“As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.” – Caleb at 85 years old

“I fight every day, morning, day and night. It has become part of me now. I enjoy fighting.” – Aliko Dangote at 69 years old

The sermon this past Sunday was on courageous creativity, and the pastor used Caleb to illustrate the concept. I have read the passage in Joshua 14 plenty of times, and appreciated Caleb’s vigor in his advanced age. But I missed a whole detail about the scale of his ambition.

Here is some context on Caleb. At 40 years old, he was one of twelve men Moses sent to scout Canaan. Ten of the scouts come back afraid. They saw giants. Caleb and Joshua come back ready to take the Promised Land. They saw good land and opportunity. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered by the negative voices. As a result, the people of Israel spend forty years in the wilderness waiting for that generation of folks to die out.

Fast forward 45 years, and the Israelites have entered the Promised Land. Caleb is now 85. He comes to Joshua and says he is as strong now as the day he was sent out, and he wants what he was promised – the Hill country where the giants lived.

I missed that detail until this past Sunday. Caleb does not ask for a reward he could take with no effort. He asks for the high ground, where the fortified cities are and where the giant Anak people have a clear view of any attack heading their way. At eighty-five Caleb requests all the smoke. 

My mind went straight to an interview I watched last week. Aliko Dangote, 69, talking about how he has trained himself to fight.

Dangote started trading in 1977. In 2026, Dangote took one of his companies public in the largest IPO Africa has seen. Like Caleb, Dangote keeps choosing the mountain. He did not build a regular refinery. He built the largest single-train refinery on earth, at a cost of around twenty billion dollars, 50% bigger than anything before it. He lost five years just getting access to the land, three and a half on one parcel and a year and a half on another, blocked by people he describes as the mafia in the oil business. Midway through a decade of trying to get the project to completion, the naira fell from 156 to the dollar to over 1,900. No port or road in the country could land equipment weighing three thousand tons a piece, so he built the port and the roads. Hills everywhere.

Asked about the line between thinking big and thinking too big, Dangote said “if you think big you grow big, and if you think small you do not grow at all.” That is a man at 69 pushing himself to think bigger while his age mates are slowing down. Clearly, Caleb and Dangote share ambition in spades. Beyond that, I appreciate the absence of cynicism after experiencing such lengthy delays. 

Caleb had forty years to turn bitter. He was right about the opportunity in the land, he said so, he was overruled, and he paid for his people’s fear with four decades of his own life. By every reasonable account he should have shown up at 85 asking for ease. Instead he arrives with his appetite intact.

Dangote had 10 years of blocked land, a currency that lost more than ninety percent of its value, and aggressive rentseekers. He got the refinery done and is now gearing up to build two more, investing $16B in just one of them.

I am 14 years into a journey that will take several more decades to complete. I have had a taste of the delay and it’s not sweet. What encourages me here is that Caleb and Dangote did not let the waiting shrink what they were willing to go after. 

Give me this mountain.

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A postscript.

I am helping three friends I know and trust find their next role in the Washington, DC area. If you are hiring, or you know someone who is, and one of these sounds like your team, please send me a message, and I will make the introduction.

• Creative director and video producer (13+ years). A multimedia storyteller who founded and runs a creative studio: 80+ clients, 1,000+ videos, 40+ campaigns, and original series with 10M+ impressions and 56% engagement growth. Has led creative teams of up to 60 and mentored more than 20 emerging creatives. Fluent across the full Adobe suite, Final Cut, and CapCut. Best fit: creative producer, content strategist, brand or social content, or video producer. DC / Northern Virginia.
• Biotech professional transitioning into product and project management. M.S. Biotechnology candidate at Johns Hopkins University (Bioinformatics), with hands-on regulatory affairs experience supporting IND, NDA, and BLA submissions, early-stage venture operations, and 10+ years of event production and operations experience. Translates complex ideas into roadmaps, workflows, experiences, and executable plans, with working knowledge of Python and SQL. Target roles: Associate Product Manager, Project Manager, Product Operations, Program Manager, or Regulatory Project Manager across biotech, life sciences, healthcare, and technology. Based in DC; open to VA and remote opportunities.
• Brand and messaging strategist and storyteller with 15+ years experience. A communications leader who has directed brand and story for institutions, nonprofits, and media, including a documentary that raised $1M, and founded a subscription writing business that had paying customers in its first month. Currently a graduate student in the humanities in DC. Best fit: brand strategy, messaging, content, or communications. DC area.