What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Andy Hughes, Scott Miller, and Samantha Powell.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
72 - Solve for Happy - Chapter 12 - Love is All You Need Part 1
Have you ever experienced a love so deep and pure that it seemed to defy all conditions and expectations? Together with Denise Russo and Sam Powell, they take a journey inspired by Mo Gawat's "Solve for Happy," diving into the world of unconditional love and its power to transform our lives. They'll share insights into how this boundless affection can be the bedrock of personal growth, leadership, and even the way we tackle life's nuisances like pesky raccoons.
In this latest episode, they don't just talk about love—we live it through examples that challenge the status quo. From the heartwarming to the heart-wrenching, they bring to light the profound effect of unconditional love in unexpected places, including a high-risk prison environment where empathy and respect unlock human potential. We also explore the ripple effects of leading with love in our professional lives, drawing wisdom from authors like Joel Manby and Marcus Buckingham to paint a picture of a business world fueled by this most human of emotions.
They wrap up our heartfelt discussion with a reminder that the journey to happiness isn't without its struggles. Personal accounts of transformation demonstrate the healing power of love, especially when directed inward. Tune in, as we share not only our thoughts but also actionable steps you can take to cultivate a deeper sense of joy and satisfaction in your own life. Remember to subscribe and become part of our quest to uncover the unconditional love that surrounds us, often waiting to be recognized and embraced.
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Denise Russo's Website
www.schoolofthoughts.net
Denise Russo's Forbes Articles
Forbes Article Link
Samantha Powell's Website and Blog
Lead The Game
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Russo and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody, Welcome back. It's another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we're living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. In this case, we've taken a book off of our bookshelf. It's called Solve for Happy by Mo Goddard. My name is Denise Russo and I'm here today with my co-host and friend, Sam Powell. We're about a little bit past halfway through this book now, so super excited to get into this chapter. And Sam, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Yeah, this is. I'm excited for this one, because this is all about love is all you need in chapter 12.
Speaker 2:So this is this should be a fun one. Yeah, absolutely, love is all you need, okay, so that's what made me think about that when I we started this chapter, and so this is about, really, in summary, today we're going to be talking about unconditional versus conditional love and the joy that we experience because of love, as well as loving others, and the importance, though, of loving yourself as well, because sometimes we forget that the most important person to ourself is ourself, and it sort of ends today, if we get that far, on our episode about kindness and how kindness is associated with love, which ultimately rolls into the purpose of this book, which is about living a life of happiness. So, if you were to think about Sam, for you, this is one of the five ultimate truths, it's the third one. What really stood out for you with this chapter?
Speaker 1:Oh I, this was an interesting one because as I'm, as I was reading this, I was really thinking about like right, he's making some, I like he's really like making some assertions here of just that love is like love, true love really is real, right. And he said there's not a whole lot of studies, like scientific studies, on love, which made me like put a pin and I need to go look up what kind of studies there are, because I would love to, I don't know, maybe read some abstracts on some of that. But so it was interesting. Like as this chapter started, I was I was kind of waiting for him to get into some of like building of the argument that like love is an ultimate truth.
Speaker 1:And this one sort of blossomed a little slower than some of the other ones because, I don't know, it's a little more abstract, a little more, you know, kind of intangible and he talks about that a little bit bit. But this one just started out really interesting for me. But I like, as the chapter rolled on, I found myself like really connecting with a lot of people saying and really feeling that it felt true for me too. Right, it didn't feel like an ultimate truth, that the, by the time I was done with the whole chapter yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2:So when I was thinking about this first part as a mom, he talks a little bit about motherly love and so it got me to thinking about. You know, we share a lot of stories off microphone about our life and our kids and our families and stuff and it got me to thinking about how I unconditionally, absolutely unequivocally, love my kids.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I don't love what they do sure, I think we all feel that way about everyone we love right, right.
Speaker 2:And so it isn't about your, it's not about the doing, it's about the being right. You love the being of the person, but maybe not always their actions, and so if you are the type of person that, say, says something like I love X because of Y, that's a conditional love. That's the solving equation of conditional love, that you only love something if some other need is met.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I love you because, right Like, it's that statement instead of just I love you, period, right, that's the unconditional part of it. And it's interesting, like you know, he says love is just there, unexplained, unsupported by any reason and unchanging. So when we're talking about love, we're talking about the unconditional version of it. There is a conditional version of love, but that's really. That's not the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is this like it's just there.
Speaker 1:But I think he makes two claims here that I thought were really interesting I'd love your thoughts on. But he says um, on the one hand, like all all other emotions beside this unconditional love are temporary, and unconditional love is real. It's the only emotion that's not generated by a thought in your head. Like I had to sit with that for a moment, like I'm really thinking about emotions and are all of my emotions generated by a thought in my head? Really, Right, you know? Like you know something I've been conditioned to think, or you know things like that. I think emotions just flare up and you're like, oh gosh, it just feels like something separate from thought. But you know things like that. I think emotions just flare up and you're like, oh gosh, it just feels like something separate from thought. But you know you can dive in and think about emotions, but I don't know why don't you think about that Like that? Love is the old, unconditional. Love is the only emotion not generated by a thought.
Speaker 2:That's really hard, because conditional love he talks about is stemming from a thought meaning like this person makes me happy and therefore I love them. This person makes me feel safe and therefore I love them. This person pays the bills and therefore I love them. Instead of just saying if none of those things were true, would you still love the person? And I guess for me. What it makes me think about, sam, is what do you really define, then, as love? Is love a feeling or isn't it? And if love is not a feeling, then how do you define something that is not something within the human brain that you can describe? It's sort of like, I guess you could say if you are listening and you're a person of faith, then you would think that God unconditionally loves you, no matter what you do, who you are, where you live, what you look like, what you say, how you think, how you respond, even if you do really, really horrendous things. And yeah, kind of.
Speaker 2:It makes me think of this show I've been watching on netflix. So this is going to be a weird example, but there's this show on next netflix that's called um unlocked. It's like an eight series show where this mayor or maybe he's the sheriff he's the sheriff of this town in, I think, arkansas, if I'm not mistaken he decided that he wanted to run this experiment where he was going to unlock the doors of this pretty significant crime facility to see if these people who are being treated inhumanely, that lived inside the cells for 24 hours, 23 hours, with one hour out of their cell a day, that if he unlocked the doors, could they be humane enough to not run around like animals and wreck the place. And when he was talking about Sam, why he decided to do the experiment, he was talking about it from the sense of believing in people and that he believed that, no matter what these people did and some of them were people with charges of murder, I mean, these aren't just petty theft crimes, but he said that without question he believed that these people lacked something in their life that was an unconditional love, if you will. And so what he found throughout the experiment I have two more episodes to go, so I don't really know how it ends. It could be totally a botched up project, but so far what he's finding is that, by giving these people respect, care and a listening ear, they felt. So.
Speaker 2:Going back to your question about. Is there a feeling or not? They felt for the first time in some of their interviews this feeling that he cared about them or that their life mattered, and so the goal of the sheriff is that if people could, in jail, feel like their life matters, that maybe once they end up getting out of jail, that they won't then do something bad and return back to jail right away, because that's the statistics that you know more than 60 or 70% of the criminals that get released end up coming back. And so, for me, I think that when we're talking about the conditions or on conditions of love, is that you have to truly care about something or someone for it not to be just a feeling, because it would be easy to say, oh, I love you, and that person does something so horrendously bad to you that you would then say, well, how could I possibly love that action versus love the person?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it's interesting, and he taught a little bit later in the chapter he talks about um, there's a quote that I highlighted where he says even the most annoying, seemingly hateful people you'll ever meet when you see behind their egos, fears and thought-obsessed behaviors, you'll find peaceful children who just want to be loved and appreciated. So what you're saying kind of reminds me of that. But like, yeah, it's this, there's something underneath like all of that. There's something underneath like all of that. And you know the more like I really had to sit with that.
Speaker 1:You know that all your emotions are just thoughts in your head, except for unconditional love. And it's weird because I can't think my way through it. Like, I can't logic my way through it. But if I sit here long enough and I feel that feeling and I pull out the unconditional love I have for people, the world, things, humanity in general, right, Like, I think I agree, but I cannot tell you why. Right, like, and that and that drives me crazy because, like, I want to be really logical on this, but I don't think this is like, I don't think you can be, I think this is like, it's a you know he's calling it an ultimate truth right, like love is just there, right? That's his claim here at the beginning. Is that it's just there?
Speaker 2:It's just there. But he also says, in so many words, the absence of love equals the absence of happiness. Yeah, you know. So if you want to be happy, happiness includes love and some degree, and that the true and joy joy comes from love. But what was interesting was he talks about how, um, you can feel happy because your love comes with no expectations, the unconditional part. But he then goes on which I thought was interesting to say that the true joy of true love isn't really in the receiving of it. Like, even going back to these criminals, the true joy of love is in giving it. And so when I'm thinking about this guy I was talking about that's the sheriff.
Speaker 2:When you watch the show, there's just something that you could just sense an aura about the guy, that man. I wish that was a sheriff in my town, or that's a guy I want to follow. You know you want to be a leader worth following, and so maybe, if you think about this from not the perspective of loving your spouse or your kids or your friends, but think about it from the perspective of business, there's a couple of good books out there right now. One is called Love Works by Joel Manby. He used to be the CEO of SeaWorld, and there's another one that's called Love Plus Work, from a guy that was a part of, a guy that was a part of of what do you call it? Clifton strengths finders. I think Marcus Buckingham is the author of that book. Both of those books are super good. They should totally be on your bookshelf.
Speaker 2:Maybe, sam Scott, we should put the links into the show notes for our friends love works and love plus work. And I can get you those links, friends, if those are books you'd like to read. But in both of those cases they're business books and they're interesting. Because you don't think of, as a leader, loving your employees, you might say, oh yeah, I love my job. But there's this essence of what this author, mo Goddard, goes to talking about, which is the economics of love, which is the more love you give, the more love you get back. So if you love your job, will you feel fulfilled, will you feel happy, will you feel at peace, will you feel like that exchange of your time is good? If you say I love my team, will that then reciprocate back? And I think we could say, sam, from our experience in our former job, that that's true. Right, we measured things like leadership, trust, employee engagement, retention, productivity, people's satisfaction, burnout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Simon Sinek talks about this, like I'm to remember, like what he wants, like how he phrases everything, but like the gist of his take on leadership is that you cannot be a good leader without having love for people in general, but especially the people that you're leading. Right, he talks about that like his story. He did a lot of research, like with the military, especially with like Navy SEALs like you know, just high executing teams and things like that. But you know, he talked about like the deep affection that people who are on these Navy SEAL teams like have for each other. Right, like it goes beyond like I care about you because we work together and we have to have each other's back. It is it falls into this realm of like unconditional love. Right, like I have to love you at that level.
Speaker 1:And the first time I heard that, I thought about that like as a leader and I thought about like that I was leading a team, a pretty large team at the time, and I thought about the individuals on the team and I was like there there is an unconditional love that I hold for them and I think it's part of like in this book he talks about, like you know, unconditional love withstands like every change. It cuts through the illusion, like all of the illusions. But he says like we love, you know, the ocean, the stars, the birds, the beasts. We feel a connection to them, despite not understanding their ever-changing nature. And I think that, like, when I think about people, when I think about humanity, like that's true for me too right, like there's this connection, there's this awe of just humans in general that does have an unconditional love to it.
Speaker 1:And if, if you can, like I think, really think about that, really hold that as you approach people, right, like, then you can, then you can sit in a space of like I'm going to assume positive intent, I'm going to assume people are doing their best and sometimes their best doesn't look good, sometimes their best looks really bad, but it's because of hurt and ego. You know, like all the things he says a little bit later, right, that, like even the worst people, right, Like if you can see beyond all of that, what you can see is a peaceful child who just wants to be loved and appreciated. And I think about, I don't know, all of psychology and all of that, like it really comes back to that at the end of the day, right, it's what's that hurt, that we need to heal, to get back to you know, this place of unconditional love, of you know, of caring for each other in that space and, like I don't know, that's a magical world I would absolutely love to live in.
Speaker 2:Oh, man for sure. You know, over the last couple of weeks I've had this crazy incident at my house where I was feeling like somebody was walking on my roof. And it wasn't a somebody, it was a something. And so this darn raccoon somehow got into my attic and it has been so destructive like, ruined the soffit of my house which I just got a new roof thousands of dollars for a new roof ruined the soffit, poked holes into the walls of the outside of my house, all over the house. When I say destructive, I mean destructive. So we had to set up a trap because we needed to get this thing away from the house. And so, needless to say, sam, the other day finally, here's a tip tip if you have raccoons in your house, they like marshmallows and sardines, some kind of combination. So, anyways, they were attracted to the marshmallows and the sardines and so we trapped this, this raccoon. Now, on the one hand, this raccoon was so destructive it's going to cost me thousands of dollars to fix all the damage and the headache that it's caused. But I was looking at the raccoon and the animal control people had come over to the house and they said that when you have an animal that's like a raccoon, which is not like a dog on your property, or it's basically a non protected animal, I hate to say, but they basically said the only way we can deal with this animal, because the rehab centers won't relocate raccoons. They'll relocate alligators, they'll relocate cats, they'll relocate even snakes, but for some reason raccoons are not on the list of being eligible to be relocated, unless you're a baby. So, in any case, I've learned way more about raccoons than I've ever wanted to know.
Speaker 2:And so this thing was sitting in the cage and there were some moments, sam, that I kind of just bent down and I was looking at this very scared animal and he was clearly just not knowing oh, I was ill intent, I'm going to go walk into this house and ruin it. You know, he was probably thinking why the heck are all these these giant things here that don't look like trees, and I need a safe place to stay to sleep at night. Yeah, and so, any case, when I called my mom up and I said, mom, the animal control people said that the raccoon basically has to be extinguished. And so we both cried and it was so like surreal, thinking that why I'm like my dad said why are you even sad about this? That blankety, blank thing ruined your house, but there was something unconditional about feeling like that was a life that was put onto this earth that I didn't, you know. I didn't purposely make my house to kill that animal's habitat, but we as a society have done things that have prevented animals from living in their natural state. And so, when you were talking about the example of people that do bad things, what's the natural state of us as humans? And so one of the things that mo says is that even the most annoying, seemingly hateful people you'll ever meet. When you see behind their egos, fears and thought obsessed behaviors, you'll find, like you said, the peaceful children who just want to be loved and appreciated. And once they're loved, most of them will drop their masks and turn real.
Speaker 2:And going back to this show, this unlocked show I've been watching, there was something on the episode last night that was exactly that. It was this guy. He had tattoos all over his face, like if you saw him, you might have an unconscious or conscious bias to be a little frightened by him, because his appearance was something that was not what we would consider natural, let's say. But he was talking about how he had. His father died when he was seven years old in a major car accident where his dad was drunk and he was racing another car. And so the boy was seven and he saw his father basically racing down the road and crashed into a like electrical pole. So he saw his father die in this destructive way.
Speaker 2:And so from the time that he was maybe 14 years old, he started getting heavy on meth and drugs and a life of crime and he'd been in and out of jail and now he's was well into his late 30s now today.
Speaker 2:And so what he was talking about was this experiment that the sheriff is doing, and it was as if all of the appearance of his outside was breaking away when he was talking about what happened to him on the inside and how he wanted restoration and he wanted healing and he just wanted to be loved but grew up in an environment where he didn't have it.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things he said at the end this guy was that he realized while he was in this jail that it was sort of like a blessing to be in the jail, because whoever would ever say, yeah, I had a blessing of being in jail, but this guy said what he found by being there was that one he had to detox from being on meth because obviously can't get the drugs, and that too, he realized that all the things that were external, like seeking love from other places and other people and other things was never going to bring him happiness. He had to learn that he could love himself. And so by now it's like eight episodes into this show and he's peaceful and he's sort of like the peace giver inside this prison, yeah. And so when Mo talks about that loving yourself, I think that maybe that is part of the equation, that if you really don't love others, maybe first look inward and find what is it inside of yourself that is unlovely or that you don't love, and fix that first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it's interesting and he he talks in this chapter about like there's no happiness without love, and while conditional love will often cause us suffering, true love delivers lasting joy. But it's interesting because he talks about it as part of the equation, right, like expectations versus. You know, you were perceived what happened and that's what gets us out of balance of happiness. But he says there is no like with unconditional love. There is no expectation, like again, it just is, there's no condition to it whatsoever. And so if there's no condition, there's no expectation, you know, and therefore it never throws you out of whack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think there's probably, sam, enough that we could do at least another half episode, or maybe a whole episode on some tips that we can share with our listeners about what he does in this equation, about describing ways you can love yourself, Because here again, this book is about a man who lost someone he loved unconditionally his son and so he had to learn some things that he needed to acknowledge about his own self as he was navigating. Was I the best dad? Was I the best husband? Was I the best worker, or whatever?
Speaker 2:And sometimes it's those things that we attack ourselves on that prevent us from truly loving who we are. So I think what we'll do maybe next time is we'll kick it off there so that we don't lose time for today. But as always, sam, I love being here with you, unconditionally. I love being here with you. We talked about, off the microphone, that everything we've been doing leading up to this time, over these last several months together, has really helped elevate for me the consciousness of what happiness means in life and how we have the power to have it in our lives, and yet we also have the power to deflect when it seems so far away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I think, as we explore these books, we really I don't know we're really kind of creating our own instruction manual for how to have a happy life by piecing it all together. And yeah, you and I talked earlier, before we hopped on, about how we've both needed that recently. Right, there've been things happening in our lives where, like, we just needed to fall back on some of these things that we're learning. And again, it's bringing it into consciousness. Right, it's bringing how to be happy and these you know truths. You know that love is a truth.
Speaker 1:Here is, you know, is what he's claiming. And so bringing that into consciousness, I think, is really I don't know. I see a huge difference in my own life and you know you said the same thing and I think I see that in you too, and you know it's really really kind of magical. So, yeah, I'll be interested to do part two on this, because there's a lot more in this chapter around love and you know love is all you need. So therefore, we should spend a little more time on it.
Speaker 2:Okay, on that note, friends, if you're enjoying these episodes, please share them. Subscribe if you're not already subscribed to our podcast. If you decided you don't like Apple, try Spotify. If you don't like Spotify, try Amazon Music. If you don't like Amazon Music, try Fathom. But please share. Share this so that other people can also maybe have the chance to learn about these equations for the how of happiness and solving for happy, and coming up after this book is a happiness project and how we're going to be able to give you really practical ways, easy, small little ways, to be able to seek the happiness that we all want and we all crave in our lives. So, on behalf of my friend Sam Powell my name's Denise Rousseau. We've loved being here with you today and this has been another episode of what's on your Bookshelf.