The longer you do a job, the easier it is to underestimate what you know!

The longer you do a job, the easier it is to underestimate what you know.

You’ve seen the problem before. You know which question to ask. You can tell when something is heading sideways. You know who needs to be in the room. After a while, none of this feels especially noteworthy. It is simply how you work. Experience has a habit of making hard won capability feel ordinary to the person who has it.

There is another side effect. We become accustomed to using our experience in a particular role, team or context. Over time, it becomes easy to confuse where our value is currently being used with the extent of the value itself. Then there are the things people keep finding you for. The problem they bring you even though it technically belongs somewhere else. The introduction they ask you to make. The meeting they want you in. The thing they ask you to explain because, apparently, you make it make sense. They often tell you something about your value that your position description cannot.

Have you ever stopped to ask: Where or how else could what you already do create value?

“Else” does not have to mean somewhere else. It could be another part of your team, a problem elsewhere in the organisation, a client conversation, a project that needs what you know, or an opportunity to contribute in a way nobody has thought to ask you about yet.

I recently joined Renata Bernarde on The Job Hunting Podcast to talk about portfolio careers and the somewhat uncurated path my own working life has taken across law, strategy, entrepreneurship, speaking and advisory work.

We spend a lot of time asking what someone does. I think it is much more interesting to ask: What else becomes possible because of what you already know how to do?

Your role tells us where your value is currently organised. It doesn’t tell us how far it could travel.

🎧 I’ve linked the conversation with Renata here: https://www.renatabernarde.com/episode/portfolio-career-after-40/