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I just spilled some beans about my book-buying habits and how they connect to a bigger issue: knowledge is pretty much useless if we don’t take action. I mean, I’ve got shelves full of books and all these Audible titles, yet I often find myself scrolling through social media instead of actually reading them. We all know we should be making healthier choices, but when it comes down to it, we often reach for convenience instead. It’s like, we buy the books and have all this good intention, but if we don’t do anything with that knowledge, it just sits there collecting dust. So, let’s chat about how we can stop just accumulating knowledge and start putting it into practice in our lives.

This is a big confession time, and I bet you do the same thing again and again. We do all these things and we know better, why don't we do better? In this podcast, Steven Webb discusses why knowledge is worthless if you don't do anything with it.

Takeaways:

• I recently realized that simply buying books won't change my life unless I actually read them and apply what I've learned.
• Knowledge is totally useless if we don't put it into action and practice what we've learned in our lives.
• It's easy to get distracted by instant gratification instead of focusing on long-term improvements and self-help practices.
• I've discovered that knowledge alone isn't enough; we need to actively engage with it to see real change in our lives.
• When we buy self-help books, it's important to commit to implementing their lessons rather than just accumulating them on our shelves.
• The journey of self-improvement starts with taking action based on the knowledge we gain from our readings and experiences.

Confessing a little habit of mine today: I buy a ton of books. Seriously, I just jumped on Amazon and snagged a couple more, thinking they’re going to fix my life. One was even called "Unfuck My Life"—I mean, how could I resist that? But here's the kicker: I’ve got a whole library of books, and you’d think I’d be living my best life if I actually read them. I mean, I could probably write a book on how to collect books and do nothing with them. We all have this intention to improve ourselves, right? We buy the healthy stuff at the grocery store but end up tossing half of it because we’re too tempted by takeout. It’s like we’re all on this treadmill of purchasing knowledge but never really using it. Yeah, I get it—knowledge is power, but only if you actually do something with it. It’s not enough to just read; you have to apply what you learn. So, let’s stop buying the next self-help book until we’ve put what we learned from the last one into action. That’s the real challenge. Let’s get practical and make knowledge work for us.

On today's podcast, I'm going to confess something, something I've just done and I cannot believe I'm going to confess to you.

And I'm also going to answer the question, knowledge is worthless if.

Well, it's not really a question, but I'm going to tell you why knowledge is worthless if you do not do something.

But I confess.

I've just opened up the web and I've just gone to Amazon again, and it's just put up a book recommendation and I bought it.

And then I bought another book and I bought the Audible to go with it.

And I'm going to be really excited about reading it at some point, and I believe it's going to sort my life out.

I believe one of them was called Unfuck My Life.

Sorry for the swearing, but that's the title of the book.

Of course, they put an asterisk on it.

Here's the thing.

If you look down from my Audible books and you look down through my Kindle and my bookshelf behind me, if you see on my YouTube channel, you would think my life would be absolutely sorted if I just read 10% of them.

There's the problem.

We buy these books, we do the Audible things, we listen to a little bit of them, and even if we do, we don't do anything with them.

That's my confession today.

I buy too many books.

I get them through.

I have all the intention.

And that's the thing.

I believe everybody has the intention to sort their lives out, to become fitter, to become healthier.

We do shopping online and we order the salads and we order the healthy options.

And then when it comes to eating them, we're like, I'll just have that tonight.

And we end up throwing away half of the salad.

I may be rejecting here.

This may be just what I do, but it's like they've done a survey.

At some point, when we make a decision for our future time, we always tend to pick the options that are healthier and better for us.

So if someone come up to you and said, what movie should we watch next Thursday night?

You're more likely to pick a movie that you haven't watched, but you would like to watch, but it's not that stimulating.

It's one of those movies that I should watch at some point.

But if you.

If it's just Thursday night and it's about an hour to go and you say, what movie we going to watch?

We'll pick a comedy, we'll pick a lighthearted one, we'll pick an instant gratitude one as opposed to something that's a little more a documentary or a little more taxing, something that's going to make us think that we ought to watch.

So when you go to buy a book, you tend to buy the books.

That's going to improve your life and things like that, and you tend to come home.

But when it comes to sitting down and reading the book, you'll tend to flip through Facebook or YouTube because that's the thing that's going to pick us up in that moment as opposed to the other way around.

We're always after that instant.

Pick me up that instant.

How do I feel better in this moment?

I'm Stephen Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms.

And although I talk about having a little more in life, it's also about self improvement.

It's also about working on ourselves and how can we have a better life ourselves, more freedom, and how do we become whole so we can deal with life's storms?

That's what this podcast is all about.

And today, you know, knowledge is great.

There's three steps to it.

You know, the book has the knowledge, we read the book, so then we have some of the knowledge.

But then if you do not then practice the knowledge and put it into play, it's worthless.

There's no point.

You know, the person that has the bookshelves and all the books has no advantage over the person that cannot read if you don't read them and put them in place.

And even the person that reads the books and even the person that watches the documentaries, watches the self help programs, buys the fitness videos, does all those things, if they don't put them into play, they've got no advantage over the person that doesn't even have books.

They cannot read.

They cannot.

We have to do something with the knowledge that we gain.

And it's like when I hit my rock bottom at the age of 40, I found myself single.

I found myself totally with no money, no prospects, not knowing where to go or what to do.

And I was sat in a shop doorway and I was bawling my eyes out.

I was 40 years old.

I was in an electric wheelchair that just broke down and I was crying like someone that had a complete breakdown.

Well, I did have a complete breakdown.

The chair had just broke.

A wire had just gone through the tire and I had no idea how to repair it.

And I was there by myself and I didn't know what to do.

So I called my carer and they come down and helped me and Got me home.

A security guard walked over and just squeezed my shoulder.

And you know, I'm very thankful of him for that time because I'm sure.

I don't know whether he was deeply wise or just did not know what to say, but whichever way, his comfort was perfect.

If there was ever a perfect moment of somebody just being there for somebody without having to say something, that was the perfect moment.

I don't know who he was.

I've never seen him again.

Perhaps he didn't exist.

Perhaps he was a.

Perhaps he wasn't even there.

Perhaps it was just my own.

No, I'm joking.

He.

He was real.

I never go past that shop now without thinking about that Saturday afternoon when my life just.

Well, my whole body and everything, my mind.

And I said, do you know what?

Fuck it, Stevie, I cannot do this for you anymore.

I've been trying for 40 years.

You gotta do something with your life.

And that was it.

My rock bottom began.

I look at it now as a gift.

But then a few weeks later, I started reading books.

And it's unusual for me because I never really read since school, because I was labeled dyslexic when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

And because I was labeled dyslexic at 7 or 8 years old, I never really put much effort into reading everything I read.

I never really understood.

My dyslexia was.

I would read a whole page and I wouldn't know what I just read.

So I'd have to read it again and again and again.

And I could read the words like I could read them out aloud.

Okay.

A lot of the words would really mingle into one.

And I would read it as the.

Let.

As the letters.

I wouldn't read it as what they would really read.

So.

But that's going slightly off topic.

So I spent most of my life just not bother reading.

Then suddenly, at 40 years old, I was so desperate.

And they say when you're suffering enough, you do something about it.

So that's why one of my teachers, Doshin, says, have you suffered enough?

Because if you haven't, you won't do anything about it.

And I guess that's part of this topic of this podcast.

If you suffered enough, you'll not only go out and get the knowledge, you will also do something with the knowledge.

But I was reading book after book and it wasn't easy.

You know, sometimes I'd read the same paragraph six or seven times.

The first book I read took about three months and it was only about 40 pages as a Man Thinketh by James Allen and basically told me, you're not what you think.

And I was like, wow.

Just boom.

It just hit me.

But the thing is, that was knowledge.

What did I do with it?

Did I sit with that in meditation?

No, because I didn't think I could meditate.

I tried it when I was 27 years old, and I lasted about two minutes.

That's it.

Cannot shut my mind off and gave up.

Little did I know that had nothing to do with meditation.

It wasn't about shutting your mind down.

But there I was reading all these books, and they were all telling me to meditate.

And there I was.

Here it is, the solution.

And it's not.

It's not there for me because I cannot meditate.

So the perfect solution in all of these books, and it's not available for me.

Well, when one person tells you something, you can kind of go, okay, I can dismiss it, or not.

When another person says, maybe there's some truth in it.

But when every single book you read, you turn the page.

Meditate, meditate, meditate.

At some point, you gotta go, okay, there's gotta be something in this.

Everybody else cannot be right and I be wrong.

So I started looking into meditation a little more.

I started doing it.

I did realize that.

Well, I thought for ages I was a terrible meditator.

I wasn't.

I was.

I was just somebody that was perfectly normal, that thinks quite a bit.

My mind does its job perfectly fine.

It thinks.

It has a constant train of thought.

Well, almost constant.

That's what it feels like, only to find out that's perfectly normal.

You know, that's what the mind is designed to do.

Just like the heart.

The heart is a constant beating.

Good.

That means you're alive.

You won't want your mind, you won't want your heart to stop beating.

So you don't want your heart.

You don't want your mind to stop thinking.

So there I was learning that meditation wasn't about stopping the thinking.

It was about understanding the thinking.

It was about gaining knowledge of what's happening in your body and what's happening around us.

Seeing the truth of things.

And when you see the truth of things, you can then do something with it.

But knowledge, that knowledge of understanding that unless you're putting it into practice, the knowledge of how to be compassionate is worthless.

Unless you are compassionate.

Unless you put it into practice, the knowledge of how to read is worthless.

Unless you read, the knowledge of how to meditate unless you meditate is worthless.

And I could cut off Another million examples.

And I think you just get the point.

You know, knowledge is one thing and it all begins with knowledge.

I understand that, but unless you put it into practice, you know, you have the knowledge of eating healthy.

Salads and fruits is good for you, builds up your immune system, makes you healthier, gives you more energy.

You have the knowledge of go to bed earlier, sort your sleep out, get out of bed earlier in the mornings, don't nap too much during the day.

You have all that knowledge, you know, that you don't need another 10 books to tell you all those things.

Well, everybody knows all those things.

Everybody knows chocolate's not good for you and you know a carrot is.

But unless you put it into practice, you know, I'm here paralyzed just below the chest, but I know exercise is good for me.

And okay, I cannot run up and down the stairs, I cannot do all those other things, but I can wave my arms around like a guy directing airplanes.

Do something with the knowledge you build up.

Don't just read the next book and then put it down and move on to the next book because you think the next book is going to sort your life.

You know, instead of buying the next book, agree that you will not buy another book like I did at the beginning of this podcast, until you've read the last book.

And not only read the last book, put at least one of the things in that book into practice.

And of course I'm talking about non fiction here.

You know, if it's fiction and the book, the book is like it's a story that's a little bit different.

But I'm talking about self help books.

I'm talking about meditation books and knowledgeable books.

Things that, things that grow us and open us and gives us more knowledge in the way that we can improve our lives.

Unless you put one of those things in practice, don't bother buying another book.

Make that a rule.

Make that a golden rule that I have to read the previous book.

And not only read the previous book, I have to put at least one thing into a habit on a daily basis.

Knowledge is worthless if you do not do that.

You know, you can know how to solve every problem in the world.

Unless you actually put it into practice, it's worthless.

You're no better than the person that doesn't even bother reading or doesn't even bother doing anything.

Okay, lecture over.

And this is, you know, this podcast is as much aimed directly at me as what it is at you.

Okay?

I'm not just making out that you're building all this knowledge and not doing anything with it, although that is the motivation here.

Do something with it.

Stop reading book after book, stop going through YouTube after YouTube video unless you're going to put it into practice.

And that is my lesson for myself for today.

And hopefully you get something out of it as well.

Take care, guys.

I'm Stephen.

Welcome, Web.

You can check out other things I do on stephenweb.com spelled the V. Take care.

Love you guys.

Thank you for spending the time here with me today.