“A hot-tempered person starts fights;a cool-tempered person stops them.”

We can be real here, we are all going to get into an argument at some point or another.  If we think we aren’t then we are just naive.  This past week the CEO of one of my boards asked me to attend a meeting where there was a conflict with a service provider that needed to be resolved.  I did my homework before going into the meeting to ensure that we were on the right side of the conflict and once I was assured of this, I counseled the CEO that we should hear the other party out, listen and respond with empathy and express and understanding of their disappointment, ending it there. I felt that if we did that well that we would be able to move past the conflict and get back to the more important part of the conversation which would be focusing on how we work together in the future.  Well, we made it, but not without a few moments of the people in the room. from both sides, feeling like they had to get in the last word and get the other side to somehow feel worse about the situation.  Which, I was there to diffuse and did.  And as Kurt Vonnegut writes, “So it goes”. It’s a typical business occurrence that we could resolve an argument or dispute so much quicker if we only were to finish the argument with patience and not have to feel that we must have the last word.

Yesterday, we taught the kids in our church’s Sunday School that “It’s not cool to lose your cool and end up looking like a fool”.  Patience is a God thing that when practiced, we reflect Him to others.  After my meeting this week one of the people said to me, “I was really impressed how you were so cool and calm in there”.  I didn’t have the chance to tell him why, but I will next time I see him.  You see, others are watching, wondering and sometimes more than quizzical than we know on how we can be different.  Let’s remember that ending an argument with patience could be more powerful than we think.

Reference: Proverbs 15:18 (New Living Translation)