Experiencing a change in heart

I just started reading a rather wonderful and insightful book entitled Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. Here's a brief quotation from it about making a helpful and convincing apology:

Now, an apology isn't really an apology unless you experience a change in heart. To offer a sincere apology, your motives have to change. You have to give up saving face, being right, or winning in order to focus on what you really want. You have to sacrifice a bit of your ego by admitting your error. But like many sacrifices, when you give up something you value, you're rewarded with something even more valuable - healthy dialogue and better results.

I was intrigued by the instruction to focus on what we really want. That reminds me one of the great reflection questions that we first learn about in Foundations in Meditative Practice Class here at the Center: "What do I really want?" Spending time with that question can go a long way toward making our lives happier and more meaningful.