The world – especially the online world is full of experts who have just started to cut their teeth on their subject.

Whether it’s social media, marketing, online business, dance, fitness, or any number of other areas of specialty.  They’re out there and online it’s a harder to know who the real deal is and who the sleazy salesman is.

Now, I won’t lay claim to expert status in more than the number of things that I could count on one hand (it’s probably half of that actually) but I’ve a few words to speak on the subject of expert status and authority.  So you may as well listen in or move on.

So what makes an expert an expert?

Let’s start with the word: expert.

A person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority: a language expert.

You already knew this – if you didn’t, I’m surprised you can read.  But let’s break it apart anyways.

An expert possesses exclusive or privileged skills and knowledge in a particular field.  The possession of this skill and knowledge grants them authority in their field.

It is rarely the skills or knowledge that are so prized by non-experts or new-entrants to a field, rather it is the authority those skills and knowledge provide in the socio-economic context.

Authority means people defer to the expert on matters under their expertise.  This deferment can also mean social privilege, financial reward (i.e. getting paid), and other benefits.

This authority status and the benefits accorded it are what people seek when they label themselves experts.  People will acquire titles, join associations, and seek out opportunities that sound authoritative to reinforce the label of expert. There’s a whole section on being an expert in the Four Hour Workweek that gives examples and methods to acquire public expert status without having invested the time that natural expertise would require.

Is this a bad thing?  The gut reaction – yes.

We recoil from feeling duped by being shown one thing and provided with something else.  That’s what negotiated expert status appears to be – just another slick palmed marketing trick to get us to believe something. In a way, that’s what it is.

But where is it beneficial? When we can provide knowledge and skills to others that don’t possess them.  You don’t need to be in the top 5 or 10% of your field to provide a benefit to the people who have no expertise in your field.

Example:

I build websites for people but I’m not an expert web designer or programmer.  I have a good eye for design, decent programming experience and a lot of technical knowledge that the average person and small business owner doesn’t possess.

This means I can provide something of value to people at a price point that we’re both comfortable with.  Most small business owners and people don’t need a full-scale professionally custom designed website.  They need a functional, easy to manage website that customers can find and use easily.  That’s what I provide.

Where else is it beneficial? To those experts who are good at what they do but bad at being experts.  They don’t know how to brand themselves as experts, market their skills as experts and become the go-to-person in their field.  So, when they have a method to connect their expert skills and knowledge with the public status and authority of expert status, they can provide far more benefit to those who need it.

Now for my favorite part, the etymology, or where the word came from.

Late 14c., from L. expertus, pp. of experiri “to try, test” (see experience). The n. sense of “person wise through experience” existed 15c., reappeared 1825.

The root of expert takes us back to the latin (surprised anyone?) experiri.  Which in short means to try, test, experience, prove.

The course of action to become experts is the path of experimentation. They are explorers, questioning the established assumptions and methods, delving into the corners and niches that hide away from the mainstream of their field.  Combined with the 10,000 hour rule – made popular by writers like Malcolm Gladwell in another one of his best sellers, Outliers – you end up with an expert.

Example:

To those in the lifestyle design niche, you work at becoming an expert at living your life with a set of design parameters in mind.  Your life becomes a series of experiments aimed at testing, trying and in the end experiencing your life in the most meaningful manner to you.

But what tools do you need in those 10,000 hours?

It’s true, we can’t just practice mindlessly or go about experimenting and abandoning things left and right.  We’d have spent 10,000 hours without recorded observations, analysis and development.  What you need is a specific mindset of experimentation.

That mindset requires curiousity and mindfulness.

With only curiousity you neglect the discoveries you unearth. Mindfulness provides the intensity of awareness to observe, analyze, question, and structure what exploration unearths.  Mindfulness is the key to quantifying data, analyzing and following through on breakthroughs.

With only mindfulness you forgo discovery in place of stability and structure. Curiousity provides the inquisitive nature which pokes at the edges, turns things over, asks what is on the other side of the curtain, and wants more.  Curiousity is the key to endless inquiry, questioning and following up on possibility.

An expert is not a collection of skills and knowledge or a collection of titles and awards.

An expert is an individual with a mindset of curiousity and mindfulness which experiments, fails, questions and delves deep into a field over and over again.  It is their collective experiences in experimentation, failure, success that makes them an expert.