Experiential (Work And Life Experience)

What is experiential capital?

Experience is the skills and knowledge you have gained in your field through working on projects, exploring new ideas, building something, travelling – all those worthwhile investments that generated new insights, broaden perspectives, and lead to innovation. 

Your experiences can help develop solution-based approaches and strategic thinking that directly contribute to the ongoing development and progress of you.

So, what have you become an expert in?

What Is an Expert?

An expert is recognised as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. 

More simply put, an expert is someone who is one of the most informed people in their field – sufficient enough that others may officially (and legally) rely upon the individual’s opinion on that topic. 

An expert can be believed by virtue of: credentials, training, education, profession, publication or experience and some achievement far beyond what the average person did within this specific subject matter. 

Some of the critical elements of expertise include in-depth knowledge, broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of this knowledge, skills and experience through practice, and proof of achievement.

Historically, an expert was referred to as a Sage. The individual was usually a profound thinker distinguished by wisdom and sound judgement.

In specific fields, the definition of expert is well established by consensus and therefore it is not always necessary for individuals to have a professional or academic qualification to be considered and accepted as an expert. 

For instance, a shepherd with 50 years of experience tending flocks would be widely recognised as having complete expertise in the use and training of sheep dogs and the care of sheep. 

While formal education and certifications are a starting point for expertise, many disciplines don’t have a set list of criteria to measure expertise against. 

There are many dimensions of expertise that relate to the working proficiency of an expert in their field to the degree of influence and authority they have earned within their profession or community of practice. 

Because of this, expertise is often looked at as a person’s cumulative training, skills, research and experience.

However….

With the information traditionally associated with individual experts now stored within larger bodies of work by a collective (AI knowledge systems) – knowing about something… is less important than… knowing how to find something. 

With AI and the internet, the historical power of subject matter expertise has become somewhat eroded, with expert information now readily available at everyone’s fingertips. But, a system does not know if the knowledge is 100% accurate, or, how to infer this knowledge.

So, the role of an expert has become somewhat different, in that expertise now involves procedural knowledge of how to find the information called for by a situation, how to infer that, and how to communicate it so it can be useful.

Being an expert now, includes the ability to find information, rearrange this information, and construct new knowledge to apply and use in a higher dimension of creativity. 

What this means is you can take any topic and become an expert without having to have credentials in it if you know how to extract information and infer it.

Most people don’t realise the gold that’s in them. They take their genius for granted. But every breakthrough, every “aha” moment, every powerful question you ask could be turned into knowledge that attracts new clients.

Without an extracting system, these insights stay locked.

Why is it important to be an expert?

• You can charge more thus make more…
• It gives confidence 
• It position you as an authority
• It gives you credibility

Elements of being an expert:

• Researcher: Generates unique insights and link the dots
• Practitioner: Actively builds knowledge in a specific discipline or practice area
• Authority: Has a reputation as a go-to source for perspectives and inference

• Advocate: Demonstrates a commitment to a community or practice to help advance a field
• Educator: Teaches and inspires 
• Author: Develops content to establish reputation and reach a broader audience