David and Goliath is a book about what happens when ordinary people confront giants. By “giants,” I mean powerful opponents of all kinds—from armies and mighty warriors to disability, misfortune, and oppression. Each chapter tells the story of a different person—famous or unknown, ordinary or brilliant—who has faced an outsize challenge and been forced to respond. Should I play by the rules or follow my own instincts? Shall I persevere or give up? Should I strike back or forgive? Through these stories, I want to explore two ideas. The first is that much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of these kinds of lopsided conflicts, because the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty. And second, that we consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong. We misread them. We misinterpret them. Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness. And the fact of being an underdog can change people in ways that we often fail to appreciate: it can open doors and create opportunities and educate and enlighten and make possible what might otherwise have seemed unthinkable.

Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (2013)

In the biblical account of David and Goliath, the shepherd and obvious underdog reigns, leaving a literal giant of a man dead at his feet, felled by a single stone from a boy who would be king. Christian author, Philip Yancey, is not surprised, for he claims that “though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.”

Our world is largely a Goliath world–if you consider the daily news reports, social media posts, and the like. We laud the big people, the big events, the gargantuan gestures. Larger than life is laudable. The Guinness world record holders, the first-round picks, the election winners, the kings and queens that reign over county fairs, school events, and nations, the all-stars and champions are the Goliaths that capture our collective attention. Our genuflexion is faithful and passionate as we watch them, read about them, and center them in our conversations and aspirations. Goliaths are natural targets of admiration and easy bets in a world of lowly shepherds.

Not so, says author Malcolm Gladwell whose research on Davids and Goliaths turns conventional wisdom on its head. One account of such a David and Goliath battle particularly interested me as I read Gladwell’s book. He recounts the story of a National Junior Basketball team, a group of 12-13-year-old Silicon Valley girls, girls that Gladwell describes as “the daughters of computer programmers and people with graduate degrees. They worked on science projects, and read books, and went on ski vacations with their parents, and dreamed about growing up to be marine biologists” (Gladwell, How David beats Goliath, The New Yorker, April 11, 2009).

Vivek Ranadivé, an immigrant from Mumbai who founded TIBCO, a Silicon Valley software company, knew very little about basketball. But his daughter, Anjali, wanted to play with her Redwood City friends. And so he became the unlikely basketball coach for a team of relatively short, wholly inexperienced girls. These were not girls who played pick-up games in their spare time or who had to be called into their homes at dark from hours of shooting hoops in their driveways. Rookies would not even begin to describe these girls.

This was a team of Davids who would face Goliath girls, girls who had attended basketball camps since they were preschoolers, girls who put the neighborhood boys to shame, girls who wanted to win and who almost always did.

Ranadivé understood how little he knew about basketball, and so he recruited Roger Craig, the former all-pro running back for the San Francisco 49ers, who is also TIBCO’s director of business development. Craig, in turn, recruited his daughter, Rometra, who played Division I basketball at Duke and USC. Together, they took their Redwood City girls to the national championships.

They followed two basic principles: 1) they would run a full-court press during the entire game, and 2) they would deny their opponents’ inbound passes. Ranadivé understood his team’s weaknesses and knew that playing conventional basketball would never work. He coached his girls to run, to work hard, to literally smother the girl Goliaths of opposing teams. And it worked. They stunned and dominated their opponents. Team after team fell to the full court press of a group of Silicon Valley Davids.

When I read this story, I couldn’t help but think about the possible ramifications of such a strategy. What if others who were less naturally talented, less experienced, and less advantaged simply out-thought and out-worked the Goliaths in their lives? What if parents, teachers, coaches, business and government leaders looked seriously at the Davids in their midsts? And what if stories of upsets–Davids beating Goliaths–flooded the airwaves and internet?

What if? Gladwell turned to the research of political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft. His findings concerning David and Goliath battles are surprising:

Suppose you were to total up all the wars over the past two hundred years that occurred between very large and very small countries. Let’s say that one side has to be at least ten times larger in population and armed might than the other. How often do you think the bigger side wins? Most of us, I think, would put that number at close to 100 percent. A tenfold difference is a lot. But the actual answer may surprise you. When the political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft did the calculation a few years ago, what he came up with was 71.5 percent. Just under a third of the time, the weaker country wins. Arreguín-Toft then asked the question slightly differently. What happens in wars between the strong and the weak when the weak side does as David did and refuses to fight the way the bigger side wants to fight, using unconventional or guerrilla tactics? The answer: in those cases, the weaker party’s winning percentage climbs from 28.5 percent to 63.6 percent. To put that in perspective, the United States’ population is ten times the size of Canada’s. If the two countries went to war and Canada chose to fight unconventionally, history would suggest that you ought to put your money on Canada.

We ought to put our money on the little guy, the David who uses unconventional tactics? History has confirmed that we should. Gladwell warns us that when we fixate on the giant “with the sword and shield and glittering armor,” we may overlook that “so much of what is beautiful and valuable in the world comes from the shepherd, who has more strength and purpose than we ever imagine.”

During WWII, the Nazi Goliaths grossly underestimated the British shepherds. Gladwell argues that “They bombed London because they thought that the trauma associated with the Blitz would destroy the courage of the British people. In fact, it did the opposite. It created a city of remote misses, who were more courageous than they had ever been before. The Germans would have been better off not bombing London at all.” The Nazis used conventional warfare, and it backfired. Hunkered down in their bomb shelters, the British hung on and bravely persisted. In the end, they became symbols of all that is “beautiful and valuable in the world.”

You don’t have to look far to see the shepherds around you. They sit on athletic benches, waiting for a few meager seconds of play. They sit in the back rows of classrooms, their heads often swallowed up by over-sized hoods. They sit in offices behind computers, quietly doing their thing. They stand in factory lines beside others, who–day after day–show up to work. They run government offices, making copies and coffee, answering emails and phone calls. They sit beside us in doctors’ offices and on buses, stand beside us in bank and cinema lines. We see, but do not see, them every day.

Years ago, I led my school staff in some professional learning around Carol Dweck’s research on the growth mindset. Dweck argues that we either adopt a fixed or a growth mindset and that the consequences of both are powerful. Those who hold a fixed mindset believe that they are born with–or without–a set of talents and aptitudes. Their success, then, is directly a result of these talents and aptitudes. Their failure? This is largely due to the simple fact that they were not born “math people”, not inherently “mechanically-inclined,” “artistic or athletic.” In short, they can’t help that they were not born with the skills to compete in such environments.

Those who hold a growth mindset are acutely aware of their unique talents and aptitudes but refuse to believe that these will define them or prevent them from completing tasks that require skills they hadn’t inherited. They believe that with effort, persistence, and support that they can grow and change. Perhaps they will not be the best, the smartest, or the most talented, but they will be better at something tomorrow than they were today. Dweck’s research reveals the positive consequences of teaching students about the growth mindset and helping them to understand that the brain–like other muscles–can grow and change. In short, just because they were not born with math aptitude, they are not destined to be math flunkies; they may not become Olympic figure skaters, but they can learn to skate backwards and, perhaps, execute a mean spin.

The growth mindset is generally the mindset of the world’s Davids. Goliaths are bigger, more accomplished, more advantaged, but destined to fight conventionally with their natural, inborn talents and skills. Davids, however, do not have to cower in their shadows, convinced that they can do nothing, that they will be nothing. They can choose to fight differently, using the skills and aptitudes they do have and working even harder to grow and develop these. They can full-court press when they lack the natural dribbling and shooting abilities of their peers.

I think of my friend, Rhonda, who won a national Betty Crocker Award when she was in high school. Even Rhonda would freely admit that she is no domestic goddess. (I can attest to the fact that she once stapled–not sewed–her kids’ Halloween costumes!) But she is an excellent test-taker, which ultimately won her the award. She may not have been a Goliath in the kitchen or sewing room, but she used the talents she did have to win. I can just hear Vivek Ranadivé: “So you can’t cook, but you can take tests? Well, then, be the best test-taker you can possibly be. That’s how you’ll win.”

The Bible is filled with underdogs and misfits and the least-likely-to-succeed. And yet, God uses them and who they are to lead his people out of captivity, to build nations, and to save the world. Time after time, the shepherds–not the giants–win the day.

Consider Jesus, a son, a friend, God-made-flesh. When he could have used conventional tactics, calling on God’s power to smote evil and to save himself, he used the most unconventional and extraordinary tactics of all: he loved his enemies, turned the other cheek, and gave himself up to a sacrificial and atoning death. Even today, Christ is full-court pressing the world with mercy and grace. He persists in denying the inbound passes of those who would do evil. And he wins souls as a shepherd, not a giant.

Consider Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. When others were all too eager to smote their enemies–literally–they embraced non-violent resistance. They marched in protest, suffering the insults and blows of those who wished to destroy them and their movements. Day after day, they hit the streets with dogged persistence and heart, keeping their eyes on the prize. In the end, their unconventional tactics changed the world and ushered in new eras of hope and equality.

Like Gladwell, I think we need to rethink our battle tactics. He writes:

We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is—and the definition isn’t right. And what happens as a result? It means that we make mistakes. It means that we misread battles between underdogs and giants. It means that we underestimate how much freedom there can be in what looks like a disadvantage.

There is freedom in what looks like a disadvantage. There is much value in the shepherd who bravely, devotedly goes toe-to-toe with more powerful giants, using his or her disadvantage to an incredible advantage.

Maybe it’s time we celebrate the underdog, the disadvantage-turned-advantage, and the unconventional victories of shepherds. The world could use a lot more Vivek Ranadivés and Davids. But more than this, the world could use a lot more genuine fans and followers of these underdogs and all the underdogs-to-be.