Intellectual Knowledge VS Practical Knowledge
There are lots of smart people in the world. Many of them have something that they excel at while they're mediocre or just plain bad at other things. No one is perfect at everything in my experience.
I don't claim to be a psychologist, a counselor, or honestly anything other than what i am, someone who lives on planet earth. I do, however, know myself and my experiences in life. From those experiences I can sometimes help others to see that they are not the only person who has ever experienced that event or problem. Because really one of the worst feelings in the world is to think you are all alone in your misery. That no one else has experienced the frustration, anger, sadness, or other emotion quite like you are now. Just knowing that someone else made it thru the problem and came out alright on the other side is an enormous relief for most folks.
In the spirit of sharing my experience I have noticed something about myself. I think I am a pretty smart fella. And the reality is that I am in comparison to many people. BUT, I am also pretty down right dumb compared to lots of others. So when I learn something interesting it sort of bumps that perception of intellectual superiority a bit. That is a problem. The reason is simple, I didn't actually apply that knowledge, turning it from intellectual knowledge into practical knowledge. This is the reason, or partly anyway, that some people I have known and felt this fake superiority towards have surpassed me in success in many areas that I thought I was far ahead of them. I intellectually knew how to do something but I never actually had applied it or only half assed it, not giving it an honest effort.
I know this entry is getting wordy so let me show you the stark reality between the two types of knowledge.
Intellectual Knowledge - of or relating to the intellect or faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic matters.
Practical Knowledge - of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas.
The first one is simply knowing something in an abstract or academic way while the second is the actual use or application of knowledge. This is a very large difference between success and failure in my opinion when combined with persistence. The truth of a thing is in the doing not the seeing.
Here is to a new day of doing ~cheers~
Recent Comments
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Excellent post, Randal. How very true this is. I've encountered a lot of people with a ton of intellectual knowledge during my time in higher education. But, as you said, some don't have much of the practical knowledge (and this is true of me in some areas).
In this business, we really need to apply what we learn.
Thank you very much Allyn! I think that it is pretty common and I know from personal experience it can be changed. I am working on it every day.