Knowledge we don't use turns into 'intellectual fat.' Real power is putting what you've learned into practice.
Is knowledge power?
You’ve probably heard that phrase more than once. And in a lot of situations, having the right knowledge really can save you from a bad move or a problem.
But alongside that, I often see people carrying a huge amount of knowledge in their heads that they never actually use. Their life doesn’t get better in practice.
Because knowledge we don’t use turns into “intellectual fat.”
In a lot of my courses, I use this example: if someone rowing a boat down a river only paddles with one oar, they’ll just go in circles. If we only ever learn but never apply new ideas to our lives, that’s basically the same as rowing hard with just one oar.
But when we learn and apply what we’ve learned (using both oars), the boat of our life moves forward, and we feel real progress.
I noticed the other day that my YouTube channel has already crossed 1 million total views across all videos.
So I decided to start taking this platform seriously, instead of just dumping podcast recordings onto it, like we’ve been doing.
I called my friend Fedya, who’s a real expert on YouTube. His channel has over 500,000 subscribers and hundreds of millions of views. We agreed on a mentorship, and we already had our first Zoom call today.
He’s not just telling me about our mistakes on YouTube and showing me new strategies — we’re also making real changes to my channel together, live, in real time.
I make it a point not to let new knowledge sit in a drawer. Learn it, apply it. Right away.
There have been so many situations in my life where an idea I put off “for a couple of days” ended up being put off forever.
So, based on everything above, I think knowledge is potential power. Real power is putting what you’ve learned into practice.
Do you manage to apply what you learn without delay?