Knowledge is one of those things that you want to have an abundance of in your life. The highly effective never stop learning. It’s this continual growth that propels them into increase and expansion, instead of stagnation and retraction.
The lack of knowledge however creates confusion and frustration. Not having knowledge of how things work makes it very difficult to achieve your desired results.
There is a story about a time when the generator for Henry Ford’s factory stopped working. With the generator not working, production came to a screeching halt. Henry called all of his engineers in to fix the generator, but they were unable to. After many failed attempts and much time Henry called the man who helped him build the assembly line. He arrived and in ten minutes he got the generator working again. Henry asked what he owed the man for his work. The man said, “Ten thousand dollars”. Henry was shocked and said, “You tinkered for ten minutes.” The man replied, “Tinkering for ten minutes is ten dollars, but to know how to tinker and where to tinker is ten thousand.” Henry paid the man ten thousand dollars.
It didn’t matter how many engineers Henry put on the job, without the right knowledge of how that generator worked they were not going to get it fixed. But with the right knowledge and understanding you can solve a problem with speed and certainty. Not to mention, when you can solve a problem that no one else can, people will pay you whatever you want because a valuable solution is with the price.