The printing press changed the world. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid 1400’s, it made it possible for books and other written works to be reproduced with ease, putting information and knowledge in the hands of many who had never seen it before. Before that, if you wanted to reproduce a piece of writing it needed to be done by hand. But once invented, it flooded the world and people received fresh insight as the knowledge market shifted, changing the power dynamic across society. Not everyone was educated and able to read but it may have been one the most influential inventions ever.

The internet can be traced back to it, being like an electronic printing press, making information accessible to anyone who has the internet and a device to consume it. Not everyone can do that yet, but it is more than ever before.

Putting the unhelpful parts of the internet aside, now we have access to the greatest wisdom, insight and knowledge of everything that the human race has ever learned within moments of beginning a search for it. People living in the 1400’s could not have imagined having access to even a tiny portion of the information we do.

So, access to knowledge is not an issue then. Why aren’t we all geniuses, living the 4 hour work week, mastering all our habits and living as highly effective people?

It comes down to this: Implementation trumps information. You can have all the information in the world (and we do), but if you don’t do anything with it then it’s a complete waste of time.

Or as Walter Isaacson said, “Vision without execution is hallucination”.

We might have plans or ideas about what we want to do with life or about who we want to become and the difference we want to make, but it’s the actions that we put into place that take those hallucinations and make them into something real.