What we do depends more on how we know than on what we know. As a youngster I first learned of this phenomenon while in my eighth game of chess with Albert Wagner. 

In an astonishing turn of events, I'd won our first seven games.  Astonishing because I was more the free wheeling artist, given to reading adventure stories and drawing watercolor pictures, while Al was more the studious scientist, given to just these sort of logical puzzles.

Yet I'd managed to slaughter Al, mostly by making quick, decisive moves in the face of his timid, belabored ones. It seemed that Al had made many poor decisions, often putting his players in awkward positions or loosing them outright through strange gambits. 

In the eighth game, however, Al's behavior changed. He moved decisively, operating on several fronts at once. So no matter where I turned, he'd already positioned himself for the kill. And one by one, he methodically collected my players. Until finally he pushed me into a corner and declared "checkmate." Befuddled at the loss, I asked for a rematch. Yet in the rematch and the matches to follow, I was never able to beat him again. 

For the first seven games, it seems, I knew more than Albert did. But the balance tipped in the eighth game precisely because Albert had not really acted in a timid or belabored way (I know that now). Instead, he had deliberately put his players in risky positions to see what would occur. This had allowed him to gradually accumulate a fundamental understanding of the players, the board, and the game itself. 

Albert's unique thinking processes -- how he approached the game (and performances like this, I began to notice) -- enabled him to excel. That's because what we know depends on how we know.