The Advantages of Disadvantages
We all know the David and Goliath Bible school story: Little guy wins out big over presumed-to-win giant. Yada yada yada—upset and unforeseen victories ensue. In Malcom Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, Gladwell turns the idea that sometimes the smaller guy wins or the underdog comes out on top by flipping what we presume to be disadvantages to actual ADVANTAGES.
Bear with me.
Many of us think that the things we think are disadvantages are actually advantages and vice versa. Gladwell starts his book redefining the David and Goliath story to show us that perhaps it was really David who had the advantage. He was smaller, more nimble and had one hell of an arm. Whereas Goliath was slow, had bad eyesight and was weighted down with armor. When you start to look at it like that, instead of “small child, giant man,” you start to see what Gladwell was getting at. But David’s biggest advantage wasn’t just strength of heart—it was knowing his strengths and using them to his advantage. He knew he couldn’t fight the same fight Goliath was capable of fighting—hand-to-hand—so he didn’t. He fought the best way he knew how, and it worked.
Watch Malcolm Gladwell tell the story his way here—he does a really bang-up job.
Back? Cool. The point is, like David, we don’t always have to go with the status quo. We don’t always have to go about things in a conventional manner.
In fact, I challenge each of you today to take something that you might consider a personal disadvantage and reinvent it into an advantage. And then tell me what happens next…