In The Know

From the Movies: In the know
I started watching a new series last year, maybe not technically new but it’s certainly new to me. It’s called White Collar and it’s awesome by every standard of the word. The plot is interesting and ever changing which keeps you captivated. They have good writers too, I proudly recommend it. Anyway, the story is about a guy – Neal Caffrey who is an art thief, forger and professional con man. He had a successful career until he was caught by an FBI agent called Peter Burke who heads the New York White Collar division of the FBI. He was sent to jail but he negotiated an arrangement which got him released under the care of Agent Burke as a confidential Informant. In order to keep him in check, a GPS locator was placed on his ankle and he was given a radius of just two miles, anything outside that and he triggers an alarm. Neal and Agent Burke now work as together in solving criminal cases for the duration of his sentence. Together, their case completion rates were in the 90s, meaning they were able to solve about 90% of the cases that was brought to their desk. They were better than most of the other case agents and this was not because Agent Peter Burke was so bad ass; this was simply because he had a criminal – Neal on his team.
What made Neal such an asset was that he was in the know. You know how they say in order to catch a rat; you have to think like one. This was a perfect example; Neal knew everything to know about almost all the cons that came to their desk because in the duration of his career, he had performed almost every one of them at one time or the other so he used this knowledge to now catch the bad guys. This is one of those moments where you detest the act but praise the genius behind it. While this piece in no way supports or advises cons, one must learn from these acts and use them properly.
The secret to their success was the wealth of knowledge that Neal had about pretty much everything. When robbing a bank, you have to take all the details into consideration, know everything about the bank vault, security guards, important members of staff, bank managers and every person that could interfere with the success or failure of the mission. What really amazed me was that he could tell how secure a bank was just by looking at a picture of the lobby. The way the guards are positioned, the position of the cameras and stuffs like that, he even knew which bank had what vault and which way to break into each one. In essence, he was so in the know; he was prepared for any eventuality. He knew who ran what, who controlled where, how long does it take the police to respond after the alarm had been triggered, all this information he knew and used to his advantage which is why he was so successful, both as a criminal and when working for the FBI.
How that concerns you, you may ask. Success is a product of a system, i.e. it has principles and whoever knows those principles is in control of the system. That person would command successful result 90% of the time. If I know how you think, I can control our conversation because I know what you’d say and what you like to hear. I’ll just keep pulling you along; it’s the same with any field at all. The best doctors are those who have all the knowledge needed – either medically or surgically to save lives. The best programmers are those who have the knowledge of all the programming languages, the best pharmacist is the most informed on everything concerning drugs, the best actors are those who are able to immerse themselves in their assigned roles completely and do the characters justice and to do that they must first know their character well, etc.
So in whatever it is that you have found yourself and want to be the best in, I beseech you to take the pursuit of knowledge serious, because it’s the knowledge you have that will give you that extra oomph ahead of your competitors. Being aware of all the different types of procedures involved in producing a product for instance gives you the advantage of being able to choose the method that best minimizes cost and maximise profit, gets things done faster without tampering (or even enhancing) quality. That way, customers will patronise you more than the others who just do theirs the same old way. Knowing everything also arms you with the power of creation, it gives you a bird eye view of how best to do things. It’s like this; you can’t know the shortest cut between two locations unless you know the layout of the entire town.
As a student, it’s not enough to know your books, you need to also know what the lecturer likes to see, know what he expects to see in your answer script and give it to him/her ‘as e dey hot’, you’d see an increase in your grades immediately. Some lecturers want you to write in copious amounts even if you’re writing crap while some others want you to go straight to the point without wasting their time. Some lecturers want you to give them exactly what they gave you in their lecture notes while for others if you don’t put something extra, you’d never get more than average. This knowledge might be the difference between 50 and 70 marks, between a measly 3points and a robust 7points.
If you face everything in your life with deliberate intent, you’d see that the part of our lives that fate controls is very minimal. You can guarantee results 90% of the time if you have the power that knowledge supplies. For instance, you want to woo a girl and you know nothing about her, it’ll be difficult to impossible to wow her or even to impress her at all. But if you come armed with basic knowledge about her and her interests, you’d play to her vanity and before you know it, she won’t be able to stop thinking about you because you’re so thoughtful and awesome. The other guys who don’t put effort into knowing the person of interest before jumping in will look at you as if you use Jazz or something like that. If you practice this, you’ll almost certainly get any girl you want just by giving her what she wants which you would know if you did your research properly.
Are you trying to lose weight? What have you been doing? Jogging or you’ve registered to a gym, eating in reduced amounts or eating certain foods more or less? Has it been successful at all? Do you even know why it has been failing? Do you know that there are better ways of losing weight that doesn’t have you miserable all the time? Do you even know how you actually got the weight in the first place? If you make your research well, not from fashion magazines but from scientific authors, you’d discover ways of losing weight that are easier on you and your body. Do you know that some people, no matter what they do or don’t do will never get fat and some can never get lean? It’s all about what you know really.
My advice to you is – Get in the know and see your life change drastically as your mentality is changed by the power knowledge brings.
I remain @Overlordnoni