Loaves and Fishes
This is not the age of information. This is not the age of information.
Forget the news, and the radio, and the blurred screen.
This is the time of loaves and fishes.
People are hungry, and one good word is bread for a thousand.
~ David Whyte
Society is fed a steady diet of stodgy fear. Turn on the nightly news and check out the rundown of stories and the messages they’re feeding us:
- New taxes (Message: we won’t be able to afford it, life is getting harder)
- School in lockdown (Message: our children, our streets, our lives aren’t safe)
- A priest caught with child porn (Message: we can’t trust anyone these days)
- A man admits murdering a debt collector (Message: it’s scary what happens in the world, what if that happened in our street? To someone we love?)
I didn’t make up that list. I took it straight from a 6pm commercial TV news bulletin.
Everywhere you look, fear-filled messages are getting louder and louder, amidst rants and raves, especially on social media.
Facebook admitted it conducted an Emotional Manipulation study, by tweaking the news feeds of nearly 700-thousand users to show a disproportionate number of negative or positive statuses for one week. The conclusion reached by the study was that the emotions of others on your news feed affects your mood.
As a leader, will you also feed us a diet of junk food when you speak – via the media, a presentation, in a meeting or conversation?
You can’t sugar coat it. Bad news is bad news. But you can share your vision, know what common ground you share with your audience to create connection, and relay the good news too. What’s the way out? What can be done? How can we do this together?
Remember, people are hungry. They long for leaders they can trust.
What’s the one good word you’ll share?
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Want more?
This article is from Wise Talk Media Tip 2, from the book “Media Talk: 35 Secrets You Need To Know Before You Talk To The Media”. It’s a handbook for anyone who wants needs to speak as a leader, not just in front of the media.
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