“Not All That Hurts You Is Evil”

What Is Pain Trying to Teach You?

Pain is something so many people have grown to work through over the last year. Pain of disconnection, pain of financial hardship, pain of operational restructuring in almost every business, pain of losing loved ones. Yes, we have all experienced a broad spectrum of pain.

As a coach I am often meeting clients in their most painful moments. After all, a coach is there to be a support system and is often trained to handle the darker spaces in a client’s life and hold that space well. But sometimes re-framing the pain and making an attempt to shift the meaning can feel contrived. Honestly sometimes we just have to be in acceptance of pain.

With co-workers, family members, and those closest to us experiencing pain often we can feel those effects and that energy is shared even if we aren’t in direct pain. In coaching I find it is common for us to be so uncomfortable when someone else is in pain that our motivation to help them is not necessarily for their relief from that pain, but so that we no longer have to be uncomfortable in the presence of their pain. And yet sometimes it is of their benefit to be in that pain, and our benefit to be able to sit with the pain of others without attachment of controlling or alleviating it. What if the pain caused by those around us was actually there for our own good? As a matter of fact, what if all PAIN was just a signal to pay attention to something else? What if it’s meant to be a teacher?

In coaching I find it is common for us to be so uncomfortable when someone else is in pain that our motivation to help them is not necessarily for their relief from that pain, but so that we no longer have to be uncomfortable in the presence of their pain. And yet sometimes it is of their benefit to be in that pain, and our benefit to be able to sit with the pain of others without attachment of controlling or alleviating it.

A few years ago I jumped on an airplane last minute to help handle some high end clients for my friend Sheeraz Hassan. Sheeraz is a wild paparazzi manager turned brand ambassador, and today he connects celebrities and influencers with brands for amplification. On this trip we were delivering amplification for brands and celebrities at Virgin RedFest. That’s a fun way to give him a commercial and also to say… NOT my typical world. Of the many takeaways and learnings from that trip was a book on leadership by the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum. In it he outlined an experience with desert scorpions which has been a powerful learning for me about pain being a protector.

As a young boy, the Sheik was being mentored on the old way of desert hunting with falcons, dogs and old school instinct. Sleeping in the desert at night meant that he craved the warmth of his sleeping bag, and often scorpions craved that warmth as well. So he endured painful nights being stung three and four times, only to wake up, have his mentor use soot and ash to draw out the poison, and then to return to bed.

Years later he uncovered a startling detail. His mentor was placing 10–12 small scorpions in his bed, so that over time he would develop a tolerance and immunity to scorpion stings. That theory was tested in his adult life, and the Sheik was able to survive the scorpion sting that could have been lethal to a normal adult.

The Sheik goes on to say that from a leadership standpoint the small insect kind of scorpion stings almost as much as its human counterpart. He sees gossipers and conspirators as the HUMAN scorpion, citing that they “often act against humanity, destroy group morale, undervalue achievements, only focus on the negative and never see the good in others.” He mentioned that sleeping with the desert scorpion is far easier than the human kind.

So what are the takeaways from this key point that not all that hurts us is evil? Birth is a painful experience and yet it is beautiful. Working out to build muscle and endurance means pushing our muscles, heart, and lungs past the point of exhaustion and many times right into maximum pain and yet it sculpts a human into aspirational physiology. And being knocked down many times physically or emotionally builds resilience and makes us stronger. Maybe in those cases the pain is a signal or a teacher telling us that we are doing it right!

Pain is part of growth, and as you grow professionally, or are growing your company or your identity as a leader expect the teacher called PAIN to show up. While our first reaction in life is often to avoid pain at all costs, maybe it’s time to start embracing it. Accepting that the stings in life would make him immune to larger stings in the future is just such a simple point. If we avoid small challenges or things out of our comfort zone, we will not be able to handle the larger obstacles that will come. There’s an old saying that goes something like “those faithful in least are faithful in much.”

As a coach I encourage you to be faithful in embracing pain. Take the things that you dislike the most in your day and do them as if you love them. See what pain teaches you in those moments. And remember that not all painful things are evil — but the ones that are evil must not be allowed to continue to cause harm. Take in the pains that are there to teach, and swift action to remove the ones that will do harm. It is the mandate of a leader to protect the vision that they are co-creating with their teams, and it must be protected at all costs. Even if it’s painful.

The quote at the top of this article is in a photo that I took after reading this book. I keep it in the background of my phone often, and sometimes I will sit and stare at it as a reminder that pain can be something we find gratitude in. It is a motivator, and teacher, and a protector if we choose to embrace it.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and ruler of the Emirate of Dubai.

This post was inspired by chapter 3 of his book “My Story: 50 Memories from 50 years of service” published in 2019, which I encourage everyone to read. The life and leadership lessons are priceless.

Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.

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