Hello,
Welcome.
My name is Lew Redmond,
And I am excited to share about a topic that is near and dear to my heart.
It involves love.
It involves work.
It involves how we are,
How we be in this world,
And how we share our gifts.
You may have heard of the phrase,
Make a living doing what you love.
And what I want to offer today is a little bit of a word play.
And instead of making a living doing what you love,
Then we should make a loving doing what we live.
One of my favorite poems is by Khalil Gibran on work.
In the poem,
He says,
Work is love made visible.
When sharing our creative gifts,
When serving from our hearts,
We're loving.
We can pour love into whatever we're doing,
Into a book,
Client,
Painting,
Class,
Speech,
Song,
Spreadsheet,
Anything.
Instead of starting with,
How do I make a living doing this?
Ask,
Where does your heart want to creatively express?
This question points you to the work you would do for no money.
And when you find what you would do for nothing,
That's when you're making a loving first.
Once you find that,
Then we can talk about making a living.
Because that's a different process that involves getting out there,
Putting your love on display,
And getting rejected over and over again.
That's a process of failing becoming feedback.
And if your love is strong enough,
You have limitless well to call upon.
You can go into that love when you're struggling,
When you're failing.
And that's why we start with making a loving before making a living.
The inner work is about attuning to that,
And tuning to what is the love in our hearts?
Where can it express?
Maybe you don't have the space,
Or the understanding,
Or the knowing to do what it is you love.
You might not know what it is that you love.
That's very normal.
And so I'll offer another switch to this wordplay.
Instead of doing what you love,
Focus on loving what you do.
And this is getting to the same essence of making a loving first.
This idea is similar to instead of finding your passion,
Bring passion to whatever it is you do.
Why is the distinction important?
It comes down to process versus outcome.
Doing what you love focuses on the latter.
We think that we're not doing something right,
So we need to find something that we love,
And then we will be fulfilled,
Happy,
Or feel on purpose.
When loving what you do focuses on process,
You show up each day and fall in love with the tasks ahead.
And this is how you take back a responsibility that you can actually make change in your life.
You can love your life,
Not by changing its circumstances,
And you don't have to change your career,
You don't have to change your relationship,
But by changing your being,
By changing what you're putting in,
The input that you're bringing into your life.
I teach and coach people around doing work they love,
And I had someone give me feedback where she said,
Your guidance helped me find new purpose in my current work.
I had been previously seeking externally to find some other job to bring me joy,
But I decided to bring joy to what I currently have.
She goes on to say that since then,
She has been more open,
Expressed gratitude to her coworkers,
And focused more on what has been accomplished rather than what has been left to do.
Besides helping her feel better,
She has seen such a ripple effect from this action.
Others are being more grateful and positive as well,
And they're finally getting time off and recognition for their efforts.
She says,
I now see that my job as a software engineer is more than just writing code,
It's using my vibration and helping others do the same.
You may use that language or you may not,
But I really wanna offer that this is the essence of what we're talking about,
That you can shift the way you're being,
And then you'll have a positive impact on every single person,
Every single coworker,
Every single thing you do in your day shifts.
This is what Gandhi meant when he said,
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
How do you make a loving?
Is you bring the joy and don't wait for it.
Instead of seeking love,
Be it.
Instead of finding your passion,
Be passionate.
Instead of needing proof,
Trust it.
How can you bring process into your life today,
Focusing on what inputs you can control,
How you can make a loving,
Love what you do,
No matter what it is.
We all have this power.
We can all take responsibility and start to choose how we show up in the world.
So go make a loving and love what you do today.
I am rooting for you and so grateful that I get a chance to share with you here.
See you soon.
And if you're on Insight Timer here,
You can find more about my work on my profile and you can check out my circle where I upload new tracks and live events that I have going on.
So I'd love to see you in there.
Talk soon.
