On Experience, Not Expertise

On my 49^th year, I remember being on a beach early in the morning and having a deep sense that I had achieved the experiences I wanted for my life.

The day was filled with completeness rather than celebration, and I recall thinking that from here on out, it was “bonus.”

The bonus time has been a challenge, like everyone else’s. Life is a series of challenges we must all navigate through as best we can.

I suppose that’s the reason there are so many performative “experts” who will impart their wisdom and guide us on the path to the illusion of happiness.

Who gets to earn the right to profess their expertise and coach people through life, or to tell people how to fix the challenges of their lives?

I know I’m certainly one of the people who have failed to simply listen and not try to “fix” others’ problems.

I think that’s a very American trait, and especially one of New Yorkers who have an opinion about everything.

But as I’ve grown older and earned wisdom through the school of hard knocks, I pause when I come across the words of inexperienced experts sharing their ideas about how others should live.

I get it.

Every person who has a smartphone has the world’s knowledge right at their fingertips.

And then, of course, we have ChatGPT or Claude mimicking human thought, intelligence, and inspiration about any topic or idea we can imagine.

Wisdom has become a great commodity, packaged and served in a cold dish, rather than what it is: hard-earned life lessons in overcoming and resilience.

The closer I get to the legacy stage of my life and the further away from the beginning, the more I’ve realized how much wisdom is earned, not read from a book, imparted by ChatGPT, or philosophized in a YouTube video.

Typically, true wisdom comes from years of overcoming, paying attention, and meaningfully embracing the lessons.

And it is then that the expertise becomes the sharing of genuine insights that can truly affect another person’s life for the better or help them overcome a life challenge.

So, is it not better to share our experiences rather than perform the rituals of expertise when many of us are touching walls in the dark?

Sharing lived experiences and lessons may resonate with others, and other things won’t, but the message in our sharing could be as simple as this: I see you. I hear you. I’ve overcome. You can too.

The world needs more people with kindness, compassion, and courage, through resilience, in overcoming this messy thing called life without having to come at it as an expert.

But we also need a little less calculated, performative lesson-sharing to influence perceptions and personal brands, and more genuine, simple human authenticity.

In other words, can more of us stop “packaging” wisdom and simply share—not as experts, but as people who experienced, overcame, and truly learned the lessons?

© 2026 Linda N. Spencer, My Red Sneakers. All Rights Reserved.