Would you like the luxury of prospective clients, employers and employees seeking you out for your expertise? Being an expert could earn you a better income, provide more opportunities and sustain a high level of success.

The star power of experts may appear almost out of reach. But… they are like all of us, only human and also started from being a novice to being an expert. There are no fixed rules in any field on how to become an expert, but you absolutely must develop genuine expertise. All you have to do is eat it, drink it, fall asleep contemplating it, and wake up reading about it… Do this until you know it better than anyone!

Distinguish yourself as an expert! You can make the transition by following a deliberate strategy to achieve the desired skills, knowledge and exposure.

• Educate: Continually educate yourself. Clearly understand the basics and then move onto more advanced topics. Hone your skills, knowledge and attitudes to perfection.
  • While working: Utilise any idle time at work to learn.
  • Attend: Attend conferences, seminars and visit the library.
  • Internet: The Internet can be a very helpful learning resource.
  • Read: Constantly read related good books, articles, tutorials, forums, research, publications - try as many of the examples provided as possible.
  • Forums: Ask questions via online groups - like LinkedIn.
• Skill level: Find out what skill level would be required to be an expert in your field. Don’t allow anything to distract you or break your concentration. Look towards role models to set your aspirations. The more skilled you are in your field, the more seriously you will be taken in your subject area.
• Systematic: It is important to have a very systematic method for integrating and organising newly acquired knowledge to ensure compounding growth of long-term retention of information. Software tools and methods are very beneficial for managing learning. Consistently expand your foundation.
• Attitude: The following personal qualities will work in your advantage to ensure that success comes to you naturally:
  • Enthusiasm: Enthusiasm about life and a positive mental attitude will enable you to feel passionate, motivated and energised toward realising your initiative of becoming an expert.
  • Vision: Begin by setting your eyes on becoming an expert. Be clear about how worthy the purpose of this goal is to you. List the key success factors that will get you recognised as an expert. Crystallize the focus and the direction of your goal. Paint a clear picture in your mind of your envisioned future! This will ignite passion and it will spread your vision to others who will assist you to execute it…
  • Passion: Immerse yourself into continual improvement on subjects that you love, find exciting or are strongly attracted to. Having a passion for a certain subject keeps you going on your journey towards becoming an expert. You will get your vision across to others and make the most of every opportunity! When you have passion, it makes achieving your vision of becoming an expert an enjoyable process.
  • Discipline: Dedicate yourself towards your mission. Stay on course and maintain a mood of stability, focus and efficiency. Map out a strategy and follow through with it, focus on your target that leads to your competitive advantage. Power up with perseverance and determination through the difficulties, failures, fears, hard or boring times by keeping your vision in mind. Do your best in whatever you do. Never give up regardless of what people tell you - bounce back!
  • Balance: Find and keep the right balance between what you want to achieve and what you should be achieving.
  • Humility: Recognise the lessons learnt from failures and mistakes and start again with a positive attitude and take advantage of the opportunity to become a wiser and better professional.
  • Personal empowerment: Armed with confidence about your skills and knowledge you will inspire others to share your vision.
  • Willingness to learn: The learning curve of an expert never ends. There are endless opportunities throughout your life to learn.
  • Courage: Be emotionally strong and focused when facing opposing forces. Be persistent about following your chosen path and make adjustments to ensure that you reach your envisioned future.
  • Leadership: Develop your leadership skills - your ability to influence others towards greater achievements.
  • No pressure: Keep your attention focused consistently within yourself on mastering the skills and attitudes required to become an expert, without putting pressure on yourself to become an expert.
  • Self-reliance: Whilst other may provide excellent support, guidance and help - it is important to depend only on yourself - you are your best resource.
  • Self-motivation: Self-motivation is about the internal ingredients required for being motivated. External motivating factors often don't have a long-lasting effect.
  • Integrity: To be trusted and respected, you will need to keep your conscience clear and be guided by integrity.
• Practice: Practice at every opportunity makes perfect - and do it more than anyone else - under the broadest possible number of variables!
• Experiment: Play around, test your theories, make many mistakes and learn from it.
• Creative thinking: A typical expert applies his/her innovative and imaginative mind and transform creative ideas into initiatives. Be curious about trends, innovations, life issues, best practices and all things related to your field.
• Communication: Develop your ability to communicate your ideas and knowledge coherently - systematically convert ideas into practical terms.
• Add value: Pitch in with your ideas to help others achieve better results and proactively take on responsibilities in your areas of expertise.
• Feedback: Ask for feedback from clients and have discussions with peers to find out whether you have been able to reach your objectives.
• Critique: Critique can very useful when others analyse the results of your work and provide constructive feedback.
• Mentorship: Teaching someone the ropes and providing advice are great ways to share experience, and there is always room for improvement. Teaching is also a learning experience. Always listen to and learn from your peers.
• Relationships: Spend time with extraordinary overachievers with great visions. Remember to love and nurture those who live and work with you - being surrounded by great people, the world is your playground!
• Office politics: Avoid getting involved in any office politics.
• Recognition: Being an expert in a certain field is a way in which others label you. To be an expert it is essential that you are recognised for your knowledge. Here are some ways of achieving recognition of being an expert in your field:
  • Community: Once you are knowledgeable, demonstrate your value to the world by giving some of your knowledge away for free. Gain recognition from the community by contributing to blogs or forums, you could contribute on open source projects, and network with online communities and lend a hand if needed.
  • At your job: Let your colleagues know what you are specialising in - and tie your work into this subject. Gain recognition at work for your subject of speciality and for being an expert in your field!
  • Write: Write a an e-book, your own blog or website, articles and white papers and get them reviewed and published.
  • Academic: Academic recognition comes in the form of degrees, diplomas, certifications and awards. If you already have these - get some more!
  • Publications: Free press recognition comes in the form of articles published in magazines, newspaper reports, books, articles and blogs which are respected and acknowledged.
  • Other: Create podcasts, videos, tutorials.
• Market yourself: Become well known in the field that you specialise in. Promote your work on your website, your blog, and on other online forums. Leverage each small success to expand your following - inform them regularly of interesting developments you are involved in.