I attended an interesting webinar the other day, entitled "What is a Social Media Expert?". A lot of the information about the seminar really was geared toward Social Media, Best Practices, Usages, and really, what is an expert when it comes to Social Media. Or when is someone deemed an expert in the Social Media Industry? Does someone have to have extensive training to be an expert in this field? Does someone have to be in this, day in, day out, living and breathing Social Media to be an expert? The thing that caught my attention was a Harvard study that was mentioned during the webinar that was done about what makes a Musician an expert. The study mentioned 10,000 hours it takes a normal person to become an expert in the musician industry. The mention of this then talked about if that was transferred over to social media, that would be an equivalent of 28 years *(if practicing social media for an hour a day).
So then that made my brain think. 28 years to become an expert. Can you imagine what Social Media will be like in 28 years? So in this scenario, certainly 28 is a longer time than expected for anyone to know this field.
I deal with this all the time with my perfection, and I know that it holds me back. It holds me back from applying to jobs, for advancing or even having the confidence to move forward. I certainly don't want to be deemed an expert until I know "everything, and anything". Until I'm perfect. Until I'm perfectly qualified. If I have one more designation, or one more training, maybe then I would be qualified.
So my question is this. Is there ever a time that someone will be a perfect expert? Or completely perfect? OF COURSE NOT! With the world as it is today, ever changing, there is no possibility of that. You can certainly be good at what you do, an influencer in your industry, an expert in other people's minds, and even yours, but certainly EXPERT does not have to equal PERFECT.
The object of today's writings is not associate expert with perfection. It's ok to not have all of the qualifications but still apply for the job, it's ok to not know every single thing but still be considered an expert. It's all about perception, on how you perceive yourself. Perceive yourself as the best person you can be, the most excellent at what you do, and that's all that matters. There is no perfect expert.
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
-Vince Lombardi
