At some point, we all hear the saying, “Knowledge is power.”

Have you ever notice that there are times the knowledge you have did not command the power that came with it and other times the same knowledge did command the power that came with it?

Knowlegde Is Not Power

Knowledge gives choices.

When Peter Drucker wrote these words in his article, Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself, an echo reached out to me inside my mind.

• You have the power to choose.
• You have the power to choose what you know.
• You have the power to excersise what you choose to know.

Knowledge is useless if you do not choose to excersise the power of what you do know. We develop our mind with the information we choose to believe regardless of where we acquire our information from.

Observe the mind of a child and you will notice when a child ask you a question, you are passing on your knowledge. The child will choose to absorb your knowledge as a fact or as fiction. In the process, the child will begin to develop who the child wants to become with that knowledge.

Power Is A Mysterious Thing

To succeed in this new world, we will have to learn, first, who we are.

This line illustrates the power of what we choose to know for that information will shape the course of our lifetime. It is with this power we use the knowledge we have to mold the course of our own history.

As the pieces of the puzzle falls into place, we begin to identify who we are, who we want to be, and who we will become. These pieces of the puzzle will be the result of our action, to choose what we know.

There will come a time when you know the decision you make will be an important one. One that will shape your history no matter what the outcome will be. You will make that decision based on your knowledge by saying no to all the other choices that does not fit your decision.

Every time you do something that is important, write down what you expect will happen.

By recording your decision, you will be able to excersise the power of your knowledge down the road later in life. By learning from the results of your action based on your knowledge then and know, you will begin to build your strengths.

It is the same way a person learns how to read an write, that a c is not an e nor is it an o. When the person begins to learn the difference between c, e, o and interpret the letters correctly, the power of reading and writing materializes.

Let’s review the finer points of this post.

• You have the knowledge.
• You have power within you.
• Your knowledge gives you choices.
• Your knowledge gives you the choices to which you can excersise your power.

Resources

• Peter Drucker’s Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself

Editor’s note: I highly recommend taking the time to read this article which was published during the Spring of 2000 in the Leader to Leader Journal # 16. Peter Drucker is reknown for his thoughts on leadership and how to apply the principles of leadership in business.