“It’s just business” is the most personal thing you can say in a business context. It signals that you’ve taken something so personally that you need to suppress your emotional experience and harden yourself against the other person.
Joe illustrates this with three ways to fire someone. “It’s just business, nothing personal” communicates: I don’t trust you to handle the real reason. A compassionate but vague approach is better but still caretaking. The truly impersonal approach is the most direct and connected: laying out the situation clearly, acknowledging the gap, and genuinely asking how to help the person move forward.
“If you have to harden yourself in any way — if you have to become defensive, build a wall between you and other people — you are taking it personally. That is a clear sign.”
The principle extends beyond firing: any time we shut down emotionally in a business context to “be professional,” we’re actually being maximally personal — we’re letting our unprocessed emotions dictate our behavior while pretending they don’t exist.
Related Concepts
- Depersonalizing money creates financial freedom
- Shame stagnates behavior
- Closing your heart to protect yourself traps you