I had a conversation with a client recently that surprised me. Then I thought about it some more and I realized it was something that a lot of nonprofit leaders struggle with. It's just that this client was experiencing a version of the problem that was a bit unusual.

This client is a CEO who has decades of experience and accumulated wisdom and perspective. But one day, this CEO shared with me that although she was considered a big expert in her previous field, she didn't have the same expert reputation in her current field. And therefore, she didn't feel like she could claim expertise at all in that field.

She was working backwards from the fact that over a span of 20 years, she had built this really strong reputation as a huge expert in her previous field. And then reducing that to the conclusion that it takes 20 years to build the knowledge, the reputation the relationships, etc. And that is patently not true.

But her biggest mistake was she made the erroneous assumption that the only reason her expertise in that prior field was valued was because of those 20 years of investment. And that anything less was not enough.

This is a really insidious form of self-limiting thinking. A lot of leaders may not have anywhere near 20 years of expertise. And yet some of them are very successfully claiming the expertise they do have and getting great results from decisionmakers because of that. Others are operating from the same self-doubting and self-limiting thinking as my client of, "I don't have enough (fill in the blank) yet, so I can't claim I'm an expert."

My client was taking herself out of the game before she even started. The stories she was telling herself led her to avoid claiming the expertise she already has. And that meant she wasn’t sharing her expert analysis and perspective with the decisionmakers that needed it in order to make smarter decisions.
Including decisions about funding and policy that directly impact her organization and the people she serves.

In this episode, we share:

• The two main causes of failing to claim our status as an expert
• Common fears and stories that cause leaders to doubt their expert status
• One powerful reframe that will help you claim the identity of expert
• The easiest and fastest way to establish your expert identity
• One highly effective practice you can start today to increase your comfort with owning your expertise

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Thanks!