I grew up loving the cartoon G.I. Joe. G.I. Joe told the story of elite special forces agents battling against the evil terrorist organization Cobra. There was quite a cast of characters.
I fondly remember Duke, Shipwreck, Flint, Lady Jaye, Roadblock, and others. Those are just the good guys. Then you had the evil Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness, Zartan, and more. The good guys encouraged viewers to do the right thing.
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
For a period of time, G.I. Joe hosted PSAs (Public Service Announcements) that encouraged kids to think about their actions. They’d always end the PSA with the tagline:
Now you know and knowing is half the battle.
Check out this one below –
Knowing Is Only Half The Battle
Each clip showed a child learning something new. Whether that means not judging others, being cautious with the information you share with strangers, or other life lessons we need to know.
G.I. Joe helped keep kids safe by sharing the knowledge they had. But they shared another tidbit.
Knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle. You can have all the knowledge in the world. However, if you didn’t act on the knowledge, you could still fail.
The world’s knowledge is out there for you. Whether it’s through blogs like this, podcasts, seminars, or one-on-one training. You can gather all the knowledge and still not make progress.
Why is that?
It’s because knowledge is only half the battle. You need to act or implement the knowledge you’ve gained.
How To Implement Your Knowledge
After you’ve studied, learned, and grown your knowledge, you have to take it a step further. You have to act, or implement, on that knowledge.
How do you do this?
Assess what you know:
You don’t know what you know if you don’t assess your knowledge base. You need to catalog what you’ve learned.
This can be achieved through journal entries, lists in notebooks, Excel spreadsheets, or any other form of tracking your knowledge. The more you track, the more you’ll see how your knowledge has grown.
Find your strongest areas:
You now know what you know. But where are you strongest? Where do you truly shine?
Rank what you know by skill level and enjoyment level.
Why use both of these? Skill will only get you so far. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you won’t continue doing it for very long. When you add the enjoyment factor to it, you get the one-two whammy.
Your strongest areas of knowledge come from knowing and enjoying.
Find a place where you can use the knowledge:
Now you know what you know and you know what your strongest areas are. It’s not time for you to find a place where you can use the knowledge to excel.
That place could be a new organization. It may be shifting where you are in the organization. Or it might not be at an organization at all. You may find that you need to apply your knowledge to enhance your home life, family relationships, or hobbies.
When you find a place where your knowledge can be applied, utilize it effectively. You’ll find that acting on your knowledge is even better than learning about it.
