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In the Life
It's been quite the whirlwind here. Even I'm amazed at what's
happened in the course of two weeks. For starters... drum roll
please.
At
long last
The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women came out. At one
point it was on three Amazon top 100 lists but the stats
change hourly so now it's just on one. I'm grateful to all the
speed readers who took the time to write a review at Amazon and
for to everyone for helping spread the word.
The next day I did a 19-station satellite radio tour from my
couch before taking off to speak to the engineering department
at the University of Colorado-Boulder about overcoming the
impostor syndrome (rampant on college campuses).
I arrived early enough to be able have lunch at the Dining Hall
at
Chautauqua. Being there brought back SO many wonderful
memories of the
Making Dreams Happen workshop I'd put on there back in 2003
with the phenomenal Barbara Sher and Barbara Winter. It truly
was life changing. I was so inspired I've been thinking about a
reunion! If you were there -- call me!
 
It had snowed in Boulder earlier in the week and the combination
of fall leaves on snow was exquisite. I hiked for maybe a mile
until I saw the "What To Do If You See A Bear Or Mountain Lion"
sign and a big ol' paw track. I decided shopping was safer.
(loved
the advice to fight back)
I bought so many clothes at the Goodwill I had to buy a duffle
bag to get them back to Massachusetts where I proceeded to fly
into the freak October blizzard that dumped a foot of snow on
New England. Suddenly I lost my love of snow on autumn leaves.
After driving around numerous downed trees and power lines
requiring a series of long detours I finally arrived home to
find I was locked out of my house. Fortunately I was able to
pick up Cokie at his new sitter Patty's (that's him sleeping
with four of her six dogs on her bed... he's the black dot in
the middle).
So I turned around and drove to my Dad's. He and his girlfriend
had no power either, but at least it was a roof and a fireplace.
Boy, you don't fully appreciate how much your business demands electricity and phone
service until they're gone.
 Four days later the power went on just in time to attend the
annual Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts dinner. The keynote
was Jennifer Buffett (Warren's daughter-in-law) who spoke about
the positive global impact of funding projects that improve the
lives of girls and women. When I asked her what I could share
with my readers, she said to send you to the video on
www.girleffect.org
Sadly this is also the week I send off my trusty assistant
Lisa Tarrant who along with her creativity-to-spare husband
Mark and her brilliant daughter Haley are moving to New
Mexico. I've known Lisa for going on 20 years when we worked
for the same company.
That is until I drew her into the world of self-bossers and
she's never looked back. Her first day on the job was the
Making Dreams Happen workshop! What an initiation!
Sparing no expense I took the family out for a hot dog at
the famous Nick's Nest restaurant (more of a hot dog joint).
Here's Haley saying goodbye to Cokie and here they are when she was first
born and he crept his way up my shoulder for a little
babying too.
Even though I know Lisa will continue to work with me and we
only got together maybe half a dozen times a
year, I loved knowing she was right off the highway on my
way to the airport. Lisa you are one in a million. You
changed my business and thus my life for the better. Here's
to the next Work at What You Love retreat in New Mexico!
Oh,
and I also celebrated my 57th birthday last week! No
wonder Goodwill offered me the senior discount. :-)
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Opportunity Knocks: Creative Ways to Make a Living Without A Job
How Much Do You Need to Know Before You're an Expert?
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Dreamer in Residence
Valerie Young |
By Valerie Young
During a recent visit to the dentist, my hygienist Anne asked about my
recent speaking tour in California. When I told Anne I'd spoken about the
Impostor Syndrome to thousands of people at numerous universities, including
Stanford, her response was, "Wow, you must be a real expert." While that
term doesn't always resonate with me, I suppose I am an expert.
But what does it mean to be an "expert"? Naturally you do need to know
something about the topic at hand. But how much knowledge do you actually
need to consider yourself an expert?
The Expert Trap
If
you've ever read a job description and automatically disqualified yourself
because you didn't have one or two out of a long line of competencies or the
necessary experience, passed on an opportunity to speak on or otherwise
showcase your knowledge because you "don't know enough," or not started your
own business because you are not yet "an expert" then you may have fallen
into the Expert Trap.
The common belief that you need to know 150 percent before you're remotely
qualified to step up the plate is a huge dream stopper. Striving to be THE
expert is the knowledge version of perfectionism. And as with perfectionism,
going for total knowledge can at best slow you down and at worst bring your
dream to a screeching halt.
The problem for people who fall
into the Expert Trap is that they suffer under the misconception that
there's some clear line of demarcation between expert and non-expert -- and
that they'll somehow know when they've reached it. We tell ourselves,
"If I can just get enough knowledge, experience, or training, then
I'll be an expert."
And herein lies the rub -- you
can never know it all. It's like the commercial where a man beams that he's
reached the end of the Internet. What makes the ad funny is its absurdity.
The Internet is so vast and ever-changing that if you lived a thousand years
you'd never reach the "end." It's the same with knowledge. There is no end.
You can add to your understanding of a subject but there will always
more to learn.
The
Expert "Myth"
You're especially prone to the
Expert Trap if you mistakenly believe that competence and expertise are one
and the same. The belief that, "If I were really competent, intelligent,
qualified... I would know more" keeps far too many people from striking out
on their own.
A lot of men fall victim to
this same self-limiting thinking. Yet my early research, coupled with
twenty-plus years of anecdotal evidence, suggests women are more prone to
equate competence with knowing it all.
Apparently I'm not alone. A few
years back I wrote a letter to the editor. In it I described how a man who
finds himself confronted with something he's never done before is more
likely to "wing it" while a woman in the same situation often expects
herself to know it all up front.
A week after my letter appeared
I got this email from Dan Pink, author of Free Agent Nation and A
Whole New Mind:
I just read your
letter-to-the-editor in Fast Company.
Great work! My hunch -- speaking as a male all too willing to opine without
sufficient facts -- is that you're spot-on. That at least is what I
discovered during several hundred interviews with independent workers over
the last two years...kudos again on telling it like it is!
Just to be clear -- expertise in
and of itself is not a myth. After all, we all know people who are
undisputable experts in their respective fields. The myth is:
-
believing that being an
expert means you have to know everything there possibly is to know about
a subject
-
believing you will someday
be able to announce triumphantly that you have reached the end of
knowledge and are "done"
-
believing that if you don't
know everything there is to know, then you know nothing at all
-
believing our inner voice
when it says, "If I were really smart, then I would know how to do
this."
Not only is it humanly
impossible to "know it all," but the misguided pursuit to do so can kill a
dream before it ever begins. As Suzanne Falter-Barns asks, "How many of us
linger forever in endless training and classes, waiting to get really good
at something before we plunge a single toe into the submission/rejection
pool?"
Just as with perfection, the
pursuit of expertise can become a convenient excuse for never moving
forward. The reality, says Falter-Barnes, is that "You cannot become a
master until you actually take the leap, do the work, make several thousand
mistakes, and live to tell about it." Adding, "Experience is truly the only
thing that makes experts so expert."
Finally, next
time you're rattled by not knowing it all, let yourself off the hook by
remembering the wise words of Mark Twain who said: "I
was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, 'I don't know.'"
Add Your Two Cents
Your thoughts mean so much to me
-- and the other 23,000 change seekers who've received this article. I'd love to hear what you think!
Click here to hop over to the Changing Course Blog!
About the Author
Profiting
From Your Passions? expert Valerie Young abandoned her
corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at
ChangingCourse.com
offering resources for people who want to work at what they love. Her career
change tips have been cited in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend,
More, Kiplinger's, Woman's Day, and elsewhere and on-line at MSN,
CareerBuilder, and iVillage.com. Valerie is also the author of
The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It with Crown Publishing/Random House available October 11.
To read more articles about how to work at what you love without a job go to ChangingCourse.com/articles.htm
Connect With Valerie Online | 
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