We live in an age where confidence often passes for competence. When someone speaks with authority — especially a respected leader or familiar voice — we rarely pause to ask how deeply they actually understand what they’re talking about.

We also live in a culture that rewards sounding smart. Yet we don’t always stop to ask: how much thinking really happened before the speaking began?

Physicist Richard Feynman once said,

There’s a huge difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

So much of what we call knowledge today is really recognition and repetition…not understanding — a collection of words, labels, and opinions we’ve learned to regurgitate without reflection.

It shows up everywhere: in organizations, in conversations, in leadership.
A story forms, a few details emerge, and before long the space between what we know and what we assume gets quietly filled in.

Those assumptions, repeated often enough, start to sound like facts.
And that’s how narratives harden — not because truth was proven, but because emotion cemented and locked it in as evidence.

Here’s what often hides beneath the surface when assumptions dress up as facts:

1. Assumptions about Roles and Responsibility

• That someone’s title automatically makes them responsible for every outcome.
• That expertise equals authority — or worse, control.
• That one person could (or should) prevent complex systems from failing.

2. Assumptions about Influence

• That every professional relationship implies direct power or decision-making rights.
• That being compensated for one thing means accountability for everything.
• That the presence of expertise guarantees the acceptance of advice.

3. Assumptions about Accountability

• That a single voice can correct collective dysfunction.
• That visible missteps are proof of invisible incompetence.
• That complexity always has a single point of failure.

4. Assumptions about Systems and Conduct

• That inconsistency equals chaos.
• That disagreement means disunity.
• That leadership, communication, and trust are simple cause-and-effect chains.

5. Assumptions about Credibility

• That what’s loudest is what’s true.
• That repetition equals verification.
• That we can outsource discernment to the platforms we prefer.

When emotion runs high, these assumptions spread fast — persuasive, viral, and often unexamined. That’s how misinformation grows: not through deliberate deceit, but through unquestioned certainty.

The Blank Page Test

Inspired by Richard Feynman’s learning method of breaking down ideas by writing them out, the ‘Blank Page Test’ asks whether you can explain something clearly on a blank sheet before you claim to understand it.

To check the difference between what you know and what you suggests you might know something about:

Grab a blank page. Explain the concept, idea, or system you talk about most — in plain language, without slides, notes, or buzzwords.

If you can’t do it clearly, you’ve reached the edge of your real understanding.

Feynman’s reminder stands: knowing about something isn’t the same as knowing it. The blank page reveals if you actual know and understand something or if you don’t.

When we repeat or regurgitate information while positioning ourselves as “knowing,” we start to build a fragile identity around performance. And when that performance is questioned, defensiveness usually follows — sometimes even rudeness or disrespect.

If we keep practicing the habit of speaking on subjects we barely understand, we end up feeding our own insecurity. That’s how impostor syndrome grows — not from ignorance, but from pretending to know.

True confidence doesn’t need volume or validation. It comes from the calm that follows real understanding — when you’ve done the work, clarified the thought, and can stand behind what you say without disturbance, when someone challenges you.

Strategic Reflection Prompt:

1. Where in your life or work are you performing understanding instead of practicing it?
2. Take one idea, system, or belief you often reference — and give it the Blank Page Test. What remains when you remove the props and write from knowing and not simply repeating what you’ve heard?

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — writer, possibility thinker, musician, Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, and MCODE Legacy Coach. I help leaders and soul-driven professionals decode the deeper patterns shaping their business, work, identities, and results especially when it look like a performance issue but it’s really misalignment in disguise.

If something in your life or business feels off and you can’t quite name it, message me. Sometimes one conversation is all it takes to see what’s really going on.