What Does Love Have to Do With It?

Last night I attended a Webinar with author Mark Sanborn and he made a comment that really stuck with me. He mentioned that commitment and love are interlinked. When we love someone we are committed to them. Love without commitment is not really love. When commitment is lost, love is lost. I think in our current society people don't fully understand this relationship between love and commitment. Loving someone inherently means that you are committed to working together to overcome all trials and suffering. It still takes two to tango of course as we cannot make choices or take action on behalf of another.

In that same thread Mark also reminded attendees of the webinar that Love is a verb while like is an emotion. This is important to understand that ultimately in order to truly create value for others we must first start by feeling and showing unconditional love for everyone. That is very difficult but it is at the heart of personal development and any form of wealth creation. Unconditional love means that we recognize the good in all people. In my own sense I think of it in terms of all people being children of a loving heavenly father.

This does not mean we must like everyone. To like is, as Mark put it, an emotion and we often can't control our emotions. We can however control the way we react to those emotions. Love takes place when we get cut off on the highway and even though we don't like it, we accept that maybe that person is having a rough day or maybe they are rushing to the hospital to see a loved one. We have to believe that they of great worth and most likely not intentionally trying to make our day worse.

Wealth creation begins with unconditional love because you cannot begin to truly serve people until you understand them and care about them. Only when you begin to serve them can you start to create value for them. Only when value is created does wealth begin to accumulate. This wealth of course is not always monetary wealth. School teachers for example get paid a fraction of what they should but they still choose that career because of the wealth they find in helping their students learn and grow.

These two ideas, as shared by Mark Sanborn, gave me great hope and inspired me to be better. I hope you also found value!