Next level communicators never waste their pain.
Next level communicators never waste their pain.
Mark Twain is widely regarded as one of the greatest communicators to ever live. Through both his pen and his voice, Twain connected deeply with his audiences, and he often did so through his pain. Mark Twain truly suffered. His beloved wife died, leaving him a widower, and he outlived several of his children, along with surviving unspeakable betrayal from his closest friends. After all of these events, Twain wrote a short story called, A Horses’ Tale. One lady who read it, wrote Twain a letter in which she said, “You used to write so differently. The note of pathos, of tragedy, of helpless pain creeps in, now and more insistent. I fancy life must have taken on its more somber colors for you, and what you feel is reflected in what you write. You belong to all of us- we of America- and we all love you and are proud of you, but you make our hearts ache sometimes.” Twain wrote back to her that sometimes this is exactly what was needed- to wring people’s hearts to get them to think. Twain used all of the pain he had endured, and repurposed it for good.
At the core of communication is the ability to connect with our audience, and next level communicators often use the gift of pain to move people. They don’t waste their pain.
Comedians are masters at this. Richard Pryor kept his generation in stitches as he reached back to his childhood where he was raised in a brothel his grandmother owned, and his mother worked.
No one wrote more profoundly on the AIDS crisis than New York Times writer, Jeffrey Schmalz. His secret? Jeffrey wrote while he too suffered from AIDS.
And few could hold a crowd in their hands like the singer Billie Holiday. Her haunting voice drew from a well of trauma, as she endured childhood abuse, racism and sex trafficking.
And then there’s you and I. We’ve been through some things haven’t we? Miscarriages. Terminations. Rejection. Divorce. Infertility. Abuse. Bankruptcy. Cancer. Sickness. A kid who's off the rails, and blames us. I could go on. And while there are many unfortunate examples of people who have misused their pain to manipulate people, I want to encourage you to thoughtfully consider how you can, from time to time, use your pain to establish heart level, appropriate connections with your audience, all with the aim of inspiring them for transformation.
As we think through the delicate challenge of talking about our pain, please consider the following:
Pain is a communicator's currency, don’t spend it too fast. Sadly, I know of several communicators who just about every time they get up talk about the trauma that happened to them. And while I don’t want to make light of their pain, too much of this can be manipulation and dilute its power. Sometimes I listen to these kinds of speakers and think, “Does anything ever go right for you? Are all your days rainy?” Spend your pain wisely.
Protect others. Most of our pain involves other people. Someone has hurt or disappointed us. Or the wound was experienced by both myself and my spouse. Or maybe there’s a particular pain brought on by a child who is a part of the congregation you are speaking to. If you feel good about using the analogy, keep the focus on yourself, and how the event impacted you, and not your loved ones who are in your orbit. The reason for this is the freedom you feel to speak about this pain from the stage means you are obviously an open person. But if you mention others, they may not be as open about this pain as you are, and you’ve placed them in a tough spot.
Get pre-message feedback. Before you get up to give your talk, be sure to run the message by someone, and ask them their thoughts on the part where you are talking about who or what hurt you. The Bible says in a multitude of counselors there’s wisdom.
Be sure the pain is not fresh. As communicators we always want to be sure we’ve given enough time to heal and process from the pain before we speak about it, so we can do so from healed hearts and have as much clarity as we can. Now there is some in the moment pain which is okay to talk about- like the death of a loved one, or a health diagnosis. These kinds of pain, though they hurt, are different because they are not in the category of offense brought on by another person.
Don’t lose the big picture. This is huge. If you feel comfortable talking about your hurt, always be sure to connect it to the point in your message you are trying to make. If you don’t do this you might get a lot of sympathy, but you’ll also get a group of people who lost sight of the bigger picture, and you’ve just distracted them out of transformation, and made it all about you.
What I’m Reading:
