The 5 Love Languages Approach To Life, Career, and Business

How Do You Get What You Want In Your Life, Career, and Business?

That’s the million dollar question, and as with most complex questions, there is one simple answer…

The way to get what you want out of your life, career, and business is:

Give People What They Want (or Need)

Check out the video below to hear me talk about this, and give you some insight, or simply read the post below.

A friend of mine works as an Executive Assistant to the CEO of a major corporation in New York City. She works tirelessly to please her boss, and make her boss’s life easier and less stressful. Unfortunately, there have been many times when her tireless effort has gone ignored or unappreciated because she wasn’t speaking her boss’s “love language”.

The 5 Love Languages

Words of Affirmation

Quality Time

Receiving Gifts

Acts of Service

Physical Touch

After getting married, a couple in the newlyweds ministry at our church recommended a very popular book for my husband and I to read called, “The 5 Love Languages – The Secret To Love That Lasts” by Gary Chapman. This book focuses on helping couples communicate better, and learn what each other’s primary “love language” is. It is truly an incredible book, and I highly recommend it. The general idea is that, my primary love language may be different from yours, which means, what’s important to me, is different from what’s important to you. What makes me feel loved, valued, and appreciated, more than likely is different from my husband, and usually isn’t exactly the same for most couples.

This is where it gets interesting.

My husband and I took the quiz in the book after trying to guess what each other’s primary love language might be, and it was extremely accurate. It basically confirmed what we already knew about each other. But it also gave us an opportunity to learn more about what’s important to each other, and how we can spend more time and energy doing the things that we each value the most.

Imagine spending time and energy everyday on something that you THINK is important to your staff, clients, boss, students, spouse, or child, only to be disappointed because they’re not appreciating it, or reciprocating in the way that you would like.

It’s easy to blame the other person or people for being ungrateful or unprofessional. But there’s a good chance that whatever you’re doing, the service/product you’re offering, or whatever the case may be, is not really as valuable to the other person, as it is to you. You might say to yourself, “If someone offered this to me, or did this for me, I would be ecstatic, and I would respond like this….!” Well, great. That’s you. You’re different from other people.

You may be putting your time and energy in the wrong places (places that are of little or no importance to your students, your staff, your clients, or your boss).

So, what do you do?

#1 Ask People What They Want

The best way to get what you want, is to give someone what they want or need. And the best way to find out what that is, is to simply ask. Find out what they value, what’s important to them and what matters to them.

Disclaimer: Some people don’t know what they want. So you have to get a little creative in order to help them articulate what they want.

Ask them questions like:

– What do you love to do?

– If you had $1 million dollars, how would you spend it?

– What are some things that a person can do to make you feel loved and appreciated?

– What’s the one thing that stresses you out the most?

– What’s the one thing that would make your life less stressful, and happier?

– How do you treat yourself? What do you do to pamper yourself?

– What are some of your pet peeves?

– What are your hobbies? What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

Asking questions like these will help you to learn what’s important to your clients, your boss, your students, your significant other, your child, etc.

Gary Chapman, along with Paul White have a new book out entitled, “The 5 Languages of Appreciation In The Workplace – Empowering Organizations By Encouraging People”. Sounds like another must-read book to me!

At the end of the day, if you’re not getting the results, response, reaction that you want out of the people around you, you may need to find out what the best way is to communicate with them, what matters to them the most, what makes them feel valued and appreciated, and what drives them to take positive action. This is one of the absolute best ways to get what you want out of your life, your career, and your business.

What do you think? Have you read The 5 Love Languages book? Do you think this concept can work, and help you get what you want in life? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

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