Kill Your Jargon

How to avoid the most common (and most dangerous) public speaking trap.

For the last decade that we’ve been coaching leaders on the art of communication, the biggest and most common trap that we see is the use of jargon.

Our jargon expert at FRESH Speakers Academy is Sarika Bansal, who teaches our members about the dangers of using jargon. By definition, jargon is “special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand.” In other words, it’s specialized language.

Now, jargon is not all bad; in fact, it can be incredibly useful when you’re speaking to people within your field. But as Bansal says, when speaking (or writing) to broader audiences, “it can quickly turn into a foreign language.”

While jargon can be a great tool when speaking to those within your tribe, when you share jargon with anyone who is not, it sends them a dangerous message: “This talk isn’t for me.” While jargon includes insiders of a specific field, it excludes those who are on the outside.