Expertise to Insights - Why Writing Creates Clarity

Read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to Expertise to Insights, a 2x/month newsletter where I share the practices that help experienced leaders turn what they know into insights they can actually use.

Hey there,

In the first issue of this newsletter, I talked about the difference I see between expertise and insight.

Expertise is accumulated experience. Insights are distilled understanding.

But expertise is only useful when it's distilled into insights you can actually apply.

This issue is about closing the gap between these two things and why getting ideas out of your head and onto paper is often the first real step toward clarity.

I used to believe that if I thought about something long enough, clarity would eventually show up.

In practice, I've found that's rarely how it works.

When ideas stay in my head, everything feels equally important. Priorities blur together. Options compete with each other. I go back and forth between different possibilities without ever really landing on one.

The ideas are there, but I can't act on them.

Our brain is good at recognizing patterns and making connections. It's not very good at holding multiple competing ideas at the same time and evaluating them objectively. When everything lives internally, there's no stable reference point. We're constantly restarting the same mental loop.

I first noticed this years ago when I started journaling regularly.

The first thing I do after brushing my teeth each morning is write. Nothing structured. No prompts. Just writing down what is top of mind, what feels important, and what I want to focus on in a given day or week.

As I did this over and over again, the same thing would happen. I'd write out a list of five things I said I wanted or felt pulled toward. Then, once they were on paper, it would become obvious that only one or two of them actually mattered.

That clarity never appeared before writing. It only showed up after.

Once the ideas were written down, I could look at them instead of juggling them. I could compare them. Question them. Decide what to let go of. Writing turned vague internal thoughts into something concrete enough to react to.

It became a reference point instead of a mental burden.

Over time, I realized that writing wasn't just a way to capture thoughts I already understood.

It was how I figured out what I actually thought.

This happened recently when I took a sabbatical and spent six weeks traveling in Australia and New Zealand. On the surface, this was an epic trip filled with meeting new people, hiking, surfing, and exploring new places.

I enjoyed these experiences in the moment, but the real value of that period didn't come from the activities themselves. It came later, when I took the time to reflect and write about it.

As I looked back on the trip, a theme emerged. I went on this trip to create space, both physically flying to the other side of the world, but also mentally away from work, constant messages, expectations, and noise. Those 6 weeks gave me space to think and make intentional decisions about moving forward with my life.

And then, through writing and reflecting after the trip, another realization followed: that space wasn't exclusive to being on the other side of the world.

It was something I could create intentionally in everyday life.

I've applied this insight to my daily life: walks without my phone, runs without podcasts, swimming. Small ways to recreate that mental space without flying to the other side of the world.

Without reflection, that trip could have easily stayed just another experience I moved on from.

This pattern shows up consistently with the founders, executives, and leaders I work with.

Last month, a client thanked me for a LinkedIn post that only got 15 likes. Not because of its reach, but because of what it surfaced. During one of our monthly sessions, he reflected on what went wrong in the previous year and what he wanted to change: making tough team decisions sooner, staying focused on the right customers, managing his energy better, being more transparent in sales calls.

These weren't new problems. He'd been living with them all year. But they stayed fuzzy and competing until we slowed down to actually name them. Writing them down turned them from background noise into a clear action list.

That's what I mean by insight. He had the expertise and experience from running his business. But without creating space to reflect and externalize, those lessons stayed buried in the day-to-day.

This is the pattern I see over and over. Smart people with years of experience, conversations with customers and clients, notes from books, conferences, and workshops. All kinds of raw material. But very little of it gets processed.

Writing creates the conditions for that work—slowing down long enough to review what you already have and connect the dots. It gives your thinking somewhere to land so patterns can emerge over time. It allows our brain to do what it's good at (making meaning) without asking it to store and manage everything at once.

Turning expertise into insights doesn't start with creating content or building frameworks.

It starts with getting your thinking out of your head so you can actually work with it.

If you're sitting on years of experience but struggling to make sense of it or have a decision you're wrestling with, start here. Set a timer for 15 minutes and write about it (or record a voice note).

The tactics and tips will come later. For now, I encourage you to start (or continue) building the habit of getting ideas out of your head.

Let me know if you give it a try and how it goes!

Catch you on the next one,

Andrew