The Questions Experts Stop Asking and Why Their Talks Need Them

The more expertise you have, the easier it is to stop being curious about your own topic. You know the common questions, the expected answers, and the examples people in your industry usually give. You may be able to explain the subject clearly and still miss the part that would make an audience lean in.

That is the problem with the curse of knowledge. Once you know something well, it becomes harder to see it with fresh eyes. A strong signature talk requires you to reopen the questions: What is surprising here? What assumption deserves to be challenged? What does my audience need? Which part of my own story shaped the way I see this?

This is something Diane Diaz, our lead speaking coach, and I see all the time in our work with clients. Accomplished women usually don’t come to us because they lack ideas or expertise. They come because they have so much knowledge that they’re too close to it. They need someone outside their industry to notice the sentence they rushed past, ask why a childhood experience matters, or see the connection between two ideas that didn’t appear related.

That is the work of human curiosity.

Why Expertise Can Make You Less Curious

When you’ve worked in an industry for years, you know the common questions. You know the expected answers. You can anticipate what your colleagues will say, which examples get used, and which approaches are considered standard.

That knowledge is valuable. It can also become what Diane calls the curse of knowledge: once something feels obvious to you, it becomes harder to see it with fresh eyes.

You may stop asking:

• Why does this matter to someone outside my field?
• What part of this would surprise my audience?
• Which assumption deserves to be questioned?
• Where does my own story connect to this idea?
• What would make someone want to keep listening?

Instead, you start giving the right answers. And a talk full of right answers can still feel flat.

Curiosity opens the talk back up. It helps you move beyond “What do I know?” to “What is interesting here, and what will help the audience see something differently?”

What Human Curiosity Finds That a Tool or Template Misses

A few weeks ago, I shared three ways AI can hurt your public speaking and three ways it can help. This conversation goes somewhere different. It is about curiosity itself: how expertise can narrow it, how another person can help reopen it, and how it changes the way you understand your audience.

AI is one useful example because it can sort material, generate possibilities, summarize information, or help you get past a blank page. But it is designed to respond to the prompt in front of it. It can simulate questions and keep a conversation going, but it does not experience the gap between what it knows and what it wants to discover. It isn’t curious about you in the way another person can be.

In our very first Thought Leader Academy group call, we ask clients what they liked to do when they were little. We ask about formative experiences in VIP Days too. Most of those stories don’t end up in the final talk. That isn’t the point.

We’re listening for what those answers reveal. What has always mattered to this person? What shaped the way she sees her work? Where is the emotion beneath the expertise? What seemingly unrelated detail could lead us toward a stronger idea?

After nearly four years of using ChatGPT, it has never spontaneously asked me what I liked to do as a little kid. A human coach may ask because she senses there is something deeper worth exploring.

Curiosity Cross-Pollinates Ideas

AI systems are very good at grouping related concepts and predicting what logically comes next. Human curiosity is often messier.

Diane described how she can start a morning walk wondering how a machine works, then look up what it costs, then follow another question that seems only loosely connected. One of those facts may come back months later when she’s working on something entirely different.

We see the same thing in client conversations. Someone casually mentions a childhood interest, a city she once lived in, or a job she had years ago. Later in the session, one of us will say, “Remember when you mentioned that? Let’s go back to it.”

The client may not understand why at first. Then the connection opens up a new path for the talk.

You can prompt AI to cross-pollinate ideas, but you have to know to ask. Human curiosity often notices the possibility before anyone knows where it will lead.

Why Speaking Formulas Don’t Produce Distinctive Talks

Some women come to us after working with a speaking coach who gave them a template to complete on their own: insert a story here, add three points there, close with a call to action.

That can look like coaching, but it often feels more like Mad Libs.

Our Signature Talk Canvas® does give a talk a narrative arc. We think intentionally about what Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3 need to accomplish so the audience has a meaningful experience. But structure is not the same as formula.

Every speaker is different. One client may open with a personal story. Another may need to release some nervous energy first, so we begin with a couple of show-of-hands questions. The content, delivery style, personality, and audience all matter.

If everyone starts with the same template and fills in the same blanks, everyone’s talk begins to sound alike. That is especially risky now, when event organizers have more speakers to choose from and audiences already have unlimited access to information.

The goal isn’t merely to complete a talk. It is to create the strongest, most engaging expression of your ideas—one that sounds like you and gives an audience a reason to choose you.

How Constraints Help You Finish a Better Talk

One of the biggest surprises in our work is that a shorter, focused process can produce a better result than months of circling the same ideas.

Our three-hour VIP Day format began by accident.

A woman contacted me early in the week and told me she needed help with a speaking engagement. I asked when the engagement was. She said Saturday.

The only opening in her schedule was Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

So we did it. In those three hours, we identified her most important content, chose the stories, decided what to leave out, and created the flow. She delivered the talk that Saturday feeling clear about what she wanted to say.

That session showed me the value of a real constraint. We didn’t have weeks to second-guess every decision. We had to focus on what mattered.

We’ve used that three-hour format hundreds of times since.

Constraint Creates Decisions

Without a boundary, you can keep searching for another option:

• Try a different opening.
• Give me five more frameworks.
• Make the title bolder.
• Reorganize the three points.
• Show me another version.

I’ve done this too, including with AI. You can go around and around until the process becomes more frustrating than useful.

A constraint forces decisions. This stays. That goes. This is the story. This is the message. This is what the audience needs.

Once the talk exists, other decisions become easier. You know how to position yourself on your speaker page, LinkedIn profile, and speaker proposals. You can describe the talk clearly when you pitch it. You can become more confident about your speaking fees because you understand what you’re offering.

Those assets should come downstream from a clear, coherent thought leadership message. If you ask AI to create all the promotional materials before you know what makes your idea distinctive, you may end up with a lot of polished copy built on a message that still isn’t clear.

How Much Preparation Do You Really Need?

Probably less than you think.

I often talk with prospective clients who say they aren’t ready for a VIP Day because they need to prepare their presentation, research more, organize their past materials, or start building slides.

Here’s what I tell them: if you’re an accomplished woman with real experience in your career, business, or industry, you already have what we need. You could show up tomorrow with no slides and no polished outline.

Our job is to bring curiosity, ask the right questions, identify the strongest ideas and stories, and do the heavy lifting of shaping them into a complete talk.

We don’t need to become experts in your industry first. In fact, being outside your field helps us hear your ideas the way an audience member might. We’ve worked with topics ranging from wellness coaching and pharmacy to nuclear engineering. The subject matter changes. The work of finding the compelling idea, story, and audience journey is what our experience has trained us to do.

The Three Directions of Curiosity Every Speaker Needs

Toward the end of our conversation, Diane and I realized there are three directions of curiosity involved in creating an effective talk.

1. A Coach’s Curiosity About You

You’re often too close to your own thinking to recognize what is unusual or compelling. A skilled coach listens without assuming she already knows the answer.

She asks about your experiences, motivations, contradictions, and stories. She notices what you say in passing. She remembers a detail and brings it back when a connection begins to form.

That curiosity helps uncover the point of view beneath the topic.

2. Your Curiosity About Your Audience

The Expert Trap makes us hold tightly to what we want to share. We know so much, care deeply about the subject, and want the audience to understand all of it.

But a talk is not only about what you want to say. It is also about what the audience needs.

Ask:

• What are they dealing with right now?
• Where are they stuck?
• What do they already know?
• What are they assuming that may not be true?
• What do they want to understand about themselves?
• Where do they want to go after this talk?

Curiosity about the audience helps you decide what belongs in the talk and what doesn’t.

3. The Audience’s Curiosity About You and Your Message

Your audience can get information from Google, ChatGPT, Claude, books, and dozens of other sources. They aren’t coming to you only for facts.

They want to understand how you see the subject. They want to know what shaped you, why you care, and what your experience has taught you. That is why personal stories matter when they are relevant to the message.

You don’t have to reveal everything about yourself. You do need to give the audience enough of you to create connection and curiosity.

The same is true of humor. Humor often comes from looking at an ordinary situation from a slightly unexpected angle. Diane gave the example of breaking down a familiar football play into its most literal actions until the whole thing suddenly sounds ridiculous. Curiosity allows you to notice what is odd, surprising, or funny about something everyone else takes for granted.

AI can generate jokes. It is much less reliable at finding the humor that feels natural to your personality and your lived experience.

What Library Stacks Teach Us About Better Ideas

Diane shared a visual I keep thinking about.

Some libraries are removing the open stacks and putting books into an automated storage system. You request an exact title, and the system retrieves that book for you. Efficient, yes.

But you lose the experience of wandering through the shelves.

You no longer search for one book, flip through it, notice it isn’t quite what you need, then spot another title beside it. You don’t follow a citation into a different section or discover something you didn’t know to request.

AI and social media algorithms can work like the automated retrieval system. They give you more of what you asked for and more of what you already seem to like.

Human curiosity lets you browse the stacks.

For a speaker, that is an opportunity. While other talks remain in the same homogeneous zone of information, you can look for the unexpected connection. You can bring in the personal story, the surprising observation, the moment of humor, or the idea from another field that makes the audience lean in.

That is how your expertise becomes thought leadership.

A Curiosity Checklist for Your Next Talk

Before you finalize your next presentation, ask yourself:

• Am I sharing only what I know, or have I looked for what is genuinely interesting?
• What part of this topic still makes me curious?
• Which story or experience shaped my point of view?
• What does my audience need—not just what do I want to tell them?
• Where might the audience want to know more about me?
• What unexpected connection could make this idea more memorable?
• Have I set a real constraint so I can make decisions and finish?
• Am I using AI to support my thinking, or am I letting it replace the human conversation that the work needs?

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I make an expert presentation more interesting?

Start by looking beyond the information you want to cover. Ask what would surprise the audience, which assumption deserves to be challenged, where your personal point of view comes from, and what your listeners need to understand about themselves. A relevant story, unexpected connection, or moment of humor can make the expertise easier to care about and remember.

What is the curse of knowledge in public speaking?

The curse of knowledge happens when your familiarity with a subject makes it hard to remember what is new, confusing, or interesting to someone else. It can lead you to over-explain technical details, skip context the audience needs, or miss the idea that would create the strongest connection.

Why is curiosity important in public speaking?

Curiosity helps a speaker uncover a more original idea, understand what the audience needs, and create interest through stories, questions, humor, and unexpected connections. It moves a talk beyond information delivery and toward a meaningful audience experience.

Do I need to prepare before working with a speaking coach?

You do not need a finished outline or slide deck. If you have real experience and ideas, a skilled coach can ask questions, identify the strongest material, and help shape it into a coherent talk. Too much preparation can sometimes lock you into a direction before you have explored the better possibilities.

Why can a time constraint improve a presentation?

A clear time boundary forces you to prioritize, make decisions, and stop endlessly revising. It helps you choose the central message, strongest stories, and most useful audience takeaways so you can finish the talk and begin using it.

Your Talk Needs More Than the Right Answer

Your best signature talk probably won’t come from having more answers. It will come from asking better questions, following the unexpected thread, and having someone listen closely enough to notice what you’re too close to see.

If you want our help clarifying your thought leadership message, creating your signature talk, and building the business of speaking around it, schedule a consultation call. We’ll talk about your goals, answer your questions, and help you decide which of our programs is the best fit.

Listen to Episode 482: The Curiosity Advantage: What Makes a Signature Talk Worth Hearing