Yikes, Havi just hit me right on the nose with this post. Here’s an excerpt:

You want to annoy someone you care about?

Tell them the thing they’re struggling with is “easy”.

Imply that they’re incompetent, slow or lazy.

Tell them anyone can do it.

I definitely fall into this trap sometimes when I’m trying to help. I want to share the awesome stuff I’ve learned, and I sometimes come across sounding all holier-than-thou, like I’m some wise guru who can do all this great stuff and make it look simple and easy.

I know it’s not easy. Even when it is simple, that doesn’t make it easy. I’m trying to be inspirational, but the truth is that I recognized my own writing style in some of the examples Havi was criticizing.

So I’m going to take a page from her book, and do better. I just read this post to Kyeli and she wants to do better too.

Will you help us? Will you please leave us a comment or an email (Pace, Kyeli) if you ever read our tone as insulting, condescending, or holier-than-thou? We would really appreciate it. We are all about authentic communication, and if the message you’re receiving is different from the message we’re trying to send, we want to make it better.

Thank you.