Become An Expert At What You Do

“If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’ve Been Thinking. . . about experts. Who are they? What do they do? What makes them an expert?

Consider this. . . Competence breeds confidence. Choose one area of your job. Commit yourself to becoming better at it than anyone else. Or, choose a hobby and become an expert. Find an area in your life you have an interest in and master it.

To feel valued, to know even if only periodically, that you can do something better than anyone else can is an absolutely marvelous feeling.

David Casstevens of the Dallas Morning News told a great story about Frank Szymanski, a Notre Dame center in the 1940’s. Frank was called to be a witness in a civil suit in South Bend.

“Are you on the Notre Dame Football team this year?” the judge asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What position?”

“Center, Your Honor.”

“How good a center?”

Szymanski squirmed a bit in his seat, but replied firmly: “Sir, I’m the best center Notre Dame has ever had.”

Coach Frank Leahy, who was in the courtroom, was surprised at Szymanski’s response. He had always been so modest and unassuming. So when the proceedings were over, he took Szymanski aside and asked why he had made such a statement. Szymanski blushed.

“I hated to do it, Coach,” he said. “But, after all, I was under oath.”

If you were under oath, what testimony would you be able to give about your professional competence? Are you continually recommitting yourself to being a little bit better tomorrow than you are today? Do you have a burning desire to master what you do and be considered the best? What concentrated effort are you making to become an expert at what you do?

Rosalynn Carter’s comment makes good sense: “If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can’t accomplish it. You have to have the confidence in your ability and then be tough enough to follow through.” Learn what it takes to become your best. Have the courage to follow through. Invest yourself totally in becoming better than anyone ever thought you could, including yourself.

Experts do what they do like no one else can do it. Make that your mantra. . .

The morning after the big Heisman Trophy ceremony the newspaper headline read: “A landmark night for Baylor.” Baylor’s junior quarterback Robert Griffin III became the school’s first Heisman winner.

Griffin accepted the honor wearing his Superman socks. . . cape (on the socks) and all. The junior quarterback known as RG3 flashed his wide smile when the winning announcement was made and made his way to the podium. “This is unbelievably believable,” he said. “It’s unbelievable because in the moment we’re all amazed when great things happen. But it’s believable because great things don’t happen without hard work.”

Griffin’s comment unveiled a heavy dose of practical philosophy for anyone passionate about becoming an expert.

Time. Commitment. Energy. Passion. Practice. Make them your friends.

"Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it."

Ted Williams

Push the Envelope

The guy who invented the wheel? He was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three; he was a genius.

Sid Ceasar

I’ve Been Thinking. . . about a product that is 100 years old, gets twisted, dunked and bitten and has 25 million fans on Facebook?

Any guesses?

More than 35 billion were sold around the world in 2011.

The design consists of 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes per side. Each one contains 90 ridges.

Still puzzled?

The Oreo cookie (mystery solved) was first baked in Manhattan and sold in Hoboken, New Jersey. Not one piece of this trivia would be in existence had not a baker decided they would provide the world something we didn’t know we were missing.

That’s what successful organizations do. They continually create, reinvent or revolutionize products or services in such a way that customers shift in their direction and become loyal fans.

In the 1920’s Henry Ford learned of a process for turning wood scraps from the production of Model T’s into charcoal briquettes. He built a charcoal plant and Ford Charcoal was created (later renamed Kingsford Charcoal). Today, Kingsford is still the leading manufacturer of charcoal in America. More than 1 million tons of wood scraps are converted into quality charcoal briquettes every year.

Henry Ford had no clue that Kingsford Charcoal would be a byproduct of scraps from his Model T’s. His curiosity and innovative spirit led to the creation of a product no one knew they needed before it was created.

Compare that to a company founded in 1775 who processes 6516 pieces of product people need every second but is on the verge of going bankrupt.

How can that be?

Bloomberg Business Week reported a 20 percent decrease in their volume from 2006 to 2010.

Blame it on more than 107 trillion emails sent in 2010.

Even though the United State Postal Service (another mystery solved) maintains an address book of 151 million businesses, homes and P.O. Boxes across the country, they struggle for survival.

What’s the point?

It’s not about survival . . . as you might think. It’s about ‘Pushing the Envelope’ (pun intended) beyond normality to consider positioning yourself to become a 100 year old legacy people continue to embrace - - rather than a dinosaur struggling for survival in a changing world.

Reimagine. . . Revitalize. . . Reconceptualize. . . Redesign. . . Reconfigure. . .

Start a “Become an Exception to the Norm” campaign. . .

     Revolutionize what you do. . .

     Be the leader! The Pioneer!

How?

     Abandon the normal. . .

     Get restless. . .

     Nurture curiosity . . .

My friend Peter Finney once said his company had a “cheerful but perpetual attitude of dissatisfaction.” I love that!

Be an outlier – someone willing to touch the outer edges of what is possible in your profession . . . Outliers continually find ways to push the envelope while navigating the potential pitfalls and minefields innovation naturally brings.

Look to the future with positive anticipation because you have determined to create your own future rather than relying on fate to determine your outcomes.

Take a bold step to envision what people will need even though they don’t yet know they do.

The innovator doesn’t always invent new ideas. Instead, he borrows and reconceptualizes existing ones to solve problems and create opportunities.

Denis E. Waitley