Brian Gubernick argues that knowledge alone isn't power, citing his own experience reading thousands of pages without acting on them. He proposes the equation knowledge × action = power, and challenges listeners to audit what they've learned in the past month and build action plans around unimplemented insights.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today I'd like to discuss knowledge, and specifically that knowledge is is not exactly power, which is contrary to what so many of us have heard for years and years, which is the opposite, that knowledge is power. But today I want to talk about how knowledge actually isn't power. Now, let's start by talking about the phrase knowledge is power. It's attributed to the philosopher, the scientist Francis Bacon, and, and he wrote it in a piece of work, and he had said in that piece of work that knowledge itself is power. However, if you dig a little deeper, what you may find is that quote was taken a bit out of context. See, I believe that knowledge actually isn't power, and I'll tell you why I believe that through firsthand experience. Firsthand experience being that late last year, early this year, I realized when I was looking at my bookshelf how many books I've actually read but done nothing with. In other words, I've read thousands upon thousands, maybe tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pages over the years. But I, you know, it pains me to say it, the action has lacked. In other words, I haven't done anything with that knowledge. So I know it may sound a little silly to think about it this way, but I gained a ton of knowledge from reading and studying. I've gained a ton of knowledge from listening to podcasts and, and watching TED Talks and speaking with my mentors and studying the works of others. I've accumulated an awful lot of knowledge over my 44 years, but that doesn't actually equate to more power. See, what equates to more power are the actions taken around that knowledge. Maybe a better way to say this, the guy or girl that reads one chapter but takes action around that one chapter will always beat the guy or girl that reads 10 chapters and does nothing with that information. That person that read 10 chapters may be knowledgeable about the subject, more knowledgeable about the subject, but the person that just read one-tenth but took the action steps around that knowledge, they win. So I get to thinking this, and, you know, along the same time as I'm staring at my bookshelf realizing how many books there are that I in fact read and didn't take action around. One of those books was a book written by a guy named Jim Kwik known as Limitless, which many of you may have read before. And as I was thumbing through that book, uh, Jim actually talks about this idea that knowledge for knowledge's sake is somewhat pointless, pointless, but knowledge for doing's sake and actually taking the steps to do it, well, that's what matters. And as I was reading that, it made me think about this equation that knowledge does not equal power, but it's knowledge times action that in fact equals power. So I want to make today a little shorter, a little quicker, but I just want you thinking about all of the things that you've learned. Let's just, let's just look at the things you've learned over the past, say, 30 days. What have you learned? What have you read? What have you been able to study? Who have you talked to that you grabbed, you know, you took a nugget of wisdom from, but you've yet to take action and implement? You've yet to take action and apply that knowledge. Where does that lie? Where does that live for you? And of course, how do you knock that off and take action today? How do you take this knowledge and put it to work for you today? That's the focusing question. I'll tell you, for me, what I realized, telling you about the books and the hundreds of thousands of pages I've read, but the action I have not taken in relation with that 100,000, I made a pledge to myself that I am going to greatly limit the quantity of new books that I read in this year, and that I instead go back, review the the underlined words, the flagged pages, the highlighted sections in all of these books I've read, and put an action plan together around those things. See, the knowledge was great, but it's the knowledge times the action that gives us the power. That's all I have for today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day, brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
