spent years believing this myth about himself. Engineering trained him to find precise answers to complex problems. A PhD taught him to research thoroughly and think systematically. These were supposed to be transferable skills that would smooth his path through any professional challenge.

Instead, he discovered something that fundamentally shifted his assumptions about expertise: That the most accomplished people in the world regularly find themselves completely stuck on problems that fall squarely within their domain of knowledge. Not because they lack intelligence, but because expertise itself can become a trap.

And sometimes the person who helps them escape that trap isn't another expert with better answers—it's someone whose expertise lies in asking better questions.

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When expertise becomes a prison

After nearly a decade at a boutique management consulting firm where he is now Associate Director, Andrea has spent thousands of hours with some of the most accomplished people in higher education: university presidents, research funders, academic publishers, policymakers. These aren't people lacking in intelligence or experience.

Yet there's a pattern he's observed that cuts to the heart of our misconceptions about expertise: "Proximity to what you do tends to blind you," he explains. "People often get trapped in their own framing, their own incentives and hiring a consultant as an external partner can usually help you surface some assumptions that you didn't know you had."

This isn't about smart people having blind spots in areas outside their expertise. This is about brilliant experts becoming prisoners of their own knowledge, unable to see solutions that are hiding in plain sight within their own field.

The research director who can't see why their funding strategy isn't working. The university president who knows higher education inside and out but can't identify why their institution is struggling. The publisher who understands their market perfectly but is stuck on strategic decisions.

It's not that they lack the knowledge to solve these problems. It's that their expertise has created a cognitive framework so rigid they can't step outside it to see alternatives.

The questions expert

This is where Andrea's story becomes genuinely subversive. His transition from nuclear engineering to qualitative research consulting wasn't just a career change—it was a complete inversion of how he understood professional value.

In engineering, Andrea's worth was tied to having precise answers. Variables were controlled, outcomes were predictable, and expertise meant knowing exactly what would happen when you manipulated the system.

In consulting, he discovered his value came from something entirely different: "It made me realise that I actually really enjoy talking to people, you know, these exchanges and that's a big part of my job today."

But here's what makes this more than just a career pivot story: Andrea didn't become valuable to his clients despite not being a domain expert in their fields. He became valuable because he wasn't trapped by their domain expertise.

His skill isn't in having better answers than university presidents or research directors. His expertise is in asking the questions that help them escape the cognitive traps their own knowledge has created.

The architecture of breakthrough

When Andrea describes his approach, he's not talking about interviewing techniques or consultation methods. He's describing a form of expertise that most of us don't recognise as expertise at all:

"You need to learn how to structure the flow in such a way that you build trust over time. And you start from things that are more about the context of the person you're speaking to. And then you shift into things that are more about specifics. And then you can ask the more complex questions."

This is expert-level work. Creating the conditions where accomplished people can step outside their own expertise and see their problems differently requires enormous skill. It demands deep understanding of human psychology, group dynamics, and the particular ways that knowledge can limit thinking.

Yet because the output isn't a formula or framework or definitive answer, we don't tend to recognise it as expertise. We see facilitation as somehow less valuable than subject matter knowledge.

Andrea's career suggests we have this backwards.

The recruiter's dilemma

There's a telling moment in our conversation where Andrea reflects on hiring: "Having academic experience or a PhD is definitely a way in. But these days there are more and more people with PhDs... It's not a distinguishing feature anymore."

He describes recruiting scenarios where multiple candidates have impressive credentials and deep knowledge, but what sets someone apart is evidence they can apply their thinking differently: "Some who had, I don't know, a six month placement in a consultancy or a one year off working for a relevant organization. And that really made a difference for us."

This isn't about collecting experiences for the sake of it. It's about demonstrating you can escape the gravitational pull of your own expertise—that you can think outside the frameworks your training has created.

The paradox is striking: the most valuable candidates aren't those with the deepest expertise, but those who've proven they can step outside their expertise when needed.

The Quiet Expert reframe

Here's where Andrea's story becomes a mirror for anyone who's ever felt inadequate for having questions instead of answers, for needing to think things through rather than knowing immediately, for being the person who says "I wonder if..." instead of "The answer is..."

"Organisations often see that they've got a big problem and they come to you with this big problem," Andrea explains. "But actually what you can help them address is not that big problem. It could be a root cause for that problem. It could be a subset of that problem, or it could be telling them, actually, that is not the problem."

Helping someone reframe their challenge, identify root causes instead of symptoms, see past their initial framing to understand what's really happening—this isn't consolation prize work for people who don't have "real" expertise.

This is a different form of expertise. One that's becoming more valuable as the world becomes more complex and traditional expertise becomes more brittle.

Questioning authority vs Questioning WITH authority

During our conversation, I ask Andrea about people who struggle to voice their questions in professional settings. His response reveals something profound about how influence actually works:

"Instead of just sharing a sharp, strong, direct insight, you ask a question and wait for a response... I've noticed so and so, what do you think? Or I'm wondering if... or how might we do X, Y, Z."

He's describing a form of leadership that doesn't require being the smartest person in the room. It's influence through inquiry, authority through creating space for collaborative thinking.

But notice what's really happening here: the person asking these questions isn't deferring to someone else's expertise. They're exercising their own expertise in helping others think more clearly.

The question isn't a sign of not knowing. The question is the tool of someone whose expertise lies in helping others discover what they already know but can't see.

The proximity problem

Andrea's insight about proximity applies beyond his clients. Many of us suffer from proximity to our own limitations. We're so close to our perceived weaknesses—our tendency to ask questions rather than provide answers, our need to think things through, our preference for collaborative rather than directive approaches—that we can't see that these might actually be strengths.

"What changes when you enter the room?" Andrea asks when helping team members recognise their value. "What impact are you making? It's not so much about what you know or what you say, but... when you're in the room, what's different compared to when you're not in the room?"

This reframe is powerful. It shifts focus from what you know to what you enable, from your knowledge to your effect on others' thinking.

For those of us who've internalised the idea that expertise means having answers, this opens up an entirely different understanding of professional value.

The real expert

Andrea's story demolishes our assumptions about expertise in two crucial ways.

First, it reveals that even the most accomplished experts regularly find themselves stuck on problems within their own domains. Intelligence and knowledge don't automatically translate to problem-solving capability when you're trapped inside your own frameworks.

Second, it demonstrates that the person who helps experts think more clearly about their expertise isn't playing a supporting role. They're exercising a different form of expertise—one focused on process rather than content, on questions rather than answers, on creating conditions for insight rather than delivering insights.

If you're someone who tends to ask more questions than you answer, who helps others think through problems rather than solving them yourself, who creates space for collaborative thinking rather than directive leadership—you're not lacking expertise.

You have a different kind of expertise. And in a world where information is abundant but wisdom is scarce, where AI can surface facts instantly but breakthrough thinking remains stubbornly human, your particular form of expertise might be exactly what's needed.

The myth of the know-it-all expert is just that - a myth. The real experts might be the ones asking the questions that help everyone else find their answers.

What about you? Have you found that your inability to have the answers to everything means you doubt your own expertise? Drop us a comment below.

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Andrea writes about the power and art of asking questions on his Substack. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

We're obsessed with planning. Social media is full of business strategists telling us to map out our journey, set clear goals, and engineer our way to success. But what if this roadmap-obsessed approach is exactly what's keeping us stuck?

My conversation with Michael — meditation teacher, entrepreneur, musician, and serial career-pivoter — turned this conventional wisdom on its head. His secret isn't having a better plan. It's having no fixed plan at all.

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The fatal flaw in planning

"How would you describe what you do?" I asked Michael, expecting the usual elevator pitch. Instead, I got a confession.

"With great difficulty. It's like my least favourite question," he replied. "I can get asked three times in a day what I do, and I can give them three very different answers."

Here's someone who's built multiple successful businesses—gardening, corporate wellness, music production, business strategy—and he can't even describe what he does. But that's precisely the point.

"I've tried to adopt an attitude which is not necessarily explicit to whoever's asking, but it's like the way I do things is more important than the what I do," he explained.

This isn't career confusion. This is clarity. While most of us are busy defining ourselves by titles, businesses and industries, Michael has discovered something more sustainable: he's found his why—his approach, his values, his way of moving through the world—and he lets that lead him to the what.

The problem with traditional career or business planning is that it puts the destination before the journey. We decide we want to be X by Y date, then reverse-engineer a path to get there. But what happens when that path stops making sense? When industries shift? When we discover we don't actually want what we thought we wanted?

We panic. We feel like failures. We cling to sunk costs and push forward with plans that no longer serve us, losing sight of why we started in the first place.

Following your why through the darkness

Michael's journey to this realisation began in the worst possible place. The first thirty years of his life were marked by depression, anxiety, and eventually serious drug addiction—a natural consequence, he says, of "trying to perform in a world that wasn't aligned with who I felt I was."

But his rock bottom became his turning point. "One day... I just had like a moment's clarity, grace. I still don't know what to call it." The message was clear: you've got to stop. And then, unexpectedly: "You might want to learn how to meditate."

What's crucial about this moment is that Michael didn't create a five-year plan to become enlightened. He didn't map out a career transition into wellness. He simply followed the next right step, which led to another, and another.

Within a week, he'd signed up for a meditation course. This led to travels in India, time in a Nepalese monastery, and eventually a profound realisation that he'd been seeking externally what was already within him.

"I went and started gardening," he told me about his return to London. Simple as that. No strategic career pivot, no market analysis. Just gardening. But because he brought his why—his way of approaching life with presence and authenticity—to this work, it evolved naturally into opportunities to teach meditation, which grew into a wellness business serving corporate clients.

The key insight: his why remained constant while his what evolved organically. He wasn't engineering outcomes; he was staying true to his core approach and letting that guide him to the right opportunities.

The riptide philosophy: Why fighting your path makes it harder

When COVID hit, Michael's wellness business was decimated overnight. Seventy weekly sessions across London became eight. The five-year plan was toast. But instead of panicking or desperately clinging to the old model, he did something counterintuitive: he relaxed into it.

"I think that I've developed a deep sense of faith that everything is gonna be okay," he told me. "There's sort of panic and what am I going to do on the surface, but internally there's like, it's going to be fine."

He compared it to being caught in a riptide: "If you're ever swimming in the sea and you get caught in a riptide, relax and it'll take you back... But don't fight. If you fight, you'll exhaust yourself."

This isn't passive resignation—it's strategic trust. The difference between feeling like life is happening to you versus through you.

Here's the secret sauce most career advice misses: when you're deeply connected to your why—your core approach to work and life—pivots become easier because you're not attached to specific outcomes. You're following a consistent internal compass rather than trying to force external circumstances to match your predetermined plan.

Michael didn't need to reinvent himself when his business model collapsed. His why remained the same: bringing mindfulness and presence to help people work and live better. The what simply adapted: he moved into music production for other wellness practitioners, business strategy consulting, and exploring new models around attention and focus.

"The more times you figure things out, the more capable you become across all domains," he explained. "I figured stuff out enough times to know to not be too flustered by the possibility of having to figure something else out."

This is the real advantage of following your why instead of your roadmap: resilience through repetition. Each pivot strengthens your ability to pivot again, because you're building fundamental problem-solving skills rather than domain-specific expertise that becomes obsolete.

Backseat drivers and false control

There's a beautiful paradox in Michael's story. The more he's learned to let go of controlling outcomes, the more successful he's become at creating them. The more he's embraced not knowing where he's going, the more interesting places he's ended up.

"I feel like it's almost like we've developed this sense that we're in the back seat with the kids steering wheel stuck to the front of the back seat and we're steering away and we think we're turning right and we’re actually turning left," he told me. "You can just relax and you'll get to your destination regardless of whether you think you're steering or not."

This isn't about abandoning all planning or goals. It's about holding them lightly enough that you can recognise better opportunities when they arise. It's about being open to shortcuts, scenic routes, and destinations you hadn't even considered.

What this means for you

Michael's story offers a radically different template for professional development. Instead of the traditional model of setting five-year goals and grinding your way toward them, he suggests something more sustainable: develop a clear sense of your why, then trust it to guide you to the right what.

"I see life as a creative endeavour," he told me. "We're constantly creating our life. And I think you can do that intentionally or unintentionally. I choose to do it intentionally."

This intentional creation isn't about controlling outcomes—it's about staying connected to your core values and approach while remaining open to unexpected opportunities.

Here's how to apply this practically:

Instead of asking: "Where do I want to be in five years?"

Ask: "What's my fundamental approach to work and life? What remains consistent regardless of what I'm doing?"

Instead of: Reverse-engineering a path to a predetermined destination

Try: Following your consistent internal compass and seeing where it leads

Instead of: Panicking when plans fall apart

Practice: Trusting that your why will guide you to the next right step

As I reflect on our conversation, I realise Michael taught me something profound about success itself. We've been conditioned to believe that having it all mapped out—the five-year plan, the clear trajectory, the engineered outcomes—is what separates the successful from the struggling.

But what if the opposite is true? What if our desperate grip on control is actually what's keeping us stuck?

In a world of constant change, your ability to adapt might matter more than your ability to predict. Your willingness to let go of a plan that's not working might be more valuable than your determination to stick to it.

The most successful pivots happen when you're not really pivoting at all—when you're simply applying your consistent approach to new circumstances.

Maybe it's time to loosen your grip on those five-year plans. Your why knows where you're going, even when you don't.

Thank you so much to Michael for agreeing to be interviewed as part of my Quiet Expert interview series. You can connect with him on Substack, where he writes and follow where his journey will take him next.

I'm always looking for Quiet Experts to interview for this series - people who've figured out something worth sharing but aren't necessarily shouting about it on social media. Drop me a message if you're interested in having a conversation.

And if you read this and think ‘oh I’d love to do this’, and then immediately follow that with, ‘but I’m sure she’s got loads of requests already’, or ‘I’m sure my story is similar to someone else’s’.

You.

You’re the person I want to hear from.

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"Just because you have a skill that you can sell, doesn't mean you know how to sell it."

From the outside looking in, Orinta Gaucyte’s expertise seems obvious. Nearly 20 years in customer experience, a pivotal role at the fast-growing startup Tails.com, and now her own consultancy: The Good Customer. It’s easy to assume her career path is straightforward, even enviable — a classic example of “find your niche and thrive.”

But when I sat down with Orinta, it became clear: even deep, undeniable expertise doesn’t always make the journey easier. In fact, sometimes it complicates things.

From clarity to complexity

"I've always done something to do with customer experience," Orinta told me. "And yet, I became a generalist in the process."

This is the paradox many specialists face. Leading customer operations, managing crisis communications, building internal tooling, shaping product and proposition—her nine years at Tails had expanded far beyond traditional CX boundaries. It's precisely this breadth that makes her positioning so challenging now.

"When I left Tails, I had to decide how to talk about myself," she explained. "Was I the CX expert? The operations lead? The change driver? And how much of that complexity do you share without confusing people?"

I'd assumed that being known for "one thing" made positioning easier. Easier to pitch, easier to explain, easier to build around. But Orinta's experience reveals the opposite: the real challenge wasn't knowing her value—it was translating it into something the market could immediately understand.

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The depth dilemma

"You need to be clear about what you provide," she said. "But clarity doesn't mean cutting out your past. It means making peace with the fact that some of it is the how, not the what."

There's real vulnerability in that admission. Building a consultancy from scratch, fresh from two rounds of maternity leave and a career spent largely in one company, brings its own set of insecurities. "I worried that people would look at my nine years in one place and think I wasn't versatile," she told me. "And then I realized—that's a strength. That depth is rare."

It's a fascinating reversal. While job-hopping has become the norm for career advancement, Orinta's deep tenure at one company gave her something increasingly rare: the ability to see how decisions play out over years, not quarters. She watched strategies succeed and fail, saw the long-term consequences of short-term fixes, and developed an intuition that only comes from sustained observation.

The swan strategy

When I asked Orinta how she handles the uncertainty that comes with building something new, she laughed. "I'm the swan gliding on the surface. Underneath? The legs are going. I have high-functioning anxiety—I can keep it together, but I absolutely have those days where I think, 'Why am I doing this?'"

This image stuck with me. The swan analogy perfectly captures something I've noticed in many successful entrepreneurs: the ability to project calm competence while privately managing tremendous uncertainty. It's not about being fearless—it's about functioning despite the fear.

Her antidote is surprisingly simple: "Let yourself have the bad day. And then get up the next morning and try again. It's not blind faith. You can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. But you also don't quit. You pivot."

Testing your truth

One of the most practical insights from our conversation came when Orinta described her approach to positioning. "It took me months to realize I needed to treat every conversation as a test," she said. "You talk to people, and you notice which parts of your pitch land—and which parts make people go, 'Sorry, what do you do again?' That's gold."

For someone who spent years designing customer journeys, it makes perfect sense that she'd apply the same methodology to her own story. But there's something profound about viewing your own professional narrative as something to be tested and refined, rather than something fixed.

"I'm still figuring out how to talk about what I do in a way that makes sense to the people I want to help," she admitted. "But I'm getting there. Slowly."

The permission moment

The most powerful moment in our conversation came when I asked what finally pushed her to start her own consultancy. Her answer cut straight to the heart of it:

"I just got tired of people telling me how to live my life. I was responsible for these two little humans—I figured I could be responsible for my own career too."

That combination of frustration and determination resonates deeply. It's not the polished origin story you might expect from a business founder. It's messier, more human, and ultimately more believable. She wasn't chasing a dream of entrepreneurship; she was claiming ownership of her own professional life.

Building trust, one interaction at a time

What strikes me most about Orinta's approach is how it mirrors her professional expertise. When your career has been about building customer trust and creating positive experiences, it makes sense that you'd want to build a business rooted in the same principles: one thoughtful, tested, human interaction at a time.

She's not here to be a LinkedIn influencer or build a personal brand empire. She's here to do great work—and to help others do better work too. In a market saturated with overnight experts and manufactured authority, there's something refreshing about someone who's comfortable with the slow, steady work of building genuine expertise.

"You can't rush trust," she told me. "You earn it by being consistent, by showing up, by doing what you said you'd do. That's true whether you're designing a customer experience or building your own business."

The compound effect of depth

Orinta's story offers a different model for professional development—one that values depth over breadth, substance over speed. While others chase the next opportunity, she invested deeply in understanding one company, one industry, one set of challenges from every possible angle.

The result isn't just expertise—it's wisdom. The kind that can only come from watching the same problems surface again and again, from seeing how different solutions play out over time, from understanding not just what works, but why it works and when it doesn't.

Perhaps that's the real lesson here. In a world obsessed with rapid growth and constant pivoting, there's tremendous value in going deep. In staying put long enough to see the full cycle, to understand the nuances, to develop the kind of institutional knowledge that can't be Googled or acquired through a weekend workshop.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is stick around long enough to become genuinely irreplaceable. And then, when you're ready, take that irreplaceable expertise and build something entirely your own.

Huge thanks to Orinta Gaucyte for sharing her insights with me. You can learn more about her work at The Good Customer or connect with her on LinkedIn.

What's your story? Have you found yourself struggling to translate deep expertise into clear positioning? I'd love to hear about it—drop me a message below or reach out if you'd like to share your journey.

It's a response that stops me in my tracks. Not because it's unusual (most of us do this), but because it reveals something fundamental about how we think about expertise itself.

The expert’s paradox

Kax's resistance to the expert label stems from a deeply rooted association: "I've kind of always associated expertise as you're an expert on a topic, you've spent so much time on it, and that's also what you're practicing." For her, expertise means depth and specialization - the exact opposite of her generalist approach.

But while she won't claim expertise, she readily acknowledges what people actually come to her for. "What people know me for would definitely be first and foremost product management and product leadership," she explains. "But now it's becoming more general career topics or more internal topics like 'I don't feel good about this' or 'I don't feel confident about this.'"

This is the expert’s paradox in action. The very thing that makes Kax valuable - her ability to connect dots across disciplines, to approach problems from multiple angles - is what makes her feel unworthy of the expert title. Yet it's precisely this approach that has built her real authority in the market.

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The generalist's authority

What struck me most about our conversation was how Kax's generalist approach doesn't just amplify her impact - it creates a different kind of authority entirely. "I use a lot of my product management skills for everything," she explains. "Even if the conversation is with somebody who is not in product... I still end up going back to my product management toolkit and asking, 'What's the problem we're trying to solve here? What does success look like?'"

This is authority built on versatility rather than specialization. While traditional experts build their reputation on deep knowledge in one area, Kax has built hers on the ability to apply frameworks and thinking patterns across contexts. She's become the go-to person not because she knows everything about one thing, but because she can help you think through anything. It's what allows her to help product managers with strategic thinking, support career transitions, and even venture into coaching that incorporates journaling, mindfulness, and creative play.

"I would love to be an expert on change," she muses. "Be an expert on being able to find answers for hairy questions."

Tell your story

Perhaps the most revealing part of our conversation was when Kax explained how she built her authority: through storytelling. It started as a confidence hack, but became something much more powerful. "I remember if I was gonna speak in front of people, even internally, there was always this feeling of, 'What if somebody tells me I'm wrong?'"

Her solution? Lead with lived experience. "If I add a story to it, that there is a lived experience behind it, not just data, it's very hard to say you're wrong. It could be, they could say, 'I disagree' and that's fine... but it removes the judgment."

This is authority built on authenticity rather than credentials. By grounding her insights in personal experience, Kax found a way to share her knowledge without claiming to be the definitive source. She wasn't positioning herself as the authority on product management - she was establishing herself as the authority on her own experience with product management.

The market responded. People began seeking her out not for textbook answers, but for the wisdom that comes from lived experience.

The confidence catalyst

What emerged from this approach wasn't just a way to share knowledge - it was a path to genuine confidence. "That also helped me find my voice and made me also enjoy doing it more," she reflects. "Because at the end of the day, we all have our stories, we all have our learnings, everybody can learn from it or not."

This insight cuts to the heart of the quiet expert dilemma. Many of us struggle to speak publicly about our expertise because we're trying to present ourselves as the authority on a topic. But Kax's approach flips this: instead of claiming to be an expert on product management, she positions herself as an expert on her own experience with product management.

The difference is everything.

Experiment with fun

Throughout our conversation, Kax returns to a central theme: "Fun is my strategy." This isn't just about making work enjoyable—it's about building authority without the crushing weight of having to be perfect.

"If I'm doing something for fun, I find that it's hard to think about how hard it is," she explains. "Especially when you're a business, when you're coming up with new offerings, when you're putting it out there and then you get crickets. That's very frustrating, but if I'm doing it because I enjoy it, the results kind of don't matter as much anymore."

This approach has allowed her to build authority organically. Instead of calculating every move to establish credibility, she experiments, tries new things, and puts herself out there without the paralyzing fear of being wrong. The authority follows naturally from the value she provides, not from the image she's trying to project.

Reclaim your authority

What I realize from talking with Kax is that our narrow definition of expertise might be limiting our understanding of authority itself. If authority only comes from being the definitive expert in one field, then generalists like Kax—and arguably many of us—will never claim it.

But Kax has built undeniable authority through a different model:

• Authority through synthesis: connecting knowledge across disciplines

• Authority through facilitation: helping others navigate complexity systematically

• Authority through experience: guiding others through challenges she's already faced

• Authority through adaptability: demonstrating how to navigate change repeatedly

When I frame it this way, Kax absolutely has authority. She has built a thriving business, speaks at conferences, and has clients seeking her out specifically for her perspective. She's achieved everything we associate with expertise - just without ever claiming the title.

The permission we don't need

Near the end of our conversation, I ask Kax what she'd say to someone who thinks they need credentials and confidence before starting their own business. Her answer is both practical and profound:

"Credentials is always a good thing. Learn. Get the toolkit, get the skills... But it's one thing to get the credentials, it's another thing to be ready. If we're always waiting for that feeling, that's never gonna happen."

She continues: "Confidence doesn't come that way either. Confidence comes from repeating the movement over and over again and telling yourself that, 'I can do it or maybe I can't but the world did not explode in a champagne supernova just because I failed that one time.'"

The authority model

Kax's journey offers a different model for building authority—one that doesn't require claiming expertise in the traditional sense. Instead, it's about:

1. Starting with story: Share your experience, not your conclusions about universal truths

2. Embracing the generalist advantage: Your ability to connect dots across disciplines creates unique value

3. Making it fun: Remove the pressure by focusing on enjoyment rather than being perceived as perfect

4. Taking action without credentials: You don't need permission to start helping others

Perhaps most importantly, it's about recognizing that authority isn't just about what you know - it's about how you help others navigate what they don't know yet.

Kax may not call herself an expert, but she's built something more valuable: genuine authority that people actively seek out. She's doing all the things we associate with expertise - just without the label or the pressure that comes with it.

And maybe that's the point. Maybe the quiet expert's superpower isn't in claiming authority, but in building it so naturally that others recognize it before we do.

Authority without the label - but with all the impact.

Huge thanks to for giving up her time to talk to me for this piece. Please go and check out her work here on Substack, and give her a follow on LinkedIn.

What's your story? What experience do you have that could help someone else navigate their own challenges? Sometimes the expertise we need to claim isn't about what we know—it's about what we've lived through.

If you’d like to come and talk to me about your path to expertise - or whatever your journey is, I’d love to chat! Drop me a message below.

What started as an interview about entrepreneurship and operational excellence turned into something much more profound: a masterclass in why being authentically yourself isn't just nice-to-have - it's your competitive advantage.

The nutritional yeast revelation

Milly and I laughed about a recent off-the-cuff LinkedIn - actually one of her best performing posts of all time. Not about business strategy, or the four (soon-to-be-five!) books she's written on entrepreneurship. Not about her operational frameworks or client success stories. It was about spilling nutritional yeast on her laptop.

Over 100,000 impressions.

"What does that tell you about me," she asked, "a person whose role is meant to be smooth, organized, non-chaotic perfection?"

In a world obsessed with polish, Milly’s moment of messiness wasn’t a fluke - it was a signal. In our pursuit of professional polish, we've created a world where the most engaging content is when someone just acts human.

The false choice between security and authenticity

As we talked, I realized Milly's journey mirrors something many of us face. She had the business name "Pay As You Go COO" for years before launching. Not because she doubted her abilities - she'd been successfully running operations since 2018 - but because of what she calls "the false notion of what security means when it comes to employment."

This resonated deeply. How many of us stay in roles that feel secure but don't fully utilize who we are?

The breakthrough came when she realized that real security doesn't come from employment; it comes from being irreplaceable. "I will come, you pay me, I will give you the best of everything I have for that hour, then I'm gone," she told me. It's what she calls being "a mercenary not a missionary."

Watch this clip to understand the moment where I came up with the title for this article, and hear some of Milly’s excellent advice on the critical point at which she realised she had the perfect expertise to set up her own business and make it fly.

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The AI paradox

One of the most intriguing parts of our conversation was Milly's take on AI and business advice. While everyone's worried about AI making their jobs obsolete, she's identified a fundamental flaw in how we're using it.

"In the UK, there are about 800,000 businesses started every year and more than 60% will fail before their fifth year," she explained. "If AI works by giving recommendations based on probability, is AI not therefore giving recommendations of how to fail at your business?"

We're living in an era where everyone's optimizing for the same metrics, following the same "proven" formulas, and wondering why they're getting the same mediocre results as everyone else. The majority path leads to majority outcomes - which, statistically, is failure.

What makes you different IS your value.

This is where Milly's philosophy of being "an expert in you" becomes revolutionary rather than just feel-good advice. She coaches primarily other operators—people in behind-the-scenes roles who struggle to value their own expertise. Her approach isn't to teach them to be like successful people; it's to help them recognize why being different is their superpower.

"I'm the only one of me, baby, that's the fun of me," she said, quoting Taylor Swift with the confidence of someone who's built a business on being authentically herself. But it's not just about self-acceptance - it's strategic.

When I asked about a recent situation with an AI networking tool, her response was telling. The tool kept recommending people who were similar to her, and she realised: "I don't need any more people who are doing exactly the same thing that I do. I want the people who can't do the things that I do because they're the perfect customers for me."

The simplicity underneath the complexity

What impressed me most wasn't Milly's credentials or her success stories - it was her ability to cut through complexity with surgical precision. Despite all the business books and frameworks, her approach to operations comes down to radical simplicity: every business should have maximum two objectives, one financial and one customer-focused. Everything else is noise.

"If you can't explain how your individual tasks roll up into that whole," she told me, "then you don't have smooth operations. You have chaos masquerading as productivity."

This simplicity extends to how she thinks about value. While others chase vanity metrics and viral content, she focuses on the fundamentals. Two people who had never engaged with her content recently reached out to work with her after following her newsletter for months. That, to her, is success—not the 100,000 impressions on a kitchen accident.

The mirror effect

Perhaps the most powerful insight from our conversation was Milly's description of her coaching approach: "I'm just going to be a mirror to reflect back what I see in you that you cannot see in yourself."

This isn't life coach fluff. It's a recognition that most of us are trapped in echo chambers of our own minds, unable to see our unique value because we're too busy comparing ourselves to others or trying to fix what we think are our flaws.

Her words echoed something I think many of us feel but struggle to articulate: our difference isn't a weakness - it’s the source of our power. How often do we look to Silicon Valley success stories and think we need to be like them, when actually our different path - our different perspective - is exactly what the market needs?

Enjoy Milly’s uncanny ability to make Taylor Swift relevant everywhere and more importantly her shrewd take on why being the expert in you is going to be your key to success.

What this means for all of us

Sitting on that video call, watching Milly navigate technical difficulties with grace while literally sitting on the floor, I realized she wasn’t just explaining her philosophy - she was living it. She wasn't trying to present a perfect, polished version of herself. She was showing up as she was, where she was, and somehow that made everything she said more credible, not less.

The lesson isn't to embrace chaos or avoid professionalism. It's to recognize that your unique combination of experiences, perspectives, and yes, even quirks, isn't something to overcome - it's your competitive advantage.

In a world where AI is making everyone sound the same, where "best practices" lead to predictably average results, and where business advice follows the same tired formulas, being authentically yourself isn't just refreshing - it's revolutionary.

The expert in you isn't the version of you that looks like everyone else who's successful. It's the version that only you can be. And in a marketplace increasingly crowded with sameness, that might be the most valuable thing you have to offer.

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P.S. If you’re wondering about the title: the "socialist who games credit cards" is an amalgamation of some of the highlights of our conversation. It comes from a moment in our conversation that perfectly captures her approach - radically values-driven, but also shrewd and strategic.

Her newsletter tagline? “Socialist thoughts about how to do capitalism better.”
It sums her up wonderfully. You can (and should) subscribe here.