What does it mean to have a business that you love and that loves you back?As a business therapist, Nicole sees business owners and entrepreneurs every day who are stressed out by their businesses feel alone, unsupported and overwhelmed by their schedules. No one drops their personal baggage at the door when they start a business. In fact, starting a business means entering into a relationship, just like a friendship or romance. And just like in human-to-human relationships, if we don't set clear boundaries, and work to practice them mindfully, we're bound to default into toxic behaviors from our past. In other words, we bring our emotional challenges into our businesses with us, and when we ignore this, we get in trouble. In this book, Nicole shares her story of how she almost gave up on her business and dreams when she realized that she had created a business that was demanding and demeaning instead of loving and supportive. If you had trauma in your childhood it will impact all your relationships-and that includes the relationship that you're building with your business. We recreate patterns that we grow up with because they feel familiar and because we've been taught to compartmentalize our lives and drop our "baggage" at the door when we go to the office or start a business. There's no room for emotions, vulnerability, or mental health problems when it comes to workplaces. But the truth is, you will get more out of your business if you integrate all parts of yourself.Based on her experience of over 18-plus years as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and therapist, as well as her completion of Brené Brown's The Daring Way(TM) and Dare To Lead(TM) methodologies, Nicole outlines a process to redefine the relationship you have with your business. She'll walk you through how to identify your values so you know when you're in and out of integrity; craft an authentic mission and vision statement; make space for your business; create the boundaries needed for you and your business to thrive; love your inner critic; examine your relationship with money and create an Emotional Sustainability Plan that will act as a compass to help you make aligned daily decisions about your business. All of this so you can make more money, feel more connected to your business and clients as well as have a business that is emotionally sustainable.

The Entrepreneur’s Journey: A few years ago you started your business, either on your own or with a business partner(s). There’s a high chance that you come from a technical background and are good at what you do. You started your own business with great plans and, for a number of years, it has grown well, based on your sheer determination, hard work and passion. In time you have managed to get it over the £1m turnover ‘mountain’ and you’ve taken on employees. So what’s next? And this is where you've got stuck. The growth of your business has now slowed down, has plateaued or dropped back. Since you started the business has changed considerably, and you’ve changed with it. When you started out you had a dream about how your life was going to pan out, all the things you were going to do. But the greatest challenge to you now is TIME. Where does it go to? You start every week with great gusto, determined you’re going to smash that to-do list; Before you know it, BAM! It’s Friday again. As the months roll by you are more worn down and frustrated. Yes, there are some highs but it’s not what you really want, and you know you can achieve so much more. You start to look overly forward to weekends and holidays and, before long, you’ve become an employee. You have lost sight of the reason you started the business, and in the words of Bob Geldof, you "Don't like Mondays". Life is starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day: every week is filled with unwanted noise and, before you know it, it’s the weekend again. You have started to become bored, easily distracted, disinterested and have lost your mojo. If you haven’t already, or you have, but not quite realised that you have, you will start to fall out of love with your business. You have started to fall out of love with your business. How do you know? You’ve lost the passion and drive you once felt. You’re bored and easily distracted. You blame the industry, the economy, your competitors or anyone else. You’re frustrated and stressed. But there’s something else lurking deep inside…The Fear of Failure. Without knowing it you’ve also developed a fear of failure. You’re worried that you have built your business this far and, if you try to change it, it could all come tumbling down and you will lose everything. So, the best thing to do is to bury your head in the sand and ‘pretend/hope/kid yourself’ something magical will happen, and it will change. How can I fall back in love with my business? You are not alone. All your feelings, challenges and fears are a normal part of the Entrepreneur’s Journey and shared across most £1m-plus growing businesses. Your strength now is to recognise the traits and signs mentioned above and do something about it. By reading and implementing the principles that I’m going to share with you in this book, your business will be easier and more enjoyable to manage. Through focus, better utilisation of your team, and by doing the things you enjoy, you’ll achieve the aspirational results you desire and fall back in love with your business. Real results drive wealth and, in turn, you will start to live the dream that your hard work deserves. It’s time to stop procrastinating. “Only sh#t happens, everything else you have to make happen.” The Seven Steps to SECCESS® Strategy – Enjoy the journey, it’s more important than the destination. Empowerment – You'll only achieve exceptional results through effective teamwork. Control Panel – Know what you want, measure, assess and drive performance. Cash – Your primary goal must focus on generating real cash. Efficiency – Get more for less through constant review and utilisation of technology. Separate – Stand out by adding value to increase the demand and margins. Scale – Always be selling. All supported with Free templates and additional content on my website Better Never Stops. I hope you enjoy my book and you get to fall back in love with your Business.

To increase revenue, improve customer experience, and develop higher-performing teams, it's time for leaders to stop looking for quick fixes to complex business problems and start building a culture of love. Yes, love. Anchored by Softway's own transformational journey, Love as a Business Strategy offers a new, people-first framework for achieving any business outcome-written by folks that aren't fans of run-of-the-mill business books. As a matter of fact, Love as a Business Strategy is so chock-full of real-world examples of mistakes, heartbreak, and redemption that it reads more like a juicy exposé than a business book. Love as a Business Strategy steers clear from piety and theoretical concepts and instead shares grounded stories of resilient people running a real business. A business, as you'll come to find out, that was on the brink of disaster before 'love' took hold. Love As A Business Strategy doesn't preach or mislead, rather it lays out the blueprints for better business outcomes-like better employee engagement, enhanced patient experiences, and increased efficiency-then walks you through it step-by-step. A better way of doing business is possible. The workplace revolution has arrived. Love as a Business Strategy will help you ditch the status quo, embrace humanity, and achieve lasting success.

In this smart, playful, and provocative book, one of today’s most original business thinkers argues that we underestimate the importance of romance in our lives and that we can find it in and through business—by designing products, services, and experiences that connect us with something greater than ourselves. Against the backdrop of eroding trust in capitalism, pervasive technology, big data, and the desire to quantify all of our behaviors, The Business Romantic makes a compelling case that we must meld the pursuit of success and achievement with romance if we want to create an economy that serves our entire selves. A rising star in data analytics who is in love with the intrinsic beauty of spreadsheets; the mastermind behind a brand built on absence; an Argentinian couple who revolutionize shoelaces; the founder of a foodie-oriented start-up that creates intimate conversation spaces; a performance artist who offers fake corporate seminars for real professionals—these are some of the innovators readers will meet in this witty, deeply personal, and rousing ramble through the world of Business Romanticism. The Business Romantic not only provides surprising insights into the emotional and social aspects of business but also presents “Rules of Enchantment” that will help both individuals and organizations construct more meaningful experiences for themselves and others. The Business Romantic offers a radically different view of the good life and outlines how to better meet one’s own desires as well as those of customers, employees, and society. It encourages readers to expect more from companies, to give more of themselves, and to fall back in love with their work and their lives.

From the bestselling author of The Radical Leap and Greater Than Yourself comes the first book to directly address love as a hard-core business principle that generates measurable results It’s time to toss aside the touchy-feely notions of love in business and acknowledge the real power that it holds. Love is not only appropriate in the context of business, it’s the foundation of great leadership. To put it bluntly: love is just damn good business. That’s the simple but profound truth that leadership consultant Steve Farber has discovered in his extensive work with Fortune 100 companies and other successful businesses. His game-changing approach to love as a practical business strategy will help you to: • Identify your passions—and share them with others • Create a culture of love at work—and spark innovation, productivity, and joy • Serve your customers, so they love how you treat them—and have them coming back for more • Invest time in making personal connections—that are mutually rewarding • Focus on serving the needs of others—they’re going to love it • Do what you love—and make it your business, so others love it, too The proven principles you’ll find in this book will help you lay the groundwork for a thriving, competitive enterprise. When love is part of your organization’s framework and operationalized in its culture, employees and customers feel genuinely valued. Employees who are passionate about the work that they do are more loyal, innovative, creative, and inspired, and that translates to great customer experience. They don’t serve others out of obligation, but because of a genuine desire to improve people’s lives. And when customers reciprocate by loving your products, your services, and your people, that’s when something great happens. That’s when you get loyalty. That’s when you get raving fans. It’s a refreshingly human way of doing business. In addition to Farber’s field-tested strategies, you’ll find inspiring case studies from a wide range of industries and leaders, revealing self-assessment quizzes, and practical pointers on how to build a corporate culture based on love, the ultimate competitive advantage. At the end of the day, it’s just damn good business.

Love it? Hate it? Or, just don’t care? How we feel about something dramatically affects how we interact with it. When we feel, we care. When we care, things happen. Companies that are thriving, not just surviving, are much more than a set of ruthlessly efficient and mechanistic processes – they are a social system operated by people for people. The quality of relationships, both inside and outside the organization is a far more important driver of sustainable success or failure than the quality of its control systems. The head is important, but it is the heart that matters most. If you want your customers to be brand ambassadors and your employees to brag about you to their friends, you need them to not just think you’re great – you need them to feel you’re great. You need them to love you – and for that, you need them to feel that you love them. For over a decade Marc Cox has been helping companies whose toxic cultures, miserable employees, and angry customers have all but destroyed them to rebuild their company spirit, discover the business case for love and build an organization that is wonderful to work for, brilliant to do business with and has the mindset of creating memorable employee and customer experiences. Underpinned by fresh insights and perspectives, robustly tested and refined by the real world experience of working with a wide range of companies and over 2,000 senior executives drawn from all parts of the world, and filled with fascinating and illustrative “love stories” the book will help you to make the business case for love. It will help you to find a more rewarding and invigorating way of working – both emotionally and financially. In short, it shows what happens when the love is put back into business.

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).