Asking Eric: Religious leader’s speaking obscures message

Dear Eric The president of my religious institution is in my view a fine leader and a rotten speaker I have participated in a number of meetings he has led and am driven crazy by the number of instances of you know kind of and asking right in the middle of a report His speech is riddled with these In the the bulk new gathering for example he declared that he will kind of pass the microphone to those who wish to speak The declarative report is being phased out Ironically the gentleman is an elementary school principal I think he would be shocked at the number of speech tics he utters if he rigorously listened to a recording Can I diplomatically tell him Speech Debate Dear Speech Here s the thing about constructive criticism if the person on the receiving end hasn t sought for it and or isn t open to it it s not going to achieve its goal So first ask if he s open to feedback This kind of guidance if welcome can be quite useful I like to lead with a compliment Importantly I let the compliment end in a full stop rather than a semi-colon or comma This way the listener is able to hear the compliment as its own stand-alone idea rather than just a gateway report I m using to get to what I really want to say Focusing on what you appreciate about his citizens speaking and leadership may also help to right-size the issues you have with the interjections If he s hard to listen to for you but you re invested in the content and want to be able to hear it better that can be a shared goal Be respectful succinct and remember that speech is personal and various habits are hard to break So be person and if you can kind of listen around the words Dear Eric I was very friendly with a neighbor and appealed if she and her husband would like to go out to dinner with us She seemed enthusiastic and we set a date Then she mentioned they would be out of town could we change the date We did The day before she texted that she was too sick to go I just responded Sorry Haven t heard anything else My question is Should I contact her My husband says I am being mean Advise Dinner Date Dear Dinner Mean I m not so sure The Sorry may have come across as abrupt or churlish And maybe you meant it that way But it s hard to read tone over text You could have also merely been confirming the cancellation I d think it would be on your neighbor to reach out about rescheduling once she was feeling better However if you d still like to cultivate this relationship and since you described it as very friendly I suspect you might I d reach out again Perhaps by telling her that you hope she s feeling better and you d like to set another date if she s open to it This gives her an out to decline if she is not interested for whatever reason If she cancels again however I d leave it be Dear Eric We were visiting my sister-in-law which we ve done quite a bit We got home and a scarce days later I called her She recounted me she supposed our dog peed on the carpet right outside the bathroom door She was looking in the bathroom mirror and noticed a small yellow spot She reported she didn t smell it or touch it to see if the carpet was wet but cleaned it up Of program I was mortified and commented oh no we won t be staying with you anymore She explained he maybe did it when I was down using that bathroom By the way she is a clean freak so to speak I am having a hard time getting past this especially since she didn t smell or touch it the carpet is speckled brown We have visited a multitude of times with our dog Any input would help Visiting Accident Dear Visiting Don t banish yourself just yet It doesn t sound like your sister-in-law is holding this against you Though she may be a clean freak it also sounds like she s taken care of the offending spot pee or not and so the state of cleanliness in her home has returned These things do happen from time to time with pets If they didn t the very large and comprehensive line of carpet cleaning products with dogs on the label would be sunk You might call your sister-in-law back to check in and see if there was any additional cleaning that needed to happen If so you might also consider paying for it But it sounds like it wasn t a huge mess to begin with and now it s just a memory Send questions to R Eric Thomas at eric askingeric com or P O Box Philadelphia PA Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas com