This blog was originally posted and featured on FastCompany.com. The original post can be found here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1682547/personal-branding-expert-tip-forget-what-you-know

Watch the Video Blog from Nick here: Personal Branding Tip: Forget What YOU Know

In my last blog for Fast Company, I explained to you that you have to display your expertise and all the ways you could do that.

But I’ve had a bunch of emails and posts that have asked me, “But, Nick, where do I begin?” And here’s where you’ve got to begin. You have to forget what you know. Now before you go off saying I’m crazy because I told you before to “get out of the business you’re in” and now I’m telling you to “forget what you know”, here’s what’s important–you devalue the things that you know, because you know them so well. That’s important, let me say that again:

You devalue the things that you know, because you know them so well.

What I want to encourage you to do is forget what you know and start thinking about what your audience knows–their knowledge set is very different from yours. You don’t know where to begin because you think everyone knows what you know, it feels like common sense you know it so well, but it’s not! When you’re want to display your expertise, you’ve got to start from the beginning. The most profound information is the stuff that’s simple, basic and easy to comprehend and most likely, you’ve forgotten about it because you know the basics so well! But think about it, if you want to learn about a new subject, you’ve ALWAYS got to start at the beginning, we all just forget there is a beginning when it’s somewhere in our distant past or our subconscious mind.

Forget about the complex stuff, you’re trying too hard! And start valuing the stuff that you know. I’m going to ask you to focus on starting from the beginning, of course progressively take your audience on the journey to where they need to be, but start from the beginning. Nothing is too basic. Start from the beginning so they can understand it too and that’s what is going to make the biggest impact in their business.

So, forget how much you know, teach people the basics and you’ll have great success displaying your expertise.

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