What are the questions you ask yourself as you pursue or are in the process of building and growing your business? Are you wondering whether what you’re doing will make you rich? What are the choices you make regarding your marketing and promotions? Is it based on how many potential likes you’ll get? Are you concerned about whether people looking in will be impressed? What is the recurring conversation in your head with regard to your current situation? Are you asking yourself “what’s in it for me?” “How long will this actually take?” and possibly – “Should I even be doing this?”

A lot rides on our daily choices and actions and more often than not, we ignore our own internal guidance largely because we have been conditioned to trust less and less in ourselves, and more and more on external direction.

Love is often not the topic of a keynote, spoken about in networking events, or discussed in department meetings.

Yet the first step in clearing that channel within that offers clarity and guidance is to establish a close, fulfilling and lasting relationship, with ourselves. It’s the only way we can have close, fulfilling and lasting relationships with our employees and with our customers.

Someone asked me recently – when I shared I needed to relearn how to love myself – “How will you do that?”

In their book – At Least a Hundred Principles of Love – Nancy Kline and Christopher Spence suggest that loving yourself begins with being gentle with yourself.

Treat yourself at least as well as you have ever treated your dearest love and as you should always have been treated: with compassion, high expectations, forgiveness and delight. Only then can you treat others and the world well enough.

Today I want you to contemplate that true leadership is love in action. The degree to which you love yourself will be reflected in the goals you set and the actions you take. Your goals should express your dreams. Not what you should do, not what’s popular – but what makes your heart sing.

Sit still for a moment and listen to what’s important to you today. Maybe not to anyone else but you. And stay true to THAT voice.