Is Your Writing Making You Sound Self-Centered, Selfish, and Ego-driven? One Trick to Sound Nicer in Professional Emails

Email is the main mechanism through which business is conducted. We send and receive hundreds of emails each day. Some from people we know. Some from people we don’t. All of it written. Which means we can’t hear the person’s voice or see their face or have access to any of the major non-verbal cues we use when we are speaking face to face.

Research shows that up to 94% of face-to-face communication is non-verbal.

And writing doesn’t have any of that stuff. It has no face. It has no voice. “Tone” — the emotion we hear in the words — is created entirely within our own heads. As we read. If we’re in a good mood, we’re more likely to read a message with positive tone. If we’re in a bad mood, the opposite.

Most messages are written quickly by what are theoretically amateur writers. What I mean by “amateur” is professionals spend a lot of time writing, but they aren’t paid for writing. They are paid for the results or outcomes that writing creates. Writing is a means to an end for professionals.

This is different from professional writers. Professional writers are paid to write. Yes, our writing is supposed to generate results and outcomes, but our task is to write. The…