The Words That Shrink Your Best Ideas

I once watched a good idea get valued at half what it was worth, because of how the person said it.

He had done the work on a company whose content generation system was about to reset its margin structure upwards. He had seen it early and the insight was strong.

Then he presented it, but led with the risks. The key catalyst he could see, the reason the idea existed, got folded into the end. So the PM took him at his word. The position got sized to the caution that came first, not the conviction he actually held.

The idea was right but the the position was small. He had talked others out of it before anyone else said a word.

This is not a just finance problem. Not all hedging is the same. Some is honesty, a real gap in the data. Some is fear wearing the costume of honesty, an exit built in before anyone challenges you.

The test: remove the hedge. Does the analysis get worse, or do you just feel more exposed? When I felt more exposed, I realized it was fear driving me, rather than honesty.

I used to think confident language felt promotional. It took me a while to see that hedging was not modesty. It was a way of leaving myself an exit if the idea did not work.

When you discount consistently, you train the people around you to price your contribution at the rate you set yourself.

https://substack.com/@charmianlong

Where in your work are you using language that is smaller than what you actually know?