It happens nearly every year. There is a convention, seminar or some other gathering where learning takes place. Perhaps it is in the conference center of a hotel, or maybe on a college campus. The location may be different, but the scenario is the same.
You have your trusty notepad. You scribble notes and cartoons, while an “expert in the field” pontificates with the help of a Powerpoint presentation.
Suddenly, the “light goes on.” You get excited about the prospects of taking these gems of new information back to the office. This is it. This is the key to future growth.
You leave the venue ready to take on the world — and win.
However, when you return to the “real world,” the demands of the day-to-day somehow take the wind out of your sails. Perhaps you even share your new revelations with a co-worker or a superior, only to be shot down with a “that won’t work here.”
Before long, you are back in the routine of doing things the way you have always done them, with no real benefit of having attended the seminar in the first place.
Does this sound familiar?
Unfortunately, this probably rings true with many of us. Before long, we quit attending seminars because we see no real benefit to investing our time and resources in them.
Where did we go wrong? Is it the presenter’s fault? Is it truly a waste of time?
Whoever coined the phrase, “knowledge is power” is only half right. It is indeed important to gain additional knowledge, but if we never put that knowledge into action, what good is it?
Will everything we learn at a seminar work in our individual businesses or markets? Certainly not. However, it is the forward-thinking and acting CEO who corners the market.
MP3 technology existed long before Apple sold its first iPod. However, it was the forward-thinking management and employees at that company that took something they learned and turned it into something that fit their company and mission.
There is an old book that really drives home the message of putting action to what has been learned. Perhaps you have even read this book. It is called, “The Bible.”
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Or if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. James 1:22-25 (KJV)
Regardless of your faith, these words form a solid business principle.
Never stop learning, but also use what you have learned.