Hello, beautiful friend.
Today, I send you a crescendo.
I also send you stillness. The way it feels when you walk outside really early in the morning and you imagine everyone else in the world is still asleep and you experience the expansive feeling of a new day.
I send you the feeling of the sun on your face and a friend that you laugh with today.
I send you ease, peace, and comfort.
Today’s audio LoveGram is about something that has been living with me this week. I read something by the author of “Essentialism,” Greg McKeown, and he was referencing a concept from Stephen Covey, who many of you know as the author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”
McKeown took a concept of Covey’s and expanded on it. I guess I’m now taking what McKeown wrote and am putting my own twist on it because it’s very impactful.
The concept is “living life in crescendo.” And you will hear, if you listen to the audio, which I hope you will, that what that means is the best is always ahead of us. It means that our lives are headed in a direction of greater joy, greater connection, greater success (whatever success means to you).
It means that our lives are every day getting better and deeper and more fulfilling to us.
This can happen in small steps, every day.
This is a really important concept to me because all too often, it’s easy to fall into the trap of our cultural thinking which is that idea that people’s best days are when we’re young.
We tell the stories of the high school championship football games, our college travels, our weddings, births of babies. There’s such a celebration of youth and moments of our youth. However, the average global average life expectancy is 72 years old. I believe we fall short at celebrating the many ways we grow and succeed well beyond youth into middle age and our older years.
The best moments are not behind us.
We can live our lives with the intention to consistently grow and to constantly deepen and widen how we love in the world. THAT is the feeling of a crescendo.
That is why McKeown’s message this week, reflecting on Covey’s “Live Life in Crescendo,” resonated with me so much.
In today’s audio LoveGram, you’ll hear my ideas particularly around relationships, because of course that’s what I’m most interested in. That’s where I think that we have the greatest impact on our own happiness. That’s where we can learn to love more, love better, and deepen our connections.
We can live our lives in crescendo by listening more intently, by surprising people, by planning more special outings with our friends, by asking people questions about things that matter to them, by remembering important occasions and reaching out to loved ones.
You know Robert Ingersoll’s famous phrase, “We rise by lifting others?” That’s what I’m talking about! The things I listed in the previous paragraph are some of the ways that we increase our own sense of wellbeing, our sense of success, and our sense of purpose.
I’m encouraging you and challenging you to make this something that you are intentional about living into.
Bring more of yourself to everyone you know. Bring that crescendo of love and energy.
I know you are here, reading this because you want to feel more. You want to express more of who you are to people you know. You want to reach out to new people and connect. You want to find novel ways to express gratitude and appreciation. All the ways you do these things are gifts to other people, for sure. AND, they are also great gifts to you. These are the things that give our lives a sense of growth and meaning.
So, I hope that today you’ll start.
Listen to my audio LoveGram.
I challenge you to reach out to someone in a new way: bring a little extra enthusiasm, surprise them in some way, listen without interrupting. Before you see someone or talk to them, think about something you really love about them and make sure you weave that into the conversation.
Then watch what happens.
I bet you’ll have a feeling of crescendo.
I know that I feel that crescendo, that growing enthusiasm, simply by connecting to YOU. Because you are here, with me, on this journey, growing our enthusiasm for life and expanding the container of love.
Seek celebration —even in dark corners,
xo Sherry
P.S. Crescendo: “The highest point reached in a progressive increase of intensity.”
P.P.S. The music I played at the start of my audio LoveGram.