In her TED Talk about overcoming our biases, Verná Myers says, "I have some white friends in particular that will say, ‘You have no idea how awkward I am. Like, I don't think this is going to work for me. I'm sure I'm going to blow this.’ Okay, maybe, but this thing is not about perfection. It's about connection. And you're not going to get comfortable before you get uncomfortable. You just have to do it." So, as we follow her advice and go away from our comfort zones into bigger, brighter things, there are going to be times when we make mistakes. Here are some resources for helping to repair hurt feelings should we cause any along the way.

Anna Goldfarb reminds us that it’s unrealistic to expect to be a perfect communicator. If you strive to never misspeak, you’re probably going to end up making it worse for yourself. Here's her advice on what to do when you’ve said the wrong thing.

Humans are hard-wired for defensiveness. It’s very difficult to take direct, unequivocal responsibility for our hurtful actions. It takes a great deal of maturity to put a relationship or another person before our need to be right. Here, NYT columnist Jane Brody offers her advice on the the right way to say ‘I’m Sorry’.

In this blog post The Art of the Apology, author and consultant Eric Peterson offers some clear lessons about when apologies work, don’t work, and the traps to avoid.

And take heart in the advice of Julie Mencher, who acknowledges that there are a lot of people who want to do the right thing but are struggling to play catch-up. She starts all of her trainings with an invitation for participants to stumble over language, to risk being politically incorrect, to bungle pronouns -- in the service of learning.