Just because you are good at it, doesn't make you an expert

For those of you who now me well, I read everyday and then send my friend a summary of what I have read and he then comments and sends the mail back and on certain points we might have a little conversation about it.

I must admit that some days I haven't done it but it is a good exercise as you learn a lot and it gets your brain going and makes you think.

The other day, my friend said that being a former executive in a large corporation might get you a coaching job in other corporations but that won't make you a better coach.

That was really interesting because if you think of the world of sport the best players are not necessarily the best coaches. For example in the world of cricket at the moment, the current New Zealand coach has never played first class cricket while a lot of the other coaches were just average players at best with a couple of exceptions, Darren Lehman and Anil Kumble coming to mind.

My friend also gave the example of a coach who is trying to get people to come out of their shells. He said that an introvert would be much more qualified to do that kind of job because they are able to empathise better with people in that situation but in the end probably the job would go to someone who is more extroverted because they are a bit more 'out there' and would present themselves better in that situation.

My response to that would be that extrovert probably wouldn't do that kind of job anyway because they think that everyone is like them anyway and why would anyone need coaching on how to come out of their shells and be more sociable because in their mind we are all sociable and if you are not you must be weird or strange or a real loner or even a loser.

Both sociable people and shall we say the less than sociable people need to know how to interact with each other. They need to understand that we are different in our outlook to life and just because one person doesn't want to go drinking one night in doesn't make them a loner, far from it.

If you consider yourself an extrovert and you are a sociable being, before criticising someone for being "antisocial" think. Maybe they are like that for a reason and they don't see the world like you do. That's OK by the way. It is ok to be different to you.