I recently heard a quote that all emotions extend from love.
Are you excited or hopeful? That stems from variations of loving feelings.
What about being frustrated or angry? Also extensions of love, but striking nerves that antagonize what you care deeply about.
Love is a foundation that we are rooted in and all carry with us, and it has both positive and negative effects on our brains, our bodies, and our lives.
Talking about love in terms of business is abnormal. From early on, we’re taught to dismiss emotion in favor of rational thinking and data-driven decisions. Emotions are not to be publicly expressed, let alone in professional situations. Extremely vulnerable emotions like love are personal and private; we learn to leave them out of the workplace.
In Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead, she includes a story from DeDe Halfhill, a seasoned leader of the U.S. Air Force. DeDe’s story occurred while she was working with a squadron; to her surprise, asking questions about team success started to reveal the real emotions affecting the airmen and their performance.
DeDe looked into an original Air Force leadership manual that was written in 1948. In this document, the word “love” was written 13 times. Fast forward to the updated 2011-edition of this manual, and any mention of love was nowhere to be found. (You can read this excerpt from Brené's book here.)
Can you believe it?! Some of our nation’s bravest men and women were trained on the belief and knowledge that love is a critical element for success. There was no fear in clearly communicating that being a successful military leader and unit required understanding “what it means as a leader to love your men.”
So why don't we express love more? Why has business and leadership moved away from expressing love as a strength?
When it comes to our work, hopefully we love what we do, love the people we work with, love the problems we solve, or love the impact we're making. Humans are personal, and therefore how we do business is inherently personal. It's personal to us, who we are, and who we strive to develop and grow to be.
As leaders, “love” should be an active part of our vocabulary. Life is too short to not love what we do or who we spend our time with. Problems in our companies and our teams should frustrate us because we care — because it extends from some level of love and it matters to us. In the same way, we should also be excited or motivated by opportunities.
As an extension of our version of love, all of our feelings matter. Our feelings cast ripple effects, shaping how we show up and influencing our decision-making. And since all of our feelings matter to business, so should love.
What do you love about what you do? When was the last time you used the word love in the workplace and meant it? How often do you take time to acknowledge and reflect on your emotions? What is holding you back from professionally expressing love with the work you do?
LEADERSHIP
Courageous Minds Only 🧠
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Chicago’s tech hub 1871 is hosting a community event on October 19. Join in person or virtually to learn from leaders at Kraft Heinz, Ferrero, AON, and ThoughtWorks who are driving their brands and companies forward.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Get Ahead of 2024 Planning Now 🗓️
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Join the leaders of growth consultancy Red Caffeine on October 19 for a virtual roundtable about 2024 annual planning. Walk away with resources and core frameworks you can use to begin your annual planning process that will set your team and your company up for success.
INNOVATION
AI Video Tool ⏩
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Opus Clip is a generative AI video tool that repurposes long talking videos into short clips. Their AI analyzes your videos to identify the most compelling hooks and extract relevant, juicy highlights from different parts of your video, all while seamlessly arranging them into cohesive short videos. Use this tool to enhance your content and social media engagement, all while saving you time.
CULTURE
Tom Walter’s TEDx Talk 🗣️
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As a co-founder and former CEO turned Chief Culture Office of Tasty Catering, Tom Walter shares his ‘ah-ha’ moment in his TEDxNormal talk — his moment of realization that sparked a change in his view of leadership and the value of company culture. After some of his employees threatened to quit, it led to a fundamental shift in Tom and across his companies and teams. Tom is now a globally recognized expert in building company culture, and Tasty Catering has been named the APA’s Psychologically Healthiest Workplace and a Forbes Magazine’s Best Small Workplace.
Tom Walter is a personal mentor of mine, and I find his vulnerability and transparency so inspiring. I hope you do, too!
PERSONAL GROWTH
Virtual Peer Advisory Groups 🤝
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The Charmm’d Foundation, a nonprofit that supports leadership development, offers free, virtual peer advisory groups for leaders and rising professionals. A limited number of seats are still open across a variety of peer development groups. Simply find a group you’re interested in, and reach out to join.
I’ve been involved in a leadership book club through Charmm’d for a couple years, and I’ve found a lot of value in group discussions with like-minded organizational leaders. I’d recommend checking it out!