In all fairness, this is a story I’ve shared before. You might even remember it, although this took place over five years ago. As soon as I reread it, the memory of how I felt when I first heard “Leader Logan” share this story sprang to life.
I was attending the weekly meeting of one of the community service organizations I belong to. Like most of our meetings, there was a speaker. Today’s speaker was Logan, one of the mucky-mucks within our organization.
When Logan started his 15-minute presentation, he talked a bit about the leadership training he’d gone through as part of his move up the organization’s leadership ladder. He talked about the organization’s membership goals and the fact that membership numbers had been dropping over the last few years throughout the organization. He went on to explain that the problem wasn’t with getting people to join. The problem was getting new members to stick around for more than a couple of years. If new members didn’t become involved in some way… if their immediate needs weren’t being met… they left.
I was sitting there thinking he was going to start talking about how we need to do a better job of turning this around. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. Logan started sharing a story about something that took place in his group before he took on his leadership role.
His organization was looking for a project to help the community at large, so he made a call to a friend from another organization who was working on a project to help the homeless. When Logan asked how his group could help, the reply was to send money, which is the normal reply you’d expect. So Logan did just that. He sent a check to the homeless project on behalf of his organization, and crossed the community service project off his to-do list.
Logan took a long pause and the room was as quiet as it’s ever been with 60 people in it. Every one of us can see the emotion swelling up in him as he slowly begins speaking again.
A few weeks after sending the check, Logan got an email from the friend in charge of the homeless project. The email started with the usual obligatory thank yous, and went on to describe in detail what the monies were used for… clothing, shelter, blah blah blah. Just as he was about to close the email, he sees there are photos attached.
He takes another long pause. “I looked at a photo of this woman whose eyes stared right through me. It was unbelievable! Once I took my eyes off of her, I began to take in her surroundings. I could see beds on either side of the one she was standing next to, and remembered the name of a woman’s shelter being mentioned in the email. I also realized that she was tightly clinging to a new winter coat, hat, and gloves. On her bed was an open box that had the words “Provided by (our organization)” printed on the side. I looked back to her again. Her eyes were still looking right through me, but now I could see that she was smiling too.”
Logan admitted right there, in front of everyone, that he couldn’t hold back his tears because at that moment he realized the power of people coming together with the shared desire and goal of helping to make the world a better place for those in need.
For each of us listening to him, it was a moment when we all felt that power too.
I shared this story again to remind you that emotion is one of the most important components of your message! Now, you may be thinking your topic doesn’t evoke much emotion, but you’re wrong. When an audience realizes that you really do understand their frustration around a problem they’re struggling to solve, they’re going to be relieved. And that’s when your connection with them begins!