lesson Two: Our Grandson and the Art of Asymmetry
Our grandson Saša, then 13, faced a school bully of his own. The bully had taken his baseball cap. Smaller, physically no match, Saša chose not to fight with fists but with wit.
“I have lice,” he yelled.
The bully dropped his cap and ran.
That was not cowardice. That was intelligence.
Saša did something most adults fail to understand:
He changed the game.
He turned strength into liability. He transformed dominance into risk.
🚛 Lesson Three: The Truck Driver Who Bit His Tongue and Bid His Time
I used to tell the following story at my seminars…
A lone truck driver stops at a southwestern desert diner. He orders a burger, a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.
Just as he begins to eat, in roll three rough-looking bikers. Not your Tour d’France types. They carry chains, knives and guns. They scan the joint.
One of them walks over to the truck driver, picks up his burger, takes a bite, and throws it back on the plate. Another one grabs his pie and mashes it on the plate. The third one picks up his coffee cup and spills it on the floor.
The truck driver gets up, walks over to the cashier, pays his bill and leaves.
“Not much of a man, is he?” a biker with a smirk on his face says to the cashier.
“Not much of a driver, either,” she replies. “He just drove his truck over three motorcycles.”
The lesson?
A smart man chooses his own field of battle.
🌍 Back to Today: Iran War
Now consider the recent confrontation with Iran.
The United States and Israel brought overwhelming military power to bear. Trump claimed Iran’s air force and navy had been destroyed, and the army and nuclear sites obliterated.
Iran did not respond in kind. I could not even if it wanted to.
Instead, it changed the game. It reached for the modern equivalent of Saša’s “lice” and the truck driver’s parking lot:
The Strait of Hormuz.
Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil flows through that narrow choke point. By threatening it — and briefly disrupting it — Iran did not defeat its adversaries militarily.
It did something far more important.
It changed the cost of the fight.
Suddenly, this was no longer a local battlefield problem. It was a global economic one. Oil markets trembled. Shipping slowed. Allies grew uneasy.
The costs came home — at the pump and in the polls. Gas prices skyrocketed, Trump’s approval rating plummeted.
And just like that, the dynamics shifted. Iran called Trump’s bluff and bluster. Trump blinked.
And now we are back to a ceasefire and another “piss process” (peace process).
⚖️ The Pattern
Strip away the politics, the headlines, the propaganda — and what remains?
The same rules from the sandbox:
- Push back, and the bully recalibrates
- Change the game, and strength becomes vulnerability
- Choose the battlefield, and outcomes change
This is not ideology. It is pattern recognition.
🎯 The Conclusion
What we witnessed was not simply a geopolitical episode. It was a familiar human dynamic playing out on a larger stage.
Call it strategy. Call it restraint. Call it bluff and blink.
But understand this:
Power is not just the ability to strike.
It is the ability to define the terms of the conflict.
And those who fail to recognize that… are still playing in the sandbox — just without realizing it.
Winning the battle… and losing the war (of public opinion).
That’s a bully’s prize. A Pyrrhic victory.
Truth in Media 
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