The 3 Stages of Expert Simplicity
From simpleton to schemer to zen, it’s all part of the plan
The more you advance in your career, the easier each working day should become.
Not easier in the sense that you won’t make hard decisions or accomplish big goals, but easygoing in the sense that each day is straightforward, calm, and devoid of pressure.
If your workday gets harder the more you achieve, you’re trading your expert status for the wrong rewards.
A partner at a big consulting company, for example, might work even longer hours than an associate. She may constantly fret about her partner status, the high stakes in each deal, and the ill-will among her peers. That’s not independence, that’s a shark tank: You get out or you get eaten. If she leaves, her pay and status will take a hit, but in the long run, she could build her own company: Equal earnings and prestige, much better working conditions.
Assuming you want such an outcome from the beginning — a life where your days are tranquil yet meaningful — you’ll have to go through three distinct stages, and you must not land in a shark tank as you go from beginner to expert. In an edition of his 3–2–1 newsletter, James Clear calls those phases “ignorant simplicity,” “functional complexity,” and “profound simplicity.”
