"Thank you, Jesus!" ~ Ray Nagin (part 2) ~ the Storm (Katrina) before the Calm (of Testimony) ~ asking "What if?"

Continued from, "Thank you, Jesus!" - Staying Calm Under Stress - Ray Nagin - and Merida in "Brave!"

Was Nagin’s, “thank you, Jesus,” a part of his elaborate discipline of corrupt business calm or a will–o’-the-wisp spontaneous prayer to get caught and be relieved of the storm shadowed and demon-haunted world that he had long created?

What opportunities to do public good as a public servant did Ray Nagin have as mayor of New Orleans when Katrina hit?  What opportunities lost?  Was the public calm of his court testimony for fraud and corruption,  "Nagin relaxed and confident under questioning by his attorney," a self-serving discipline of calm that Nagin honed during Katrina?  Or before Katrina, a discipline that he honed before his election, that is, in shadowy dark clouds of longstanding business practices, as in “How Successful People Stay Calm”?.

Was Nagin’s journey to conviction for 20 counts of bribery and fraud a matter of disciplined corrupt calm?  A series of spontaneous will–o’-the-wisp choices that rewarded him like an unexpecting Pavlovian drooling dog into his self-generated storm?  Both?  Or?

Will Nagin get sentenced to community service to bleed among those who he bled?

One thing about Nagin’s calm seems consistent with advice prescribed for calm in, “How Successful People Stay Calm.”

The article says that calm-successful people “Avoid Asking ‘What If?’”

This is nonsense.  Faulty research method.  Invert the formula and test what happens to stress levels when people insufficiently ask, “what if”? – when people hit, crash, and burn into walls, like Nagin, that they could have predicted and avoided had they asked – “what if?” – when people only after crashing learn the virtue of asking “what if”?  The research method needs to be corrected by asking dual “what if” questions because, 1) stress levels as penalties for asking questions like “what if” need to be cross-compared against, 2) stress levels for crashing and burning after failures to ask.

The article poses a hypothetical lion in the bush as the appropriate biological antagonist prompting healthy stress.  Run from lion -- that's healthy stress.   Not bad if you live in the bush with lions,  And can run.  Fast.

So just what lion got Nagin?  Did healthy human reactions to the environmental stresses of Katrina become Nagin's opportunity to become the predator?  And stay calm about it?  Did Nagin become the lion?  "What if" - Nagin is the lion?

And just what lion roared an economy into a $5 trillion jungle of investor losses?  Just what lion flushed millions of people out of their homes?

Where are our lions today?

As if predators aren’t, except in the bush. Surely these “what if” questions can cause stress.  Lots of stress. The problem is that there’s no easy way to judge “what if” questions as the causes of more stress than a failure to ask them.

“What if” -- is the question that wants for asking.  Maybe Nagin in his calm trusted exactly that no one around him would ask -- "what if" -- Nagin has become the lion?  Maybe Nagin failed to ask this question enough?  How far do we go in protecting ourselves from the stress of asking stressful questions?  Should a jury not ask -- "what if" -- because the jury is blinded by the epiphany of, "thank you, Jesus!"?  The article, “How Successful People Stay Calm,” missed the point on this one.  It's an otherwise good article for advice on how to stay calm.

As noted in the previous post, to hold calm as a benchmark to define virtue in business or life is no more virtuous than the underlying reasons for practicing calm.  Nagin was one calm customer in his testimony. Calm enough (likely nervous enough) to say, “thank you, Jesus.”

Continued @ "Thank you, Jesus!" ~ Ray Nagin (part 3) ~ Black Betty Had A Baby Bam-ba-Lam