I once heard a professional basketball player talk about the importance of becoming a specialist. He said when you make it to the NBA, the key to sticking is becoming a specialist in one area. A few superstars are great in a lot of different areas, but every great team has great players who have mastered and become experts in their roles. Every championship basketball team has an expert ball-handler, expert shooter, expert defender, expert rebounder, and expert passer.
An expert is someone who a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.
An expert is the person on the team you can go to and trust to give you feedback and advice on a certain subject or situation.
Research shows being an expert can pay off big time for you and your team. In high-complexity jobs like professional and sales roles, the top 10% produce 80% more than the average and 700% more than the bottom 10%
There is real value in mastering something so you can be an expert on that subject.
How do you become an expert, and when you do, what do you do with that information? You do the work, you learn more about it, and you share it.
1 - Commit to Being Great
In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle says people who make a long-term commitment to learn, grow, and develop in a certain area perform 400% better than the people who can’t or won’t make the commitment. He wrote:
With the same amount of practice, the long-term-commitment group outperformed the short-term-commitment group by 400 percent. The long-term-commitment group, with a mere twenty minutes of weekly practice, progressed faster than the short-termers who practiced for an hour and a half. When long-term commitment is combined with high levels of practice, skills skyrocket.
Identify what you are good at and what you want to be great at, then commit to going through the process of becoming an expert in that area.
2 - Do The Work
If you want to be great at something, spend time every day learning, practicing, and growing in that area. Read something, watch something, listen to something, or do something that will help you get better.
John Maxwell is arguably the number one leadership guru in the world; he has written and sold more books about leadership than anyone else. How did he become a leadership expert? He said, “When I decided to be the leadership person, I was not a leadership guru. I just decided to study for one hour a day for five years, all about leadership.”
Azzi Fudd was the Gatorade women’s basketball player of the year when she was just a junior in high school, but when she started playing basketball, her parents said she wasn’t very good at all. How did she become an expert shooter and scorer? Her mom said they committed to spending 10 minutes a day on ball-handling. She said it doesn’t take much time, but it does take a daily commitment.
Find ways to get 1% better every day, and one day you too can be the expert.
3 - Share Your Knowledge
Once you master information, make the team better by being willing to share it with others. The best of the best make the world around them better. Find ways to grow others and your team by sharing the information you are learning on your journey to become an expert.
Together Platform says, “Knowledge sharing refers to the process of exchanging information between people, teams, or organizations.” They say knowledge sharing helps increase employee engagement, helps build a learning culture, and helps you and others retain critical information. When you share something you have learned, it helps you retain the information and it builds the team and people around you and helps.
Learn something, do something, share something.
Find something you like or love, and then fall in love with learning more about it and getting better at it so you can be the expert on it.
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT
1 - What is something you like or love and would be willing to become an expert in?
2 - What is something you are currently good at that you think you could become an expert in?
3 - What is one thing you can commit to doing every day to get better and eventually become an expert?
You can access a printable PDF version of this blog here: Become an Expert
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