AWKWARD Is The Doorway To Mastery
I want to share what I’ve been sitting with these days.
I’m building my YouTube channel, CEO Kalika, and trying to make content week after week. Some weeks it comes together beautifully.
Other weeks, I sit down to film and feel like a complete beginner all over again.
Last week I recorded a video six times before I felt good about it.
Six takes.
After 27 years in business. After hundreds of podcast episodes. After writing a book with HarperCollins. After studying broadcast journalism at NYU. After formal media training. After being on air at Bloomberg Business News earlier in my career.
Six takes anyway.
And I want to tell you, there’s something tender in that. Something I think every entrepreneur needs to hear.
Because YouTube is new to me. The thumbnails, the hooks, the pacing, the camera energy, the rhythm of weekly uploads. It’s a whole new skill set, and I’m sitting right in the middle of learning it.
Which brings me to a model I love. One I share with every entrepreneur I coach. It’s called the four stages of learning, and it was developed in the 1970s by Noel Burch at Gordon Training International. Decades later, it’s still one of the clearest ways I’ve found to make sense of why learning anything new feels so hard at first.
Once you understand it, you’ll stop being so hard on yourself for being a beginner. And you’ll stop quitting right before the breakthrough.
Let’s walk through it together.
Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence (Ignorant)
You don’t know what you don’t know.
This is the soft, unaware beginning. You haven’t realized there’s even a skill to learn yet. For me with YouTube a year ago, I thought you just hit record and uploaded. I had no idea about thumbnails, retention curves, or hook structures.
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence (Aware)
You know what you don’t know.
Now your eyes are open, and oh, it can feel heavy. You see the gap between where you are and where you want to be. This is where I am with parts of YouTube right now. This is also where so many people quit. Please don’t.
Stage 3: Conscious Competence (Learning)
You can do it, but you have to think about it.
You’re doing the thing. It’s working. But it takes effort and reps. Every video, every pitch, every system feels like real work. I’m here too with my YouTube content. Filming is happening, scripts are getting written, but it isn’t second nature yet.
Stage 4: Unconscious Competence (Mastery)
You do it without thinking.
This is the place we’re all reaching for. Like driving a car. You don’t think about your blinker or your seatbelt anymore. You just drive.
You can’t skip a stage. Each one asks something of you. And each one is worth walking through.
Why I Believe This Works
I want to share two stories with you, because I’ve watched myself walk through all four stages more than once.
The first is the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Wonder Podcast. I’ve been hosting it since 2016. We’re at over 500,000 downloads and have been named one of the Top 7 Podcasts for Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine.
But in the very beginning? It was so hard. It would take me weeks to psych myself up just to record an intro. I’d hire a professional sound engineer to come sit with me, basically to help me push through it. I needed someone in the room because I couldn’t do it alone.
Now? I record intros on my iPhone in ten minutes. The whole thing is no big deal. It’s actually something I look forward to.
The second story is my newsletter. I started writing it about eight years ago, and it was painfully difficult. I could only manage one a month, and that one took everything out of me.
Today I can write four in a single week and schedule them out. The skill that used to drain me has become something that flows.
That’s stage one to stage four. That’s the four stages of learning playing out in real time, in my own life, with two skills I once thought I’d never get comfortable with.
So when I’m filming a YouTube video for the third take, feeling tired and unsure, I remind myself: this is exactly how the podcast felt. This is exactly how the newsletter felt. And both of those became second nature.
I have every reason to believe YouTube will too. And whatever skill you’re working on right now will too, if you keep showing up.
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Moving Through the Four Stages
1. Name the skill you want to grow.
Be specific. Not “be a better leader.” Try “give clear weekly feedback to my team.” For me right now, it’s “publish one YouTube video every week.”
2. Notice which stage you’re in.
No judgment. Just clear seeing.
3. Expect awkwardness in stages two and three.
Write it somewhere you’ll see often: awkward is the doorway to mastery.
4. Set one small daily rep.
Mastery comes from frequency, not intensity. Five minutes a day will take you further than one hour once a month.
5. Track your reps for 30 days.
Even a simple checkmark works beautifully.
6. Find someone who’s already at stage four.
A mentor, a coach, a peer, a book, a podcast host. Watching someone do it with ease softens the curve.
7. Celebrate the small wins.
Every awkward attempt is moving you closer to second nature.
You’re doing just great. Even when it feels slow, even when it feels clumsy, you’re moving forward. And I’m right there with you.
If you’re sitting in stage two right now and feeling stuck, that’s exactly where coaching can hold you. I’d love to talk with you about what you’re working on and how I can support you.
Book a discovery call with me here: calendly.com/Kalika
DOWNLOADABLE WORKSHEET
The Four Stages Of Mastery
This worksheet is for the skill you keep telling yourself you should be better at by now. The one that feels harder than it should. The one you watch other people do with ease.
