(Is that not the strangest title you’ve ever seen? Yes, probably … but stay with me.)
According to a recent Institute of Medicine Report: Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research, pain is a significant public health problem that costs society at least $560-$635 billion annually, an amount equal to about $2,000.00 for everyone living in the U.S. Whoa.
When faced with statistics like this, it’s safe to conclude that 1.) Americans are feeling pain, and 2.) we don’t like it.
Having lost (and subsequently regained) my health at a young age, I’m very interested in all books that discuss people’s experiences with healing. Perhaps one of the best books out there (in my humble opinion) on the broad subject of health is Norman Cousins’s “The Anatomy of an Illness”.
In the book, Cousins details how he fell ill and was essentially told by most doctors that recovery was unlikely. Though he was NOT an MD, he went on to take matters into his own hands and discovered various methods of awakening his body’s inner healing abilities — including daily laughter and large doses of Vitamin C. He checked himself out of the hospital and into a hotel room where you could truly rest, and went to work healing himself. He succeeded.
The Thing About Pain
At one point in the book, Cousins makes a very strong point about pain: It’s something we need. Ok, now here’s where the leprosy comes in. Cousins details the account of a doctor by the name of Dr. Paul Brand who worked in India and specialized in the care of individuals suffering from leprosy.
Lepers are often known for their gnarled and missing fingers, their blindness, and their sunken noses. For centuries, these ailments were considered to be part of the disease of leprosy. It’s just what happens when you have leprosy. Like a runny nose with a cold. But Dr. Brand wanted to find out WHY. WHY did these things happen to individuals with leprosy? He discovered something fascinating. Due to deadened nerve cells in the hands, a leper can easily injure his fingers or hands because the normal pain indicators don’t kick in before it’s too late. Imagine placing your hand on a hot frying pain without pain to tell you that your hand is burning! It became clear that injury was part of the problem for the hands.
But why were lepers fingers disappearing overnight? The doctor made a surprising discovery! Individuals stricken with leprosy are almost always from very poor underdeveloped countries with bad sanitation. He discovered that rats were actually eating the fingers of the lepers at night while they slept. Because there was no pain, the individual had no idea it was happening and would wake up with part of their finger missing. As for the blindness, the more the doctor probed, he came to realize that lepers don’t blink … nor do they feel the pain associated with having something in your eye. Without the constant cleaning that comes from regular blinking, the eyes are gradually damaged to the point of blindness. So essentially, what the doctor discovered is that PAIN would save the lepers hands and eyes. To a leper, PAIN would be a luxury.
What’s that got to do with photography?
Many of us are conditioned to think of pain (in any form) as a bad thing. We pull away from it. This is good in the case of hand on the hot skillet! But there are times when pulling away from pain, or attempting to mask over it actually leads to more harm than good.
Pain can be likened to your “check engine” light. The pain is saying “stop … take note! Something’s wrong with the car.”
You could cover over the light with a piece of colored tape so that you don’t have to think about it any longer. But that won’t fix the actual problem — a problem that will one day leave you stranded on the side of the road. That light is there to tell you that you need to make a change. You need adjust something before it’s too late.
What about with your photography business? Are you feeling pains? Perhaps they come in the form of not having enough clients. Or not generating enough revenue. Or ROYALLY messing up a wedding shoot. Or feeling like a failure because other photographers appear to be succeeding while you’re not. You could yank yourself away from the source of the pain and say: “I quit! It’s just not working. It HURTS.” Or, you could say … thank you for the warning, pain! I NEED to make a change. I NEED to try new things. I NEED to learn more. I NEED to get better. I NEED to work SMARTER. I need to ADJUST. And … KEEP GOING.
If you’re currently dealing with business growing pains of any sort, resist the urge to try and ignore the warning signs. Many entrepreneurs mask over them or tune them out.
Smart business owners recognize the value in the pain and LISTEN to every single warning sign that comes their way. That pain is telling you something! Listen to it and you’ll be one step closer to your ultimate goal of success!
Want more advice? Head on over to DearFemalePhotographer.com for more tips, tricks, and articles.
