25 years ago, my 8th grade soccer coach walked up and said, “Can I talk to you for a second?”
We went back to his office and he went on to explain that he didn’t have a spot for me on the team. I was new to soccer and this was a competitive school — so it shouldn’t have been surprising. But I was crushed. I was the new kid and soccer was all the craze and a way of making friends.
At the time and in my own immaturity, I thought he’d been cruel and unfair. But decades later, I still think to myself, “Man. Coach Maloney was one good dude.”
Why? Because he was so kind in the moment. He was empathetic and explained his reasoning in a fair way. The team was already too bloated and it created problems when you have too many players. I remember he grimaced as he said, “This is the hardest part of my job and I hate doing it.” He encouraged me to come back next year (I did and, fortunately, made the team).
It wasn’t until I went out into the world, dealt with a few jerks, bad breakups, and a bad boss or two that I saw what a jerk is actually like.
People often take language for granted and treat it as a back and forth at face value. Yet you can learn a ton about people by the words they choose. It can reveal their motivations, goals, character, mood, and more. The big idea is that — there are endless ways to say the same thing. How someone chooses to say it, says much about them.