Do You Want to Be an Expert?

Has anyone ever called you an expert? Have they declared that you know what you are doing in a certain area?

I have been called that at certain points in my life. When I hear it, I am always left with a lingering thought about how they know I’m an expert. What is it that certified me as an expert?

Expertise comes with a lot of time and experience. It comes with lots of practice and lots of failures. It is backed up with a long history of mistakes and learning from them.

I appreciate when people call me an expert in something, but I don’t ever want to think that I have arrived. I don’t want to think that I have reached the pinnacle in any area of my life. To reach the pinnacle would mean that I can’t go any further. It would mean that I can’t learn any more about a certain thing. That would be boring to me. I don’t want to be bored.

I’m always striving to be a better musician, a better writer, a better husband, and a better human being. If I believed that I was an expert I might stop trying to improve.

Let me clarify.

You might be thinking that I see being an expert as a bad thing. I do not. I appreciate it when my doctor tells me he is an expert at fixing my ailment. I want him to be an expert. If I was having brain surgery, I am going to hire an expert to go inside my brain and fix whatever needs to be fixed. When my car breaks down, I am going to hire an expert to repair it.

I like and appreciate having experts in my life.

I just don’t want to see myself as having attained a pinnacle of success so high that I can’t grow anymore.

I struggle with perfectionism, and maybe that should have been the title of this essay. I have always struggled with wanting to be an expert, but never feeling like I could claim that title.

I have a good friend of mine who says that he wants to have the mind of a beginner. This is the mind that is always seeking, always taking risks, and always assuming they don’t know everything. It is the beginner’s mind that allows for expansion and mistakes. The beginner’s mind is not afraid of stretching because they know they will grow from the experience.

This is the mind I want to have. It’s the mind that knows that there is lots of room to grow.

What is your relationship with being an expert? Do you have a beginner’s mind? Do you allow yourself the space to grow and take risks?

This topic is especially poignant for me this week. I was interviewed by a prominent writing association in South Florida (stay tuned for the launch of this on Facebook and Twitter later in July) and I began work on another project that is very meaningful to me.

Starting a new project will always bring up my insecurities. It will always bring to the surface the issues of expertise and beginners mind. I want to be confident when I put out my work, and at the same time I don’t ever want to see myself as having arrived somewhere. I don’t want to put myself in a box where no more growth can occur.

I have no idea whether the interview conducted this week will be received well, and I have no idea whether my new project will be a success or not. What I do know is that if I never did the interview and if I never started my project, they would not succeed. Trying is the only way I will ever know.

As you move through your week, I invite you to explore this idea of being an expert. What would having a beginner mind look and feel like? What is your relationship with being a student of the world?

I would enjoy hearing how you interact and wrestle with this. I have a lot to learn about this and would love to hear what you have to say about it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Deserve To Be Supported

The pr ocess of writing my book has been so interesting. So many opportunities for me to look at myself and the way that I approach things. One of the most interesting opportunities is the one around the ability to say that I don't understand something. This brings me to what I wanted to  write about here.  That is this false belief that I should be able to know something before I know it. Yes, I read that sentence and say that doesn't even make sense. But, how many of us have taken on a project thinking we should not be able to ask questions about it? It's like the person  (not that I have even done this:) who gets lost driving, but refuses to ask for directions. Truth is our GPS takes care of that most of the time, but there are still times we need to ask.  If the goal of doing a project is to get it done is to get it done, it just makes sense to ask questions. Right? Well, the inability to ask questions usually stems from deeper issues that cannot be just logica
Read more

Balancing the Need For Risk With the Need For Security

We as a society are always looking to something outside of ourselves to fix us. You can call it an addiction, envy, or restlessness. But, we all know what I'm talking about. It's the belief that if we could just be somewhere other than where we are then everything would be ok. Sometimes though when we get to wherever it is we think we should be, we will then want to be somewhere else. There is a tension between knowing that it's good for us to stay and commit to the situation at hand, and knowing that it is healthy to stretch and grow. How do we stay grounded and follow through with what is happening now, and yet still be willing to explore new and uncomfortable adventures? There is so much to be gained by staying where we are. We gain the satisfaction of seeing something through to the end. Whether that be a relationship, a job, or a dream that have had in mind for many years. The daily effort that it takes, and the willingness to be there for a relationship
Read more

The Holding Pattern Becomes a Blessing

Most of us have had the unpleasant experience of being on an airplane that has been put in a holding pattern as it approaches the airport. As a result of some delay at the airport you are coming into  you are made to circle the airport over and over again until it is safe to land. This experience can be very frustrating, especially if we have another connecting flight to get to. This experience of being put in a holding pattern shows up in our everyday life sometimes. There are delays. The check we were supposed to get didn't come in the mail on time. The car dealer you took your car to for repairs didn't get your car back in time. And, now you have to rent a car. In life there are literally thousands of delays that can frustrate us. This is life. It is a common trait of us humans to want to see things go smoothly. We don't like delays. And, even some of us (me included) will want to take these delays personally. It is also my experience that delays can be an
Read more