---
title: The One Who Conveys (2) — It Only Arrives If It's Simple: The Curse of Expertise
url: https://oosioo.com/en/p/%EC%A0%84%EB%8B%AC%ED%95%98%EB%8A%94-%EC%82%AC%EB%9E%8C-2-%EC%89%AC%EC%9B%8C%EC%95%BC-%EB%8F%84%EC%B0%A9%ED%95%9C%EB%8B%A4-%EC%A0%84%EB%AC%B8%EA%B0%80%EC%9D%98-%EC%A0%80%EC%A3%BC
date: 2026-10-04T09:08:28+00:00
author: SYSOP
summary: Those who know something can no longer picture the mind of someone who doesn't. Here's how to move past the curse of expertise and translate into the listener's language instead of your own.
---
# The One Who Conveys (2) — It Only Arrives If It's Simple: The Curse of Expertise

There's a reason communication so often fails. Once you know something, you lose the ability to picture the mind of someone who doesn't. This is called the "curse of knowledge."

## The Tapper and the Listener

In 1990, Stanford ran an experiment. One person tapped out the rhythm of a well-known song on a table with their fingers, and another person had to guess the song. The tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time. The actual success rate was 2.5 percent — three songs out of 120. Inside the tapper's head, the melody rings out clearly, but to the listener it's just a series of taps. That's how deep the gap runs between the person who knows and the person who doesn't.

![The gap between the melody inside the tapper's head and the sound reaching the listener's ear, 50% expected versus 2.5% actual](/uploads/9964a9c5a660ac96.webp =720)

Engineers fall into this trap all the time. They explain what they know in their own language. In front of investors, they say, "This model uses this algorithm to raise accuracy by 15%." Among engineers, that's an impressive explanation. But the investor pauses, then asks, "So what does that mean for the customer?" The same point needed to become: "A task that used to take users two hours now takes five minutes." Only then did they nod.

## Rubber Dipped in Ice Water

In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. At the investigation hearing, physicist Richard Feynman skipped the complex materials science and instead dipped a piece of rubber O-ring into a glass of ice water and pulled it out. The chilled rubber had lost its elasticity and wouldn't spring back. In a matter of seconds, with not a single equation, the entire country understood that the seal failed in cold temperatures. Statistician Hans Rosling turned lifeless UN statistics into moving bubble charts, presenting the world's changes like a sports broadcast. On one occasion, he brought a washing machine onto the stage and explained that the time it gave back to women was, in effect, the freedom to read and to learn. He translated statistics into scenes from life rather than numbers. Both share one thing in common: they translated not into their own language, but into the listener's.

![Illustration of Feynman's demonstration showing the difference in rubber elasticity at room temperature versus after ice water](/uploads/dc932555ded31410.webp =720)

Government administration is no different. When the Seoul city government was deciding on late-night bus routes, it analyzed billions of late-night phone call records and late-night taxi data to map out "where is there demand at night." Instead of vague claims, it translated the need into evidence citizens could accept. The routes were placed where the data pointed, and satisfaction with the first two routes came in near 90 percent.

| Situation | Own language (doesn't land) | Listener's language (arrives) |
|---|---|---|
| Tech pitch | Algorithm, 15% accuracy | Two-hour task down to five minutes |
| Statistics | UN spreadsheet | Moving bubble chart |
| Government | "We need a late-night bus" | Route pointed to by call and taxi data |

This curse isn't unique to experts. The same thing happens every time a doctor explains something to a patient, a lawyer to a client, a developer to a boss. What takes just one word for someone who knows sounds like a foreign language to someone who doesn't. That's why a good communicator always asks themselves: "Back when I didn't know this yet, what was I most curious about?" Only the person who returns to that starting point and begins the explanation from there actually reaches the other person.

The key is that it has to be simple to arrive. Difficult words stay locked inside the speaker's own head. Communication only happens once it reaches the listener.

In the next piece, I'll turn the direction of communication around and talk about giving work a sense of "meaning."