So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. 1 Samuel 17:50

In last week’s blog, I examined the dynamics of choice through the prism of the 2021 National Football League (NFL) Draft. Watching the draft led me to wonder why so many players who get drafted in the first round wind up going bust. Teams spend enormous amounts of time, money, and energy to select the right players, yet the overwhelming majority of their choices do not go as planned. This stunning fact led me to raise two questions:

1. How can so many people who look so promising fail to reach their potential?

2. How can so many smart, well paid people (the professionals who decide which players to pick) make such bad choices?

I considered the second question last week. Allow me to take a stab at the first one today.

As I pointed out last week, the best players are rarely selected in the first round. That means the players who the professional evaluators (based on research, study, observation and experience) assume would make an immediate impact usually make no impact at all. Being selected in the first round of the draft doesn’t seem to confer much advantage when it comes to what really matters (success at your position or winning Super Bowls).

Why does that happen? It’s actually quite common, and not just in professional sports. One poet lamented the tragic truth that “unrewarded genius is a proverb.” We all know people who have enormous advantages, amazing talents, and breathtaking opportunities who don’t seem to have much to show for it. As Myles Munroe pointed out,

“The wealthiest place in the world is not the gold mines of South America or the oil fields of Iraq or Iran. They are not the diamond mines of South Africa or the banks of the world. The wealthiest place on the planet is just down the road. It is the cemetery. There lie buried companies that were never started, inventions that were never made, bestselling books that were never written, and masterpieces that were never painted. In the cemetery is buried the greatest treasure of untapped potential.”

One reason (or two) why so many promising people fail to reach their potential is because we tend to underemphasize the advantages of disadvantages (or overemphasize the disadvantages of advantages).

Being disadvantaged is an advantage! This is not to say that we should seek disadvantages, nor justify them. It is simply a recognition of the fact that most success, creativity, and advance is usually birthed from people and from places that do not possess most of what we think is necessary to be successful, creative, or to advance. Another way of saying this is that a minus is often a plus!

This is the enduring lesson that meets us in one of most read and most loved stories of scripture: the battle of David and Goliath. A 17 year boy with no military experience (David) faces and defeats a nine foot tall seasoned veteran (Goliath) with nothing but a slingshot.

The scripture is careful to emphasize that no one else had the courage to fight Goliath, and that leader of Israel at the time (Saul) had the right weapons (he and his son Jonathan were the only people in Israel who had up to date weapons). But even though Saul had the right weapons, he didn’t have the right attitude or the right faith. So even though he had all the advantages (status, equipment, position) none of that was useful in getting him on the battlefield. He was afraid to go!

Enter David. And consider his collection of minuses:

• no experience (minus)

• no credentials (minus)

• poor equipment (minus)

• no support (minus)

• pervasive skepticism at his chance of victory (huge minus)

When David stepped on the battlefield, even Goliath laughed. To most observers, David was at a severe disadvantage.

But David’s disadvantage was an advantage. As Malcom Gladwell points out, too much armor can slow you down. David’s speed was actually an asset against Goliath’s size. Goliath assumed that David would fight him as infantryman, at close proximity. But David fought him as a projectile warrior, from a distance using artillery. As a result, David’s speed was probably even more important than his sling shot. Gladwell cites a ballistic expert who claims that a typical stone hurled by an expert slinger at sufficient distance would have hit Goliath’s head with enough force to penetrate his skull and render him unconscious—which is exactly what happened. Speed and a slingshot triumphed over size and a sword.

The way David approached the battle turned his all of his minuses into pluses. David employed 3 tactics that can help all of us turn our minus into a plus.

1. David had the right faith. At no point was David ever intimidated by Goliath. He understood that the size of the fight in the dog is more important than the size of the dog in the fight. He reminded Goliath that he was fighting a larger battle. It wasn’t about winning. It was to show everybody that there was a God in Israel (1 Samuel 17:46)

2. David had the right perspective. David had the right perspective both on himself and his equipment. We are not told when or where David got his slingshot. But I do know he may have been tempted to feel inferior because he didn’t have a sword like Saul or size like Goliath. But David learned how to use his slingshot, and is so doing, changed his life and maximized his potential.

3. David had the right plan. It interesting that David aimed his stone at the one place where Goliath had no armor: his forehead! LOL. David realized that not only to minuses have pluses, but pluses have minuses. He found a way to neutralize the strength of his opponent.

From from being a disadvantage, David’s slingshot was an advantage.

It was all David had.

But it was all David needed. What others thought was his minus was his plus.

We have minuses.

But with the right faith, the right perspective and the right plan, you can turn your minus into a plus.