THE POWER OF IMPLEMENTING

We often talk about “knowledge being power,” and indeed, it can be. Yet there is a much greater power and that is the power of acting on knowledge, putting knowledge to work— or to use the language that best describes this power, this is the power of implementing knowledge. Knowing something means you have a mental understanding and possibly an accurate mental map about how to navigate something, but having a map by which you could navigate a certain territory is not the same as being actually able to navigate that territory.

In NLP we talk about this as the difference between map and territory and quote Alfred Korzbyski’s famous statement, “The map is not the territory.” Hand almost any adult a map of Hawaii or Bali or London or Sydney and no one thinks that the map is anyone of those places. It merely refers to those places or some other place. And if you know how to use a map, it gives you a way to get around when you are there.

This doesn’t mean that the map is not important. It is! In so many areas of life, if you do not have a map to navigate some experience, you will not get things right, and you could mess things up, and you could even die. So yes, maps are important. They are important for understanding, comprehending, for information about what to do, where to go, who to ask, how to think, etc. But a map doesn’t create the experience, you have to do that, and the map will help, but it is not sufficient. More is required.

What else is required for success? You have to take action on the information that the map that you have provide. You have to do something about your maps. When you enter a restaurant and the waiter hands you a menu, you now have in your hands access to a lot of information— information about the possibilities of dining in that restaurant. But the menu is not enough. Would you be satisfied if that’s all you got? After using the information to make a decision, you have to communicate what you want. Then, after the meal comes, you have to eat it if you want the nourishment and delight of the meal which that restaurant provides.

If somehow you get disoriented and think that the map is the territory or the menu is the meal, then you begin biting down on the map and trying to chew it. Not wise. It is just a menu, not the meal.

Implementation describes the process of taking something that you know and translating it into action that actually uses the knowledge. Implementation is then the power of knowledge activated. Implementation, in fact, is the design of knowledge. It is what knowledge is for! To know something and not act on it is to misuse knowledge. It is to miss the opportunity that the

knowledge provides. Why do you learn things in the first place? Isn’t it so that you can take effective action and do whatever it is that you need to do that will translate your beliefs and understandings into reality?

That’s what implementation is all about. Implementation is, as we say, “where the rubber hits the road.” It is the putting into one’s body, one’s neurology, one’s action, and one’s lifestyle the information that one has come to know. It is then executing that knowledge so that it becomes real to you and in your life.

Obviously this is a tremendous power and separates those who just talk about doing and those who do. It separates those who turn their dreams, visions, and values into reality and those who keep dreaming but do not fulfill their visions. Do you have this power? Do you regularly and consistently act on what you know to do and especially in the areas that are critically important to you?

Actually, you do have this power. It may not be in the critical areas that you want it, but in some areas, you act on what you know. So if you want to develop this power, begin by identifying those areas where you already do what you know. To do so, think small and simple. What knowledge do you naturally, inevitably, and regularly translate into action? Spend a day or a week or even longer observing and reflecting on events in your life that fits this pattern?

Once you do that, now identify the areas where you want to do this, where you want to transfer this power. What are those areas? As you think about acting on what you know, what stops you? Is it a feeling, a belief, an attitude, a fear, or what? What stops you from acting? Does it seem too risky? If so, what would you be risking to do so? Is it forbidden? If so, by whom? What is not allowed? Who took permission away from you?

What do you need to believe about yourself in order to implement what you know? What do you need to believe about taking action to implement? What do you need to decide?

As you develop implementation power, your identity changes. You become an implementer of what you know. When you experience a moment of insight or enter a scene of knowledge, you don’t leave it without taking some action. And no matter how small that action, it is the beginning of a new momentum. This is what people commonly report after the run the Mind-to- Muscle Pattern a dozen or more times. They talk about how they have now built a habit of implementation. They talk about how they can’t just think or talk or know something, they have to act on it! To your highest and best in terms of implementation!