What qualities should we strive to cultivate?

Do women have any qualities that are unique to them?

            There is only one quality I feel is unique for women to possess as opposed to men – the ability to endure discomfort and pain. The obvious difference between men and women is the latter’s ability to give birth to another human being. God or nature made an excellent choice here. I do not believe men are up to the challenge of pregnancy and childbirth. Miraculously, women are. Thank you, ladies. Humanity would have long been extinct if the task of childbirth had fallen to men.

            There were six qualities that quickly jumped to mind as those a man or woman would be wise to cultivate – discipline, diligence, honesty, loyalty, kindness, humor, and curiosity. In no particular order, these qualities together should bring a relatively happy life; certainly, a life able to cope with any hardships thrown in its path. While the reasons that each would be useful to cultivate should be obvious, I will briefly address each with my perspective.

             For me, discipline meant writing out the list of things to be accomplished the following day before I would allow myself to sleep. Discipline meant attacking the to-do list even if I felt too tired. Discipline meant attacking the to-do list even if I was feeling depressed. Discipline meant attacking the to-do list even though you knew that you would be unable to complete all the tasks in one day. Only if illness disabled you from working were you allowed an excuse for not addressing the to-do list with vigor. That approach started in college and has served me well even through retirement.

          Diligence was the companion of discipline. I never considered myself brighter, or more talented, than my opponents. However, I was always confident that I would outwork them. When I entered the courtroom, I knew the potential evidence more thoroughly than anyone else. Hundreds and hundreds of hours reading documents, reading cases, and playing out potential scenarios until I found the one most likely to be successful provided the confidence I displayed in courtrooms. As I taught the young litigators that came across my path through the years, jurors and judges are like dogs on a paper route – they can smell fear or lack of conviction. The only way to avoid the dreaded result of being bitten is to apply  diligence to limit its likelihood. One ten-minute segment of cross-examination of an expert witness usually took at least ten hours of preparation. You can imagine how many hours of preparation I put in to conduct 8-10 hours of cross-examination. Diligence means not stopping until the result has been accomplished.

            I fear that today speed is revered over persistence. The world’s attention span is monetized in milliseconds. We appear to confuse momentary fireworks for substance; quarterly corporate earnings over long-term performance. Diligence requires patience and persistence anchored by confidence in the value of the long-term goal.

            I have always valued curiosity. It is probably the one attribute addressed herein that is the least important to a relatively happy life, but it has been an essential part of me for as long as I can remember. From the moment I looked into the night sky and asked questions of my parents about all those lights up there, the urge to know more seemed to have been with me. We had Encyclopedia Britannica so research was available to me even before the internet. We also had Will and Ariel Durant’s volumes on the History of the World. I made thorough use of both when I was young. Not because my parents pushed me to research, but because I had trouble sleeping if I had yet to find an answer to some question. Imagine the impact on an eight-year-old mind of the facts with respect to the universe. The awareness that you were of little significance to the universe was no excuse for giving less than your best effort in living your life, but it certainly gave you the perspective of not taking yourself too seriously.

        “Honesty is the best policy.” I am sure that you have heard that said several times. Why is it a cliché? Like most, it is a cliché because it is true. You may find this strange, but one of the reasons for my success in the courtroom was my insistence that our case must stand the test of “honesty” with the jury and the judge. My goal in the opening statement (and thereafter in the trial) was to present a hypothesis that would ring true throughout the trial – in my cross-examination of plaintiff’s witnesses and in the testimony of my witnesses.

         I tried numerous securities fraud cases defending the accounting firm that had issued opinions on the fraud doer’s financial statements. The plaintiff’s lawyers who opposed me became tired of hearing an opening statement that (1) pointed out the six elements that plaintiff would have to prove to win, (2) pointed to a couple of the elements the jury might believe to be proven after hearing all the evidence, (3) pointed to a couple of the elements where it was 50-50 whether the evidence will support the plaintiff, and (4) pointed to the two elements where the jury would likely find that the evidence did not support the plaintiff’s claim. If I win on just one of the six elements, my client wins.

             Accordingly, I became the person in the room who had been honest with them from the start. I did not cross hard on the issues that I told them were 50-50. I did not cross at all on the issues I said they would find for plaintiff. I hammered in cross on the issues that I told them at the outset they might find plaintiff’s evidence fails to meet its burden of proof.

              Honesty usually brought me trust in a room where the evidence was complicated to the point of being beyond the jury’s comprehension. They needed someone to trust when the judge basically said little to them over eight to fourteen weeks other than objection denied or granted, and “do not discuss the case” at the end of each day. I fought hard for that trust since the jury was going to hear the plaintiff’s witnesses for weeks before they ever heard mine. I needed them to want to be attentive to my cross-examinations.

              Apparent honesty in the courtroom gained trust. Real honesty in life gains trust from others in your life. Priceless.

                Without loyalty you are in danger of being alone in the universe. Part of what binds us to family and friends is their sense that we are loyal to them and they to us. We probably think of this as love and perhaps loyalty is birthed by love. All I know was without loyalty to each other, teams were not teams on the ballfields, in the courtrooms, in the executive offices, in the family rooms, or around the dinner table. Even as youngsters, my brothers knew they could count on my support and I knew they also had my back. Time and geography never eroded that loyalty to each other.

                Among the many pleasures that I have experienced in life, one of the finest was watching the interaction of my grandson and his friends at his wedding. His group reeks of loyalty to each other. They traveled significant distances at significant personal expense to share what they knew would be one of my grandson’s greatest moments. Watching them together, I had no doubt that were they forced onto a battlefield – as they would have been had they lived almost 80 years earlier – they would have sacrificed themselves to save each other.

                Loyalty may not be necessary, but life without it might not be worth living. Certainly, it would be lonely.

                Life is beyond tedious if lived without a sense of humor. It starts with learning to laugh at yourself. You hate to make mistakes, but most of my mistakes led to laughter – at my stupidity, or at my ignorance, or at my clumsiness, or at my bad luck. I just feel better at the end of a day if there have been three or more occasions where I have laughed at something. It also comes in handy when you are with people. Many a slip by a friend has been guided from embarrassment to friendly laughter by a witty remark, especially one that makes clear that your friend’s mistake is okay and will not lead to any behind the back barbs.

                 I found humor useful in the courtrooms as well. As Margie put it when asked by the Judge in San Antonio if she was enjoying the trial so far (while we awaited the entry of the jury), “This is the most boring party I have ever attended.” The Judge laughed and quickly agreed with her. Needless to say, a case that requires a jury to know financial statements (balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements) and the intricacies of the proper accounting for the financial results of the company’s transactions as well as the generally accepted procedures for auditing those financial statements – just writing it is boring – makes for a potential awful eight hours a day for thirteen weeks.

                 When I had the floor, I made it a point to try to evoke laughter in the courtroom at least once an hour – if for no other reason than to keep the jury from falling asleep. For example, in the San Antonio trial I was cross-examining the plaintiffs’ expert accounting witness using a white board. I apologized to the witness at one point, stating that I knew losses in financial statements were usually presented in red, but I could not stand that color since it is the color of my wife’s favorite football team which beats my favorite team all the time. So, with apologies to TCU, I used a purple pen to write the losses in the financials we were discussing. Repeating it does not sound as if it is humorous, but in trials with bored football fans there was a low threshold for humor. People were so bored they wanted anything to laugh about.

               Humor may not be a necessary attribute, but it sure is nice to have in the toolbox.

               We finally have arrived at kindness. I view kindness as nothing more than the Golden Rule, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Of course, the foundation is loving yourself. When you can forgive yourself for shortcomings, you are in a better position to treat your fellow travelers in life with kindness. I saved it for last because I believe it is the most important. Kindness requires empathy. I believe empathy comes from a belief that we are in this boat (life on Earth) together imbued with varied talents and intelligence. The person to whom God (or Nature) gave five talents is no better (or worse) than the person to whom God (or Nature) gave only one talent.

                      Understanding this came easy for me because I lived in such a small town, we all knew each other. More importantly, we valued each other. The contribution of the farmers was obvious. But we were very aware of the talents of the plumbers, the electricians, the car mechanics, the bankers, the furniture dealer, the department store owner, the dentist, the doctor, the attorneys (every town needs at least two so each side has its advocate), the pharmacy, etc. You get the picture. When you grow up aware of all these moving parts in a social unit called Clinton, Tennessee,  your only concern is whether you can contribute your share given your abilities. Before you know it, kindness just becomes natural. How could you ever feel you are “better” than your neighbor.

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