Part three of this course provides you with many tips, techniques, and pieces of advice to help you correctly apologize. The advice I’m about to share with you will help you in ways beyond an apology. The tips can be applied to many areas of your life and communication as you will soon see.

What It Means to Correctly Apologize: To Be Forgiven and Forgotten?

Some people think apologizing correctly is as simple as saying “sorry” for a mistake. This is a shallow understanding of what you need to achieve in an apology. The goal of apologizing – and what I define as “apologizing correctly” – is when the person you hurt accepts your apology and forgives you. The person neither rejects your apology by saying something like “no need to apologize” nor holds the mistake against you. Things do not necessarily return to the way they were before.

It is beyond the purpose of an apology to make your relationship stronger, indifferent, or worse because these outcomes depend on the severity of the mistake. If you keep screwing up by making mistake after mistake, you’ll have successfully apologized when the person forgives you – but it doesn’t mean your relationship is the same as it were before the mistake.

There is a lot of confusion about the old phrase “We must not forget; but we must forgive”. We know forgiveness is a must. Without it, the person unwilling to forgive emotionally suffers – often leaving the person who did the damage unscathed. But where does forgetting sit in a successful apology? Should we aim to have our mistakes forgotten by those we hurt?

If another person holds the bitter memories and resentment of your mistake against you, the person has not forgiven. It is almost humanly impossible, however, to forget another’s mistake. Forgiveness heals the past releasing ill will against the person. Not forgetting provides a memory of the pain that guides future actions. Forgiveness and forgetting are closely knit together, yet define entirely different things.

An apology is successful when it is accepted and the mistake no longer is held against you. The person may not forget your mistake, but he or she forgives you and no longer resents you for the mistake or uses it to manipulate you. Resentment, frustration, anger, gossip, bitterness, ill will, and other outward manifestations of hatred are erased upon a successful apology. Someone with these emotions possibly signals the person has yet to forgive.

Now that a successful apology is defined, I feel it’s important to note that apologizing correctly can only do so much. There is no iron-clad, fool-proof, guaranteed technique to successfully apologize. Sometimes you need to suffer through your mistakes and bear the punishment. Apologizing can sometimes be a bandage on a wound to help heal the pain. If the wound is repeatedly reopened, it is not the bandage’s fault, but the person who inflicted the pain. Most people can forgive you so many times before they lose trust in your. They cannot forget the pain you have caused them. A reoccurring problem needs to be dealt with instead of expecting an apology to make amends.

Though apologizing correctly can be difficult, use the following tips. You will fix your mistakes, repair your relationships, and initiate emotional healing and freedom. Master these tips and you will be equipped with the tools to repair emotional damage from your mistakes.

Plan

Plan what you’re about to say by thinking your apology through beforehand. Prepare yourself to give a sincere apology. You can also write down your apology to clarify your thoughts so you increase the chances of it being a success.

When intense emotions fly everywhere in a situation, such as in a heated argument, it’s hard to think of what you want to express – yet alone say it in a constructive manner. Intense emotions blind you to constructively express your thoughts. Plan your thoughts before going “live” with your apology to increase the likelihood of a successful apology. A plan gives you guidelines to act from – helping you remain on track and not deviate with relationship damaging statements too common in emotionally intense situations.

The same lesson in planning carries over to help you achieve life goals. Success stems from the seeds planted with planning. Don’t take this advice lightly. Planning nurtures golden relationships.

Responsibility

Admit you hurt the person. Your innate social intelligence will give you an intuition or feeling when you hurt someone. If you hurt the person by saying something offensive, admit that you made the mistake. Don’t say, “You shouldn’t be offended by what I said.” Avoid a non-apology (from part two on barriers and mistakes made in apologizing), which involves blaming the other person while simultaneously giving a poor apology. Here are non-apology examples:

• “I apologize to those I hurt because of their loss.”
• “I’m deeply sorry for those who I may have offended.”
• “Please take my apology if you were offended by what I said.”

These examples appear to be apologies, yet are attempts to avoid responsibility. Own up to the mistake and take responsibility regardless of your intentions and whether it truly hurt the person. The little voice that tries to take you away from accepting responsibility and apologizing is your ego. Egos are filled with deceitful lies and pride trying to deter you from responsibility.

Timing

For a little problem you need to apologize straight away and prevent it from growing into a big one. It’s very simple. If you accidentally step on someone’s foot, obviously you should say “sorry” straight away instead of apologizing at a later time. (I’m sure the person will think you’ve got some serious problems if you write an apology for stepping on their foot.)

For a more serious problem, take the time to get in a good environment where you can honestly apologize and they can safely respond. Don’t cause more pain by “going into a boiling room” by trying to apologize when the two of you have red-hot emotions.

In addition, it may be necessary to give the person time after your apology. You can have all the right ingredients for a meal, but time is needed to cook the ingredients. Provide the person with extra space to let him or her come to terms with what happened. Letting your apology seep in could be what makes your apology successful.

Explain

Why did you make the mistake? You are not justifying what you did, rather you are to Let the person know about your faults. Become vulnerable. Explain to the person that you didn’t see them there, you let your anger get the better of you, you were ignorant, you should have understood them better – whatever the mistake maybe.

Explain why you did what you did without blaming the mistake on external circumstances. It is tempting when explaining your mistake to shift the explanation onto the other person. You start off by saying, “I’m sorry for not taking out the garbage…” then your selfishness can kick in as you say “…but I always take out the rubbish and you don’t ever do it!” Explain the problem, but don’t convert it into someone else’s problem through a non-apology.

Use the who, what, why, when, and how to get you started in explaining your mistake. You don’t need to explain everything – just say what you think will help clear up the understanding between the two of you.

One last point about explaining is to avoid going overboard with your apologies and make a big issue over something small. It’s annoying to have someone constantly say “sorry” or use other forms of apologizing when you have forgiven the person and moved on. When the person has forgiven you, move on.

Sympathy – Display Your Social Emotions

Sympathy, a powerful “social emotion”, is an expression of pain felt by the person you hurt. This is important because social emotions, in general, create cooperation and understanding. We don’t learn in school how to feel another person’s pain, yet we have innate social emotions that make us feel, behave, and act in a way that complies with social codes. Remorse, embarrassment, and guilt are important emotions to display in your verbal and nonverbal communication when giving an apology. A guilty individual showing remorse is more likely to give a successful apology than someone that hides their social emotions. (If social emotions fascinate you, I discuss them in-depth in the tenth chapter of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program.)

Display sorrow for your actions. Communicate sympathy to show you understand the person’s pain and your mistakes. If you want, you can go one step further than sympathy by showing empathy, which involves psychologically and physiologically experiencing what the person feels. (See here for a more detailed discussion on sympathy versus empathy.) The pain connects the two of you to build understanding and harmony.

Share the person’s pain by reflecting your feelings about the mistake with something as simple as:

• “I’m sorry I lied to you. I feel guilty that I’ve let you down.”
• “Having scratched the car, I feel ashamed that something so careless will hurt our finances.”
• “I feel I have let you down and hurt our relationship by yelling at you.”

A common misunderstanding with sympathy is you focus on yourself, diverting attention from the hurt person. Sympathy, however, shows the person you are also suffering from your blunder. The person will be more understanding and willing to discuss their feelings because you have expressed yours. The person may even be happy to receive this little bit of secret revenge. If someone hurts us, we get a little kick of happiness seeing them also suffer from their actions.

How Did It Go?

Was your apology a failure? If an apology failed, do not take it personally. Failure is a result, not a person. If your apology failed and you are certain you successfully applied all these tips, try alternative forms of apologizing, such as writing an apology or getting someone else to apologize for you. Do not forget that letting time pass could make your apology a success.

On the other hand, if your apology was successful, congratulations! Be grateful for the person’s forgiveness and for a second chance. Learn from your mistake and move on.

Do not dwell on the past. You have a great future ahead of you. Make use of it by putting your attention on what you can do in this very moment to improve the relationship. You are now ready to complete emotional healing and freedom with forgiveness.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
2. The Power of Apologizing
3. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven
4. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
5. How to Fight and Win Any Argument Fast

The second part of this course reveals the common barriers, problems, and mistakes we face when we apologize and ask for forgiveness. Learning the correct actions and methods to apologize is not enough – it helps your understanding and success if you also know what not to do.

You are also going to discover something called a “non-apology apology”. That is no typo. I’m certain you have heard a non-apology apology given by a politician. You likely have used this poor habit to escape a situation where you wanted to avoid an apology.

Barriers to Apologizing

You know how important apologizing is after reading the first part of the course, but let’s assume you still cannot bring yourself to apologize. The benefits of apologizing have not built enough reason for you to pursue the pleasure and avoid the pain of an apology. Maybe you are experiencing excessive workloads and stress. Maybe you don’t have the courage to confront the person face-to-face. If this is the case, I encourage you to build your confidence and throw away your pride. You will be glad you did.

As explained in part one, we often avoid an apology because of fear. The primary fear I think people have when apologizing is the idea that apologizing puts down your protective shield, which leaves you vulnerable for an attack by the other person. You fear the ramifications of your actions. People with this fear think the problem is best left in the dark because an apology puts the problem under a light to amplify the issue.

A part of this fear may actually be real because the topic you should discuss could be bottled inside of you and your would-be conversational partner. An apology could open a bottle of soft drink. Depending on the severity each of you have been shaken, a lot of fizz could spurt out. Anger, confrontation, and frustration will shoot out when either of you are shaken up and previously unopened to the other person.

Be humble, calm, and lose a self-centered approach to control this fear. If the fear is minor, you simply tell the person your fear and why you have it before giving your apology. That itself can open up communication.

When you apologize, it helps to remember that being scared of confrontation with the person comes from wanting to protect yourself. You fear responsibility for your actions. However, don’t expect the person to treat you like an angel. After all, you screwed up otherwise an apology would be unnecessary.

Another likely barrier to you apologizing is a fear that it signals weakness. You think the person receives a superior power over you. “I’m better than you! I win! You apologized!” Yeah right. A failure to apologize communicates to yourself that you are weak weak because there is an imbalance between your courage and your ego.

When you admit a mistake and ask to be forgiven, your self-centeredness lowers, your courage rises, and balance exists with you and the other person. Weakness and vulnerability is a misnomer about apologizing. “It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity,” said Stephen Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.”

Your goal in apologizing is not to keep your pride alive or to let the other person “win”. Aim to develop a good relationship. There is no winners or losers. The two of you play on the same team and must work together towards a quality relationship.

The Most Common Mistake: A Non-Apology Apology

We are taught early in life to say “please” and “thank you” to please mum or dad. Most of us never understood the full intent behind gratitude. At the same time, we are taught to apologize by saying, “I’m sorry” because our parents made us. We miss the true reason for an apology.

From a young age we continue to shy away from true apologies by using a bad habit called a non-apology apology. A non-apology apology is a forced apology to the offended person, because it’s the right thing to do, without any realization or belief about one’s mistake. It’s an extension of the forced apology our parents made us give when we were young – except we say the non-apology apology to please the other person.

If you’re after some examples of non-apologies, look no further than politicians. These adorable people are filled with this poor apology. One example is Bill Clinton’s remarks regarding the Lewinsky scandal. President Clinton confessed his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong”, but failed to experience guilt. It was said about his talk that Clinton aimed to protect what he had done. We see Clinton detached from his sorrow when he said, “It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people.”

Another non-apology I came across was in the NFL. Detroit Lion’s president Matt Millen used an inappropriate term for gays when he confronted a fellow NFL player. “He made an inappropriate remark,” said Millen, “and I reacted inappropriately. I said something I shouldn’t have, which was wrong, and I apologize for that. And I apologize to anybody that I offended with that remark.” That is filled with non-apology apologies.

Another example I found of many was Pierre Boivin, Montreal Canadiens’ President, when he apologized for fans booing the American national anthem. Boivin said, “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this incident.”

It is a growing trend to say sorry on the condition you hurt someone – instead of admitting your mistake regardless of someone’s pain that compels you to apologize. The non-apology apology requires someone to be hurt and implies offended people are partially to blame for their reaction. Some more examples:

• “I’m sorry for not mowing the lawn even though it does not require cutting.”
• “I apologize if I hurt anyone.”
• “Please take my apology if you were offended by what I said.”
• Jim Buzinski over at Out Sports is trying to discourage the non-apology apology. He has plenty of good examples of this mistake in his article, Apology Not Accepted.

To show you the delicacy of apologizing, see this apology: “I’m sorry I lied to you. I feel guilty that I’ve let you down.” All you do is insert an “if” into the first sentence (“I’m sorry if I lied to you”) to destroy a good apology with a non-apology apology.

We use non-apology apologies to take the heat off ourselves to keep the offended person quite. It puts the onus on those we upset by implying the victim is wrong. There is no remorse and sorrow like an unregretful child apologizing. A non-apology apology is said to please a person while protecting yourself. You shy away from guilt and responsibility with a non-apology apology.

An awareness of these common barriers and mistakes will have you ready to successfully apologize. Knowing what not to do will guide you with what to do.

You are now ready to improve your relationship by learning how to correctly apologize to heal the damage that set the two of you apart.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. The Power of Apologizing
2. Top 15 Dumb Mistakes People Make in Relationships
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. 16 Email Mistakes You Must Avoid: Email Etiquette
5. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

To begin the course, what is your reaction to learning about apologizing and forgiveness? Take a few seconds to think about it.

Once you’ve answered that simple question, you’re probably unwilling to learn more if you’re like most people. This is the unfortunate reality we face with most new topics we learn. We assume a shallow understanding of a powerfully deep topic. A closed mind literally steals our ability to grasp new powerful information to change our lives.

Why do people avoid learning about apologizing when it has tremendous powers? I believe many people think like this for three reasons:

1. They think they know how to apologize. Just like the many people who have yet to start learning effective communication skills, so are these people with apologizing. They think they have the necessary skills, but in reality their thoughts blind themselves from opportunities to improve their lives and relationships. Don’t trick yourself into thinking you “know it all”. When you say you know what is right, you use the number one technique to destroy learning: ignorance. You close your mind because it’s too full to accommodate further information.
2. They think it isn’t relevant enough. These people think apologizing is not worth it and a waste of time to learn. Like point one, you need to be aware of, and willing to learn, what topics such as apologizing can really do for your life.
3. They are too lazy. These people cannot be bothered to learn. Hopefully, you don’t fit in this category. But if you do, there’s nothing I can do about it. It is your choice and your life. Don’t blame other people for the events in your life because of your decision to avoid responsibility for who you become.

These excuses to avoid emotional healing are sadly limiting because we always make mistakes. Mistake after mistake. It doesn’t stop. Your mistakes will never stop. I’m not only talking about physical accidents, but mistakes we make with our relationships. We say things that hurt others. We can be ignorant in loving our family. We can be emotionally blind to those in need.

Take a momentary leap of faith to expand your awareness and grasp the powers of apologizing and forgiveness to free yourself from mistakes and pain. Accept a level of awareness and openness to change. Having done this, you have two decisions to make in dealing with your mistakes.

Firstly, you need reduction. You will never eliminate mistakes, but you can reduce the number by learning more about yourself and developing your communication like you’re doing with my newsletter, articles, and this course. Characters in Soap Operas are the worst role models to learn from to improve your communication because the characters continue to screw up, fight, make up, and repeat the process (it is drama after all). Communicate more effectively to avoid relationship blunders that create emotional pain.

Secondly, you need to cope. Because of the first, you will always be making mistakes that hurt people. Learn to live with your mistakes as they will always exist. Coping can be ignorance or passive acceptance, but for our purpose it is learning to better manage ourselves with inevitable events.

Because the first decision of reduction is an ongoing process achieved through continual learning, this course focuses on the coping component of emotional healing. One of the best ways to do this to experience a more enjoyable life is through an apology. A successful apology is not just saying “sorry” – it is a radical movement from pain to empowerment.

What Happens When You Fail to Apologize

A large barrier faces each of us in emotional healing: the difficulty of an apology. We get ensnared in thoughts about ourselves by holding onto pride. We can be selfish and not willing to admit our most obvious mistakes. Pride eats away at us as we argue or, at the other end of the continuum, ignore the mistake to defend even an obvious wrongdoing. Pride ensnares us in its cage of lies as we defend our self-centered minds, ignoring guilt that would restore harmony.

It has happened to me. I once had too much pride and selfishness to apologize to a loved one I hurt. When I did want to apologize, I couldn’t bring myself to face the person. The result was a hurt relationship and less happiness for me because I ignored the guilt that could have lead me to apologizing, forgiveness, and emotional restoration.

In shifting the focus on apologizing away from you, what does avoiding an apology do to other people? They feel hurt that you are unwilling to communicate your mistake. They lose trust in you as you hide behind your mistake. They become angry towards you, wondering why you will not tell them the truth. They may begin to counter your lack of apologies by not apologizing themselves as the relationship goes downhill with the two of you get caught in a power struggle.

Communicate your mistakes. Show your guilt. Tell the person how bad you feel. A mistake you make is like a scratch on the skin – by not apologizing you deepen the wound and rub salt into it. Stop hurting the other person and yourself, and learn to apologize. There is real power in apologizing and emotional healing.

Powerful Benefits in Apologizing

If you feel I haven’t given you enough reasons to start apologizing already, here are more reasons and the amazing power of apologizing:

1. The healing process begins when you apologize. This is the most powerful benefit of apologizing. People hold grudges and resentment against those who fail to apologize and admit their mistakes. By apologizing, you put yourself on the same wavelength as those hurt by your mistakes. You see the wrongdoing they see in you. Their resentment diminishes as they become more capable of moving on and freeing themselves from the past.
2. While emotional healing in other people can be initiated from apologizing, it can also start self-healing as you feel free from your past burdens. The next time you apologize, notice how free it feels to admit your wrongdoing. It is liberating to set yourself free from guilt that would otherwise plague you for days, weeks, and sometimes years to come. Don’t let yourself become a person who’s past weighs them down until the day they die.
3. When you admit your mistakes and reveal your weaknesses, people are more willing to copy you. People feel safe when you admit your wrongdoings. Their courage builds to practice the power of apologizing because they see it is the better choice to follow. Apologizing produces guilt in people for the better. They may become aware of their mistake, which produces guilt and possibly leads them to an apology. Apologizing has a chain-reaction effect.
4. We are all extremely flawed. If we were cars, we’d breakdown every 50 miles. We always make mistakes regardless of our intentions to do good. Apologies are necessary to balance our lives.
5. If someone hurts you, it is justice to have them apologize to you. For some reason this is not the case when we hurt someone. The hurting person desires your sympathy as much as you desire their sympathy when they hurt you.
6. Apologizing gives back what you took. You restore the victim’s feeling of worthiness and self-esteem. They no longer feel burdened nor responsible for your mistake. This benefit of apologizing is especially true in children.
7. By having complete responsibility for your actions, you possess an enormous amount of self-control. You don’t become a victim of others. You stop blaming people for what you can control. You become your own person. You create your own destiny.
8. A sincere apology shows effort in a relationship. It shows you care for the person. That’s an entire different approach to avoiding mistakes in an attempt to “secretly get by”. By not apologizing you sweep dirt under a rug. An avoided problem is likely to reappear and bite you when you least expect it – at the worst possible time.
9. You build courage and become a confident person. When apologizing and asking for forgiveness, you rise above the destructive compulsion to avoid remorse. You no longer cover up your behavior, you have brought it into the light. This takes courage! Your new-found courage will roll into other areas of your life as you begin to address other difficult issues you have avoided in the past.

Who would have thought there is this much power in apologizing! In fact, there is a lot more to emotional healing than what has been discussed. There is true power in freeing yourself from the past with emotional healing. Be sure to read the rest of this free course to receive the many powers of apologizing.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
2. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven
3. Review of Voice Power by Renee Grant-Williams
4. Review of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
5. Change Your Words to Change People: Persuasive Power Words

Two years following the incident in a New York Times article covering this story, it was reported that Jason raised his grade average to 4.614, which exceeds the perfect average of 4, by taking advanced courses. He graduated with highest honors.

How can someone as smart as Jason do something so dumb? Jason received above perfect grades and still emotionally lost himself by trying to severely wound his teacher. The answer? Smart can be dumb. Smart is not communication-dumb because studies show there is little or no correlation between IQ and emotional intelligence, but in this article we’ll look at how logical intelligence can hurt a person’s emotional life.

This article may generate controversy, but I feel I give a balanced discussion in sharing my experience, knowledge, and getting you to think deeply about the topic. Whether you are intelligent, “mentally-challenged”, or curious about this topic in understanding those smart people in your life, I am sure you will get a lot of useful advice from this article.

Being a somewhat smart guy myself, it is painful to hear that intelligence – such a useful characteristic to possess – may be harmful. It is tough to imagine a quality highly praised by society is detrimental to communication. For this reason, take a deep breathe now, relax, and open your mind to the possibilities of bettering your communication to improve your life.

During my early university years, I regarded myself as an intelligent guy. I was no Einstein, but I got good marks in Mathematics, Physics, and other technical subjects. This lead me to start a degree in Engineering, majoring in Mechatronics, an area of study that integrates mechanics, electronics, and computing. I would be able to design robotics and cybernetic systems – the wave of the future. I thought such skills would surely give me an edge in life.

After one year of study with decent marks, I began to see two major classes of students. The first category of student turned up to few lectures, partied every weekend, enjoyed a great social life, and did minimal work to pass courses. The second category of students were intelligent, hard workers, got good grades, and were very focused on their studies. Surely these intelligent and hard-working students would fill the great jobs before the other, more lazier, class of student?

Not so. Students are often shocked upon graduation that their qualifications are not as important as they once thought. In school, students are lead to believe their academic knowledge is the primary determinat of a great job and success. Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences defines various types of intelligence and emphasizes that schools are too focused on logic and linguistic intelligence. Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a more famous author that demotes the common belief that the government’s education system leads students to wealth and success. Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers contains further proof that IQ has very little correlation with achievement.

Graduates enter the workforce only to realize that co-workers hate them, less intelligent people are the ones receiving promotions, and sucking up to the boss doesn’t help their personal earnings. The students have the “hard skills” such as technical know-how, but they lack the “soft skills” such as conflict management and other human relational skills. The transition for intelligent people from being goal-oriented to process and people-oriented is usually realized through the hard school of knocks, experience.

If you have experience in hiring people, you know the importance of people skills. Educational skills are useless in some industries when people skills are absent. You can have great ideas, theories, and solve complex problems, but if you cannot effectively communicate that material in a persuasive and exciting manner by relating to your fellow human, you face an uphill battle in whatever challenges you encounter. It’s not that people dislike you because of your intelligence; it’s that people dislike you because you’re rude, not understanding, or annoying to be around. The intelligent person with poor communication skills is insensitive or unaware of other’s emotions.

Hopefully I can reveal the elusive obvious to you in this little exercise. I want you to think back to primary school or high school. Perhaps even college. Select the most memorable class to you.

I want you to categorize, and roughly rank, class members based on two sets of criteria: intelligence and popularity. You don’t need to go through every class member, but recall those at the end of each spectrum. That is, remember the smartest few in the class and the most popular few in the class. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, give a person a rank of ten in intelligence if you feel they were the most intelligent in the class. For the students who had lots of friends, give them a ten in the popularity category. Try to categorize roughly six students. If you have problems remembering, quickly write the ranks down on paper.

Now, with the students you have ranked in one category, I want you to rank them in the other category. So if you have ranked the smartest student as a ten in the intelligence category, give the person a rank you feel is appropriate in the popularity category. Do the same for the students you ranked in the popularity category.

Now that you have got several people in each of the two categories, think about the difference between each student. The purpose of doing this exercise is to help you see the contrast between intelligence and people skills.

Genius-Failure Paradox

Chances are if you are like most people and myself, you would have noticed something distinguishable from the exercise. Those who were smartest in the class were generally not very popular due to poor social skills. (I know there are other measurements of communication than only popularity). They did not have good people skills. Presumptuous? Likely, no.

All intelligent people do not have poor people skills nor does all unintelligent people have good people skills. I know people will say, “But I know someone who is smart and great with people.” Good. So do I. Intelligence and people skills are not mutually exclusive characteristics! Having one does not mean you cannot have the other.

What I’m proposing, which has been touched on and backed by a couple of authors and teachers, is that academically intelligent people fail in predictable areas of their lives – and they don’t want to solve the dilemma. The genius-failure paradox describes that people who must feel smarter, wealthier – or generally superior – to others refuse to seek help in dealing with people. (You can read more about superiority, inferiority, and the self-image.)

It is nothing new to say that intelligence does not equal success. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence, says that IQ is too narrow to predicate success. The implications of emotional intelligence, which is summarized as an understanding of your emotions and the emotions of other people, are profound in communication and many areas of life. “Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities,” says Goleman, “either facilitating or interfering with them.”

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. The Benefits of Communication Skills
2. Why People Remain Quiet, Shy, and Non-Assertive: The Benefits of Passive Behavior and Communication
3. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People
4. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
5. The Greatest 15 Myths of Communication