How to bring out the best in people...

Wouldn't we all like to have someone trying to bring out the best in us on a daily basis? And by that I'm not thinking of the proverbial fitness coach shouting 'No Pain, No Gain' in your eardrum every time you check Facebook when you should be working - but someone who lovingly tends to your thorns and your blossoms, your tough branches and your new shoots, with tenderness and consistency.

For example, I know we can't change our spouses, only they can release change in their lives, but I have discovered that there are positive things we can do to bring out the best in them - and our children, friends and colleagues and anyone else we see on a daily basis.

Shaming and blaming, nagging, threatening and cajoling very seldom work to bring about lasting change. At best you may get a temporary behaviour adjustment but not without building resentment and decreasing connection.

So what I'm learning, tentatively but with growing conviction, is that love always wins.

I used to think that I believed it, but I see now that I actually believed that love usually wins - unless there is just too much bitterness or rage or indifference, for too long - then love just isn't quite up to the task. I thought that love truly is the most powerful force for change, except maybe for stupidity... We so often think of love as weak and sentimental - like a cheesy greeting card.

But I am slowly but surely growing in understanding that love - a real, raw, un-self-seeking, scandalously generous love - truly trumps everything. It is the strongest thing there is. Love overcomes even the deepest selfishness.

John Lennon is reported to have said 'Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.'

I would like to paraphrase that: 'Love wins in the end. If love hasn't won, it isn't the end.'

Before you accuse me of being utterly idealistic and out of touch with the real world and demand I have myself committed for such insanity ask yourself this: don't all revolutionaries start out as idealists?

So, if you want to bring out the best in people - Love them!

But how? What does love look like?

Well, good point, what does love look like?

Follow my blog and walk with me as we see where this road takes us.