Experts On Squidoo

Something rather interesting happened today. I received a comment early this morning on one of my lenses and, as I usually do, I checked to see who left the comment. It was a new lensmaster; his name was Antonio. He had one lens, so I took a look at it. I liked the lens a lot and thought it was a very good first Squidoo lens. I did, though, have a couple of suggestions for small ways he might improve the lens. Busybody that I am sometimes, I used his contact form, complimented him on his lens and offered those couple of suggestions.

I was happy a short while later when I received a response from Antonio, thanking me for the “prompt response,” telling me that he had applied my suggestions already and asking me to take a look. I did take a look and saw that he had done an outstanding job of implementing my ideas. I was even more impressed with his lens this time and let him know that.

Now here’s the interesting part. I sat back down at the computer later this morning to work, noticed that spam messages were accumulating in my spam mailbox and went to delete them. I always check first in case there are messages there that shouldn’t have gotten filtered as spam and, as usual, I found one. It was a message from Antonio from earlier this morning. Turns out that before I contacted him this morning, he had actually contacted me, saying he was looking at my lenses and would be happy to accept suggestions and comments from me about his. He had asked for a critique even before I had offered one, and I hadn’t even known it!

Now, my point. Here is part of what I wrote to Antonio after I found his original request. “Good for you for asking for the critique! You obviously have what it takes to succeed; asking for advice from an expert (thanks for considering me to be a Squidoo expert, by the way!) may be the very best way to become an expert! Funny that those who think to ask are generally the ones who are so far along the right road in the first place.”

There are two truths here. One: In order to become an expert, find an expert and ask for help or advice, then follow that advice. Two: If you are the type of person who will seek out an expert and make the contact, chances are you already have what it takes to become an expert and, in fact, to become successful in life in general. Good for you!

I’m excited for Antonio, about his future on Squidoo and in every aspect of his life. I enjoyed meeting him today and always enjoy when I meet exceptional people. And I don’t know a better place for meeting exceptional people, both experts and future experts, than on Squidoo.