How to Have authority in your field
Knowledge is critical to success in
life. High flyers never get weary of learning.
They never believe that
they know enough. Therefore, they try to learn at every opportunity.
Even as wise as he is known to be, Socrates is reputed to have said:
“The only I know is that I know nothing.”
They do not want to talk or operate
from the standpoint of ignorance.
So, they develop a voracious and
undiscriminating appetite for information.
The result is that they are soon seen
as authorities to be consulted in their field.
The reason is that many
people are too lazy to scratch beyond the surface.
For example, even
with an Internet-enabled phone, many people will prefer to call someone
or send a message asking for the simplest of information that Google can
supply in a second.
Most people tend to assume that the so-called
authorities know more than they actually do.
And when a person is
constantly consulted in his area of business, he will definitely succeed
more and make more money.
Some people erroneously think that
being an authority in a field is such a difficult matter.
They think
that they may never know much to be listened to in a particular field of
knowledge.
But everybody can become an “authority” by making a little
effort.
Two experiences made me believe that
once a person is determined, it does not take much effort and time to
cross over from the sea of ignorance to the spring of knowledge.
About a
year before the 1994 World Cup in USA, I was not very knowledgeable in
football technicalities.
I loved football very well like most young
Nigerian men, but I could not talk with any certainty who played what
position in a match. I also knew little outside the Nigerian league.
My
condition was not helped too by the fact that I was outside Lagos before
1994, where I did not have access to much information as Lagos
provides.
So, if I saw my mate or somebody
younger analyse a Nigerian match with a lot of statistics, criticising
or praising the formation and style of the Nigerian team, I was amazed.
How could he know all that? Then if the discussion shifted to any
European league, I would go dumb.
I had no interest in the European
league. As far as I was concerned, it was not my business.
Then in 1994, I began to read every
sports newspaper and magazine that came my way.
I began to watch any
sports programme that was shown on TV. (I had no access to satellite
television then).
All sports radio programmes did not pass me by too.
A few months later, the tide turned.
Those who used to make me look like a greenhorn in sports analysis began
to reckon with me.
If I talked football or sports, they listened.
If
there was an argument about the role Samson Siasia or Sunday Oliseh was
playing in a match, I was consulted.
If anyone needed to know the
position a player with Ajax , Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or AC Milan
played, I was consulted.
If someone needed to know the name of the coach
of a club or a country, he would be told to ask me.
I began to ask myself, “So what did all
those guys who were talking with so much certainty before know?” I
discovered that whatever they knew was shallow.
The reason they looked
very knowledgeable in football to me then was because my own knowledge
of the game was low: I enjoyed the game without knowing all the
technicalities.
The second experience was in the area
of stocks (shares).
The first time I heard of shares as a child, I did
not know what was being talked about.
My elder brother and his friends
were having one of their evening arguments upstairs.
From where I sat
downstairs I overheard one of them say that there was great fortune in
shares; that if one bought as many as possible, one would be swimming in
money.
I thought what I heard was “chairs” and I wondered how there
could be much profit in ‘chairs.’
I concluded that the man must have
meant that one could buy chairs and rent them out to those having
marriage or funeral ceremonies.
But that did not sound like the money
spinner he was talking about glowingly.
Even as an advertising practitioner, I
was part of the team that prepared the communication materials for a
company to raised funds through a public offer and rights issue in the
late 1990s. Yet, I did not understand much about the whole affair.
My case was so bad that I did not even
understand what was a dividend or a bonus or a rights issue. ‘Market
capitalisation’ was Greek to me, while ‘all share index’ was nothing but
Swahili.
Whenever I had a newspaper in my hand, I
went straight to the sports pages, then read the cover stories, moved
over to political pages and columnists’ sections, skipped the business
pages (unless something interesting was in any of the pages), then
finished off on the features pages, if I had some time to spare. If a TV
news bulletin got to stock market news, my tummy became queasy.
Anytime I heard someone talk about the
stock market, I wondered why such a young person should be discussing
such dull and unexciting issues meant for old folks. And how on earth
did he know much about such a difficult and confusing topic? Was he a
stockbroker?
Then, I read some books (specifically
Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The Richest Man in Babylon).
I felt like a man
who had been living in the caves at a time other human beings were
living in skyscrapers.
I bought my first shares from an IPO and also
opened an account with a stockbroker.
Six months after I bought the
shares of the company, the share price had doubled. I was excited. I
sold some and kept some.
I began to read anything concerning stocks and
investment. I bought books and magazines on such topics.
Not long after I took such interest in
stocks and investment, I became a pocket consultant. If any company
began an IPO or PO, my friends consulted me for my opinion.
Anyone who
did not understand any issue in the stock market asked me.
In all the
associations that I belonged to, once the issue of stocks or investment
was raised, someone would mention my name or I would be put in a
committee to look into it.
Even though the stock market is no
longer as popular as it was some 12 years ago, I look at myself today
and I laugh.
Although I feel that I don’t know much about stocks and
investment yet, I am held highly in those areas by my friends and
associates.
I look back at the time when I thought it was not possible
to know anything about stocks, given my discomfort with figures, and I
marvel.
What I took away from these two
experiences was that a person could learn very much about any topic on
earth, once the person decides to develop some interest in that topic.
Another thing I noticed was that it does not take too much effort for
one to know a lot about a topic, and it does not take too much effort
for one to be seen as an authority in a field, because the majority of
people are too lazy to learn new things.
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