“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~
In August of 2004, I got a phone call from my mother asking if I had heard the news yet. Alberto Christini had just swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco with both his hands and feet bound, becoming only the second person ever to have done so.
I was floored. Not because he had made it, because I had no doubt it could be done. Jack Lalanne had proven that. No, I was upset that he'd done the swim, period. I was mad!
It was like he had “stolen” my idea. Of course, he hadn’t stolen anything. He just got the same idea as me and acted on it. Did you get that? He got the same idea as I had and acted on it.
Imagine that—a guy living in Italy comes up with basically the same idea as I had. Then, he gets on a plane, flies to America, and actually does the swim.
And though I was going to do the swim myself, and thought I'd be the second to have done so, none of that mattered now. The truth is, action is the only thing that really matters. Ideas, or intentions, are a dime a dozen.
And so that’s how I ended up becoming the third and not the second person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco with my hands and feet bound.
Has anything like that ever happened to you? You’ve got this great idea, but don’t do anything with it and before you know it someone else does. If so, read on.
DON’T WAIT
I am convinced that one of the biggest differences between high achievers and most everyone else is that high achievers are much more action oriented.
They don’t just think about doing something or just talk about doing something, they actually do it. Right then and there. There is a lot of power in that. And that’s what I want for you.
The problem is that we buy into the false belief that “knowledge is power.” We read a book or take a course and believe that somehow it's going to miraculously help us. But I've found that it’s just not true.
I mean, think about all of the things you have learned over the years and then you did absolutely nothing with the information. Sure, while you may be more educated, the bottom-line is if you don’t use it, it’s really not that helpful to you, is it?
Please don’t get me wrong—I am certainly not against education, far from it. I just want you to understand that it’s not enough to hear or read something in order to know it. To truly know it, you’ve got to use it.
There is an old adage that applies here. It comes from the Chinese philosopher Confucius and he said this: “What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, but what I do I understand.” The power is in the doing.
Well, that's it for now. Until next time...
Keep reaching,
Jay