What the World Needs Now: Love at Home-Workplace-Community

"Your customers are the reason you exist, and your job is to earn their love and loyalty," says Deb Boelkes, author of The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture. "That means you must first love them. And that, in turn, means you must first love your employees."
In this blog, I frequently write about getting rid of things, but as covid lingers and our midterm primary elections heat up, I keep thinking of an old song written by Jackie DeShannon:
What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.
The Bible speaks of at least four kinds of love:
Agape -- unconditional "God" love
Eros -- romantic love
Philios -- friend bond
Storge -- empathy bond
We hear and use the word "love" often, but how many more ways and how much more often could we, and should we, demonstrate love at home, in the workplace, and in our communities?
In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown writes about a discussion she had with her husband in which he said, "Everyone is doing the best they can." She didn't agree at first but reconsidered when her husband said he found it easier to be a good leader if he took that approach. I've had numerous discussions with friends and colleagues about that belief, and I've discovered that it's much easier to demonstrate love with that attitude. After spending thousands of hours in private conversations with clients in the past forty years, I know "everyone has a story," and when you hear that story, you have much more understanding and empathy for how someone behaves.
So here's my challenge to you for the next week: Begin every day with the intent of showing love to someone in a way you would not have if you hadn't read this blog. Commit to writing it down as a way of holding yourself accountable.
God loves you -- and so do we!