I spent twenty years being the expert.
The go-to guy. The one with answers. The person people called when things broke or needed building. In the Army, in tech, in every room I walked into... I led with what I knew.
It felt safe. It worked.
Until it didn't.
When the Label Becomes a Trap
Fredrik Haren, a creativity researcher who has spent years studying how people create across more than 75 countries, tells a story about his young son. The boy was introducing his dad to someone and struggled with the right word. He'd meant to say "creativity expert." What came out was "creativity explorer."
Fredrik says it was better.
Think about what each word signals. An expert has arrived. An explorer is still moving.
Psychologist Adam Grant writes about what he calls identity foreclosure — settling so fully into one version of yourself, you lose the ability to become another. You've put so much into becoming the person who knows this thing, seeing other possibilities gets harder.
I know how it feels. I held "tech expert" like a shield for years.
What Being an Expert Costs You
Experts answer questions. Explorers ask them.
Experts protect their territory. Explorers cross it.
The more tightly you hold your expert identity, the less curious you get. You stop asking "what if?" and start saying "well, actually."
You spend energy defending what you know instead of learning what you don't.
There's a Zen concept called shoshin ... beginner's mind. The teacher Shunryu Suzuki said it plainly: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few."
Expertise narrows. Exploration widens.
The Shift
I'm not sure exactly when I stopped being a tech expert and started being something else. A writer. A speaker. A builder of things I had no formal training to build.
At some point I realized I'd been an explorer all along... I'd hidden it behind credentials.
I spent a lot of my career making sure people knew what I knew. It took me a long time to realize I got more done... and had more fun... when I stopped performing.
As someone who flies a paramotor for fun, I think about this often. Every flight is a lesson. You don't "master" flying a paramotor. You keep learning how not to crash.
Work is the same. Leadership is the same.
The people I respect most aren't the ones with the most answers. They're the ones still asking questions at the end of the meeting. Still updating their view when new information arrives. Still willing to be wrong.
Try This
Pick one area where you call yourself an expert. Now ask: when did you last change your mind about something fundamental in it?
If you're struggling to remember... the label might be working against you.
What would change if you called yourself an explorer instead?
Not a lesser version of you. A more honest one.