Training Day and Leo Tolstoy
This will make sense when you read it.
Pulling directly from A Calendar of Wisdom, by Leo Tolstoy. Today’s entry, May 11th you can read the following:
“The moving force of our perception, both for individuals, and for whole nations, its not the understanding of what exists in this world, but the understanding of what can be achieved.”
It’s not knowing what you can do but actually doing it. Where you stop planning and actually take the first step. When you decide you have enough research and you’re going to get started. Often, we tell ourselves to read more books or go back to school for our second masters. No, just stop delaying. Stop acquiring more information and knowledge and get to work. Just start.
You must understand that you are capable. You can do it, what it is. You could know everything there is about chemistry or finance. However, unless you have actually done the work in the given field, do you actually know anything? Are you as much of an expert as you think you are? Do you really know what it takes?
In the 2001 film Training Day there is a great line that sums this all up. Alonzo Harris played by Denzel Washington tells an officer he is training for the day Jack Hoyt, played by Ethan Hawke, “it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.”
You can draw up all the conclusions. You can have all the facts in your hand ready to present. However, can you prove it? Do you know what can be achieved? That is the chief question we must carry with us.
Thought Provoking Question 1 : What can you achieve? What will you do to get there?
It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.
Dan Roman is a Husband, Father, and writer that releases a daily blog. A quick read on sharing wisdom and asking though-provoking questions.
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