If you look at a subject, any subject, and then at a sample of people, any sample, let’s say ten thousand people, you would find that there would be very few who would be very good at that subject, and there would be very few who would be comprehensively appalling at it. Add those two numbers together and you would still have a very small number indeed. This means that there would be a huge number left. Nearly all of them, in fact. These are the ones who are average at whatever the subject is. So, we have a tiny excellent number, a tiny appalling number and a massive average number.
Now, you may say that this average skill level would have a considerable range within it, so you’d have a bad average and a good average and an average average. And of course, you’d be quite right but what’s interesting is how narrow the skill range is in the middle. All of this is graphically illustrated by a curve called a ‘standard distribution curve.’ It has other names like a ‘bell curve’ or a ‘top hat curve,’ but the important thing to know about it, is it’s shape.
It’s very tall and thin in the middle and very shallow on the slopes at either end. So, the average is a huge number of very similar skill levels, and each end has a very few top notch people and very few hopeless cases.
Here’s an interesting thing though. It is amazing how acceptable being average appears to be in the big wide world. It beggars belief why anyone would aspire to being average at anything because, by definition, that would be non-aspirational. But average is average and that’s where most of everything is. It has to be.
So when someone says they are a professional, don’t be impressed. It only means they earn money at it. And if they say they are qualified, don’t be impressed either. All that means is that they passed a test. This could mean that they’re good at passing tests. It could also mean the test wasn’t that hard. And here’s the proof of the pudding, if indeed proof is needed. The subject that has the greatest number of people with a qualification, is driving cars, and this subject has the least number of excellent proponents within its ranks and the greatest number of average to appalling examples of any subject known to man. No, don’t be impressed by “I’m qualified” or “I’m a professional.”
What you really want to know is this. “Am I any good?”