I’ve often heard "Knowledge is power," supposedly first coined by Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon was an interesting guy, but in this particular case he was wrong. Knowledge is not power, it’s leverage. If I know something, but choose not to act, I’m powerless. If I have no persistence, courage, and motivation to couple with my knowledge, nothing happens.

In physics, power is work per unit time. Knowledge increases efficiency, but it doesn’t do anything all by itself. If I have only knowledge, nothing great happens. But as I increase my knowledge, I add a little more length to the pry bar. If I have enough pertinent knowledge, I have a huge bar. Perhaps with that lever and enough effort and persistence and courage, I can move the world. But with just a big lever, nothing happens.

I’ve spent most of my life as a scholar, believing it was the lever that mattered. It took me until my 40s to figure out that lever is just one piece.

Filed under: Do what I say not what I do

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