Emotional Bank Account

I was taught this concept years ago, back at Stripling Blake some time in the 80’s. It was introduced to me as a management protocol, suggesting we invest in other people’s EBA’s (emotional bank accounts) by doing nice things, treating them positively, doing what we can to build relationships and morale. Another part of this touched on the subject of making withdrawals, when you had to request something of someone or you needed something from them. I began to apply this process, this concept of an emotional bank account to my life. I began to carefully invest in the people around me, most especially my wife. I began to buy her flowers—not on the big-ticket days such as anniversaries, birthdays, or holidays, but days when she maybe least expected it. I held the thought in my mind that I may have to make a deduction from that account one day. I try to maintain some level of investment with everyone in my life. By building relationships with anyone in your lives, for example a bank teller, you’ll find yourself surprised at what can happen. When I continued to interact with them in a positive way, I found them much more receptive to me when I needed to cash checks or make deposits that would’ve been more difficult had they not known who I am as a person. It can be something as simple as remembering the cashier you keep running into at the grocery store. By building that continuity and relationship, it opens doors and makes interactions simpler, easier, and more profitable

Of the EBA’s most important recipients and financers, your spouse and children come in on top. If that bank account is steady, full, and healthy, it’s ready to handle whatever hardship might come its way. This is the one you have to work hard out. If you’re like me and come off as a bit of a hard-nose towards your kids, it can really eat away at that bank account. You have to work at this, constantly building it back up. They’re the easiest ones to get angry or upset with. A friend of our family told me once—and hopefully she’s reading this—if you treated your friends like you treat your family, you’d have no friends. This one really hit me square in the eye. Consider this an installment plan to guide how you make investments so you never have that well never runs dry. It’s that sort of thinking that lead me to send, and the only time I’ve ever sent flowers on a big-ticket day, thirteen dozen roses to my wife on our anniversary one year. Anyone can send twelve. Never forget, though, in a world where people look for the big things, the smaller gestures are what matter.