The Case for Sharing Before You're an Expert

Who gave you permission to teach?

I mean it. Think about it for a second. At what point did someone hand you a certificate that said "You now know enough to share this with others"?

For most of us, that moment never came. Which is exactly why we don't share what we know.

I held back for years. I'd learn something useful—a system for organizing my writing, a technique for managing client projects, a way to structure my mornings—and I'd keep it to myself. Not because I was hoarding it. Because I didn't think I was qualified to share it.

Who was I to teach anyone anything? There were experts out there. People with credentials. People who'd been doing this for decades.

I was just figuring it out as I went.

But here's the question that changed my thinking: who helped you most when you were starting?

For me, it wasn't the experts. It was the people one or two steps ahead of me. The blogger who'd just figured out email newsletters and wrote about what worked. The entrepreneur who'd landed their third client and shared the pitch that closed the deal. The writer who'd just finished their first draft and documented the messy process.

They weren't masters. They were translators. They remembered what it felt like to not know. And they could explain things in a way the experts had forgotten how to.

What if that's actually the best time to teach? Not when you've mastered something, but when you've just learned it?

Think about it. When you're one step ahead, the struggle is still fresh. You remember the confusion. You know which explanations didn't help and which ones finally clicked. You speak the language of the beginner because you just barely stopped being one.

The expert has forgotten all of that. They've known for so long that they can't remember not knowing. Their explanations assume foundations you haven't built yet.

So maybe the question isn't "Am I qualified to teach this?"

Maybe it's "Did I learn something that someone one step behind me is struggling with right now?"

If yes, you're qualified.

You don't need to write the definitive guide. You don't need to be the final word. You just need to share what you figured out, in the words you would have understood before you figured it out.

I'm still not an expert at most things I write about. I'm a rookie who takes notes. And those notes might be exactly what another rookie needs to hear.

What have you learned recently that you're keeping to yourself? What if the person who needs to hear it most is someone who's exactly where you were six months ago?