Every Friday I receive an article from Dan Cockerell on various topics. Dan is a speaking consultant and was the former VP of Magic Kingdom. My boss is obsessed with Disney and introduced me to his podcasts and articles a while back. Most of the articles are on leadership. Last week the article was written by Daniella Balarezo and it was about saying sorry.
Maja Jovanovic says, when we needlessly apologize, we end up making ourselves small and diminish what we’re trying to express. Think about it. How often do you say sorry? Sorry I was late. Sorry to interrupt you. Sorry to bother you. With texts, she points out, “Every single one of us has responded to a text you got when you weren’t able to respond right away. What did you say? ‘Sorry.’” She says, “Don’t apologize — say, ‘I was working,’ ‘I was reading,’ ‘I was driving, ‘I was trying to put on Spanx.’ Whatever it is, it’s all good. You don’t have to apologize.”
Think about all the times you use the word “sorry” in a typical day. There are the necessary “sorry”s — when you bump into someone, when you need to cancel plans with a friend. But what about the unnecessary “sorry”s? The “sorry, this may be an obvious idea” at a meeting, the “sorry to cause trouble” when rescheduling a haircut, the “sorry, there’s a spill in the dairy aisle” at the grocery. Did you spill the milk in the dairy aisle? Then why are you sorry about it?
It almost made me laugh because it brought it light how often I was saying sorry. A few weeks ago my brother picked Mya up from daycare earlier than I had planned him getting there. I texted her daycare provided and said “sorry, I didn’t know he was coming that early”. Why was I sorry about that? If anything it was better for her because she got paid for a full day and didn’t have to keep her all day. After reading this article I catch myself saying sorry and then erasing it from the text, because what am I really sorry about?
Studies show women tend to say “sorry” more often then men. WHOA! Who is surprised by that? In all seriousness though, I am the furthest thing from an woman’s activist. Ask Nick, I kind of can’t stand them (cue the haters). But I found this interesting. Jovanovic said at a convention she was at there were four women on a panel who were experts in their chosen fields. Among them, they had published hundreds of academic articles and dozens of books. All they had to do was introduce themselves. The first woman takes a microphone and she goes, ‘I don’t know what I could possibly add to this discussion’ … The second woman takes the microphone and says, ‘Oh my gosh, I thought they sent the email to the wrong person. I’m just so humbled to be here.’” The third and fourth women did the same thing. Jovaovic said during the 25 panels at that week-long conference, not once did she hear a man take that microphone and discount his accomplishments or minimize his experience. Yet every single time a woman took a microphone she had an apologetic tone . We do it without even noticing it. It is kind of heartbreaking. Come on ladies, quick being sorry for no reason! We are belittling ourselves!
I guarantee, like me, next time you say “sorry”, you will think about it and ask yourself, why am I sorry?
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