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You explained it carefully. You chose your words. You went slowly.
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You carefully explained it. You checked whether they were following.
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And at the end, they nodded. And they repeated back
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something completely different from what you said. Not the opposite,
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just different. As if your explanation had gone into their
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head and come out rearranged. And you were standing there thinking,
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how is that possible? I was so clear. Welcome to
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Before You Overthink It Again. I am Logan. Today we
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are talking about the curse of knowledge, and about why
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being clear is not the same as being understood. Here
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is the question. Why does explaining something clearly still end
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in misunderstanding? You did everything right, you were patient, you
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were precise, you used plain language, and the other person
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still heard something else. Did they not listen? Did you
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not explain well enough? Or is something else going on,
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something that has nothing to do with effort on either side?
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Something else is going and it has a name worth knowing,
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the curse of knowledge. It was demonstrated in a study
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by Kammerer, Lowenstein, and Weber in the late 1980s, and
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it describes a very simple problem. Once you know something,
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it is hard to imagine not knowing it. The knowledge
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sits in your head, and it colors everything you say
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about the topic, and you cannot take it out again,
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even when you try. You explain from inside your own understanding,
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skipping steps that feel obvious to you, using words that
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carry a full meaning for you, and assuming the other
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person is starting from the same place you are. They
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are not. They are starting from somewhere else entirely, and
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the gap between the two starting points is where the
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misunderstanding lives. There is a famous demonstration of this, and
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it is worth hearing in full, because it is almost
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comically clear. In 1990, a researcher named Elizabeth Newton ran
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an experiment with tappers and listeners. One person, the tapper,
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was given a well-known tune, something like Happy Birthday, and
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asked to tap it out on a table. The other person,
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the listener, had to guess the tune from the tapping.
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Before they started, the tappers were asked to predict how
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often the listeners would guess correctly. The tappers guessed about
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half the time. In fact, the listeners guessed correctly only
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about one time in 40. The tappers were not being arrogant.
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They were hearing the tune in their heads, full and rich,
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while they tapped, and they could not imagine what the
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tapping sounded like to someone who did not already know
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the song. To the tapper, the tapping was obviously the tune.
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To the listener, it was a series of knocks with
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no melody in them at all. The knowledge of the
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tune made it impossible to hear the tapping the way
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the listener heard it. And that is the curse. You
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cannot unhear what you know. Now apply that to your explanation.
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You know the background. You know the context. You know
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why this matters and what the words mean. And as
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you explain, you hear all of that in your head,
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the way the tapper hears the tune. The other person
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hears only the tapping. They hear the words. But they
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do not hear the background, because the background is in
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your head, not in the words. And the more expert
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you are, the worse this gets, because the more you know,
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the more background there is, and the harder it is
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to remember what it was like not to have it.
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The people who are worst at explaining something are often
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the people who know it best. Not because they are
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bad teachers, because they are cursed by their own knowledge.
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There is a second layer here, and it is on
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the listener's side. Listeners nod. They nod because they recognize
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the words, not because they follow the logic. They nod
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because nodding is polite, and because saying, I do not understand,
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feels like
Load full transcript
an admission, and because the explainer seems confident,
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and confidence is persuasive. So the explainer sees the nodding
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and concludes the explanation worked, and the listener, having nodded,
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now has to live with a version of the idea
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that is not quite the idea, and the next time
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they use it, they will use the rearranged version, and
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the rearrangement will travel further, until no one remembers what
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the original... The nod is the enemy of understanding, and
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it is also the most common sound in any conversation.
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And there is a third layer, which is about words themselves.
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In arguments, two people will use the same word and
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mean completely different things by it.
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It is a broken word phrase
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based on Japanese word, which is intended to mean great word.
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It is a word phrase used in English accent to
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describe something briefly brashed. We simply want to know what
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words we're talking about. We just want to know what
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words we're talking about. We don't care about words if
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we care about words working. The twist is a broken
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word phrase referred to a relationship of words. Every time
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we talk about words, we wonder if we know what
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words we're talking about. We just want to know what
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words we're talking about. We don't care about words if
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we care about words working. The twist is a broken
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word phrase referred to a relationship commitment. Each person hears
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their own meaning in the word and assumes the other
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person hears the same meaning, and they argue for an
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hour about a word they are not actually sharing. The
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curse of knowledge is not only about facts. It is
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about meanings, and meanings are private until someone checks them.
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So what do people commonly misunderstand here? They think that
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if they explain it well enough, the other person will
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get it. But understanding is not transmitted. It is constructed.
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The listener builds their understanding from their own background, their
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own experience, their own starting point. You cannot pour your
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understanding into their head. You can only help them build
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their own. And there is a second misunderstanding, which is
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that the other person was not listening. Often they were
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listening very carefully. They were just building a different building
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from the same bricks because their bricks were different. The
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misunderstanding is not a failure of attention. It is a
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failure of shared ground. There is a distinction worth making
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between clarity and shared ground. Clarity is about your words.
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Shared ground is about where you start. You can be
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perfectly clear and still start from the wrong place, if
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you start from what you know instead of what they know.
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The question that builds shared ground is not, do you understand?
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Because everyone says yes to that. The question is, what
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do you already know about this? Or, could you explain
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it back to me in your own words? The second
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question is the real test. because it shows you what
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they actually built, not what they nodded at. And there
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is a second part to the distinction, which is about examples.
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Concrete examples before abstract terms. Show them the thing, and
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then name it, not the other way around. A name
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without an example is just a sound. An example without
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a name is a story they can hold onto. There
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is a practical step here, and it starts before you
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explain anything. Ask where they are starting from. What do
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you already know about this? What have you heard? What
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does this word mean to you? Those three questions take
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30 seconds, and they save you from explaining the wrong
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thing to the wrong starting point. And then, while you explain,
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watch for the nod that comes too fast. A nod
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that arrives before you have finished the sentence is not understanding.
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It is politeness. Slow down. Ask them to say it back.
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And if what comes back is different from what you said,
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do not repeat yourself louder. Repeat yourself from their starting point.
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with their words, with an example from their world. Here's
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the sentence I want you to keep from this episode,
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because it is short enough to use the next time
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an explanation goes sideways. You cannot pour your understanding into
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someone else's head. You can only help them build their own.
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The building takes time. It takes questions. It takes examples.
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And it takes the humility to remember that what is
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obvious to you is not obvious to everyone. Not because
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they are slow, but because they have not lived inside
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your knowledge the way you have. So, back to the explanation.
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You were careful. You were slow. You chose your words.
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And they nodded, and they repeated back something different, and
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you were wondering how that is possible. It is possible
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because you were hearing the tune while you tapped, and
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they were hearing only the tapping. That is not a
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failure of clarity, and it is not a failure of listening.
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It is the curse of knowledge, doing its ordinary work.
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Next time, start from their side. Ask what they already know.
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Ask them to say it back, and build the bridge
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from where they are standing, not from where you are.
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The understanding will still take time, but this time, it
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will be built on shared ground, and shared ground is
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the only ground that holds.