Why Chinedu Echeruo Says Love is the Future of Work

Serial Entrepreneur, Hopstop Creator, and MindMeet Co-Founder Chinedu Echeruo shares his idea that individuals, empowered by love and imagination, can solve virtually any problem.

What is love?

It is Oneness. Love is the totality, everything there is, the highest order — whatever that mystery is that we are part of.

And I think of technology as the coordinating aspect of love. It’s the way to make practical our intention to have love in the world. Because it coordinates us in a way we have never been able to do before. So, when we say love is the future of work, that’s what we mean.

A doctor is better trained at navigating the human brain than his wife’s heart. No one has really taught us how to talk to each other. It’s time for a new consciousness. What if we were all trained well in this fundamental skill of connecting, of loving?

How did you begin to apply this idea of love in a practical way?

I began to apply creativity to what I see as global problems — structural problems in the world — regarding the manifestation of imagination. Our company, Love & Magic, is a way of making practical this thing, these questions: How am I applying my creative potential? How am I using that potential? I thought about how I could become a channel for bringing this into the world. I had a choice and I said, Look. I can just live my life and just do my bit on the side or I could be of service in what I see as a very clear problem with a very clear solution. I need to be brave enough to do that. Having the name Love & Magic as your company name — it took us a while to step out and claim that truth. The truth is the best place to stand in audacity. This is a truth I can stand in and believe in.

What are you curious about?

I am most curious about the relationship between love, consciousness, and intention. That trinity — those three things — are the essence of human experience. I am trying to bring these big concepts to the everyday.

What does balance mean to you?

Balance is about energetic balance. Balance is tuning yourself — finding a way to feel good, to feel like you’re being creative, expressive, and guiding yourself to that balance. It has nothing to with stability of job, relationship, money in bank. The only real things are things of this energetic quality. It’s the space I aspire to be in — to wake up every day with the vibration of constructive intention. In that space, we feel good, but we are also able to serve good. To be of help to other people and yourself. That is the balance of life, to be in that space.

How do you make room in your life for loss?

The ebbs and flows are part of human experience. A human comes into this mystery of existence and has all kinds of opinions about what shouldn’t be. We think “that shouldn’t have happened.” One of society’s problems is that we know we will die and so many of our efforts are to trump the inevitable, to trump death. But if you can feel your way through experience, it would be a much more conscious way to live life. If we stop thinking about death we stop thinking about life, too.

What is wealth?

It’s a feeling. Everything you do is a feeling. Success is a feeling. A billion dollars is a feeling. You can buy a car or get a hug from your dad. It’s a feeling. You could have a billion dollars or a hundred dollars and feel the same way. It’s an abstraction of your consumption of the world in some way. It’s a resonance when you feel good and happy. Can you feel a billion dollars happy every day? At some point, you realize that the only free will we have is the choice of our thoughts and intention. And that range of motion is entirely up to you what you choose to think in this very moment. So that’s it. That’s your only action. It’s the only thing you can do.

When are you happiest?

When I am creating and solving problems. When I feel like I’m in that channel, when ideas are flowing through me. Your mind is a channel of information and ideas. I feel happiest in that flow of ideation and imagination. Your greatest ease is your greatest service. When you find the job or vocation that feels easy, it brings the most goodness to you and the world. If you’re lucky enough to be in that space, that’s what success is. When you are part of that flow.

What piece of advice would you give your 5-year-old self?

It’s all going ok.

Chinedu Echeruo is a serial entrepreneur who has dared to invent the future: In 2005, he founded HopStop, the pioneering travel app that helped millions of users navigate public transportation in major metropolitan areas around the world. Chinedu also founded Tripology, a lead-generation and referral business for the travel industry. Tripology was acquired by Rand McNally and is now owned by USA Today. He is the inventor of US Patent # 7,957,871, for Methods and Apparatuses for navigation in urban environments. Chinedu is committed to making the world a better, more cohesive place through the free flow of information. Chinedu holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and B.S in Finance and Accounting (Honors) from Syracuse University. He and co-founder Pamela Abalu recently launched MindMeet.us, a knowledge-sharing platform that raises money for charity.