My kid wrapped the cookies.
Not the whole batch tossed in a container like a normal person. Each one, individually, in its own little jacket of plastic, because somewhere in the research (and there was research) it said they’d stay fresh a few days longer that way. The cookies would have been completely fine in the container. They always are. But there she was, wrapping.
And I felt the sentence rising up in me. “You didn’t have to do all that. They’d have been fine.”
True sentence. Helpful, even. I swallowed it, and I’ve been chewing on why ever since.
Because that sentence wasn’t for her. It was for me. It was me wanting to be the one who knew the thing, the one with the container wisdom, the seasoned hand gently informing the amateur. She hadn’t asked to be corrected. She’d done the work, made her call, felt good about it. My little correction would have cost her all of that for nothing, and the only person who’d have walked away lighter was me.
Here’s the test I can’t stop running now… Before the sentence leaves your mouth, ask who gets to exhale when it lands. You, or them?
The messages that miss are almost always the ones where the speaker is the one exhaling. When a founder tells me their positioning isn’t landing, that the market doesn’t get what they actually do, it’s rarely a clarity problem. It’s an exhale problem. They’ve written the line that makes the company feel understood by itself.
A professional community I know used to describe itself roughly like this: a trusted space for people in the field to learn, share, and grow. Read it and notice who relaxes. The team that wrote it. Boxes checked, mission captured, everyone in the room nodding at their own reflection.
At some point they rewrote the line. The new one: You don’t need another community. You need backup.
Same buyer. Different lungs. That second line doesn’t describe the product at all. It walks straight into the story the customer is already telling themselves at 11pm. I’m tired, I’m doing most of this alone, I don’t want one more tab open, I want someone in my corner. The customer exhales.
And here’s the part that got its hooks in me: the words “you don’t need” sit inside both my kitchen and that tagline.
One sentence uses them to take something away. The other uses them to hand something over. The grammar is identical. The exhale is opposite.
That’s the whole game. Not what you say. Who gets to breathe out once you’ve said it.
Stay Positive & Ask Who Exhales
- Who Gets To Exhale - June 1, 2026
- The Suit Over The Lederhosen - May 31, 2026
- The Squash You Didn’t Plant - May 30, 2026
