Top 7 Qualities of an Expert:

Experts do not need rules to make decisions. They have qualities that allow them to consistently make good decisions and show high level of performance under different circumstances without any rules. This post discusses these core qualities that turn a novice into an expert.

1. Motivation. Believe in self. Energy. Unsatisfaction
You have to believe in self to become a successful expert. An expert needs strength, energy and motivation to go beyond ordinary performance levels.
Top performers in different disciplines do this – envision own success and prepare their minds to achieve higher levels.
2. Hard Work. Discipline. Focus.
Hard work is not as difficult after you start and dive into it. Often the problem is that you cannot start or concentrate. Procrastination ruins your progress.
Also, keep yourself interested. Switch if you start losing focus and interest. Reboot. Have prepared practices in different areas to enable fresh start for your mind.
3. Think critically. Think as a beginner
As an expert you cannot go with the flow, believe everything and hide behind authoritative opinions. You cannot stick with your own views forever without changing them. You have to think critically: challenge beliefs, existing theories and dominant ideas. Some of them are completely wrong. Many of them have flaws and can be improved. Most of them are not the best in your specific context.
Better unforeseen solutions exist if you look for them. If you don’t think critically, you will be a follower without many chances to grow your ideas and find better solutions. Keep your mind open and question ideas including your own.
4. Full brain power. Use right brain (in addition to left).
Your right brain (more accurately – right brain mode) is inherited from our animal ancestors and shaped by millions years of evolution. Right brain mode is much more powerful, reliable and faster than left brain mode. Right brain works in parallel with images, subconscious mind and deep vast memory (even when you sleep). On the contrary, left brain works with symbols and words; it is logical, analytical and linear. It can only work with few ideas in the same time (4-7) and needs focus and conscious effort. We need left brain to formulate, express ideas and communicate them to others.
Experts are using both brains – left for rational thinking, analysis and communication, right for intuition, imagination and creative insights.
Learn how to expand your brain power with the right brain mode. If you use only left brain mode, you’ll stay dull, rational and predictable specialist.
5. Continuous learning. Sharing
Experts never stop to learn. The day you believe you know everything is your last day as an expert. Experts learn from new research and existing knowledge, they learn from other people and they learn from own experience. Also they learn from disciplines outside of their professional realm that can provide new ideas.
Make learning essential part of your everyday life. If you don’t learn, you stop your journey to become an expert.
You gain deeper knowledge if you share your knowledge with other people – discuss, explain, teach, blog, speak, present. Other people – with different views and perspective – will quickly show weaknesses and quality of your knowledge. Sharing with others will push your learning further and deeper than keeping knowledge to yourself.
6. Self-improvement. Know yourself.
We protect ourselves from inconvenient truth and often are blind to own mistakes. Our psychological defense systems help to avoid depression and anxiety by protecting our ego, but also distort our view and perception of true reality.
Good experts are capable to see truth, be objective and correct themselves. They try to avoid the trap of groupthink, crowd psychology and self white washing. They know own strengths, weaknesses and biases.
Seek the truth about self, know your internal beliefs and motivation and improve yourself. Otherwise, your rosy distorted pictures will hinder your growth and you will become the part of a problem, not the part of a solution.
7. Big picture. Systems Thinking. Creative solutions.
Experts’ main advantages are tacit knowledge and experience. They understand big picture, reality, context and how systems work. However, it is not enough. Experts should solve problems. And therefore, they should train themselves for problem solving, innovation and changing reality in the novel ways. The outcome, a creative solution, is quintessence of hard work, deep knowledge and intuition.