Relational Expressions Of Love And Kindness Will Bring Success In Your Business And Life

Zach Hall
Zach Hall
Nov 4 · 6 min read
Image from pexels.com

To begin, let’s define what an expression of love looks like in business.

Working With Customers

When your customers are explaining their negative (and positive) experiences; love is patiently listening and paying attention to the customer. Customers want to be heard, so listen. Be empathic and try to understand their perspective. It helps connect with the customer and may even help you recognize an operational area that needs to be improved.

Even when your customers are mean to you, love is always kind in response. A customer may have a legitimate issue that’s frustrating them and choose to express their frustration with anger. When a person chooses anger and directs it at another human being, likely you or your team, you must recognize that you have a choice too. You are a powerful person and being powerful you can choose to be kind even when mistreated by another. If you choose to respond in anger or be passive-aggressive, you are no longer powerful because you are controlled by another person’s actions and/or emotions.

You see people who feel powerless choose anger or fear to express themselves. They do this under the illusion that anger will cause someone to hear them and use fear to feel powerful. Probability is high, they haven’t encountered someone like you who cares about them and is kind even when they are not. Kindness is an expression of love says, that says if I take a moment to try and understand what happened I could likely help this person. This may be letting the customer talk out their frustration or you asking questions so you can pull the information together to understand what happened. You can never go wrong with asking the proper questions to get information. This will almost always help you find the problem so you can create a solution. Occasionally it may even help the customer realize that the problem may have been a mistake they made. Remember the key is to listen, ask questions, and be kind. Doing these things can help you quickly bring what may have started as an angry customer chewing you out — to a conversation where you both are calm, civil, and working towards a helpful solution.

Working With Colleagues

Have you ever experienced a colleague get promoted instead of you? Maybe you were upset (or jealous) about it because you believed you deserved it more than they did? I understand that some injustices occur in the workplace and sometimes people get promoted for the wrong reasons, but the majority of the time the thought that says “you deserved it more” or similar types of excuses is simply a way to justify your choice to be jealous. My friends, love doesn’t get jealous when your colleague gets promoted instead of you. We must learn to express love towards those around us by celebrating their victories with them. If you can’t celebrate another human being’s victory or success, even when it hurts a little; you haven’t managed your inner world well enough to deserve the same type of success. (That may be hard to hear, but it’s the truth.) More than likely, your choice to be jealous will cause you to see other people get promoted or get the success “you deserve” until you choose to let go of jealousy and choose to love and celebrate those around you. You may even try to go to another company or job hop because “this company doesn’t recognize my talent”. My friends, the company recognizes your talent because they hired you for the position that you’re currently in…it’s your choice to be jealous of others, which gave way to your entitlement attitude that’s holding you back. You need to look at your inner world before scapegoating other people for your own choices that have sabotaged your journey.

Being An Industry Leader

When you work for or run a company that is the industry leader, you don’t treat customers or vendors arrogantly. This is harder to explain but is usually an attitude that comes out in subtle ways. An example may be phrases like “the customers are lucky to have us”. Perhaps you have vendors and you always let them grab the check when you go out for a meal. Maybe you’re a C-level executive and regularly speak at industry conferences; during which you prepare passive jabs at your competition or go on and on about your company’s accolades instead of bringing value to others who have come to hear you speak. None of these actions are love. You don’t want to give away your secrets, but the one thing that most great leaders can talk about to anyone is how they treat their team well. You can have patents, secret formulas, game-changing strategies, and everything that could bring you to the top…but if you don’t realize that the true “secret sauce” to success is treating people well, you’ve lost already.

Love doesn’t speak negatively about your competitors. This is a hard one to chew because the societal norm has made it ok to talk about or slam your competitors. It’s not ok. You can choose not to talk about your competitors at all or simply choose to talk about the value your company brings to the table. If you have to belittle or demean a competitor to get business, it reveals your inability to create value. Value is what creates the deal. If you create enough value, quality, and great service; you can usually charge a premium. Think about the mobile phone you have in your pocket. You probably paid a premium to some level for the brand and you may even “have to have” a new one every year. I could talk about creating value as a stand-alone topic, so let’s go back to competitors. Respect your competitors because whether you like it or not, they keep you honest. If you didn’t have competitors, you would likely get complacent and become arrogant. Stay humble at whatever level of success you have, don’t disrespect your competitors, and be kind even if they choose not to be.

If one of your competitors suffers a major loss, experiences an operational failure, or maybe has some challenging scandal; love does not celebrate these things. If it’s a competitive area like operations or maybe a scandal comes to light, love turns inward and asks do I have this weakness or does my company have a weakness like this? If so, how do I course correct and set up safeguards to protect myself, my team, and my customers? Anything else is not an expression of love. If a major loss happens in a non-competitive way, be empathic and offer help. It’s honorable and speaks of your character and integrity. Plus, customers recognize authentic compassion.

Boiling It Down To The Core

To boil it down to the core…love is an expression that reveals how you value another human being, regardless of how they choose to treat you. This applies in business and in everyday life relationships. No matter what another human being chooses to do in their life or how they choose to treat you, it’s your responsibility to love well.

The Consumer Shift

This is important because there is a consumer shift taking place where they will begin “feeling” motivation through connection and relationship with you and your brand. You can already see this transition taking place because consumers have progressively required more direct brand interaction. Consumers want to be heard and feel a connection with people and with brands where they spend money. Therefore, relational expressions of love and kindness will bring success. Lacking love, kindness, and empathy will likely sever the relationship. Perhaps it’s reasonable to say that the value of your business may be redefined by how much you value the human beings you serve. (Your team and customers)

How It Applies To Your Success

My friends, making the necessary adjustments now to promote relational expressions of love and kindness authentically will help guide you to new levels of success in the years to come.

Don’t be a company or person that talks about an abstract theory of love and kindness, yet never take actionable steps to care for your customers and your team. Only history will tell whether you demonstrate in action or become a prisoner to a theory that keeps you from all you could accomplish.

Thanks for reading.


This was written as part of Project: Doing Life Well where our mission is to help people realize their significance and provide tools to empower their success in business, family, and spiritual journey.

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