If you looked for greatness in the ranks of British forces during World War I, your eyes would not have naturally landed on a man named Thomas Edward Lawrence.

This rather skinny and slovenly lieutenant didn’t have superior physical skills. He was actually a bit clumsy, truth be told. And he didn’t have outstanding ability communicating with others either. He was something of a misfit outcast in the eyes of his fellow officers.

Lawrence, however, was tenacious. He didn’t back down or give up. He would prove his determination by holding a lit match—his eyes glowing with intensity as he watched it burn—till the flame extinguished itself on his fingertips. “That hurts!” a fellow soldier once proclaimed after trying the same maneuver. “What’s the trick?” “The trick … is not minding that it hurts,” Lawrence responded.

As to Lawrence and greatness, it can be said that he had a great respect for knowledge and a great loathing of boredom. So, when a representative from the Arab Bureau suggested that he head off into the desert to assess the prospects of the Arab Prince Feisal in his revolt against the Turks, the change-seeking officer leapt at the chance.

Lawrence was simply supposed to observe, keep his mouth shut and report back to the bureau. After all, the Arab revolt was a weak and shoddy one at best. The various Arab tribes were too busy fighting with each other to be an effective army in the field.

All the Arab Bureau and the British army wanted to know, then, was if those undisciplined, nearly useless forces could help the war effort at all.

Lawrence saluted crisply and set off to the blazing heat of the vast sunbaked desert with a smile on his lips. For if there was one thing that Lawrence’s studies had shown him, it was that the Bedouin tribes were far from useless. Where British forces would labor, sweat and inch their way through the insufferable heat and windswept dunes, those camel-riding warriors were swift and impossible to pin down—much like the desert sand itself.

So, when the British army demands that Prince Feisal retreat after a military defeat against the more modernly armed Turks, Lawrence ignores his orders and voices an opinion to the Arab leader. Feisal is intrigued by Lawrence’s bold suggestion: an unexpected attack using the Arab strengths and the Turk’s weaknesses.

Feisal gives Lawrence charge over 50 men. With that, the undermanned and under armed lieutenant conceives and executes a surprise attack on a key port city that a force of thousands would have failed at.

But that’s not all.

During that outlandish stratagem, Lawrence not only meets new trusted friends among the Arab forces, but he also helps form a makeshift bond between tribesmen who would normally be at each other’s throats. It’s nothing short of a miracle.

It’s also the beginning of greatness.