Competence throughout your career

Hi all,

had a nasty weekend working, not very common in my team so as a thankyou the lead partner of my team took me out for a beer he said something that got me thinking and wanted to get everyones take.

While discussing his career progression and how he got to understand the work so well etc he said

"When you start your career, you're unconsciously incompetent, eventually over time you become consciously incompetent and at some point deep into your career you become unconsciously competent. If you ever get to the stage where you're consciously competent, you need to move jobs and learn something new or you're heading for big trouble."

I believe his point was that at the last stage you're going to stagnate and slip back into unconsciously incompetent although at that stage of your career it's not something that people will take lightly.

I thought it was an amusing conversation but wanted to get others thoughts on if the premise is valid / how long into your career do you think you hit each stage?

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