Expert vs Top Performer

“You need 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert.”

Have you ever heard that?

It’s pretty common around the business world.

But did you know that this actually comes from a study that was measuring how long it takes to become a top performer in a super specialized practice (like Olympic sports)?

Now, you may be thinking there’s not much difference to being an expert.

But it is actually a huge difference.

Being an expert is something that depends on the eye of the beholder.

So knowing more than someone about a specific subject makes you an expert to their eye.

EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT A TOP PERFORMER IN THE FIELD!

So you can become the go-to expert of your clients by getting good enough at those things they don’t want to handle.

You can always call the super specialized 10k/hour expert if you have a big problem to solve.

But most of the times, you just need to be good enough to solve 96% of their problems related to your field.

You can be an expert of many things (from your client's perspective) but you can only become a top performer in 1-3 things in a lifetime.