Years ago, we spent several hours and over five hundred dollars cleaning up a borrower’s credit. As a “thank you,” the borrower went silent on us, never paid us, and took his cleaned-up credit to another lender to finance his purchase.
The borrower’s duplicity enraged me and there was nothing I could do about it, but I stupidly let it eat me alive for weeks.
We interact with thousands of borrowers and agents every year, and 99% of them are wonderfully charming and great to work with. But, unfortunately, it is the rude, mean and/or dishonest 1% that consume us and all too much of our time unnecessarily.
And I am the first to admit that my inability to let transgressions go quickly enough is a major shortcoming of mine.
Conversely, a notable trait of many highly successful people is an ability to move on quickly from transgressions.
I was reminded of this recently when Leonard Steinberg published the below quote from Warren Buffett in his blog:
“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you, that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.” Warren Buffett.
Perhaps an even better and more famous quote is from the Roman Emperor and famous stoic Marcus Aurelius – someone who was undermined and/or back-stabbed by pretty much everyone he knew, including both friends and family.
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine…To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.” Marcus Aurelius.
So, in light of these quotes and this overall message, I’d like to remind everyone to go forth and be less pissed off 😊.
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