Is knowledge really power?

If you owned 30,000 books (say the entire library of a university), would you be richer?

Not really. In fact, you would be poorer since you'd have to pay for the staff, the janitor, the maintenance, the record-keeping, etc.

So why do people say that "knowledge is power"?

Isn't it more accurate to say "knowledge is a big expense"?

Indeed, knowledge is always an expense until you apply it and get a return on your time/cash investment in acquiring knowledge.

Example:

I spent $1,600 over the last few years in acquiring the very best books in business, management, marketing, personal development, psychology, spirituality, philosophy, politics, economics, futurism, entrepreneurship, etc.

I've made more than $1,600 in coaching, consulting, workshop delivery, etc. so I can basically say that it was a good investment.

The award-winning journalist Diane Francis once asked me how to calculate the return on one's professional development. That was a few years ago, and I didn't have the answer then.

I have the answer today. You just have to look at the return on your investment (in acquiring knowledge or skills). Specifically, you look at how MUCH, how SOON and how SURE you can get a return.

The MUCH and the SURE aspects refer to the payoff and the probability that the payoff will actually materialize. Finance people will easily recognize the EMV concept in action (expected monetary value).

Example: you spend 30 minutes watching the evening news on TV. That's 30 minutes of your life that you will never get back.

So what is the payoff (in the future) of having the information communicated by the new anchor? In other words, can you use the information in the future in order to create value and get paid for it? Probably not.

Here, the probability doesn't matter because the payoff is zero.

Conclusion: investing 30 minutes of your life watching the evening news is not a good investment.

Make no mistake: the rich guard their time like as if it were a divine commodity.

Billionaire Donald Trump for example expects the CEOs of his companies to report to him over the phone, and to keep their report under 40 seconds. (He can actually be doing something else while listening to the 40-minute report, thereby maximizing the use of his time).

So to answer the question "Is knowledge really power?", I would have to say No.

Knowledge is like a samurai sword. How useful it is depends a great deal on the skill of the person wielding it, as well as the context in which you find yourself. That sword obviously has more value if a tiger is staring at you and is about to pounce on you, but less value if you're just walking down the street.

Finally, it seems that the more knowledge a person has, the more burdened he is. Better to be "intensive", as Baltasar Gracian would say, than to be "extensive."

Knowledge may have been power in the days where access to knowledge was difficult, but today, knowledge and information are so readily available that the winners will be those who master and wield knowledge the way skilled swordsmen wield samurai swords.