Unconditional Love in Lobbying

The first day of the state legislative session, the first bell rings, and “it has begun again” comes to mind. This creature or organism that is the lobbying world of the state legislature is off and running for five months of wild wooliness. It has a life of its own. It’s a world that most people don’t understand, unless you’ve been “in the building.” It’s a mystery. 

People have always wondered how I do this. They have certain images of a lobbyist from the movies and they say “you’re such a nice person, how can you be a lobbyist?” Then it comes out that they have no idea what a lobbyist does and ask “what is a lobbyist?” The general public has a perception of what a lobbyist is, and it usually is pretty far from reality of what we do.  Throw in the words “government affairs” and you really confuse people! Those not in that legislative world really don’t get it. Every time I see my relatives when my gig comes up, I re-explain it and what I do. It happened every time I saw my beloved Grandma, until the day she died at 98 years old. But boy, she was proud of me!

Lobbyists communicate. Communication is critically important in lobbying. As in any industry, it’s also about how you approach it, how you do your job, how you treat others and even how you treat yourself. I bring all of who I am into the building and this work, including the idea of unconditional love. I have my own path, and I also respect everyone and their path. That is really helpful when you are working with people of different parties, different beliefs and needs and strongly held opinions on issues. Respecting their beliefs, who they are, gaining understanding and approaching them from where they are at, respecting their yes and their no is so important in lobbying. Not taking things personally and not making assumptions is key.

Even though I might be lobbying or advocating for an issue, I am just…me. I don’t need words or statements to others to be who I am. I am me. If you follow a path of unconditional love, you can’t get caught up in the dramas in the building, the fights, the arguments. Why? Because it just doesn’t matter! Everyone is doing the best they can in their own dreams, their dream of the world as don Miguel Ruiz writes in The Four Agreements.  

You can really love the people in this work even if you’re not really into the game of it all. Going for true win-wins. I always loved the win-wins, but I used to also love the game. The thrill of the chase. The rush. The bell rings and off you go, chasing down this thing or that. Now, I do my thing, and yet I just watch it. It’s almost feeling as if I could be sitting above the Capitol Building, watching all the pieces and people running about, to and fro – watching and seeing the pieces of the puzzle and of this organism, the living, breathing creature that is legislative session.

Detachment. It’s not to minimize the work there, or the passion of people for their beliefs of course, I honor their dreams just as I do mine. I also believe that being detached makes me a better advocate or lobbyist. I can see it all better, calmly, without reacting. I make better decisions that way.

Long ago I learned to detach from these efforts. I can work with people that I don’t personally agree with, and that’s o.k. I respect their position and their reasons for it. I learn when to share and when not to share, yet through it I maintain who I am regardless. I also never work on something that I can’t believe in at least on some level.

Through it, I have made the most amazing connections with people over the years. I even have had amazing spiritual conversations with legislators and lobbyists because I find common ground, and I don’t throw words to describe or label my beliefs in their face, nor do I react to theirs. They are just symbols, labels. What would be the point? It’s all about the love, right? I respect their path, I respect mine. I respect them, and I respect myself.

So many in the world, in business and in the legislative world too, can take things personally, thus the “wild and woolly” thing. When you combine it with a practiced will, it can be even more wild and woolly. Some people have a strong will, but they don’t know it. That includes many in the legislative field, at least I think so. A little “woo woo,” but spiritual or shamanic folks of course know about their will and how to use it – they are practiced with it. They also know the whys and why nots (or hopefully do!).

Here is a great example of taking the legislative process personally, and what can result…

I knew a lobbyist many years ago who was also a metaphysical practitioner, which really just ties in with using your focused Intent or Will and leveraging its power and your ability. Business folks call it the “vision thing,” and this is like the vision thing on steroids. Like with anything, there’s a balance. This person tipped that balance, as she set out to do this big work to make the legislature pass the bill she wanted. As an aside, the mere idea of “making” the legislature do something you want to do is humorous in and of itself, and I know any lobbyists reading this will get that.

But this person told me all about what she was going to do. She explained about the injustice, as she saw it, and how she was going to call for justice, and she was going to get this bill passed. Anger and self-righteousness combined with determination. It was palpable. It was personal for her. She was attached to and caught up in her own dream. And it backfired.

I listened, and then I offered up my recommendation that she may want to have a cool down period and revisit that decision, which in the end she substantially did, though not completely.  It is a great example of taking something personally and attempting to put your will before the will of others – to try to override their dream with your own. In the end, she almost lost their entire effort and almost had the opposite happen of what she wanted. It was very touch and go for quite a while after that – as I said, it backfired.

I think that goes back to the idea of be careful how you use your words and what you send out into the world. “Be impeccable with your word” – words of wisdom from don Miguel Ruiz, one of The Four Agreements. I would add – be impeccable with your thoughts. Also, remember the adage that it will all come back and bite you in in the you-know-what.

The idea of boundaries also comes into play. What are healthy boundaries? I like to think of this simple illustration – where my dance space begins, yours ends, and vice versa. Respecting others’ decisions and respecting our own. Using our will on ourselves and our life, but not projecting our will onto someone else or subjugating the will of others. Disagree with respect, honorable disagreement.

Yeah, people can get really emotional and worked up on this stuff!

One morning in the MO Cap at the beginning of the legislative session, I talked with a fellow lobbyist about my spiritual retreat to Teotihuacan with the Ruiz family. I had told them I was going. They are one of those people who lives it to give it. I jokingly said that it was quite a shock to come back from sitting on a pyramid feeling the love and then to walking back into the MO Cap, lol.

But the funny thing was that, as we talked about strategy and how that legislative session was going to play out, and just the idea that it has begun, this person was using the same words I was using. They were using words like “it doesn’t matter.” We talked about how people get locked into their positions and caught up in it and can get angry and worked up.

This was all in general of course, not about anyone or anything in particular, but just looking at essentially the domestication of the state legislative process and almost how it is this live organism. The legislative session has its own dream, and people get caught up in it and are domesticated by that dream. We were working on an issue together that had a lot of different sides and positions surrounding it, including some hot topics. We agreed that we were going to stay focused on the big picture, stepping away from the language minutiae and microscope as needed to go back to “what is the purpose?” in all of this. To bring everyone back to the question of the “what is the purpose” to keep the focus of the diverse coalition working out the language as it naturally changes through the process. 

That’s how we roll. It was great - and fascinating. 

Ask yourself… How do you roll? What is your purpose? Does it really matter? Who cares? What is your will – your true will and purpose? What is your ego saying? What does the real “you” say? Are you listening?

As I listened to the introductory speeches that state legislative session, I wrote down this quote: “Wisdom does not begin or end in this House…We should do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do…What better time to think of your last day than on this first day.” This was a quote by the new Speaker of the House that year. 

You can find those gems, if you listen, no matter where you are or what you are doing in the moment.