I Have Stage 2 Learning Affliction – How Cool is That?!

Many years ago, someone much wiser than me shared the four stages of learning. They are as follows:

1.??????Unconscious Incompetence – This means you are unaware of something you do not know anything about. Incompetence is not dumb or stupid, just something you have spent no time on. I call this stage ‘Ignorance is Bliss!’.

2.??????Conscious Incompetence – I am now aware of something I have no idea on how to do. This is the most painful stage, but the most important. I can now begin the process of learning and becoming competent in an area.

3.??????Conscious Competence – I liken this to watching a 1-year-old walk. If they are focusing on what they are doing, they can walk. As soon as they are distracted -BOOM – they are on their butts.

4.??????Unconscious Competence – This is when we have mastered a topic. It is like watching an adult walk. They do it without thinking. I believe there is a 10,000-hour rule made famous by Malcolm Gladwell. This basically states that it takes this long (about 5 working years) to achieve true expertise. It is a fine concept, but probably not altogether accurate.

I am an old man. Thus, if I work backward, my working career has involved accounting, finance, management, leadership, and so on. I have around 100,000 hours invested in all facets of this. I became very use to being at stage 4 of the learning process quite a bit, or at worst stage 3. Then I retired at the ripe old age of 60. A trusted person called me about 6 months after I retired and asked if I had interest in becoming a university professor. I did, and the university must have been desperate because they hired me. So, on August 16, 2021, I became Professor Cahill. There was one slight problem. On that date, I immediately moved to stage 2 of the learning process. Probably for the first time in at least 20 years. Talk about a wakeup call!

Over the first semester, and now halfway through my second semester, I can sense my movement to stage 3. I am not there yet, but stage two has been progressing at a faster pace each week. ?Based on this, I foresee me being about 75% in stage 3 and 25% in stage 2 at the beginning of the fall semester.

I never see myself leaving stage 2 again. Why do I say that? Yes, from being a professor I will get completely immersed in stage 3 and hopefully fully ensconced in stage 4. However, this process has shown me how I became comfortable in a certain niche, responsibility level and role, etc. I had stopped looking at things I had interest in but was unwilling to take the all-important step into stage 2.

As a quasi-retiree, aren’t I supposed to take my time to focus on things that interest me, challenge me, and keep my brain engaged? I can do that because I do not need to make a living from these things. It is just about learning things that catch my fancy. I can do it at my own pace.

In our careers, we tend to narrow our focus more than we think. We focus on a specific industry or type work. We do this out of a profit maximization purpose. We do this to make more money. However, when this ends, we should get back to our educational roots, which is a broadening of our horizons. I no longer have a profit maximization goal or strategy. I have a personal development strategy. That is found in entering stage 2 and moving to stage 3. Then repeating.

Hopefully, I will get comfortable in spending my time in stage 2, so I can now broaden my skill set to match what interests me versus what maximizes my cash flow or net worth. Reminds me of an old adage:

Too soon old. Too late smart!