Love Lessons I Learned From Mom About Business and Life

My mother, Bunny Polmer, passed away in February. 

She was as incredible woman, a juggernaut and pioneer in the DC food scene. 

Her professional success was rooted in her deep relationships and desire for connectivity. But those weren’t just recipes for professional success, they were foundational. 

Her client relationships often turned into life-long relationships. 
Her interest in her clients and their stories didn’t have 9-to-5 limits.

The business world can do funny things to us. 

If we leaders aren’t careful, we can lose the most essential part of what makes us great – being human, every day, all day, in every setting.

Three love lessons I’ll carry forward from Mom:

1️⃣ Loving what you do is really about loving who you are.

Let’s be honest, you can’t always love your job. 

But when you love the core of who you are and choose to put that version of yourself into the world, 
how you show up in your workday is no different from how you show up, always, in life. 

Loving yourself has ripple effects. It influences how you engage with others, what questions you ask and what solutions you’re open to entertaining.

2️⃣ Loving the process is more important than loving the outcome.

In business, as in life, there are wins and losses. 

If you build a business or a team solely in service of the wins, you miss the point. 

Mom’s wins were plentiful. But it was always the people who mattered. It’s the partnerships you form that make the wins (or losses) meaningful. Without investing in the relationships, even the most financially fruitful outcomes can feel hollow.

3️⃣ When you love your “people,” take every opportunity to promote them.

Mom was a promoter of, as she called them, her “people.” 

Hundreds of friends and family for whom she had real, meaningful and ongoing relationships. 

If you were impressive to her, keeping that to herself was never an option. She’d tell anyone who’d listen about your talents and why you two might want to connect. 

She forged relationships between others and created opportunities for others that enabled them to grow. She reveled in the success of her people. And like any great PR person, she didn’t want the credit or the limelight. 

That’s how leaders operate. Putting your people first. That’s what’s at the heart of businesses success. 

Here’s to carrying on the love lessons of Bunny Polmer.

Interested in exploring a coaching partnership? Feel free to send me a message or set up time on my calendar.

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