“This is the day of unlimited knowledge, but not unlimited wisdom. Our trouble is that our wisdom hasn’t kept up with our knowledge.”
– Barefoot Ben, born Charles Ben Wilson in Kentucky (1883 – 1969)
The root of the word “knowledge” is “know.” The root of the word “wisdom” is “wise.”
One can be knowledgeable without being wise, but it doesn’t work the other way. You simply can’t be wise without knowledge. So, it begs the question? Wisdom or knowledge?
The knowledge doesn’t have to be directly related to be applicable to gaining wisdom. Dick Heston, my high-school-educated dad, worked in a factory and ran a small (360-acre) farm. He hand-fed cattle and harvested crops without the benefit of huge, cutting-edge machinery. Granted, I’m biased, seein’s how he was my dad, but I still think he could run most of the corporations I’ve encountered pretty well by simply deploying the wisdom he used on the farm:
• Plant as early as you can, but not too early. If the soil’s not warm enough, it ain’t gonna grow.
• Once it’s planted, nurture it. Fertilize it, keep the weeds out, and do what you can to protect it from nature’s extremes.
• If a flood wipes out a crop, that crop is gone. No more attention should be paid it. What comes next matters most.
• Harvest as late as you can, but not too late. Let Mother Nature dry the grain, not the electric company.
• If you knew it should have been done and didn’t do it, it’s your fault.
• If you knew someone shouldn’t have done it, and you didn’t speak up, it’s at least partly your fault.
• If you did it, even if it was your idea, give someone else who needs it most of the credit.
• Focus relentlessly on what is in your control, and don’t sweat the things that aren’t.
• Every so often – more often than you think – just sit and reflect, or take a walk and think about what comes next.
• Find a way to help someone else every day.
Most of that doesn’t get taught at B-Schools. But today, with so much information masquerading as knowledge, we owe it to ourselves to seek wisdom.
Daily, we might get a couple dozen chances to cultivate some knowledge, and probably only two or three opportunities to gain and / or leverage our wisdom. We gotta look harder for the few opportunities to make a difference, sometimes at the expense of just “getting smarter.”
I wonder if Dad’s met ol’ Barefoot Ben up there yet…and whether they’ve shared a Snooker table and a few tales about how to make a difference?
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