You're never an expert: The Value of Training

On Monday, I started the Fast Track program with the National Speaker’s Association. It’s a program focused on teaching you how to become a paid speaker. Needless to say that’s one of my goals, so it made perfect sense to start attending the class. While there, we also got some recommendations for books that we might want to read and I ordered them from the library on Tuesday night.

Something I’ve always found important with anything I do professionally is the value of getting additional training on what you are doing. The truth is you can never really be an expert on a subject, if you’re really serious about that subject. And I say that because if you feel that way about the subject, you’ll always be trying to learn something new about it, or experimenting with it, or getting training on it, because you want to see what other people have to say.

Something I do on a fairly regular basis is attend seminars other people offer on the subjects I teach about. I want to see what they have to say about the subject, and I always learn something I didn’t know about the subject that I can take back to my clients to help them, as well as continuing to develop myself as a professional.

Getting additional training is the mark of a true professional. It says this person believes in the value of getting more education about the subject s/he is an “expert” in. It shows that s/he is willing to go the extra mile to learn new information and keep updated and informed about the topics and subjects important to his/her profession.

At the very least I think it’s important to be reading up on the subjects you teach on, or offer services and products in. I’m always reading at least one book on a subject related to business at a given time, so that I can learn more about what I’m teaching others. I don’t feel this makes me less genuine. If anything it shows that I want to provide the best information possible to my clients and recognize to do that I need to learn more.

When you start thinking of yourself as an expert, do a humbleness check on yourself and take a class, read a book, or do something where you learn from someone else about your field of study. Challenge yourself to learn at least three things from the class, book, etc. Doing that will keep you humble and also help you learn something new about what you love doing.