Embrace Your Inner Expert.

Two words have historically made me quite uncomfortable: expertise and advice. I guess I've always been skeptical of both. What does it mean to be an expert? And is any of us really equipped to dispense advice? Anyway, I don't pretend to have answers to these questions, but I've become more open-minded about these things recently. Tomorrow I will be donning my Career Expert hat to give live professional advice to young women as part of the Office Hours program at the wonderful Levo League.

I'm not yet sure what exactly what I will say, but I'm excited. I'm excited because I welcome this opportunity to tell a bit of my professional/personal story. Ultimately, that's what advice is, right? The lessons we have learned, and the gems we have gathered, as a result of trial and error, success and failure, experience and time.

Ultimately, I've decided that the only advice I'm willing to give here and elsewhere is advice to myself. Advice to myself now, and then. Things I wished I had known all along, but things I arrived at in a less than linear, and often much more rewarding, way. Anyway, I'm thankful in advance to Levo League for giving me this chance to pause and ponder what insights the years have brought and to realize that there is nothing wrong with embracing our inner expert.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and hope you'll all tune in here at 2pm EST to watch me stumble - somewhat gracefully, I hope! - through whatever it is I end up saying.

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How do you feel about "expertise" and "advice"? Are there any topics you'd be interested in hearing about tomorrow? What is it that you wish you had known when you began your professional life?