I recently had someone tell me I suffer badly from the Dunning-Kruger effect.
At first, I thought it was an insult until he explained it to me.
In a nutshell, from Chat GPT of course, it’s as follows:
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency of individuals with low levels of competence or expertise in a particular area to overestimate their abilities.
In simpler terms, it’s when people who lack knowledge or skill in a certain subject believe they are more knowledgeable or skilled than they actually are.
This effect was named after psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who conducted research on the phenomenon in the late 1990s.
Can you relate to this or know someone who suffers from this?
The context for this arose around ironically a franchise opportunity.
I made a friend with someone who came through our new franchise training and went on to set up his own business coaching franchise on the back of his profitable business.
This guy makes great coin, at one time he was doing 30 clients a month with each one paying $3k per month, you do the math.
He isn’t that much older than me, however, he has a young family which is a great motivation for anyone.
Ever since meeting we have connected really well and stay in touch.
Each week he is following me up to come to be a franchisee with him on a very good deal.
Financially it makes 100% to quit my job and join him.
We have similar skill sets and on the face of it, I have definitely similar abilities in multiple areas.
So why won’t I take the leap?
It’s simple really.
I don’t believe I have any skills that will actually help the type of SME clients he deals with.
Is this actually true though?
It isn’t and I know this from my various meetings with my friend who only wants the best for me.
Yet, I doubt my ability and skills even though other people tell me I have plenty.
My doubting myself constantly is literally costing me tens of thousands a month!
But…….
Money is not a concern for me overall.
I don’t have a family or dependants and I don’t really value it the same way as other people, so it’s not the trigger for me.
My ultimate driver is happiness and passion for what I do.
Since 2019, I have built a role at Australia’s largest franchise and single handle increased our visibility to help us grow to 5,000 franchisees.
I love that fact!
Using social media and video to do so, it allows me to be creative and I have a hell of a lot of freedom in my work which I love.
But, I still doubt myself daily despite this.
As do most of us.
There are so many high-achievers in school or people with high IQs who never have the confidence to live up to their potential due to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
This is a massive shame but also a source of great potential for anyone!
I recommend asking Chat GPT what are your actual skills based on what you do.
Get the machine to list all of the skills you would have from your line of work.
I did and it massively helped build some self-esteem with everything that I actually know how to do.
Remember, just because something is easy or obvious for you, it might not be for others.
I see a lot of big YouTubers who show simple things regarding social media tips for example they are very obvious to me.
However, some of these videos have millions of views because a lot of people just simply don’t know very basic tasks.
I guarantee there will be at least 20 tasks that you do today that you think are not special however, a lot of people will be fascinated by it.
The example below of something I find simple, however, you might be seeing it for the first time.
The video above is very basic, however, I presume that everyone knows how to use AI to generate a blog post.
This assumption is wrong and I know this from my new franchisee training session where I show prospects Chat GPT and you can see at least 90% of the audience have their mind blown!
Don’t underestimate your skills or how good you are.
We do this enough to ourselves and believe me, I know a lot of financially successful people who are that bright or have many skills at all.
However, the one thing they have is courage and belief in themselves.
Fake it till you make it, might sound like stupid advice, however, think about some successful people in your life and ask yourself, are they overly brilliant than me?
They probably aren’t.
There are a lot of stupidly rich people and a lot of poor smart people!
The world favours the brave and courageous.
It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you do not have the courage to make a change or start a business for example. You will always stay where you are.
This is where I am at the moment.
My friend keeps trying to pull me out of my situation and to get me to believe in myself.
Yet, I keep pulling myself back to the old ‘I don’t have any skills mantra’
Something is going to have to change, however, when will that be, I don’t know.
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