Professional expertise is overrated
By: Yaprak Boyacioglu
Tags: Personal, Growth, Professional Development, Expert, Strength Training

Today, like any other day, I came back here to share yet another pain point in my personal history that I am coming to make peace with:

I will probably never become an expert in a unique profession.

Accepting this was extremely difficult for me since the people that I look up the most, are really good at some things. Actually, saying that they are “really good” might be a huge understatement; there are simply people who seem to be created to become extraordinary in one field. One example is Jacob Collier.

GO TO 2.10 FOR GOD’S SAKE

If you don’t know him yet, you should. He is a musical genius and he is extremely fascinating. The amount of instruments he can play is beyond me. He reimagines traditional musical harmonies, almost creating new ways of understanding music. His Instagram -which is the only Instagram I believe to be genuine- shows that he lives, breathes and eats music 24/7. There is no way of even imagining what he is capable of hearing and sensing when he practices his craft. He is 25 years old.

When I am watching his videos, I always have a sense of admiration, a feeling that I am lucky to be alive to witness him doing his thing, and let’s be honest; a tiny wave of envy that is directed to someone who knows and excels in what they know they are brilliant at.

If you know exactly you want to do; think, rethink and then re-rethink.

Imagine with me a certain type of friend that you might have had:

Since primary school, they know exactly what they wanted to do. They are going to become a doctor. Saving lives and being praised in public motivates them. Hence, throughout their youth and their early adulthood, they do everything they need to do to get there. After a long and seemingly perfect ride, they are now a doctor and supposedly very happy.

Very accurate representation, thank you google search.

And you, my dear friend. You are sitting on your couch like a potato thinking “I don’t know what I am doing with my life, they tell me to focus on what I love doing, except that I literally don’t love anything that much to sacrifice my life to it”.

I mean, if you even use the word “sacrifice”, maybe it’s not going so good and I understand your struggle since I was that potato on regular bases until very recently. I am familiar with the deep pressure of having to know what to do and starting to take the necessary steps to become what you are envisioning.

Are you going to become a lawyer? Go to law school, pass the bar, start your practice.

You don’t want to go to school? That’s alright too, but then you should start working on developing the skills expected of you.

Nothing so far is original, it’s how we “achieve” short and medium goals.

Except, saying things like “I will become X, Y, Z” can create an enormous cage, starting from ages 8–9.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This is the question we are started to get asked when we are in primary school. Maybe this is me, but even at that age, I took that question very, very seriously. It felt like if I say that I will be a ballerina, it’s some sort of verbal contract that I am signing my name upon. I then need to devote my life to my art; and if I even remotely consider another option like becoming a doctor, the cage doesn’t allow that. But it’s okay since, with the doctor option, I would need to be okay with the idea of seeing and smelling blood on daily bases. I am not sure I can handle that. Although doctors seemed to be getting a lot of attention so it’s worth considering.

When I think back, I think we all took the idea of those boxes very seriously. There was an “obvious truth” presented us in the following form:

If you love something, you spend more time on it.

If you spend more time on it, you become an expert on it.

If you become an expert on it, you will become successful.

And finally, if you become successful, you will maybe, eventually be happy.

This is the ultimate deal then: Love>Time>Expertise>Success>Happiness

Of course, different generations have different beliefs. Probably for the average Eurasian person in the 70s, love, by all means, wasn’t the primordial factor to kick off the cycle. We all have different paths presented to us when we grow up I think. The one above was what I believed in when I was in high school, which is a critical time -as they present it- to choose an area of expertise. Today, I am happy to say that this is all a big, huge, massive bullshit.

We understood expertise wrong.

When I finally understood this for myself, I felt a huge relief. My parents were a big fan of raising a kid with different interests and I was quite okay with that since I was enjoying the attention. Throughout my childhood I played the violin, the piano, played volleyball, danced ballet, went to reading competitions, drawing competitions. Somehow, I was above average in all I did *a little bragging here? Lol, but seriously I was a tired kid so, no.*

So when I reached a point where I was supposed to focus on the areas “I was good at”, I had no idea. I gave up on things for the wrong reasons, chose to keep on doing other things because of a lack of self-awareness and although I don’t have deep regrets, I think back every now and then to examine my patterns.

I always thought that it was the title and the profession that required expertise. I was deeply wrong. It was my behaviours, my character and my attributes that I needed to become an expert on.

Who around you is doing exactly what they thought they would be doing in high school, in university or even after they enter the professional life? Today, even if you are a doctor, you can choose to change your practice, become a researcher or a writer. If you are a neurosurgeon and you are thinking about it, please do. We all love reading about the brain nowadays.

Professional expertise is not the norm, but it is presented that way. As young people, instead of learning about our individual strengths, we are taught how each profession is performed and how we can get a diploma/internship/course to prove our “expertise”. We end up in a pissing war with our pairs, comparing CVs, LinkedIn accounts in times of high unemployment, instead of being confident about our part to play and collaborate with people to co-construct a better functioning society.

Beyond the macro, we let companies and schools tell us what we are good and not good at in their limited way, and we believe them so easily since we don’t have any fucking idea who we are.

:(

Becoming an expert on depending on your strengths and on managing your weaknesses is > professional expertise

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to say you did everything wrong if you are getting expertise in an area, hell I personally am with you doing the same thing. I am talking about the end goal of choosing the next step and planning a career path for yourself. If you are solely focused on the expertise and lost sight of if you are on the right path for you, you are correct to question things. Hence, professional expertise is not the most important thing you should be focusing on right now.

To give an example from a personal experience, what brings personal satisfaction to me is being surrounded by creative people, working together on solutions that will have a positive impact on others. I know that my strengths fit this scenario and I am focusing on them as I sharpen my self-awareness, my agility and my creativity, but my stress management can benefit from an upgrade or two.

Since I am aware of my reactions, every time I find myself in a stressful position, I am also aware that it is a step I am taking for becoming an expert on managing one of my weaknesses.

When you adopt this way of seeing things, you can become a ballerina, a product manager, a chef and still continue becoming an expert on yourself.

Your favourite stoic said it first.

“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

On a side note and to prove my point I really don’t think Jacob Collier is doing what he is doing just to become an expert on music, he is genuinely radiating while performing. *is this my open love letter to Jacob? Maybe.*

Whatever you are doing right now, remember to drink some water.

Peace and love,

Yaprak