There is nothing more effective for someone to learn from than failure. I have come to that conclusion after spending thousands of hours with business professionals and helping them grow their businesses. Personal experience and failure is a horrible way to learn. However, it is often the only path when dealing with the realities of how people’s psyches operate.
There are those gems that are wise enough to listen to advice, hire experts and avoid the costliness of doing it themselves. But that sensibility eludes most people who have the blind spot of doing it themselves.
Now, I do embrace failure and encourage people to fail forward as part of the natural iterative process of getting to success. However, part of that process is discovering our blind spots and augmenting them with knowledge from others. That is the value of experts.
Experts See Different Than Amateurs
You have likely experienced the perspective of being an expert. There is some knowledge or skill that you have spent thousands of hours refining that someone new simply does not have insight into.
If you have tried talking with an amateur who is new to your field of expertise, their approach, questions, and even view of how things work can be completely off and naive. Rookie mistakes can happen if they insist on going alone or not hearing advice. This is what happens when you don’t know what you are doing. There is often pain and misdirection.
We have all experienced life as amateurs, whether trying to ice skate, handle legal affairs or launch a new business. The question is whether we can recognize our deficits and handle them as a wise person rather than a fool. Sometimes, the cost is minimal, so we don’t feel the impact. Other times, we could have avoided disaster, yet proceed to a certain failure. In a world of so many specialties, this choice will undoubtedly face anyone trying to achieve more.
Ten Degrees Off
When you are an amateur, you don’t know what you don’t know. Imagine a destination miles away and you are pointed ten degrees to the left. It can seem inconsequential in the early stages, but it has major consequences the further down the road you go.
This can happen for amateurs who insist on a flawed business model, poor retail location or harmful business deal. From the start, you could be pointed in the wrong direction.
Hiring experts has a built-in return on investment in time and money. You pay the cost up front to avoid the much higher costs later from poor decisions or extra cycles paying the price of learning.
Experts help guide you and walk the journey you are unfamiliar with. They see things you do not see instinctively. They already paid the price for their skill and knowledge. And they offer it to those who are wise enough to use their services in their blind spots.
Assuming you are always more than ten degrees off from the start is a safe bet. Choosing to bring in those that have the skill, insight and knowledge to help is a behavior in and of itself that can dramatically change how you experience the successes and failures of life.
Do you recognize when to hire experts?
