Are you in a state of Dormant Brilliance
[Music]
[Applause]
when people learn that i’m a nurse
quite often they assume that my work
includes
passing out medications following the
orders of a doctor
are only providing direct patient care
and while these responsibilities are all
extremely essential
to the role of a clinical nurse nurses
are also
leaders and innovators and practitioners
in fact being a nurse taught me how to
become an expert
an expert in communication an expert at
understanding
very complex systems and an expert
at problem solving you see all these
skills that come in handy as i
courageously started
a healthcare consulting firm and as a
consultant
i solved the very same problems that i
mastered
as a nurse but now as an expert
you see i’ve come to learn that no
matter what industry you’re in
or what professional title you have we
all have an inner expert
my intention is for you to walk away
today
knowing how to awaken your inner expert
you see awakening my inner expert wasn’t
an overnight process
it’s been a complete life’s journey
a journey of self-discovery of
self-reflection
and really acknowledging and stepping
into my full worth and potential
in 2019 i wrote my very first book
called the power of
expertise and i shared how i
transitioned from nurse
to healthcare consultant and in that
very moment
everything would change i mean i
completely disrupted the traditional
role of a nurse
let’s just say the floodgates of
outreach started to pour
into my inbox and still to this day
i received messages and emails from not
just
nurses but doctors and pharmacists
and health care professionals from all
backgrounds
curious to know how they can take their
experience
and apply it to becoming consultants
so i started to have conversations with
these very intelligent minds
and after having so many conversations
i started to notice themes in the talks
that we were having
there are themes of discontentment
themes of
burnout in their current role and a lot
of themes of frustration
frustration because they’ve done every
single thing society said they needed to
do
in order to be successful they’d gone to
school received
numerous degrees they landed great
careers in fact many had multiple
accolades
but yet they still came to me feeling
like something was missing
they were still searching for their
options
it became abundantly clear to me that
these very intelligent minds
were in a state of dormant brilliance
and i can relate because i’ve also
experienced
being in a state of dormant brilliance
where i found myself searching for my
purpose and searching for options
although i had a very great career as a
nurse
but i was searching for options that
only my inner expert could create
if you’re unfamiliar with dormant
brilliance let me provide you with a
definition
dormant brilliance is when you are
completely unaware
of the skills the gifts and the
expertise
that you possess that make you a
complete force to be reckoned with
you know how to solve every single
problem
you’ve mastered every skill in the book
and as a matter of fact everyone around
you sees you as an
expert and a resource but you
so in other words you’ve completely
downplayed your own
superpowers
so you live day by day and hour by hour
and minute by minute in the shadow of
your inner expert
so reflecting back and thinking of all
the conversations that i had
and continue to have with these very
intelligent minds
i’m not surprised that they felt
discontentment
and frustration and burnout
because what i know to be true about
being in a state of dormant brilliance
is that you always feel like you’re
searching for your life’s purpose
so no matter how amazingly smart you are
or how many people praise you for all
your accomplishments
you have failed to do one important
thing
awaken your inner expert
i remember when i was first introduced
to the concept of an expert
it was an undergraduate studies in
nursing school
many many years ago
and we were learning about dr berner’s
novice to expert
nursing theory and in dr patricia
berner’s
theory she introduced you to the phases
of how you become
an expert it started off with you being
a novice
and then you transitioned to advanced
beginner
and from advanced beginner you became
proficient
then competent and then you graduated to
being an
expert now this is where the fireworks
are supposed to go off but there were no
fireworks for me
in fact it would take years and momentum
and some trial and error
but i would become an expert
and not just because of dr berner’s
theory
but because i did the hard internal work
that it would take to force myself out
of a state
of dormant brilliance to awaken and
acknowledge
my inner expert
for so many years i felt like i was
disqualified to be an expert
because i myself harbored false truths
about what an expert looked like
about the credentials an expert had
so before we move forward i want to make
sure that we dispel
any myths about what it takes to be an
expert
number one being an expert doesn’t
require you to have a harvard degree
or any degree at all for that matter
in fact what is required is that you be
extremely
knowledgeable about the subject matter
of your choice
the second thing i want you to remember
is that being an expert doesn’t
necessarily have to be job related
being an expert can be birthed from your
inner passions
this means your inner expert could be an
author an artist
a life coach a chef the key is to be
guided by your inner expert
and the last thing i want you to
remember is
being an expert has no age limitations
or
restrictions our youth
are so intelligent and knowledgeable
the sooner we as parents allow our
children to release their inner expert
the less time they’ll spend as adults
searching for options
and searching for their purpose
so now that we’ve released those false
truths that you and i
have both been harboring i want to share
with you how you can awaken your own
inner expert
the first thing we have to focus on is
self reflection
self-reflection is when we have to ask
ourselves a lot of tough questions
questions that will require us to be
almost painfully honest with ourselves
and how we respond i had to ask myself
questions like
are you happy in both your professional
and your personal life
and if you’re not happy what’s going to
make you happy
do you feel fulfilled
and if you don’t feel fulfilled what’s
going to make you feel
fulfilled
for me i had to look directly in a
mirror
and acknowledge the fact that although
i’ve had a very gratifying role as a
nurse
there were aspects of my job that didn’t
make me happy
that left me feeling like something was
missing
self-reflection forced me to dissect
what i didn’t enjoy
so i could focus on what i did enjoy
and those topics i mastered i became the
expert
the next thing we have to focus on is
self mastery
self mastery much like self reflection
requires us to ask ourselves
a lot of questions as well but these
questions are a little bit different
these questions help you tap into your
zone of genius
i had to ask myself questions like
what gifts do you possess that others
praise you for
what knowledge do you have that can be
shared with the world
what skills do you possess that can be
shared with others so they can hit
their goals i’m quite sure there’s many
of you
here today who’ve been operating as
experts for years
in a dormant state one thing that i want
you to remember is that your inner
expert is a thought leader
thought leadership needs to be shared to
influence
change that’s powerful
the next thing we have to focus on and
this one’s a big one
it’s removing conditional restraints
and newsflash if you’re not familiar
with conditional restraints
we’ve been conditioned by society to be
generalists
not experts so in order for me to
release my inner expert i had to
completely remove society’s version of
what success
looked like in the road map i needed to
take in order to be successful
this meant i had to completely free my
status quo
mindset completely
also removing conditional restraints
from me
looked like not waiting for permission
to share my expertise
and i’m going to share something that
i’ve never shared publicly
but removing conditional restraints also
looked like me
dropping out of a phd program because i
had been conditioned to believe
that i needed the credentials of a phd
to validate that i
was an expert that was another false
truth
i would soon realize that the only
validation that i
needed would be the results i generated
from those i share my expertise with
i needed no permission no validation
and no additional credentials to be the
expert i am today
and the same applies for you too
and the very last thing that we have to
do to step out of a state of dormant
brilliance to awaken our inner expert
is to acknowledge our value
the moment you acknowledge your value is
the moment that your inner expert begins
to breathe
this is that pivotal point where you
acknowledge all of your own attributes
that no one else can bring to the table
but you
in fact this was a life-changing moment
in my own life
when i realized that i am an asset
my skills my gifts my expertise
are all valuable
along this journey i’ve come to realize
that
the moment that you step out of the
state of dormant brilliance
and you truly awaken your inner expert
that’s when you’re living out your
life’s purpose
just imagine where will we be without
experts
experts who unite us
experts who show us how to improve
experts who solve complex problems
experts who show us how to laugh
and also experts who show us what’s
possible
in this moment i asked you to close your
eyes with me
and as you close your eyes imagine
yourself walking into a room
with a beautiful full-length mirror in
front of you
i want you to walk closer and closer to
that mirror
and start to peer in your reflection
gaze into your eyes and i want you to
listen to my voice
you are an expert
your skills your gifts your knowledge
and expertise need to be
shared with the world to influence
change
it’s time to awaken your inner expert
now open your eyes
thank you
[Music]
you