More Knowledge, More Wonder, More Progress
“The larger the island of knowledge, the greater the shoreline of wonder.”
- Ralph Stockman

I’ve always been a big believer in continuing to expand one’s knowledge-base. The quote above helps me better understand my own stance on the topic, more than just buying into the old sayings of “Knowledge is power” and “The more you know, the more you grow.” These are things I heard often when I was younger, and although it seemed to always make sense to me, I now can better understand the concept as I apply it to my life every day. What I’ve realized is that the more I learn, the more questions I ask; the more questions I ask, the more creative of an outcome I consider; the more creative of an outcome I consider, the better the end result becomes. More knowledge equals more wonder, which turns in to more progress!

Let me use an example to better explain this concept. 

Let’s say we’ve decided to try and better understand our expenses so we can find ways to save more money. On the surface, we think it makes sense to list out all of our bills, see where we can try and cut back, and apply those savings directly to our savings account. Easy, right? Well after 6 months of doing this, we may start to wonder why we never seem to have as much to put in each month as we originally calculated, and we have no idea why! 

If you’re like me, you were’t born with a sixth-sense in finance, so how are we supposed to know any better? We must become a student of what we’re trying to accomplish so that we can understand the ins-and-outs of what it takes to be successful at it. We will learn things to consider, such as the fact that our utility bills fluctuate each month, circumstances come up and we must have an “emergency fund” so that we don’t tap into our savings efforts, and that there are annual expenses such as car registration that are often not considered while budgeting and planning.

Once we start to understand this, we start to ask more questions! How much do we need to have in an emergency fund? What other expenses are we overlooking that come up often? Is there an easy way to track all of this? 

Now we’re getting it! Having more knowledge about the subject leads us to wonder more about what we need to do and ultimately sets us up to make more progress.

Here are things we can do to in order to get more out of what we’re after:

1. Determine areas in which to improve -  career, family, etc.
2. Assess our level of knowledge in these areas. (hint, it’s probably not as much as we think if we’re seeking improvement)
3. Look for ways to gain more knowledge about the subject - books, classes, mentors, etc.
4. Pick one item at a time and master it.
5. Understand that there are many ways to accomplish the same goal, and that the key is progress, not perfection.
6. Share our successes with others in order to gain more knowledge ourselves.

Here's the Point:

If we open up our minds to learn more, we will crave more. When we further pursue what we crave, we can achieve new levels of success that we never knew were possible when we originally started the journey.