Recently, a dear friend confided in me that he feels stupid and way over his head whenever he talks to people who are in the field he wants to switch into. This is mostly because he doesn’t know all the jargon or references yet. Here are two tips I gave him:

1. Write down the words and references you don’t know.The first time I told someone I wanted to be a writer, she started listing all of her favorite authors and asking me what I thought of them. I didn’t know a single one of them, and I felt like a fraud who had just been caught. Since that day, I always carry around a notebook (now I use the Keep It app on my phone), and when someone mentions an author I don’t know, I simply write it down and tell them that I will check it out…