Actions Over Words: The True Path to Making Things Right

I am so sorry for what I did. Has anyone ever said that to you and you thought to yourself, well, I appreciate the apology, but it's not going to undo what you did.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rome, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rome. On today's podcast, we're going to be talking about this whole idea of how do you clean up a mess that you have created in your life? Maybe you didn't set out to do it. Maybe you reacted or said the wrong thing too quickly and then you regretted it. You went back to someone and apologized and said, I'm really sorry about what happened. But you know, there's an old saying, you can't cry over spilled milk. And that's very true. But there's also another part of that same thought. In case you've never heard it, it goes like this. You can't cry over spilled milk, but you can clean it up before it spoils. Years ago, when I was a school principal, I never will forget, one night we were having a board meeting and I had not handled a situation exactly like I should have. I was young at the time and sometimes in school there's a lot of activity going on between students and students and students and teachers and parents and teachers and administration and faculty, and it can be a big challenge all throughout the day. So we were at this board meeting and something had happened with one of the students and I had not handled it exactly right. It wasn't earth shattering, it wasn't the end of the world.

But one of the board members brought it up and called it to my attention. I was young at the time and my comment to him was, well, you can't cry over spilled milk. And that's when he looked at me and my whole world changed when he said, that may be true, but you can clean it up before it spoils. Wow. I had never heard that before. And he was older than me and wiser than me. And I said, well, what do you think I should do? He said, why don't you give the parents a call and just tell them you've had some time to think about it, you realize you made a mistake and you'd like to tell them you were sorry then also, you can talk to the student and say, you know, I did not handle that the way I thought I should have. Now that I look back on it and I'D like to ask you to please forgive me. Well, I followed his advice. I apologize to the parents. I apologize to the student. Again, it wasn't a big deal. It was just something that was. That I said that was inappropriate and it hurts some feelings. And we got the whole thing cleared up. But I also learned something else that took place. I also learned that. Listen carefully. This is what this podcast is all about. You cannot talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into. However, you can behave your way out of a situation that. That you talked yourself into. Now, you got to think about that. This is pretty profound. I'm going to explain to you how it works. Let me say it one more time. You cannot talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into. If you behaved your way into doing something wrong and then you want to say, well, I'm sorry. Well, that is a good step in the right direction, but it doesn't undo anything. If you rob a bank and the police put capture you and put you in jail and you say, I am so sorry, that's not going to change anything. You're still going to face prison time because you have behaved your way into a really bad situation. And you can do all the talking you want to, but you can't talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into. You see, at that point in time, consequences kick in. It may be with a brother or sister, a mom, a dad, a student, a teacher, but you inadvertently do something and you look back on it and you regret it. The first step is to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. But then you have to come to the conclusion. You have to come to grips with the reality that this is going to take some time to clean it up. You can't cry over spilled milk, but you can clean it up before it spoils. Now, how do you go about cleaning things up? First of all, you do apologize. Second of all, you change your behavior. You see, just like I said, you cannot talk your way out of a situation you behaved your way into. I also said you can behave your way out of a situation that you talked yourself into. You see, sometimes we use words and they're hurtful to other people, and we cause someone to not feel good or think right about a situation. So our first step is to say, you know, I was wrong about that and I want to apologize. But then you have to remember, and here's the key. It takes time for behavior to begin to change situations. As you begin to behave differently, things Will slowly change and things will slowly get better. But it won't happen overnight if you have a dog like I have a dog. She's just a big yellow lab. Her name's belle, and I can pet bail on the head, and she just wags her tail. She's so happy when she sees me. And I'll say, hey, girl, how are you doing today? She wags her tail and sometimes runs up, wants to jump up on me. Well, sometimes I'll say, no, get back, Because I might be dressed up, and I don't want her yellow or white hair all over my clothes because she sheds a lot. And I'll say, get back. Get back in my. Evidently, my voice tones scare her. She backs up and she just turns around and walks off. You know what I've learned? I've learned that she looks at me differently after I've had to fuss at her. And so the only thing I can do is after I've changed my clothes, I can change my behavior. I can go outside and say, come here, girl. And I can pet her and throw a stick or feed her a dog biscuit or something. And all of a sudden, things begin to take on a new dimension. Our relationship improves because my behavior towards her changed. It is true that my behavior was simply words, but words are part of our behavior, aren't they? The way we talk to another person causes them to think and to feel a certain way. So when I am harsh with my dog, for some reason, it breaks the relationship. It hurts the communication between us. And she knows to back off because I'm communicating with her by my behavior, which includes my words that now is not the time for you to jump up on me. Now is not the time to play. So she'll back off and sometimes walk away. What I have learned to do is realize I'm not going to be able to talk myself out of this situation. I can't come back to hurt and just say to my dog, well, I was in a hurry, and if you notice, I was wearing a suit. You know, I really didn't want you to get all of your dog hair all over my clothes. So I hope you can understand. You get the picture? She's a dog, and she doesn't really understand me explaining complex situations to her. She doesn't really understand me explaining simple situations to her either. But she does understand patting her head. She does understand giving her a dog treat. She does understand voice tones that I can say, hey, girl, good to see you. She'll wag her tail. It's Interesting to me to watch how our relationship changes when my behavior towards her changes. You see, you can't talk yourself out of a situation that you behaved your way into. I'll say it again, you can't talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into. But there's good news. You can behave your way out of a situation that you talked yourself into. You can behave your way. In other words, you can act differently. You can take on a new posture, you can create different behavior. Let's suppose now that works real well with my dog, but let's suppose this with another person. You've had a falling out with someone, something happened, there were some bad behavior, there were some bad conversation, there were some hurt feelings. And someone got sideways, as we say, with another person. And you walk up to them and say, hey, sorry, sorry about what happened. And you know, they seem maybe a little bit cold towards you. It's because so far all they've heard is words. What they really need is some time and some different behavior communicated towards them in order for them to prove or demonstrate you have changed your ways. Years ago, I was on a staff and there was a friend of mine, I'll never forget. His name was Bill. And Bill and I worked together and we. We had a good relationship. Well, one day I was talking to Larry and I said something about Bill to Larry. Well, Larry went and talked to Bill about it and told him, and I'll never forget what happened. Bill came to see me later. He said, hey, I was talking to Larry, and he said that you said thus and so about me. Wow. I was dead in the water. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of me a little bit. My personality tends to lean itself. Lead tends to lean itself towards talking too fast like I just did. So I had to understand that what I said to Larry got back to Bill, and now Bill's feelings were hurt. And I said, yeah, I did say that, and I'm very sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'll never forget what Bill said. Bill looked at me and he said, well, if you have a problem with me, please, please feel free to come to me whenever you need to. I'm not perfect myself. So if I ever do anything wrong and you need to talk to me, I just want you to know the door to my life is open so you can come talk to me about it. You don't have to talk about me behind my back. You don't have to talk to Larry. You can talk to me. I apologized again. We got it straight and then in the coming days, my behavior towards Bill changed. Every time I saw him, I was. I smiled, I thanked him, I talked to him. I said, I couple of days later, I said, I really want you to know how much I appreciate you coming to me. I said, I learned a really good lesson and I appreciate the door to your life being opened that we can talk about that. Listen, it'd be hard for me to explain to you how many times that situation kept me from ever saying something unkind or unfair or unnecessary about another person behind their back. I saw the hurt in Bill's eyes. I never thought Larry would go straight to him and tell him what I said. Listen.

Whenever words go out of your mouth, you need to remember you cannot get them back. They are gone forever. They are doing their job, and you will not be able to get them back. All the king's horses and all the king's men can get your words back into your mouth again. Once you've set them, they're gone, they're out. So that situation caused me to realize, you know, that was so hurtful to Bill, and I can't believe Larry said something. But I could blame Larry, and I could be upset with Bill for having his feelings hurt, or I could change my behavior. You see, you can't talk yourself out of a situation you behaved your way into, but you can behave your way out of a situation that you talked yourself into. So over the coming weeks and months, my behavior towards Bill changed. I never talked about him again behind his back. And as a matter of fact, he never did anything wrong that I had to go to him privately and talk to him one on one. It improved our relationship and increased our friendship. But more than anything, and I hope you're listening, it caused me to realize, I don't want to go through that again. I don't want to say something to somebody and then wonder whether or not they're going to go tell somebody. And then I don't want to have what I said to somebody get back to somebody else and hurt their feelings. And then I have to apologize to them for running my mouth about them when I shouldn't have been talking about them in the first place. I think you're following this because it really makes a lot of sense. I'm convinced that I'm not the only one who's ever done this. A wise old owl sat in an oak. The more he knew, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he knew. And this same thing can be true of you. You see, I Learned from that poem and I learned from the situation with Larry and Bill. Just don't talk about other people behind their back unless you're saying something good. If you're saying something good about them and they get it gets back to another person, well, that's going to be fine. They're going to love that. You talk about a person all you want to behind their back as long as it's good. Oh, y' all hear what Bill did, man, the other day I saw him, he was playing football and he did such a great job. Oh, the other day I saw Mary. She looked so pretty. She had on a brand new dress. I was just amazed at how beautiful she was in that dress. You see, when words like that get back to somebody, it's going to be okay. But when you say things that are unkind or hurtful or painful about another person, you can say, I'm sorry, but they're not going to trust you. It took Bill some time to get to where he could trust me. And he taught me the best lesson. I mean, one of the most important lessons I've ever learned in my life. If you want to talk about somebody behind their back, why don't you go talk to them alone, into their face. Just say, you know, there's something bothering me, I need to talk to you about. I could have done that. I could have gone to Bill and said, you know, Bill, there's a situation that's going on and I just thought I should share it with you alone. I'm not perfect myself, but I thought you might want to know this. That would have been. That's what he asked me to do when he came to talk to me. This will change the posture of your life. This will promote you in business. This will cause you to have a good marriage. This will cause you to have better family relationships because people will trust you, because your behavior will change. I have four grown daughters, and one of my policies is I never talk to any one of my daughters about any of the other daughters unless there's something good. If you have children and you need to talk to them, talk to them alone. Talk to them with a loving, caring spirit. If you have a mom or a dad and they're not perfect, which most mom or dads are not perfect. I know that I'm a dad and I'm not perfect either. Talk to them alone and just say, there's some things that are bothering me that I just want to talk to you about. Your respect level and your communication level will greatly improve and you will be in a situation to win every time. So just remember, you can't talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into, but you can behave your way out of a situation that you talked yourself into if you learn to be more careful. I'm Dr. Robert roll. This is our podcast for our time together today. I hope it's been helpful. I hope you'll use this. You'll be glad you did. Look forward to our next time together. Bye. Bye.

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