We asked the man who’s made a career of rejecting conventional wisdom to explain.
What will readers take away fromDavid and Goliath?
I have no idea!
The takeaways from the previous books all surprised me.
That experience convinced me it’s possible for you to’t predict how people will respond to your work.
But what would you like them to take away?
I’d just like people to have more respect for the hidden virtues of certain kinds of adversity.
And I’d like people with power to be a little more cautious in how they use it.
You say “the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.”
Aren’t most underdogs just trying to survive?
Yeah, but sometimes in merely trying to survive, greater things happen.
This is not a pleasant fact to contemplate."
These things are a constant feature of our world.
It makes sense to examine them and say, “What comes of them?”
An outsider, yes.
I was interested in writing about underdogs because they’ve had such a different experience than I have.
I have not had a difficult life at all I’ve had a life of real privilege.
So I don’t make any claim to be anything like the people I write about in this book.
What makes conventional wisdom so persistent?
Underdog strategies are difficult.
They don’t come with any promise of victory; they simply improve your odds of doing well.
Most of us would rather do what’s comfortable than do what maximizes our chances of winning.
