Echoes of Short and Sweet
On the small interactions that shape how we see ourselves
“I got cut.”
This was the text I got from my 16-year-old son, Beau, after a grueling four-day tryout for the Junior Varsity team of one of the top hockey programs in Minnesota.
He’d gone in with realistic expectations — a deep, well-known talent pool stood in front of him. Not making the team felt easier to accept than the regret of not trying. But he had a strong tryout, and hope crept in.
As he sat with his peers, they were called one by one down the long hallway in the bowels of the rink to hear their fate from the coaches seated across the table. If you got good news, you walked across the hall and picked up your gear. If not, you returned to the group empty-handed, your rejection now visible to everyone waiting their turn while holding back the pain of the moment. When Beau’s turn came, the message was simple and blunt: “Let’s keep this short and sweet — we don’t have a spot for you.”
The cut itself was tough; it’s the way it was delivered that will reverberate.
Building great teams requires hard choices and delivering tough news. That’s part of sports, part of business, and part of life. But the way that news is delivered matters just as much as the decision itself.
Yet many of us pride ourselves on simply being willing to deliver hard news face to face, as if that alone checks the box. We tell ourselves that’s the hard part, and the rest is up to the person on the receiving end to interpret, absorb, and ask whatever follow-up questions they need for clarity. And yes, Beau could have asked for more — but in moments like this, especially for a 16-year-old sitting across from four adults who hold all the power, most of us don’t. We freeze, nod, and walk out carrying questions we weren’t prepared to ask.
And it raises a harder question: why should any of us care how our decisions impact the person on the receiving end?
The honest answer most of us hold, even if we don’t say it aloud: we don’t need to care. In Beau’s case, this was the end of any chance to play high school hockey, and he’ll never be part of that program again. The same is true in business — the candidate who goes through a two-week interview process and hears only “You weren’t a fit” is gone. They’re no longer our concern.
But here’s what we miss:
It’s the ripple effect — the accumulation of small moments we often treat as insignificant. Every interaction, every conversation, contributes to shaping a world where people quietly question their worth, their confidence, and who they are. It matters greatly.
In my work with groups of adults, I start with a simple question: how many thoughts run through the average mind each day? The answers vary widely — from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Then I ask what percentage of those thoughts are negative. The response is almost always the same: somewhere between 70% and 90%. And here’s what really resonates: most of those negative thoughts aren’t new. They’re loops — the same doubts and fears replaying over and over.
Brené Brown offers a truth about human connection: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” Without clarity, people fill in the blanks themselves — and rarely with generous stories. We fill them with self-doubt, blame, and assumptions that shape our self-image. “You weren’t a fit” becomes “I’m not good enough.” “Let’s keep this short” becomes “My effort didn’t matter.” Each vague phrase becomes a story we replay for years. It’s no surprise our thoughts skew negative; unclear moments create the mental loops we carry.
The greater the consequence of a message, the more intentional we should be about how we deliver it. This applies to any communication that will leave a lasting impression on another human being. Still, most of us don’t treat it that way. We put almost no thought into the delivery. We rush it, soften it, or generalize it to avoid discomfort, forgetting that how we communicate matters more than the decision itself. This isn’t about long explanations or hour-long meetings. Clarity doesn’t require time in the moment — it requires intention ahead of the moment. A few thoughtful sentences can change how someone walks away from a conversation.
Beau has invested nine years in this program and gave everything he had in this tryout. So hearing only “Let’s keep it short and sweet” in exchange landed differently than the coaches intended.
The child who proudly brings over their work gets a distracted ‘uh huh,’ left wondering if anyone even saw what they made. The patient receives life-changing news during a rushed doctor’s visit, with no time to understand what comes next. The friend or partner who pulls away without naming the distance, leaving the other person to fill the silence with assumptions.
We all play one of these roles — coaches, parents, partners, leaders, friends. Our words, or our lack of them, land heavier than we imagine. A little more clarity could change how someone processes the experience.
And there are reasons we let ourselves off the hook. Ego convinces us we’ve already done enough by showing up. Authority lets us get away with saying less. Legal risk, time pressure, or how we were taught become our justifications. But these aren’t reasons — they’re defaults we’ve never stopped to examine. And they’re ours to change, because our communication shapes the story the other person takes forward.
On the car ride home a few days later, Beau had already accepted not making the team. What lingered was something else: the way the coach looked past him during those fifteen seconds. The phrase “short and sweet” replaying in slow motion, and what it said about the four days he’d just given.
He will be fine. He has people around him who help him make sense of moments like this in a way that protects his dignity. But not everyone does. And even with that support, he’ll carry this — not as something that breaks him, but as a memory of how it felt to be on the receiving end of someone’s efficiency.
This was never just about being cut. It’s about what we leave people with when we deliver hard news without intention. In the end, our words — or our lack of them — create the echo. Choose clarity. Choose care. Let your words close the loop, not create it.