Good morning, John.
I'm obviously still in the studio, they're tracking banjo in the other room.
They'd never think they'd be banjo tracking on one of my albums. But I'm not here to talk about music today, John.
I'm here to be talk about how to apologise.
Slogan of Nerdfighteria these past seven years has been: "Don't forget to be awesome!"
and that is a good slogan! Not because it is easy but because it is hard.
Being awesome requires constant vigilance and you will slip up.
Whether because of ignorance or because of selfishness, or because of outright malice
or because you're drunk. But you have a choice after you've done something crappy.
You can transform into one of two things:
either you can regain your awesome through actual apology
or you can become a fartbag.
A fartbag - this is a technical definition - is a person who hurts someone and then blames the person they hurt
for their pain. It's like they step on your toe and then you're like: "Aww" and then I was like:
"God, stop standing everywhere".
I understand you didn't mean to step on the person's toe
but you still did. And they're in pain and you caused it
so apologise!
So I put together some dos and don'ts on how to be awesome and not be a fartbag.
Don't blame people for how they feel.
If you're telling someone that you've hurt to not be so sensitive and they're such a delicate flower,
that they don't understand how the world works, they don't understand your suffering,
what you've been through, you're being a fartbag!
Do feel bad.
I am sick of this idea that we're supposed to go through life experiencing the absolute minumum
negative emotions. If you did something sucky, you're supposed to feel bad about it.
That's the definition of a conscience. That's how that's how it supposed to be.
Don't - if you're apologising - think that you're asking for forgiveness. That's not what you're doing.
You have done something crappy to a person, you should not then like go forward and make additional
requests of them. Yes, you can hope that your apology results in forgiveness, you can hope for that,
but you are not requesting that.
Do figure out what you did wrong.
Figure it out, understand it, believe it, internalise it.
Otherwise your apology's just gonna be a load of poo, cause you're not gonna actually think you did anything
wrong or you're gonna end up blaming the person who is hurt. Fartbag!
Do figure out why you did the hurtful things.
Maybe it was because of ignorance, maybe because of insecurity, maybe because you're having a really
super bad day and you really needed to snap. Spend that time in your own head, figuring out. And then
don't make excuses.
But do provide context. The other person or the people understanding why you did what you did
is not going to excuse what you did and it's not gonna fix what you did, but it might help them understand why
you did what you did and understanding is a really powerful force in human relationships.
Don't just express sympathy. You can express sympathy but not just that.
You also have to accept the blame. You are not sorry that your friend is hurt,
you are sorry that you hurt your friend.
Tell the people that you hurt that you can see what you have done, know you can't undo it
but you will not do it again in the future.
Don't think that you are losing or that you are submitting.
The biggest cause of fartbaggery is the belief that all social interactions are zero-sum games
and that I'm trying to win over you and that if I get you to apologise, then I have won some kind of battle.
Apologising is not a sign of weakness, people say that all the time, it's a sign of strength.
It's a sign that you and your ego are strong enough to handle it, when you make a mistake.
There's been some interesting research on this actually and it turns out that people who apologise,
feel weaker but are perceived as stronger people. Whereas fartbags feel stronger, but they are perceived
by the people around them as weaker. I know which one of these I would rather...
Don't forget to tell the people that you hurt how you are going to change. And finally, do change.
Cause otherwise you're just a very eloquent lying fartbag.
John, I'll see you on Tuesday.
Hey, guys. So today I wanna talk about getting called out and how to apologise.
What you're supposed to do, when you get called out, and the way to apologise so that people believe you
and know that you're actually comitted to change.
