It’s fear vs love. Believe it or not, the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s fear. All emotions basically fall under one of two categories — love-based emotions of fear-based.

Love-based emotions includes love, hope, joy, gratitude, peace, faith, trust, confidence, happiness, connection, forgiveness, openness, passion, freedom, harmony, honesty, beauty, compassion, self-love, self-appreciation, respect, acceptance, understanding, etc.

Fear-based emotions include fear, anger, grief, shame, guilt, bitterness, judgment, jealously, frustration, doubt, insecurity, etc.

A lot of what we consider traditional business is built on a foundation of fear vs love (actually a lot of traditional things are built on fear). The reason this happens is because in a lot of ways, fear is easier. Many, many folks live their lives being controlled in some way by fear-based emotions.

Either consciously — they’re angry, depressed, grieving, judgmental, fearful, worrying, unhappy, etc., or unconsciously — they feel an uncomfortable emotion, they run away from it, bury it, hide from it, etc. (Think about all the things that happen when someone gets upset — they start a fight, take a drink, overeat, go shopping, gossip, etc.) So, if fear-based emotions are controlling your behavior, it’s going to be very difficult to build anything love-based.

Now, just to be clear, love-based doesn’t mean you don’t feel fear-based emotions — on the contrary, people who have embraced love-based businesses and lives in fact DO fully feel all emotions, whether love-based or fear-based.

And there is definitely a place for fear-based emotions in our human existence, so rather than fight them, the key is to really feel them, and let them move through you. (Feelings just want to be felt after all.)

And, because folks who have embraced the love-based way do feel fear-based emotions, it also means they aren’t controlled by them. It’s when you try not to feel the fear-based emotions are when they control you.

Now, when you are selling, or attempting to persuade someone to do something, this really comes into play, because in order to persuade anyone to do anything — it doesn’t matter what it is (get your kids to go to bed at their bedtime, convince someone to go on a date with you, sell someone your product or service) — you absolutely need to tap into their emotions. Hence, you end up tapping into fear vs love.

Traditional direct response copy taps into fear-based emotions (which include fear/worry, shame, guilt, anger), which is why it feels so icky. But you don’t have to tap into fear-based emotions to sell — you CAN sell with love, by tapping into love-based emotions.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can sell with love rather than fear, I’d like to invite you to check out my love-based business books, especially my two “Love-Based Copywriting” books. You can learn more right here.

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