Lessons from GI Joe: The Other Half of the Battle

The new G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie came out last Friday, and though it got panned by critics, the movie still opened to $55 Million. I haven’t seen the movie (after the debacle that was Transformers 2, I am holding off on “movies based on toys that don’t look that great and are getting bad reviews”) but seeing the commercials did get me thinking about the old 80’s G.I. Joe cartoon.

Ahhh, the cartoon. The ludicrous characters (Remember Quick-Kick, the martial artist who was barefoot and shirtless, even in the Arctic?). The ridiculous plots by Cobra to take over the world (creating a “Cobra” TV channel to broadcast Cobra propaganda worldwide. Though these days, that’s not that ridiculous….). The fact that everyone was always able to eject before their plane exploded, and no one ever died.

And then there were the PSAs at the end of every episode. If you are unfamiliar, at the end of every episode some kid would be about to do something stupid, at which point a Joe would appear and point out the stupidity of what they were about to do. The kid would learn his lesson and say, “now I know.” The Joe would always respond, “And knowing is half the battle!”

Let’s ignore the fact that highly trained operatives were spending their time (and taxpayers money) watching a Little League game and helping a kid get glasses to boost his batting average as opposed to say, I don’t know, fighting off a terrorist organization dedicating to subjugating the world….

Let’s also put aside for a moment that the Joes seemed to constantly be lurking around little kids’ playgrounds and houses:

I don’t know about you, but if I was a parent and I found out that some half naked martial artist was helping my kid build a tree house, i might be a little skeeved out…

Yes, let’s ignore those things for now. What I want to focus on is that if all these PSAs end with “knowing is half the battle,” what’s the other half? And why did they never tell us?

It should be obvious what the other half of the battle is:

Acting On That Knowledge!

It should be obvious that taking action based on what you know is critical, but how many people don’t do that? I would hazard to guess that we all do this from time to time.

Do you know how to lose weight? I’m sure you do. Do you know what you should be doing to build great relationships with your family and friends? I would think so. Could you rattle off five, ten, twenty things you could be doing right now to grow your business or further your career? Undoubtedly.

Most of our challenges are problems of implementation, not knowledge. Sometimes we may not know the next step, but between the internet, libraries and bookstores, and Dr. Phil, we can pretty quickly learn what we don’t know. (And yes, that was a joke about Dr. Phil so keep your comments to yourself…)

The next time you get tempted to read another book, listen to another audio, or take another class, pause and think about whether you are implementing what you already know. A bunch of extra knowledge may not help you nearly as much as just a little bit of action.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle! G.I. JOE!!!