Many years ago I was asked to answer a question; it appeared to be a simple question. As I thought about it I realized it wasn’t as simple as it appeared. The question was what is power? As we could take this many ways and analyze it in many more; I thought about it in terms of everyday life. Everyone has their own idea what power is to them. I would imagine that many would think it would be described as Bill Gate, Donald Trump or even the President of the United Sates. In some ways many would even say Mother Teresa. It all depends on your perspective on the question. You could even debate this philosophically as well, which would truly drag this debate on even longer. I believe that the best way to look at any situation is to break it down to its simplest form. If we do this with a problem the resolution is usually much more effective, as it is at the root of the problem. I used that same idea when I thought about this answer. This opens the question as to what exactly is power and where does it start. So when you look at all the individuals in the world that are “considered” powerful, what is the common factor that they all possess? Well to start off with they all have an education. It does not matter how extensive that education is, it is the fact that they all have some type of it. It also does not mean academically either, it could be professionally. So after realizing that education is the key, I was forced to ask how that key is then used to develop power. Well when you make an observation about education and what happens after one obtains it, you notice something interesting. It is developed into useful and applicable knowledge. This can be seen by “on the job training” after the education is gained. Every organization has training for new employees, after the education comes the period where the individual then sees how to apply that information to perform the tasks that is expected of them. I prefer to think of this as the education now forms the knowledge base that we use every day. It is this knowledge base that gives us the ability to be productive in the setting we are functioning. How we use that knowledge base will allow us to solve problems, design things, or above all achieve goals; whether they are set by us or someone else. This gives us the perceived “power” that others are looking for in us. So when you look at the question what is power, it is quite simple; its education.