I’m sure you know what it means to be dead wrong. But do you know what it means to be dead right?

Being dead wrong about something just means you got your facts wrong—a condition that can easily be corrected. Being dead right has much more lasting consequences. Dead right means that, despite the accuracy of an assertion, the way you’ve chosen to go about asserting it has offended and hurt and caused someone else pain. Dead right means you may be right but you’ve been a jerk about it, and now no one cares. Folks who are often dead right like to say, “Hey, the truth hurts.” But alas, no. It’s usually not the truth that hurts others. It’s us.

Being dead right means your need to be right is what’s most important, not the truth itself, and that means you are not safe. People like to say, “Don’t shoot the messenger.” But you know what? I don’t want to shoot anybody but sometimes the messenger gets in the way. Sometimes you are the messenger and you get in the way of your own message. You may be right, but you’re dead right. Your message, however important it may be, is DOA.

I don’t know if it’s the internet or social media or mass media or what. I know those things seem to be everyone’s favorite scape goats for bad behavior these days but my suspicion is most days we’re just not trying hard enough to be decent and kind. We seem to be living in a world where everyone is taking but no one is listening. A world where my need for self-expression is more important than treating you with respect.

Now, if you know me then you know I value truth. Every week we sit here together and I hope what I’m sharing with you is accurate, factual, useful information. But if the way I say it ever sets you back. If you don’t feel respected and listened to and safe. If you walk away from anything you watch or listen to or read felling more angry and less hopeful then really … what is the point?

Being right is important but if being right always cuts and jabs and offends, then maybe being right is overrated. So here’s the takeaway. As Mary Poppins likes to say, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” And as my dad use to say, “God gave you two ears but only one mouth so you should spend twice as much time listening as talking.” The point is human beings have feelings, and if we’re trying to really communicate to another human being and not just talk to the air then the person you’re talking to has to feel heard and respected and safe.

Otherwise, you’re just talking, and you may only be dead right, and that’s not how you go about changing the world or building yourself a beautiful life.