How To Face Your Giants and Win

Imagine you ruled a small country or company, and your kingdom was threatened by an enemy (competitor) whose only goal was your total and complete annihilation: what would you do?

Would you ignore the threat and hope it went away… Would you gather all of your generals together and try to devise a plan of action… would you mount an all-out assault that could leave hundreds, possibly thousands of people dead… or would you put all of your hopes and the future hopes of your nation on a young unknown, unproven teenage shepherd, who had no experience whatsoever in war?

That is exactly what king Saul (1030–1010 BC) did with David of Bethlehem, and in his doing so, he changed the course of human history.

Here is the abbreviated story of David and Goliath as told in 1 Samuel 17 in the old testament of the bible:

In the Valley of Elah, in Israel, the Philistine army had gathered and assembled and was preparing to do battle with the Israelites. On the other side of the valley, King Saul, the king of Israel, had his army gathered and was preparing their own battle plans.

Every day for about 40 days, a battle hardened Philistine champion named Goliath would come out to the front of his battle lines and shout a challenge to the Israeli army: “Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” Then he said, “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.”

The Philistine Champion, Goliath, was said to be over 9 feet tall. He must have looked to be quite an imposing force as he stood there in his bronze helmet, coat of scale body armour, bronze leg armour and wooden javelin with its iron tip, bellowing out his challenge day after day.

Now, this is where the story gets really interesting. While this was all happening, David, a young shepherd boy from Bethlehem was asked by his father to bring a food supply of roasted grain and bread to his brothers who were fighting with King Saul, and to bring back news to him of their welfare.

He got there just as Goliath was again bellowing out his challenge, and was amazed as to why no-one was doing anything about it. David overheard a few soldiers talking about what the king would give to the man who would go out and kill the giant. To clarify what was going on, David asked the men standing near him, “Who is this filthy Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? “

David said if given the chance, he would fight the giant.

One of the King’s guards overheard David’s boasting and reported it to the king. Saul must have been hoping and praying for a champion to step forward from his ranks who would be willing to face down the giant, but he never expected it to be a young shepherd boy who wasn’t even a soldier. David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; I will go and fight him.”

Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

But David said to Saul, “I have been keeping my father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came, and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. I have killed both the lion and the bear; this filthy Philistine will be like one of them. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Saul, amazed at his bravery, said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the nearby stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached Goliath the Philistine.

He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, and he was disgusted that the Israelis would send out a boy to do a man’s job. He said to David, “Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks?” And he cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the beasts of the field!”

David said to Goliath, “You come against me with sword and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of your army to the birds and the beasts of the earth. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

As Goliath moved closer to attack him, feeling already confident in his victory, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. He took out one of his stones, slung it and struck the giant on the forehead, just under the lip of his helmet. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell in a heap to the ground. David took hold of Goliath’s sword and drew it from its scabbard and cut off his head.

In this short gruesome battle, which happened some 3 thousand years ago, there are many lessons to be learned about courage, vision, motive, attitude faith and perspective. On the other hand, there are as many lessons to be learned about over confidence, poor planning or false-security:

1. Know before you begin that you will and you must succeed. David knew, even before he went out to battle, the victory was already his: He was confident in his abilities from his experiences with the lion and the bear he had killed to protect his flock of sheep. When he went out to battle Goliath, he didn’t walk, he ran. He was eager to face his giant and rid him from the threats that he had been issuing to the Israelis.

2. Face Your Giants. Each and every day, there are countless “giants” that challenge and attack us. David, while being just a youngster, knew the only way to win this battle was to look the giant in the eye and declare his day had come and state he had no more power to intimidate and create fear on the part of the Israelis. He knew the giant, no matter how big and how intimidating, he had to go if the Israelites were to claim their victory. We must do the same to the “giants” who are blocking success from us.

3. Have a clear vision. He wanted to make sure his country and his God were seen as the strongest on earth, so he stepped up fearlessly to the challenge knowing, believing and feeling what he envisioned would happen.

4. Trust in your talents and training. David was secure in his methods of doing battle. He went out to battle without a false sense of security that would have been provided by King Saul’s armour. He knew his own abilities would be hampered by someone else’s security, so he insisted on being himself and doing it in the way in which he had become accustomed.

5. Use your enemy’s weapons against themselves. He realized that it’s not the size of the problem but the size of his faith, which truly mattered. He wasn’t afraid of the size of Goliath, to him that mattered little. As a matter of fact, it was the size of his enemy that convinced David he had to succeed. He only had to focus on the one little spot where the giant was most vulnerable and strike there. He dared to think anything was possible.

6. Have an attitude of success. David had seen everyone else was afraid of doing battle, and knew it was he who must take action.

7. Put all of your challenges and problems in their proper perspective. David had a completely different perspective than the whole Israeli army. What he saw was an opportunity to prove his God was invincible, while the army only saw the giant who seemed invincible.

8. Be committed to the outcome. It doesn’t matter how physically small you are, what matters is how big your vision is and how strong your actions match your goals. When David committed to take on the giant there was no turning back… as a matter of fact, he ran towards his challenges proving that the best offence is a deliberate offence!! He operated from “Commitment first, results second.” Then, he just did what came naturally to him, relying on spiritual support along with his inspired actions; David was able to create the result he had declared.

Do you sometimes find yourself in a “David and Goliath” frame of mind?

Do your problems look bigger than they actually are? If so, know that there are no problems that are too big. They may seem that way at first, but with the proper preparation, and practice, we can usually achieve results, which may have seemed impossible at the start. Many people have faced, eyeball to eyeball, their own over the years and are still standing, and, as a sapling becomes a mighty oak, became much stronger throughout the growth process.

Stand up and be counted. Step out from the ranks of those who say: “I’m too small, I’m not smart enough, I’m too tired, I’m afraid or I don’t know how”.

Dare to live, learn and lead the kind of life that you will be proud of, and that will bring you success.

Don’t let life’s challenges stop you in your tracks. Every day that the Israelis were challenged by Goliath, they grew more and more afraid of him and what he represented. With the dawning of each new day and each new challenge, Goliath became bigger and more invincible to the fearful Israelis. Our own fears are like that.

It is the same as with you and me in life: if we don’t deal with our problems and concerns right now, they will only become bigger, the more we avoid them.

While it is important to have a must attitude towards your goals, you must realize “must” is still a choice that you make. There is nothing in this world that you “have” to do: You simply make the choice to act or not to act. But in order to reach the heights you are capable of reaching, certain things like success, love, helpfulness or understanding require you to choose a must attitude.

Dare to step above the average and out of the ordinary because you must!

Go, make an Impact!

A Bit about me…

My vision is quite simple: to make an impact on the lives of the people who have been entrusted to me: You (for reading this article), my family and my clients.

I coach people. Direct, practical, innovative, meaningful.I coach for excellence.I love what I do… and so do my clients.

Over the years I’ve noticed that business coaching that was supposed to make us stronger actually took away our confidence and made us doubt ourselves. Confidence and people skills aren’t developed just by measuring and planning everything, they grow through doing and learning from experience and by taking risks. People want to make a difference. Build teams. Be better understood. Live more confidently.

I founded IBC Impact Business Communication Inc. to create a world where business people communicate and act with confidence to create better worlds for themselves. Worlds where they feel powerful and free to express themselves. Worlds where something as simple as conversation creates energy, understanding and impact. Worlds so exquisite, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

If you found this article helpful, insightful or moving, please let me know, if you think it can help others, please share it with them.