David and Goliath
David, a shepherd boy carrying a wooden staff and sling, volunteers to fight a seven-foot giant named Goliath. Goliath is fully armored with a sword in one hand and a spear in the other. When he sees David approach him with a wooden staff, he laughs and says, "Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?"
David quietly puts a stone in his sling and fires it at a tiny opening in Goliath's helmet. Goliath falls to the ground, stunned. David runs to Goliath, grabs his sword, and cuts his head off.
David is victorious! It's a miracle! Or is it'
David may have seemed like a lucky underdog, but nothing could be further from the truth. As you will discover in Gladwell's book and this summary, underdogs like David pull off surprising victories much more than you think. The key to pulling off surprising victories against powerful foes is neutralizing your opponent's advantage, just like David did.
Neutralize the giant's advantage
Most ritualistic single combat battles were determined by sword-to-sword combat. But David did not care about convention. David was going to fight Goliath from a distance and turn the battle into a contest between Goliath's spear throwing ability and David's sling shooting skills. David happened to be a sling master who killed bears and lions that tried to run off with his sheep. David's sling may have looked harmless, but historians estimate it could hurl stones with stopping power equivalent to the modern handgun.
By going against conventional wisdom and strategically altering the rules of engagement, David neutralized Goliath's size, strength, and power, and flipped the competition in his favor.
The next time you face a powerful opponent, ask yourself, "How can I fight this battle on my terms and neutralize my opponent's advantage?"
- If you are facing a giant business competitor, center your marketing campaign around character and quality instead of efficiency and cost. For example, a small coffee shop could compete against large coffee shop chains like Starbucks by promoting the fact that they use coffee beans from a small family farm in Honduras and roast their beans on site for maximum freshness (something that just isn't feasible for a massive coffee shop chain like Starbucks).
Fighting a battle on your terms may require a deep understanding of the rules and a willingness to bend the rules.
- Author and podcaster Tim Ferriss entered a Chinese National Kickboxing Tournament and won gold by studying the rules of competition and learning that if he pushed his opponent off the elevated platform three times in a single round, he would automatically win the match. Therefore, Ferriss leveraged his high school wrestling training and made every match a pushing contest instead of a kickboxing contest.
When you compete unconventionally, you will get criticized and laughed at like David. But as the saying goes, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win./Then they join you."
Defeat the giant by feeling like a giant
After you devise a plan to neutralize your opponent's advantage, you still need a tremendous amount of skill and confidence to pull off a victory. Paradoxically, many underdogs acquire the necessary skill and confidence to take down giants by spending most of their time feeling like a giant. If you were a promising young economic student, where would you go to graduate school: a great school like Harvard or a merely good school like the University of Toronto?
If you're good enough to get into Harvard but choose to go to the University of Toronto and graduate in the top §% of your class, you are twice as likely to get a paper published in a prestigious economic journal than 8o% of Harvard graduates.
University of Toronto economists who graduate in the top $% of their class publish 1.8 papers six years after graduation, whereas Harvard economists who fail to graduate in the top zo% of their class publish just 0.7papers six years after graduation.
You must be exceptionally smart and hardworking to get into a PhD program at Harvard, but you risk feeling average once admitted. After a year or two at Harvard, you may realize your peers are better economists than you and your willingness to pursue an audacious goal, like getting your work published in a prestigious journal, wanes. In other words, the more time you feel like a small fish in a big pond, the less likely you are to step up when faced with an enormous obstacle or opportunity.
Whatever you're doing, aim to be a big fish in a small pond. Compete in environments where you feel challenged but know you're one of the best. Recent research says the win rate for optimal learning is 85% !f you can find an environment where you feel like you're winning 85%of the time, you will steadily develop the skill and confidence to take on giants.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw