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This, then that.
Every Tuesday, The Productive Disruptive delivers storytelling science, message makeovers, cultural commentary, and a little rebellious hope for anyone still stubborn enough to believe communication can change the world.
Dorian Johnson
December 02, 2025
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People in public health and/or academia loooove starting with a term.
“Social determinants of health…”
“Structural racism…”
“The built environment…”
They’re needed.
Very important.
But please, always remember this friend.
The public? They are not at your academic symposium.
They’re just trying to live, work, breathe, and make it through Tuesday.
This is a communication gap that is a lil bitter pill to swallow.
If you’ve ever said something like this to a non-expert crowd…
“Recent evidence indicates population-level disparities are mediated by upstream, multilevel contextual factors…”
See?
You stopped listening halfway through that sentence.
Your spirit left your body for a second.
That moment you just had
that tiny internal “ugh…” in your mind.
You on chapter 10 when others didn’t even open the first page.
There’s a name for that.
It’s the curse of knowledge.
The curse of knowledge is basically your brain turning into a know-it-all.
You get so familiar with a topic that you can’t imagine not knowing it,
so you start explaining things in expert mode while everyone else is like, “???”
And it shows up in your storytelling.
It makes you explain the world the way your grad program trained you,
not the way real people actually experience life.
And this matters, because in communication?
Sequence is key.
If you start with the term, your audience has to run a mental treadmill to reach the meaning.
But if you start with the lived moment
The meaning walks right up to them.
So try this simple shift.
Start with the story. Capture the unwanted experiences of your people.
Then name the thing.
Remember the terms that opened up the issue?
Ever watch someone try their hardest to “be healthy,” but the world around them keeps stacking obstacles? Groceries too expensive, jobs out of reach without degrees, a two-bus trip to a doctor with no openings?
There’s a name for that, where life conditions that shape health long before a doctor ever gets involved. Social Determinants of Health.
When you start with the experience, people feel the truth before you ever say the term.
When you start with the term, they have to work to understand why it matters.
So reverse the order.
🧠 Story Science Side Note: Cognitive load theory says people can only process so much at once before diminshing returns.
Explaining something jargony out the gate runs the risk of maxing out their bandwidth before the learning happens.
When you open with something their brain already understands, you save the bandwidth for the meaning.
📝 Message Makeover:
Before: You drop the concept first and everyone emotionally checks out.
After: You start with the feeling or experience they’re familiar with and then you reveal the term.
Data isn’t the problem. The order is.
🛠️ The PHacilitator’s Corner:
Choose one term you catch yourself starting with that a non-expert may not understand.
Write one sentence that paints the lived moment(feel free to write more, but you need to start with one).
Keep it concrete. Keep it human. No jargon.
Add one sentence that names the concept.
Start with the story.
Then name the thing.
You can beat the curse of knowledge!
Rockin and rollin’