I Hate The Way We Apologize

Watching a public apology is like watching someone whose life has been threatened say these words, or else your career, your income, and your social status is all gone. So the person says the thing, usually within days of whatever they did.

Chris, I apologized to you. My behavior was unacceptable.

And then we, the public, criticize them for not meaning it and only apologizing because they got caught. Here we go again with another one of these phony Hollywood apology videos.

The guy scam, point blank. It's such a poetic disaster of pr.

No one really feels better, and usually very little changes, but that's the cycle. And the reason that I'm writing this today is because it just sort of happened again with Will Smith. As you probably know, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022. And of course, a few months later, he apologized to Chris and rebuked his own behavior.

There's no part of me that thinks that's the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or. Or insult.

But then a few weeks ago, Will drops this rap where he seems to have a very different feeling about what he did.

But if you talking crazy out your face up on the stage and disrespect me on the stage, expect me on the stage.

So which is it? Does no part of him think that that's the right way to handle disrespect? Or should you expect him to hit you if you disrespect him? Now, this contradiction is much larger than Will Smith because this apologizing under pressure and then taking it back when the pressure's off, it happens all the time. We saw it with Logan Paul, who said Coffeezilla was not a criminal and thanked him for his crypto zoo investigation, only to later sue him. We saw it with Kanye west, who sat deeply ashamed in front of Jay Leno after the Taylor Swift interruption. It was just.

It was rude, period. And, you know, I like to be apologized to in person.

And then years later, Kanye admitted that his apology was based on peer pressure. We saw it with Kevin Spacey, who initially apologized to Anthony Rapp for unwanted advances and then later said that he'd apologize for something he didn't do. My point isn't to pass judgment on any of these people. My point is that when people feel pressured to apologize, they often do it without being fully on board with the apology that they give. And basically they fake it in order to make the punishment stop. Now, if this was only occurring with Will Smith and other public figures, I wouldn't make a video. But the Same thing occurs in your life. You're getting and may be giving fake apologies that lead to no growth, no empathy, and no repair. And that's basically the same as no apology.

I just want to say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.

I just want to give you the opportunity. Is there anybody you'd like to apologize to right now?

Your.

In fact, if you grew up like me, it's possible that you've never seen a real, full apology where someone took full accountability, owned their actions, made concrete amends for what they'd done, and then all of that was met with forgiveness from the other person. So, yes, the way that we apologize, both publicly and privately, is broken. But how can we fix it? Honestly, when I started this video, I did not know the answer. And so it was at this point that I brought out the big guns. This is Joe Hudson. He has an amazing YouTube channel, and we just did a podcast where we went deep on the essence of charisma. But more importantly for this video, he has a new apology technology. It is called the upright apology. Now, I'm going to get to exactly what that is, but first, Joe broke down the core issue that makes most apologies the bad kind of apology. And it boils down to one word. Shame.

So generally, the thing that happens is when we're kids, we were taught to apologize by being told to apologize. And so it's really just a transfer of shame. I think about something. It's like a shame hot potato is.

The way I think about it through this shame lens. Joe painted the whole Will Smith slap debacle in a different light. And it's worth breaking down to see how the shame hot potato gets passed around in a real life situation. So first, Chris makes a joke about Jada being bald.

Jada, I love you, GI Jane, too. Can't wait to see it. All right.

Jada now feels shame because she feels laughed at by a room full of people. She's got the hot potato, and you can see it on her face. So she has to get rid of this shame. Joe explains what happens next.

If you look at the whole. The whole video, what I notice is that he kind of thinks it's funny for a minute. Then he looks over at his wife, and so it's more about he's scared that he is going to get the shame hot potato with his wife.

So now Will has the hot potato of shame for being a bad partner. He has to get rid of it. So within 15 seconds, he unloads that shame onto Chris in the moment that we've all seen before.

Oh, wow. Keep my wife's name out your mouth.

Now, for the rest of the night, Will has mostly gotten the shame out of him and onto Chris.

In this business, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you and you gotta smile and you gotta pretend like that's okay.

That is, of course, until social media gets ahold of it and the shame is back on Will for assaulting Chris with the side helping of shame directed at Jada for making him feel as if he had to. Now, Joe even points out that Chris likely felt ashamed of being assaulted, which came through in his comedy special a year later where he threw the shame back at Will and Jada.

Y' all know what happened to me Getting smacked by Suge Smith. Nobody's picking on this. She started this. A lot of people go, chris, how come you didn't do nothing? Back? I got parents.

Okay, so you get the point. The whole thing is a shame hot potato where people do everything they can to get it out of their hands. And that wouldn't be so bad, except that when people shame someone, when they put it on them and that person isn't ready for it, it stops any positive growth in its tracks.

I would say what happens when a society shames somebody is we're making it far more probable that that behavior is going to continue. Show me one place where somebody gets deeply shamed and they either don't disappear, which is one thing we do with shame, is avoid, which obviously makes it so that we don't transform. And then the other thing is we get into the pattern of being that thing. And so you can't really find anybody in society who's been deeply shamed and isn't either avoiding now or perpetuating the behavior.

Now, when Joe said that, it crystallized why I hate so many apologies, not just the ones on YouTube, and why I even made this video in the first place. Because these moments of wrongdoing, public and private, could be an amazing opportunity. They could be a chance, yes, to feel some shame, but not because it was forced upon anyone. Instead, they could be a chance for the person to grow by genuinely apologizing without shame and without bowing to social pressure. Joe calls this an upright apology, and he says it is one of the most powerful transformational tools he's ever seen. Now, you are not going to be able to make anyone else do this, especially a public influencer, but you can get the benefits of it yourself. Here is how it works. First, if you reflexively say sorry every time someone's upset with you, stop. Those rushed sorrys are often a way of avoiding your own feelings, and they undercut your own confidence, and they get in the way of your growth. So second, when someone is upset at you but they're not physically threatening, you take an undefended posture. That means uncross your arms and your legs, lift up your chin, literally expose the vulnerable parts of yourself. This has the immediate effect of calming the other person down, since they see that you're actually letting their perspective in. Third, listen deeply to what they say and to the response that comes from your core. That means your heart, literally the area where your heart is in your chest. Pay attention and go slow. Here. Silence is fine. You can even ask the other person if you could take time to really digest what they've said, which will probably leave them stunned that you're taking their perspective in. And then fourth, if you've behaved in a way that you wish you hadn't, apologize with love for yourself. Joe describes it like this, which is.

Something where, oh, I love myself, and I'm apologizing because I love myself. I'm apologizing because I'm accepting responsibility, because that's not who I want to be. And the cool thing about an apology is that if you apologize in an upright way without the shame, like, oh, hey, that's not how I want to be in the world, and I apologize for that in that kind of a tone and that kind of uprightness, then it is one of the most transformational things you can do, because if you apologize like that, you're much less likely to do it in the future.

I've been practicing this process in my life, and honestly, it is one of the most incredible relationship tools that I have ever witnessed. It's helped me to immediately get closer to the people that I love the most. And weirdly enough, they've also been persuaded to do things that I've been asking them to consider for years. And it's moved after the apology. And obviously, apologizing isn't the only thing that improved my relationships. Before that, I had to learn to make a much better first impression than I was. And then I had to learn to speak with confidence, even in situations that used to make me nervous. I had to learn storytelling, better body language. All of that was critical. And if you are looking to develop those skills in the fastest way that I know of so that you can feel charismatic and confident, confident in any situation, you may be interested in joining Charisma university. It's our 30 day program to take your charisma and confidence to the next level. And this is what just some of our members have to say about it. I don't even have a bachelor diploma yet. They want me to fill this position and when I asked why, this was the answer. You have great social skills, which is rare for an engineer. You can think quickly on your feet and you are open and self assured in your demeanor. Thank you so much for all that you have taught me. You have truly changed my life. Because without without Charisma University, I wouldn't have qualified for that position in a million lifetimes. Or check out this student's experience with dating. Loving the course. I've liked a girl for over a year now, but never thought much of it because I thought she was just too pretty. Took your lessons, gave things a shot, and now we are dating. And try this one out for friendship. It has been truly incredible. I have instantly had results that seem insane. So many more meaningful conversations. My friendships have improved and my interactions with total strangers are a new, exciting, fulfilling thing. I want to recommend this to everyone. This should be in our basic education system. Now. The course comes with a full money back guarantee so there's no risk to you trying. There are thousands of people that have improved their lives with Charisma University and I would love for you to do the same. Either way, I hope that this video has helped you and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.