I

FIND CONFIDENCE, AVOID EGO

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that

when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

—COLIN POWELL

n 1000 BC in the Valley of Elah, the people of Israel and Philistia
were locked in terrible war. No end was in sight until the towering
Goliath offered a bold challenge to end the stalemate between the
armies. “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let
us fight each other,” he shouted.
For forty days, not a single soldier stepped forward, not even the
king of Israel, Saul. If Goliath was driven by ego and hubris, the
Israelites were paralyzed by fear and doubt.
Then came young David, a visiting shepherd with three brothers
in the army. David heard Goliath’s challenge, and unlike the entire
army, cowering in fear, he was confident that he could fight Goliath
and win. Was he crazy? How could he possibly think he could beat
someone so big?
“When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the
flock,” David said to his brothers, “I went after it, struck it, and
rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it
by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the
lion and the bear; this Philistine will be like one of them.”
David’s confidence arose from experience, not ego. He had been
through worse and done it with his bare hands.