Are you actively seeking information about your passion? Knowledge, providing it is correct knowledge, will increase your power.

In this century there is an increasing demand for experts in so many fields. Everything is becoming more and more specialized.

Let me give you an example. At the turn of the 19th Century, all you needed to do to be an Accountant was to be good with numbers and undertake some training with other accountants. Later, formal qualifications were required. It consisted of a special course called a Diploma where up to a dozen specific subjects had to be studied.

As technology increased and finance, book-keeping and taxation became increasingly more complex, more subjects were required to be undertaken, presently around three dozen. The Diploma was replaced with a Degree.

Accountants can specialize in general accounting, management accounting, taxation accounting and other specific areas. Employers pay much more for specific talents and qualifications than they do for general labour.

So, are you seeking knowledge in your chosen field? Are you updating your knowledge platform on a regular basis? If you are not then you are almost certainly going backwards. This means that you will be rapidly overtaken by others who are embracing new technology and absorbing the knowledge that goes along with it.

To succeed today you need to specialize in a niche market.

Let me ask you a question. Let's assume that you have created a new and exciting product. You want to patent it to protect your rights. Would you go to any old lawyer or would you seek out a specialist Patent Attorney?

Let's say you required a knee reconstruction. Would you ask a normal doctor to perform the surgery or would you seek out a surgeon who specializes in this form of re-constructive surgery? You want the best surgeon, don't you?

One more example. If you owned a Nissan motor vehicle, would you prefer to take it to a Nissan specialist mechanic? Or would you entrust the repairs to a general mechanic whose workshop is full of clapped-out old bombs.

Finally, don't be fooled into thinking that you don't need to keep learning. We all need to learn on a continuing basis. To achieve more we have to know more. We don't necessarily have to do more but that helps too. Some people get a couple of years of experience, repeat that experience for twenty years then think that they have twenty years of experience. Wrong. They still have only two years of experience that they have repeated ten times. There is a big difference.

What are you doing to become a specialist?