40 | The Downside of Being an Expert: The Curse of Knowledge

Are you undervaluing your skills without even realizing it? Get ready to uncover the hidden pitfalls of the "curse of knowledge" that may be costing you more than you think. Join me on the Annoyingly Optimistic Show, Season 2, as I leave a thought-provoking voicemail for Tim, a small business owner who's been navigating choppy waters. Today's episode is packed with insights on how seasoned professionals often unintentionally downplay their expertise, affecting everything from pricing to strategic business decisions.

Through this episode, you'll learn how to step back and truly appreciate the value of your accumulated experience. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, understanding the curse of knowledge can transform how you approach your business. By recognizing the effort and wisdom behind your skills, you'll be better equipped to make informed decisions that reflect your true worth. Tune in and let this voicemail to Tim inspire you to break free from undervaluing your hard-earned expertise.

If you are self-employed or run a small business and feel more like you're self-annoyed then get in touch, visit the website www.theannoyinglyoptimisticshow.com where you can submit a question or problem and start your journey to becoming self-enjoyed! 

The majority of 'business advice' out there isn't aimed at self-employed or micro businesses, following it leaves you frustrated and chasing quick fixes. I specialise in tools, systems, techniques, inspiration and help specifically designed for YOU, the person who has to do it all, who doesn't have a team of people, unlimited resources or the time to spend months learning complicated techniques. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey there, listeners, it's your annoyingly optimistic host here bringing you another season of the Annoyingly Optimistic Show. Welcome to Season 2, voicemails to Tim. Now let's meet Tim. He's been running his own small business for almost three years now and let's just say he's hit a bit of a rough patch. You know how it is Sometimes you get so stuck, you make yourself busy and just avoid finding the real problems. Well, that's Tim. So, as a good friend, I decide to leave him a daily voicemail, if I can't get hold of him, filled with nuggets of inspiration, insight and wisdom and downright brilliant ideas to help get him unstuck Every day. In just under 10 minutes, I'll share some tips, tricks and a healthy dose of optimism to get Tim, and maybe even you, back on track, because, let's face it, we're all a little tired, in need of help and muddling through. So here we go. Oh wait, never mind Tim's being busy. Here's the voicemail I left him today Bonjour, tim. I said I'd try and find a different way to start this off. Sorry, I missed you and um, hope you're well and, and no doubt, busy. Thanks for the email you sent the other day. Um, some good little questions in there. I shall come back to you on those separately.

Speaker 1 1:08

But I wanted to fire something at you because it's something that's come up a lot in the last couple of weeks in the various client calls I've been on and it's a perpetual problem, basically In one respect. It's a perpetual problem basically In one respect. It's a wonderful problem to have. It shows that you've reached to a certain level, but it's still a problem and it's the curse of knowledge. I'm not sure whether I've touched on this before, but quite simply is that and if you take this into wider life, we get used to what we get used to, you know, which sounds like a nothingy statement in itself, but the more we do something, the less we value what it is, and the more we do something, the easier it becomes. Therefore, the more second nature and habitual it becomes and everything else. And this goes with everything in life. But what happens when we take this into the business world is this is where people really start to struggle when it comes to things like pricing, valuing their own time and also just making sometimes key decisions in their business. Because if you don't understand the curse of knowledge, if you don't understand and allow yourself to kind of step back and look at it from from the outside. Looking in, you can really undermine everything you're doing in your business.

Speaker 1 2:32

So, yeah, the basic premise what is the curse of knowledge? It's, it's simply that when we get better at something, when we get really good at it, when, when we get you know, it becomes second nature. It becomes we accumulate hours and weeks and months and years in often cases of knowledge and experience about a certain thing, but in the moment that we press those six keys in a particular way or we do something that the people go, oh god, wow, that's amazing. Oh, what this? It's nothing. We, we completely ignore all the trial and error, all the learning, all the experience. The training courses might have been on the books, whatever it might be that led to that point and allowed us to build up that knowledge and experience to do something which looks, you know, wonderfully simple to anybody watching it. You watch anybody that's a master at anything, that's very good at anything. You kind of go god, they make that look so easy and to them it is easy. But that doesn't diminish the hours and weeks and months and years that it took to make it look easy. And that's what we tend to do in our business. You know. Know, when we're quoting something, we always devalue our time anyway, and part of that is is because we, you know, a we want to get a competitive price, so we want people to to buy our products or services, so that we're always kind of trying to limit that. But when it's our own time, it's well, all I've got to do is do this, this and this, so I I can't charge a lot for that. But the thing is, if you think about the very best things in the world, you think about the best cars, the best products, the best machinery, the best services or anything else they don't get cheaper the better they get.

Speaker 1 4:23

Um, you know, if you get something done by someone, that's amazing, you know, if you imagine let's put it in context, I have no experience in this, but you'll hopefully get the analogy say, you've got a? Um, a woodworker, someone that makes an amazing carving. Now for me to kind of carve everything it would, it would look horrible, um, but if I kind of learned enough and learned enough and did it over a kind of long period of time, eventually I might be able to get something that that's half decent. So that's going to take me a lot of time, got this expert over here that I you know, that can carve and and has been doing it all that amount of time and it might only take him half an hour. Now does that mean he should be paid just on a simple hourly rate because, well, it only took you 30 minutes. Well, it only took him 30 minutes because of the years of experience, because of the knowledge he's built up.

Speaker 1 5:15

So, again, if he doesn't value that knowledge, if it doesn't value experience, and if we don't value our knowledge and experience in what we offer, then it comes back to bite us because we just end up devaluing what we do to the most important people, where our value is important, which is our customers. So you know, now again, being aware of cursed knowledge is generally the the main thing, but it's one of those things that you have to, you have to actively work at, because time and time again you will make decisions based on the knowledge you've acquired. And one of the ways that that really kind of shines a light on this and this is where it often comes up with with my kind of clients when I'm talking to them is that if I get them to work, you know, explain to me the steps to explain kind of what's done and things like that, not as a customer, but just if they're. Just let me know how you do that. What are your kind of steps? They will tell me six things that they do and immediately I will pull them up and go okay, wait a minute each. Tell me six things that they do and immediately I will pull them up and go okay, wait a minute. Each of those six things you've told me there's at least 10 different things that make up that. Oh, is that? Well, you said you do this, yeah, but don't you have to do this, this, this, this, this, yeah, and obviously I do that, yeah, but you didn't tell me that. Well, that's just the basics and we condense all that down and that's where you get to see. So actually this is a 60 step process, but because you're so familiar with it, it's a little six step process to you that takes no time at all. You barely have to think about it.

Speaker 1 6:46

The other way of spotting this kind of curse of knowledge and you get this a lot and this will hopefully resonate. You know, if there's a computer example, very easy one. There's a particular series of of shortcuts that you use key presses and and things like that, and you use those every single day and you know multiple times a day without even thinking about it. The muscle memory's there and you just burst through all of a sudden. You've got a friend there, a colleague whatever, someone you're kind of chatting to, and they said oh, how do you do that thing? And you go um, and as soon as you stop and think about it, you kind of go wait a minute, what? What do I do? Because you're not consciously thinking about it, and that's part of this problem, because that doesn't mean that means it's more valuable, but because it's not something we think about and we just do it second nature and it's kind of built in. We devalue that and that is the curse of knowledge thriving in your business there and it's just something to be aware of. It's just something to actively.

Speaker 1 7:48

I've talked about writing manuals, doing workflows and recording all of these things. All of these things help you do multiple things within the business and multiple efficiencies. It's one of the things that helps minimize the curse of knowledge in your business. It's one of those things which allows you to recognize the knowledge more, recognize what you know and then be able to kind of use that. And that's often the times you know, when you'll see suddenly a competitor or someone that's in your field suddenly start to you know they create a course or a how-to guide or something like that and it's like, well, I could do that, yeah, you could do. But they've realized the knowledge they've gotten that other people will value this. So they've turned that into something that's valuable.

Speaker 1 8:36

And that's the other advantage in combating the curse of knowledge. Because if you've been doing something for long enough 10 plus years, 10,000 hours then you've reached a level of expertise that other people would like to shortcut to those 10,000 hours. So there is a value in that. But if you don't recognize it, if you don't fight against the curse of knowledge, you never get to recognize the value and the knowledge that you've acquired and built up and the shortcuts. And how? Imagine if someone 10 years ago could have offered you well, if you do this, this kind of will shortcut you to here.

Speaker 1 9:11

Everybody likes shortcuts, everyone wants to save time, be more efficient, to get to the end result faster. We know that 99% of the time the slow and steady building up experience is the best way to do that. But we all like those little kind of shortcuts along the way. So I just wanted to kind of put that one out there, tim, for you to hopefully recognize that what you've got, what you do, there is a value to that, there is a knowledge to that. And if you can recognize that, and if you can recognize that and if you can see that value that allows you that eventually seeps out to customers, because it allows you to, you know, metaphorically, puff out your chest, be proud of what you do, put value on what you do not race to the bottom with prices and actually kind of go do you know, what what I offer is significantly better than what my competitors offer, whatever? Because if you value yourself, if you value the knowledge and experience you've built up, that then allows you to pass that on to the customers, not just in terms of price but in terms of quality and experience. So, yeah, beware of the curse of knowledge. And I hope that helps, tim, and I shall speak to you soon. Bye for now.

Speaker 1 10:25

And that's it for today's episode of Voicemails to Tim on the Annoyingly Optimistic Show. Now, remember, tim might be busy, but we're all in this together. Whether you're tired, in need of help or just muddling through. Tim is here for you because, well, tim is you. Yes, you heard that right. Tim isn't just my friend. He's a reflection of all of us who are struggling to make it work. T-i-m stands for tired, in need of help and muddling through. So if you're feeling like a Tim, you're not alone For all those ambitious listeners. If you've got a burning business question, a quirky thought or just want to see if you can leave an even weirder voicemail, head over to the website voicemails2timcom, submit your question and maybe, just maybe, you'll hear your idea in a future voicemail to Tim. So until then, stay annoyingly optimistic, keep pushing forward and remember, if life gives you lemons, leave a voicemail about it.