A handy mental model to have in mind when you are learning, or teaching any skill. As I grow older I find that I realise the first step to conscious incompetence in pretty much every field I come across, and mark it as a happy achievement.

I was taught that a final step, for great teachers, takes you back to conscious competence. In other words, you are not just excellent at the skill, you are aware of what you do that makes you excellent, and are therefore able to teach it to others rather than just demonstrate.

Wikipedia does the source for the four stages of competence model better than I would do.

Stages of competence framework

Named after a Reverend remarkably enough.

Spoonerisms

A lesson from clown school. Starting out with wild energy on a gloomy audience is not likely to start well. You have to get people there gradually. Also applicable to, well, almost every situation where you want to bring people along. Which is probably rather a lot.

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Match your energy with the audience