Overcoming Insurmountable Odds - 300 Spartans at Battle of Thermopylae

Hi there, it's Kevin Ward and I'm standing here on the actual battlefield of the famous battle of Thermopylae where the 300 Spartan warriors under King Leonidas took their stand against tens of thousands and by some estimations over 100,000 and some even hundreds of thousands of Persian warriors. As the Persian army under Xerxes I attempted to invade Greece. And we're standing in a place called Thermopylae. This is also the translation means the Hot Gates. And you can see in the background here you can see the steam rising from the thermal springs that gave this place its name. And we're literally standing on the battlefield that we're looking toward the north as the Persian army around the, kind of around the bend there and the plains had amassed their tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of soldiers. And behind you was where King Leonidas with his 300 Spartan warriors and a few other Greek city states, their warriors had joined forces and came. And it was here that the 300 Spartans over a three day period made their final stand against the Persians. And even though militarily the battle was a defeat for the Spartans because all the 300 Spartans were pretty much killed and annihilated in that battle. Yet because of their courage, because of their bravery, because of their ability and their willingness to take a stand here at this place, it not only disheartened the Persians, but it also unified the Greeks to come together as a united nation almost even though they were all individual city states and many times warring with each other, all the time with. But because of the courage of Leonidas and the Spartan warriors and the battle that they fought here, the last stand that they took here against the Persians, it just rallied the entire nation of Greece, the entire country of Greece to come together and eventually were able to stop the Persian invasion and maintain their freedom. And as I'm standing here, it's just amazing. I've been here, we've been here for, I don't know, a long time. And our tour guide probably is wondering why to him this was like a place to come for five minutes and he's like not understanding why. To me this is sacred place, this is a hallowed place. Because what it means to me is the power of someone who is willing to stand up and fight for something. And as a kid who grew up being bullied because I was taught to never fight back. I was taught to not stand up for myself, to not take a stand to and spent most of my life running from any kind of conflict or confrontation Running from bullies. And so symbolically, to me, the courage of the Spartans and of King Leonidas is very, very meaningful to me. And if you've ever been in that place in your life where you weren't willing to stand up and fight for something and you allowed fear to stop you and whether it was the internal demons, the internal bullies or bullies from the outside, the adversity that you allow to stop to me, this is one of the most powerful symbols of courage and of the importance of being willing to stand up for yourself and fight for what you believe in. And I was thinking about it, of what was it about this that made what made the Spartans able to make such a stand here and that literally 300 Spartan warriors could stand up and for three days stop tens of thousands of Persia's fighting forces including their best, their most elite troops, the immortals that came on day two and just tried to take them out. And the king, King Xerxes, totally couldn't figure out why his army was still, after two days, still not able to stop this little bitty force of fighting warriors. And as I think about it, I think there are three things that made the Spartans so such an example of what it takes to win, to fight and stand up and win. One is just their passion, just that they had a cause of their. They were free men fighting for their own freedom, fighting for themselves. They weren't fighting for anyone else. They weren't fighting for money or glory or they were fighting for their lives. And it was just having that purpose, having that cause that was more than just for themselves. They were willing to fight and die here to save their freedom, to fight for the rest of their countrymen. And whenever you have a cause worth fighting for that makes you willing to say, I will not be defeated. I will not ever surrender. I will never quit. I will never give up. And when Xerxes sent his emissaries with the message, surrender your arms and King Leonidas in the famous says, come and take them. That sense of courage that comes from having a purpose worth fighting for is absolutely inspiring to me. The second thing that was inspiring is just the preparation is preparation and that is that the Spartan warriors were able to fight and defend literally have waves of thousands of enemy troops coming at them and to stand and defeat them one after another after another because of their preparation, because of the training. And the famous Spartan warrior saying was that he who sweats more in training bleeds less in battle. I'm getting attacked by a mosquito. I didn't know they had Mosquitoes in Greece, but I just got attacked by one on my nose. He who sweats more in training bleeds less in battle. And it was their preparation that they prep. Trained from childhood. They trained to be the most elite fighters, the most elite warriors in the world, physically, mentally. Their equipment, the fact that their shields and their long spears or javelins, that they could come together in the phalanx, which means they all fit together as a unit and fought and they stood as a unit because of the preparation, because of the training to not be able to bow down or give in to, or get defeated by almost an irresistible force. And yet when that irresistible force met the Spartans, they met an immovable object. And they literally slaughtered thousands and thousands and probably tens of thousands of Persians because of that. And then the final thing that I think made this such a great moral victory for the Spartans was the fact that they knew the terrain and they knew how to use the terrain, they knew how to use the space. And strategically, what they had here is you have. You have Persia coming from the north, and you have the sea. You have the sea over this direction to the west, to the east, you've got these steep, rugged mountains that are impassable. And the only thing they could do is, is you have this narrow, very narrow thing. They said at the time it was probably less than 100 meters wide. And some of the stories say it was just a little trail, but whatever it was, there's no way that they could go any other way than to come right through this space. And literally 300. It got so narrow here from the marshes and from the. Coming down from the mountains, so steep and rugged, and you can't really see it here, but it's just. There's no way you could go up it, around it, this solid thorny bushes. And they had no choice but to come right along, right around that bend and right in here. And they couldn't get attacked, they couldn't get surrounded, they couldn't get anything but just have to face 300 men. And there was. Here they came. And it just funneled them right into the. Into all the might and the courage and the fierceness of the Spartan warriors. And pretty amazing. And just learning how to understand your terrain of your world, of learning how to be prepared and just having the courage and the cause to stand up and fight for your dreams, to fight for what you believe in, and never, never, never, ever give up. I think it's just an amazingly amazing sacred place right here in this moment. And I just wanted to share it with you. I wanted to share with you the inspiration that I'm feeling. And it's pretty cold, as you can tell by the way I'm dressed. But I don't feel any of that. All I feel is just the power and the inspiration and just knowing the courage, all the blood that was spilt right here because someone was willing to stand up and fight for what they believed in. It's amazing. If you like this, if it's inspired you, I hope you'll give it a thumbs up, share it with some other people, and be ready to fight the battle for what you believe in every single day.