There is a chapter in my book about getting your listener in the moment. It is all about transferring emotion. That happens through words. Sometimes, when I listen to the radio, I’ve heard a kind of fragmented sentence presentation. You know, leave the verb out. Leave out all the adjectives. For example, “57 degrees… Chris Tomlin…” instead of “The temperature is 57 degrees and here is Chris Tomlin.”

Not that the change makes that much difference in that particular setting but it is an interesting concept that radio people have come to believe that we get to speak in fragments and people will automatically understand what we’re trying to communicate. The idea of transferring emotion is to get your listener in your moment. That is accomplished with words usage. Sometimes I think we don’t use words very well. Our descriptions of varied situations often lack imagination.

I was reminded of this while I was pre-occupied doing busy work and, simultaneously, wondering what heck I might record on this day. I have an echo in my studio because I have not soundproofed it yet and I thought maybe if I opened the windows that some of the echo would be reduced. Upon sliding the frames up the carriage, instead of echo leaving the room, the sound of singing bird came flooding in. It was as if the little chirper was singing good morning to me. OR… was he looking for the little bird CPA to do his taxes? I don’t know, but the fact that I wrote that changed the place in your mind regarding the bird.

Try another one; it’s not just a bird singing. I is actually started looking for the bird because I could hear the singing. I really thought his chirping sounded like he was actually telling a story! I wanted to hear that story! I wanted to be in that story! But I couldn’t see him! I kept looking and I kept looking and it turns out that it was not just a bird. The creature was a beautiful, unbelievably big, Red Robin! The most brilliant color of red that you could possibly imagine with little black peaks up on the top of his head. He was just proudly telling the story with his head moving back and forth, to and fro. What I I didn’t know at first but I know now, because I looked, was there were birds flying all around him. It was as if, maybe, just maybe…yes, I think it is true! I believe the magnificent Red Robin was preaching! Yep, I’m pretty convinced he was telling the story about God!

There is an old saying that warns amateurs to “leave it to the pros.” I’m probably falling miserably short of actually helping you understand emotional transference. The big idea is to get the listener in your moment. In this way you can tell your story and your listener is in your story with you.