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# David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

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Audie Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2014 Explore the power of the underdog in Malcolm Gladwell's dazzling examination of success, motivation, and the role of adversity in shaping our lives, from the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia . Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won. Or should he have? In David and Goliath , Malcolm Gladwellchallenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. In the tradition of Gladwell's previous bestsellers— The Tipping Point , Blink , Outliers and What the Dog Saw — David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.

Review: Gladwell on Goliath - Whew! Where do I start to convince you to read this thought-provoking, entertaining, page-turning gem? On the title pages of the books I read for these reviews, I usually list 10 to 20 page numbers—with the best stuff I want to talk about. This book: 45 bullet points, all worthy of long paragraphs. It’s pure torture knowing I can’t mention most of them. You gotta read this bestselling book! Malcolm Gladwell is a master at his craft with bestsellers like Outliers: The Story of Success, Blink and The Tipping Point. His latest, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, is classic Gladwell. He writes, “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?” In these memorable stories (I’ve already shared half-a-dozen relevant vignettes with colleagues in the last 10 days), Gladwell explores two ideas: 1) sometimes “the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty,” and 2) we “consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong. We misread them. We misinterpret them. Giants are not what we think they are.” So rather than a dozen spoiler alerts here…I’ll give you a True or False test. Mark “True” if you think the following notes are from David and Goliath. TRUE OR FALSE? #1. In the mid-1950s, Swedish furniture manufacturers boycotted IKEA, angry over his low prices. So in 1961, at the peak of the Cold War, IKEA’s founder did business with manufacturers in Poland—the equivalent today of “Walmart setting up shop in North Korea.” #2. Based on the statistical history of wars—the David vs. Goliath types—if Canada waged an unconventional war on the U.S., “history would suggest you ought to put your money on Canada.” #3. In discussing the relationship between parenting and wealth, “The scholars who research happiness suggest that more money stops making people happier at a family income of around $75,000 a year.” #4. “The phenomenon of relative deprivation applied to education is called—appropriately enough—the ‘Big Fish—Little Pond Effect.’ The more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities.” #5. So…where should your kids attend college? Research on college grads concludes that “the best students from mediocre schools were almost always a better bet than good students from the very best schools.” Gladwell divides his stunning findings (told through page-turner true stories) into three parts: 1) “The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages),” 2) “The Theory of Desirable Difficulty,” and 3) “The Limits of Power.” More True or False: #6. “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.” #7. In Gladwell’s up-close-and-personal interview with a world class attorney who has dyslexia, the lawyer talks about the advantages of his disadvantages. “Not being able to read a lot and learning by listening and asking questions means that I need to simplify issues to their basics. And that is very powerful, because in trial cases, judges and jurors—neither of them have the time or the ability to become experts in the subject. One of my strengths is presenting a case that they can understand.” #8. George Bernard Shaw once said, “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.” #9. In response to Birmingham police jailing hundreds of children who skipped school to march in the Civil Rights demonstrations, Martin Luther King responded, “Jail helps you to rise about the miasma of everyday life. If they want some books, we will get them. I catch up on my reading every time I go to jail.” #10. A California father, incensed at his daughter’s brutal murder, champions the Three Strikes Law, while a Canadian couple—Mennonites—forgive and move on; “a very practical strategy based on the belief that there are profound limits to what the formal mechanisms of retribution can accomplish.” Business leaders will appreciate this book, but I’m guessing nonprofit and church leaders will love it. They have “against all odds” challenges most days before breakfast. So, have we been looking at “disadvantages/giants” incorrectly? Why might disadvantages actually be advantages? During World War II, the Germans pretty much gave up on disassembling a safe haven for Jews in the French mountain community of Le Chambon. Why? Gladwell says, “wiping out a town or a people or a movement is never as simple as it looks. The powerful are not as powerful as they seem—nor the weak as weak.” I could go on, with another 35 or more mind-grabbing and soul-whacking notes, but I gotta stop. I hope you’ll read this book. Give it for Christmas and you’ll receive appreciative thank you notes. (By the way, all 10 statements above are “True.”)
Review: Engaging, Delightful Even, But Some Tales Don't Sit Well - One of the reasons we love Malcolm Gladwell’s books is the way he uses the art of storytelling to contradict common assumptions about the way things work. In this aspect, his new book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, is full of well-researched, counterintuitive arguments that demonstrate patterns and connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events. In short, it does not disappoint. As we’ve come to expect from a writer of his caliber, Gladwell grips you from the start, with the timeless story of David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine, and why the duel between them revealed the folly of our assumptions about power. Gladwell argues that we “continue to make that error today, in ways that have consequences for everything, from how we educate our children, to how we fight crime and disorder.” “Why,” he says, “do we automatically assume that someone who is smaller, or poorer, or less skilled is necessarily at a disadvantage?” Especially when history shows us that underdogs win more often than we think. “That’s because underdog strategies are hard,” he notes. “To play by David’s rules, you have to be desperate,” he says. “You have to be so bad that you have no choice.” With stories from basketball to Lawrence of Arabia, he demonstrates how prestige and belonging to elite institutions (think MBAs), can actually limit our options. And how being an underdog and a misfit can give you the freedom to try things no one else has ever dreamt of. He goes on to demonstrate, with some surprising statistics, how too small a class size and too much family wealth can, both be disadvantageous to children, and why it’s wrong to assume that being bigger, and stronger, and richer, is always in our best interest. I found particularly fascinating the story of how the Impressionists succeeded by choosing to be the Big Fish in a Little Pond of their own creation. You’ll learn why the more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities. So, if you did not make it through to the IITs (or Harvard, Yale or MIT), take heart. It’s better to be a Big Fish in a Very Welcoming Small Pond than a Little Fish in a Very Big and Scary Pond, says Gladwell. And going to that less competitive college might be the best thing you’ll ever do for your self-confidence and your career. While it might seem counterintuitive to talent hunters, statistics show that hiring the best students from “mediocre” schools would be better than going after good students from the very best schools. “We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is – and the definition isn’t right,” says Gladwell. “It’s the Little Pond that maximizes your chances to do whatever you want.” My favourite part, however, was when, using the fact that an extraordinarily high number of successful entrepreneurs (including British billionaire, Richard Branson) are dyslexic, he asks the controversial question, “Can dyslexia turn out to be a desirable difficulty?” Could it be that they succeeded, in part, because of their disorder? When something, like your sense of sight, is taken away from you, your brain compensates by sharpening your other senses. In the same way, could dyslexics learn to compensate for their reading difficulty by becoming better listeners and learning to understand the nuances of human communication better than their peers? That does seem to be the case. As Gladwell states, “What is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily.” But the dyslexics who succeed also seem to have a special brand of stubbornness coupled with a highly developed ability to deal with failure, and the tendency to not care a damn for the approval of others - qualities that many a successful entrepreneur shares. These are the coping strategies they developed in a world that looks down on those who cannot keep up academically, but that gave them an advantage in the world of business, where disruption is greatly valued. Personally, I like to see these so-called disorders, that the psychiatric profession is so quick to diagnose nowadays, as “gifts” that help us see the world in ways that others can’t. I used to think it was just me (and a bunch of other people who believe in a more inclusive world) that thought this way, so Gladwell’s argument that being “differently-abled” can be turned into an advantage delights me. I believe that we will, one day, see the same argument put to people with autism. The evidence is already there. We just need someone like Gladwell to dig it up for us. In the vein of what doesn’t kill you make you stronger, his next chapter speaks of the acquired, uncommon courage of those who survive either an event like the bombing of London by the Germans, or of losing a parent in childhood. It reminded me of the courage of the people of Mumbai who are known for going back to work the day after a bombing by terrorists. With so many “remote misses” to create a feeling of invincibility, no other city in India can claim such nonchalance in the face of terror. It’s his chapter on Wyatt Walker that I find the most unsettling, where he defends Walker’s use of children in Birmingham’s civil rights marches. “Our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside,” states Gladwell. Since Birmingham, child soldiers have been used by mercenaries like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone in their battle against the Goliaths they were fighting, with disastrous consequences for the children involved (if you want to understand what happened to the children drafted into the RUF, I recommend you watch the Leonardo DiCaprio starrer, Blood Diamond). So, no, I don’t think Birmingham is really the right kind of example to make in the David vs Goliath battles, no matter how worthy the cause. Weaving a common thread through the stories of crime in America, and the war between the Irish and Prostestants in Northern Ireland, Gladwell goes on to show how “the excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission.” Gladwell wraps up the book with the beautiful and heartwarming story of Andre' Trocme' and the village of Le Chambon in France that protected Jews in defiance of the Nazi invaders. As he notes so eloquently, “The powerful are not as powerful as they seem – nor the weak as weak.”

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Gladwell on Goliath
*by J***N on December 4, 2013*

Whew! Where do I start to convince you to read this thought-provoking, entertaining, page-turning gem? On the title pages of the books I read for these reviews, I usually list 10 to 20 page numbers—with the best stuff I want to talk about. This book: 45 bullet points, all worthy of long paragraphs. It’s pure torture knowing I can’t mention most of them. You gotta read this bestselling book! Malcolm Gladwell is a master at his craft with bestsellers like Outliers: The Story of Success, Blink and The Tipping Point. His latest, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, is classic Gladwell. He writes, “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?” In these memorable stories (I’ve already shared half-a-dozen relevant vignettes with colleagues in the last 10 days), Gladwell explores two ideas: 1) sometimes “the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty,” and 2) we “consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong. We misread them. We misinterpret them. Giants are not what we think they are.” So rather than a dozen spoiler alerts here…I’ll give you a True or False test. Mark “True” if you think the following notes are from David and Goliath. TRUE OR FALSE? #1. In the mid-1950s, Swedish furniture manufacturers boycotted IKEA, angry over his low prices. So in 1961, at the peak of the Cold War, IKEA’s founder did business with manufacturers in Poland—the equivalent today of “Walmart setting up shop in North Korea.” #2. Based on the statistical history of wars—the David vs. Goliath types—if Canada waged an unconventional war on the U.S., “history would suggest you ought to put your money on Canada.” #3. In discussing the relationship between parenting and wealth, “The scholars who research happiness suggest that more money stops making people happier at a family income of around $75,000 a year.” #4. “The phenomenon of relative deprivation applied to education is called—appropriately enough—the ‘Big Fish—Little Pond Effect.’ The more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities.” #5. So…where should your kids attend college? Research on college grads concludes that “the best students from mediocre schools were almost always a better bet than good students from the very best schools.” Gladwell divides his stunning findings (told through page-turner true stories) into three parts: 1) “The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages),” 2) “The Theory of Desirable Difficulty,” and 3) “The Limits of Power.” More True or False: #6. “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.” #7. In Gladwell’s up-close-and-personal interview with a world class attorney who has dyslexia, the lawyer talks about the advantages of his disadvantages. “Not being able to read a lot and learning by listening and asking questions means that I need to simplify issues to their basics. And that is very powerful, because in trial cases, judges and jurors—neither of them have the time or the ability to become experts in the subject. One of my strengths is presenting a case that they can understand.” #8. George Bernard Shaw once said, “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.” #9. In response to Birmingham police jailing hundreds of children who skipped school to march in the Civil Rights demonstrations, Martin Luther King responded, “Jail helps you to rise about the miasma of everyday life. If they want some books, we will get them. I catch up on my reading every time I go to jail.” #10. A California father, incensed at his daughter’s brutal murder, champions the Three Strikes Law, while a Canadian couple—Mennonites—forgive and move on; “a very practical strategy based on the belief that there are profound limits to what the formal mechanisms of retribution can accomplish.” Business leaders will appreciate this book, but I’m guessing nonprofit and church leaders will love it. They have “against all odds” challenges most days before breakfast. So, have we been looking at “disadvantages/giants” incorrectly? Why might disadvantages actually be advantages? During World War II, the Germans pretty much gave up on disassembling a safe haven for Jews in the French mountain community of Le Chambon. Why? Gladwell says, “wiping out a town or a people or a movement is never as simple as it looks. The powerful are not as powerful as they seem—nor the weak as weak.” I could go on, with another 35 or more mind-grabbing and soul-whacking notes, but I gotta stop. I hope you’ll read this book. Give it for Christmas and you’ll receive appreciative thank you notes. (By the way, all 10 statements above are “True.”)

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Engaging, Delightful Even, But Some Tales Don't Sit Well
*by P***H on April 22, 2015*

One of the reasons we love Malcolm Gladwell’s books is the way he uses the art of storytelling to contradict common assumptions about the way things work. In this aspect, his new book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, is full of well-researched, counterintuitive arguments that demonstrate patterns and connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events. In short, it does not disappoint. As we’ve come to expect from a writer of his caliber, Gladwell grips you from the start, with the timeless story of David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine, and why the duel between them revealed the folly of our assumptions about power. Gladwell argues that we “continue to make that error today, in ways that have consequences for everything, from how we educate our children, to how we fight crime and disorder.” “Why,” he says, “do we automatically assume that someone who is smaller, or poorer, or less skilled is necessarily at a disadvantage?” Especially when history shows us that underdogs win more often than we think. “That’s because underdog strategies are hard,” he notes. “To play by David’s rules, you have to be desperate,” he says. “You have to be so bad that you have no choice.” With stories from basketball to Lawrence of Arabia, he demonstrates how prestige and belonging to elite institutions (think MBAs), can actually limit our options. And how being an underdog and a misfit can give you the freedom to try things no one else has ever dreamt of. He goes on to demonstrate, with some surprising statistics, how too small a class size and too much family wealth can, both be disadvantageous to children, and why it’s wrong to assume that being bigger, and stronger, and richer, is always in our best interest. I found particularly fascinating the story of how the Impressionists succeeded by choosing to be the Big Fish in a Little Pond of their own creation. You’ll learn why the more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities. So, if you did not make it through to the IITs (or Harvard, Yale or MIT), take heart. It’s better to be a Big Fish in a Very Welcoming Small Pond than a Little Fish in a Very Big and Scary Pond, says Gladwell. And going to that less competitive college might be the best thing you’ll ever do for your self-confidence and your career. While it might seem counterintuitive to talent hunters, statistics show that hiring the best students from “mediocre” schools would be better than going after good students from the very best schools. “We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is – and the definition isn’t right,” says Gladwell. “It’s the Little Pond that maximizes your chances to do whatever you want.” My favourite part, however, was when, using the fact that an extraordinarily high number of successful entrepreneurs (including British billionaire, Richard Branson) are dyslexic, he asks the controversial question, “Can dyslexia turn out to be a desirable difficulty?” Could it be that they succeeded, in part, because of their disorder? When something, like your sense of sight, is taken away from you, your brain compensates by sharpening your other senses. In the same way, could dyslexics learn to compensate for their reading difficulty by becoming better listeners and learning to understand the nuances of human communication better than their peers? That does seem to be the case. As Gladwell states, “What is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily.” But the dyslexics who succeed also seem to have a special brand of stubbornness coupled with a highly developed ability to deal with failure, and the tendency to not care a damn for the approval of others - qualities that many a successful entrepreneur shares. These are the coping strategies they developed in a world that looks down on those who cannot keep up academically, but that gave them an advantage in the world of business, where disruption is greatly valued. Personally, I like to see these so-called disorders, that the psychiatric profession is so quick to diagnose nowadays, as “gifts” that help us see the world in ways that others can’t. I used to think it was just me (and a bunch of other people who believe in a more inclusive world) that thought this way, so Gladwell’s argument that being “differently-abled” can be turned into an advantage delights me. I believe that we will, one day, see the same argument put to people with autism. The evidence is already there. We just need someone like Gladwell to dig it up for us. In the vein of what doesn’t kill you make you stronger, his next chapter speaks of the acquired, uncommon courage of those who survive either an event like the bombing of London by the Germans, or of losing a parent in childhood. It reminded me of the courage of the people of Mumbai who are known for going back to work the day after a bombing by terrorists. With so many “remote misses” to create a feeling of invincibility, no other city in India can claim such nonchalance in the face of terror. It’s his chapter on Wyatt Walker that I find the most unsettling, where he defends Walker’s use of children in Birmingham’s civil rights marches. “Our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside,” states Gladwell. Since Birmingham, child soldiers have been used by mercenaries like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone in their battle against the Goliaths they were fighting, with disastrous consequences for the children involved (if you want to understand what happened to the children drafted into the RUF, I recommend you watch the Leonardo DiCaprio starrer, Blood Diamond). So, no, I don’t think Birmingham is really the right kind of example to make in the David vs Goliath battles, no matter how worthy the cause. Weaving a common thread through the stories of crime in America, and the war between the Irish and Prostestants in Northern Ireland, Gladwell goes on to show how “the excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission.” Gladwell wraps up the book with the beautiful and heartwarming story of Andre' Trocme' and the village of Le Chambon in France that protected Jews in defiance of the Nazi invaders. As he notes so eloquently, “The powerful are not as powerful as they seem – nor the weak as weak.”

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Malcolm Gladwell's books are exhilarating and uplifting.
*by A***Y on December 14, 2013*

Malcolm Gladwell's latest bestseller, David and Goliath, will leave you reeling. It nullifies so many things you thought you already knew. Just as you think you've recovered from all the eye-openers in Outliers, here he comes again with new revelations to knock you off your feet. I've heard Gladwell say that he's just a storyteller. but I say he's one of the great thinkers of our time...an historian who filters out the untruths, a mathematician who helps you solve all the puzzles, and a psychiatrist who gets into your head. Since the running theme throughout the book is that giants don't always win, he demonstrates it well with many cases. The truth about the biblical story of David and Goliath is shocking. Little David not only "flipped the script" by changing how the fight would proceed - not hand to hand combat, but utilizing the sling, a popular skill he had perfected. Goliath was vulnerable in many ways; he had a disease that affected his vision, he moved slowly, his armor was too heavy and it left an exposed forehead. David took his shot. Gladwell cites many examples to prove his point. Lawrence of Arabia with his motley crew also triumphed over 1200 Turks because they had an "advantage." Underdogs often have an advantage. His men happened to know the desert better... where the water was, how to avoid the snakes, how to survive. Find your advantage. You may have heard of the concept Big Fish in a Little Pond and vice versa, but not like this. Gladwell interestingly relates how each year millions of students are faced with the task of choosing a college to attend. But they may want to revise their thinking once they read about Caroline. She was smart as a whip, top of her class, loved science since she was a kid. She always knew what she wanted to be. Like most students, she chose the fanciest, most prestigious college that would accept her. When she got there, the environment was different, courses were harder, students more competitive and seemed to think on a higher level. Unable to comprehend the science work and feeling demoralized (The smarter the people in your class, the dumber you feel), she switched to the humanities. If Caroline had chosen her SECOND school, if she had been a Big Fish in a Little Pond, she would be a happy scientist today. (Gladwell says that many former math and physics majors are lawyers today.) This example is cited again with the impressionist painters in Paris in the 1800s, Monet, Renoir, etc. Their work was always rejected in The Salon, which was the most prestigious art show in the world (Rejects often committed suicide). Their work was different. They finally decided to start their own exhibit...become Big Fish in a Little Pond to beat the giant. Their work sells for millions today. The most interesting concept in the book is the "Inverted -U Curve." It will turn your own thinking upside-down. Gladwell says we operate in an inverted U- shaped world. You can disprove a prevailing universal belief by using it. Here's the math: Supposing you think money makes parenting easier, you'll note that the extra resources on the left side of the curve seem to show just that. And as you reach the level top, no real difference is seen. But as you head down the right side, money makes the situation WORSE. You'll want to read about it for sure. ( Dad, what do you mean we can't afford it and I don't value money? You have a Maserati and Mom has a Porsche!) Gladwell explains it clearly. It's the same principal for "smaller class sizes." Who would debunk the long-held belief that small classes are better? Not when you head down the right side of the inverted-U. (Not enough opinions for good discussion, and more.) You must read about the $50,000 private boarding school in Connecticut that had every resource you can imagine, and be shocked when you examine the right side of the inverted U curve here. Many things are WORSE (although the pianos are all Steinways, so if you're in a practice room playing Chopsticks, it's going to sound really good.) p. 61. Reading about the "Three Strikes" law in California and how it came to be initiated by a murdered child's father, is mesmerizing. It certainly would seem workable though...the third offense, they go in, 25 to life. They're off the streets. But it didn't work. It had to be changed. The right side of the curve shows why. ( No one looked at how criminals minds work. How they'll be punished is not on their minds when they do a job. Too distracting.) Even more surprising in Gladwell's book is the Civil Rights leaders using old slave trickery to fight the evil racism giant. Slaves had relied on the ways of trickster heros in folklore to get back at slave masters. Brer Rabbit, Anansi the Spider and others taught them cunning and devious ways. Read how Wyatt Walker, cunning and sly himself, got Bull Connor to do what he wanted in the name of advancing Civil Rights, and how he staged events history doesn't know about. Gladwell introduces the theory of Desirable Difficulties. Could being bombed produce a Desirable Difficulty? Perhaps. Three things can happen: you could be killed, you could be traumatized by the experience (called a Near Miss), or you could be made happier and stronger because you were spared a couple of times, and it makes you feel invincible. That's called a Remote Miss. Remote Misses appear often in the book. It's also desirable to have dyslexia, at least according to Gladwell. He says you can beat this giant too. Just look at the lives of people who did it. The most famous trial lawyer in the country couldn't read. He taught himself to memorize and perfected his listening ability. Others did unusual things, even bold things we wouldn't think of doing to excel. Read all about it. You'll love it like I did.

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