A chai wallah does one thing: he makes tea.

He makes tea day in and day out. Over and over.

I remember when I was in India how the chai wallahs would enter the trains at every stop and each had their own way of calling “chai”. They would squeeze up and down the aisles with their pots and glasses, at all hours of the day or night (you never got a quiet time). They would shout about their chai is such a way that the words ceased having meanings and became a song.

They were all experts at the same thing, making tea, but they each had their own way of doing it.  (For a wonderful website devoted to the chai experience in India, visit chai pilgrimage.)

Are You Willing to Become a Wallah?

To become a wallah, you must specialize.  Avoid distraction and do the same thing over and over until you become good at it.  And after you have repeated it over and over, your own unique mark will develop.

Focus on one thing and ignore the rest until you become good at it.

“When you go all in, it focuses your attention and effort, doesn’t it?”

—Seth Godin in his blog post Chai Wallah

If you focus your attention, practice until you’re crazy, you come up with your expert call.  You will become a internet business wallah.

It’s not leading because it’s easy…

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.

Once again, Seth Godin crystallizes the truth in his book “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us“.

Up until a few years ago, I believed that leaders were born.  There was some innate talent or drive or karmic force that caused one person to be a leader and the other not.

I observed children growing up and watched some of them emerge as leaders.

In groups, I observed how people would automatically gravitate to my friend for direction, often looking right through me to get to her.

But as I have been growing, I have come to a new understanding, one that reflects what Seth Godin describes.

Leaders Choose to Let Themselves Lead

While some people are more inclined to be leaders because of facets of their personality, no one is excluded.  The only requirements for leadership are vision and a willingness to be uncomfortable.

This summer has been a crash course in leadership.  I began a masters level class called Renegade Breakthrough Mentoring Program with Ann Sieg.  And I set my goal to stop running my business like a shy, wallflower, hugging the wall at a party while everyone else gets up to dance.

I began blogging and reaching out to people.

I stepped up my commitment to Dane Buy Local, a business group I’m a part of.

And from taking the risk to stand out, I have been welcomed as a leader.

I won’t discount how uncomfortable it can be.  To be a leader I have had to face everything that Seth lists:

It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers.
It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail.
It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.
It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.

My summer has been filled with anxiety and niggling self-doubts.  I leaned into all the places that caused me pain.

But in the end, I have found key positions in projects and am finding my place in Ann Sieg’s  organization.  I’m finding my voice and my vision with internet marketing.  And I’m refusing to compromise.

Leadership is not easy.  Decide to ignore the pit in your stomach, and start taking risks.

I just saw a training video and in it, I learned that I don’t need to be an expert to create a business, I just need to know a little more than the person I’m helping.

I believe this. I love how we can all extend a hand to the person behind us while grabbing the hand of the person in front. It is through the helpful hands around us that we grow.

I love shedding light on someone’s problem.

I love being the one who comes up with the solution.

But does being one step in front of someone make me an expert?

I picked up a very controversial book from the library, “The Cult of the Amateur: How Blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values” by Andrew Keen. The title made me gulp.

The book is written by a self-proclaimed elitist. He feels there is a very different, very tangible difference between the advice you find in an article on Wikipedia, written by an amateur, and an article by a professeur who has studied a topic for decades.

When everyone becomes an expert and hosts their own private YouTube channel, quality suffers, he claims.

At first blush, I am appalled. Haven’t we all had experiences where the kid next door fixes the computer problem that your “expert” missed? Your Aunt Joan paints pictures that rivel anything you’ve seen in a museum.

Proclaimed “experts” have let us down countless times.

Yet–perhaps he has a point.

When I take a yoga class, I can feel a tangible difference in the teaching from the teacher who has lived, breathed and eaten yoga for years, with the one who thinks yoga is cool.

When I listen to talk radio, I may be intrigued with the caller’s questions, but it’s the expert who has been in the trenches for years who gives me the insights I value the most.

I can get help from anyone who knows more than I, but there is “solidness”, a depth, an authority to the person who has mastery.

And a master is rare.

I think we can all be helpful to each other. I think we all pocess expertise. But to be a master, to contribute to the world in a unique way, you must have more. You must have a devotion to your topic which makes you stand out among the crowd.

We can all become an expert at something. But will we all become a master?