Who Am I to Talk About Mastery?

A few weeks ago, I was camping with my son and his friends. As I demonstrated how to roast a marshmallow for s'mores, one of them exclaimed, "You're a master!"

I've been roasting marshmallows since I was a kid. My dad taught me how to select just the right green branch, whittle the tip, wait for the coals to look perfect, rotate it to toasted perfection. For decades, my hands knew exactly what to do without thinking. Unconscious competence.

Later that weekend, another friend watched me peel an apple with my Swiss Army knife in one long, continuous spiral. Another skill my dad taught me before I was a teenager. "You're a master at that too!" they said.

I laughed. Was I? I'd never thought about it. These were just things I did, had always done. Muscle memory.

Who am I to talk about mastery?

A Fresh Path

This year, I pursued a new coaching credential—not because I needed more letters after my name, but because I wanted to diversify my training and open new doors. As a true Turbo Thinker©, I found a fresh path forward. 

My journey threw me into an international cohort of very seasoned and experienced coaches with a variety of professional backgrounds. These were accomplished people, some with decades of practice. We were all starting at ground zero.

What followed was months of practice that asked me to let go of what I thought I knew. To be willing to fumble, to miss the mark, to sit in the discomfort of not having the answers. The experience validated what I already understood about coaching, yes, but it also cracked open new ways of seeing, new vocabulary, new strengths I didn't know I possessed.

The spark that first called me to this work reignited. Occasional days of feeling jaded vanished. I found myself leaping out of bed, eager. What would today bring? What would I discover?

On the path to mastery, I became even more of a novice.

The Four Stages We Move Through

There's a framework that maps the journey:

Unconscious incompetence — we don't know what we don't know.

Conscious incompetence — we see our gaps and want to learn.

Conscious competence — we're skilled, but we have to focus and think about it.

Unconscious competence — it feels easy. We improvise naturally. Our hands remember.

I thought mastery lived in that fourth stage. The effortless expertise. The muscle memory that doesn't require thought.

What if mastery is actually the willingness to cycle back through these stages again and again? To choose conscious incompetence. To return to not knowing.

When Ego Shows Up, Love Leaves

At a recent conference session on coaching mastery, the facilitator said something that landed in my bones: mastery comes from a place of love, not ego.

Ego wants to arrive, to be recognized, to have the letters after the name. Ego needs to be right. Ego defends what it knows and resists being challenged.

Love stays curious. Love plays without needing to win. Love asks, "What might emerge here?" Love trusts the process even when it feels uncertain.

When I returned to ground zero with my cohort, something beautiful happened. My enthusiasm became contagious. My clients felt it. My colleagues reflected it back. Even my family noticed the shift in my energy.

Tabula Rasa: The Blank Slate

Beginner's mind. The blank slate. Tabula rasa.

Mastery is about lifelong wonder and curiosity. Embracing the not knowing. No urgency to figure it out. Taking time to explore what emerges, without attachment to any specific outcome.

In coaching, this looks like being fully present. Trusting my client. Trusting the silence between us. Trusting whatever wants to surface in that space.

When I approach my work this way — curious, open, receptive — the energy flows. Not effort toward a goal. Observation. Patience. Courage to stay with the not knowing.

The Paradox

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. Instead of that feeling discouraging, it feels exhilarating.

I would rather identify as a novice than a master.

In the not knowing, I remain eternally curious, eternally ready to explore, eager to discover what I haven't yet seen. The moment I claim mastery, I risk closing myself off to what might still surprise me.

Maybe that's what true mastery is. Not arrival at some destination, but the ongoing journey. Not the unconscious competence that happens automatically, but the conscious choice to stay curious even when things feel easy.

Playing with Fire

Last weekend, I went camping again. This time, I played with getting my marshmallow as close to the glowing red and orange coals as I could.

I didn't worry or try to control the outcome. I observed it as a work of art metamorphosing before my eyes — the way the sugars caramelized, the skin blistering and bubbling, the transformation from white to gold to bronze.

Yes, in the end it was delicious. But not because of me. Because I let go. Because I watched. Because I was willing to play without attachment to the perfect result.

My technique hasn't changed much in five decades. But my relationship to it has. I'm not just good at it anymore. I'm alive in it. Present with it. Curious about what happens when I simply observe and allow.

And that, perhaps, is the real mastery.

Three Questions

Where in your life have you achieved unconscious competence, and what would it be like to bring conscious curiosity back to it?

What would change if you approached your work with beginner's mind, even after years of experience?

Are you willing to become a novice again in service of something deeper?

Zest, Adela