Everyone should become an expert in something (part 1)
Our relationship to expertise is resting on unstable ground. We're living through a time of deep skepticism towards traditional studied experts, where qualifications and research no longer have the power to cut through our oversaturated online discourse. We increasingly gravitate towards the opinions of those we trust on an emotional level, regardless of the depth of their individual knowledge. At the same time, we use technology to circumvent the difficulty of acquiring our own true expertise. Why read a book or study the history of a subject when you can just google the answer?
When we outsource our grasp of expertise, we forfeit our capacity for understanding. Building a body of knowledge through research, what I'm calling studied expertise, helps us to directly measure the quality and detail of the world around us. Though sometimes you have to see it in action to believe in its value.
Maybe I've never quite believed in it
While working through the concepts of this piece, I realized I've always held an internal bias against studied expertise. I've never wanted to be an armchair quarterback, filled with knowledge from books but unable to embody those concepts in the real world. I want to have more than ideas and memorized facts; I want to be able to do. So I've leaned towards active doing, what I refer to as experiential expertise, growing my capacity and skillset by throwing myself in the ring and figuring it out as I go.
And while this approach has led to decent outcomes across various pursuits, I've come to realize that the two forms of expertise, studied and experiential, aren't mutually exclusive. Instead, they work in a symbiotic relationship, two complementary forces on the path to mastery.
It's time to recommit to studied expertise.
What wine taught me about depth
The documentary Somm, following four candidates on the cusp of their Master Sommelier examination, provides a model for how the two forms of expertise interact. The Master Sommelier exam is structured around a series of three tests, two of which, theory and blind tasting, are direct mirrors of the studied and experiential approaches.
The theory test is an exhaustive examination into the entire world of wine, including the history of every producing region, grape varieties, cultivation methods, international wine laws, on top of a thorough knowledge of the distillation and production of all spirits and beers. One of the sommeliers mentions regularly working through over 4000 flashcards while studying, as well as creating hand-drawn and color-coded regional maps and reading through dozens of reference books.
This obsessive approach to the ingestion of knowledge is what has traditionally triggered an allergic reaction in me. What is the use-case for all this knowledge, beyond showcasing a command of rote facts? Impressive on a quiz show perhaps, but in the real world, how do you get a return on all this study?
How do you taste what you taste?
As someone who loves wine, I assumed being great at tasting came down to trying a ton of wine and paying a lot of attention to what you drink, in short, experiential expertise. But Somm shows this process in detail, and upon learning the underlying structure of a professional evaluation, I began to have a better understanding of how the learned theory impacted the experiential practice.
During a tasting, a sommelier uses a structured, step-by-step framework called the Deductive Tasting Method that creates a web of inferences leading to their ability to discern the origin, variety, and age of the wine in front of them. This systematic assessment moves from sight to nose to palate, examining the wine's appearance, aromatics, structure, and finally its complexity and finish.
All of these sensory impressions are then filtered through their studied knowledge. While you need to be able to pick up say a limestone note on the nose, you also have to then know what regions limestone is found in, for example Burgundy's Chablis with its distinctive mineral-forward Chardonnays. But without that background knowledge of regions, you'd be hard pressed to accurately connect what you taste with where it comes from.
From here, it all becomes a game of pattern recognition, matching the experience of past tastings with your body of accumulated knowledge. Slight variations in a wine's alcohol content could suggest an early harvest, which then can help you map the wine to a specific region. A wine's acidity or minerality allows you to connect disparate growing conditions with a shared soil content. All of these intertwined data points become the key to unlocking a depth of mastery that allows you to share, educate, and enjoy at a richer level.
In wine, as in elsewhere, studied expertise acts as the structural foundation upon which your experiential expertise is built.
The ripples of expertise
My bias against this kind of knowledge has acted as a limiter on my capacity for growth. And while I've had models for the benefits of study and memorization, like music theory and its application in jazz piano, I've hesitated to fully embrace the time commitment required for deeper study.
Outside of a foundational base for your experiential expertise, this studied approach can act as a magnet for other likeminded people, while also helping you to avoid the common pitfalls you're bound to encounter on the path of creation and innovation. In the second part of this essay, I'll be exploring a number of these additional benefits, as well as diving into the areas I am putting my focus in over the next year.