Separating the real experts from self-proclaimed ones is challenging. Guest Cait Flanders shares her journey of paying off debt, starting with her popular blog. They discuss the flaws of expertise and the value of personal experiences. Reading blogs and books for personal finance advice differs in inspiration and practicality. Seeking advice from experts depends on personal growth goals and journaling.
To separate real experts from self-proclaimed ones, look for those who have deeply researched a topic and are vulnerable about their failures.
Seek advice from individuals who are further along in their respective journeys and rely on reputable authors and financial planners for valuable information.
Deep dives
The Journey to Paying off Debt and Becoming a Successful Blogger
The podcast episode features Kate Flanders, who started a blog called Blonde on a Budget to document her journey towards paying off $30,000 of debt. Her blog quickly gained popularity and led her to conduct experiments, including a year-long shopping ban, which went viral and inspired her book, 'The Year of Less.' Despite her successful blogging career, Flanders eventually decided to retire from personal blogging, emphasizing the importance of being human rather than an expert in a space where everyone feels the need to prove themselves.
The Role of Vulnerability and Real-Life Experiences
Flanders highlights the value of vulnerability and sharing personal experiences when it comes to offering advice or guidance. She emphasizes the importance of storytelling and connecting with real-world situations rather than being an expert who claims to have all the answers. Flanders believes in continuous learning and acknowledges that no one person can know everything. She encourages readers and listeners to seek advice from individuals who are slightly further along in their respective journeys, using books and personal finance blogs by reputable authors and financial planners as valuable sources of information.
Avoiding the Expert Label and Evaluating Advice Sources
Flanders expresses her skepticism towards individuals who label themselves as experts and claims that they know everything about a particular topic. She believes that the term 'expert' implies a lack of willingness to learn and grow. Instead of relying on self-proclaimed experts, Flanders recommends looking for sources that provide personal experiences, stories, and a mix of storytelling and valuable resources. She suggests reading books by authors who have gone through similar experiences and have been vetted by publishers for their expertise. Flanders also cautions against consuming advice solely from online platforms, as many creators focus on building a brand or making money rather than providing authentic, helpful content.
Takeaway:Some experts are worth listening to, and others aren’t. To find the good ones, look for those who have dug deeply into a topic, aren’t afraid to be vulnerable about where they fail, don’t speak from a pedestal, and are further along in exploring a topic than you are.
Estimated Reading Time:3 minutes, 47s.
Podcast Length28 minutes, 14s (link to play podcast at bottom of post).
There are a lot of people out there who call themselves experts—and as someone who writes books, gives speeches, and has a podcast about becoming more productive, I’d include myself in this category.
Here’s the thing about expert advice, though: we live in a world where anyone can call themselves an expert, whether they deserve to be one or not. All anyone needs is an online platform—a blog, social media account, or LinkedIn profile—and boom! They can label themselves an expert, a “thought leader,” or, worst of all, a “guru”. So how do you separate the real experts from everyone else? Enter this week’s guest on my podcast, Cait Flanders (a link to play the episode is at the bottom of the post).
Nine years ago, Cait Flanders started a blog named Blonde on a Budget, to chronicle her journey to pay off $30,000 of debt, and write about her various experiments on personal finance. Her website took off, very quickly becoming one of the most popular personal finance blogs on the internet.
One experiment that she conducted for the website—doing a yearlong shopping ban, where she saved half of her income, and didn’t buy anything she didn’t absolutely need—went viral, which led to her first book, The Year of Less, that, to date, has become one of the bestselling personal finance memoirs of all time.
Then, one night, Cait decided to pack it all in. She published a blog post that I still remember landing in my email inbox, named, Why I’m Retiring from Personal Blogging, and since that date, apart from sharing the occasional nature photo on Instagram, she has posted pretty much nothing online. She packed up her Twitter account, the Facebook page for her blog, her podcast, and everything else. It’s all gone.
In that post, she wrote about blogging:
“It’s just not as fun anymore. I used to open up new browser tabs and visit people’s blogs like I was walking into their dorm rooms and sitting on their beds. Then we’d share life updates, what little bits of advice we had, and both walk away feeling like we’d had a great conversation with a friend. Now, it feels like every platform (blogs, social, etc.) is a place for people to shout and be heard. We have been told we need to build, grow, make money and have all the answers. We need to be experts. I don’t want to be an expert. I just want to be a human.”
This last line struck me, hard—especially as someone who makes his living being a productivity “expert”.
But something else also struck me: that Cait is right! There are so many experts out there, telling us what to do—how much money to save, how to work, and how to live our lives. If any odd person can just call themselves an expert, who should we trust and believe?
That’s when I realized I had to get Cait on the podcast to chat about this idea. At the end of our chat, we settled on a few criteria for figuring out whether an expert is worth listening to.
Great experts:
Have done the work. This is obvious, but easy to forget. Cait loves to follow book authors, rather than bloggers, for this reason. The best experts don’t just have opinions about a given topic, as anyone on the internet can—they’ve been researching a topic, experimenting with it, and exploring it for years.
Aren’t afraid to be vulnerable. Experts are humans, like everybody else on the planet. They should be open about their failures, in addition to sharing their successes. When an “expert” isn’t open about where and when they fail, and pretends to be perfect, they become far less believable. Look for experts still asking questions, who don’t pretend to know everything about a topic.
Shouldn’t speak from a pedestal. There’s nothing worse than reading advice that talks down to you. This characteristic may not discredit an expert as much as the other items on the list. But it does call into question the advice someone gives. Look for someone who isn’t just trying to fix you while pretending to be perfect.
Are much further along in exploring a topic than you are. Of course, it’s helpful if they’re also further along in exploring the idea compared to most other experts.
Naturally, there are more variables to consider than these—but the ones above are a terrific place to start.
