Turning Points
I have for years begun seminars by informing my audience that I am an expert. Then I define “Expert” as, “Someone from out of town with a briefcase.”
Of course I want to put my audience at ease, but I also want them to take full ownership and responsibility for the notion that each person is responsible for his or her own education. The things I will relay are not true because I say they are.
The fundamental here is that “If it is not true for you, according to your own observation, then it isn’t true. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says about it.”
And so it is as I begin this new segment of my blog: Turning Points.
You have certainly noticed that when you are quite expert at something – with the correct definition! – you view that thing from a simpler level than those who are being first introduced.
A skilled electrician, for example, can stand close to malfunctioning equipment and then, after a short pause, state, “Your kerflixelhammer is buzzling your fingelhopper.” He reaches over and flicks his wrist and the damn thing is fixed!
Arriving at the point of “expert” in any field is a journey with many turns, and looking back one discovers that many of these could have been bypassed or straightened out, and the runway to success shortened. Herein is the value of “expert advice.”
Turning Points concerns itself with fundamentals I have grasped along the way that catapulted my understandings to a new a level and allowed me to align many other things. They straightened the road and made things simpler to grasp.
I hope they will have the same effect for you.
Enjoy.
Mark Shreffler at Large 