This past weekend I went to see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra with my brother. We grew up playing with G.I. Joe figures, and watched the TV show religiously. If you watched the show, you would know that they did little public service announcements at the end of the show, giving you safety tips and other helpful information. At the end, the kid helped by said G.I. Joe would say “that’s good to know.” The G.I. Joe character would say, “And knowing is half the battle.”
They even used this in the movie, as sort of a shout out to those who watched the TV show. It just seemed so out of sorts, and kind of forced, that it got me thinking about the phrase itself.
Then I thought, “If knowing is half the battle, what’s the other half?”
It hit me like a ton of bricks: Doing
Knowing is the stuff you think about everyday – your Thoughts (the T in the WATER Method). You’ve heard the old expression, Knowledge is Power, right? Someone recently modified that to say, “the application of knowledge is power.” (Bonus points to anyone who can tell me who this is a quote from) This is what I’m talking about here.
Any of the tips I give you here are useless and meaningless without the application of that knowledge. Let me give you an example.
I was watching another movie, this time with my wife called, “Pushing 40” and it was about how Heather Locklear meets this really cool surfer dude in Hawaii that is about 23 years younger than her. He struts onto the screen, with an 8-pack for a stomach and in great shape.
“I wish I looked like that!” I said to my wife, who quickly responded, “I wish you looked like that too.” At that point, my dog started telling me that she needed to go outside, so I leashed her up and headed outside.
As I looked at the sky and thought about what I had just said. Then it dawned on me:
I didn’t want to look like that guy. If I did I would do something about it. Sure, I knew what I had to do to look like that guy, but was I willing to do it? Nope. I didn’t want to work hard to get that body, I wanted it to magically be given to me without any work.
That’s what I’m talking about here. Knowing is half the battle. Doing is the other half. If you know what you want, and know how to get it, but you don’t take any Action on that knowledge, then knowing is only half the Result as well.
I guess what I’m challenging you to do today is consider the other half. If you know how to get what you want, and you’re not doing anything to get it…well, then what are you doing? Take Action on that knowledge and change your life. Challenge yourself every day to act on the knowledge you have.
It doesn’t have to be just an idea, but I can’t do anything more than give you the first half. You gotta pick up the other half and do something about it. If you’re not sure how to act on that other half, that’s OK, shoot me a brief comment here and I’ll see what I can do to help you come up with a plan.
What do you think? Tell me your stories of how you took action and improved your life. Talk to me.
The other half of “knowing” is where to find it (the knowledge). This means it takes time and hard work to find true, accurate and tested information. The harder you work to find the information, the more knowledgeable you will be.
Doing is not half of knowing. It’s separate. Doing follows knowing.
Pablo,
I think that you misunderstand what I’m trying to say here. The statement is “Knowing is Half the Battle.” Meaning that the Battle is a whole object. Half of it is Knowing. There’s another half to it, and I believe that’s Doing. It’s as if “the Battle” were an orange, and I cut it in half. The right side is Knowing. The left side is Doing.
Make sense? 🙂
today, i was fired. but as i was in the first stages of my reaction i couldn’t think clearly about the situation, besides that i couldn’t go back to my grandparents’s house and tell them. they’d lower my self-esteem! so what i did instead was thought about what actually happened and what was wrong. there are some legal issues that were done to me as well. so now that i know all that is wrong with me getting fired, i have to do what i can to make sure that gets acknowledged and i get back what i’ve lost.
Mitchie,
Glad to hear that you are taking your life back! Your introspection seems to have paid off! Hang in there and keep your head up.
i love watching GI Joe, both the cartoon series and the movie. I am hoping that they would make a sequel. “
GI JOE cartoons and the GI JOE Movie are all great stuff ~~:
i remeber GI JOE when i was still a kid, this was my favorite cartoon`”~
the baroness of GI Joe is the character i love, she is beautiful and deadly “”
Jim, I like the doing part..I was trying to explain to my wife that I don’t really know what I want or I would be going after it. I, in my mature stage of life don’t have any savings to speak of, a good job but who knows about these things now a days.. I have, of late started to pin down some of these illusive things. There is such a big importance in actually seeing what you want, before you even have it.
Thanks Jim. I just found your story, and enjoyed it very much. I also remember GI Joe from my childhood, but hadn’t come to this answer as quickly as you have. Eventually, I stopped thinking about it and the meaning was wasted. This was insightful. Thank you. Happy New Year.
Thanks for chiming in guys! Glad to hear the lesson was applicable to your life. I find myself getting caught up in knowing rather than doing a lot these days, and it seems I have to get back on the doing bandwagon too! :