What is love, really?  It’s a word we toss around so much.  “I love ice cream.  I love the Yankees.  I love my mother.  I love my work.”  If we’re going to build with love, it’s important to know what we mean.  On today’s second Built With Love episode, we ask and answer the question, “What is love?”

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On This Episode

Rhythm of Life – I Stepped in it
Random Riffs – More About Mud
Feature Segment – Built With Love–What is Love?

Today’s Quote

Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice.  –Michael Novak

Rhythm of Life – I Stepped in it

The other day I was moving some plants around in the garden.  I set the hose on trickle to water them well and promptly forgot about it.

A bit later I went to dig holes for 2 new lavender plants and stepped in one of them.  And it was filled with mud.

(c) Kathleen Thompson    (after rinsing my shoe)

There’s a lesson here.

I could have seen the mud.  I just wasn’t really looking.  I was too focused on my goal that I didn’t notice what was around me.

We can do this with projects too.  We don’t notice roadblocks until we run into them.  We don’t notice that perhaps we should have zigged instead of zagged because we’re so focused on doing what we already said we were going to do.

So, every once in a while, just stop.  Pay attention.  Notice what’s around.  You may see holes in your project plan.  See another way to do something.  Or you may see the mud before you step in it.

(c) Kathleen Thompson     The finished bad (after it dried out)

Random Riffs – More About Mud

I’m sitting at my voice teacher’s recital.  Lucy stands up.  A former opera singer and sometime director, she strides to center of platform, take stance, and opens her mouth to sing.  Listen to the episode to hear the surprising song.  Here’s a YouTube link to the entire song.

Feature Segment – Built With Love: What is Love?

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asks Goldie, his wife of 25 years, whether she loves him.  She defines love as what she does for him and what they’ve shared together.

How do you define love?  In the context of building something?  It’s good to ask this question as we embark on our Built With Love mini-series.

In the same Erwin McManus podcast I referenced last episode, he says that love is what you sacrifice for.

A famous bible verse read at many weddings talks about love.  It’s part of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  He says love is more important than faith that moves mountains, great communication skills, the ability to tell the future, wisdom, and giving everything away. Then he defines what love is.

O Henry’s story, The Gift of the Magi, demonstrates that kind of love.  Jim and Delia sacrifice something of theirs to buy a gift the other will love. Listen to the episode to hear more about that.

This kind of love is a pure-hearted sacrifice.  Acting on the belief that the cause, purpose, relationship is greater than self.  The self is not out of the picture.  It’s just not whole picture.

Simon Sinek’s book “Start With Why”, talks about manipulation vs. inspiration.  Manipulations like price, fear, promotions, aspiration, novelty.  All influence behavior.

What’s the antidote, according to Simon?  Knowing your WHY.

That’s part of love, isn’t it?  A cause bigger than ourselves.  Donald Miller talks about this too in Building a StoryBrand.  What’s the problem with the world that your product or service helps solve?  Seth Godin – This is Marketing.  What’s the change in the world you seek to make?

We each have a choice.  To build a monument to our ego, wealth, success at expense of others, or build something to last.  That uplifts, inspires, heals, eases burden, brings joy, or a sparkle in someone’s eye.

You can make the choice to do that in your workplace, organization, studio, family.  Now that you know what love is, you can choose to build with that kind of love.

Imagine how world will look then.

Built With Love Series

115  – Built With Love