The process from dysfluency to fluency is an essential concept in skill development across all areas. It turns out that masters (experts) in almost all fields are almost always at the edge of their competency as they try to improve and, thereby, continuously teetering back into dysfluency before attaining a higher level.
In order to illustrate the point, let me ask you a question.
My problem is (__________), could you recommend somebody who could help me with (__________ fill in the blank)?
We often hear, “delegate what you’re not good at and leverage what you’re good at”. By and large, that is wise advice. Not so fast, though.
Most people I talk to are experts in their field or at least have enough significant experience and knowledge in their domain. That means they are fluent in their domain of expertise.
Then they venture into Personal Branding and find out there are many areas where they are not so fluent or feel decidedly incompetent.
That’s when I get the question above. And delegation doesn’t always work. For example, what I do not recommend is delegating your social media content creation. That content (what you say and how you say it) is your brand. It isn’t something your social media consultant can (or should) take over. That is a sure way to lose the Personal in personal branding.
I know you might feel frustrated because you may feel that you could spend your time doing something ‘more valuable’ than coming up with social media content. Still, there is nothing more valuable than your brand when it comes to your marketing assets.
My advice is to treat it in the same way as when we first started learning to write. We had to start writing the alphabet one character at a time, and we had to take time to do it. One letter and one sentence at a time.
If you’ve been putting off sharing your expertise in social media because you felt that you’d better get someone else to do it for you, I understand. I really do.
But think about this. All that time you’ve been thinking about it, you could have shared something (maybe not great) once a week or even every two weeks, that would have gotten you started, and the only way from there is up because we always get better as we do more.
To prove my point, here’s my first attempt at left-hand handwriting (I’m right-handed) – complete dysfluency.
It’s okay to feel like a five-year-old as we learn to do new things – no matter how old we are. In fact, it turns out that’s a sure way to delay ageing .
Okay, are you convinced yet?
