I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the habits that got us here. The ways we’ve learned to think, decide, build, and grow. For a long time, they worked brilliantly. They were optimised for a world that felt relatively stable, predictable, and steadily improving. You put in the effort, you got a bit better each year, and the future looked like a slightly upgraded version of the present. That was the game. But what I’m seeing now, and what I’m feeling myself, is that those same habits are being stress-tested by a very different world. And in many cases, they’re starting to fail us.
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That led me to this idea of UnMastery. Most of what we see out there in the world of learning is about mastery. Becoming better at what you already do. Sharpening your strengths. Optimising your current identity. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it assumes the game hasn’t changed. UnMastery is different. It’s the willingness to consciously retire ways of thinking and operating that once worked, but no longer fit the world as it is now. Not because they were wrong, but because the context has shifted.
I’ve been working with a group of people globally over the past decade, mapping what’s actually happening beneath the surface. The conclusion is pretty clear. We’re not in a simple period of change. We’re in a period of disruption on multiple fronts at once. Social, technological, economic, political, ecological, and increasingly psychological. I sometimes describe them as waves, or even tsunamis, because they don’t arrive neatly one at a time. They overlap, compound, and create a level of uncertainty that most of us haven’t been trained for.
What’s fascinating is that when you look at people with similar intelligence, experience, and resources, they’re getting wildly different outcomes. Some are energised, adaptive, and quietly confident. Others feel stuck, overwhelmed, and reactive. It’s not about effort. It’s not even about knowledge. It’s about alignment. Alignment with how the world actually is, not how it used to be.
One of the biggest shifts I’ve noticed is in the stories we tell ourselves. We all run on a set of internal narratives. Our past story, which explains how we got here. Our present story, which defines the resources and constraints we believe we have. Our future story, which gives us direction and motivation. And the gap story, which is how we think we get from here to there. The interesting part is that most of these stories are outdated, or at least incomplete.
I was speaking with someone recently who had carried a belief from childhood that they weren’t wanted. It shaped decades of behaviour, decisions, and identity. Yet when we explored it, it became clear that the story itself was an interpretation, not an objective truth. That’s the thing about our past. The way we remember it is already a construction. Which means we have more agency than we think to reshape it in a way that actually serves us now.
Here’s what changed for me. Instead of starting from what’s broken or what went wrong, I start from the idea that I am already the best possible version of myself, given everything that has happened. Not perfect, not complete, but the best possible version so far. That small shift removes a lot of friction. It creates space to build forward rather than constantly trying to fix backward.
Another big realisation has been around wealth. For decades, most of us have been operating under the assumption that money is the primary form of wealth, and that if we accumulate enough of it, it will buy everything else. I don’t see that holding up anymore. There are many forms of wealth that matter just as much, if not more. Health, relationships, meaning, contribution, community. When we focus only on financial outcomes, we often find ourselves successful on paper but empty in practice.
I’ve also become increasingly convinced that the idea of the individual going it alone is outdated. The future is far more tribal. Not in a superficial networking sense, but in a genuine sense of shared resources, shared thinking, and shared growth. A well-aligned group of people can achieve far more together than any one person can alone. I’ve seen it firsthand. When you get the right mix of people, the right level of trust, and a willingness to share, things start to move at a completely different pace.
Of course, this all sounds quite big, and it is. But the starting point is surprisingly simple. Choose one thing. Not ten, not a complete overhaul of your life. Just one pattern, one belief, one way of operating that you suspect no longer serves you. Get curious about it. Why did it work before? Why might it not work now? And what could replace it that is more fit for the world you’re actually in?
I often get asked where to begin, and my answer is usually the same. Start with your past story. Not to analyse it endlessly, but to reframe it. If you can shift the way you interpret your past, you change the resources you believe you have in the present, which in turn changes the future you think is possible. It’s not linear, it’s messy, and it loops back on itself constantly. But that’s the nature of this kind of work.
The other question I keep coming back to is this. What kind of person do I need to become to not just survive, but actually thrive in what’s coming? Not in a vague, motivational sense, but in a practical, grounded way. What needs to be let go of? What needs to be developed? And who do I need around me to make that possible?
I don’t think this is about burning everything down and starting again. It’s about being intentional. Choosing what to carry forward and what to retire. Moving from reacting to what’s happening, to actively shaping how we respond to it. There’s a calmness that comes with that. A sense of agency, even in the middle of uncertainty.
If any of this has been sitting in the back of your mind lately, you’re not alone. A lot of people are feeling it, even if they can’t quite articulate it yet. My encouragement would be simple. Don’t try to solve everything at once. Pick one lever. Explore it. Test it over the next week. See what shifts.
And if this struck a chord, let’s continue the conversation. Grab a coffee, come along to a Masterclass, or just reach out. These are the kinds of discussions that are far better had together than alone.