Who do we love?

I asked a friend for newsletter topics. Her suggestion: “Why no one should ever be asked to present on a conference call at 5 am.”

Hard “agree” here.

She also suggested writing about love. In a professional, focused, “love the opportunity to solve the world’s hardest problems” kind of way that so many of us who work in tech feel.

Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, defines love as “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Well, if you replace the word ‘spiritual’ with ‘professional’, you’ve just described leadership.

A boss that helps me grow is a boss I’d walk through walls for. I was lucky enough to have a few of those early in my career. But now I’m my own boss, and sometimes, my boss is insanely difficult to please.

Fortunately, Scott Peck was also talking about loving ourselves. When we extend ourselves for our own growth, we make ourselves better leaders, better communicators, and better thinkers. When we nurture and support ourselves, we can build better products and better companies.

And we feel so much better too.

Let’s spend some energy nurturing and supporting ourselves as we hurl through the fall conference season and the holidays ahead, hopefully with zero 5 am conference calls!