Speaker 1: Flex and Firms Flex and Firms. This is the Flex
Speaker 1: and Frooms catch up podcast.
Speaker 2: If there's one thing that is very important in life
Speaker 2: for you and for the people around you, it's learning
Speaker 2: how to apologize. Something that FLEXI once said which has
Speaker 2: stayed with me is the idea that you are responsible
Speaker 2: for fifty percent of the drama in your life. Very
Speaker 2: hard to understand as a human being, but once you
Speaker 2: think about it that way, you think, yeah, damn, actually
Speaker 2: that is statistically likely. It came across this article called
Speaker 2: how to Apologize like a Pro in The Atlantic. I
Speaker 2: read it just out of curiosity to fact check whether
Speaker 2: or not my method works, because I think that I'm very.
Speaker 1: Good at I would say so too apologizing. Yeah, off
Speaker 1: the bat, it is you're always making.
Speaker 3: Mistakes, And I said, maybe we should be looking out
Speaker 3: for those who can apologize really well.
Speaker 1: Hate got too much experience, show us the receipts.
Speaker 2: So they're talking about apologies in a neurocognitive viewpoint, So
Speaker 2: obviously we just think, like, on the surface level, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna say sorry. But it turns out that apologizing,
Speaker 2: both receiving apologies and giving them is extremely complex, and
Speaker 2: it actually includes three distinct processes. Let me explain them
Speaker 2: to you. First is cognitive control, because you're making a
Speaker 2: choice to say sorry, even though doing so is difficult
Speaker 2: and uncomfortable. That involves the lateral prefrontal cortex. It's giving
Speaker 2: year eleven psychology.
Speaker 3: The same psychology in year eleven. Yeah, whoa is that
Speaker 3: a thing I don't know about? That's a HSC subject.
Speaker 1: Did you have it? Not in your South Wales?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: In my time?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah Wales? Yeah, let's see Victorian thing.
Speaker 2: The second is perspective taking, which involves thinking about how
Speaker 2: something you've said or done was experienced by another person.
Speaker 1: By putting yourself in the position.
Speaker 2: That's empathy, that's tempopororial junction. And the last is social valuation.
Speaker 2: That's the way you calculate how much your apology will
Speaker 2: help everyone involved, as opposed to just yourself, which mobilizes
Speaker 2: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 1: That's a tricky one.
Speaker 2: A lot of words here, but ipso facto. The first
Speaker 2: is deciding to do it even though it's hard. The
Speaker 2: second is empathy, so putting yourself in the other person position,
Speaker 2: and the third is social evaluation, calculating how much your
Speaker 2: apology will help not only yourself but the other people.
Speaker 2: So it's a very complex thing to do. I think
Speaker 2: we can all agree. I feel like this maybe has
Speaker 2: become something that we all talk about in the last
Speaker 2: few years. Are apologies, but no apology is better than
Speaker 2: a half assed apology, Like there's nothing more infuriating. Then
Speaker 2: one's like, I'm sorry you feel that way.
Speaker 3: I remember having a lot of my core fights, not fights,
Speaker 3: but my.
Speaker 1: What do we call them?
Speaker 3: Like grievances in relationships, like all interpersonal relationships, is people
Speaker 3: who say sorry when it's not necessary. True. So for example,
Speaker 3: let's say we're ordering food at a restaurant and you
Speaker 3: ask for a coke zero, and then the waiter says
Speaker 3: to you, oh, sorry, was that a pepsi?
Speaker 1: And you say, no, sorry, it's a coke zero. And
Speaker 1: it's like, why are we throwing.
Speaker 3: Around sorry sorry sorries so flippantly when it's not required.
Speaker 3: And in the States where it's completely required, people dodge around.
Speaker 1: The world and one of them bitches always to the sorry.
Speaker 2: I used to say, it's so much that people say
Speaker 2: stop apologizing.
Speaker 3: I was wont that I'm the self apologizing constantly. Stop that,
Speaker 3: please continue this is great.
Speaker 2: So the way you apologize has a huge influence on
Speaker 2: your apology's likelihood of success.
Speaker 3: Hold on, that's really interesting as well, the framing it
Speaker 3: as a way framing an apology is something that needs
Speaker 3: to land and be successful as opposed to just an
Speaker 3: action you do well.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, it seems unnatural to do that,
Speaker 2: but I think it's important to do even just as
Speaker 2: an exercise to get to the bottom of why you
Speaker 2: think you should apologize. Like, I really like what they
Speaker 2: said about how much is it gonna? I think it's
Speaker 2: easier to apologize when you know that doing so is
Speaker 2: the thing that looks good as well. So in this scenario.
Speaker 2: In one experiment, subjects were asked to imagine themselves at
Speaker 2: as a pedestrian who's been hit by a cyclist and
Speaker 2: the cyclist was at fault.
Speaker 1: That has happened to me? Seriously, Yeah a cyclist hit you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Fuck?
Speaker 2: Did it hurt?
Speaker 3: I don't remember how it felt, but I was on
Speaker 3: the floor. Oh babe, I was also a child.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Like turn Lizzy, Yeah sorry, Liz, want to
Speaker 2: little rope with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's a listener. We've not mad, but she
Speaker 1: calls you for me.
Speaker 2: Okay, amazing. So what they did was that to evaluate
Speaker 2: a settlement, fifty two percent said they would definitely or
Speaker 2: probably accept the proposed cash offer if there was no apology.
Speaker 2: When if there was a partial apology in the form
Speaker 2: of sympathy for injuries but no acknowledgment of responsibility, the
Speaker 2: acceptance rate fell to thirty five percent, But with a
Speaker 2: full apology sympathy plus responsibility, the rate roads to seventy
Speaker 2: three percent.
Speaker 3: Of people expecting cash or being fine without cash.
Speaker 2: I think they're getting cash either way. So apparently the
Speaker 2: acknowledgment of responsibility proves to be the most important ingredient
Speaker 2: of a good apology. Next is importance. Next in importance
Speaker 2: is an offer of a repair followed by an explanation
Speaker 2: of what happens. So you want to hit him with
Speaker 2: the I take full responsibility, here's what I want to
Speaker 2: do to remedy it, and here's why I did it.
Speaker 2: In that order. I think in that order is the
Speaker 2: best because I think as well, when someone's like, it's
Speaker 2: really annoying when someone's like, I'm sorry, I did it.
Speaker 2: I did it because this and it's like I know
Speaker 2: that you didn't like, I know you're kind of like, like,
Speaker 2: what's really good scenario? Like your sister steals your top
Speaker 2: and then they apologize like sorry, I just like thought
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't care because I'm like, you know, I cared,
Speaker 2: don't try and explain it away when that's not true.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think even just using this process to think,
Speaker 2: oh why why do I want to apologize, I haven't
Speaker 2: had a situation recently where like I've been the bigger
Speaker 2: person per se and apologized.
Speaker 3: The only instance I can think of is I was
Speaker 3: talking to someone and they had mentioned a relationship or
Speaker 3: a quirk between them and their father, like their dad.
Speaker 3: So they said something like, Oh, my dad has this
Speaker 3: really annoying habit where he asks me a question and
Speaker 3: assumes he knows the answer. So like, do we need
Speaker 3: to give an example? We kind of know what that is, like, Oh,
Speaker 3: where are you going tonight? Probably here down to the
Speaker 3: Royal again. And the reason why this person really disliked
Speaker 3: it is not just the nature of assuming what someone's doing,
Speaker 3: but I think that they felt their dad always assumed
Speaker 3: the worst intent and so then it felt like a
Speaker 3: poor character assessment every time, and then they would have
Speaker 3: to kind of challenge like no, like this is different.
Speaker 3: And so because I was just getting to know this person,
Speaker 3: I would keep doing that. I would, but in a
Speaker 3: joking manner, right, just like I've explained now.
Speaker 1: Like oh, where are you going? Oh, probably doing this again.
Speaker 3: And they said it was triggering them in the sense
Speaker 3: that maybe what I assumed wasn't the worst intent, but
Speaker 3: the dynamic was super triggering. It had almost become like
Speaker 3: a filler for acknowledging that I didn't know them, but
Speaker 3: I wanted to know them, so I was filling in
Speaker 3: the gaps, like you know. And so the second time
Speaker 3: I did it, I had to apologize because I was like,
Speaker 3: not you. You definitely called me out on that one,
Speaker 3: and I clocked it, and I'm really sorry, but I did.
Speaker 3: It's felt insincere because the nature of it was so
Speaker 3: comedic that it had to I had to bring the
Speaker 3: energy down clock it then make them feel a little
Speaker 3: bit like it.
Speaker 1: Made them look soooky. Yeah I hate that, and it wasn't.
Speaker 3: But I was like, damn, like it was a joke,
Speaker 3: but I see what's happening here, and now you're triggering
Speaker 3: and people were there, no, okay, I was like it
Speaker 3: was really interesting exercise in acknowledging the faults straight away
Speaker 3: for the bigger picture, but also not truly understanding how
Speaker 3: it made them feel, like having to connect the dots
Speaker 3: or like fill in the gaps of like I guess
Speaker 3: that would be quite annoying, and I guess, but now
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be like the beneficiary of your dad's issues
Speaker 3: and like I don't even know you that well, So
Speaker 3: I feel like, what work are you doing to be
Speaker 3: less annoyed by this scenario?
Speaker 1: Put it back? But that I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 3: But also, you know about love languages, right, so Gary Chapman,
Speaker 3: the same author, had come with this concept called apology languages,
Speaker 3: which isn't really taking off because I guess the idea
Speaker 3: with love language is that most people want all of them,
Speaker 3: but usually find one or two that you really identify
Speaker 3: with based on probably what you hadn't received earlier in
Speaker 3: your life, what you received a lot of. But with
Speaker 3: apology languages, people were kind of like, I just don't
Speaker 3: want one thing, you know, Like it was like accept fault,
Speaker 3: make restitution, like you know, provide a solution, groovel whatever
Speaker 3: it might have been. Everyone's like, ideally I want all
Speaker 3: of them. I want if a great apology is going
Speaker 3: through the list and be like, this is what I did,
Speaker 3: this is why it was bad. But I don't know,
Speaker 3: in a situation where you don't feel like you've done
Speaker 3: anything wrong but you've caused harm, that's such a tricky
Speaker 3: one to apologize because it feels like performance art, like,
Speaker 3: I know, is this really helping? I think a good
Speaker 3: apology has a lot to do with timing, like if
Speaker 3: you get in quick, I feel like, and depending on
Speaker 3: the situation, if you get in when it's most needed
Speaker 3: or when it's requested, that's better than like I'm going
Speaker 3: to have to think about it and come back and
Speaker 3: then figure out if I want to apologize or not.
Speaker 2: It's like no, no, no, So fam here is how to apologize.
Speaker 2: These are three core tenants you must do. Number one,
Speaker 2: acknowledgment of responsibility. That proves to be the most important ingredient,
Speaker 2: So do that up top. Secondly, off what a repair.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that looks like. Is it monetary,
Speaker 2: is it community service? And number three extra fly eyes.
Speaker 2: And then the last one is an explanation of what happened,
Speaker 2: of course, and we're ensuring in the explanation thing. We
Speaker 2: are still taking a responsibility. That's probably where you can
Speaker 2: go a bit sidetracked, but yeah, creative revisionist history.
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