Oh, were getting to the nitty-gritty here! If youre smart, youve been putting into practice each of the preceding seven concepts. If not, well, sure, you can try to grasp whats coming but dont expect to really be on the same page with everyone else who has turned their lives upside down to embrace the brilliance of this series. That works out fine because for you, theyll be the experts, and lets face it, they could use some of your money.

Here is another important word for your vocabulary, legitimacy. Its a more complex concept than you might imagine, because in the world of Expertise, it becomes part of a much greater understanding:

If youre going to be an expert it is absolutely essential that you carry with you the perception of legitimacy.

Did you notice how I did that? If so, then you really may be on your way to becoming an expert. And that in only eight steps; Im proud of you! And I hope that when it comes time to send the check, youll be generous.

If you did get the concept, you can skip this step and go to Concept # 9. If not, you better read on and by all means dont worry because lets face it, being a little slow should not discourage you from becoming the expert youre meant to be. We have grand examples all around us.

This, perhaps of all the steps, is most in-tune with the psyche of America today. For example, even I have to get down on my hands and knees in awe before our current (2006) Commander-in-Chief, who has taken the perception of legitimacy to new heights, and, in the process has sucked We, the People, right along with him!

But, remember, I have a soft-spot for Masters, and, just like you I get the sense were getting screwed but, hell, he got there so he must really know what hes talking about. George W. is certainly the expert on being Mr. President, because he got the gig! Ultimately, nothing is more important, and if there truly were one sentence that rules the psyche of America, this would be it: The guy who gets it got it cause hes got it.

People buy into the most ridiculous things. Take a good look around you. You see? As the years and exposures multiply, the people who follow the people in power get more gullible, rather than less when it comes to accepting the wisdom of their leaders.

And theres an extremely good reason for this. Smart experts make room for other, less-knowledgeable experts to advise them because the less competent are their advisors, the more intelligent and responsive they appear.

Heres how this works: A measure of a leaders legitimacy is the expertise of his advisors. The longer your list of advisors, the more you are perceived as an expert in management, because then youre managing all these experts knowledge. The longer you stay in power the longer is your list of trusted, expert advisors.

In this way, you can only be as smart as your experts, but, paradoxically, that works in your favor. You are burdened with so many important decisions to be made that you cant possibly recognize when one of your advisors has an all-too-human psychotic break of some kind that will prompt him to feed you bogus information or interpretations.

When you do make a significant decision that leans toward sinking the ship, its really good to have relatively incompetent experts like that below you so you can blame them for feeding you the faulty information that made you make the stupid decision in the first place. Think WMD and Katrina.

You, as the Expert of experts, have your hands tied when faced with the sudden and uncharacteristic incompetence of your expert advisors. Where you come out smelling like a rose is you get to admit, based on faulty information from my experts, I was mistaken.

When backed up against the wall, playing the humble card works in your favor, for only a true expert is arrogant enough to admit he was so stupid as to follow the advice of incompetent advisors and then use it as a sign of valor.

Ultimately, every successful expert knows that his legitimacy is based upon the back-breaking work of his underlings. His legitimacy is a result of not how he uses the information he receives, but in having enough of it from a broad enough array of sources that when something goes wrong, he cant be blamed for his choices.

Look, I didnt promise you that these concepts would get any easier to grasp, okay? And, no, I am not a Lawyer, how many times I have to tell you?