How's Your Tone?

From time to time I receive words of wisdom from Attorney, Mike Wells with Wells Jenkins Lucas & Jenkins PLLC in Winston-Salem, NC. Mike is a keen observer of human nature and shares those observations freely with others. I've posted Mike's most recent message below. It is eloquent, wise, and timely. Worth a read and contemplation:

One of the best parts of the practice of law, for me, is you get to meet a lot of people. Every new client, and every person you meet, is a new story. A fresh canvas. Who are they, how did they get here, and what matters to them?

How people interact is another story as well. Human nature comes to the fore, sometimes with warts and all. When people are under some stress, the window into their true personalities is cracked open a little wider. Sometimes you see light, and sometimes you see shadow.

A residential real estate transaction is one of those stressful events when the window gets cracked open a little wider. You do not borrow that amount of money personally every day. Even the most sophisticated and experienced homebuyers feel a little emotion.

I remember very well a closing in which the husband was a banker who dealt with commercial real estate in his work. He spent the better part of the closing alternating between trying to impress everyone with his knowledge, and demeaning his sweet wife.

The time came for the couple to present their cashier’s check for the balance due, a whopping $172,000. If you lose a cashier’s check, it is like losing cash. You just don’t call up the bank and stop payment on the check. It is a very, very, big deal.

The banker buyer smartly snapped open his fine leather brief case to retrieve the check. When he could not find the check, he just as smartly, and quickly, came apart.

He finally turned to his serene wife and said, demandingly, “I can’t find the check”, as if it was her fault. Every parent has heard this tone at some point from their children when they were young.

The serene wife turned the brief case to her, just as smartly (and quickly) pulled out the check, and gave it to her husband.

Her husband quickly regained his composure and began anew his demeaning tone to his wife. He never missed a beat.

“You can observe a lot just by watching,” the Yankee sage, Yogi Berra, said. Indeed, you really can.

What all those in the closing observed that day was that a good education, a strong intellect, and well earned confidence can very easily be overtaken by arrogance and pride.

In a very real sense, so many of our significant personal strengths and life’s advantages are quickly compromised by a haughty and degrading attitude.

One of the challenges of education, responsibility, status, affluence, power, position, age, seniority, and real or apparent dominance in a relationship, is to treat all people with respect and dignity. If you have ever been on the receiving end of a person in a position of authority speaking in a demeaning tone, hopefully you will keep that memory fresh.

We should all be on the lookout for the influence of pride, the original sin of the celebrated Seven Deadly Sins. Which, pundits say, is “the ultimate source from which the others arise.”

Sounds serious, don’t you think?

What I have learned about life on the way to the courthouse is this: no matter who you are, and no matter who the person to whom you are speaking is, watch your tone. If there is one common theme from our bodies of faith, and the struggles of all people to lift themselves up from a humble beginning, it is to treat every human being with respect. Like we all want to be treated.

Personal humility towards everyone is the most active ingredient in the formula for common respect. And for all of your other considerable advantages, it may be the most important ingredient of all in the formula for a successful life. At least in the things that really matter.

How’s your tone?