If You’re an Expert, Here's Why You Should Go Back to Class
Personal Perspective: If you think you don't need to learn more, you're missing something.
Posted May 7, 2026 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Pretty recently, I completed a new coaching credential. It was a ton of work, I didn’t really want to do it, and I wasn’t convinced it would be worth my time. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I’m struck by how much I learned. Not about coaching itself, though some of that was useful, but about myself—most especially, why I resisted and what I learned when I stopped and actually leaned into the process.
The risk of expertise is that it starts to feel like a constant state
Frank Lloyd Wright said, "An expert is a man who has stopped thinking. Why should he think?” But of course, most of us don’t think of ourselves as not thinking anymore. What we do is stop questioning our thinking. The cost of having expertise is that you have a lot of confidence in what you’re doing—which can erode healthy critical evaluation of why you’re doing it.
I’ve spent about three decades advising companies on leadership , team development, and corporate culture. When I first got my Ph.D. in psychology, it was like getting drafted to the NFL. (OK, fine, not really—but you had done the hard thing, and now you were inside the club.) You put in the years (and years and years), you pass the tests, and...that's it. I participated in continuing professional education , and as an American based in the United Kingdom, I acquired some European credentials as well. But your actual process, methods, and reasons aren’t really questioned again. You’re an expert.
But I also hadn’t ever considered a coaching credential in particular because it only became “a thing” after I had finished my doctorate, but also because … I was a bit of a snob . Psychologists and coaches have historically sort of eyed each other from across the room. It's not an open feud—just different training, different frameworks. Each has value, but the approaches are different enough that coaching training felt like someone else’s classroom. But then, several fellow professional friends and colleagues and I decided we would pursue the International Coaching Federation professional certified coach (PCC) credential.
The PCC requires 500-plus hours of coaching experience. By the end of the process, I had decided to go for the master certified coach (MCC) level, which requires more than 2,500 hours. Looking back, I think it was precisely because I had that much experience that it was so difficult to really accept the value of this additional credential. But one of the first things I noticed was that the process was quite intense. The subject matter itself wasn't unfamiliar; that was manageable. But the process made me revisit the way I considered questions, how fast I sometimes processed a situation, and how quickly I moved to decisions. None of it was about being wrong or bad—I’ve spent a lot of my career in real-world, corporate environments, and adapting to those expectations is a natural evolution.
And yet, the uncomfortable (and humbling) truth was that I was recognizing what I came to think of as the “illusion of experience.” That's not to say I didn't have real, credible experience. But I had also allowed the experience to become the technique. I did things the way I'd done them for a long time. And there was usually no one in the room to challenge me (no one questioning you because no one can , turns out to be different from no one should ). It can make you a bit too secure, thinking that just because something is working right means it's still the best way to do it.
For each of us, this kind of healthy scrutiny is incredibly valuable, no matter how much of an expert we’ve become. And it’s incredibly common to overlook the value of that. Most of the others in my group also were initially pushing back on doing this (so I wasn't right, but I sure wasn't alone either). You can jump to a simple ROI lens: Why should I put myself through this? I don’t need the validation. The real insight is not what the end result gives, but instead, what the process illuminates. (Turns out that a totally different Frank Lloyd Wright quote is the one I needed: "I believe that in the search for the answer lies the answer.")
The things I ultimately kept, I felt far more confident about, because now they were tested. Maybe not perfect, but truly evaluated. And the things I did change weren't a source of defensiveness or even regret. The work was productive and informed, and I did it with a structure and rigor I'd never have designed (and to be honest, probably never could have designed) for myself. When you are forced to review your process and defend your assumptions, your perspective shifts.
Expertise is earned, but it also has to be maintained and sometimes challenged
In the end, I think the broader question might be not "What can you learn?" but "What are you afraid to learn?" What does it say when you push back on the opportunity to be evaluated? For me, the defensive posture originally was dressed up as a distinction between us and them. And I think if I do it again, I’ll try to approach it differently. A bit less fight, a touch more curiosity. Because the credential isn't the (whole) point. Being open to healthy scrutiny is a sizable part of it, too. And if you can’t answer why you’re not open to that, that’s the first question you need to answer.
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Robert Kovach, Ph.D., has spent his entire career working as a trusted advisor to senior leaders wanting to improve the effectiveness of themselves, their teams, and their companies.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.