“Road Rage and The Difference Between Heaven and Hell””
Dear Bank of Prairie Village Shareholders and Clients ~
I will admit, I fight a continual battle with road rage. It is like an addiction. First, you must admit you have an addiction as a road-rager, then you have to realize once you are a road rager you will always be a road rager. Hence you must always be vigilant ~ as the addiction never leaves you.
How does one know he is a road rager? It is simple. You see someone violating what you believe to be the proper rules of highway etiquette and your mind swiftly switches off the logic channel, and with a flash of white-hot anger pumping directly into your skull, you feel the need to become a vigilante enforcer of road etiquette. Logic, safety and common sense are thrown out the window, in your singularly white-hot focus to avenge the miscreant’s errant ways and to teach him an etiquette lesson.
If I am honest, I must admit, for a great deal of my life, my raging was not limited to road etiquette. It took many forms and shapes and could hijack my brain over various triggers of what I believed as important rules.
I could of course cope out and blame my raging moment on being raised by a strict father, who during my formative years served as a General Aide de Camp, for a Patton like Reserve Two-Star General who expected my Aide de Camp Dad to chew out higher ranking officers who failed to follow the General idiosyncratic (CS) pronouncement of military etiquette. However I am not a big believer of sofa psychiatrists who coddle patients into victimhood excuses where parents are always to blame for poor social skills.
Perhaps, my raging started in high school, where I was made the pool manager of the local Country Club Swimming pool. At that time, there were not many organized sports, dance, daycare facilities or any other diversions where harried mothers packed off the kids for a few hours, of down time so they could regroup. Rather, the mothers simply dropped their kids off at the Country Club pool in mass, and used the pool as an extended day care. I could handle the 4 and 5 year olds, but their young teenage bathing beauty big sisters and brothers who were stuck at the pool under my supervision for five and six hours proved problematic. The teenage boys would outdo themselves in trying to get the teenage girls’ attention ~ which generally meant causing trouble.
Since I generally had only one other guard on duty, I realized to that if the pool was not going to descend into complete kid chaos revolt, the pool rules had to be enforced with an iron fist.
I was pretty good with the little kids, who simply could not help but run on the pool deck when racing to get snacks. However, for the teenage boys, I gave no mercy. The smallest infraction resulted in a sharp whistle blast, and public humiliation by name of their infraction.
Word got out about the tight ship I was running at the pool which resulted in even more mothers deciding to drop their wayward teenage boys at the pool so they could become my problem and not theirs. In short, I tolerated no back talk, no excuses and no insincere apologies. Needless to say, the 4 years I managed the Country Club pool from 17 to 21 has become known in Country Club lore as the “Reign of Dan the Terrible.” On the other hand, during the “Reign of Dan the Terrible,” the first aid box was never opened, as there were no injuries, no one fell on the pool deck and no one fell off the steps to the high diving board.
For good or bad, that first job as the head pool manager may have made an impression on my “management style.” I expected complete and utter attention to every detail and every “suggestion” I made. Failure to faithfully and exactly adhere to what I believe as my “benevolent” management style would send my brain into a white-hot rager ~ which meant slamming doors, command voice tones, and pitiless replies to anything I viewed as an excuse or failure to action.
As the young bankers who worked for me in the early years would attest, showing up for work unshaven, with scuffed shoes, a forgotten tie bar or without a belt, meant a trip home to correct the deficiency, and the expectation of staying late for missing work. Some of the young bankers could handle these expectations and others could not. The expectations were not limited to dress, but include how the phone was answered, how letters were folded, and how bank memorandums were written.
On one day, when a young banker arrived sans belt, one of my senior bankers came to me, mentioned the transgression and subtly stated, “you know Boss, the world is not going to end today, if the banker goes without a belt. I need him to finish a loan write up and if you send him home for lacking a belt, we will have to delay loan committee. Let me talk to him and let me get him on the work he needs to do, and you just ignore it for today. I’m begging you Boss, just look the other way.”
Something in my senior banker’s urgent plea stuck, and I began to think perhaps, my benevolent management style might be improved. After some discrete phone calls I found a management consultant.
The consultant was very professional, and stated this was going to be a very short engagement. He gave me a small book to read and said he would call the next day to discuss it.
I forget the book, but essentially it was a story about a Samurai Warrior who traveled a great distance at his peril to seek the counsel of a wise Buddhist priest. When given an audience with the Priest, the Warrior demanded the Priest to “Explain the difference between Hell and Heaven.” The Priest looked at the demanding Warrior and said, “I have nothing to say to your demand.” The comment enraged the Samurai who in a complete fit of rage and anger, drew his sword, called the Priest impertinent and screamed “I shall take your head off with a single stroke!” The Priest serenely stared at the warrior and finally said, “My son, the rage you are feeling right now is Hell on Earth.” The Warrior stared at the Priest for a long time, but slowly the Priest’s words sunk in. Slowly the Warrior’s rage, subsided and he sheathed his sword, relaxed his body, bowed his head and said to the Priest “Forgive me Wise one for my insolence, I am at your feet seeking your wisdom.” The Priest smiled and nodded his head. He then said, “Son the serenity you feel now is Heaven on Earth! Go in peace and courage having learned this lesson.”
The next day my management consultant called me and asked if I had read my assignment. I assured him I had. He asked if I had learned the lesson. I responded I had. To my surprise, the consultant said, his work with me was finished and to not call him again. I was grateful and sent him a check for the invoice with double the fee.
I am not going to say my “self-defined benevolent management style” changed abruptly overnight. However, I did begin realizing my white-hot rage was always lurking below my surface and I increasingly made a point of keeping it there and not letting it surface. Like any addiction, it took time and a few relapses. However, for the benefit of all our bank associates I try very hard to keep it bottled up. It is at the point now, few of the bank associates even know or remember its wrath.
I tell this story, as the other night I was having cocktails with friends. A good friend of mine made a political statement in which he had to know would trigger my sensibilities. Once starting his point, I could see his voice change, body tense, and a quiver in his hand as he became emotional. My natural inclination was to match his emotional tone and testosterone fueled arguments and prepare for verbal point by point oral combat to match every one of his misguided comments. Just as I was about to unleash, I took a deep breath, stared at my summer cocktail, and took a long swig. I silently asked myself, “was it really worth ruining a great evening among friends?” I decided I did not have the desire or the energy to spoil the evening. In an even tone, I changed the subject by asking him about his upcoming family vacation to Europe and what activities he had planned.
To my surprise, my friend visibly relaxed, and then went into detail about his planned European Family Epicurean adventure. The evening was saved and turned into one of those magical summer nights.
On the drive home, I silently congratulated myself, in keeping my sword in its sheath and not rising to the baiting. I slept soundly without self-recrimination for spoiling an evening.
I tried to decide if my newfound wisdom for not entering into a pointless debate was due to my advancing age, accumulated wisdom or the simple desire to have another cool refreshing summer cocktail without acrimony or strife. I decided whichever the primary reason for biting my tongue was, it did not matter in comparison to the joys of a sound guilt-free summer evening’s sleep.
As we go forward into these twilight summer days, the coming always controversial college football season and the inevitable election season (with its never ending triggering negative political campaign commercials), let’s remember the wisdom of the wise Buddhist Priest, and concentrate our efforts on feeling the joys and peaceful serenity of those moments that feel like “Heaven on Earth”, and avoid the “Hell on Earth” feelings of succumbing to rage and anger!
Yours in my never-ending efforts to combat self-induced road rage ~ and the vestiges of the “Reign of Dan The Terrible!”
Dan Bolen ~ Chairman
Bank of Prairie Village
“The Bank of Prairie Village ~ Home of Blue Lion Banking” ~ cited March 2020, April 2021, April 2022, April 2023 and April 2024 by the by the Kansas City Business Journal as one of the “Safest Banks in Kansas City for Your Money.”
Small Batch Banking ~ Once Client at a Time.
