# Expertise, Experience and Progress By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-04-26 What is more important: deep expertise or broad experiences? Deep expertise is highly lucrative in a very narrow industry. Only you and a few others know how something works, so if the market values this, you'll make out. The downside is predicting what the market wants and underestimating how many competitors you'll come up against. Alternatively, a person with broad experience is more robust to market shocks and can take advantage of adjacent opportunities. Essentially, you can draw upon your past experiences to find a job or solve a problem. The downside is you'll likely have less overall earning potential and you could be seen as a mercenary. Both have benefits. Both have costs. However, what if you reject both and aspire to something that synthesizes these two things? As there are always trade-offs, you won't be able to get as deep or as broad if you try to do both. But perhaps you can pick one field you want to know deeply and then try to apply it as broadly as possible. Alternatively, perhaps your depth of expertise is how one best leverage broad experiences as widely as possible. Whenever someone presents you with two choices, always look for the third choice that uniquely blends them. This is where progress lives. #### Related Items [[Expertise]] [[Experience]] [[Progress]] [[Work]] [[Metamodernism]]