Knowledge is Power!

That is what I use to think until I learned …

I don’t know about you, but I have been taught for years that, “Knowledge is power!”  Seems pretty logical that if you know stuff (the right stuff, of course) that it should help you in your life.  Right? 

But there I was, a college graduate, had been successful in my career for many years.  I had been reading personal and professional development material for years and thought I had a good handle on what it took to be successful in life.  But there I was – miserable.  My work stopped being “fun” years earlier.  I felt lost.

What am I going to do? 

Well, I did what I knew to do, I picked up another book and started reading.  I was looking for the answer that had been eluding me.  This time I picked up a book that I had tried to read several times before but had not finished.  I knew it was a good book.  I knew it was filled with powerful ideas and content.   I knew a lot of people that had told me what a difference the book made it their lives.  But it was still a challenging read for me. 

After a few days I made it through the first four chapters.  No doubt that it was good material, but nothing really was jumping off the pages at me.  Then I was just starting the fifth chapter.  Something started to happen when I got to the second paragraph.  It said …

“Knowledge will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed, through practical plans of action, to the definite end of accumulation of money.  Lack of understanding of this fact has been the source of confusion to millions of people who falsely believe that “knowledge is power.” 

I had read this paragraph before several times, but it never caught my eye the way that it did this time.  Something inside me caused me to stop and reread those couple of sentences, over and over.  What caught me was the author’s idea that knowledge wasn’t power.  He was challenging a belief that I had for some time.  I had been taught for years that “Knowledge was power!”

After dwelling on those first few sentences I read on.  In the same paragraph the author went on to say, “Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.” 

Again, I dwelled on the meaning of these two sentences, much like I did the first two sentences in that paragraph.  After a while, the idea that knowledge is “only potential power” made some sense when you add the concept that knowledge must be “organized into definite plans” and “directed to a definite end.” 

The proverbial “light bulb” was coming on in my mind as I kept rereading that paragraph. 

This was really hitting home, then I went on to read, “… the failure of educational institutions to teach their students how to organize and use knowledge after they acquire it.” 

I was becoming engrossed in what the author was telling me.  As I continued to read, he said, “An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge.  An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants”

I realized that day that I had been an acquirer of knowledge for years but had not learned how to consistently put that knowledge to use.  I had become very good and saying, “I know that.” But i wasn’t very good and saying, “I can do that.” 

I could feel my mind being stretched that day as I continued to read.  The author went on to say that success “calls for power” and power comes with the ability to organize and intentionally use knowledge. 

Then something else really jumped off the page.  It said that “… knowledge does not, necessarily, have to be in the possession of the man …” seeking success.  WOW!  This was another eye-opening thought. 

The chapter went on to say that the educated man is a person who can coordinate the activities of the right people who have the collective knowledge to achieve the desired results.   This gave me new-found hope! 

By now, you are probably wondering what book was I reading?  The book was published in 1937 by Napoleon Hill.  It is a timeless book filled with principles that can change a life for the better and it provides examples of people who actually did change their lives from using these principles.  People like:

• Andrew Carnegie (founder of US Steel)
• Henry Ford (had less than a sixth-grade education but built a world changing company)
• Thomas Edison (had less than three months of formal education yet became one of this country’s greatest inventors)

What book was I reading?  It was Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.

The point of this article is not to continue to share the results of how this book changed my life – although it truly has.  It changed my life that day and continues to today.  The real point of this article is to help you see that real education doesn’t just come from going to school.  It comes from investing time in yourself every day / every week studying good material that can open your mind to the possibilities; material that can help you see things you didn’t see before. 

Studying a book like Think and Grow Rich can change your life.  It has been doing just that for decades now.   But this is not a book that is meant to be read once; it is meant to be studied over a lifetime.  To become the master of your own destiny requires you to grow and mature over time.  The success you want won’t happen without a consistent effort on your part.

If you are planning to study this material, I would also like to suggest that you find a group of like-minded people that can help you understand, embrace and apply these principles.  The book certainly changed my life that day I was reading chapter five “Specialized Knowledge.”  But the real impact of this book came when I joined a study group led by a guy named Tim Burgess.  He was doing a weekly conference call where we studied a chapter a week from Think and Grow Rich.  That was over ten years ago. 

Tim continues to lead a weekly study series on Think and Grow Rich.  Today he calls the study series Think and Grow Rich Simplified.  Tim has personally been studying this book every day for over twenty-four years and I can tell you that this material truly saved his life.  To learn more about Tim’s story join him some Thursday at 9:00 PM (EST).  This book has made such a massive impact on Tim’s life that he now has a passion for helping other people see the power of these principles.  If you would like to learn more about Tim’s study group click on the following link – Think and Grow Rich Simplified.