Lead with Love
Be the love you want to feel in the room/chat/feed/world
In 1965, Jackie Deshannon sang, “What the world needs now, is love sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Those words still ring true today, and we have it in our power to break the cycle by bringing more love. I propose we use this Valentine’s Day to increase the world’s supply of love. My contribution to the global love meter is the following recipe. Follow this to make February 14th a Lovely Day.
Set the tone: Kick your day off with two very good love songs.
Digital love: Make your social media be a love fest.
Physical love: Hug someone you haven’t hugged in a while.
Situational love: Bring love into one setting you haven’t intentionally brought love before.
Spread love: Share a love story.
If the above recipe works out well for you on the 14th, then repeat it on the 15th. And if it still works out on the 15th, then try it again on the 16th …
1) Kick your day off with two very good love songs.
Set the tone for the day by queuing up two love songs of your choice. While you’re listening to the songs, bring up the lyrics view so you can more deeply absorb the love. This will get you set to be an Ambassador of Love for the day.
You pick the two songs that work best for you. If you’re struggling to come up with two really good love songs, here are my top ten suggestions, leading off with Jackie (spoiler alert: I plan on listening to all 10 of these Saturday morning while Charu and I are driving out to Lake Chelan … here’s the playlist version if you want to do the same: Be The Love).
What The World Needs Now Is Love (Jackie DeShannon) - “What the world needs now, is love sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”
Lovely Day (Bill Withers) - “When the day that lies ahead of me seems impossible to face. When someone else instead of me always seems to know the way. Then I look at you and the world’s alright with me.”
Little Things (Michael Franti & Spearhead) - “You know that it don’t cost a dime just to spend a little extra time, to throw a little smile to somebody passing by you. And you know love don’t cost a thing but it’s worth more than any diamond ring. ‘Cause in this great big world it’s the little things.”
Learnalilgivinanlovin (Gotye) - “Give away love, and give it for free. No strings attached, just don’t ask for it back.“
Let Your Love Flow (The Bellamy Brothers) - “Let your love bind you to all living things. And let your love shine and you’ll know what I mean. That’s the reason.”
One (U2) - “One love, we get to share it. Leaves you baby if you don’t care for it.”
Keep It Comin’ Love (KC & The Sunshine Band) - “Keep it comin’ love. Keep it comin’ love. Keep it comin’ love. Keep it comin’ love.” As Prince sang, “There’s joy in repetition.” 🙂
Love Is In The Air (John Paul Young) - “Don’t know if I’m being foolish. Don’t know if I’m being wise. But it’s something that I must believe in.”
(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher (Rita Coolidge) - “I can stand up and face the world again. Your love is lifting me higher.”
Joy To The World (Three Dog Night) - “Joy to the world all the boys and girls now. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.” See my love story below for the awesome people that introduced this song to me at a very young age … and continue to live it to this day.
Now you’re in the right frame of mind to start spreading love.
2) Make your social media be a love fest.
I’ve told you before to fight the feed1. Today, that fight will take the form of “killing them with kindness.” Commit to only responding lovingly to the posts you read on your feeds today. Only loving comments, and only supportive reactions (🙂, 👍, ❤️, etc).
3) Hug someone you haven’t hugged in a while.
Find someone you haven’t hugged in a while and give them a big hug. Hug them like you mean it. Hold the embrace for a couple seconds longer than you normally would.
This reminds me of my Mom’s reaction to a poem I had written many years ago. I sent this poem to Mom in an email (one of the earliest emails I ever sent her).
Time to Live
Time?
Where is the time?
Beyond the daytime away at work?
Beyond the nighttime routine at home?
Beyond the weekend chores?
The time to be partner and parent?
The time to search yourself?
The time to write these words?Seek out the moments.
Don’t squander the opportune seconds wishing for minutes.
Sway with your partner as you did the first time you danced.
Hold your child as you held him the day he was born.
Savor every instant.
Live.
Mom responded, “With regard to holding my children the way you suggest … they won’t let me.” I took that as a challenge and continued to give her better hugs every time I saw her. I’m sure it fell short, but it was definitely an improvement.
And if that hug felt great, then feel free to repeat with someone else you haven’t hugged in a while. Just don’t spend the rest of your day hugging, because you still have more work to do below.
4) Bring love into one setting you haven’t intentionally brought love before.
What interactions that are part of your routine are overly routine? Bring some love to change it up. As Franti sang above, “Throw a little smile to somebody passing by you.” Be alert2, there are opportunities to inject love everywhere!
5) Share a love story.
Now comes the best part. Reflect on all the different love stories in your life, pick one, and share it. You can share it directly with that individual, as a thanks for being part of that story. You can post it on any or all of your social media. I’ll start … here’s my 8-person love story.
I am the youngest of seven: Joey, Ann, Sue, Beth, John, Jim, and then me. We were raised by an incredible mother and father, and across the thousands (millions?) of ups and downs over the course of all us growing us, we formed a durable loving bond. One of our closest cousins, Steph, was an only child, so we “adopted” her into our pack, bringing our sibling count to eight3.
For any song from the 50s to the early 80s, when I hear it, it undoubtedly conjures a memory of me with one or more of my family members. “Joy to the World” (#10 in my playlist above) is our family anthem, boosted to that position most likely because of Mom’s love of the odd opening line, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog.” Mom would belt that out with a smile every time the song came on.
As the youngest, I watched each grow up and leave home ahead of me. And when it was my turn, I ended up the furthest away from our Virginia home … on the other side of the country in Washington. I took many trips back to the East Coast to reconnect with the family, and every visit was treasured.
When my oldest brother Joey was turning 50, he was on tour with the Lion King in Boston. John told him he was coming up for the weekend to celebrate the milestone, so Joey made space on his calendar. What John didn’t tell him was that the other five siblings (sorry Steph, we forgot you on this one) were coming as well … surprise! This was a magical weekend because it was a return to just the seven of us; no spouses and no kids. We got to be crazy kids together again.
We loved it so much that we ended the weekend with the decision to repeat this sibling reunion for each of our 50th birthdays. The birthday kid would pick the location, and we’d all get together for an extended weekend. Lots of music, lots of activities, and lots of reminiscing.
Every sibling reunion was a total treat. But there is one that rises above the rest. For Beth’s 50th, she chose to meet at our childhood home in Richmond. Our Pop had passed away 11 years earlier, and Mom had just moved into assisted living. We had to get the house ready to be sold, and what better way to clean it out than by making it a party. We had moved into that house in 1972, so it was full of 40 years of memories. Sifting through all of those memories together, deciding what to keep, and who wanted what … it was a beautiful way to close this book.
A couple of the nights at the house, after a full day of cleaning, we took a nighttime walk around the neighborhood. Words won’t do justice to the experience of me with my siblings walking our childhood neighborhood together. I was near tears (of the best kind) the entire walk. I loved my childhood so much and it was because of all of them.
At the conclusion of my 50th, we decided that the new tradition would be to get all the siblings and spouses together, since we’re now mostly empty nesters. That hasn’t been as predictable thus far, but the good news is that all of our kids are now starting to get married, and there are 15 of them! So that creates plentiful opportunities for the Bogdan siblings to reunite. One last year and two this year!
Snow Angels
As siblings, we are a crazy eight. And here’s a great example of that. In late January, as Washington was warming up, all of my siblings were bracing for a huge winter storm to come through. So on our WhatsApp “Bogdan Sibs” group chat, I sent this message: “Remember my standing ask: if there is more than 3” of snow, please send me a snow angel photo.”
Ann was first on the scene.
And apparently she enjoyed that more than she had expected, because the next photo was what she called a “snow angel pyramid”, with one angel for each of us. 🤣
Then Steph got in the fun.
She also send a video of the making of this snow angel, but I’m gonna keep that between the siblings. 🤗
Snow took longer to get to Charlotte, North Carolina, but when it did, Beth contributed her angel.
I ❤️ed all of their pictures and ended with the message, “I love my family beyond words!” Stay crazy!
Corinthians
Two of the eight of us were married when I was very young. For my other five siblings, I was old enough to be a lector at the wedding, and I read the same passage for each of their weddings. It’s St. Paul’s definition of love that he sent to the Corinthians. That’s a fitting way to close this love fest post.
1 Corinthians 12-134
Set your hearts on the greater gifts.
I will show you the way which surpasses all of them.If in speaking I use human tongues
and angelic as well,
but do not have love,
I am nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.If I have the gift of prophecy
and the ability to understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and have all the faith necessary to move mountains,
but do not have love,
I am nothing.If I give away everything to feed the poor
and hand over my body to be burned,
but do not have love,
I achieve nothing.Love is patient;
love is charitable.
Love is not envious;
it does not have an inflated opinion of itself;
it is not filled with its own importance.Love is never rude;
it does not seek its own advantage.
It is not prone to anger;
neither does it brood over setbacks.Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices in the truth.Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.Love never fails.
Be the love. Make it a Happy Valentine’s Day!
Footnotes
The “Us Versus Them” section of Meet Me in the Middle
Siblings call outs in my posts:
The “Your focus determines your reality” section of Ambassador of Up
The “The wedding as an example” section of In Defense of Optimization
The “Taking a generous view” section of Nuance and Generosity
❤️
Well said Jeff and I love the snow angel story the most. ❄️☃️🪽