When Knowledge Isn’t Enough: Turning What You Know Into Who You Are

What if knowing more isn’t the same as growing more?
Could all the information we consume actually be keeping us from wisdom?
What if real growth begins—not when you learn something new—but when you live it?
Are you learning to prove yourself, or to understand yourself?
And what would happen if you stopped collecting knowledge and started embodying it?

 

In this episode of A Really Good Cry, Radhi Devlukia explores the difference between knowledge and wisdom—and what it means to live what you learn. She reflects on how easy it is to consume information, collect quotes, and mistake understanding for transformation. Drawing from her own experience in the wellness space, Radhi shares how she shifted from learning to impress to learning to express—from knowing to truly living.

 

Through honesty and gentle insight, she reminds us that wisdom isn’t found in what you know, but in what you practice when no one’s watching.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The key difference between knowledge and wisdom
• Why consuming more doesn’t always mean growing more
• How to turn information into daily action
• Questions to help you tell if you’re living from ego or from truth
• Simple ways to transform learning into lasting change

This isn’t about knowing everything—it’s about living what matters.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Knowledge is really just the accumulation of all the information
that we receive in our mind. It is purely intellectual.
It's regurgitation of information that we learn. But wisdom is
gathering the knowledge and then actually applying it. I'm Raley
Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we
embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for

(00:22):
raw and fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you
to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of every
Really Good Cry.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I hope you've had such a wonderful week.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
You know, earlier this week, I started to feel a
little bit overwhelmed with the amount of information that we
as humans have access to. I was trying to find
a course that I wanted to do, and I realized
there were just so many places that did the courses,
and then there was online information about it, and then
there was things on social media, and then it just
felt too overwhelming, and I decided that I didn't want

(00:57):
to commit to anything and don't want to apply for
anything because I.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Just know what to pick.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
And honestly, at times, I think it is just way
too much information that we have access to, and the
problem is also that it conflicts so much. Right It's
like one place will tell you to eat avocados, another
place will tell you that avocados are really bad for you.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
And that's just the simplest things.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
There is just so much information that is thrown at
us on a daily basis. You can literally scroll through
social media or speak to my new bff chat dpt
or as we in the office call her Gabby princessa Tiara,
that is actually what we call her, and you can
learn everything from how to hack a phone to how
to make a missionin star Worthy Salad, and literally a

(01:41):
couple of minutes, you can feel like an expert in
a couple of minutes. And so I feel like we
live in this world where it's never been easier to
feel like an expert that we don't actually know much about,
and to feel like an expert on something we haven't
really lived.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
We end up.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Treating knowledge like a status symbol, something to collect or
flaun to attach to our identity. And I personally can
hold my hands up and say that has definitely been me.
But I was actually recently listening to this podcast where
they were discussing the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and
they said this one sentence that sparked my thought for

(02:13):
this entire episode, that knowledge puffs up and wisdom builds up.
And I sat with that sentence for a little bit,
and so many thoughts came to my mind, like how
this wellness and self help space teaches us so much,
and it's so beautiful that we have access to all
these quotes on a regular basis, Like my for you
page is often filled ninety percent with really great quotes

(02:35):
that make me think, or make me more thoughtful, or
make me more compassionate, or help me grow in some way.
And so we actually have the ability to look at
so much. But that learning can sometimes just become a crutch,
a distraction from actually doing the real work. So we
end up thinking we know better, but we don't end
up actually doing better. We end up constantly consuming, consuming, consuming,

(02:56):
which makes us think, oh, we're obviously learning, which means
we're obviously doing good by learning these things, but we're
really digesting and putting these things into practice into our life.
And then I started reflecting, and when I first started
creating content, and I entered this wellness space, and I
felt this intense pressure to know everything.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I didn't really do that well at school.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
I got quiet catastrophic grades, and I really struggled with
conventional learning, and for a while I felt like I
really carried that deep insecurity about that. So once I
actually found a space that I was interested in and
I was thriving in and that I loved to learn about,
I almost overcorrected. I consumed books and podcasts and workshops
and science and scripture not just to learn, but to

(03:40):
prove things, to prove that I was worthy of having
a voice, to prove that I deserve to be in
this space, to prove I guess also to myself that
I deserve to be here. And I wasn't learning to
live it. I was learning to show that I knew it.
And there's such different things from that time. I feel
like I've really had to work hard on not trying
to prove myself, not trying to prove my intelligence or

(04:02):
to keep trying to accumulate knowledge for the sake of show,
but instead learning it, to live it and share it
through who I am, not what I know. Knowledge is
really just the accumulation of all the information that we
receive in our mind. It is purely intellectual. It's regurgitation
of information that we learn. But wisdom is gathering the

(04:23):
knowledge and then actually applying it. Knowledge tells you what
to do, but wisdom is when you embody it through action,
through your relationships, and through your choices, especially in the
times when no one is watching. It was such a
great reminder to me that it is not about how
much that you've learnt in your life, but about what
you've actually lived. I think accumulating knowledge actually ends up

(04:44):
feeling the ego, because when you think about it being intellectual,
or when you feel like you know a lot, you
can end up feeling superior to people who don't.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Know that information.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
It can create this I know more than other situation
in your own mind, and we as humans are always
trying to find reasons to superior. It's like my race
is better than yours, my religion's better than yours, what
my mind knows is better than your mind, and we
always try and create a hierarchy or a way of
feeling better about ourselves through something. And I think knowledge

(05:15):
and intellect ends up being one of those things. I
remember my teacher rather Thanswami once said this, and I
have shared this one line in pretty much every interview
that I've done because it really stuck with me.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
He said that knowledge is useless unless it's.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Shared, and I'd actually add to that that not just
shared in words, but in how you live. And it's
funny because I was thinking about it, and everything that
we actually learn, we obviously are learning from other people
or a book or or even Instagram, and yet we
end up holding on to it or holding it within
us like it's our information. As soon as I've heard it,
I own it, like we created it. But actually, nothing

(05:52):
is new. Nothing is actually new in this world. Everything
already exists ideas, words, theories, whether it exists in the
depth sub scriptures that people don't know about yet or
in the mind of someone that's just been unspoken most things,
or I think everything has already existed, and so everything
we learn is learnt from somewhere, from nature, from our parents,

(06:13):
from teachers, from books, from songs. But yet this desire
to be the best or be original and unique and
things being mine take over the actual information and actually
using it rather than owning it. Really, when you let
knowledge flow through you and you become a vessel for
it rather than the owner of it, and you end
up pouring it into how you love, how you lead,

(06:33):
and how you show up. That is when it turns
into wisdom. It's actually just like in our body, when
food is undigested in the stomach it turns into tuxins,
or when thoughts are left too long in the mind
it can cause anxiety. And in the same way, knowledge
is not supposed to just sit in us and be
stagnant and be held captive within us, but it's meant
to be utilized as a tool to serve other people

(06:54):
and ourselves. Knowledge is reading them up, and wisdom is
walking in the path. Knowledge fills them, but wisdom transforms
the heart and it shows itself through action. I think
I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I was
reading Ryan Holiday's book The Daily Stoic, and I've really
been enjoying seeing the similarities and comparisons actually to Vadic
literature and Stoicism. There is so much similarity between them,

(07:17):
and the Stoics actually speak about this too. Marcus Aurelius,
this Roman emperor and philosopher, asked the question from what
source do you spring? What power fuels you? And what
great question to reflect on a regular basis, because if
your fuel is ego, you're trying to prove, perform, accumulate,
then you might become clever, but you will not become wise.

(07:39):
Wisdom in both stoic and veadic traditions is action born
of self mastery.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
It's not about what you say. It's about how you live.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
It's not about having the right ideas, but it's about
knowing what to do with them and actually doing it.
You become what you live, not what you learn. And
I think that's really important because it is so easy
to feel like you know a lot just by.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
What you read.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
It's so easy to know that, oh, I should be
eating well, but am I actually going to put them
into practice by buying the right ingredients, by learning how
to cook, by meal planning and prepping my week, so
I end up eating those things. Such a simple thing
that it applies to but it applies like that in
every situation. It's like when they make the joke of
doctors knowing that smoking is bad for you, but they

(08:27):
still smoke. You know, they see it the most that
it's not good for you, but you still do it.
So it's one thing about knowing all the things that
you should be doing or all the things that you
want to be doing that make you a better person,
or that make your physical body better or your mental
state better, or that are good for other people, or
how to be better in a relationship. You can read
all the books, but how are you putting it into practice?

(08:49):
So I started to asking myself a couple of questions
to really differentiate whether I'm living from a place of
wisdom or from a place of knowledge and ego. Those
questions are number one, am I trying to impress or express?

Speaker 2 (09:01):
And two?

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Am I using knowledge to connect or control? Those two
questions have helped me to always differentiate what I'm living from.
Am I living from a place of ego? Or am
I living from a place of wisdom and wanting to share?
So the two were am I trying to impress or
to express? And am I using knowledge to connect or
to control? So simple, but you can learn so much
about yourself by answering those questions. And if you're like me,

(09:24):
and you realized, damn, I answered those questions and I'm
not in my wisdom era right now, but I really
want to be. I actually just started doing small things
to help me get there, one of which was picking
one teaching to live by this week. Less is more, digest,
absorb and churn it. So instead of saving like ten
podcasts or screenshots of quotes and reading all these things,

(09:46):
choose one idea, like I just did from the podcast
that I heard. I heard that one sentence and it
inspired this whole podcast because I really thought about it
for that full week. So find one thing, one idea
that resonated with you and discuss it. Think about how
you can apply it into your life, share it with others,
and put it into practice. An example of that is easy,

(10:07):
something like gratitude. We read quotes on gratitude all day
and hear about it, but actually writing down things you're
grateful for daily, or expressing gratitude to someone every single day,
that is putting it into practice. If it's something like
be present, how much do you'd hear be present? Just
be present in the moment, Well, try leaving your phone
in another room during a meal, or make eye contact

(10:29):
when you're speaking to someone. Think about how you can
take that information and make it practical in your life
and put it into practice. Are Vada and Vedic text
actually emphasize the value of silence and Smariner reflection, and
so after learning something new, just taking him a five
minutes of quiet to ask how does this change me?
How can I integrate this into my life? And where

(10:51):
does it apply in my life? Just simply taking a
moment to pause after hearing something or reading something can
make such a difference. I've learned to do that with
my friends lately, when we're having a conversation and so
much comes out of them, and I take a moment
to reflect and write down what are the things that
I learned in that conversation, What were the things that
I feel I want to expand on or explore, What

(11:13):
were the things that make me feel uncomfortable? And why
really exploring the conversation you're having rather than just being
half present and forgetting them the moment you leave them.
There's so much we can learn if you're just there.
There's so much you can learn if you're just noticing,
and especially if you're noticing to learn, it's really different
from being present just to hear when you're there to

(11:33):
actually learn from a situation. When I go up for
a walk, okay, if I'm trying to really be present
and learn from nature. I'll see so much more. My
eyes will notice so much more. But if I'm out
there just to enjoy, I probably won't. I've probably just
wander through. But this is really nice. But when you're
choosing to see the world from a point of learning
and digesting and processing, you just see the world so differently. Now,

(11:56):
I know this actually feels like such a small topic,
but at the same time, it really does change the
way that we live life and experience it. We can
go our whole lives not really living life, and I
don't really want that for us. To be honest, this
is what this podcast is about. It's trying to help
us see the world in a different way, help us
to create these habits and rituals and practices that actually

(12:17):
help us grow into better people, into the people that
we want to be. So these small mind shifts, even
though they seem extremely small, they're doing the needful and
helping us to grow not just for ourselves but for
the people around us too, and to just be living
more authentically, which is what I think we all want
to be doing in our life.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
So I hope this conversation was useful.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
I hope these random reflections that I had from that
one sentence ends up being beneficial to your ears and
to your heart too, And I hope that you put
these things into practice. Read to quote, think about how
you can apply it, and sending us so much love
for this week.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Hope it's more intentional and.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
You feel more present and you learn so much more
just by changing the way that you're viewing the world.
Thanks so much for listening and sending up so much love.