Below the line we cling to being right, talking badly about others, we are closed-minded, blame others for everything, feel the world is happening “to me” and have no power. We are a victim, clinging on to our own stuff and taking everything personally, driven by a scarcity mentality of not enough, never enough, and with certainty that the world is out to get us.

I have lived and practiced with this model for several years and recently began to think about it in an even more simple form. There are lots of ways of describing the state of being above and below the line – consciousness and unconsciousness, awareness and delusion or trance, a presence or lack of presence – but one that I like the most is LOVE and FEAR. If we break all these things down into their most basic form, that basically covers it.

Why is LOVE important in the workplace? First of all, let’s try to define it. More than a feeling, love is a group of actions that embody those above the line principles. It’s acting in a way that cares and is genuinely interested in the well-being of the other and seeing them as a 3-dimensional and unique individual who matters as much as anyone else. And that could be self -love too. When we practice self-love we are acting from above the line towards ourselves.

Love doesn’t just play a role in business; it is the key to business. Business is simply about relationships, and all healthy relationships are based on love. This is not romantic love, of course, as we don’t have to fall in love with our patients and coworkers and we don’t even have to like them sometimes – but we need to deeply care about them, recognize them as unique and valuable and important, and give them our full time and attention when we are together.

Why do over 7500 new patients come to see us every year instead of going to some other place? And why do the vast majority of our patients come back? And conversely what is the nature of pretty much ALL of our patient complaints?

I believe the answer is LOVE, or in the case of complaints when we fell short and patients felt a lack of love and did not feel important or cared for. Our mission statement talks all about love- seeing each person as unique and valuable, empathy, compassion, meeting people with a welcoming smile, giving them the best care possible and continuously educating ourselves. Our capacity to communicate love and compassion to our patients is the single greatest differentiator from our competition. That’s why they come here.

We have told people what our values are in our mission statement and they come to us because they share those values. People are attracted to people who make them feel seen, valued and alive. People remember how you made them FEEL. When we promise to deliver something and don’t do it, people feel disappointed, they feel unloved.

So this “exceptional experience” that we are promising/aspiring to deliver at every encounter is an act of love. It starts on the phone or with the first interaction, recognizing that we are talking to another human being, someone just like us, with the same hopes, fears and desire to be happy. And with a bunch of history that we don’t know, but safe to assume it has included both a lot of pain and a lot of joy. And we have no idea what happened in her life that month, day or morning, but we listen deeply to what she is saying and what she is not saying, pick up on cues of body language if she is in front of us, then use our heart, our intuition, to try to give her what she needs to feel loved. To do that, to really listen with our whole body, we have to be present. That goes back to my favorite subject of mindfulness- having your head and body in the same place. We can’t deeply listen to the person in front of us if we are thinking about our grocery list or worrying about the month-end or an argument we had this morning. Our mind is in the past or future, and love can only exist in the present moment. We owe our patients our presence. To be actually there with them, in tune with their needs, on the phone, at the front desk, or in the exam room, delivery suite or operating room.

One author, whose name I can’t recall, suggested that there are 4 basic things that each person is continuously subconsciously asking:

Do you see me?

Do you care that I am here? 

Am I good enough for you? 

Can I tell that I am special to you?

Our job is to continuously be anticipating those questions and answering them for our patients. These questions are all based on fear; fear of not being seen and not being good enough, and on a primal level of not surviving since we depend on each other to stay alive. This is a fear that all humans share on a basic level. Love eliminates fear. Love lets us know that we are good enough exactly as we are, and we are cared for.

What happens to these questions when we don’t look at a patient in the eye and smile at the front desk, if they hear us sigh, if we don’t call them by their preferred name when we call them back, if we make them wait a long time in the exam room in a cold and scratchy gown, or if we don’t get their results back as soon as we promised, or bill for the wrong charges then don’t correct it the first time we call? What story will the patient make up based on these questions? How are we making her feel? What emotion do many people feel when we answer these questions with a NO? If they are pretty self-aware and mature they may just feel disappointed. If they are less mature they may feel anger, rage, or lash out. We may have hit their primary childhood wound, they might tell all their friends and write all over the internet, but more importantly, we have made them feel terrible and reinforced an old story about not being good enough. That is creating harm, which we promised not to do. It’s a big deal.

I love this question that came from one of my teachers Vinny Ferraro (look him up online or on YouTube).  In every situation, the universe is asking me, “How can I be a better lover?” This can apply in the romantic sense with our partners and is a great question to ask in that setting, but more in the day to day interactions. How can I bring love to this situation? Especially if it is a difficult situation or conflict? How can I add love and not fear? How can I make things better, not worse? How can I put water on this fire and not gasoline? How can I create this magic alchemy (making gold out of base materials?) We see this all the time when a team member calms an angry patient and makes them happy. This is not easy, and it takes courage and strength to face someone who is angry with an undefended heart. But we can’t engage in love or connect with a defended heart.

We have to be vulnerable, and trust and have faith that love always wins. I have yet to be able to win over an angry patient by applying these principles consistently. Sometimes it takes time to get through their armor, but you will get there if you stay in your own shoes and don’t waver from returning anger with love and compassion. Nelson Mandela famously wrote that he approached all of his guards during his 27-year imprisonment with love. No matter what they brought him, he returned love. Inevitably the guards could no longer do their job and kept being replaced. They simply were unable to hate him when they were consistently faced with love.

Be careful to give love without conditions. If I come home and do something really nice for my husband because I am afraid to tell him that I have to go out of town next weekend, or because I need to prove to myself that I am loveable or good enough, that is adding conditions, and robs me of the opportunity to experience real altruism or generosity. We don’t calm a patient so that we can get a superstar or kudos from our supervisor; we do it because it’s the right thing to do, because we are acting from love, which is our true nature.

So what about each other? People are people 24/7 – we don’t stop being people when we come to work and start being human when we leave. What if we treated each other this same way? To recognize that each of us is unique and special and that each of us is asking those same four questions.

What if your co-workers consistently treated you as a real person, more than your title or uniform, and listened to you in a way that made you feel special and important? What if we gave each other a unique and valuable experience every day and that was as important as what we offer our patients?

My guess is that it would dramatically improve engagement, reduce turnover, and improve happiness, it would make work purposeful and meaningful, and give you a reason to get up in the morning. If work has lost that shine for you, making things better has to start with you. If you are waiting for someone else to go first, you are below the line, living in fear. Fear that you will look foolish or that your sentiments won’t be received well, or that you will lose power. Shifting above the love means going first, doing the right thing no matter what the outcome, being vulnerable, saying “I Love You” by your actions, first. And when you give love from a genuine place, it is extremely unlikely that you will not be received well.

I challenge you to give appreciation, not “you did a good job” or “thanks for all you do” but something really specific. Give superstars to your peers. If you think something positive, say it out loud. “I like the way you walked that patient to the front today”, “I liked the way you helped me room that patient” – whatever it might be. Little miracles are going around all day all around us and we get numb to them. We just spontaneously throw together a team to deal with a half-day power outage – boring! A baby just came out of that woman’s body – how ordinary!

I challenge you to wake up to the little miracles going on all around you- our patients, your coworkers, this conversation. Go first. Say I love you with your eyes and your body language. A happier, more engaged and loving workplace starts with YOU!