Book Review: David and Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell

A very interesting and easy book to read, with a new take on how underdogs and the disadvantaged can turn their disadvantages into an advantage and win over huge Goliaths! A must read for anyone interested in psychology and life!

Below are a few interesting observations highlighted in the book:

• Its not always the giant who wins. Sometimes their advantage can become their disadvantage too. And sometimes being unconventional can help you win! The story of David and Goliath is the perfect example where Goliath's size becomes the reason for his downfall. And another example of this would be playing full court in basketball as done by a few not so talented teams. By taking the unconventional route, you can surprise your opponent and even win with limited talent. Of course doing this is risky and tougher than taking the conventional and easier route. But this may be the only way underdogs can win
• Being rich parents is good and advantageous up to a point but parenting becomes tougher when you have too much of money! It gets that much tougher to teach your children the value of hard work and building a life for themselves - it becomes an inverted U-curve of how the money adds to the children's better life. And this is how sometimes in life, what we see as an advantage is not always advantageous
• Sometimes being a big fish in a small pond is better for your advancement and morale than being a small fish in a big pond. For example, impressionism would never have succeeded if the French artists like Monet and Pissarro hadn't started their own smaller gallery where they got a better response than they would have in the huge conventional galleries of that time. And similarly, not so many science students in Harvard and MIT would shift to the arts and not pursue science, if they had been studying in a lesser known institute where they did not feel that they lacked behind the rest

• Sometimes a disadvantage like dyslexia can actually be advantageous - for some people, the disability leads to them trying harder than usual to overcome it and in the process compensating more than what a normal person would do. This provides some people with skills much more than what someone else may possess, and maybe that's why there are so many CEOs who were dyslexic and therefore developed something much more than others which made them successful. This does not mean that you would wish that on your child, but it does mean that a tough situation can set you up for success later on in your life
• Tragedy can affect you either as a near-miss or a remote-miss. And a remote-miss makes you stronger unlike a near-miss. Like German raids in London in the second world war actually made the remote-miss citizens more stronger and happier that they had sustained such a dangerous event like a bomb raid!! And that actually boosted their morale, quite unlike what the Germans wanted. Similarly. losing a parent early on in life can make you a stronger person who is then more risk-taking and can deal with a lot more. And not so surprisingly, a lot of great leaders have had the misfortune in their life, of losing a parent early on. Which somehow gave them the courage to take on bigger and tougher things in life later on
• Sometimes you have to be a trickster to get the results you want, because disadvantaged as you are, that may be all you have! Like the famous photo  of the dog attacking an African-American protester in Birmingham during the civil rights movement. It may have been a lie but it did the trick, and that's what counts especially when you are the underdog

• When using power, there is again an inverted U turn which affects its applicability. After a point, power loses the power to threaten and subdue people. What it ends up doing is creating rebellion. For law enforcement to work, the law has to be fair, predictable and legitimate, which allows people to have a voice. If it loses that, it loses its power to affect and influence. The British Irish war in Northern Ireland between the Catholics and the Protestants was all but that. And the results showed that too. Similarly, excessive use of force does not yield a reduction in crime. It does only to a limit and then it stops having any effect at all.
• Also power does not work on people who have been accustomed to repelling power and authority for centuries. Like the village of Le Chambon in France which protected Jews during the WW because they have been used to centuries of persecution and survived it. And so it was usual life for them to do the same to save the Jews