All great leaders conquer enormous challenges. They stand tall against problems in their lives and their careers. They are resilient and courageous. Notwithstanding what great leaders do, at the end of the day, each and every one of us must stand and face the giants in our life that are merely barriers to be overcome and conquered.

What is a giant?

They are mentioned in the bible:

Genesis 6:4 (KJV). “There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

They are mentioned in classical mythology where those giants, the Titans, were defeated by the Olympian god – Zeus and the gang. They are also mentioned frequently in European folklore mostly as antagonists and rarely as allies.

How can we face them and why do they scare us so much?

In the bible, David, the shepherd boy, slight of build, slew Goliath – a mighty giant. In the bible, 1 Samuel 17:4-7 describes the massive menace:

4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

Six cubits and a span was over 9 feet tall – who has 9 foot ceilings in their home? This giant’s head would touch the ceiling. The point of his spear was nearly 600 shekels, 15 pounds. His armor weighed nearly 5,000 shekels – that’s about 125 pounds – the size of a person – probably the weight of young David.

Young David didn’t listen to the crowd. He prayed. Through that prayer he had the divine audacity to face his giant. His faith, his skill with a slingshot, and a well-placed rock was all he needed to bring down his giant.

Well, in the spirit of the NBA playoffs, let’s talk about some other giant conquerors.

Spud Webb was a 5’6” 133 pounds and an NBA superstar. He played with the:

• Atlanta Hawks (1985-1991, 1995-1996)
• Sacramento Kings (1991-1995)
• Minnesota Timberwolves (1996)
• Orlando Magic (1998)

In 1986, he was one of only two NBA in history UNDER 6 feet to win a slam dunk contest.

Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues was 5’3” and weighed 136 pounds. He played with the:

• Washington Bullets (1987–1988)
• Charlotte Hornets (1988–1997)
• Golden State Warriors (1997–1999)
• Toronto Raptors (1999–2001)

He played alongside Manute Bol, who at the time was one of the two tallest players in the NBA. The difference in their height was 28 inches. He scored 6,858 points, 6,721 assists, 1,369 steals, and averaged 7.7 points per game in his 14-year career.

These guys faced giants. And WON.

Grace Hopper was another slayer of giants. Sorry, but as an IT executive, I have to get computers in here some kind of way. She was the mother of COBOL.

A mathematician born in a time when very few women went to college and even fewer obtained advanced degrees in the sciences, Hopper was one of only 396 Americans to receive an advanced degree between 1930 and 1934, and the first woman to receive a degree in mathematics from Yale. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, Hopper left her tenured position at Vassar to join the Women Accepted for Emergency Volunteer Service (WAVES), which assigned her to work in the Harvard Computation Laboratory, programming one of the world’s first computers.

This tiny woman walked in a giant, unwelcoming world. She stood 5-feet, 6-inches tall and weighed about 105 pounds — woman against “computer” (at that time, a machine that was 51 feet long, eight feet tall, two feet deep, and 10,000 pounds). But she conquered this intimidating colossus by creating the capability to translate common, English-like commands into the machine’s arcane mathematical language.

She conquered her giant one byte at a time.

What do all these Giant-Killers have in common?

1. They faced their giants understood them. In some cases they size them up. But they were not intimidated by size. Grace Hopper understood the frightening machines she needed to tame. Muggsy became a very productive player by maneuvering around his giants with ease.
2. They prepared. Whether it was the precision and accuracy of a slingshot or a jumpshot, they had the foundation to go into the world and meet their giants.
3. The believed that they could conquer their giants and acted with courage. They overcame fear — the fear of being the only woman, or the fear of getting pushed around by aggressive opponents, or fear of death from an enemy whose armor weighs more than you – they turned fear into inspired courage to slay their giants.

What or who are the giants in your life? What are the grand challenges you are afraid to face or conquer? What have these scary ogres stopped you from doing?

In the Star Trek series, the infamous test that Star Fleet cadets faced was the Kobayashi Mari – the no-win scenario. Here, the young cadets faced inevitable doom and destruction. However, the key learning for them was that how they faced their problem (death) was critical to how they faced life. Salvatore Maddi in Resilience at Work: How to Succeed No Matter What Life Throws at You reminds us that:

“Through your unremitting dedication to solving the task, you do what you can to make things turn out well. If the opposite is true, you may question your ability to turn stressful changes around and stop trying.”

Understand your giants and size them up. Prepare yourself with education or resilience. And finally, believe you can conquer them. If you face them, prepare, and believe, you can stand TALL against your giants and above all – they will be no match against the inspired faith that is found in all of us.

Linda Cureton