Knowledge is Power...If used correctly

Sir Francis Bacon coined the phrase that Knowledge is Power. Knowledge is indeed powerful but knowledge by itself is not so powerful. For knowledge to become truly powerful, one must apply that knowledge effectively. I have met some very smart people in my years who had a lot of knowledge. They could dazzle you with how much they knew.

Early in my career, I was easily intimidated by folks who knew more than me. I was impressed with their great ideas, their presentations of those ideas and the plans that they had made to take them to a lofty level of success. One of my managers would continually bring these smart people's ideas to me and ask why I had not thought of that and why were we not doing that. For someone inexperienced with just a little bit of a self-confidence issue at the time, that could be demoralizing. I beat myself up as to why I could not have more of those creative ideas myself.

One day I made an important discovery about those folks in the organization I was with who had all of that knowledge and were so much smarter than me. I was ahead of them in the production standings. Turns out that while they may have been pretty smart, I was seeing more people and telling my story more often than they were. I was simply doing what I should have been doing every day....Seeing people and asking those people to buy. As a result, I was outproducing the smarter than me folks. My own ideas and presentations, while they may have seemed simple to some, were working. The ideas were working because I was working. I refused to be intimidated by folks who appeared to be smarter than me again.

Knowledge also becomes powerful if you know how to communicate that knowledge to folks in a manner that they will understand and comprehend. Communicating your knowledge to someone just to show you have the knowledge is not powerful, it actually works in reverse. You appear condescending and arrogant. The ability to communicate your knowledge to folks in a manner they understand and appreciate makes knowledge incredibly powerful.

Knowledge is powerful and there truly are people who know more than I do and some of them do apply that knowledge incredibly effectively. Each day I am amazed at how much I still have to learn.

Apply and communicate your knowledge effectively if you truly want to feel the Power of Knowledge!

Remember it is what you do everyday that counts!

Lano