There are two problems with this:
- “Expert” just means you’re the best in the room at something, or that you’re better at it than whoever you’re dealing with, and
- Becoming an expert is much easier than students assume
The traditional path to expertise is that you study something in college for four years, you get an entry level job doing it, and then maybe after years on the job you’re qualified enough to be an expert consultant in your field. But why take the slow traditional path? Why waste a few years grinding your teeth when you could go out and become an expert in less than six months?
A class moves as fast as the slowest student, and a job puts you in a set track regardless of how motivated and self-educating you are. By developing expertise on your own, nothing can slow you down but your own motivation.
These are some of the best ways to do it.
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Find a Mentor
According to Shane Snow is his book Smartcuts:
“…We can spend thousands of hours practicing until we master a skill, or we can convince a world-class practitioner to guide our practice and cut the time to mastery significantly”
The benefit of a mentor is that they can give you 1 on 1 advice for reaching your goals, whatever they might be. They’ve made all of the mistakes you would likely make on your own, or they had someone pull them up as well, so having a mentor can accelerate your learning by huge multiples.
You’ll have the easiest time finding someone just a few years ahead of you. Make sure it’s someone who’s actually doing what you want to do (or who did it in the past), and who has been doing it recently enough to help. Make it as easy as possible for them to help you by sending very simple questions, and by always showing a lot of appreciation for what they’re doing for you.
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Read Carefully Selected Books
Most college classes can be learned in 1/10th the time if you pick the right books to read. The top non-fiction for your niche is going to be the most concise and useful resource you have for learning more about how to master your vertical, and for referring back to when you’re not sure what to do. You just have to make sure you choose the right books.
Amazon reviews are a good place to start, but they’re not perfect. They’re susceptible to hive-mind and paid manipulation, but they’re passable if you have nothing else. What’s better is specific recommendations from your mentors and from people you look up to. I find that everyone likes being asked for book recommendations, so I make a point of asking for them from anyone impressive I meet. If you get in the habit of this you’ll quickly have a list of the most influential books for the people you aspire to be like.
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Do Free Work / Volunteer
Charlie Hoehn is a now famous advocate of doing free work for people you look up to, and it’s a fantastic way to learn from the people at the top. The premise is that the most successful people in their field get tons of emails asking for work, or asking for free mentorship, but they get almost no one reaching out and offering to help them for free. If you can show how you can improve their life / work for free they’ll be much more likely to engage you.
Another option is volunteering. If you want to build a marketing portfolio but no one will take you without experience, try volunteering for a non-profit that wants to get its name out. Sure you won’t make money, but you’ll have a reference to point to when you’re pitching future clients.
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Write About It
I’ve learned that the best way to learn something is to pretend you already know everything about it and start writing. As you go you’ll be motivated to do a lot of research, and when you have to rephrase other people’s research into your own words you retain the information much better.
The other benefit of this is that if you want to get work doing freelance marketing, having some great blog posts about marketing with your name under them will help bolster your resume. Don’t assume that you don’t know enough to start writing, you’ll figure it out along the way.
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Intern
It’s not the fastest, but it can be a good way to get started. Interning, especially for a startup where you’ll get more face-to-face interaction, is a great way to get started developing expertise in a field you’re interested in. I say startup because if you work for a big company you’ll probably be slotted into the exact same work as the other interns, and won’t have the freedom to try new things and experiment within you role.
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Read the Best Blogs
A good blog is an expert’s consolidation of their experiences and their research, so it’s a great way to learn a lot in a very short amount of time. Find a few bloggers who have had a huge impact on their field, follow their work, and see who else they reference in their posts and who they engage with on Twitter.
This also gives you an opportunity to reach out to them through their blog comments, and share how you’re learning from what they’re writing. Every blogger loves being told their work is being useful to other people, so don’t be afraid to say hi to them. You never know, it could lead to a great mentoring relationship.
