The Expert, Stage 3/4 of Ego Development (#163)

0:00Hello everyone, welcome to the Deep Psychology Podcast where every Wednesday we get to the root of why you think, feel and act. As you do, I'm your host, Ross Edwards, four-time author and humanistic existential coach. Today we are continuing on with our September October series on the stages of eco-development by Susan Cook. Greuter, this is episode number four in this series and I really encourage you to, once you've finished this episode, just to go back and listen to the prior episodes, there's a link in the description because this will just give you a really full understanding of eco-development theory and there are still five more episodes to go. So we're going to have about 10 hours of material in total, which just it's a lot of detail and a lot of crucial theory to understand if you really want to get the

1:04juice out of this series. So I have new long-form episodes every Wednesday with snippets on Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday, always at 9pm, central European time, 8pm UK time and 3pm Eastern time. Make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify and if you want to go deeper with this work, join my fortnightly newsletter, pre-ordermyelitisbook, the boundless body, or try a free coaching session with me. The links are in the description for all of those. So folks, this is episode four of nine in my eco-development series for September and October, 2026. Today we are covering the level after the one we covered last week, who would have thought. And this is called the expert level. So we're into the conventional stages of eco-development. Now, last week, we covered the first

2:06conventional stage, which is conformist and the expert is the second of the three conventional stages when which are conformist, expert and achiever, which we'll cover next week, the achiever. Remember that conventional stages are the bulk of the bell curve. Like if you plot frequency or stage against frequency in the population, you'll get a bell curve and the conventional stages are like the the bulk of that bell curve. It's where most people are, most people are in the conventional stages of development and they spend most of their adult life there. We say adult because all children go through the pre-conventional stages, but usually by the time we're an adult, we have grown beyond the pre-conventional. In fact, 80% of US adults are at conventional stages of development, at least according to CootGroiters data. So, expert is one of those

3:11and their expert is one of the three conventional stages and therefore we're covering a stage that is pretty common in the population. The adult population, you'll probably know people who fit these descriptions really well. I know I certainly do. We'd really encourage you to go back after this episode and listen to the episode on the conformist level, which is the first of the conventional levels because it really helps you understand what the expert is doing, what it contributes, what it brings in terms of new capacities and what sort of function it has in the grand scheme of legal development because if not, it's easy to see the limitations of the conformist, sorry, of the well, the conformist certainly has limitations, but it's easy to see the limitations of the expert and to think that it's silly and I know that I struggle with this

4:13myself because expert can be a troublesome, like someone who's centered at expert can be quite a troublesome character in the wrong context. However, they can be also, you know, they could in the right context, they can be an excellent contributor. So understanding the conformist helps you see the logic behind the expert or sort of what the logic is in the right word really because this isn't something we're choosing, we're not choosing to go through these stages of legal development. You can see this sort of the machinery operating behind the expert, okay? So by the time we're at the expert level, just to say by the way, this stage usually comes on, you know, it has to come on after the conformist level has dominated for a while. So we're talking maybe high school by the time we leave to go to university or college and by the time we're entering the workforce. So,

5:18you know, usually teenagers, early adults will be moving into expert, although, you know, this transition can really happen at any time. So don't use that as a, as a, like an universal rule. But you know, generally speaking, this is a good time for it to come on because it's when we're entering the workforce, it's when we need to have expertise. It's when we really need to deeply study a field and the expert sort of, the expert level is almost perfectly designed for that. However, in listening to my own case, it's hard to say, but I think in my own case, the expert was online in my teenage years, mostly, and then by the time I was certainly university by the time I was into my 20s, I was mostly achiever and then by the time I was leaving university, I was beyond the conventional levels. I don't say that to boast or to say that that's a universal thing,

6:20but just so you get, you know, just so that you know that there's no absolute rules here for when people move into these stages. And by the time we're into the expert level, we're almost at the peak of the developmental arc. You'll remember back in episode one, that's book about how development has an arc. So we can see it in terms of individual levels or we can see it as an entire arc, like all 10 levels, you can see them as part of like a bigger process. So I won't go into all of that. You can go back to episode one to listen to the details, but basically what's happening here, we're almost at the peak. If you think of the development of arc as having like a rainbow shape and as you develop through pre-conventional and conventional, you're reaching sort of the peak of that arc. Now, expert is almost at the peak is the expert, sorry, it's the achiever level where we reach the peak of that arc, which isn't to say by the way that the achiever is like the peak of

7:26human development. It means something else, but I can't explain it now, there's too many details, but basically by the time we're at expert, the self is almost fully differentiated. So we almost have like a full sense of being a separate person with separate needs, separate desires, our own identity and we're aware that other people are their own people as well. The subject object split is almost fully in place, meaning that we see ourselves, including our mind, our body and our inner world as being separate from the world that is around us, that at the peak of the development of arc seems solid, it seems separate, seems like it exists independently of us and so on and so forth. And now our meaning-making is almost fully organized around this perception of a self experiencing a world separate from it and this helps explain the expert level. So that gives you an idea about

8:30what's happening on the big picture level, it's basically the self is almost becoming, it's in its full expression in like it's it's most defined, it's almost at its most defined level, okay. This is a slash stage, the number for the expert is three slash four, coming between conformist three and a cheever four. So what does basically mean is that the expert is a stage of differentiation, it's stepping out of the conformist holding environment that it was in, it's stepping out of its identity from its chosen groups and it's defining itself as separate from those, it's about agency, it's individualistic, so that's why it's a slash stage. This is a beginnings of formal operational thinking if you know PHA, STERI, however, without getting to technical formal operational thinking just means you can think abstractly and you can reason, you can use logic, you can sort of think

9:40deeply about things in an abstract way without needing them to have like a concrete reference, whereas conformist at the conformist level, your thinking is very much limited to what is around you and what you can, it's very much, the thinking is, limit is, it's dependent on having objects around you and having physical references for things, okay. So it's kind of a limited form of abstract thinking, whereas now at the expert level, formal operational is coming online and this brings a more complicated thinking is available, which doesn't sound like much but actually affects the entire psychology of the person really, because thinking is how we conceive, so we explain the world around us to ourselves, is how we make sense of the world through thinking mostly. It's the beginning of the third person

10:41perspective, which means that, well before it was second person, so we could see other people to some degree, we could see ourselves, we could see other people, we could understand other people on their own terms to some degree, but now it's third person, it's like a step beyond, we can, we can see ourselves from a distance now, we recognize that other people are truly different from us, more than the conformist does, and there's a greater psychological separation from others. We now realize that they have their own unique desires, their own unique needs that may be completely different from our own. Objectivity is now possible, we can compare our perspective with another person's perspective using another standard that has nothing to do with us, basically. This is where object to thinking comes on, this is like scientific thinking, it's like

11:44the ability to coordinate different people's opinion into a larger context, where opinion is not pulling the strings so much, and again, I might sound really abstract, but think about your personal relationships, at the third person, you can now sort of understand the relationship as being a, like you can understand it between the two people, you can also understand, you can see the workings of it much more clearly without being so invested in it, there's like more distance from it now, okay. This is the first time the person can talk about themselves in terms of the unique choices they have made, conformist doesn't happen because conformist is just the identity is defined by their in groups, by the groups they identify with, and they don't really have much of a sense of, they have a sense of like a physical self as being physically separate, but in terms of like psychologically, their self is not very differentiated yet,

12:47whereas an expert, it's like the first time a person will talk about like their own choices, their own desires, and how they arrive to those independently from others and so on and so forth. So how we're going to approach this is exactly how we approach last week, we're going to cover why this stage is called what it is, which is the expert, why is it called the expert, then we're going to cover some, well a lot of like the key personality traits of the expert, and that will help you really see the experts of around you and in yourself, and it will just give you a really on the ground explanation of it, and finally to finish off, I will cover in some depth, someone I know who fits the expert stage extremely well, and has really been key to me understanding the expert. Before we do that, a quick mention from my sponsor, Spirits Quest tours,

13:48which takes small groups on exclusive sacred journeys to Egypt, Peru and Turkey, get 500 dollars off your next trip by using the discount code Ross on the booking page linked below. So why is it called the expert stage? So basically, this stage, it's trying to define its identity, free from the groups that it was really identified within defined by it at the conformist level. It wants to stand out, it wants to, you know, it wants to acquire unique traits and capabilities and then use it as a way to define itself as different from the previous in group or the in groups, right? And learning is how it does this. So the meaning for the expert, their meaning-making process really

14:48centers around their knowledge. It's like they are meaningful and they are useful and their life is, you know, life is as it should be if they are knowledgeable and if they are in no about a certain subject. So the expert loves acquiring knowledge and being in the know. It's identity and its sense of self-worth actually depends on knowledge and expertise. So it's like their identity is fused with their knowledge. Now this is like a crucial point to understanding the expert. The mind hooks on to knowledge at this level. In fact, there's this wonderful quote from Susan Kudroyter in her paper on the nine levels paper which I'd encourage you to read, which is quote, no one can ever tell an expert anything they don't already know end quote. Because the expert

15:53doesn't just love acquiring knowledge because really anyone can love acquiring knowledge, any stage of development. But the difference here is that they're identified with it and the whole identity depends on it, right? So when you question an expert's knowledge, you are also questioning their identity and you're questioning their worth. Okay, because these things are all fused. Learning is how it defines itself as independent and as unique. So it gets very touchy when it's knowledge is questioned or contradicted or brought into a brought into doubt. The expert is very good at completing tasks within its chosen areas of expertise because it's so good at acquiring knowledge that inevitably it will become good at things. So it's a bit different from the conformist

16:54in this sense because a conformist will kind of just do what they are told to do. An expert has a little bit more independence because it's competence and it's sort of initiative is more knowledge driven. It's driven by what it's interested in, what it's knowledgeable about and what it likes accumulating knowledge about. The conformist doesn't have that so much. The expert rejects traditional knowledge in favour of professional knowledge, trade secrets, peer groups, reference books, science, authorities, experts and so on and so forth. So it can become competent with less hand holding because it's not dependent on some tradition where as a conformist will just will just refer to its in group, it will refer to its immediate surround for its information. Whereas the expert goes a step beyond that. It questions its immediate surround and it goes

17:59to the actual people who have experience in the field or knowledge of the field or expertise. I just want to say as well by the way that all these stages, I mentioned this last week but showing important here, all the stages have a capital letter. So the word expert in this theory has a capital letter and it's basically because when we say expert we're referring to a specific psychological level. We're not referring to like the word expert which seems like a trivial difference but I'm not talking about experts in general. Like this doesn't mean that people who are an expert in their field automatically fall into the expert level of development. You see the name of the stage and the word expert are not the same thing. Okay so when I say expert here I'm talking about the level of development. Okay. Interestingly this is when we really get to kind of the operational reality of the expert, shall we say, is that it really has this need to be right because

19:08it's knowledge and it's sense of sense of self-worth, sense of competence is dependent on its knowledge. Right. So what I will tend to do is it will, it has like this all-knowing persona. Right. It has this persona that says, I know and inside them it feels like I must know. There's like this pervasive sense of I must know, I must know, I must know because without that they don't, they crumble and I've seen this myself. So I know. So they have a very fragile sense of self actually. It might look, the expert might look knowledgeable, they might look like they've got their shit together, they might look like they know about their field and their confident in it. And yes they might have a field that they aren't genuinely knowledgeable about, knowledgeable about, far more than

20:13the average person. However, underneath that is actually a lot of insecurity because it deeply fears incompetence, uncertainty and inadequacy. So it will, that's the internal experience of it. And what happens externally is that they develop this superiority complex, this arrogance, this self-righteousness because what they basically do is they fantasize themselves to have the most expertise and knowledge of anyone because that's like, you know, if the, if if the expert says this person over here has more knowledge than me, what does that do? It immediately puts into question their own expertise, their own knowledge, their own capacity, which to the expert is not just a functional, that's not a question of function or of practicality.

21:14That is a question of identity, right? So the expert, we're going to go into so much detail with this because this is like the heart of the expert identity is that the expert has a whole set of defense mechanisms around knowledge and expertise, which are really fascinating. You see that the expert has this urge to know and this need to know and it's like they almost have to look at this sort of, I should know, I really should know, right? But obviously, even within their field of expertise, they cannot be the best. I mean, only one person in the world can be the best at the field, right? So inevitably, the expert is not the best. And even if they are the best in their field, there will be many other fields that they're certainly not the best in because that's how things work. Even if we're amazing at our career, we could, we're mediocre at hundreds of

22:16other things. So there's this fascinating dynamic here with the, with the expert, they feel like they have life figured out and that they know all the answers to everything. They know the truth and they know it's their own approach is best. They stand at the periphery, periphery of out of their groups, but never actually leave despite threatening to because the expert is starting to develop independence, they're starting to differentiate from their in groups. But as I said, their whole identity is, it's about knowledge and it's about competence. So they need validation for that because if they don't get validation for it, they'll, they won't have the matter they need, they won't have the information they need that, that satisfies their own sort of their own need for to be knowledge and competence. So what they

23:17do is they kind of, they attach themselves to groups and then they, they try and like show themselves to be the most knowledgeable, the most competent, the one that's got shit figured out. They blend conformist absolutism with achiever focus on facts, knowledge and optimization. So the conformist, when it comes to truth, when it comes to things being true, the conformist will just get very absolutelyistic about it. You know, they'll say something like, well, everything in the Bible is absolutely true because God wrote the Bible or something like that. The achiever will say something like, we need to analyze the Holy text for factual, scientific information and then we'll extract what is objectively true from these Holy texts. The experts sort of stand in between. It's like they seek factual knowledge that is based on evidence, but they

24:22all, they also get very absolutelyistic about it and they turn it into a conformist weapon, like they weaponize knowledge because in the use it to reinforce their identity, it's like they're not, it's not like a, it's not like a cam considered objective consideration of the, of the, the situation or the truth. It's here, here are the facts and I'm going to absolutize the facts. You see, because they're not fully out of conformist absolutism, they've just, they're stepping out of it. So they take these facts and they absolutize them and they say, this is absolutely how it is, not because it's written in the Holy book, for example, but because this sign to say it or this, I read it in this book, that's how it is, it's in the book and there's evidence for it. We have to understand that, think about it, the expert cannot literally know everything because

25:33no one knows all the facts about everything. They don't even know, none of us know all the facts about our own profession, our own field of expertise, let alone all the facts about absolutely everything. However, as I said, this is not a logical pursuit for the expert, this is an identity laden pursuit. So the expert, again, it has this deep need to know and a deep need to feel like it has the most knowledge. So what it does is it, it basically just denies, it explains a way and it denies its own lack of knowledge. For example, if you, if the expert has this idea about a certain topic and you come along and you come along with contradictory information that actually you might have more expertise than them in that topic, they will, they will ridicule you, they'll deny the

26:34contradictory knowledge, they'll explain it away and they will, they will get sort of hyper rational about it and they'll like start dissecting all the details and they'll, they'll come up with like alternative explanations which, which doesn't bring their own into question, it just, it just contradicts yours. Basically, what they do is they do anything but we'll look at the fact that they do not know or they know less than you or they have very partial knowledge. And again, I've seen this first hand with people in my life who I'd expect. So it's like, they might have like a slither, a tiny slither of experience about a certain topic and because it's theirs, because they sort of acquired it from themself, they turn that little thing that they have into like the whole field, they know the whole field now because they did like a few classes on it or something, you know, they know the whole field.

27:35So you might come along, you might have ten years of experience in this thing and you're looking at them and your VIs like how limited this one little idea they have is but and you might come along and you might tell them, well, yeah, that's true but this, this, this, that in the next thing and you're sort of like putting it into a bigger context, they cannot hear it, like they cannot hear them. So they will, you might be absolutely right in what you're saying like objectively but the expert just cannot hear it. So they will like, they will sort of like cannibalize your knowledge and say well, that doesn't explain my experience so you're wrong or you know, okay, everything you're saying might be true but what I experienced is what is really true about it because that is what I experienced and they can't like, they do not understand that they can't, like that they may be inferior and if the evidence becomes so obvious that it is undeniable, let's say for

28:42example that I don't know, let's say you go out running with an expert that thinks they know everything about running because they've run a few times in their life and you're like, you're, you're, you run like a few times a week and you, this is like your, how you exercise, you go out running with the expert, you're likely to outrun them quite obviously. So the expert, what did he do here because the knowledge isn't intellectually anymore, it's like demonstrable, unavoidable, experimental and anecdotal is very obvious, very in your face. What did he do? Well, again, it's like they will do everything but acknowledge the fact that you're better or they will like chalk it up to luck or they will say that they were tired or they will put it down to some like genetic explanation or you're genetically more gifted than me or something.

29:43It's like they, they will do everything they can to not just say you're better at running than me because that is like a, that is a threat to them. That is like a threat to their entire identity. Experts tend to be technocrats, bureaucrats and specialists so even a said expert is a technical term not like the word expert. We're not using it in terms of the word experts, we usually in every day use it in everyday language. These people do tend to get drawn into such roles because these roles just fit the expert mind. It allows them to become like endlessly good and endlessly focused on details and endlessly learning the facts so they really like hone in on one area. Their style, their decision style, their work style, their problem solving style is pragmatic, it's fact-based, it's knowledge-based, it's free from emotional or existential concerns

30:47or complexities. So we'll talk about this more later but the expert just sees the task at hand and wants to get it done. It struggles to like think about the bigger picture, think about the meaning of the task, what's, you know, is there collateral damage or like is this the right task we should be doing to advance this whole project? You know, it doesn't, it struggles with this. It deeply, who I've already said that deeply fears incompetence uncertainty and inadequacy, but bears repeating, it chooses its own peer group, often those who share its expertise. So at conformist, I say the chosen group but at conformist, it's sort of like you slide into or you you just sort of like merge into a group. It's not like you choose it so much because you're choosing a group then adapting to like the average of the group and trying to like fit in.

31:55Whereas at the expert stage you're now able to kind of like choose people, you're able to like look at others and see them with their own needs and their own identity, their own characteristics and you then choose people that resonate with you. Again, the expert obviously does not know anything, does not know everything I do. That was a good Freudian slip, that one. The expert doesn't know everything but they must feel like they know everything. And again, if you wanted to sum up the expert in one sentence, it would be that or it would be the amparaphasing that no one can tell an expert something they already know. They feel intense shame and low self-worth if they feel wrong, uncertain or doubtful or incompetent and their mind is glued together by uncertainty. So again, why is it called the expert level? Because basically the entire mind is held together by the knowledge they believe they have

33:04and they will defend the knowledge they believe they have to not to the death but to quite staggering levels sometimes. Quick words from my sponsor, before we get onto the defining personality traits of the expert, my sponsor is SpiritQuestTours, which takes small groups on exclusive sacred journeys to Egypt, Peru and Turkey, get 500 dollars off your next trip by using the discount code Ross on the booking page linked below. So let's get into the defining personality traits of the expert and again, like with what we did last week covering the defining traits of the conformist, this just really helps you see like on the ground what the expert is and it will help you real identify people who are around you if they are an expert or like a good chunk of their

34:06psyche isn't at the expert level. So the expert personality is real bound, certainty-based, it's defensive, it's linear and it's control-oriented. At the heart of it is that one self-worth is defined by their knowledge and capabilities. Basic self-reflection is possible because they want to be different from others, they want to identify what they're good at, they want to identify their own needs and wants as separate from anyone else's and so they are able to look at other people and realize how they are different from other people. There's also a sense of how my actions, how my actions have an influence over time whereas before there is not so much of a sense of this. So there is like an interest in self-improvement, there is an interesting growing here, there's an

35:07interest in, there's like a very beginning interest in self-understanding but it's just like it's very rudimentary and like one thing that the expert will not question is their own competence and their own knowledge. The expert wants to be respected for their knowledge and capabilities, conformist is now seen as fake because they now value personal success and you know like building a successful career for example over just pure belonging and pure acceptance by a group. They have a tendency to want to outdo themselves and to strive to be number one in their chosen areas, this can become compulsive, feedback is experienced as a personal attack on the person, not as you know like just constructive comments or as information to take into account is experienced as an attack on

36:15you so if you know people you work with or you yourself take feedback in this way on a regular basis, this is like an expert tendency, it's a sign that you're really identified with your knowledge and competence and you have a trouble questioning it. Life is seen as fundamentally manageable, this is a fact like this is a really fascinating trait of the expert when you witness it in action, it's sort of like how would I describe it, it's like watching someone it's like they see what needs to be done, they see the steps that are involved, they break everything down into simple steps, so there's no room for complexity, there's no room for questioning, there's no room for like different perspectives and alternatives, it's like you want to know how to you know if you want to know how to make potatoes in the oven, you know here's how you do it,

37:15one two three, one two three, we cannot, it's like there's, they see the steps in the process but they cannot really question it too much, right? They have like this tendency to just want to do now, you know I've got the steps, I know how it needs to be done, so let's do it, let's not overthink, let's not you know let's not get involved in discussions about why we're doing this or what the collateral damages or you know whether we should be, where are we should be doing this at all, let's just do it, wait you've got an idea, let's put it into practice which can be very good, can also be very damaging and self deceiving, the expert doesn't see their own inadequacies, this is again absolutely fascinating because if they were to question their own inadequacies or to see their own inadequacies, they would eventually realize that they don't know everything and

38:18they're not as competent as they think they are, so they can't literally, they cannot see them because psychologically it's too damaging, so what the expert does is it will criticize other people all the time, as a way to reinforce the sense of superiority that they have, they will identify other people's flaws all the time and they basically what they do is they see that other people's inadequacies are what makes life difficult, you see that this is, it's like if only other people knew what I knew, if only other people lived exactly how I live, life would be easy but life isn't that way because other people aren't like that, obviously this is really a fabrication, this is just the kind of logic of the stage, there's nothing really true about this,

39:20like and of course it's actually really, it's actually the opposite is actually true, at higher levels of development, what you actually see is that yes other people make life challenging, yes however fundamentally what makes life challenging is actually yourself, like ultimately it's you because ultimately everything is about you, ultimately you are sort of the one that interprets and understands absolutely everything that is happening, regardless of who you're around or what situations you are in, it's all about you, the expert is literally it reverses it, which is it's a site, it's really a psychological site of hand that is necessary for this stage to function and we could say the same about a lot of these things, you know this, this sense that they know everything is obviously not objectively true, like it's obviously not true

40:21but it's a site of hand that is necessary, the question, authority and dogma which is actually a very powerful contribution because a conformist cannot do this, the expert can be a smart Alec or a know it all, like they will broadcast their knowledge, they will lecture you, they will especially when they have like demonstrable experience and expertise and something as I will, like they really identify with it, so it's like they just show, show cast, show, what's the word? They broadcast it and showcase it and it's like there's like no room for questioning, there's no room for like, you know, there's no room for maybe this part over here is wrong or maybe that part is like no, I know it, I really know what it is, the expert focuses on the details rather than the big

41:27picture which can be useful but in other roles it can be pretty terrible, you know if you're trying to start a business or you're trying to manage a team of people, your job is really not to focus on the details, your job obviously you need to be focused on the details but the details only make sense in their context within the bigger picture, the expert cannot do this, like they will do a certain task to all like to their absolute utmost best but they don't understand why the task is being done or what it's trying to achieve or how important it really is in the grand scheme of things, they struggle to prioritise around a amount of different tasks I apologise and they will prefer to just make a decision and go for it, it's like okay boom 123 here we go,

42:31let's get on with it, let's not, let's not, you know, let's not get lost in abstract nonsense so let's just get it done, there's a strong sense of shoot held over from the conformist which explains it's kind of like this sort of it grips to its knowledge, this is a very should thing, it's like I should know, I should be better, I should be better, I should make things better, we should do the absolute best that we can, the expert doesn't easily collaborate, collaborate with others because it needs to be right so it's not going to listen to other people very well and it will tell other people what to do because it believes it's right so that's basically the opposite of what good collaboration entails, the expert is argumentative and opinionated it uses its knowledge aggressively to belittle others it corrects others it's very easy to activate both the superiority complex and the

43:35defensiveness of the expert because these two are really two sides of the same coin so let's say you're having a discussion about a discussion about something even if it's quite a like a minor mundane, unimportant topic if you question the expert they're going to both get defensive and superior like or show their superiority complex at the same time because there are the same the reason they're getting defensive is because they're feeling that you do not see them as the authority on the topic so what they do is they compensate for that by you know appearing to know it all telling you that they know it they they they they lecture you they they belittle you they say oh well that what you're saying is nonsense this is what is right they get argumentative they bring out all their opinions they get they they get very certain about their own um point of view

44:39not because it's objectively the best but because simply they feel fracked so the superiority complex and defensiveness are two sides of the same coin and this really helps you understand the expert because experts will get defensive around you like it's almost inevitable so and it can be quite you know ugly and it can be quite um unpleasant to experience so knowing this helps you take it less personally even if it's not any less unpleasant the expert sees the world as sure and clear and this certainty is really a coping mechanism so obviously the world is not certain and sure and clear there are some things in life that are still in clear and set in most of the you know mostly but a lot of life is really uncertain but the expert it's like it hasn't

45:40yet got the ability to cope with that it needs to know you see it must know it should know so it you know has this it creates this you know certainty is one of its personality traits but again it's a coping mechanism it's not an absolute thing it's like a sight of hand as I said the expert loves to have the last word it shows a strong front front by not admitting or ignorance or vulnerability has a hostile sense of humor it'll often ridicule other people because again it just establishes its own superiority not necessarily because other people are any less competent or knowledgeable than them they relish being the mover or the initiator so in this way like the expert is very driven because it's driven to implement stuff very quickly it's driven to do so independently and it doesn't

46:40think things through which might be you know because that phrase in every day one was usually as a bad thing like it's like a criticism you don't you're not thinking things through properly but not necessarily you know in a certain environment that might be very good to not think things through something's thinking things through is actually a big obstacle right and it's actually a sign of fear so the expert will just like grab the bill by the horns and it will come up with ideas in a way it goes so that can be very good but in other context it can be really terrible not knowing is threatening to the expert it has plenty of factual knowledge but minimal reflection so like it's quite fascinating the expert genuinely knows things like the experts around me know way more than I do about certain things right I mean let's say my argument would be that it's

47:46pretty trivial stuff like one of the experts I know is they accumulate a lot of information about like fruits and vegetables and like how to pick them correctly in the supermarket and how to cut them correctly I'm not essentially silly but that is out true so it has all this factual knowledge right but it doesn't reflect on you know things like things that are more nuanced like things like a their relationship with their spouse or things like their relationship with their children or things about like their long-term vision for their life or things about you know I don't know this looking inward and asking them self questions like why do I feel they need to accumulate knowledge why do I feel so threatened why do I communicate in this way to other people they like they they just do not have the self-awareness the self-reflection the patience the like their mind hooks

48:48onto factual knowledge that is what their mind does and anything that is not clear cut anything that requires nuance and reflection and uncertainty you know asking a question why do I can when you communicate have I do with others that that could take five or ten years just to answer let alone do anything about so the expert cannot deal with that like it just it does not deal with that very well okay what the expert will also tend to do is um well come up we'll come back to that when I get on to like my case study of the expert um the expert can be very overbearing they want to tell you what is what even if you don't ask for it and they will do so in a very patronizing way which of course isn't necessarily a reflection a reflection of you it's a reflection of their own need to be right even if they're really not underneath the topic steerer they're actually remarkably fragile

49:51and turbulent and again you can see this quite easily you question some even like minor knowledge about some weird topic and the expert can get very angry overbearing opinionated argumentative aggressive and all the rest of it initially because they want you to think that they know and if you don't think that their whole identity is like being threatened so that is not you know often we look at tough people and aggressive people as being like oh they've got figured out and therefore like you know they um you know they sort of have a right to to to address on us because they know and they like you know they're superior but actually know it's actually a sign of fragility and turbulence a lot of the time they have a very dense energy this is more of an observation of mine but again like we'll we'll I'll get onto my case study and

50:56you'll understand what I mean by having a dense energy basically what I mean is like you never quite feel at ease when you're around an expert others competence feels threatening to them so what the expert will do in such cases they will either just deny it or they will like sabotage the other person or they will just like it's like the it's like they enter a state where they cannot process it so they just cannot comprehend that someone else would be better than them I did it it's like it's like the the the the enter a state where they just do not process reality they like to engage in one upmanship you know this you get it's but syndrome is like they always want to have the last word because um again they cannot they they feel very threatened by other people knowing more than them they always refer to authority and assume that the authority knows

51:57best again so this is like a holdover from the conformist phase and it's like the achiever rational scientific bend M is now it's sort of at the tour joint so that the person will refer to experts on this topic and they will absolutize them rather than like the group or rather than some like holy book they will take objective evidence and absolutize it the expert scoffs at complexity and beauty or paradox they see the world as predictable mechanistic classifiable procedural complexity is threatening to them so it's not because the world is not complex or ambiguous or paradoxical it's really just because these things are threatening to the expert so it will just deny them it will just like buddy it's head in the sand and finally the expert has a need for closure quick answers fast solutions because long timelines they just they they cannot handle long timelines

53:07because a long timeline suggests one that we have to be patient we have to wait we have to think things through things aren't going to happen immediately we don't have all the answers right now this is more complex than we thought there's probably going to be obstacles in the way see that is like completely an uh what's the word um an aesthetic to the experts mind so long timelines just do not they do not uh process long timelines all right everyone we've covered the why the experts call the expert we've covered the key personality traits and now I'm going to get onto my case study of the expert which has really helped me understand the expert um before I do quick mention from my sponsor spirit quest tours which takes small groups on exclusive sacred journeys to Egypt Peru and Turkey get five hundred dollars off your next trip by using the discount code Ross on the booking page linked below so folks let's look at expert on the ground um so this

54:19person is I'm going to really try not to reveal them um but they're in my family and you know someone who's pretty close to me and like it's it's amazing because I've been studying developmental psychology for nearly ten years like I'm just fascinated by developmental psychology if you hadn't realized so um and the expert is not actually um it's not really acknowledged in all developmental series it pops up now and again but it's often just seen as a transitional stage between what could royer calls a conformist and the achiever levels so it's it's not really like studied very deeply by researchers and could royer was one who really opened me up to it and it was when I realized that this person in my life was like a textbook textbook textbook expert that I really

55:24understood the expert because like I don't know how else to explain it other other than like if you wanted to design the expert if you wanted to up a perfect example of the expert this person is it like and I'm I'm going to give you some like really down-to-earth examples here and things that I've observed so um one thing I've noticed about this person is that they're fascinated with facts about all kinds of random things right um and it's quite a it's it's quite an amazing thing like I actually feel a bit like I'm a bit ignorant in that sense because I like I really just tend to focus on what I'm interested in and if it's something that I'm not interested on and if it's like peripheral I just don't really pay attention but this person is like fascinated by things like fruit by walking routes by architecture by places by geography by the walls by dates like

56:31historical dates and stuff in there like so detailed about it now this isn't unnecessarily an expert trait in and of itself but when I combine it with everything else I've realized that it's actually very much a part of the expert personality um this person and it's something that we all know very well about this person is that they like to lecture you on the facts even if you explicitly tell them that you aren't interested like just a few weeks ago this happened to me where we were discussing something that was in the grand scheme of things really unimportant like it was not really a you know it wasn't like a crisis situation it wasn't like a like some kind of important life event it was just we were talking about something and I explicitly told them that he was about to like explain to me why I was wrong by referring to like the laws on the matter and I

57:33kind of thought I kind of knew that he didn't have the whole story because I'd seen things that would contradict his ideas but he was like let me tell you let me tell you let me tell you and he was like about to like explain all this stuff to me and I literally told him that I wasn't interested in what I thought well I'm going to say it was non-aggressive to me it felt non-aggressive whether it was or not on our story and whether he he probably didn't experience it like that because again yeah it's pretty touchy but I literally said that I wasn't interested like I'm not interested in the laws on it like I really do not I don't care and he was like he would he like did not respect that he did not understand it I didn't like I honestly did not care what you had to say and that's just one example this has happened so many times not just to me but to people around me so it's like I get this it's like I know and I'm going to tell you even if you've got contradictory evidence no your evidence is wrong your ideas are wrong your experience is wrong

58:37I know right even if it's some trivial nonsense okay um the he hides failures and inadequacies um the way I would describe it is that you know if I'm wrong about something or if I fail in something it's not because of me I've got it together I know what's right I know how to do things it's it's because of other people or it's because of the circumstances like just again it's such a silly example I remember we were with him when he hadn't phoned the pharmacy to order his medicine on the right day or something like that and therefore they had to wait until the Monday because this was Friday had to wait until the Monday to go and collect it and it was quite obviously his fault or it seemed that way or it we seemed like he had a big say in the matter because he didn't he didn't communicate with the people

59:41in time he didn't tell them what he wanted it in time and he went into this rage like he went to this like crazy rage about to the people at the pharmacy when you got off the phone to them he went to this crazy rage about how they were they were useless and they were well he was swearing and everything like it was it was crazy and again this like I'll look at it from my point of being I say well listen even if it was fully their fault which I really doubted that it was fully their fault even if it was I might be upset and angry but I would probably realize that people just get things wrong people are not perfect and I have to wait a few more days for my medicine like big deal unless it's like life saving medicine which it wasn't but he just like went into this fury like it was incredible and again this is such a this sort of it's you know I'm not

1:00:44saying he's raging all the time and he can't deal with setbacks but what I'm saying is like underneath this surface a lot of the time it's like this dynamic of well if something goes wrong other people are at fault and other people are to blame and they're like I have the right to get angry about it or I will get angry about it and it's really what I have understand it is a lot it's like the feeling of not being in control it's like I have to depend on other people and I really don't like that so and I know that other people are not always going to pull through or more deeply actually if other people do something wrong it gives me a license to blame them and to not look at my own what I did in that situation in other words I didn't phone at the right time see that I can ignore that if the other person if I see that their person does something wrong or I imagine that they do something wrong see this seems so stupid but to the expert this is like

1:01:48an identity defining thing it's a defense mechanism okay um during a project that we were working on the expert dynamic really came to the fore not in a good way um it was it was really a failure um I remember you actually straight up lied to me during a project that we were doing about some minor detail like listen I hadn't I'd investigated some information that he was going to use to do what he was going to do for the project I know that's very vague but actually the details don't blame me it was some information it was important but again like not a huge deal and then a few weeks later after giving them that information and after like this was undeniable I gave from the information like that's how it worked I did the research and I gave them the information right he comes back to me a few weeks later and he's like I found

1:02:51this I found this amazing information that do you want to see it and like I was stunned like I just a student looked at and I was like and I don't know what I did I don't know if I pointed out to him because by now I've realized that you cannot really point these things out to him but I was stood down saying maybe you don't know maybe you don't remember the fact that I sent this to you and I said to you look at what I have found but I'm pretty sure you fucking remember and I was standing there looking at my like I was like I didn't know what to do because I was I was just shocked I was like is are you serious like is this the level of denial that you will go to to like feel that you have that you have done it all yourself you remember what I said about the expert doesn't collaborate very well and they sort of need to feel like they're the initiator and the one who gets things you know the one who gets things done this is the textbook example

1:03:57like textbook textbook example another example from this same project is that basically um he wanted to accelerate this project very quickly like in a way that was not in my plans in a way that was really not possible at the time like he wanted to go from A to Z in like six months or when we'd reach six months or even less than that was he wanted to like push it way further forward than it was like way further forward and we had to like tell him that we didn't want to do that we had to do it in such a way that he would try not to offend them and try not to tell him that he was wrong just that we didn't want to do that because he didn't fit and wow he did not like that like he really did not like the fact that we were not going to get on board with

1:04:58his idea and it was like he really resisted the decision our decision now listen I know that we all get touched about our ideas and our decisions but it was like something very expert about it was the intensity of it he was raging and he was like not curious it was like a fight that we were we didn't get into like a fight in terms of like shouting but it was like a tug of war it felt like this tug of war over this one decision that we were like so clear that we did not want to do we did not ask for and we did not want to take it and it would actually have had a very damaging probably a net negative impact on the project but he would like that one moment was very decisive and what he actually did as well he took a series of minor decisions and he acted on his own accord without our permission and which you know can be useful but the the things he was doing were

1:06:04way beyond what we needed him to be doing like they were for a project that was like five times bigger than ours we were just starting right and it was money involved and all the rest of it so like we need to think this shit through and he was like trying to push it forward trying to push it forward trying to push it forward trying to push it forward what I basically had to do at the end was I had to disable the email address that had given him for the project and I had to lie about the fact that I disabled the email address I basically had to say I think I did something like yeah the email subscription I had doesn't let me have more than X amount of email addresses or something because I knew that I could not communicate that in a way that wouldn't cause him to like go into a rage so this is it really just fits so perfectly with everything I've said above about the expert I'll switch to more positive traits now because I've been very negative about this person

1:07:07one thing I really agree about this person is they're very creative and the their their output level is very high like this person does like handy crafts on you know just as a hobby and they they've made all this stuff and like lots of people like in the family and in the friendship circle have stuff that are his um macroteque would be that he tends to produce broadly but not deeply like instead of producing one excellent thing he would rather produce five things and just accumulate output which again there is wisdom to that because when you're a creative person one of the main obstacles you'll have is procrastination so the expert is not really much for procrastination because they don't think things through and I say that in like the most neutral way possible they don't think things through they sort of think they are capable and competent whereas someone who's more

1:08:12tends to procrastination will tend to doubt themselves more the the expert doesn't do that in this person doesn't do it what I would say however is that on occasions where they really need to think things through they cannot they cannot think things through you see like if they're if they need to sit in like design a new room in their house for example something that takes time something that costs a lot of money something that is like logistically complicated and it there's like a lot of work involved they they cannot really do that very well and they will like want to skip the planning phase or they want to rush the planning phase because the real work is in getting it done right so this is one of the this is one of the trade-offs that they expert they tend towards action over planning right often I find that this person has nothing good to say about anyone like I could think of literally anyone in our family or anyone in the friendship circle and they would

1:09:15have criticized that person mercilessly in front of us I'm not joking I've literally heard him criticize pretty much everyone that I know or that we both know and it kind of makes me wonder what he says about me but that's that's a I might never find out the very rarely admit wrong doing um dialogue is often impossible because again they get he gets very defensive and like one they he just shuts down completely um you end up in existential knowledge battles over very trivial topics again things like fruit things like historical dates these things that are really quite trivial in the grand scheme of things that these these like what are what starts out as a discussion degenerates into him telling you what is supposedly true and if you don't agree with them

1:10:17he will continue to let you and if you if you do not get on board he will like get angry defensive he'll go in the half he'll cut cut the conversation down um and um you know repeat the same point endlessly and rarely alter his own point of view um and so there's like no real discussion as possible and it's one of the main frustrations I have with this person so everyone we have covered in a lot of detail the expert stage I've really encourage you to think back to when you perhaps went through the expert stage what expert traits you still have and maybe struggle to let go that also happens as we're developing through these stages that we um the the traits of the previous stages don't leave us and this can be a good thing or it can be a limiting thing you know

1:11:17you can be touch about your knowledge in a way that is quite dysfunctional and and not realize it and this may have originated way back when you were going through the expert stage of development also really encourage you to look at people around you that you're close to and maybe ask if they're centered at the expert level we all have these tendencies inside us you know we all have our tendencies to be touch here and to not like being questioned but the differences at the expert is like this defines their identity it's like one of their key traits um you know the the accumulate facts the accumulate knowledge their identities sort of depends on it and uh therefore any questioning of it um is very problematic for them okay folks we will continue on with this series on the stages of equal development next week when we speak

1:12:19about the achiever level which is just another absolutely crucial level um it's one of the most prevalent levels uh in the modern world this is deep site the deep psychology podcast where every Wednesday we get to the root of why you think feel and act as you do i'm Ross Edwards four time author and two ministerial existential coach and i will see you next Wednesday take care