Developing Expertise Can Help
By Glenn K. Seki, Ed.D.
Planning NOW how you will develop expertise will help you think about a better future. You can also perform deliberate practice NOW to develop expertise. Instead of binge-watching Netflix, improve yourself and gain expertise (well a little binge watching is ok, I do).
I’m not a medical doctor, but I do have a doctorate in education. I’m not a psychologist, but my background is in educational psychology. It just stands to reason that keeping yourself busy with something that you have an interest in or a passion for will improve your expertise in those areas and help your life in the future; it just can’t hurt. It will make you do something to improve yourself NOW and help you not think about this crazy world we are living in.
I was working on a book for several years, How to Become the Best at Anything, but I just couldn’t finish it. After the pandemic hit, my wife and I have been pretty much stuck at home the whole time because of our high-risk factors. My wife has been able to work remotely, and since I’m retired, I was wondering what I was going to do with my time since my normal activities have been curtailed.
I decided I would take this time to finish my book. I made a plan: I finished the book, self-published it, developed a website, and have been promoting it. This has kept me busy and has kept me thinking about the future. It has greatly helped my mental well-being (part of my plan)!
I have been exploring some of my old passions and interests, too: researching, thinking, writing, and practicing (deliberate practice) about the development of expertise, photography, technology, practical shooting, cooking, and even biology.
I have my bachelor’s in biology and some graduate study in biology from UCLA. I took every microbiology-related class UCLA had to offer back in the middle ‘70s and have read science articles from time to time over the years. Recently, I have been reading everything I could find about the current pandemic and reading about similar viruses. Understanding how this virus functions has helped my anxiety levels. I prefer to read the original research articles. This is an example of deliberate practice, learning, and is part of my plan to reduce my stress and anxiety.
More Examples of deliberate practice, learning, alternate coaching, goals, etc.
I have been using my technology background (retired director of information technology at USC) to develop multiple websites; my book’s website, my daughter’s psychology practice website, an author’s website (an old friend), and moving website domains, servers, etc., internationally for another friend.
Getting back into reading and thinking about photography has been quite enjoyable. Scanning old slides and negatives, color correcting them and retouching them in Adobe Photoshop. Researching tips and advice for the new breed of digital photographers and preparing posts to share them has helped stimulate my love of photography again. I’m planning on writing original photography articles too.
I have always loved to cook. I have even taken a few cooking classes in Paris. I have been experimenting with preparing new dishes: French pastries, Spanish paella, some American dishes from Joanna Gaines’ cookbook, and many other dishes, much to my wife’s delight.
We have been having Zoom dinners with a few of our friends that live close by. I cook some of my new dishes that I have been wanting to try. We start at 5:00 pm and we all log onto Zoom and have our “cocktail” hour while I prepare the meal. About an hour later they drive over and pickup their bags of prepared food. Once everyone is back home, the dinner party starts again, usually lasting for hours. We do this about once every two to three weeks and now we are alternating who cooks or we all prepare something, a Zoom potluck. All dishes are something new we have never prepared, deliberate practice at its tastiest. This has been great for all of our mental states of mind.
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There are lots of articles written about developing expertise and deliberate practice. Just try Googling those terms and tons of articles will appear, too many.
Warning: plug for my book – My book, How to Become the Best at Anything, is like a road map to the development of expertise. It describes a path for you to follow to become the best or become really good at whatever you choose. It’s takes about an hour and a half to read, it’s a short book, but there’s a lot of information contained in those pages. You will probably need to read it a few times. The book will help you develop a plan for increasing your expertise or develop a new expertise. Since you are reading this article, you’re already on my website; take a look around, read what the book is about, look at my photographs, read my other blog posts, and please buy my book.
Now that I got my plug in, get motivated and start learning new stuff and start thinking about the future, I am.
Links to purchase my book are on the footer of all the website pages.
