No B.S Friday: Knowledge is great, but it only gets you so far.
My ninth grade history teacher was right. It is fun to learn new things.
Well, sometimes. It does depend on what you're learning. If I were to use this blog to outline the 20th busiest shipping ports in the European Union, you would learn something, but you're not going to thank me for it.
But when you learn something useful that is when knowledge is power and there's a thrill that comes when you feel like you're becoming more powerful.
However, there's a trap here. Unless we translate that knowledge into action, It's not much better than useless.
And that's where I think a lot of people get stuck. They get hooked on the thrill of knowledge.
But they never do anything with it.
I mean, think about the news. What is the news if not half an hour’s worth of information that you're never going to use.
I mean, it's interesting. And it's good to have an awareness about what's going on in the world. But how much of that information are you actually going to use?
And working in the space of personal empowerment and financial education, ths is something I see a lot.
I knew a woman once who would burn through books on self development like she was chain-smoking cigarettes.
It was Tony Robbins one week, and Mindvalley the next. She had a notebook with a different 10-point action plan on every other page.
And it was all very interesting. She found it fascinating. She loved comparing different philosophies. She found the characters intriguing. She found the student success stories better than any soap opera.
But it was only ever entertainment for her.
Because she never took the time to put all of that knowledge into action.
And because she was never taking any action she was never getting anywhere. She was stuck. Which meant that she felt she had to read more books on personal development and financial success.
And, truth be told, I actually think that she was in the thrall of her laziness Demon. We all have a laziness Demon. And once her demon realised that it could avoid doing any real work if it could entice her to read one more book, then that's what it did.
It was a healthy sort of addiction I guess. There are definitely worse things to be hooked on. There are worse ways to pass away your idle hours.
But if you could get rich just by reading books, they would teach reading in school.
(Maybe they did. I wasn't paying attention.)
And so the point I want to make is that reading and knowledge (and podcasts and seminars) only get you so far.
Action is what matters.
And if I had to throw some numbers at it, I would say that for every hour you spend reading you should spend four hours putting that knowledge into action.
I'd even say that it's better to read the same book 5 times, then read five different books.
And if you can't read the same book 5 times because you get bored, then you're reading for entertainment not for empowerment.
Knowledge has to be a servant of action, not the other way around.
So get focused. Make action the priority this year.
JG.
Ness says
Yes, the personal development trap!