The Business Case for Love

Warren Buffett – you know, that moderately successful investor from Omaha – has a fascinating approach when evaluating companies to buy. After analyzing all the numbers (which he’s pretty good at), he sits down with the CEO and looks for one critical thing: whether they love the money or love the business.

“Everybody likes money,” Buffett says in an interview. “If they don’t love the business, I can’t put that into them.” That’s because he knows something fundamental about business success: When leaders truly love what they do, they nurture and grow their organizations in ways that pure profit-seekers never will.

But here’s where many leaders get it wrong. They think love in business means being soft on standards or letting people do whatever they want. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s my simple formula: Kindness + High Standards = Love at Work.

The ROI of Love

Let’s talk numbers because, at the end of the day, business needs to be profitable. Consider Trailer Bridge, a shipping and logistics company that emerged from bankruptcy in 2012. When Mitch Luciano took over as CEO in 2014, the company was earning about a 1% return annually. By implementing what he calls a “love-focused leadership approach,” Trailer Bridge achieved some pretty amazing feats:

• Record profitability for four consecutive years
• Earnings from 2015-2017 that were greater than the previous 23 years combined
• An increase in customer retention to 20%
• Recognition as one of Jacksonville’s “Best Places to Work”

Luciano didn’t achieve this by lowering standards. He did quite the opposite, actually. Luciano maintains a high-performance culture while simultaneously creating an environment where employees feel valued and motivated to excel.

The Three Pillars of Love-Driven Leadership

1. Do What You Love

This isn’t about finding work that never feels like work (that’s a myth). It’s about connecting deeply with your purpose and letting that drive your actions. When you genuinely love what you do, you’ll willingly push through difficulties and challenges because the mission matters more than the momentary discomfort.

2. Serve Others

Love without service is just sentiment. Real love in business means actively serving your team members, customers, and community. This might look like Trailer Bridge mechanics helping a stranded customer on the highway, even though there was no immediate business benefit. These actions create loyalty that no marketing budget can buy.

3. Create Something Worth Loving

Your products, services, and workplace culture should be something people can genuinely fall in love with. This means going beyond mere satisfaction to create experiences that people want to talk about and share with others.

The Courage to Lead with Love

Here’s what I’ve learned from working with thousands of leaders across the globe: Implementing love as a business strategy takes more courage than implementing yet another efficiency protocol. It requires vulnerability, authenticity, and the willingness to pursue what I call OS!Ms (Oh Sh*t! Moments) – those scary leaps that come with authentic leadership.

But here’s the payoff: When you lead with love, you create an organization that

• Attracts and retains top talent
• Innovates more effectively
• Builds deeper customer relationships
• Achieves sustainable growth
• Creates meaningful impact

Remember those engineers I mentioned at the beginning? By the end of our session, they weren’t just accepting the concept of love as a business strategy – they were embracing it. Because when you strip away the misconceptions, love isn’t soft – it’s the hardest-core business principle there is.

As one of those engineers wrote to me after my presentation:

“I’ve told my technicians to make the customer absolutely love you. Take-you-home-to-dinner love you. Meet-the-wife-and-kids love you. Because if the customer loves you, you can blow up their building and they’ll say, ‘accidents happen.’”

Not the best business strategy, by the way. But you get the idea.

The Aaptiv Revolution: Love at Scale

Consider how Ethan Agarwal transformed the fitness industry by making personal training accessible to everyone through Aaptiv. Growing up traveling the world in the late eighties and early nineties, Agarwal witnessed poverty that most Americans never see. This developed an empathy that would later shape his business philosophy.

After gaining 40 unwanted pounds during graduate school, Agarwal realized something crucial: While he had the means to access high-quality fitness training, most people didn’t. “Because of financial or geographic limitations, the perception of training had become that it was only for the elite,” he explains. “You know – pro athletes, the überwealthy, celebrities. And when it comes to people’s health, that doesn’t feel right.”

This moral imperative drove him to create Aaptiv, offering app-delivered personal training programs that make expert guidance accessible and affordable. But here’s where it gets interesting: Agarwal didn’t sacrifice business success for social impact. Instead, he proved that leading with love could drive exponential growth.

His approach included:

• Making himself the lowest-paid member of the executive team
• Hiring only people who shared the company’s values
• Creating a high-performance culture built on mutual respect
• Maintaining an unwavering focus on customer experience

The results? Aaptiv grew from 2,000 paying subscribers in 2016 to 250,000 by the end of 2018. And as of 2025, their app has surpassed 13 million downloads and received over 50,000 five-star reviews. But more importantly, they’ve changed countless lives.

Agarwal collects subscriber success stories – like the woman stationed at an army base in South Korea who used Aaptiv to get back in shape after having a baby, or the man who lost 200 pounds and saw improvements in both his physical and emotional health – to share with his team as reminders of the importance and impact of their work.

“To provide this product to millions of people around the world, we have to build a sustainable business model,” Agarwal says. “It’s not like we’re money-hungry capitalists, but we’re also not capable of building a great product if we don’t care about money.”

This case study shows how love can scale – how one person’s empathy can transform into a business model that serves millions while generating substantial profits. It’s proof that when you build a business on love, you don’t have to choose between doing good and doing well.

The Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you: For the next 30 days, actively look for ways to incorporate love into your leadership approach. Ask yourself

• Am I doing what I truly love?
• How am I serving others today?
• Are we creating something worth loving?

The business world doesn’t need more leaders who can read spreadsheets (though that’s important). We need leaders who can inspire, serve, and create organizations worth loving. Because in today’s competitive landscape, love isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s your greatest competitive advantage.

Remember: Love isn’t just good. It’s damn good business.