AEE 2616: That’s on Me! Admitting Mistakes Without Making It Awkward

This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2616. That's on me, admitting mistakes without making it awkward. welcome to the all ears english podcast downloaded more than 200 million times are you feeling stuck with your english we'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection with your american hosts lindsey mcmahon the english adventurer and michelle kaplan the new york radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.

And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe. Are you someone who owns your mistakes? This is a smart thing to do to stay connected and avoid a fight. Find out how to do it in a native and natural way in English today.

Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary. There's speed. There's connected speech.

There are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. If conversations sometimes feel overwhelming, it may simply mean you're ready for the next level of training. Find out your exact level with our quick, free fluency quiz.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey, Lindsay, how are you? I'm feeling pretty good today, Michelle.

Doing well. Yeah. What are we talking about on the show today? Well, did you make dinner reservations for tonight? Oh, no, I forgot. That's on me. Oh, okay.

We'll have to do takeout. Lindsay, do you feel like you make a lot of mistakes? And do you usually admit to them? Do you admit to them? Oh, I make a lot of mistakes and yeah, I usually try to admit to them.

I mean, sometimes I play games and stuff with my partner and try to, I don't know, maybe not always fully own up, right? But in general, in life, it's good to own up to your mistakes and say something like, that's on me or that was my fault, right? right yeah do you mean you're you mean playing literal games like you're actually playing games i don't know like maybe it's like oh who who did like whose fault was it really you know like just sort of that kind of i don't know yeah oh i don't know anything about that right i don't know what you're talking about

but that's just for fun just for fun yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah um so yeah we can talk about you know owning up to our mistakes saying something is our fault but in a casual way which is what we're getting into today to today so we can do this by saying phrases like that's on me which is what you used um about the dinner reservation Yeah, exactly. I mean, essentially, it means what, Michelle? What does it mean?

Yeah, it means it's my fault. I did it. Right. Yeah, something was my responsibility and I messed it up. It's not dramatic. It's a relaxed way of saying I made a mistake.

It's a nice, natural, native way to say that. Yeah. Right. And yeah, this is huge for connection because when you take accountability calmly, right, you can show the self-awareness and it's the opposite of defensiveness, which really kills the connection.

Exactly. If you're always defensive and blaming someone else in a serious way for something, that's not good. That's never going to build a relationship. Right.

Right. Guys, before we go any further in the episode, if you are not currently following the show, if you're an Apple podcast or Spotify, you do want to hit that follow button so that we drop right into your listening queue and you don't have to come after us and find our show. We'll drop into your queue every morning, almost every morning, Michelle, five days a week. Isn't that crazy?

Yes. Yeah. Lots of episodes. That's great. Um, lots of fun content and useful. Um, so Lindsay, how would we use that on me? Oh, it's a casual phrase, like we said, but it can be used in both professional and personal situations.

We've, we've always been saying over on business English or other podcasts, we always say we don't become robots when we swipe our card and go into our workplace. Right. Um, we stay, remain human beings. So

So that's why a lot of phrases are useful professionally and personally. So here's a professional example. The report wasn't ready for the meeting. I thought the meeting was tomorrow.

That's on me. See, it sounds to me very mature when you say that. Yeah, I do like I like that. It's self-aware, self-aware. Or you said you'd call last night.

Yeah, that's on me. I dropped the ball. OK, yeah. A lot of times when we say it, we also do give some sort of short reason. So like like this. Did you lock the door when we left?

Oh, no, that's on me. I got distracted by my phone. Come on. Gotta lock the door. It's a slippery slope between, in this case, this doesn't feel like an excuse, but it could feel like an excuse.

So just be careful when you give a reason after, if you always find yourself giving a reason or with a defensive voice. yeah then that might be like defeating the purpose of accepting the responsibility right right right like oh that's on me sorry i like i was so busy or that's on me i i just i couldn't remember all the things that you know something like that um exactly um

But what else can we use here? We're going to do one that's even more casual. Even more casual. This one's really casual. Maybe avoid this at work. It's pretty casual.

My bad. My bad. Yeah. Yeah. This one I think is more for the kids. I don't know if the kids still say it. I don't know. I don't say my bad. I might as a joke.

Oh, my bad. Right. Yeah. So it still exists. But it was trendy when we were kids. Exactly. Right. Is what you're saying. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So I don't know if it's so much that our generation has moved it up or if the younger generation took it over.

Probably not because they say things I have no idea what they're talking about. I feel like I still say it, to be honest, sometimes being a teenager forever. I don't know. There's some remnants of our teenagehood that we never drop as adults.

Right. That we just carry on. And it's a personal thing, like maybe certain things you've carried on and I haven't. But yeah, we should. Wait, hold on, Lindsay.

I'm going to ask you to do an experiment because this could be a good future episode. okay if you use an expression in your daily life that you're like oh that's like uh kind of like from when i was younger like a kid write it down and let me know because maybe we can do some research and i'll do the same thing maybe i'll ask aubrey too and we can talk about some of the things that we realize have carried over it is so good that would be a brilliant episode guys hit the follow button if you love that idea yeah We can see, you know, phrases that cross decades, right? They carry on for a lifetime because for some reason we identify with them, but maybe young kids don't use them anymore.

So I doubt the six, seven crowd is using the my bad phrase, right? I don't think so. Oh, six, seven. Yeah. So, okay. How would this sound? Hey, we're running late.

Oh, my bad. I lost track of time. Nice. Or the very literal, I messed up. okay um so this one can be casual or stronger depending on the situation right so you can use it in a serious way like i messed up i'm you know really messed up here right yeah i forgot we went hiking and i forgot something really important like a compass and now we're like in the middle of arizona in the desert or something really bad really bad uh like this i think we're lost

Yeah, I messed up. I took a wrong turn back there. Well, you're still owning it, right? At least you're owning it, you know? You're welcome. Okay. Nice.

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So what's the tone of the phrase, Michelle, these phrases? Yeah. I would say relaxed, confident. It also, they also kind of lower the tension because they are a little more casual and showing, you're just saying, yeah, like I know, like,

that's that's i did it right um so in that way it prevents arguments because it's not necessarily defensive or angry um so i think that it it's they're really useful so uh can should we do a role play uh michelle how about the next one

How about the first role play here? Yeah. Okay. So here we go. You forgot to feed the dog. Oh, my bad. I'll do it now. So that's a little thing. But yeah, the power of admitting you've done something is huge.

Right? Exactly. Or we're late again. That's on me. I need to work on my time management. Yeah, not good. Getting a little bit more progressively high stakes here.

Yeah. with these wrong ways yeah exactly um or for everyday mistakes you know these are great for everyday mistakes not necessarily huge apologies that have caused for something with serious harm so something like this we're out of eggs oh my bad i didn't go grocery shopping yes or you never replied to my text That's on me. I was busy and it slipped my mind.

Yeah. Yeah. We were talking about this when we were recording last week is like a good method that I use is when I have a text that comes in, I mark it as unread to make sure I get back to people. Yeah.

And you reply to people in your mind. Yes. It's amazing. Maybe one day they'll have it where you can text with your mind. That would be really helpful to me.

Probably. I would be texting everyone back right away. But when I have to actually use my fingers, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work for sure. All right.

Role play time, Michelle. So here we're living together and we're starting our morning at home, trying to make a cup of coffee. Trying. All right. You got to have your coffee in the morning, right?

Oh my gosh. All right. I think we're out of coffee again. Oops. My bad. I forgot to add it to the shopping list. No, that's okay. Shall we grab a coffee on the way to work?

Well, you haven't showered yet, so I don't think we have time. Oh, you're right. Now that's on me. I kept hitting snooze on my alarm. Now... if you really did forget to add the call i'm imagining if dan did this and he forgot to get to i mean i i was kind of like if you could hear it in my tone like i don't think i would just be like oh that's okay and now we don't even have time to get coffee i would probably be in an absolute panic maybe maybe we're roommates and we just moved in together and we're trying to maintain our you know yeah yeah yeah respect but soon it'll go off the rails so

Yeah. But if there's no coffee, yeah, Lindsay, really, you got to get it together. Like that's a number one on the shopping list. Yeah. You got to start your morning with coffee.

It's the greatest thing. So, so here we go. So, but at least we're both owning our mistakes, right? So you said, I think we're out of coffee again. And I said, oops, my bad.

I forgot to add it to the shopping list. Acting like I don't know you very well yet. Maybe. Right. Yeah. It's funny because like even reading this now, I for some reason, Lindsay, a little annoyed at you because I just like, how could you do that?

I'm taking it too seriously. I'll get over it. OK. And then you said, well, you haven't showered yet, so I don't think we have time. And I said, you're right.

Now that's on me. I kept hitting snooze on my alarm. Yes, I love that. I love that. Really good stuff. I mean, guys, there's another episode of All There's English to check out.

It is 2557. Can't help it. How imperfection leads to connection. So this is, again, on the tone, on the topic of mistakes and things you can't stop yourself from doing, right?

Sort of in the same vibe. Michelle, what is our takeaway for today? Yeah, well, I mean, being able to admit your mistakes builds trust in relationships. So phrases like that's on me, it's a calm and confident way to do this.

And we give you lots of other ones to use. But if somebody does forget to buy the coffee, that's when things get serious. So that's all. Yeah. I also think that the things you do right away when something goes wrong really matter because you can go in two directions.

Things could escalate really quickly and there could be a full blowout fight, you know, or we don't want that. Or someone could be the responsible party, own it. And then you could maintain the connection. So this is huge actually for connection.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. All right, Lindsay. Well, I'm glad we talked about this today. I will never forget your coffee. I promise. Don't do that. Don't do that.

Now that I see the stakes, I mean, I will be careful. The stakes are very high. All right, Lindsay. Good talking to you. Now let's go drink some coffee.

Talk to you later. All right. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz.

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