What’s Love Got To Do With It?
The 4 Ways Love Transforms Your Business
What’s love got to do with business? The short answer: Everything.
For starters, let’s define love. I am not referring to romantic love here, so put your Danielle Steele novel back on the shelf for another day. I’m talking about the essence of love. Love is an openness, a way of being, a way of showing up for yourself and for others. It’s connection, community, and compassion. It’s acceptance and acknowledgement. It’s giving without strings attached, and receiving unapologetically that which is given to you. It’s trust.
The opposite of love is disconnection, isolation and fear. It’s hiding yourself away because you’re not perfect enough and people might judge you. It’s isolating yourself to protect yourself from getting hurt. It’s letting fear overtake your life and the decisions you make. The opposite of love is shutting down and shutting people out. It’s denying yourself the love and joy you deserve. It’s misery. We all pass through this neighborhood at some point on our business journey, but beware of staying too long or running your business from the dark side.
But this article is about love. Let’s get back to it.
The 4 Ways Love Transforms Your Business
Here are four key areas where you need to show some love if you want your business to thrive.
- Love yourself. If you’re serious about creating success in your business, you have to show yourself some love. When things don’t go as planned, you need to be forgiving and open to learning from the experience instead of critical and judgmental. When you have an idea you need to believe in yourself and step into the possibility instead of fixating on all the reasons you can’t do it or it won’t work.You need to be the angel on your own shoulder and remind yourself of all the ways that your glass is half full. When you have to do things that make you uncomfortable or stretch your comfort zone on your business journey – remind yourself that being uncomfortable in the short term is a small price to pay – and the ultimate act of self love – that will help you realize your dreams.
- Love your clients. You must love your clients, and be able to show them patience, support and compassion at every stage of their journey with you. When you are missing love in this area of your business, you’ll quickly lose the motivation and passion you need to fuel your forward momentum. If you are working with the wrong people, you may find yourself resenting your clients or feeling energetically drained by them. This can have a huge impact on the satisfaction you feel with your work. In contrast, the right clients will make you feel energized, inspired, and aligned with your calling. Choosing who you work with is a major perk of being an entrepreneur, so choose wisely. Choose love!
- Love the work. There are always going to be areas of your work that feel like a challenge, especially if you are still mastering the art and science of being an entrepreneur. But aside from the learning curve and growing pains that are a normal part of the experience, you must love your work. Loving your work will help get you through the learning curves and hurdles, and keep you connected with the heart of your mission and why you’re going to all this trouble in the first place. That’s why as an entrepreneur, always make it a labor of love!
- Have a positive relationship with money. Most people have some level of dysfunction in their money mindset, ranging from glaringly obvious, to subtle, to deeply buried in the subconscious. Wherever you may fall on the spectrum, make it your mission to make friends with money. The more you can regard money as a trusted ally, a resource that empowers you to have a positive impact, and a partner that supports your mission and message, the more you improve your ability to prosper, thrive, and be the difference you wish to see in the world.
So get out there and spread the love! I promise your business will love you back.