Did you see my post a couple of weeks ago about finally getting round to starting an online course?
I had a brilliant response both to my newsletter and the blog post itself, with lots of positive encouragement and good vibes, and you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve stuck to my word and am getting on with creating content, slowly, but surely.
It’s been a big learning curve and it’s continuing to be so, but that’s to be expected with something that’s completely new to me. I also have to keep reminding myself about one important thing that we all possess – the curse of knowledge!
We all have the curse of knowledge…
I’ve been starting to put together content for my course and am testing it on a handful of people and so far I’m getting some very useful feedback which is very helpful. I do have to keep reminding myself that I know what I’m talking about, mind you, as I am often plagued by that inner voice of doubt.
Do you ever get this feeling? You’ve been doing whatever you specialise in for so long that you think, oh well, anybody could turn their hand to this, so why on earth would anyone want to hire me/buy my product/listen to what I have to say (delete as applicable!)?!?
What, you too? I thought I was the only one!
Wikipedia defines the phrase thus:
“The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that leads better-informed parties to find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed parties”.
In layman’s terms this pretty much means that if you’re good at something – whether that be a product, a service or a talent you have like singing or playing a sport, for example – you sometimes forget that other people are not similarly blessed and you assume they know what you know. In business this means that they might actually need your help with whatever it is you’re good at!
Isn’t it so easy to forget about what you’re good at? I always used to assume in a sort of subconscious way that surely everybody could touch type, but of course not everybody can. I also assumed that everybody knew what transcription was, but I’m still sometimes met with a blank stare.
My course
As far as my developing course is concerned, it’s easy to assume that everybody finds it simple and straightforward to put a sentence together, when sometimes it can feel like the hardest thing in the world. Some people feel more comfortable articulating themselves verbally, I feel more comfortable getting the words down on paper.
So, what’s your curse of knowledge? What are you good at and how can you help other people by using your unique talents?
I’d love to know, so please comment below, and I’ll continue to keep you posted on how the course is getting on!