10 ways to become an expert in anything

The important thing is to do different things and learn from each experiment.

How many people read 1,000 books in a field to become an expert? I would argue very few so if you do it, you're doing something that very few people do. In fact, once you've read probably 100 books, you'll see that most authors regurgitate ideas.

If you need 10,000 hours to become the best at anything, you only need 1,000 hours if you want to be the best at two things combined (and 100 hours for three things combined). Scott Adams isn't the best at drawing, nor is he the best at business and he isn't even the funniest person but he is the best at drawing Dilbert.

You don't know what you don't know until you actually do it. And because no client will pay for someone just starting out, you should do it for free. Yes, it'll feel weird not to get anything for the work you do but that will come once you build your skill.

Say you were an Olympian and you have an incredible work ethic. You can use the skills and discipline you've learned to start a coaching company where you coach leaders on how to train their body and mind for success. It's not quite the sport you were doing but you can leverage adjacent skills.

Say you are the world's foremost expert in psychology. How might you use your psychology expertise to help others? What if you applied it to dating? What if you applied it to money? What if you applied it to business strategy? Sometimes you already have an applicable skill - all you need to do is add a skill like writing (that way, you can write blogs, sell books or information products) or a skill like marketing (you can write a newsletter).

You don't have to do it alone. If you're an expert in psychology and you find an expert in money, you can lean on each other to combine your skills to form an intersection of skills (and subsequently be the best in that intersection).

Go to a site like Medium or Quora and find a topic that interests you. Start answering questions. Go into detail. Share things that others won't share. Pretty soon, after writing a few hundred or a few thousand articles, you'll be seen as the expert.

Sometimes, all it takes is the curation of content. You might not know what you want to be an expert in but you may know the general field. Say you want to be seen as an expert in entrepreneurship. Why not start out by interviewing entrepreneurs for their secrets? Pretty soon, you'll have ideas of your own. (See Entrepreneur on Fire by John Lee Dumas)

Even if you think you know everything, keep learning. Be humble. Find people that have contrarian views. Seek out everything that is at the bleeding edge. Make mistakes.