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Pain is the most universal of all human experiences. No one escapes it. No amount of pleasure can permanently numb it, and no measure of strength or wealth can silence it. It humbles the proud, levels the strong, and eventually comes knocking at every door.
Leading with your heart outside your chest
Why this essay exists
Leadership is a lot like walking through life with your heart outside your chest. When the people you lead struggle, you feel it. When your family hurts, it stirs something deep inside you. As leaders, we carry a strong instinct to protect the people in our care — to shield them from hardship, to pour ourselves out for their good, and to fix whatever feels broken in their world. Yet some pain is meant to soak and simmer, cleansing what’s hidden and forging a quiet strength deep within the people we love and lead.
The challenge of leadership is discerning when to step in to alleviate the pain and when to step back and allow pain to do its shaping work. It takes an immense amount of wisdom, self-control, and maturity to not simply fix, alleviate, or resolve the suffering of those around us.
Tormentor or teacher
The big idea
What we believe about pain ultimately shapes how we live and who we become. If we see it as an enemy, we spend our days running — masking it with busyness, performing our way past it, or pretending it doesn’t exist. But pain does not disappear when ignored; it festers. It leaves us shallow, brittle, and afraid. And if we choose this path, the people closest to us — our families and our teams — will watch us be destroyed from the inside out.
But if we dare to welcome pain as an ally, it will transform from tormentor to teacher. It will slow our hurried pace and force us to see ourselves and our people more clearly and compassionately. And ultimately, it will deepen our character, spark our creativity, and inspire a sense of hope and purpose in our lives.
What pain actually is
Getting comfortable with the word
At its core, pain is the raw, immediate experience of discomfort. Biologically, it begins in the body: as our nerves fire, our brain interprets these sensations as either pleasurable or painful, causing us to react and respond. Psychologically, our brain then creates a story about the pain — how we understand it, what we believe it means, and how we choose to respond. While pain is a universal and natural experience, many leaders avoid using the word pain altogether. Because it can feel weak, frightening, or out of control, we often reach for safer, more acceptable terms like stressed, overwhelmed, or frustrated. But if we want to lead strong, emotionally healthy families and teams, we must first get comfortable acknowledging our own pain and modeling what it looks like to feel it.
The many faces of pain
What the full essay covers
Pain wears many faces — physical, emotional, mental, relational, and spiritual — each with a different voice, message, and invitation for growth. The essay walks through each one: why it’s difficult, how it guides us, and what our families and teams need to see in us when we’re carrying it. Then it maps the four places pain comes from and the five purposes it serves in the growth of leaders and the people they love.
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