Love is THE mindset…

As a career management consultant, strategist, and executive coach, I have been talking about the power and value of “mindset” and/or “growth mindset” as a critical component of executive performance for a long time. We talk about responsible mindset, trust-based mindset, innovation mindset and so on, but I don’t get to use the word Love a lot – and rarely if ever do I talk about a “love mindset.”

Upon reflection, it is the only mindset that really matters. Love is the description of the source of all wisdom, all connection, all positive motion – and even all efficiency. Without love, none of those things really work. When I say, “Coming from Love,” I mean originating your intent out of love, your speech out of love, your action out of love or simply, operating from a mindset of love.

Now, let me give credit where credit is due. This is an age-old concept as old as any religion. In fact, you could break the Buddha’s message down to that and that alone:

Coming from Love. 

Coming from love manifests in many ways in our business world. It’s very easy to forget that, and to think that other orientations – coming from anger, coming from fear, coming from ambition, coming from intention, coming from clarity – are producing results. All those orientations and mindsets can be useful at times, but unless they are rooted in love (and some of those are not), they don’t produce long-term results OR long-term satisfaction.

It is our deep connection with the energy, motion, and feeling of love that is, really, what we seek. We are not seeking outcomes, results, glory, fame, or recognition. We are seeking love. So, rather than seek love, let’s start from love.

Let me illustrate this point with a tangible example. One of the CEOs I coach recently received very difficult feedback from his team. He had encouraged open dialogue but was surprised by the level of vitriol and negativity in the information he received – and he felt attacked.

I said to him, “Open dialogue and feedback are wonderful, but if those things aren’t coming from love, receiving them feels the way it felt for you – which doesn’t feel very wonderful at all.” He replied, “Yes, I don’t think they were coming from love. I think they were coming from fear, anger, and blame,” to which I replied, “Well, you experienced the effects of what fear, anger, and blame produce – the feeling of being attacked. In your feedback to them, have you been coming from love?”

He paused for a long time and looked up, and said, “No, I haven’t.”

This is how the world works. If you come from love, regardless of your actions, you get love in return. If you come from anger, fear, and problems, you get that in return. This is one of the most elemental truths available to us as human beings: where you “come from” determines your results.  And these two things – where you come from, and your results – either are or are driven by your mindset. 

For over 25 years, I’ve touted the mission, “Change the world by changing the way business leaders think.” I am committed to that mission, and I see now more than ever that the answer to that mission, and the calling of that mission, is to come from love.

Think first about love, and then take action out of that.

Can you imagine what would happen if that’s how our government worked? Can you imagine what would happen if every CEO in the world started with love? Everything would change. When we come from love, we see the impossibility of other starting points and we see the wreckage that those starting points leave in our world.

It is time for all of us to make 2022 the year to come from love.

I love you. Thank you.