What Does What You Say Say About You? * Incedo Group

What Does What You Say Say About You?

Life’s lessons are all around us if we take the time to notice them. I tend to pay attention and thus I suspect I’m attuned to seeing them but I must confess the last few months they seem to be coming to me every time I interact with someone. Several recent experiences have promoted me to write today’s article about ‘how what we say says a lot about us.’

The Story:

I’m in one of my neurotic phases where I’m on a binge to declutter, fix and improve my house. I confess that I periodically go through these phases and it drives my husband nuts as I drag him along. He’d also like it decluttered, fixed and improved but would rather not have to be involved, he’d rather go play golf. Anyhow I had several handymen come to the house for estimates on my long list of projects that weren’t within my husband’s or my skill set. One left an estimate and two said I would receive within a day via email.

The Outcome:

I’ve never heard from one…I guess they have so much business my job isn’t important. The other one I emailed 3 days later when I hadn’t received the estimate to be sure I hadn’t missed it or it was lost in cyber space. He responded with an apology and said I would have the next day, which I did. However in his email he said that the reason for his delay was that he had several large jobs he had to price so mine got pushed off. Now those weren’t his exact words but pretty close. Now when we had met he had already told me outright that he’d like my business but if I said no that was ok and he’d move on to the next person.

What Does This Say?

To me it speaks volumes about this person. It says that the job I had wasn’t really that important to them or at the very least was less important than other jobs. It also says that it isn’t someone I can count on to follow through with what they say they are going to do. In a few sentences he told me everything I needed to know about him. Now maybe that’s the message he wanted to convey but if not then he sure blew it. It’s the little things we say that people hear and then form an opinion about.

What’s the Lesson?

I started this article saying the lessons in life are all around us if we pay attention. The lesson here is that we have to be very careful about the words we use and what we say. So next time you send an email or are in a conversation remember the words we use say a lot about us, and it may not be what you want others to think. Is it important? I guess only you can answer that question for yourself.