Hello dear listeners, and welcome to our podcast “Absolutely Intercultural”. This is show 272, and our topic today is “The Apology Culture”. Are you the kind of person who easily and quickly apologizes? Or do you have a sleepless night when you know that you should apologize to your boss the next morning? Making mistakes may be painful, but it is the fastest way towards getting it right. Some people can admit their mistakes quite easily, they apologize and move forward. On the other hand, there are people who are stuck in their guilt for what they have done; people, who find it very hard to say sorry to others, and sometimes, even to forgive themselves. Is there any universal formula for how to apologize properly? Are there any paths for moving from guilt to self-improvement more quickly?
absolutely absent
In our first category, “absolutely absent”, Lars from Germany shares with us how he forgot to attend an important business meeting with his team and this almost cost him his job.
absolutely forgiven
In our second category, “absolutely forgiven”, Safi, a student from a German-Libyan family, tells us about an embarrassing situation where he had forgotten to cancel a one-to-one zoom meeting with his university lecturer. However, as he apologized very thoroughly, his lecturer was so disarmed by his honesty, that Safi was completely forgiven.
absolutely guilty
In our last category, “absolutely guilty”, Fernanda, a former medical student from Mexico tells us about how terribly sad and guilty she felt when a patient had died in her care in a very busy emergency room.
What about you? Have you recently been in a situation where you where you had to apologize to someone? Did you do what our guests today advise us to do in order to be forgiven or even to forgive yourself?
Please write a comment or mail us, we could do a follow-up interview with you in one of our next shows. On our web page, absolutely-intercultural.com, you can get more information about this show and previous episodes and you can leave comments. And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.
By the way, did you know we are also on iTunes or Apple Podcasts? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.
Our next show will be coming to you on 1st April.
Until then – allow yourself to make mistakes – but be prepared to fully apologize for them and
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!
The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Chief Editor: Natalia Obikhod
Assistant Editors: Carlos Fuch, Lars Felder, Shelbi Ankiewicz