David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

By the time he hit high school, he’d
developed a better strategy. “I
challenged all my grades,” he went on,
“which meant that literally every time I
got my grade in high school, after the
report cards came out, I would go back
to each teacher and do a one-on-one. I
would argue my D into a C and my C
into a B. And almost every time—ninety
percent of the time—I got my grade
changed. I would just wear them down. I
got really good at it. I got confident. In
college, I would study, knowing that I
was going to have this hour-long meeting
afterward with my professor. I learned
how to do everything possible to sell my
point. It was really good training.”