Earlier today I saw someone use arbitrary expertise to justify an opinion.
They alleged they had spent over 1000 hours looking into music, thus can claim with all certainty Drake missed with his AI diss. Little did he know that I have 1000 hours of reviews on cam, available now, and I claim Drake was fire with it.
Which of us has a better opinion?
Neither of us because we’re both nobodies without any claim to expertise people care about.
1000 hours of failure and a 1000 hours of winning don’t hit the same. By the same token, most experts you see selling How To’s in 8 minute videos tend to be “experts” for the most part.
You’ll see someone telling you how to get a million subscribers on a channel with 12000 subscribers.
How can you really trust expertise when no one knows what it means anymore?
Working hard does not make you good at something
I spent something like 8 years making music for myself falling down a skill-based rabbit hole of musician fans, and even then I was an outcast.
Inevitably I started listening to more popular sounds and learned a lot about the music regular people liked. I don’t mean what my friends like, I mean from books to documentaries I studied the history of fandom.
At the same time my former day job had me growing online communities. My current hobbies include being a board member to learn more about how to grow communities for realsies in real life.
I spent nearly a decade working hard at bad ideas.
When I finally started caring about what content audiences wanted to consume, my content became more relevant. I can picture the aspiring creative professional confused by the mixed messaging of the world out there reading my words.
For the most part I’m writing to a younger version of myself now and it gives me purpose.
It’s less about me.
That shift in thinking forces you to adapt. You can be the absolute best in the world at some wildly unpopular things. Or you can work really hard, establishing terrible habits and ultimately have 10’000 hours of mediocrity under your belt.
Working hard in and of itself isn’t the secret sauce.
There’s more to expertise than hard work, you need guidance.
Every successful person has mentors they rely on
My father was not present as an adult so for guidance I’ve had to rely on mentors.
These people are usually older than I am. If they are young age wise, they have clocked way more experience. They are folk who have successful attributes I want more of in my life, that have taken the time to invest in me.
These people have come from many walks of life and I’ve been blessed to always have a few around.
The few times I’ve faced trouble they’ve been able to guide me through.
A mentor will also have the foresight to recognize a bad idea. Or at least they can question you, forcing you to think deeper. If someone can throw a wrench into your plans with a question, the plan isn’t ready yet.
People with experience have both won and lost on the field. They have a track record that proves they know what they are talking about. They aren’t experts because of their hard work, they achieve that status because of the results they deliver.
They are also validated by other experts.
“It takes one to know one” is real deal in the world of expertise
It’s very easy to end up in a situation where someone’s trying to sell you on their expertise.
You may hear them saying the right things but it’s not convincing. With ChatGPT, anyone can come up with a compelling pitch. You start searching around their website and other review sites, but you still aren’t sure.
Then you come across this person winning an award at a dinner of their peers.
The respect of other experts in the field instantly casts a new light on the person. It’s one thing to have a bunch of your friends fill out a TrustPilot review, it’s another to have industry leaders give you love.
The only way to get accepted into the world of experts is to convince them you are an expert yourself. This means going beyond the theoretical of what you’ve learned and proving that the practical side will result in something.
Experts are pretty good at calling bullshit so you really will need to get past their detectors.
You’ll have to learn to work smart to gain expertise.
While people may make grandiose claims in FB posts (and advertisements) it’s important to take some time to see what that person’s reputation really is before trusting their opinions weight.
A whole lot of valueless opinions are out there because people live in bubbles.
Experts broaden their PRSPCTVS to focus on what problems others face
One of the best ways you can learn about expertise is to collect some data.
Go take some time to look at what people do organically. Ignore social media and hit the streets. Find people at 2:00 AM and drunkenly argue about your passion project and try to find out which parts people care about.
Far too often wannabe experts live in bubbles of “expert knowledge”.
Everyone sees what they are supposed to do. They consume the same content and replicate it. This gets picked up on by supportive peers that give just enough of a signal to keep going.
When it comes down to monetization, these campaigns fall flat. They did everything right but skipped the part where they convinced people to care.
Real experts understand the difference between following trends and seeing opportunity. They study the psychology of their domain and start to see the greater picture.
A perfect example is Drake breaking the internet using AI to goof on Kendrick Lamar. Drake saw the opportunity to tap into the AI debate to do something outrageous and timely.
There is no ego in chasing expertise
The numbers are the best way to prove your worth
End of the day experts will have the data to back up their claims.
It’s an opinion to think Drake crossed a line. It’s a fact that it captured the attention of a lot of people. When history evaluates this one day there’s a chance they use a moral framework. It’s more than likely they will report on the numbers.
They may touch on the ethics of using dead people as AI fodder, but the number of articles written about it are more proof to the pudding that people care.
Drake is an expert at memeing himself into relevancy.
When you are looking to prove you know a lot about something, you need a social validator of some kind. Saying you put a lot of hours into something is a bad example of using numbers. No one cares that you worked hard studying the music game on its own.
Instead you want to come up with a claim like getting paid to be a A&R. Or that you’ve won awards for your music journalism. You need to have real credibility.
I think I’m a good performer because of how people respond when I get off the stage. Despite 10000 hours focusing on my craft, no one’s spinning my records these days. Maybe I’m not actually that good of a songwriter. I should say was, my new music is the best I’ve ever made.
The point is, focus on building expertise and the social proof will come. Until then don’t make corny claims like putting 1000 hours into studying something. That’s not actually that much. Malcolm Gladwell says it’s 1/10th of expertise.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone