You're Smart. But Are You Good at Communicating?

You can be smart and still be bad at communicating.

I see this with experts all the time. The more you know, the easier it
is to forget what it's like not to know it.

I have a financial adviser in The Trusted Voice community who's also an
accountant. He knows his field and wants to help his clients make better
decisions about their wealth.

When we first started working together, I noticed he used a lot of big
words: financial jargon, accounting terminology and language that made
perfect sense if you worked in finance.

Sometimes I wondered if he did it intentionally. 😂

Nope. That's just how he talks.

Without realising it, he was talking to clients as though they were his
peers. But not every client has high financial literacy.

Once we realised that, the goal wasn't to make him sound less
intelligent. It was to translate what he knew into language his clients
could understand.

His expertise didn't change. The way he communicated it did.

Your audience shouldn't need your expertise to understand you

A financial adviser says "asset allocation." A marketer says "conversion
attribution." Someone in AI talks about "LLM inference."

The people in our industries probably understand us. The client might be
thinking: What does that mean for me?

That doesn't mean your audience isn't smart. They simply don't have the
same expertise you have. That's probably one reason they're coming to
you.

Understanding who you want in your
audience
matters because the way you explain something to another accountant
isn't necessarily how you'd explain it to a business owner.

Big words don't prove you're an expert

If you understand something, you should be able to explain it in more
than one way: the technical version to a peer, the practical version to
a client and the simple version to someone encountering it for the first
time.

That's not dumbing down your expertise. That's knowing how to
communicate it.

The curse of knowledge

Once we know something, it can become hard to imagine what it was like
before we knew it. We skip steps, use acronyms and assume background
knowledge.

This is a documented phenomenon called the curse of
knowledge — a bias
first identified by economists Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein and
Martin Weber, where better-informed people struggle to imagine what it's
like not to have that information.

Maybe your content isn't boring. Maybe it's going over people's
heads.

The Expert Translation Test

SAY IT

Would my client use this language? Translate jargon before
introducing technical terminology.

KNOW IT

Am I assuming knowledge they don't have? Look for acronyms, skipped
steps and things that feel obvious only because you've done this for
years.

CARE

Have I explained why this matters to them? Bring the idea back to
the decision, problem or outcome they care about.

SHOW IT

Can I give them a concrete example? Examples often communicate
expertise better than another paragraph of explanation.

Potential graphic: SAY IT → KNOW IT → CARE → SHOW IT

Simple doesn't mean simplistic

Finance, law and technology can be complicated. Sometimes nuance
matters, and simplifying too far makes something inaccurate.

Good communication doesn't remove complexity where complexity matters.
It helps someone understand it without requiring them to become an
expert first.

Being understood is an authority skill

We associate authority with qualifications, experience and technical
knowledge. All of that matters.

But can you make what you know useful to somebody else?

That's also why clear positioning
matters.

The best experts can take something complicated and help you understand
why it matters.

So don't worry so much about whether you sound smart. Ask:

Will the person I'm trying to help understand me?

Being an expert is one skill. Making your expertise understood is
another. If you want a starting framework for putting what you know
into words without lecturing anyone, see how to share your expertise on
LinkedIn without sounding like a
know-it-all.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the curse of knowledge?

The curse of knowledge is a documented cognitive bias, first identified by economists Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein and Martin Weber, where people who understand something well struggle to imagine what it's like not to know it. It leads experts to skip steps, use jargon and assume background knowledge their audience doesn't have.

How do I stop using jargon with clients?

Run what you're about to say through the Expert Translation Test: check whether your client would actually use that language, whether you're assuming knowledge they don't have, whether you've explained why it matters to them, and whether you can give them a concrete example instead of more explanation.

Does simplifying my language make me sound less like an expert?

No. Being able to explain something in more than one way, technical to a peer and simple to a first-timer, is a sign you understand it deeply. Big words don't prove expertise; being understood does.

What is the Expert Translation Test?

It's a four-part check for explaining expertise clearly: SAY IT (would my client use this language?), KNOW IT (am I assuming knowledge they don't have?), CARE (have I explained why this matters to them?), and SHOW IT (can I give them a concrete example?).

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