Why Curiosity Makes One An Expert?

Why Curiosity Makes One An Expert?

Sean: Now, I had a lot of questions in my last AMA or ask me anything. A lot of questions about, how do I know which career path to take? Where to be an expert in? They have no clue where to start, Alan. What’s going to be your take, your answer to these people?

Alan: There’s a lot of ways that you can find out these things, right? There’s a lot of evaluations that help young people sort of decide where their aptitudes are. Researchers have been studying this idea for a long time, is there a way that we can test people and determine, you know, ‘Hey, Sean, is going to be a great podcaster, we really need to guide him in that direction? Right?’ Or ‘Sean, would be a great medical doctor. We should guide him in that or him in that direction, right?’

Alan: So there’s a lot of work that has gone on in there, and there are some things that will help guide a young person who is really trying to sort through what they want to do. For me, you just need to talk with people. You need to interview people. Don’t be afraid to ask questions when you’re struggling or wondering about these things. Talk to people who’ve actually spent their careers in the field. Talk to the experts. It’s remarkable how many people out there will actually reach out and help you.

Alan: You know, I talked about Anders Ericsson previously. This mountain of an expert in this field of expertise. And I reached out to him and he responded, and he got on the phone with me and he and he talked with me. He was super encouraging and and I just love that about him, right? And he didn’t know me from, you know, the man on the Moon, but he took the time to encourage me in this field of passion for him.

Alan: And I find that over and over again, whether it be the medical doctors that I’ve talked to or the people that I’ve talked to, they’re all really willing and able to encourage people and point out the trials, right, the difficulties that you’re going to be facing when you go down this field. But I would encourage any person who’s sort of struggling with that to just talk to people about it, talk to your doctor, you what your interests are and ask them questions on how they could, how they made their lives’ mission in their field.

Sean: That’s very good advice. I want to rewind a little bit and ask you about; what separates people who breakthrough and become experts, in spite of all the adversity, criticism, and the hardships that it takes to be one, versus someone who tried to become an expert but didn’t quite make the cut? What’s the separating factor between the two?

Alan: Yeah, I actually spent a lot of time studying the attributes of experts, and in this particular subject, I’ve sort of narrowed it down to one attribute that seems to make a difference. I’m sure there are others, Sean, but there’s one that stands out the most to me, and it seems like there are people who have just an insatiable curiosity, right? They just keep asking. They just won’t stop pursuing the angles and the differences. And there’s this unending curiosity.

Alan: And I think that really distinguishes people who are going to be able to move past proficiency and into a stage of excellence if they just, will never find the end of the knowledge that they want to obtain. What makes someone an expert is not the accumulation of all available knowledge, it’s the accumulation of all available knowledge and then going beyond the accumulated knowledge, right? That’s the distinction right out of someone who is proficient versus someone who steps into the darkness of excellence and someone who goes beyond what is already known.

Sean: Got it. That’s very good to know, curiosity.

Sean: Now in entrepreneurship, and you’re an entrepreneur. A lot of entrepreneurs actually say that you’ve got to be an expert in a lot of things, right? And you’ve got to know a little bit, a little bit of this, or a lot of that, or a lot of that, and you’ve got to put all these things together. That’s what’s going to make you a really good entrepreneur, because now you can understand more people. You can deal with all sorts of clients better, someone who likes to listen to the news, someone who likes politics, and someone who’s into stocks, and you could sell to them better, relate with them better and build your business, make it grow.

Sean: What do you say about that school of thought?

Alan: Well, starting a business is a daunting venture for anybody, no matter how much background skill you have. And it’s a tough slog. It can be really tough. I remember the first time I received a big investment deck from a venture capital firm that said, here are the terms of our multimillion dollar investment. And it was daunting, I mean, you know, I had lots of finance background. You would think that based upon my schooling and that in history, it wouldn’t have been as intimidating, but you know, these were serious venture capital, you know, sharks. You know, they’re called the Shark Tank for a reason, right? I mean, it was sharks, right? They were out to get themselves a chunk of flesh.

Alan: And it can be daunting, and I wasn’t as proficiently. But fortunately, I knew people who were, right? Some part of the business is building your network of professionals around you who can help you on these key decisions, right? Yeah, you need a lot. Know a lot of things. You got to be able to read a financial statement, right? You have to be able to hire individuals. You got to be able to help solve problems when your customers render them. Unending array of different things that an entrepreneur has to do. But you don’t have to know it all. You get to know what differentiates you and then fill in the gaps on the stuff that you don’t.

Sean: Have you ever met someone or knew someone Alan, that is an expert at something that they don’t love it? They don’t like doing that. They can detest it in a way, but they’re an expert in it. Is that possible? Have you ever met someone?

Alan: Yeah, of course. I mean, I think most of us get to a point. If you’re a true expert of something, you’ve gone through these stages of mundane, monotony, repetition right? Due to a painful degree, right? And yet you stick with it through that. So that’s the part that’s amazing is that the people actually emerge from the other side of that, right? That they get to the point that, ‘you know, I’ve had enough of this right. If I get one more question like this question, I’m just going to lose it right?’

Alan: And yet they endure right to persevere and they get on the other side. And so, yeah, of course, that happens right. And then my encouragement would stick at it, right? I mean, we can change, but change doesn’t mean that that monotony is going to go away, it’s going to catch up with you one way or the other.

Sean: For sure. For sure, that makes sense.

Sean: How well is being an expert? We’ve talked about how much adversity is going to be potentially there, but how well does it pay off to be an expert at something?

Alan: Yeah, I think emotionally it’s critical. I think for us to develop as individuals, it’s what really is in our gut, in our soul to drive us. Now, pay off, I’m not really sure what that means, right? Oftentimes for entrepreneurial interviews, that means pay off financially, right? Well, know there’s no guarantee that your excellence is going to pay off at all, right? You can work really hard to become an excellent tennis player and you can play at high levels but never win, you know, a championship in tennis, right?

Alan: But that doesn’t mean that it’s not rewarding, fulfilling, gratifying, helpful, influential. It is all those things, right? And so I think we need  a bridle. What does the “payoff” really mean for us? You know, I’m thinking about it from a personal development perspective, I think it’s invaluable. I think it is partially what we’re here on Earth to actually do is become great at something, and contribute in other ways, right to contribute to help people.

Alan: One of the things about expertise that I just really love is that it is the way we can help someone else. It is what people seek. You know, you were talking about a young person not knowing exactly what to do with their career, and they seek an expert, right? That’s an ability to influence someone that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, if you didn’t have this proficiency, this expertise.

Sean: There are so many people claiming to be experts today, they’re so many. I think this is the time when we have so many people claiming to be experts, but they’re really not. Is there a way for us to differentiate and see through if they really are experts versus if they’re just all talk?

Alan: Yeah, there are. The dimensions of expertise that we talked about knowledge, skill, attitude. Those are the three biggies right. When we look at a dictionary definition of expertise or rather expert, it’ll say something like, you know, someone who ‘has superior knowledge or skill.’ Knowledge and skill are the two biggies, right?

Alan: And skill is one that it’s really easy to identify who’s a better chess player? Who’s the expert chess player? Well, it’s the person who dominates every other chess player. Right? So there is a very easy mark of it, who’s the better tennis player and more expert? The one who wins when playing tennis against other players, right? So it’s very easy to measure that.

Alan: That’s one of the reasons that things like tennis and chess are studied a lot by researchers, is because it is easy to tell who’s the dominant, you know, expert versus a lesser right? In other areas like finance, like health care, like public policy. It’s much more difficult, right, to distinguish someone who’s great from someone who’s faking it, right?

Alan: And it really comes down to can we measure their knowledge? Can we measure their skill? And attitude sort of comes along with it. We want experts to have great attitudes, but not all experts have a great attitude. So that’s what you’re talking about. That’s where fakers or sort of come in, they see, ‘Oh, someone’s an expert. I can sort of represent the same attitude that an expert has.’ Right? But if you’re testing their attitude, that’s where you’re going to be deceived. If you’re testing their knowledge or their skill, then that’s where you kind of exposed the fakers, if you will.

Sean: Got it. And now trying to put it from an entrepreneurial standpoint for our entrepreneurs who are listening in, we want to hire experts, right? I mean, who doesn’t want to hire experts?

Sean: But how can we test knowledge and skill on a level that would tell us, at least at a fairly accurate level, if they are who they claim to be experts, or people who claim they’re experts would usually ask for a competitive salary and package, they can fake the attitude, certainly even through the final interview. But how can we test out their expertise and skill? Because often you can’t give them such an exam that is so cohesive and comprehensive that they just try to answer and you have a failing mark, it’s not like school. Is there a way for us to know that?

Alan: There is, and it’s actually not that difficult. It’s not perfect, but it’s available and it is something that I’ve learned and used a lot, and that is the recommendation of their peers, right? If I was interviewing you, Sean, and you know, you seemed like a bright guy and had all the attributes, you have the things that I checked off on the job description, right?

Alan: What would be more revealing to me beyond our interview, beyond our conversation, would be my conversation with other people that you previously worked with. Right? It’s, how does this person really behave over the long term in the actual setting? And so the most credible identifier of experts in fields that are hard to measure, like we talked about, is the recommendation of their colleagues.

Alan: And that’s actually something that academia has actually figured out, right? How often is a scholar reference, right? How often as a scholar, you know, given deference to? What to the other scholars say about that scholar as they grow their experience with this person, they’re able to get a credible recommendation or a reference to this person.

Alan: So I would do the same thing. I do the same thing with technical people, right? If I don’t have a direct relationship with someone I’ve worked with in the past, can I find someone who has had a direct relationship with that person in the past? And through social media, it’s available, it’s out there, right? We can find people who know Sean Si. It’s a known commodity.

Sean: Got it. That’s actually very good. Very good way to know.