The five stages of adult development

✌️ It’s us, back with the… you guessed it… Medium Newsletter
Issue #193: the nebulous definition of “community” and simplicity vs. fanciness
By Harris Sockel

Every month-ish, I find a story lying around in the Medium archive that (a) relatively few people have found, and (b) gives me words for something I felt but couldn’t name.

Enter: a three-part series by Natali Mallel (Morad) on the meaning of being an adult. It’s based on the research of psychologist Robert Kegan at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who found that humans tend to progress through five stages of development:

• Stage 1: Impulsive mind (early childhood, few adults)
• Stage 2: Imperial mind (adolescence, 6% of adults)
• Stage 3: Socialized mind (58% of adults)
• Stage 4: Self-authoring mind (35% of adults)
• Stage 5: Self-transforming mind (1% of adults)

It’s common to imagine kids going through developmental phases (my friends with toddlers anxiously await the end of the “terrible twos”!) but less common to think of adults doing the same.

Let me rephrase that. As adults, we often view life as a path in which we unlock new skills and opportunities, deepening our mastery along the way. That’s different from Kegan’s theory, in which how you see yourself radically changes as you grow.

Stage 3 is your typical socialized adult who makes decisions based on what’s conventionally appropriate. You identify with your role, relationships, and community. At Stage 4, you question conventions and your community. As you ascend toward Stage 5, you begin to accept (or even enjoy) the inherent blurriness of your identity and life itself. You can step outside of yourself and imagine all the paths you might take, all the people you might become. Realizations include:

• Nothing is black or white. (“I’m not ‘smart.’ I’m smart in some situations and stupid in others.”)
• You can question both authority and yourself.
• You embrace paradox.

When I first read about the “self-transforming mind” it felt scary to me. So malleable! So unstable! But Kegan thinks of it more as radical self-awareness.

One practical tip to approach Stage Five-dom: If you feel conflicted about something (say, a career move), sit in a chair and set out chairs for all the different versions of you — the fearful you, the angry you, the ambitious you. Sit in each chair and say what you’re afraid, angry, or excited about. It seems silly but will help train your brain to do the same thing internally.

One more story: on community

Every startup is “doing community” in the Year of Our Lord 2024. Discord. Patreon. Substack. Even OpenAI is hiring a community team. The word “community” feels buzzword-y to me, but behind every buzzword is an important idea.

Fabian Pfortmüller, cofounder of the Together Institute, articulates this better than I can: Community has a definition problem. It’s overused. It’s vague. Even the dictionary definition is too diffuse, ranging from “people who live in the same place” to “people who share common goals.” Pfortmüller proposes a new, simpler definition: “Community = a group of people that care about each other and feel they belong together.”

When a brand or influencer tells you to “join their community,” they’re probably lying — unless literally all their followers care about each other and feel like a cohesive unit.

Your daily dose of practical wisdom

Fancy is easy. Simple is hard.

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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