The more something is your area of expertise, the harder it is to become aware of what novices or the general public know about that thing. If you’re a cardiologist, it can be really easy to forget just how little the average person knows about heart health. It’s not “very little.” It’s “worse than nothing; almost everything they think they know is wrong.”
That’s the default for most areas of expertise. That’s just the nature of knowledge and mastery. But if your job is to teach, inform, or interact with novices within your sphere of genius, then it’s really important for you to check in now and then on the state of general knowledge.
For example, if you’re not just a cardiologist, but a professor of cardiology at a medical school, then it’s pretty important that you understand where people are when they first come through your doors. If you assume that they all have even 20% of your knowledge, then you’re going to be teaching in a very ineffective way, because you’ll be trying to build on foundational knowledge that isn’t there.
Every now and then (at least a few times per year!), have a chat about your area of expertise with a few people who have no formal exposure to it at all. Listen without judgement. Take stock of what small bits of knowledge could have the most impact. But never lose sight of how deep you are in the rabbit hole when you’re trying to give directions to people on the surface.
The Opportunity Machine 