THE POWER OF STRATEGY

What if I told you that there is one thing that can guarantee 100% success? You might be
wondering if this was possible, but history proves that every great man that ever achieved
success in life applied it: strategy.
For example, Thomas Edison tried more than a thousand different ways of getting electricity to
make light. He refused to stop trying until he found the material that worked. What he was really
doing was trying to get the working strategy to make light. To him, all the time he spent failing
was very important because he was using it to come up with the single idea—the strategy that
would work 100% of the time. Little wonder, the world is still using his idea till date.
Equally, to make anything succeed or work, you need a strategy. A strategy the most important
recipe to success in life. Really, success consists of simply knowing what to do and doing it.
When you know what to do, that means you have a strategy. The strategy is in the planning and
preparation stage of success. If you have a strategy, you’ve absolutely guaranteed your success.
Joshua and His Mysterious Strategy
The sixth chapter in the book of Joshua contains a story that probably one of the most popular in
the bible. The story was a powerful one for this reason: Joshua had and applied a mysterious
strategy. This story talks about a battle of Jericho, led by Joshua. The Children of Isreal were
burdened with a very important challenge: They had to conquer the land of Canaan. And Jericho
was their first conquest as they out to conquer Canaan Land.
A new stage of life, a new horizon had come upon the Israelites; hence they had to first send
some scouts to explore the land of Jericho. These scouts found their way over the walls of
Jericho and hid themselves at the house of Rahab, who was noted to be a prostitute.
Rahab played a crucial role in helping the scouts hide from the King’s soldiers. She also helped
them escape through her window when they were ready to leave. But before they were gone, she
made the scouts affirm an oath to her to spare her and her family when the battle of Jericho
occurred. She equally vowed to not give their secrets away.
You might be wondering why she ever betrayed her countrymen the way she did, but according
to her, she already knew that the Lord had given the scouts Jericho already. She even confessed
that a great fear had fallen on them in such a way that “all who live in this country are melting in
fear because of you. Hence, the agreement was that she was going to fasten a scarlet rope in her
window as a sign for the soldiers to protect her and her family.
Like Rahab said, indeed, Israel already had Jericho in the bag. How come? They had a
mysterious strategy. Interestingly, this strategy was mysterious because no man on earth could
have come up with it. Instead God came up with it and gave it to Joshua.
This was the strategy: “Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none
went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your
hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war;
you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear
seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the
city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a
long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people
shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall
go up every man straight before him"” (Joshua 6:1-5, NKJV).
That was it! The mysterious strategy was given and Joshua and the children of Israel really had
nothing to fear anymore—the great wall of Jericho was going to be brought down. God had
instructed Joshua with a mysterious strategy for the battle of Jericho. The whole army of Israel
was going to march around the city once a day for six consecutive days.
As the soldiers were marching, they blew their trumpets while the priests carried the Ark of
Covenant. On the seventh day, the Israelites took a different approach; they marched round the
wall of Jericho seven times. Everyone in the city was going to be slain except Rahab and her
family.
Immediately Joshua gave the order, the men produced a powerful roar, and they watched in
shock as the great walls of Jericho fell down flat. Forthwith, the Israelite army powered their way
into the city of Jericho, thus conquering the city as promised, while sparing Rahab and her family
as promised.
Gideon and the Midianties
We saw the story of Joshua leading the Israelites for a battle against the city of Jericho in the
sixth chapter of Joshua. In the sixth, through eighth, chapter of Judges, we equally observe
Gideon leading the Israelites for a battle against the Midianites. The common denominator
between the 2 battles is that they both had a mysterious strategy.
Gideon was a military leader, judge and a prophet whose victory over the Midianites are
recounted in chapter 6 to 8 of the book of Judges. But what lead to God calling Gideon to come
and lead the Israelites in battle?
As usual, the children of Israel turned away from God and began to worship false gods. This lead
to them becoming vulnerable to the Midianites who stole their animals and destroyed their crops.
Prior to the period of this act of rebellion, they had enjoyed a 40 year period of peace brought by
Deborah’s victory over Canaan.
God then chose Gideon, a young man from the tribe of Manasseh, to help the children of Israel
gain liberty from the oppression that they suffered from neighbouring tribes and nations. Gideon
had a life-changing encounter with the angel of the lord, and he was chosen as the one to lead
Israel and deliver them from bondage. The angel assured Gideon that the lord was with him and
that God had chosen him to be a mighty warrior (Judges 6:11-14).
Although Gideon fought with believing he could be chosen to take the huge responsibility of
leading the people of God, he, however, agreed and believed the words of the angel. God gave
Gideon a sign to prove to him that he was indeed chosen. Gideon was convinced and gained
confidence henceforth.
Hence, he gathered as many soldiers as he could to fight against the Midianites. But God told
him the soldiers were too many. God didn’t want Gideon to think that he won the battle because
of the large number of soldiers he was able to gather. God knew he didn’t need a lot of men to
win, he just needed a powerful strategy.
God told Gideon to downsize the number of soldiers by telling them they could go home if they
were afraid. So 22,000 of them went home. But God wasn’t satisfied yet. There were 10,000 men
left and they were still too many.
God told Gideon to bring them to the stream to drink water. He told Gideon to leave only the
men that watched out for the enemy while they drank water. Incidentally, only few men did—
300 men. To Gideon, the number seemed to be too few to face the 135,000 Midianite soldiers.
But God was satisfied with just 300 men. He knew his strategy was enough to defeat the
Midianites.
During that night, God told him to attack the Midianites. Gideon however did something strange
in his attacking approach to the Midianites: He gave his men horns and large jars with torches
hidden inside.
Gideon told his men to copy his act, then he blew, smashed his jar, waved his torch, and shouted
“The sword of God and of Gideon!” All his 300 men did the same.
The Midianites reacted in fear. So much fear that they began to fight one another. They fought
till every one of them was eliminated. This was something only God could have given Gideon, a
mysterious strategy. It indeed gave surprising results.
David and his Strategy Against Goliath
I was just thinking about that now, it makes sense what happened with David: with the bear, with
the lion. They were all breeding ground; they were all preparation time. Even though it's been
explained in a slightly different way, but from this point you see it’s actually a form of self-
education, so that by the time he saw that challenge, he was able to go for it knowing that he was
prepared for that.

David might have not known it, but his past encounters with the bear and the lion way of
preparing himself and educating himself. He was training his mind and changing his belief
system toward obstacle.

“Strategy is style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an intensive implementation

system, the science of insuring future success.”— (Pete Johnson).
For some people, it’s normal for them to responds in fear when they encounter life threatening
event. But, through the past victories, David got confidence to do even greater things in the
future.

Dale Carnegie, for example, the expert on people skill would advise people that, if they lacked
confidence in facing a crowd, they could easily boost their confidence by going to speak people
in random. He advised that you should speak to a lot of people because the more people you
speak to, the more victories you could get. And when you get more victories, your self-
confidence is positively impacted.

The process of going to train yourself by speaking to people is a form of self-education through
preparation. Now, it doesn’t matter if you fail sometimes. Even failing is also a process of self-
education through preparation. There might not be success in the beginning stages of trial, but
when you persist, success would be inevitable.

Hence, when David went ahead to confront the most difficult animals on the earth—the bear and
the lion—he was training himself with challenges and boosting his confidence.

Imagine if David just went to the fight with Goliath without any form of preparation or previous
experience with fighting. Imagine if David was told to go confront Goliath when he didn’t even
know that he could win. David’s chances of winning would be very minimal. The problem
wouldn’t have been his potential or ability to actually defeat Goliath, the problem would have
been his lack of knowledge in his ability to defeat Goliath.

Hence, fear of the unknown is one the leading obstacles to success in life. The encounters that
David had with the bear and the lion were equipping him with one potent strategy that he needed
to defeat Goliath—knowledge of his ability to kill Goliath.

So our problem in life sometimes isn’t necessarily our potential or ability to achieve the success
that we desire, instead, it’s the fact that we’re not aware of our great potential and ability to
achieve success.

His encounters with the bear and the lion really did a lot to boost his self-confidence. He had
belief in his potential. This is why it was easy for him to reference his past victories when he met
King Saul. Hence when Saul, the King, questioned his ability to face Goliath, he boldly told
Saul, “'Your servant has been a shepherd for his father's flock. Whenever a lion or bear would
come and carry off a sheep from the flock, I would go out after it, strike it down, and rescue the
sheep from its mouth. If it rose up against me, I would grab it by its jaw, strike it, and kill it.
Your servant has struck down both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be
just like one of them. For he has defied the armies of the living God!" David went on to say,
"The LORD who delivered me from the lion and the bear will also deliver me from the hand of
this Philistine!" Then Saul said to David, "Go! The LORD will be with you. (1 Samuel 17:24,
Net Bible).”

His reaction toward Goliath was absolutely different for one reason: He’d been through this
before. Even Saul was impacted with David’s boldness when he heard of all he’d accomplished
in the past. Hence, we can see that boldness comes from past victories.

“Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might not know how to succeed, but more
importantly, what’s your plan to succeed?”— (Jim Rohn)

Imagine someone having a strategy that would make them invariably win—no matter what
obstacle that comes their way. Imagine having a strategy that could make you defeat the world’s
most feared warrior. When you know what others don’t know, your attitude toward what scares
them would be different. You will find yourself running toward what every other person is
running away from.

In his book, “David and Goliath,” Malcolm Gladwell, explained it more beautifully. He said that
Goliath had a medical problem called, “gigantism.” That is excessive growth hormone and
people who naturally have that also have poor eyesight. They don't even see well. Apart from
that, David had trained himself, he used sling. That, today, is like pistol, like gun.

With his shrewdness with the sling and his experience as a warrior fighting the beasts in the
jungle, David was prepared and well trained to deal with the giant—Goliath. Even though
Goliath looked like the most difficult human to fight in the entire world, David saw him
differently.

Perhaps, this is due to the past experience that David had with the beast and the lion. This, of
course, set him apart from others.
Goliath used a spear and a javelin. For him to use that he needed to come near to David to be
able to thrust. But David could shoot from any distance. Imagine a man with a gun and another
man with a knife to fight. The winner is already obvious. So, David knew that, he was a prepared
mind, while the other guys did not understand that, they ran away.

The weapon of David gave him an edge over Goliath. Goliath had size, but he neither had the
strategy nor the ability that David possessed. How the fight ended certainly proved this. As a
result of this, David was confident in himself and he ran toward Goliath meanwhile aiming at
Goliath’s forehead.

It seems when you know and believe in the potency of the weapon that you possess, it becomes
easy for you to approach problems with faith rather than fear. The attitude of running away from
problems is unlike that of David. Maybe we need to adopt a different approach toward the
problem that we face. When we learn to see problems as an opportunity, like David, it becomes
easier to confront it from a standpoint of possibility, as opposed to, impossibility.

David saw a jackpot. Moreover, when they said there was a prize for whoever killed Goliath,
David went to his brother to confirm, “this is too free a bonanza, but I will not tell you the
secret.” Because any of them could have done it. Maybe they just didn’t believe.

Where’s the Problem?!

Like David, you might want to develop the mentality that says, “Where's the problem?” That is
the attitude or mentality of someone that is using a powerful strategy to engage in battle. Is there
something that you need to embrace more often? I know what it is: PROBLEMS.

Come to think of it, what made David so confident in his ability to defeat Goliath? He had faced
gargantuan degree of problems in the past and he overcame. If you would like to attribute any
single factor to David’s success, apart from his strategy, it was the problems he faced in the past.

Those problems made him discover what he was capable of doing. If he’d never had an
encounter with the lion and the bear, would he ever have thought of confronting the great, tall,
formidable, powerful Goliath? I don’t think so.
Hence, the problems we face in life are perhaps secret blessing clothed in difficulty and crisis.
One important factor that leads to success in life is learning to take advantage of problems and
use them as your key to prominence.

You might be wondering, “Are problems really a key to prominence?” Yes. Because of the past
problems that David had overcome in the past in guise of the bear and the lion, facing Goliath
was just another piece of cake for David.

David saw Goliath and described him like those problems he’d encountered in the past and
overcame. You see, although David saw Goliath as an extremely easy opponent, that doesn’t
mean that the whole world did, (As we saw, David had a different level of thinking), hence,
because every other person thought Goliath was impossible to defeat, they decided to place huge
reward as price attached to defeating Goliath.

This means that prominence, fame and huge rewards were going to be in the list of what David
would get for defeating Goliath. Hence, his prominence, fame and blessing was hinged on the
problem—Goliath—he overcame. This is really a huge bonus for David because he already saw
Goliath as just another easy opponent, where in fact, Goliath was a big deal in the eye of others.
So we see that problems become easy when we don’t run away from them but confront them
squarely.

Sadly, David’s brothers couldn’t see what he saw. Hence, seeing the fight as a jackpot was not
going to be normal. They all saw it as an intimidating event. The price attached to it was not
enough to motivate anyone to go ahead and give the fight a try. But David was perked up when
he saw that you could kill Goliath and get some attendant benefits with it.

The fight was enough motivation for David because he was already interested in taking part in
something he knew he could do. But his motivation increased when he found out that some
bonanza was attached. It is absolutely clear that David had a different mind-set. All thanks to his
strategy and adequate preparation.

David did well to train and imbibe his qualities into his three hundred mighty men. Hence they
were able to accomplish what he did because he showed them the principle, showed them the
secret of war, the art of war.
Teach the Winning Strategy
Imagine after David learned all the strategies that he learnt from his experiences, he went on to
die without teaching some people what he knew that made him such a great warrior. I believe
that the mark of true leadership is how much you can impact and influence people with your life
principles and strategies.
For David, he knew this principle and decided to train a group of 37 men and imbibed in them
his thinking and strategies. These men, famously referred to as , “David’s mighty men” were a
group of David’s toughest military warriors who were credited with heroic feats, including
Josheb-basshebeth, who killed 800 men in one battle with a spear (2 Samuel 23:8)
These men respected David as their leader because of his past achievement. And even more
because of how he was able to impact their lives. It was glory on one level to defeat Goliath. But
it is glory on a higher level to teach other people how to defeat Goliath.
A man isn’t only ready to die when he’s achieved his purpose and attained great feat. He is ready
to die when he is able to teach and empower other people to do what he has done and even more.
Perhaps, when you bless the world with what you know, you’re going to be better remembered
than when you keep it all to yourself. Your gifts and talents are never for you. God gave you so
you can pass it on to others.
It’s like a baton that is passed from one generation to another. When a leader passes on the baton
to the younger generation, he becomes unnecessary. It is at this point that he is just beginning to
live because people of many generations can always refer to him as the source of their ideas and
winning strategies.
The world is waiting to get your contribution added to it. Your contribution in terms of your
knowledge and winning strategies are indispensable gifts to the world. Ensure that you don’t die
with them.
David had a relatively small group of warriors; he had an army of just 37 men. These few men
totally bewildered their opponent by outclassing them despite their number disadvantage.
But you see, sometimes, effectiveness is not in numbers but in the potency of your weapon and
strength of your strategy. These few men had the ultimate strategy as taught to them by David.
Hence, those who didn’t have their strategy was going to find it extremely difficult to conquer
them without having an equally good strategy.
Just like David had a disadvantage in physical size, as compared to Goliath, so did he have a
disadvantage in the size of his men of war. However, just as he defeated Goliath on the basis of
his proven strategy, so his mighty men were able to defeat every opponent they faced. The
strategy always worked—every time.
I think the fact that David’s mighty men could repeat what he’d achieved in the past showed that
it wasn't luck that helped David; it was his principles and strategies. We can site some examples
of David’s mighty men and what they single-handedly achieved as recorded in the scriptures.
Apart from Josheb-basshebeth who killed 800 men in one battle as we mentioned earlier,
additionally, we also have,
 Eleazar, who stayed on the battlefield when other warriors fled and killed Philistines until
his hand was stuck clenched to his sword (2 Samuel 23:9-10)
 Abishai, the leader of the mighty men who killed 300 men with a spear (23:18)
 Benaiah went into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion and a powerful Egyptian man
(23:20-21).
The key is, these men seemed to be David’s incarnate because they easily did the same kind of
things that David was able to do during his own days. Repetition is the key. They were able to
repeat David’s feat as a sign that neither they nor David was just lucky, they had a proven
strategy.
“I believe that people make their own luck by great preparation and good strategy.” –
(Jack Canfield)
One key thing about a strategy that we’ve observed is that if it’s a strategy that works, then it
must be able to be repeated by others. A strategy is repeatable. And that is good news because it
would have been easy for anyone to assume that it is only David that could achieve what he
achieved. But that is not true.
David was a great man of war, but he wasn’t necessarily special. He wasn’t necessarily better
than everyone else. He only knew something they didn’t know. And when he taught his strategy
to others, it was easy for them to repeat the same feat.
A man by name Alexander the Great already proved in history, like David, that warfare is not the
size of your army. In a ten-year period, he conquered 90% of the known world, including the
superpower of his day, Persia. He won several wars with very small armies; his secret was just
the strategy. And the strategy is sound mind.
Just like David, you can create your future through a strategy. Strategy simplifies your life.
When you are able to see everything fall in place before you begin, then we can say you’re
working with a proven strategy.
Having a strategy unveils the future to you. You are able to see what hasn’t happened yet. You
become more or less like a soothsayer that knows the future. David accurately predicted what he
was going to do Goliath ever before he did it. He knew what they strategy would help him
achieve. He knew that whether or not he was powerful wasn’t the problem. The problem is
whether or not his strategy was going to work. And it did.
So, every day, be obsessed with self-education to prepare yourself, to make yourself so palatable
as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God that God cannot resist. Preparation gives you confidence.
Preparation through self-education makes it possible to encounter any problem and win.
Strategy Makes Life Predictable
Life is predictable through a strategy. Really, success can be summarised in one sentence: Know
what to do and then do it. The part of knowing what to do is having a strategy, while the part of
doing it is taking action.
You might not have supernatural powers, but when you are able to work with a strategy, you can
accurately predict what is going to happen based on how effective your strategy is. So it doesn’t
matter how long you take in strategizing, that period is actually the most valuable period. You
wouldn’t want to get into a plane as the pilot without knowing how to fly one.
You would want to drive a car without knowing how to drive one. Hence, the moment of
learning how to drive is actually of utmost importance. When you learn how to drive, you make
it easy for you to get into the road without having a crash. Hence, preparation is as important
than execution.
Adequate preparation is a strategy and method to predict the future. If you want to become a
medical doctor for example, you need to go through some process of preparation in college. This
period equips you to face the future challenge of having to be in the theatre room, dealing with
delicate human body parts.
In his book, Inspiration to Live Your Magic, Larry Anderson told the story of Maude, a young
girl, who had the ambition of becoming a medical doctor. She was a very bright girl who dared
to dream of achieving something more than a traditional role. She wanted to become a doctor.
However, although she was admitted to university, Maude Abbott was not allowed to study
medicine because she was a woman. Eventually, she found a school that would let her earn her
medical degree. Then, she went on to study in Europe. With all of that education and her
powerful brain, Maude Abbott became more than just a doctor - she became a medical genius!
She had the goal of becoming a medical doctor, but need self-education through adequate
learning, study and preparation to achieve that dream, and she did achieve it. She predicted her
future and went for it.
I believe that, not only can the future be predicted accurately; future success can be repeated
many times. All of this happens thanks to a strategy. When you work with a strategy, you
empower yourself as a winner.
The life of a winner is the life of a strategist. If you find out that you’re not winning, perhaps,
that could be because you are using the wrong strategy—the strategy of failure. When you don’t
plan, as the saying goes, you plan to fail.
Lacking of planning will imply that you do not have a strategy. Hence, you do not know what
could happen in the future because you are not prepared. This kind of life describes one that live
without a strategy. Always ensure that you have a strategy, and, like David, winning will become
easy.