How to kill your Curse of Knowledge?

Before it kills your revenue

You are playing dumb charades with your friends. It’s your turn to act and you get the name of a very simple but famous movie. You are so confident that you will be able to pull it off in seconds.

You start with easy clues hoping it will be a no-brainer for your partner. Sadly, he looks clueless. You bring in your A-game now and yet you lose because your friend could not guess the ultra-simple movie title.

At least that’s what your brain is trained to think. If something is super easy for you, it must be the same for everyone. This is a well-known cognitive bias called the Curse of Knowledge.

Once we know something, it is hard to imagine not knowing it.

Let’s look at another example.

You are a freelancer. You are meeting an owner of the restaurant who needs your help with social media marketing.

You have prepared a sales deck outlining your offerings, how you are different from your competition and your certifications establishing your authority.

As you are navigating through your presentation, you get the feeling that the prospect is not very interested in the deck.