There are two ways to approach life. Read about it. Or live it.
I read a lot. I like to synthesize information together, saturate my brain synapses, make connections, and curate the exact pieces that will fit my life. Knowledge is my thing.
But it doesn’t matter how much I read, or attend lectures, or watch TED talks, or troll Twitter for the next most interesting blog post. Most of that learning stuff is useless; there’s no better way to learn than to just do.
Become an expert {Phase 1}
Action is the first step. That’s why I encourage job-hopping. Most people don’t know what they like or what they’re good at. Like you could really want to be a CEO, yearn for it with all the matter in your body and brain, and then regrettably discover that you suck as a CEO.
Or maybe you’re really fabulous. A veritable genius! The point is, without working it out for yourself, you’re stuck on the path that others have already laid out. And yeah, that’s a safe plan, I don’t blame you. Our education system is certainly not set up to handle exploration or deviation from a set course. And entering the real world closes the door all together.
In school and at the workplace we’re told exactly how to do tasks, without learning the full explanation behind it. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of a young woman who is trying to solve a mathematical problem. She’s not told the way others have solved the problem, but instead is problem-solving on her own.
Gladwell recounts that when she figures it out, her face lights up: “Ohhh. Okay. Now I see. The slope of a vertical line is undefined. That means something now. I won’t forget that!”
The young woman is working with a professor who encourages his students to unlearn the mathematical habits they picked up on the way to university. Because it’s not about memorizing the right way to do something, but your ability to try that determines your success.
“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds,” Gladwell reports.
In order to drive innovation, we need time and space to explore, not regurgitate. To become the master of a topic, you need to understand its underbelly, where it came from, where it’s going, not just the flashy exterior.
Become an expert {Phase 2 – quickly}
Most people are stuck in the land of daydreams and don’t actually reach action, so if you’ve mastered that, pat yourself on the back. I just gave myself a little pat. Go on, you too. Now we’re moving into advanced world domination.
Exploring a topic from top to bottom is all good and well, but what if you don’t have 10,000 hours to devote? What if there was a short-cut? A way that actually helped you make more fiery synapses connections?
I realize I’m starting to sound like an infomercial here, so stay with me.
First, let me preface by saying there’s no substitute for action. And what I’m about to propose isn’t something you should do in lieu of cooking every night if you want to be a chef, but it is the way to super-size what you learn from cooking every night. In an Einstein sort of way, not Mickey D’s.
So tell me, how well can you explain what you do? How well do you understand your passion? Could you teach someone else to do it?
When you do something like send a pitch, for example, you’re learning. You’re testing your ideas and theories through the reaction you receive, the resulting outcome. In this paradigm, it’s okay to fail, you discover through trial and error, and through persistence and hard work, you win.
But there’s an entire level of awesomeness missing. And you can only ascend to the next level by then teaching someone what you have learned. Because then you’re testing your values, ideas and theories with another person’s values, ideas and theories. You understand the underlying challenge more by defining it for another. Teaching – good teaching – requires you to exchange knowledge, not simply impart it. Learning is individual. Teaching is collaborative.
“Nobel laureate physicists such as Enrico Fermi and Leon Lederman took pride in teaching bright undergraduates,” reports Michael Schrage in Harvard Business, “because it forced them to keep in touch with the fundamentals of their field and express themselves simply and clearly.”
I had no idea how to write a stellar cover letter and resume until I started teaching others to do theirs. Groups comprised of individuals in different skill sets – say, marketing, design and finance – thrive when they teach each other. Life-coaches may be so prevalent right now because the coaches help themselves as much as they help clients.
Teaching is sharing knowledge, sharing empathy, sharing ideas. It’s pushing you to understand with entirely different lenses. Just like your body needs both cardio and strength training, your mind needs both learning and teaching.
Teaching is the definitive learning experience. And it’s the quickest way to expertise.
22 replies on “Become an expert quickly”
The problem is that many people never make it out of phase one. They never figure out what they want to do. Job hopping (or choosing to not job hop) is just an excuse, not a cause.
Enrico Fermi is a great lesson in how to become an expert. He spent his entire professional career in a single field but he didn’t find it boring. He was motivated to continue learning and not rest on existing knowledge. He followed a path of discovery for almost 30 years.
There’s no shortcut or silver bullet though. Teaching may help but only in conjunction with other, more substantial work. There are too many who teach who choose to not advance.
Deep level expertise has been built based on drive, commitment and time. It belies the very idea of a shortcut. Shortcuts are good for subjects that don’t require a deep level of understanding.
Very good post Rebecca. I would add being honest with your level of expertise in a given profession or area of interest as also being critical. I’m not necessarily referring to the amount of time spent in a given field but more along the lines of working smart to learn important principles and knowing how to apply them. You want to become an ‘expert’ in a short amount of time as possible and learn along the way as you mention above but never misrepresent your abilities, accomplishments, or experience.
@ Lance – Yes! I agree, it’s difficult to even do Phase 1. And I agree there’s no magic bullet, even teaching (I was being a little humorous in that paragraph, perhaps that didn’t come off, ha). But I do think teaching helps you reach a level of understanding of your field that you would have never had previously. And perhaps, the argument should go that you aren’t an expert until that step is somewhere in your past.
@ Mark – Good point. I think misrepresentation is why we have social media “experts” that are so blindly prolific, it’s impossible to log on to the internet without trying to swat one away. And that’s not good for anyone.
You have to be careful who your audience is when you teach. If you try to teach people who know more than you, it can backfire and you only turn them off. Potentially losing connections who could help you gain more expertise and coming across looking like a total moron.
I started and led a study group in college for a Western Civ course, 12 hours over 2 semesters, lit and history together. Lit was my thing, the history, not so much. I sweated that class to the extreme. I’d study over 20 hours for each test. Alone and in the group. And it was in the group, teaching, that I made this connection for perhaps not the first, but the first-most-striking time. That the ability to explain and expound upon what you know helps you learn from the inside out. Helps you as much, maybe more, than those you are teaching.
I wonder if this is true for every personality type. That’s the only thing I’m not certian of here. But I guess we’ll have to leave that to others to hash out.
I would perhaps add to this list, though. Doing, teaching are critical, but I also think the courage to document makes a difference here. Preserving what you know is a critical component to expertise. Whether through writing out your thoughts and ideas or building your patented object or testing your theory. Because that’s what allows your expertise to get beyond you and your immediate impact. To inspire others to expound upon and add to and test your ideas.
Teaching is hard. Harder then most people think.
I’ll give you this example:
Think of yourself as a personal trainer. You have a few middle-aged overweight clients. Do you make them feel like crap and compare them to a 24 year old marathon runner?
Or do you build their confidence and get them to a level above their current status?
Think about that.
I love this post; it came at the perfect time! Lately, I had been questioning my passion and if I am in need of a change. I love what I do, but I am getting complacent with how I do it. I have stopped challenging myself because that takes work.
Then, last night, I spoke to my alma mater’s marketing club and was re-energized! To see them so excited and motivated to learn more and make their own way was inspiring. I was able to offer advice on how to get the most out of their four years, on how to take advantage of the technologies and outlets they have at their disposal, and assure them that they can decide for themselves what they like and don’t like.
This experience, and your blog post, have reminded me that I am still in control of my path, that I have a lot to learn, and that there is much more excitement in my future. I look forward to continuing to grow my expertise through challenging myself and teaching others along the way.
Maybe it is a personality thing, but I think anyone can be better at what they do by going back to the roots of learning and helping others along the way.
Rebecca, This is a very inciteful post. When I was young we certainly would not have heard a recommendation to job hop but it does seem to work today. The only thing I would recommend is as you job hop be sure to live up to any promises or commitments that you make to your employer. There is job hopping where you burn bridges and there is job hopping where you build relationships. Shoot for the latter.
From experience I can confirm that teaching is an excellent way to solidify learning. One of the great things about today’s environment is that there is no need for teaching to be “formal”. There are so many opportunities to share what you know informally through media and technology. Everyone can be a teacher. Go for it!
@ Nora – Good point to bring up, but if you look at teaching as more of an exchange of information, where you’re learning as much as the other person, hopefully this wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
@ Tiffany – Thanks so much for sharing your story; I’ve had similar experiences and they’re so powerful! Really loved your comment. In terms of documenting your experiences and knowledge, I agree that’s important, but I wonder if teaching isn’t an arm of that – extending your legacy to a person rather than a sheet of paper… just something to chew on.
@ Stuart – Think about what? That teaching is hard? Yes. But no more difficult than dogged persistence and work.
@ Amanda – Ah, love your comment! Thanks so much for sharing. I had a similar experience last Friday which kind of sparked this post. I spoke on a panel and it made me “re-energized” as you say as well. I think a problem is that we get stuck in our own knowledge bubbles. But interacting with others forces us to expand. Which is pretty cool.
@ Paul – Fabulous point to bring up – “There is no need for teaching to be ‘formal'” – Absolutely. I would love to see our society be a teaching culture, where such values where imbued in every day life. Think how amazing that would be!
I didn’t even see where you were going with this: teaching to learn and experience and expedite the process. I really like this. I think teaching is a win-win where you’re able to teach others, learn from their mistakes or yours, while the ‘student’ or ‘pupil’ is learning from your knowledge.
Personally, I like teaching because it fine tunes my skills, teaches me patience and often makes me realize I know MORE than I thought I did :)
Teaching is as elucidating for the teacher as it is for the student, well said.
Gladwell’s comment about success being based on “persistence and doggedness” is almost exactly what that a : “Ingenuity is often misunderstood. It is not a matter of superior intellect but of character. … It arises from deliberate, even obsessive, reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions.”
Great book and great insights from the surgeon Gawande. Interesting to see these tenents reflected in other writing as well
Sorry for butchering the link in the above comment there… I will strive to do better linking next time via “deliberate reflection on failure and searching for new solutions” haha
That link was supposed to say the quote about ingenuity and persistence came from the book Better by the surgeon Atul Gawande
@ Grace – Totally, glad you like the thought-process, even if it did take me a bit to get to the point, ha. Teaching always solidifies things for me as well, as Tiffany states above. I think it’s extremely powerful and highly undervalues. Thanks for the comment!
@ Royce – Thanks for sharing that quote and link! Really love that. Character is certainly underrated and I enjoy seeing this idea in other places as well : )
Wow, I’m so a research/learn/explore/beat info to death before jumping into action person, I totally get that. And I think that is one of the biggest things I’ve gotten from teaching and coaching in my jobs. Beyond having to prepare yourself and become extremely knowledgeable in your subject matter, you also have to be open minded and willing to accept the info you know and the info you don’t. One of the best things I could have taught myself before going into this particular gig was the exact thing you spoke about in the beginning. Training my mind to see connections and figure out problems on my own. When people ask me questions I can generally answer within a very high proficiency what the answer would be just by “connecting the dots.”
Lots of people ask how I know all this or how I got to have all this info. I tell them it isn’t that I bump all this info around in my brain, I just make logical assumptions and then verify.
I agree with teaching as a means to become an expert. But it’s even more true then you describe.
A number of years ago I started a user group for PHP developers, a group where I presented 90% of the time. It absolutely helped me become very knowledgeable in a very short time.
The secondary benefit was that by leading and teaching the group I was perceived as an expert, leading to many job opportunities.
So teaching is not only good to help you learn something better, but it’s a fabulous credibility indicator. Of course if you really don’t know what you’re teaching it can certainly backfire.
I really like the idea of combining “action” and “teaching” as it relates to becoming an expert—specifically in that order. So many times in my business life, I have encountered so-called experts that could not explain a basic theory without a dissertation. In my book, if you can’t give someone a short and simple explanation on something, then you really aren’t an expert. Even Einstein was able to shorten the Theory of Relativity to E=MC2 .
Being from the older Gen X set, in college we were told that you should not job hop because it looks bad on your resume. While I can understand that job hopping can look on paper like a lack of dedication, to me it could say that the person likes to try new things. And, if I was hiring for a consultant type position, this is exactly the type of person I would want to have on my team. Luckily, it seems that this stigmatism has dissipated greatly in the past 5 to 10 years.
Also related to action…people sometimes forget that work is not the only place where you can learn key leadership and other business-type skills. There are many local social and service organizations that will give you first hand leadership and business skills for free—well, you will have to donate a small amount of your free time.
If more people would take the action and teaching approach to becoming experts, I think meetings at my company would be a lot shorter!
Spot on. I’m sure eveyone is familiar with what many young college students face, having to choose a major only to determine 4 years later that it it 180 degrees from their interests and strengths – no Phase 1.
Being in the Engineering profession, I am all too familiar with Phase 2. Peers often develop projects on an individual basis. After “completion”, the results must be communicated to the entire group and then each respective member is as informed as the researcher. This pivotal step finds flaws and opens new paths. Even talking to a brick wall can sometimes have the same effects, to a lesser degree.
If organizations embraced this philosophy of exploration and communication – and gave people the freedom to do so – I expect it would soon employ a wide variety of experts.
Rebecca: I love this idea. There are definitely some things we can only learn by doing. My school required everyone in the School of Communications to have at least one internship. I think this is a great policy, so great that I actually had three. There’s only so much you can learn in the classroom and on campus. It’s one thing to be taught the rules of reporting and practice on your classmates, and quite another to interview a professional football player on the phone.
Just as internships are a great way to expand our knowledge, I agree that teaching is also a valuable tool. Often, we don’t realize just how much we know about something, or how strong our passion is, until we share it with someone else. Great post!
Hi Rebecca!
I’m @charleslau from Twitter.
Now I can fully understand why you were asking about the mathematical question and I can only give you the havard business link. :)
I agree with you that teaching is the way to push yourself to learn even more from different angles! I can still remember the days when I teach my friends who are weak in their programming projects.. I realize that the more that I teach, the more I just get better with my understanding!
Today, blogging is a way of pushing ourselves to learn even more although we are expressing our understanding about a certain topic. It forces us to do some research to find out some of the things in order to complete the article in our blog post.
Great post! Will be learning from you more often through your blog! :)
Rebecca,
Completely agree, I had unconscious done this several times; just because I’m willing teach others what I went out & learned … I became the go-to guy.
In phase 1 to gain knowledge, you can also take the lead to take work other don’t like/want to approach. This way, you will gain unique set of knowledge.
Actually teaching to expertise is one of the things I wanted to talk about when I started my blog.
Cheers,
Ian
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