Not necessarily the best, they have contests and tournaments for that. Whether it be sports, science, plumbing, flying airplanes, music, etc., experts are the high water mark in their fields and the ones that the vast majority are below with regard to expertise or ability.

The question then becomes, how did they get there? Some might have been born with certain abilities. Some probably had exposures, and opportunities that aided in their gift or talent. Some, through drive and determination, achieved their success and abilities, picking themselves up and trying again and again until they surpassed the rest. Some, the true geniuses and top echelon of experts in their fields, probably had a little bit of everything. Thomas Edison, when talking about the invention of the light bulb and how many tries it took until he got it right said, “I didn’t fail, I just found the 10000 things that didn’t work.” Drive, determination, and ability all coupled to put him at the “top” and an expert in design and science.

What keeps you there? That’s up to the individual. In medicine, music, aviation, whatever the topic, professional pride and willingness not to rest on ones previous success’ has everything to do with maintaining where you are in your field. Not wanting to “mail it in” and continue to push yourself. To not only exist but to continue to excel is the mark of an expert. It’s not enough to pass the bar exam, finish med school, earn the MBA or get the dream job you’ve always wanted. What are you prepared to do to stay at the top? How much do you want to dig? That is where experts separate themselves and make the rest of the field “also rans”.

One only becomes an expert by “being”. Becoming an expert is a process..and I think sometimes its a learning process through a bunch of failures or hardships that bring about expertise. You truly come to know something once you have dealt with a darker side.

I also think that becoming an expert means listening to that small still voice deep within. It’s listening to your heart when everyone else says to do otherwise. It’s going with instinct and a gut feeling because you care. I don’t think you can become an expert without throwing your heart into something and caring about it. I consider someone an expert when they have made it through the trenches and come out on top.

And I also think that being an expert means being extraordinarily ordinary.

Knowing what you know for the sake of knowing it..not for the sake of celebrity.

I hope this makes sense.

My second son was gifted. I knew it, the schools knew it, and he knew it. When he was in the 8th grade his teachers encouraged him to take the ACT test for college entrance that most kids take when they are juniors in high school. He took the test and scored higher than 60% of the nation’s juniors and seniors. He was offered a scholarship at that time to attend Denver University and skip high school. As his average (not gifted) parent, I felt he needed the high school experience for not only education but social reasons. He graduated at the top of his class. He received a nomination to West Point. He turned it down and took a full ride Air Force ROTC scholarship to the University of Colorado to persue Electrical Engineering. I watched him struggle in college. For the first time he had competition. He wasn’t committed to hard work, as he had never had to work hard to get good grades before. He assumed college would be easy as most things had been for him up to that time. It wasn’t. He refused to dedicate himself to an appropriate study regimen. He ended up losing his full ride scholarship by one tenth of a percentage point. Why? Not because he was not smart, but because he was unable to work hard, commit himself to the time and energy it would take to be successful, and was choosing not to focus on what was most important. Here was a kid with the brains to do anything and was unable to succeed in developing the knowledge, skill, and committment to achieve a level of expertise in his chosen field.

I don’t believe becoming an expert has much to do with genetic makeup. I believe it has a lot to do with motivation. When we want something and want it desparately, we will work hard, study, spend endless hours developing skills, focus on our goals, and never give up. And then our expertise continues to grow as a function of time and experience. Then and only then will we reach a level of expertise that by some would qualify us to be called an expert.

That’s a joke, people.

A good friend told me years ago that “if you read 7 books about any topic” you’re an expert. In some ways it’s totally true. I remember in college studying health care politics for an entire semester. I undoubtedly had read more about the topic than 98% of our Congressmen and Senators, and it was clear that I was NOT an expert. Yet we considered them to be experts.

My point? Not sure, but I can tell ya I loved your post. Keep up the good work, mr. expert!

Brad Montgomery

optimize his website for key words. Many people
pop up like an expert that way. He simply is one.
It would benefit all of us to focus on our true
talents to uncover our expertise, instead of
“decide” we’re going to be an expert on something.
Thanks, John, for posing the question. A few of us
will be tracking you for the results!