Become an Industry Expert

Self-Education Starts with Being an Avid Reader

The truest form of professional development is a commitment to life-long learning. Through a commitment to learning almost anything is possible.

Knowing a little about a lot is great, but having specialized knowledge and skill is what sets a professional apart from the pack. Specialization is what makes a person an irreplaceable asset to their organization and the clientele they serve.

No one has time to be an expert in everything so we supplement our ignorance with the expertise of specialists; that just how the world works.

Becoming an Expert

Self-education is the main component to becoming an expert. The idea that you can become an industry expert in something by being taught in a classroom, things that a great deal of people already know, is absurd.

For one, if information has been around long enough to be synthesized into a course curriculum then it is old news and maybe even outdated.

While course work and formal teaching can give a beginner a great point to jump off from, it is the uncharted wisdom gained through experimentation and self-education that gives a person expert status.

It is from industry experts that material for future academic courses is derived, not the other way around.

In the words of Mark Cuban, “School isn’t the end of the learning process, it’s purely the training ground and the beginning.”

Charting Your Own Course

Self-teaching has to start somewhere and reinventing the wheel isn’t exactly productive, but where does one start their self-educations?

For most people the answer is through becoming an avid reader.

Reading articles like this can be helpful, but articles are shallow in content. How much can a person really learn about anything in a few 100 words?

Reading books on the other hand, allows for the kind of depth you simply can’t get from an article or essay.

Non-fiction is great for most professionals, but for a fiction writer, the complexities a novel over a shorter piece can be very insightful. It wouldn’t be the content of the story that a professional writer could learn from but instead the structure of how the story is told through the novel.

The Simplicity of it All

For rock legend Gene Simmons, self-education through reading can be as simple as reading the Wall Street Journal’s front page.

In his interview with John Lee Dumas on the Entrepreneurs On Fire podcast, Simmons mentioned that in his latest book Me, Inc. he encourages people to get inform on what is happening in the world by reading the WSJ on a regular basis.

Simmons admits that some people won’t understand what they are reading at first, but over time the little bits and pieces that they absorb will begin to fit together. So, not only will they become more aware of the state of the world but for the price of a newspaper (or for free at a public library) everyday people can get an education in business.

Similarly, the entire premise of Josh Kaufman’s, The Personal MBA, is that the power of reading and self-education can be equal to that of a post-graduate education without the hefty price tag.

To help illustrate his point, Kauffman even goes on to quote Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting, saying how silly it is for someone to “[drop] a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library.”

Important Take-Away

Reading a single book doesn’t make you an expert. Reading is only a means by which you can get caught up with the knowledge that is already available. It keeps you from having to endure a long process of trial-and-error that people before you have already done to your benefit.

Every book you read is nothing more than a drop in the bucket, it is a small piece of a much larger idea that you can come to understand. This can make developing an area of expertise sound daunting, and the truth is that it will take some time.

Once you’ve reached a level of expertise, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a state of on-going education to stay ahead of your industry. That’s why it’s important to read as much as possible, as often as possible.

For best results, choose an area of study that truly interest you.