How do you handle a written message when the tone pushes your buttons?

A friend shared a trick with me: When she gets an email from a colleague who tends to undercut her, she reads it in a Mickey Mouse voice. 🐭

It strips away the tone and helps her focus on what the person is actually asking or saying—rather than reacting to how it feels.

Sometimes, the best way to de-escalate a message is to change the voice in your head.

The reason she shared this with me? I was overreacting to a simple text message. I “knew” what tone the person intended. And I was offended.

Well, not so fast.

I may be perceptive, but that doesn’t mean I’m right.

In fact, I may be most “perceptive” when someone’s experience and context happen to match my own. When they don’t, what feels like intuition can simply be interpretation.

And here’s another possibility: some people are just terrible writers.

They struggle to communicate what they mean. Their message comes out garbled, abrupt, overly direct—or in a tone that pushes every one of your buttons.

As a former English teacher, this used to drive me crazy.

I would get frustrated by people’s inability to communicate clearly and, even more, by the amount of time a poorly worded message could add to an email chain. One unclear sentence could create five more emails.

I’ve had to learn some grace around this. It didn’t come naturally.

I once worked with a senior-level client who was severely dyslexic and loathed written communication. Writing an email could take him an inordinate amount of time. He would choose face-to-face or phone conversations whenever possible—anything verbal over written communication.

But that wasn’t the world he worked in.

And I was impressed by the lengths he went to to adapt. He uses AI frequently to help with written communication, but AI isn’t always practical or available—and ultimately, no tool can replace the need for self-awareness.

Because sometimes the problem isn’t the message.

It’s the story we’re telling ourselves about the message.

So before you fire off that defensive reply, pause.

Read it again.

Try a different voice.

Maybe even Mickey Mouse.

Then ask yourself: What do I actually know—and what am I assuming?

That small shift can be the difference between escalating a situation and leading through it.

The next time a message pushes your buttons, what voice will you choose to hear?