Love should not be as complicated as we make it sound. It simply has the power to connect people together and, eventually, protects, preserves, and benefits humanity in the long run. Dr. Timothy J. Hayes’ guest in this episode is making love simple. Discover the formula and the attitudes of love as he sits down with a teacher on the powerful principle of love and the author of the book Love Made Simple, Juan Lee. Join today’s conversation to learn all about the system of love and discover why life is an experience and is only temporary. Learn how to gain fulfillment from it. Feel the power of love in today’s episode.
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Love Made Simple: Connecting People With The Power Of Love With Juan Lee
Juan Lee is an author and teacher on the powerful principle of love. For over 30 years, he has studied organized religion to find the elements that unite humanity and share that message with those who need it. Raised in a Christian Church, he has turned to teachings about love over the years to find strength, understanding and hope. Juan is the author of the book Love Made Simple available through JuanLeeTheAuthor.com.
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Juan, welcome. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
I was hoping you could start us off by letting us know a little bit about how you got started in your work and what drives your passion for it.
I started this journey many years ago. I graduated from high school and I was afraid of life. It was that simple in the sense that I had no identity. I was afraid of what the future might hold for me because I did not measure up. I graduated from high school with an undiagnosed learning disability that left me hopeless. I didn’t know where to go. I have been involved in religion all my life and I didn’t see the action and the value in my day-to-day life. After doing all that you know to do, it had no actions in it. I had heard about love. I hadn’t heard about what God was and how God works.
I don’t even know how it works, but who he is and I felt still without hope. It gave me enough to know that it could be something better, but I couldn’t find it. I joined the Air Force and my life turned around. The Air Force showed me and told me that I had value, that I was important, and that I was necessary.
I began to identify the Air Force’s systems in place for us to all be successful. I was able to then begin to identify the similarities between the systems in the military and what a system is in life and how life is a system also. It was what is that system for life, and that system is love. The one thing that I learned in the Air Force is that the Air Force’s mission was bigger than any one person’s. When we realized and understood that we were a part that we needed to understand that there were no large I’s and small U’s and that we were all in this thing together, we began to understand the attitudes required and none that were necessary to be successful.
I began to contribute those to my life in general as it relates to how we live this experience called life. When I identified the element that was greater than any one of us, it was that humanity. When I was able to address and accept the fact that I’m part of something bigger than myself and this system called love is the system that connects us together that protects and preserves humanity from generation to generation, I began to have a purpose as it relates to what I was going through this life experience with and for. Life began to become very clear to me.
Love is the system that connects people together. It protects and preserves humanity from generation to generation.
For the past several years, I’ve been operating out of the clarity of understanding that my existence is a part of something bigger than myself, and because of that, I stand and I’m in a place that of peace and contentment with all my needs met. It allows me to have the confidence, to be able to demonstrate love without fear, anxiety and thoughts of loss.
I have developed myself in a way in which I know what I have to offer. I provide and I give that freely into something that’s bigger and greater than myself. The premise behind love and the purpose of love is that humanity continues. It grows and develops. As an individual, as I develop myself, I invest that development into humanity for the sake of the next generation.
You’re doing it with action. I like how you have on your website the question, “How do you recognize love?” Your answer is, “Look for these things, sacrifice, discipline, tenacity, courage, humility, caring and family.” You’re giving us what we might call an operational definition of love. How can you tell if love is there? You watch how it works. If it works like this, it’s loving.
It’s the practical application of love. We should not have to wonder. Since my journey began, I’ve come to find that so many of us don’t understand what love looks like or what it is. How to recognize it? It starts with, first and foremost, being able to find it and identify it for yourself. Once you can identify it for yourself, you can begin to recognize it in others because there’s a similarity. Those are the relevant and evident actions as we go through this experience called life. That clarity takes the confusion out of this experience because we’re all seeking an answer to a question, “What is life all about?” That answer is in the service to one another by protecting and preserving humanity through the actions of love. That connects us one to another.
You mentioned that you had launched a not-for-profit. Can you tell us about that?
That is the practical application of love because it takes the mystery out of something not taught. It’s been shared and we speak about it a lot, but we don’t talk about the practical application of love. What that is, is it that we teach teenagers and young adults, giving them a head start in this experience called life so that they can avoid some of these pitfalls that for many of us take a lifetime to recover if at all we recover from.
To get the understanding that love is the system that propels us into each stage of our lives. I break that in my book and the book is the basis of the nonprofit. It says, “In every stage of your life, there’s a fulfillment.” As a teenager, we should work to be fulfilled in that stage. As young adults, we should be prepared and be able to be successful in that stage. They are systematic so that they will carry us in preparation for the next stage so that we will be able to be successful in the next stage.
Power Of Love: Life is an experience. It’s not going to slow down or stop. Life is about whether or not you’re going to be able to navigate in time to make it to the next predicament.
What happens is as we get in life, we don’t know these stages and we begin to put, in many cases, the cart before the horse and then wonder why life is so difficult. What we want to do at Clear Journey is give young people those tools to begin to navigate life in a successful manner, in a way that is consistent with the system of life and without having to go back and redo or have to correct the wrong. Give them a clear journey so that they can navigate it because life is an experience. Life is not going to slow down and stop. It’s whether or not you’re going to be able to navigate it in time to be able to make it to the next predicament or situation in life so that you can begin to have this degree of fulfillment in life because that’s what it’s all about.
In your system, do you have specific fixed goals or ways to have fulfillment at each stage, or do you help every individual develop their own, “This is what would be fulfilling for me as a teenager and as a young adult?”
In the book, it’s more global and generic because there are things that you can gain on the stage because of the stage it’s in. For instance, as a teenager, if you have to worry about paying bills, there’s something wrong because that’s not relevant. Your fulfillment is being able to be absorbent, to be able to absorb and learn as much as you can so that you can see where you are, how you fit and understand that you’re looking for your position in this bigger system. As a young adult, you’d be like, “Now I’m beginning to identify how I fit and my uniqueness in this bigger system.” I’ve grabbed it and gathered all as much as I couldn’t, and I’m always going to incorporate new information and new ideas.
Growth is essential in any stage that you’re in, but now I’m beginning to see, “How do I fit? Where is my part? How do I maximize what it is that I’m learning so that I can find that place? When I become an adult now, something’s going to be required of me. At that point, you’re in that space where you’re deciding to have a family. Someone’s going to be dependent on you.
Something that you’ve got to realize is that the picture is getting bigger. Not only that you’re a part of a bigger picture, but you’re a part of this nucleus that’s bigger than you. That’s where you’ve got to have the right attitudes and mindset to handle that, which is different from if you go back to that teenager’s mindset. It’s all perpetual and it’s all growing you up to get here.
The last stage is as a senior, where you understand that your experiences are still valuable for those that are still yet to come. That’s where you’ve honed your skills to the point where now you can share those things with others so that in those situations that may be similar to others, you might be able to shed light on those so that people that don’t have that experience can glean from it.
That’s what the book does. On this individual, we take that same concept and see how it’s specific to you because everybody’s journey and work will be different. You’re able to understand now the bigger system, how you fit into that system, and then you use love as the answer for the betterment of humanity.
Life is only temporary. Your responsibility is to invest it into something that is eternal, called humanity.
We have to understand that this experience that we are in that is called life, it’s temporary. Our responsibility is to invest it into something that is long-term and eternal, and that’s humanity. We invest this experience into humanity so that the next generation can experience and begin to continue to grow and develop based on what we’ve imparted into it. We understand that because we know that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.
That idea of catching a glimpse of my particular skills and how I might contribute to that overall whole feeds into what so many people in functional medicine. If you ask, “What is needed for a healthy life?” One of the things they listed is the 5 or 8 things. Depending upon who you’re talking to, one of them is a sense of purpose. What’s your purpose? Another one is a sense of community. Another one is this word that you’re using in the title of your book, love. People might have slightly different definitions for it, but it is a connection. Your work is a very practical application of my energy in the world.
We all have the capabilities of using it and being engaged in it. Love is three characteristics. The first one is, it’s a chameleon. It makes everything possible. It’s when you submit to or put yourself in a position where, “I’m going to sacrifice myself for the betterment of the whole. I’m going to blend in and adapt.” Once we take on that, it gives the foundation for success. It lays the foundation for everybody to succeed. We have to be willing to engage or to come in and sacrifice for the good of all. That’s an idea that this chameleon realizes that, “I’m going to blend in.”
The next one is that I’m a conduit like you’ve talked about. It’s a connection. It allows us to know that there are no hidden agendas here. It’s like, “You have what I need, I have what you need, and together we’re better. The last one is that it’s a choice. Love is a choice. Something that no one can stop you and can make you. It’s your choice, and that’s the power that puts love over the top.
No one can stop you from loving. No one can prevent you, can cause you to love, but no one can stop you. That is in and of itself is the power of love, the ability to know that you’re going to not fail in the situation. You’re going to be successful with love, but it takes you away to get there. You’ve got to do the work to be able to get there, but it’s a no-lose situation.
When you love, you determine it and control it. The challenge we have is the battle between what people perceive it to look like and why it might impact me negatively the way someone else is viewing it. That’s the challenge that we go, because what will somebody say if I lay myself in this position so that everybody can win because we live in such a successful polarizing society and world that we can’t even identify when it has a total benefit when it’s not something for me and mine. When it’s a total benefit, we can’t even recognize it.
You said something there about the idea that I would invest a lot of my energy and value in what somebody else might think about. One of the things that all the great and real deep spiritual teachings talk about is that I’m the one. This is back to the choice you’re talking about. I choose the meaning I give to what somebody else says or does, or whether or not they liked me, and that’s what creates the impact on me of that. Not what they did, but how I choose to interpret the value I choose to give it. It sounds like in this work you’re doing, you’ve recognized that so that I can learn to build my own sense of value and my own sense of strength internally, and what other people think about me is their business, not mine.
Power Of Love: The formula for love is attitude, situation perspective, action, and outcome. All of that is in operation all the time.
That’s critical to being able to love. In many cases, it’s going to look very unpopular. The fact of the matter is that’s when I was talking about not seeing the value of the benefit of the sacrifice for the collective good, because we’re so selfish, and because we can’t overcome that selfishness, it makes it difficult for people to see the value of love.
The things that you are talking about put me in mind of that book on The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, the essence of one of the ways that love might be unpopular. The thing that popped into my head was, “If I’m going to come from a loving space or act lovingly, I am not going to participate in gossip.” Gossip is one of the more common, popular activities in this culture. It’s going to be unpopular for me at times.
When I stepped back from conversations or I call people on the gossip, not in a damning or critical way, but in a way that says, “I’m going to leave because we’re not talking about you or me. If you want to talk about somebody else, I’m going to choose not to participate in that.” That’s one of the things that popped into my head about how it might be unpopular to be practicing this loving activity you’re talking about.
One of the attitudes that I share is that love is an attitude of courage to step back and step in when necessary because it’s not popular. The fact is that you’re going to have to demonstrate that. I can’t make light of the fact that this is not always easy. My book is called Love Made Simple, but by no means is it easy. I stressed that to let you know that this work is on the inside.
You have to be honest with yourself because if no one is going to be able to dig up the things that need to be dug up other than yourself, you’ve got to be willing to dig it up so that you can deal with it. Until you’re able to deal with it, you’re going to be operating out of whatever is ailing you. If you can’t recognize it, it’s being manifested externally. What we’re hopeful is, is that you can identify it sooner than later because the outcome of the system or of life itself, it’s going to require you to demonstrate it. Whatever is in you, you’re going to demonstrate it.
Do you share with people in the book or through your nonprofit specific ways to dig up that stuff you’re talking about? The stuff that’s not so obvious out here in front of me, but I’m carrying it with me everywhere I go.
A lot of times, it’s through whatever we call trauma or whatever the circumstances are, to be able to recognize that when we’re trying to avoid it, everybody’s going to experience something that they don’t like about themselves or something happened that they don’t like. That’s the tool or the avenue to begin to enter into that practice or pursuit of trying to dig because, typically, it leads to something else.
Your actions have a chain link to it and it’s inevitable. There’s nothing that operates in a vacuum, and so it didn’t happen. There’s something connected to it. We have to identify what it is. You show me a circumstance that you’re not happy with, and then we’ll begin to link the chains back to it because that’s what it is.
Love is an attitude of courage—the courage to step back and step in when necessary.
There’s a formula that we’re operating in. I’ll share the formula. It’s the individual, but the fact of the matter is an attitude or it’s a perspective of that situation, and then it’s an action that will generate an outcome. That formula is in place no matter what your situation is because in every situation, you’re bringing an attitude to it.
One more time. That formula is?
It’s attitude, situation, perspective, action and outcome. That’s in operation all the time. That’s driven by time. It’s driven by life. If you don’t participate intentionally in it, it’s going to drive you because time requires this process. An outcome is required. Something is going to happen in every situation that you’re confronted with, whether you like it or not.
What I’m suggesting is you use love and the attitudes of love at the onset of it so that you know where you’re headed. You can put the actions that are appropriate in place to generate the outcome that you’re looking for if you understand that the outcome is to benefit humanity. How do you look at whatever your situation is to the point where it can benefit humanity? As a result, if humanity has benefited, so are you and so am I. We’re all a part of humanity. If we look at a situation and we go, “What’s in the best interest of humanity? How should I respond to this accordingly?” That automatically takes you to a place where it’s not selfish.
What you’re doing there is tapping into the wisdom that says, “We are all contributing and co-creating, so I’m either doing it without awareness, unconsciously, or I’m going to be doing it consciously. I’m going to be doing it with awareness and initiating it based on what my plan is and my strengths are.” As you said there, I’m going to adopt at this stage of my life the idea that I’m going to contribute something positive to humanity, and I’m not going to necessarily revamp the whole world.
In this situation where I’m on this bus with these people, what am I going to be doing? That’s contributing in a positive way because we’re always contributing one way or another, whether we’re aware of it or not. You’re suggesting in this, slightly rewording it with some other models I’ve worked with, I’m either contributing to creation in an unconscious way, stumbling through blindly, or I’m consciously co-creating with life.
The choice is to be in that conscious area. Many of us are letting life run us instead of dictating the direction again and navigating the experiences that we come up to.
How do people get tapped into or start working with this not-for-profit? Give us the name of it again, please.
It’s called Clear Journey. You can get in touch with me on the email, but that’s the Clear Journey. I’m also a coach. I do one-on-one coaching also. That’s where it gets to be more personal. That’s a for-profit side of the nonprofit. That course online, that’s where we’re headed, to be able to put the courses online on the nonprofit side so that we can go in and experience those things. There’s another side where we do one-on-one coaching for those who have gone through life a little bit and trying to make some adjustments in life.
Love Made Simple: A Guide To Inner Peace, Contentment, And Success
It’s ClearJourney.org and it’s JuanLeeTheAuthor.com, so people can get access to your book and they can get access to connecting with you but the not-for-profit. What’s another aspect of your life and your work that we haven’t even asked you about yet that you would like to share?
One of the things that I like to let people know is that my emphasis here is that if I can do it, you can too. It’s the hardest work you’ll ever experience, but it’s the most rewarding. There’s nothing that compares to clarity in life. A lot of us use money and things to give us that temporary clearness and sense of what peace might appear to look like.
The object with my book and the nonprofit is that we have this clarity so that we can confront life and be in control of it in a sense where we have peace in any situation that we are content with what we have to offer, no matter what stage we are in life. Not that we are content where we are not growing, but it’s contentment at the time and space where we are to have that assurance about who we are and then to know that we have our needs met.
That’s what it is. I want people to be able to understand that life is not about what you don’t have. It’s about being able to use what you do have and to optimize that, develop that. That’s a uniqueness that you possess that the world and humanity need. I need you and you need me. We need one another. We are part of something bigger than ourselves.
Thank you so much for sharing with us. ClearJourney.org and JuanLeeTheAuthor.com. I look forward to watching that not-for-profit develop and I appreciate your taking the time to share with us.
I let your audience know that I’m looking for help. I’m the initiator. I can’t do this thing on my own. Anyone that has a feel to understand that we’re in this together, I mean that. We’re in this together. By all means, come be a part. We’re looking for support in many ways. Whatever you have to offer, we’re willing to accept it as a part of the bigger picture.
Thank you so much for being with us.
Thank you for having me.
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As a child, Juan was the youngest of four children raised by a single father. Juan struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability that made school difficult. While being constantly compared to others, he was unable to identify his strengths. Juan’s low self-esteem and fear took away his hope for life. He joined the United States Air Force out of high school in hopes to survive.
He received multiple merits during his time in the military, including the Air Force Commendation Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal, Air Force Good Conduct medal and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award. He found new confidence in service but could not separate himself from his disability. During his time in the Air Force, he committed his life to Christianity and sought to utilize the principle of love in his life. He’s a devoted husband and lives outside of Washington DC. He has a desire to share what he’s learned over the years with others and be an agent of love for humanity. Juan is the author of the book Love Made Simple available through JuanLeeTheAuthor.com.
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About Juan Lee
Juan Lee is an author and teacher on the powerful principle of love. For over 30 years, he has studied organized religion to find the elements that unite humanity and share the message with those who need it. Raised within the Christian church, Juan has turned to teachings about love over the years to find strength, understanding and hope.
As a child, Juan was the youngest of four children raised by a single father. Juan struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability that made school difficult. While being constantly compared to others, he was unable to identify his strengths. Juan’s low self-esteem and fear took away his hope for life. He joined the US Air Force out of high school in hopes just to survive.
Juan received multiple merits during his time in the military, including the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award. He found new confidence in service but could not separate himself from his disability. During his time in the Air Force, Juan committed his life to Christianity and sought to utilize the principle of love in his life.
Juan is a devoted husband and lives outside of Washington, DC. He has a desire to share what he has learned over the years with others and be an agent of love for humanity.
