It’s Not What You Know, It’s What You Do!
I work with many business owners and sales people who have invested heavily in their education and personal development and who have a deep knowledge of their subject, yet who are not seeing the results they anticipated. In fact, that’s why most of them come to me… they realise that they need accountability and coaching so that they can effectively implement the theory they already know.
One of the things that makes working with people so endlessly fascinating is our different strengths and preferences. I love ideas… and the thing that I love most about them is the possibilities they present for testing in real life.
When I first discovered the power of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) I was fascinated by the theory because of the possibilities of its application in everyday life outside the training room. My response was to practice each technique in every possible situation and to master them all. It wasn’t until I went to my NLP Master Practitioner Certification that I realised how many people who had learned these same techniques had tucked them aside in the ‘knowledge’ part of their brain rather than using them.
The problem with this approach is that your unused knowledge is as effective as ignorance in creating desirable outcomes – that is to say, if you have knowledge but don’t apply it, you might just as well have conserved the time, energy, and money you spent acquiring it.