Exactly What I Mean

The more precise I get, the more I notice people squirm and it’s not because I’m unclear. It’s because I’m finally saying exactly what I mean. In this conversation, I unpack the “compression habit,” that learned way of shrinking our thoughts, softening our words, and translating ourselves in real time so we stay palatable enough to be welcomed, hired, dated, trusted, or simply tolerated.

We go deep on the difference between palatability and power. Palatability might get us into the room, but precision is what changes the room. That tension shows up in networking calls, workplace communication, friendships, partnerships, and every relationship where someone else’s comfort quietly becomes the standard. I also talk about how code switching and self dilution can become automatic, especially for Black women navigating spaces where nuance and complexity are treated like a problem instead of a truth.

Then we land on the question that won’t let go: what are you willing to lose in order to be fully understood? Because clarity can cost proximity, approval, and certain opportunities, but it also builds authority, autonomy, and cleaner alignment. If you’re working on authentic communication, boundaries, leadership, and self expression, this is a real-world reset.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I've noticed something. The more precise I become in how I speak, the more uncomfortable people get. And it's not because I'm unclear, but it's because I'm actually saying exactly what I mean. And I think a lot of us have learned how to compress ourselves so we're easier to digest. I'm finding that I do this and have done this, especially in rooms where I already feel like I have to earn my place. So I simplify or I soften. And it's almost like I'm translating myself in real time. And it's not because I lack clarity, but I'm trying to maintain access or trying to sell or trying to, I don't know, prove something, but I'm learning actively that clarity has a cost, and I don't think it's something that we

Precision Makes People Uneasy

SPEAKER_00 1:03

talk about enough. Welcome to Exactly What I Mean. This is a space for precision, for nuance, for the things that don't always land clean but are still true. And if you are someone who's ever felt the tension between being misunderstood and being accepted, I think this is for you. So I want to talk about what I like to explain as my compression habit. You know how when you have a file that's too large, you have to compress it in order for it to send and be received. I think it's something that we do. I notice this the most when I'm on networking calls, like our connection calls for work for the company that I run with my business partner. I find that I'm doing this in predominantly like white, specifically white male rooms, where I'm making myself more digestible. Not necessarily

Creating A Space For Nuance

SPEAKER_00 2:10

understood or like clear, but digestible. So it's something that someone can easily understand, comprehend, and move on to the next. And for me, it hasn't been accidental, it is strategy trying to figure out how I can say something and make it land, or even an emotional

The Compression Habit Explained

SPEAKER_00 2:30

or platonic romantic dynamics that you try to make it so it's palatable, right? So I'm learning that I'm not simplifying because I lack clarity, I'm simplifying because I can feel what the room can hold or what I perceive it can hold. So that can look like code switching, you know, without overlabeling that, or this idea of palatability versus power and really learning where my power sits. But even within like partnerships, whether that be business, friendships, relationships, marriages, all of those things, you know. I think there's this cost that I've had to really realize that I'm doing is only doing a disservice to me and my future. So in a lot of the spaces that I operate in, palatability palatability, because words are hard, gets me in the room. But my precision is what can change the room. And precision and palatability aren't the same thing. People often say they want clarity, they want you to be clear, but I believe they prefer comfort, they prefer what they can categorize you as or what

Palatability Versus Power

SPEAKER_00 3:53

box to place you in so that they can understand. But being easy to understand and fully expressed as a human being are very, very, very different. Easy to understand is I think trimming layers, or it is diluting something to make it more palatable. And I think that becomes a habit that you have to break, something that you have to unlearn. And I think as black women specifically, we often are doing this because the nuances and the complexities that exist even as we just exist aren't easy for other people to understand. But what it does for us is it allows us to fully express. And I'm at a point where I'm not willing to compromise palatability and ease for someone else to understand for suppressing who I am. And I think, I don't think, I believe that having this authority over being fully expressed can often be perceived internally to myself as this is too much because the room can't handle this. I think there's this unspoken expectation to be powerful, but not so powerful that it disrupts the room. Not so powerful that it makes people question or stop their thinking. One of the big words that I had for myself in the last like two years that's been consistent as being a disruptor, and these dynamics that I'm consistently in, the same conflict I'm having over and over again, is only showing me that disruption has to be a choice that I choose every single day. But the disruption isn't to disrupt to cause chaos, it is to unlearn behaves of myself and disrupt the mindset of palatability in all of these power dynamics. I'm finding that when I'm communicating, that I'm communicating some really big ideas often, and at the same time, I'm trying to navigate how they're perceived. And this, I would say, is something that I've overcome in the last like year or so, where I'm not really concerned with the perception of others, but being in different dynamics, you have to be still aware of them, but something that doesn't shake me, if you will. The rooms that you're in, and in it's not even just the rooms, but in any relationship with anybody. Sometimes what's being managed isn't necessarily my message, it's other people's comfort with it. So that diluting of myself is trying to manage somebody else's comfort, and I have no control over that. I've started to realize that every time I translate myself for the sake of someone else's comfort, I'm also teaching that person or that room what version of me it gets to have access to. Something that I've always said, and I probably got this from somewhere else, I can't recall, but like you teach people how to treat you, right? But you also can train people how to receive you. You can get so caught up in the habit of dilution that that becomes the expectation, and so clarity becomes abrasive, but it's only in contrast to what you've

Managing Comfort Is Not Your Job

SPEAKER_00 7:41

been training people to receive you as or how they have consistent consistently experienced you. The real question I believe I've come to when it comes to this whole clarity and being misunderstood is what am I willing to lose in order to be fully understood? Clarity can cost you proximity, clarity can cost you approval, clarity will cost you certain opportunities, clarity will reveal areas of misalignment, but it will also build something else. Authority, autonomy. I don't think the goal is to stop reading rooms, I think the goal is to stop shrinking for them, and there's a difference, and I'm learning where that line is. But something I do know now is I'd rather be fully understood by fewer people than partially

What Clarity Costs And Builds

SPEAKER_00 8:53

understood by everyone. And that's exactly what I mean.