Aug. 11, 2026

The Jeremy Hanson Podcast "Sometimes the Expert Is Wrong: Why You Must Become a Student of Yourself"

Show Notes
Transcript

Sometimes the expert is wrong. After twenty years in business, Jeremy Hanson explains how to know when your own experience outranks the credentials in the room.There is a moment that arrives in every long career, and nobody warns you about it. You spend your first years looking for people who know more than you do. You call the manufacturer. You hire the consultant. You defer to the accountant, the agency, the person with more letters behind their name. That is the right instinct when you are starting out, because in the beginning almost everyone does know more than you. But the habit gets installed early and never gets updated. Twenty years later you are still running the software you loaded when you knew nothing.Jeremy opens this episode standing on a fifteen-year-old deck in Missouri, watching a homeowner hold up a printed sheet from a stain manufacturer that contradicts everything two decades of experience is telling him. He already knew he was right. He still almost talked himself out of it.That moment opens onto one of the most useful distinctions an entrepreneur can learn: knowing a product is not the same as knowing the job. The person reading specifications in an office tested that product on clean, new, controlled conditions. You are standing on the abused, sun-baked, badly coated version, because nobody ever calls you about the easy one.Experience produces something credentials cannot: pattern recognition. When you walk onto a job and immediately know something is wrong, you are not making one observation. Your brain is comparing what you see against thousands of prior experiences and returning an answer faster than you can narrate it. There is no certificate for that.But trusting yourself carries an obligation. You have to study yourself. Experience alone does not make you better. You can do something wrong for twenty years. You can repeat the same mistake five hundred times and call it experience. What converts experience into judgment is reflection.The episode also reframes the relationship with outside experts. Someone can know more than you about their discipline and still know less than you about your situation. Your accountant sees numbers. You see the story behind them. Experts work from information. You work from context, and information without context is how good advice becomes a bad decision.You can outsource bookkeeping, marketing, legal work and a thousand other functions. A leader cannot outsource judgment.For anyone who has built something over ten, twenty or thirty years and still catches themselves waiting for permission from someone more credentialed: you earned your seat. Not because someone gave you a title. Because you paid for it.

A Fuzzy Life Entertainent Production

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Welcome to the Jeremy Hansen Podcast. Sometimes the expert is wrong,

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Why you must become a student of yourself.

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The deck was about fifteen.

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Years old, second story off the back of the house,

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you know, looking over the yard that sloped down toward

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the tree line southwest facing, which in Missouri means that

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deck had been taking a beating every afternoon for fifteen years.

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I'd already walked it, I already knew what it needed.

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And the homeowner was standing there in the doorway with

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a printed piece of paper.

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See, he had called the.

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Manufacturer, and I want to be fair here, That's not

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a crazy thing to do. He was trying to be

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a good customer. He was trying to do his own homework.

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And the manufacturer had told him something different than what

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I told him. Different product, different process, different everything. And

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he held up that paper and said the sentence I've

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heard some version of one hundred times in my career.

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Well, this is what the company says.

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And I remember standing there on that deck with the

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sun beating on me and going across the boards, and

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I could feel it happening, that little pull in the

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back of your mind, in your head, that voice, well,

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you know, they do make the product, and they have

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the chemists, and they have a lab, and they have

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a research department.

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And who am I.

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You know, I'm the guy with a pressure washer on

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a truck in a paint.

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Sprayer that I used for stain. I already knew that

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I was right.

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I'd stood on one hundred decks exactly like that one.

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I'd seen exactly what happens to that wood in that exposure,

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in this particular climate. I knew what this coding they

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recommended was going to do, how it was going to

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be sitting in the grain of the wood.

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I just I knew.

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And still I almost talked myself on of it because

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somebody that had a bigger building than mine had put

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it down a piece of paper.

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It was in writing okay that moment. It's pretty strange.

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And it happens when you've been in business long enough,

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and I don't think anybody warns you about it. See,

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there comes a day when you look at the expert

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and you realize that the expert and I'm doing quotations

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with my fingers, the expert is wrong. And then the

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hard part you have to decide what you're going to

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do about.

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That Welcome to the Jeremy Handsome.

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Bodcash the moment that nobody warns you about. You spend

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the first part of your career looking for people who

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know more than you do. And that's real, it's correct,

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that's exactly what you should be doing.

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You're looking for the experts.

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You call the manufacturer, you talk to the consultants, you

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ask your accountant, you hire a marketing company. You listen

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to the guy that's been certified in this or that.

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You find somebody with more letters behind their name, a

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bigger company, a bigger website, or a title that sounds

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like they should know what.

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They're talking about.

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And usually that works, at least for a while, and

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it will usually work beautifully.

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In the beginning.

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Almost everybody knows and does more than you. Okay, that's

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not an insult, that's just the real math of starting out.

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Just you haven't done it yet, So you go.

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Find the people who have, and you absorb everything that

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you can, and then you build your own experience on.

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Top of it.

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Well, that habit gets installed in your mind, it gets

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installed in everything that you do. It becomes your natural reflex,

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and nobody ever comes along and says, hey, you know

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that reflex that you've been building up. You know that thing,

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You know that thing that goes into your mind and

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you think about it. Nobody tells you, well, it's time

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to update it. So five years goes by, ten years

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goes by, twenty years go by, and you're still hooked

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up to the same software in your mind that you

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installed when you didn't know anything. Somebody with some title

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says something, and your experience grabs a hold of that

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and says, there's something wrong here, something is different, And

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then you start questioning yourself. I've done it, and I've

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done it more than once, but eventually something changes. Maybe

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you're breaking the glass ceiling in your mind. So you've

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been through enough problems, if you've made enough mistakes, you've

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dealt with enough customers, you've watched enough things work that

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weren't supposed to work, and then you've watched enough thing

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fail that other experts swore would work. And one day

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you're sitting in a meeting, or you're standing on a

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job site, or you're reading an email, and this thought

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arrives that makes you feel weird. It's like, oh, this

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is inappropriate information. Well hang on a second, wait a minute,

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and the light bulb goes off and it says, well,

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maybe maybe I.

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Am the expert.

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And most people pushed that thought right back down. It

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comes up, Bam, it goes right back down because we're

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taught to not feel arrogant, and that feels very arrogant.

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Feels you know, presumptuous. It feels like something that you're

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not allowed to actually think about yourself, but you owe

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something in return, okay, because you don't get to declare

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your self an expert and start ignoring everybody.

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You See, there is a price to be able to

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say that, to.

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Be able to do that, to be able to think

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that without thinking that it's not a positive thing in

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your head. And we're going to get to that. But

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let's talk about me for a second. Let's talk about

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the way that I learned this. See, before everything that

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I'm doing today, before the studio, before the network, before

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any of this, I spent more than twenty five years

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in pressure washing and exterior cleaning and staining in multiple businesses.

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And see, when you do.

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Something that long, you start seeing things that other people

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just don't see.

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See.

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I've dealt with a lot of other pressure washing companies.

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I've dealt directly with the top branches of stained companies.

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I've talked with the manufacturers, and I've talked with the suppliers,

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and I've been all over the.

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United States for both.

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I've listened to people who absolutely knew their products, and

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I'm telling you, a lot of them were really, really sharp.

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A lot of them were genuinely helpful for me, and

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a lot of those relationships taught me things that I

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still use to this day in and out of that business.

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But there were times when one of those people would

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recommend something to a customer and it just didn't sit

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right with me. There was something off or something wrong

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about it.

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You know.

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It could have been the process that was suggested. Okay,

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I did a floor in a great, big building where

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a guy wanted it to look glistening white, almost like

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an Air Force hangar, and the way they said to

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do it, I was like, this just isn't going to

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work right. And then there was times that, you know what,

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maybe it was a product. I've went to a house

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before and the people that installed the deck said, oh,

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you must use this, and it bothered me.

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I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going

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to use this. And this is why.

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Maybe it was how they thought that a particular surface

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should be handled. Maybe it was a timeline that was

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never going to hold in this climate that I knew,

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and I'd think, well, I wouldn't do that, But then

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that little voice would creep in my head. You know,

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they are the stained company. You know, they're the alpha

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of this They're the manufactured of this product. You see,

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they're supposed to be the experts, So maybe they know

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something that I just don't know. Have I went through

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and cross the t's and dotted the eyes?

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Have I actually figured this out?

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So when you let that stuff come in, that's a

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very very dangerous place to get into. It took me

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years and experience and blood, sweat, tears and money.

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To work out why.

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You see, knowing a product isn't the same thing as

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knowing the job. You see, and I don't care what

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trades you're in, every single trade has its own version

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of what I just said. Knowing the software isn't the

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same as knowing the workflow. Knowing the tax code isn't

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the same as knowing the business. You see, Knowing the

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platform isn't the same as knowing the audience, And it

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keeps going. Knowing the equipment isn't the same as knowing

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the crew that runs it. You see, same words, completely

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different job. The person sitting in an office looking at

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specifications hasn't necessarily stood on one hundred or one thousand

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or ten thousand decks. Now, they've tested that product under

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controlled conditions and clean substrates, correct temperatures, correct humidity, correct application,

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new wood, well, probably not new wood, but you know

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what I'm saying. But they haven't necessarily watched what happens

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to wood through Missouri summers and freezing and thawing winners,

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and the humidity that's constantly enveloping this stuff, and the

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rain and the neglect and old codings and somebody else's

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bad work. They don't know any of this stuff. And

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the truth is that's the deck that I'm standing on,

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And put this into your mind frame of whatever else

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that you're doing. You see, nobody ever calls me about

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the clean, new, perfectly maintained deck. That's a unicorn. You

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see what they do is they call me about the disaster.

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They might know exactly how their product is supposed to perform,

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but I knew how these things performed in the real world,

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and that's a different kind of knowledge. Now, neither one

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of those is fake, and neither one of those is worthless.

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But they are different things, they are not the same.

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And for years I treated one as just automatically outranking

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the other. And then came a point when I stopped

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automatically assuming that somebody else knew better simply because they

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were concers considered the expert. You know, I started listening

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to them, But I also started listening to myself. And

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when I finally stopped constantly second guessing what years of

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my experience had taught me, it paid enormous dividends, better outcomes,

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fewer callbacks, a lot happier customers, less rework, and honestly,

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this is the truth, a lot less anxiety. Okay, there's

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some stress that comes from doing a job you don't

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believe in because you did it a way that somebody

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else told you to. I have literally had huge, huge

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CEOs call me about a product because I called their

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lab and said, this isn't working right, what's going on.

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I've been using this stuff for years and this changed

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and they called me to find out. Now you have

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to ask yourself. Okay, well, then who is the real expert.

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It gives you a little bit of self confidence, but

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you must stay humble, you must listen to the other thing.

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Did I miss something?

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But at some point you become the expert because remember

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you're standing on that deck. You see, there's knowledge and

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then there's pattern recognition. Now, I think under underestimation of

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this is like everywhere when it comes to being an entrepreneur.

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You see, experience isn't just accumulation of information. You see,

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experience also develops pattern recognition. So you've seen this movie before,

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maybe the characters are different, maybe the circumstances changed a

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little bit, maybe there's a new product involved. Something in

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your head, something in your soul, recognizes its pattern. That's

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why sometimes you can walk onto a job and almost

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immediately know something isn't right. You know, someone with less

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experience might ask, you, know, how could you possibly know

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that already? Because you're not making one observation. Your brain

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is comparing what you're seeing against hundreds or maybe thousands

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of previous experiences. See, it's running a comparison in the

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background faster than you can even talk about what it's saying.

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Till you've been there, you've seen what happens next. You

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might not even consciously know exactly what you're recognizing in

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the moment, because remember, it's processing. Your brain is like

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a data processor, and it's remembering all those experiences. It's

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hard to describe. So the best way I can put

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it is, you just know now. I've had customers ask

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me how I knew a deck had been coded before

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when there wasn't any coding left on it. I couldn't

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have told you at the time something about it, and

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how the water sat in different areas in that spot,

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you know, where you could see the boards changed or warped,

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or you could just tell that there was something there

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because I had seen it a thousand times before. Something

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at aged just differently than the section beside it. You see,

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I wasn't doing chemistry. I wasn't doing algebra in my head.

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I was doing memory.

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You see.

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People like to call that intuition, and maybe sometimes it is.

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But sometimes what.

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We're calling intuition is really experienced speaking faster than we

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can consciously process it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, that's expertise.

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And it's incredibly difficult to put on a resume. You see,

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there isn't a certificate for expertise. Nobody hands you a

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diploma for surviving twenty five years of customer problems. There's

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no degree for making payroll when things get tight. There's

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no plaque for hundreds of estimates that you screwed up

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before you learn how to price correctly. There's no certification

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for recognizing a legitimately bad customer before that bad customer

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turns into a nightmare. That skill alone is worth a fortune.

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The ability to sit across from somebody, listen to how

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they described their last contractors and know exactly how this

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is going to end before you even sign the dotted line.

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You see, nobody.

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Taught me that I paid for that education in one

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mistake or one bad customer at a time. But those

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experiences have value, enormous, enormous value. The problem is that

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value is invisible.

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You see.

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It doesn't show up on a wall, it doesn't show

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up in the reports, it doesn't show up in a bio.

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So when you walk into a room with somebody who's

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credentials are visible and yours aren't, the room just assumes

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that theres are worth more, And if you're not careful,

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you'll trick yourself to assume it too. Now here's a

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number that got my attention. Three and a half hours.

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That's what the average story Blocks member saves every single week. Okay,

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I believe it because I've lived the other version, hunting

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down one clip, buying it a La car, and finding

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out it's the wrong one the second that it goes

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into the timeline.

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Okay. Story Blocks is a one.

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Hundred percent human made stock media library. Every asset made

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by a professional filmmaker or artist, relicnsed and ready for

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monetized content. The subscription comes with unlimited downloads. So guess

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what I experiment. I pose six of them, and I

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00:19:29.799 --> 00:19:34.920
keep maybe one thousands of customizable templates for the platforms

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we already edit in in the story Blocks plugin lets

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00:19:38.599 --> 00:19:41.599
me search and download without ever.

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Leaving Premiere Pro.

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Head to storyblocks dot com, slash Hanson hn Son to

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access the human made stock media library that's essential to

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00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:57.160
how I do things. For a limited time, they're offering

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00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:01.119
fifteen percent off any annual plan, and that discount is

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00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:06.200
only available through my link. Okay, again, that storyblocks dot

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com slash Hanson for fifteen percent off annual plans. It

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00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:14.160
is amazing, It is awesome. I wish I would have

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had this ten years ago. That storyblocks dot com slash Hansen.

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Now you have to become a student of yourself.

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Okay, this little.

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Conversation that we're having right now about trusting yourself can

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go completely wrong right here. I'm not telling you to

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blindly just trust your gut about everything. I'm not telling

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you that because you've been in business for twenty years,

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right everything you think is automatically correct, that form of

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it is arrogance. I've watched arrogance destroy people who did

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know what they were doing. Okay, so you got to

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be careful with that. If you're going to trust yourself,

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you have a responsibility to be a student of yourself.

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That's the trade, and that's the whole thing. That's the

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whole deal. You want the authority that comes with experience,

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then you have to do the work that makes that

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experience trustworthy. I don't care what business you're in, pressure washing, construction,

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real estate, podcasting, manufacturing, restaurants, insurance, technology, consulting, a landscaping company,

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a law firm, one hundred million dollar corporation, It does

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not matter. You have to become a student of yourself.

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You see, because experience alone doesn't make you better. You

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can do something wrong for twenty years. There's people that

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have done it. You can repeat the same mistake five

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hundred times and tell somebody a lot's experience. I've met

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people with thirty years in an industry who learned something

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about two years worth of lessons and then just ran

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that same way for twenty eight years. Okay, they weren't studying,

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they were just simply repeating. They found something that seemed

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to work, so they did that the first couple of years,

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and then went thirty years doing the exact same thing,

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never opening their eyes to is there something better? Is

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there a more efficient way of doing this? You see,

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what makes experience valuable is paying attention to what that

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experience is actually trying to teach you experience, I want

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you to look at it this way. Experience is like

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the raw material, Okay, reflection is what turns that into judge.

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And a lot of times that whole second part. Yeah

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you got the experience, Yeah you got the raw material.

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But reflection or being a student of yourself that you

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learn and makes you have good judgment. Most people skip

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that second part. Now, I want you to look at

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your business like at the classroom.

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Okay.

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When I was in pressure washing and staining, I wasn't

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just doing jobs. Okay, I was learning every single day.

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Not formally, I wasn't sitting down with a notebook every night,

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but I was paying attention what worked, what didn't, What

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happened when the temperature changed, what happened when the humidity changed.

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Why did this stain form beautifully on this deck and

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differently on a different one. Why did one customer become

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a customer for life and then another one didn't. Why

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did one estimate close immediately while another when went nowhere

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and I spent wasted time. Why did a certain marketing

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idea bring the phone calls in while something everybody said

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would work didn't produce a thing?

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See why? I wanted to know?

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Why did my gut tell me to take a particular job?

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And six weeks later I realized exactly what I had noticed.

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You see, that is what I'm talking about. That's studying yourself.

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When I had this interaction with somebody, why did they

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act like that?

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Okay? Can you take.

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Yourself out of yourself and look at yourself? And it

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goes way way beyond just technical knowledge. I'm going to

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say this the technical part is actually the easiest part. Okay,

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study the decisions that you make, Study the mistakes that

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you make. Study the customers that you attract to kind,

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the type and why. Usually that's pretty uncomfortable. Your customer

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base is just a mirror. If you keep attracting a

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certain type of client, something you're doing is attracting them.

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Then do this.

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Study the people that you hire, Study how you react

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when you're under pressure. Study the opportunities that you said

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yes to that you probably should have declined, and maybe

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more importantly, study the opportunities that you walked away from

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that you probably should have taken. Now, those ones are

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a little bit harder to see because nothing happened and

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there was no crash. There's no wreckage sitting there. There's

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no lesson sitting in your inbox. There's just absence, which

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can be powerful. Start recognizing your own patterns. Okay, ask yourself,

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when have I been right? Okay, not so you can

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reach behind your back and start slapping yourself. You don't

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need to congratulate yourself, but so you could understand why

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you were right and right in that moment with context.

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Here's the thing.

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If you don't know Why then, how can you ever

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create a system to repeat it? You can say, oh,

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I just got lucky and call it instinct, But then

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I think you need to ask the harder question, when

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have I been wrong?

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And when I was wrong? Why was I wrong? Was

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I missing information? You know?

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Did something go off the deep end and I was

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emotional in that moment? Was I scared?

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Was my ego involved?

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Was I trying to prove something to somebody that really

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didn't matter. Was I just too excited about this incredible opportunity?

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Was I ignoring obvious warning signs? Or did I ignore

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something I already knew because somebody else's opinion sounded more

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impressive than mine. You see, becoming a student of yourself

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is how judgment gets built. Okay, it doesn't come from

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being right, It comes from understanding why.

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See, your own life is giving you data.

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Every business owner is sitting on an enormous amount of

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data that they're probably not measuring. Okay, I'm not talking

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about spreadsheets, I'm not talking about dashboards or KPIs.

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Or any of that.

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The Jeremy Hanson Podcast "Sometimes the Expert Is Wrong: Why You Must Become a Student of Yourself"

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