[zamfi]

In general, saying "I would like to argue that being X is not about doing Y. Instead we should do Z" is going to make people, quite reasonably think that you are arguing against Y, and that people should do Z instead of Y.

"We should focus on Z" does indeed suggest to most readers that you are excluding things that are not Z, whether you meant that or not.

Highly recommend going with "I'm sorry, I meant ..." rather than "You read it wrong, I didn't say ABC ..." to avoid confusion, especially when you do indeed use the phrase ABC.

[Attummm]

Although that's great point about the confusion. But you could observe it as being only a logical statement, such as. " You should focus on your tie the next time instead of your shoes. " Doenst mean you should only have tie on the next time. That would be rather awkward.

Atleast that is what I meant, thanks for the explanation.

[zamfi]

Sure, but “next time” isn’t what you said — you said, in effect, “to look sharp, focus on your tie instead of your shoes.”

That has a pretty different meaning, implying that the tie matters more and the shoes don’t matter as much.

It’s not a super reasonable read to then infer “oh, the shoes matter a lot, but the tie matters more”, because if that’s what you were trying to communicate, you’d say something more like “to look sharp, don’t just focus on your shoes, focus on your tie too” rather than using “instead of”. Instead of really communicates substitution, “do X instead of Y,” implies “don’t do Y.”

Hope this clears things up.