How To Become An Expert

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REVEALED: Four Characteristics Of An Expert

Do you think it requires an innate ability to be considered an ‘expert’ at something?

Have you ever wondered why some people excel to what we consider “amazing” heights in something, while you keep struggling?

Believe it or not, while having an in-born talent at something don’t hurt, most experts taught themselves how to become one.

Recently I watched a short video presentation by a journalist named Joshua Foer that I found pretty interesting. In it he relates his experience with mnemonics (how to create superior memory) and how he taught himself this skill to win a memory competition.

During the presentation he discussed 4 specific things that separates the average within a field or skill set from an expert. These four commonalities he found were quite interesting, so I’ve decided to list them here (in my own words):

1. Experts “fail forward”. They constantly operate outside of their comfort zone and stretch their boundaries. In other words, instead of practicing something familiar within a specific skill set (like playing the piano) they practice the most difficult portions of that particular piece.

2. Emulate someone more successful than you. This brought to mind something I’ve heard Tony Robbins say a number of times: “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results”.

3. Evaluate past successes AND failures. A quote by Ken Blanchard comes to mind here: “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

4. Continually gather data. Keeping track of your progress is key. As Joshua Foer said in his presentation: “Geeking out is useful”).

 

If you want to check out the video presentation, here it is:


 

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  • http://www.goodcontentwebsites.com/blog Paul

    You forgot number 5 or actually number 1. You have to be an expert in your niche or field. There is no way around this. For example Tony Robbins is an expert in “Motivating people” to better than what they are capable of. And, he gets paid BIG bucks from speaking about this same subject not to mention his books.

    Just my 2 cents worth.
    Paul

    • Steven

      I believe that anyone can become an expert in just about any niche barring some kind of physical limitation (nobody is born an expert)… what the post was trying to convey is that in order to become an expert, you do things that expert do.

      Tony Robbins is a self-taught expert at “motivating people”. Studied NLP and created his own version he calls “Neuro Associative Conditioning”. He became an expert by following a similar set of rules…

      Steven

Steven
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