How do you make the most of the 10,000 hours which it is believed it takes to become an expert at something? It’s satisfying to become an expert at anything, not just financially but also personally in terms of happiness, impact, and fulfillment.
Jeroen Kraaijenbrink, a Strategy and Leadership Consultant notes that whatever one’s field of expertise, though, becoming an expert takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, there are no real shortcuts. But, there are effective and less effective ways to get there.
“After having spent 20 years in the field of strategy, I believe I can call myself a strategy expert. Do I know everything? No. Have I read everything? No. Did I do everything? No. But, I’ve built up a rich—broad and deep—understanding of the subject matter,” he explained.
Phase 1: Explore: This helps to decide which area you will become an expert in. Breadth and variety are key here. Explore different domains, jobs, areas to find out what suits you and fascinates you so much that you want to build your professional life around it.
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Phase 2: Enhance: This is the part we usually think of when building up expertise. It consists of spending many hours learning, practicing and doing the actual thing that you want to become an expert in. Along your way you continuously add depth and improve.
Phase 3: Enrich: You might think you are there after Phase 2. But, if you want to truly become an expert, you need Phase 3 as well. It consists of building up expertise in areas very close to your core area of expertise. In this way, you build up the “adjacent knowledge” that enriches your expertise.
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“We usually focus only on Phase 2, but this is only one-third of the journey. Some people detect their talents and fascinations at a very early age. A true expert is not an “idiot savant” that knows all about one subject and nothing else. In the real world, an expert has rich, “V-shaped” expertise with well-developed knowledge in areas adjacent to their core expertise,” he added.
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