CHAPTER 10
Search Shared History Moments —“Remember When . . .”
WHILE EACH OF the search fields we’ve looked at so far can maximize our communication, this fourth has an important advantage over the others. That’s the ability to draw on a picture already lodged in a person’s memory. And by causing someone to remember a past event, we also trigger vivid feelings he or she experienced at that time.
In one study, doctors tried to find the areas of the brain that controlled memories.[46] Working with volunteers, the doctors electrically stimulated portions of the cortex and found their subjects would suddenly remember such things as the smell of something they’d eaten or a particularly enjoyable experience. After a while, the doctors noticed an unexpected side effect in the volunteers: When a certain memory was sparked, the feelings accompanying that earlier event were also recalled.
In short, memories bring back pictures. And pictures bring back feelings. No wonder so many people who have gone through trauma or hurt simply don’t want to bring back the pictures —because they’re accompanied by the feelings they had then as well.
In a personal way, I (John) have seen this phenomenon with my father and other combat veterans. My father spoke to my brothers and me in detail about his war experiences only one time. That was back in 1969, the day before my twin brother, Jeff, and I were facing the draft for the Vietnam War. For almost two hours, he told story after story of World War II in the Pacific. Guadalcanal. Peleliu. Names he had spent years trying to drink away memories of but that never really left. He met with us that day because he wanted us to know, if we were drafted the next day, what war is really like. It was the only restaurant meal I ever had with him. The stories —and watching him sweat and flinch in telling them, 30 years after being in battle —were unforgettable.
Like my dad that day, many veterans, in recounting the graphic mental images of combat, once again feel the fear, anger, and hurt. No wonder they avoid talking about it. But what effect does this have on meaningful communication?
When you link a present message to a past experience or event, you take a direct path to a person’s emotions. That’s because your words mix with past feelings, thereby multiplying the impact of your message. The end result is that the words you want to convey are electrified with incredible vividness and clarity.
In general, men are much less in touch with their emotions than women are. So, as men face the task of unearthing past events and memories in the counseling process, they also face a flood of emotions —unwanted feelings in many cases. In large part, that’s why many men resist seeking personal or marriage counseling. If they can overcome this threat, linking memories with feelings does have its positive side. That’s especially true in the area of meaningful communication.
For example, let’s say you’ve gone through a major difficulty with someone. By using a word picture from the search field of “Remember when . . .” you can instantly tap into the emotions that were part of that experience. By drawing on them, you create an emotional bond that brings a deeper level of understanding to the conversation.
Do you need to straighten out a problem? To move deeper in a relationship? To clarify an important point in a conversation? To thank someone for a kindness? Then your memory of a past experience can hold the key to finding and using an effective word picture.
It was my honor to work with Gary Smalley for a decade. But something happened when we first became partners that was, without question, the most embarrassing, most humiliating, and most helpful experience we would ever have together. That’s because for almost a decade, Gary and I kept drawing from this search field of “Remember when . . .” and it helped keep us from making rushed decisions that hurt us or others, time and again.
“Remember When We Were at Forest Home!”
Working with Gary and Norma Smalley and our seminar director, “Downtown” Terry Brown, was a dream job for me. It was fun and exciting. So many things were going on. So many opportunities to help families and do projects. It was easy to get way ahead of ourselves. Which is why, in the course of a week, it was almost guaranteed that someone would say about the latest “great” new idea, “Remember when we were at Forest Home!”
Forest Home is an outstandingly beautiful Christian camp in the mountains near Yucaipa, California. But when we were all there one summer, that warning was birthed out of the most embarrassing, humiliating moments of my (John’s) life.
Forest Home has few equals when it comes to Christian camps.[47] No wonder it’s jam-packed during the summer. And the first summer Gary and I worked together, we were asked to bring our families and speak there. Since Gary was a veteran public speaker, he was asked to address the entire group of more than 450 people each morning. I had my Ph.D. and was writing the book we ended up doing together, The Blessing. So, I was asked to speak at an afternoon elective session on The Blessing —a tremendous honor since it was my first time at Forest Home.
For months, I worked to perfect my message. I’d been told to expect from 40 to 60 people, and I came loaded with facts, files, and footnotes. Deep inside, I knew this would be a major step forward in my speaking career. Little did I know it would also be a banana peel upon which I would slip and fall face-first!
During Gary’s first morning talk, he was illustrating a point about helping people accept and value each other’s differences. In doing so, he explained that he and I often used personality tests to help couples relate better together. That’s when it happened.
In a moment of inspiration, he told everyone assembled, “In fact, one of these tests is so incredibly helpful in a marriage or a family, I’ll bet John can give it to all of you this afternoon during his workshop. Instead of doing his regular elective, I’m certain he’ll switch to make sure each of you know your personality strengths.”
The idea sounded even better after he had said it aloud, so with more volume and intensity he continued, “That’s right, folks. Dr. Trent is a qualified instructor in personality tests. A bona fide expert! I don’t know what you’ve got planned for this afternoon. But whatever it is, cancel it. I guarantee you, the time you spend with John will be the most important hour of the entire week!”
I froze in my chair at the rear of the auditorium. My brain kept replaying his words. I couldn’t believe my ears. Fear instantly gripped me. I wanted to jump up and yell, “Gary, wait a minute! What are you saying? I’ve prepared for months to do something else! Besides, there’s no time to order any tests or print out any handouts I’d need for a group this size!”
As Gary continued to talk, I could tell what his motives were. Not only was he thinking that people would be greatly helped by learning about their personalities, but he also was trying to drum up support for my afternoon elective and make me an instant Forest Home success.
Before I had the courage (or the intelligence) to jump up and say something —like “Stop!” —Gary closed his presentation with another moving appeal for every man and woman to attend my session. He laid it on so thick that anyone not attending my elective would have been labeled an introverted, psychopathic, backslidden slug.
Though numb all the way to my toes, with a Herculean effort I stumbled forward to see if Gary had been stricken with a momentary mental illness. Perhaps that’s what caused him to say what he did. However, on my way to the platform, mobs of people kept walking by, slapping me on the back and saying things such as, “Hey, I can’t wait until your session!” and “Our family was going to go on the Jeep rides today, but I’m telling the kids we’re canceling that to hear you speak!” By the time I reached Gary, I’d already received 10 times more positive feedback than I’d ever gotten for a message. And that was before I’d spoken my first word at Forest Home!
Like a presidential candidate sweeping up delegates in state after state, I was caught up in the tremendous momentum created by people’s expectations. And when I finally talked to Gary, he got me even more pumped up.
“You can do it, John!” he said. “You don’t need to have an actual test to hand out. Just explain what it says and wing it. I know it’ll go great! Now goooo get ’emmmm, big guy!”
By the time Gary was finished with me, I was ready to sprint to the podium and lay it on them right then. The hour and a half between lunchtime and my elective seemed like forever. I figured my presentation would change lives, restore marriages, and cure every parenting problem known to humanity.
I also envisioned the camp director coming up afterward to congratulate me.
It was a big deal back then to speak on the “main stage” at Forest Home. Billy Graham spoke there! In fact, there’s a rock not far from where I would stand where Billy Graham had knelt and prayed and given his life to God to go into the ministry.
I would be right there! Trying to look humble as I basked in the thunderous applause of a second —no, third —spontaneous standing ovation. The camp director would shake my hand. Right there, in front of all those people, he’d offer me a lifetime invitation to speak at Forest Home each summer.
At least that was what I thought.
But as I waited for everyone to return from lunch, I paced back and forth, thinking about what I’d say when presented with my “Speaker of the Year” award. Instead, I should have been panic-stricken about the terrible trouble I was in. With Gary’s communication skills and years of experience, he no doubt could have “winged it” that afternoon. And the people would have gone away feeling it was, in fact, the best hour of their week. I made the major mistake of thinking I could get the same result.
I’d prepared for months to entertain and instruct a small group in a classroom setting. But soon I stood watching in horror as more than 500 people crammed into the main auditorium. Five hundred, instead of Gary’s 450 people, because a number of people had brought their children —torn away from rock climbing and swimming and horseback riding. In fact, all but a handful of people had canceled their afternoon activities of horseback riding, golfing, family outings, or napping just to hear me give them a test that could change their lives.
Not only were all the Forest Home campers and staff there, but many people had also called their friends in nearby towns. Cars jammed the parking lot, from which it seemed like rivers of people flowed toward the auditorium to hear this “incredibly important” session. Instead of an average-sized elective, I was speaking to one of the largest crowds of the summer.
Sitting in the front row were the camp director, staff, and my wife and Kari, our older daughter. (Laura hadn’t been born yet.) Many in the packed meeting room left lunch early to save seats for friends and family.
The excited chatter of the crowd was replaced by an expectant hush as I walked to the podium and looked over the sea of faces. Like the anticipation for the opening snap of the Super Bowl or the first number of a singing legend’s concert, an air of electricity filled the room —electricity that would soon turn into a massive shock.
Here was my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill my destiny as a public speaker and stand where the “big time” speakers had stood before. But suddenly I realized I was in big trouble.
The hush that came over the crowd when I started my message quickly became a death-like silence. The harder I tried to explain what the test was like —if we had it to pass out —and what was in the packets of handouts that would have been so helpful —if I’d have been able to run them off . . . I could sense the mood and facial expressions of the crowd changing from questioning . . . to disbelief . . . to shock . . . and finally to intense dislike. And worse.
All around the edges of the auditorium, people began getting up and walking out. A few even began stomping out from the front rows. For an hour, I was emotionally abused by the remaining sets of eyes. And I knew each pair of eyes had a mouth that would tell all its friends and family across the country that fun outdoor activities had been canceled to sit inside and be confused and bored by me. After more than an hour, I finally finished my explanation of the test and told everyone they were free to go —unless, of course, there were any questions.
Agreeing to speak on this subject without being prepared was my first big mistake. My second was bothering to ask for questions. The only question asked was why the camp director ever invited me to speak. As people stormed from the building, they looked at me like middle schoolers glaring at the teacher who had kept them in detention.
As soon as I stopped, I knew I had finished more than my talk. I was finished at Forest Home. More than that, I was finished everywhere else in the free world. After news of this fiasco got around, I wouldn’t get an invitation to speak at a Toastmaster’s Club even if I held them at gunpoint!
My wife put on her bravest, most supportive, wifely smile. But she was the only one smiling. If I’d been living in the Old West, I no doubt would have been torn from her arms and hung from a limb of the closest tree.
As I headed back to our cabin to pack my bags, I prayed the earth would open up and swallow me in one giant gulp. Then I suddenly remembered something that multiplied my misery:
This was only the first day of camp!
I couldn’t pack and leave. Dinner was in an hour and a half, and I’d have to walk in and face everyone.
And then there was tomorrow’s elective!
Words cannot describe the feelings of embarrassment and humiliation that fell on me like a two-ton weight. I could imagine the cutting words and snide remarks people would make —or at least think —during the rest of the week.
Waiting for the camp to end made the time between December 26 and the next Christmas seem like a heartbeat. Instead of the 40 to 60 people who normally would have attended my elective the rest of the week, I spoke to row upon row of empty seats. The five people who did come were my loving wife, my daughter who was too young to object, and three women with Mother Teresa’s level of sympathy and compassion.
The week finally ended, and our car crawled out of the parking lot and inched back to Phoenix. Deep inside, I felt that what an atomic bomb could do to a tin shack, my elective at Forest Home had done to my speaking career.
Many years have passed since that day of infamy in Southern California. Surprisingly, there were several positive results. First, Forest Home must have continued an active cover-up campaign, because invitations to speak never stopped coming in.[48] In addition, Gary felt so bad about what happened that we had several long talks that further strengthened our personal and working relationship. The discussions made me realize that the afternoon of agony was equally my fault. I should have put down my foot and explained my feelings. We also acknowledged that we’re both capable of doing the same kinds of things to each other.
In addition, I learned a tremendous lesson about optimism versus reality. Some hills are so steep that the little train huffing, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” had better realize it can’t, pack its bags, and take the bus.
Finally, both Gary and I gained one other major benefit through that experience. Years passed before I was invited back to Forest Home, but nearly every week we worked together, we used the phrase, “Remember when we were at Forest Home!” It was our way of reminding each other that we should never again do something if we’re not prepared to do an excellent job. That we shouldn’t do something in a rush without thinking it through. It came to mean, “Slow down,” “We don’t have all the facts,” “Maybe we’re being unrealistic or too optimistic,” or “We need to think this through before saying yes.”
This one word picture said all these things and more. Because we were drawn back to the memory of an event we shared together, the feelings returned as well. And the mixture of words and feelings brought instant impact to our conversations. These benefits were ours —all because we drew time and again from the search field of “Remember when . . .”
So pick a story. Any story in your past —or the past you’ve shared with someone you’re needing to talk with —and watch a word picture form that links to the person’s heart, mind, and emotions.
Which leads us to one more search field. To tie into a “great, marlin-sized” word picture, use the fifth search field that is all about what you (or your friend, colleague, spouse, or relative) get excited about.