"One thing I truly love is using my skills, knowledge, and experience to help others accomplish something or overcome an obstacle they are facing. I am frequently called on to help others move, figure out a computer, phone, or electronic devices, compose a resume, create a business model, or talk through a problem they are facing and rarely back down from the challenge. No matter how complicated or slight the task, everyone needs help at times and there is nothing more rewarding than stepping back and seeing someone successful and happy, knowing I provided them support on their journey."

"I love my family. I am daily touched by the sweet, undeserving words whispered by my daughter and my son's sensitive hearts. I love watching them discover who they are. I love laughing with my husband of thirteen years. I love food, especially sandwiches. I love our amazing community...they are friends that are family! I love sand volleyball, Tommy Boy, and iced tea. I find one on one conversations life-giving and love that my job allows me so many of those! I love being blown away by Scripture day after day and how perfectly loved we are by our Heavenly Father!"

"I love making things happen: turning dirt into dollars, turning ideas to products and watching (making) them grow. Seeing something I’ve worked hard on come to life is the ultimate reward. That can be anywhere from the office to the golf course. Hard work pays off, not just with the palpable result, but with the feeling that accompanies it."

“I love to create. Being a musician, photographer, filmmaker, and tech entrepreneur, everything I do revolves around creating. I love that you can come up with something out of nothing and it can touch a heart and even change someone's story. Whether a song, story, or a new tech idea, it is one of the greatest joys of my life to create and encourage others to do the same thing.”

"I love making progress in general. The idea of being better and doing better is inspiring. In terms of making progress it's all about being hungry to learn, not accepting no for an answer, and dreaming."

"I love when it clicks. When my passion resonates so deeply in someone's heart that it awakens their soul. I see it in their eyes. A fearless demeanor overtakes them filled with confidence and charisma. No longer do they settle with excuses and ideas but rather they desire action and execution. Having an impact on someone's life to that magnitude is by far the greatest satisfying pleasure I've ever had the privilege of feeling."

"Picking one thing is tough, but at my core, I love solving creative problems through photography, video, and design. The nitty gritty of it, sitting down to a Rubix cube and not leaving the desk still it's solved. Using light, color, shapes, and composition to tell a story or sell a product/idea is my drug. I want to use those skills to travel the world and help people and brands tell their stories in the most efficient ways possible."

"I love to find a little bit of fun in every situation. This concept of always finding fun helps you enjoy life so much more. It transforms a normal day into the best day ever, which can turn into the best month ever, year ever, and so on. It isn't always easy but it is always fun."

"I love watching NBA basketball. I'm a Cavs fan. I love the excitement of the NBA and how fast-paced the game is. I just think it's exciting to watch. I started paying attention to it in high school. One time my friend and I bet two dollars on a game. It happened to be the first game I ever watched. It was the Heat verse the Spurs...back when LeBron played for the Heat. I'm a huge LeBron and Cavs fan. I won that two dollars."

"Oh man, what I love in life is actually a really hard question for me lately. I've been having an existential crisis for the last couple years. Traveling and music are really the only things I love in life. I'm getting pretty nihilist about shit. Like what's the point of anything? We live, we die, and then that's it. It sucks because a lot of travelers are a little more happy-go-lucky than I am. I'm literally just sick of everything in this world. If I could go live in the mountains that would probably make me happy, but even then, I don't even know. I've tried so many things in life to make me happy and it just doesn't work out. I was a lot happier and more optimistic when I first started traveling, and now I've been traveling for about four years and the reality of the world came crashing down on me pretty hard. It's made me wonder what's happened to this world and why I want to live here. But I'm too much of a coward to kill myself and I'm too curious about what's next. What keeps me going is that maybe all of this will change. And my favorite place in this country is Mendecino, California. It's this little village on the coast. It's the one place that's untouched by a lot of shit in this country. Everyone there is pretty chill and they enjoy buskers. I actually make good money there and people actually appreciate me playing. Those are the things that keep me going in life."

"I love live music. Music elicits nostalgia and has the power to evoke an emotion unlike other forms of art. There’s something magical about the feeling that’s created when experiencing music with friends or a crowd of people, absorbed in its sound."

"I love my girlfriend. She's awesome. It's going to sound weird, but she doesn't look like everyone else. You know how people have clones and how people tend to look like the people they're trying to be like? She's just not one of those people. She's always been her own person. She lights up a room better than I can. She's pretty cool. She keeps me on my toes. People say that if I wear the pants, then she wears the belt. We'll have been together for two years this November. I do plan on marrying her. Some of my relationships in the past have been, you know, like a week, two weeks, a month. But with her, it's not fading. If I don't talk to her for like an hour, I'm like, I wonder what she's doing. It's young love, but I feel like I'm going to feel like that forever. Or at least I hope so."

"People are the most important thing in life. I love being in the moment and really appreciating the way different personalities are. We are all a little weird or quirky and that's what makes life interesting. I want to be who I am because it is unique and valuable. I want others to realize their high worth, not compare themselves to others; but be free to do what you do with what you've been given. Love God, love others."

"I love looking for opportunities to be creative in work and play...with other people, my kids, and my family. With my kids, I try to trick them into doing chores by making it more fun. I often make achievement badges or turn picking up toys into a game. I also love stories and being part of a big story. I love sharing and listening to stories. I love experimenting with different ways to tell a story, whether through an app, a storybook, or a short video. I love thinking about the big picture." - @pdraber (Cincinnati, OH)

"I love to laugh. I love to smile. I love that my family and faith have enabled me to fully appreciate and enjoy each of these to the fullest. I have found some of the greatest laughter traveling and exploring different cultures. I've found this happiness comes in all forms and can be expressed through food, faith, friendship, futbol, and fellowship." - @wesleycate (Nashville, TN)

"I love teaching yoga. I love helping people discover the benefits of slowing down and tuning into the present, to feel grounded, connected, peaceful. I love seeing the way this develops into a more calm, grateful approach, first on the yoga mat, and ultimately in our relationships and communities and nature. Getting on the mat for even a short practice can change your whole day, and powerfully affect how you interact with others. It becomes this beautiful ripple effect of kindness moving out in the world."

"I love starting my day with God. Getting into the Bible and having the Holy Spirit reveal some incredible insight I’ve never seen before. I love throwing on a pair of raw, selvedge denim that I’ve been aging for months. They form to your body and show the wear signs of your unique life. I love going to work at the church I helped start a decade ago, working with a team that I love, and seeing how God is going to transform people’s lives through our efforts. I love coming home to a wife I’m insanely privileged to call “my better half,” and three amazing kids who I can’t believe are already as old as they are. And then I love hanging out with a couple close guys at night, drinking incredible scotch and talking about golf, the game we all love so much. God has given us good gifts, and we are invited to worship Him in all of it. That’s what I love to do."

"I love Jesus, my wife, my kids, carnitas burritos, Uncle Scrooge, The Goonies (and most anything 80's), sunlight, board games, Americanos, ice cream with a ridiculous amount of chocolate chunks and peanut butter cups, and being with friends that make me laugh until I cry (which doesn't take long)."

"I love My Heavenly Father who loves me in spite of myself- and my family who does the same. I love the twilight hour in the summer when we are all outside and happy and content just being us. The moments my breath is taken away by how much I love my people. I love friends that are like family. And I love runs or hikes when worship music is blasting in my headphones - when I can step away from it all and feel God's presence so beautifully in His creation."

"I love movies. I'm a film critic. I've been writing for City Beat for seventeen years. I also write for Dayton City Paper, do reviews on FOX19, and I've started a non-profit where I get to go into schools and bring film and critical thinking to kids as young as middle school all the way up through high school. I've been going to movies since I was little but never imagined I'd be doing this for a living. There's a lot of random stuff that happened along the way that got me to where I am now. I love it and I'm going to do it till I keel over. Blue Velvet is my favorite movie. David Lynch, 1986. I've seen it over thirty times on the big screen. I still have tickets from when I saw it back in '86. I also have a ticket from last year when it played at Film Farm in New York for its thirtieth anniversary. I got to take my seventeen year old daughter with me, so she was the same age I was when I first saw it back in '86."

"I love cozy (blanky) and sissy."

"I love getting to do what I'm passionate about, which is ballet. I've been doing it for sixteen years now. It's a full-time job. I'm there Monday through Friday, nine to six, and then I'm here at Starbucks when I'm not there. So it's a long day. I feel very lucky that I get to do ballet as my job." - @kristin_247 (Cincinnati, OH)

"I love the small moments that you can have with people. Here at Panera, I helped this woman on crutches just by opening a door for her, and I could tell that it made a difference to her. And for me it only took about three seconds to do something that maybe could have impacted her life. So it's about making the most out of the small moments that you have in life. I love expressing kindness to all people. A smile goes a long way. So many times we get wrapped up in our lives that we forget to smile. And if you pass a random person just give them a smile, because it does make a difference. You can be light in this world with a simple smile."

"I love my family (begins to cry). I actually always tell my daughter, Poppy, that mommy cries a lot when she's really really happy. I just love everything about my family. I feel so content when I'm with them. There's nowhere else I'd rather be and nothing else I'd rather be doing than being with Poppy and Brodie. Brodie and I love putting Poppy to bed. We'll take her upstairs together and read books together, and then when she's ready to go to bed and the lights go out, one of us gets to rock her, which is such a special time. So many nights when I'm rocking her, I just think about how much the Lord must love me because I literally feel like there's nothing else that I could ever love more in the whole world...just looking at her and singing to her and loving her and holding her. I just consistently think about how much the Lord just wants to be with me and spend time with me and love me and sing over me. I feel like that's a pretty beautiful picture that I have when I'm with her and when I'm not thinking about anything else other than how much I love her."

"I love the way my kids respond to their mother. I love that my seventeen year old stepson, Adam, is a man. Like a true man. He's humble. He obeys God. He thinks about his decisions. He wants to know what something would mean today and what it would mean five years from now. He has a plan. He's willing to put himself second. And he treats his girlfriend well. I love how our eleven year old son, Nate, has been working to control his emotions. I can physically see him trying to do that. I love that about him. I love Joe's personality. He is uniquely himself. He doesn't try to be like Adam or Nate. He's just himself. He's confident to do that. I love that my wife always sees the good in people. It inspires me to do the same. I love the way that God's economy is woven throughout our daily dynamic...the fact that God just shows up when we're making decisions or talking to our kids. I love how scripture and our community speak to us and give us the ability to teach that truth to our kids and how it gives us wisdom that we wouldn't have had otherwise."

"I love my family, my job, and my friends. I just enjoy life, because life is only once. It doesn't matter how hard my day is, I have to enjoy it. If people make you mad, you have to let it go. You never know if you're going to wake up tomorrow. You need to be happy with the members of your family. You never know if this is the last kiss, the last hug, the last 'I love you.' You never know. I'm from Mexico. My daughter was born here. Too many things happen at her school that make me afraid and I don't always feel comfortable with her there. My daughter was bullied for three years. She just confessed to me eight months ago that she was considering suicide. I knew about the bullying, but never knew that she wanted to take her life. It's really hard sometimes. She's doing much better now. A couple years ago she got to take her first trip to Mexico to meet my mom for the first time. She's become a lot stronger. People would call her fat and ugly and Mexican and mean things like that. I think she wanted to hear from people other than her mom and dad that she's beautiful."

"I love sleeping. That's all I want to do (laughs). I'm tired. I work two jobs. I work at Fifth Third Bank and here at Kroger. When I leave here tonight I have to go to Fifth Third. I'm so dang tired. I've got three kids. Two little ones and a grown one. The older one, she's out of the house with a husband and kids. My son tells me he appreciates me working so hard. I grew up with two parents and my kids only have me. My son lives with his dad but we don't stay together. So I'm getting some help during the week when he's with his dad. Then he comes home on the weekends. I love my kids so much, but sometimes I wish they'd just hurry up and grow up, you know, but then when they do grow up it's like, aw, I wish they were little again. I like getting them things, and they like when I take them to amusement parks, but when I get there I don't want to have fun. I just want to sit down (laughs). Oh, and I love watching The Golden Girls."

"I love waking up early in the morning and hearing birds chirping and children laughing. I'm a simple man. I just keep it real. I've abused life in my early years with drugs and alcohol. But you better know that I give it back every day. I don't like friction. I like people to be real. I don't like liars. There's no reason to put on a front. I like being able to give back kindness. I've grown a lot and have learned how to not be too proud to do it. I'm really enjoying being the age I am and feeling as young as I do and being able to enjoy life with open eyes."

"I love my family. I've got a lot of brothers and I love helping them out. They're all younger than me. I like taking care of them. I'm the oldest of five."

"I really love helping my clients to seek justice. Many times I represent people who are fighting larger companies or powers that are much greater than themselves and I really love helping to give them a voice that they might not ordinarily have. I think our legal system is certainly among the best in the world but in order to achieve justice I think people need, in many cases, someone to help them, and that's where I fit in as a lawyer. I love the whole process of helping the "little" guy fight the powers to achieve justice in what can oftentimes be a complex legal system. Another thing that I certainly love, without question, is watching my children and grandchildren grow and prosper in their lives. We've just had a new grandchild added to our family and we grow more in love with them every time we see them."

"I love doing anything creative. When I am, I'm totally in my element. I'm just happy. I'm fortunate enough to have a job where I can be an artist. But then outside of work, I can do all different kinds of things. I'm so happy in the creative process, just getting my hands or my mind on something. If I'm doing graphic design, sewing, illustrating, sculpting, making glass, cooking, or just daydreaming about a new project, I'm in my happy place. I'm fortunate because I get to do it a lot. I have the time to do it, but I also get to do it in my career. And as my husband says, there's no off switch. I am always thinking this way. It's just how I am. I'm wired this way. And it makes me very very happy."

"I love work. Ancestrial-wise, I come from a very prominent German family, and Germans just enjoy work in general. But for me there's more of a theological value to it where I really feel like we're designed to work. It's hard but it's also rewarding. I love the idea that we get to provide for our family and build the Kingdom while still here on earth, and ideally bless others through it. It's a lot of hardship and it's difficult, but we get to bless our families and bless others, and build into something that hopefully lasts longer than us."

"I love music, motorcycles, and basketball. I love the way music makes me feel. It's my soothing go-to that really changes my day. It's like my good cup of coffee or drug of choice. If I'm in a bad mood, I'll get in the car and crank the music up. I'm a blues junky. I saw Stevie Ray do his very first tour in a little tiny bar. He carried his own stuff in. I'm divorced, and my daughter once said, you know, mom doesn't really appreciate the fact that you took her to see Stevie Ray in a little bar and you got to meet him and talk to him. I said, your mom's probably seen Stevie Ray six or seven times because whenever he came around we'd go to his show. I said, she doesn't appreciate that stuff. It's probably one of the reasons we're not together anymore. I love basketball too. I used to coach high school ball. My son's getting ready to play for UC Clermont. I live vicariously through him. I got to see the NBA when it was here in Cincinnati. I got to see Oscar Robertson and Lew Alcindor and the Lakers and Celtics when they'd come to town. I was in high school when the team left."

"I love music. I'm a singer/songwriter. I play a lot of music. I love harmonies. My dad was a gospel singer growing up so I was immediately tossed into the world of harmonies and vocals. When I was an adolescent I traveled around with my dad singing in different gospel quartets. We always had a bus in our yard. I was always inspired to be a singer. When I hit my early teens I started playing in bands and singing and playing guitar. I got interested in writing music. I recently went through a battle with cancer, and am still recovering from that. The whole time my inspiration to get out of the hospital was to sing and perform again. It was throat cancer so they ended up cutting a lot of my throat out. It was pretty intense. I had all the radiation that you're legally allowed to have. It was five days a week for seven weeks. I was told I'd probably lose my voice and wouldn't be able to sing again. It was a threat to ending my career and to being able to play guitar because they had to cut through all the major muscles. So there was a chance of me not being able to move my arm up past my shoulder. I still have trouble with it. It's something I deal with every day. I used to be so inspired by the amount of people that would approach me before I'd go on stage and perform and would tell me that they'd heard about my story. They'd tell me that their families were praying for me at their grandma's church or their church. A lot of inspirational faith-based stuff. And then I'd have to go on stage and try to sing stuff like Journey and Zeppelin with a big knot in my throat after having someone come up and totally humble me and drop me to my knees. My doctor considers me a miracle."

"I love Scouting because of the father/son time that you get. Plus, it gets you in the outdoors with hiking or camping or some other activity you may not have thought of. This last weekend I went camping with the Cub Scouts, which is younger kids. I took my three youngest kids and we played capture the flag, went on a hike, and played something called GaGa ball, which is a Lithuanian activity. The kids loved it, and I came back really sore and tired, but I had a blast. I have five kids, three boys and two girls. My oldest is twenty one and he's an Eagle Scout. Some of my favorite memories are doing stuff with him. One time we went on a high adventure excursion for a week. We went white water rafting, white water canoeing, and rock climbing. Doing all that stuff, one day at a time, was great and helped me connect with my son and everyone else we were with."

"I love video games. Well, games in general. I love everything about games...how they help people with their memory and motor skills. I go to school for game design. I used to do IT work for some colleges. I'd pretty much sit there and play video games all day. I also play Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. A lot of adults lose their creativity and imagination when they grow up, so these games help me with that. People get dull and when I ask them if they'd ever want to try these games with me, they're like, no I'm not creative enough and can't imagine stuff like that. I tell them, yes you can, just tap into your inner child."

"I love my kids and my dogs. I love the people my kids are growing up to be. They're 20, 18, and 16. They make me really proud. They are very courageous. They're all pretty shy kids and they've really put themselves out there to try new experiences and make themselves uncomfortable, and I think that takes a lot of courage."

"I love helping people and making a difference in their lives. I'm in school to be a physical therapy assistant. I like being able to help people get back to their regular lives. I like making people smile. I like to sing. I've been singing for pretty much my whole life. I don't do it professionally but a lot of people ask if I do, so I guess that means I'm not too bad. I sing at work all the time. You'll probably hear me at some point."

"I once read that the meaning of life is understanding. And I've found that I love reaching understanding about anything. It's a really magical moment. I do it by following my curiosity. I believe curiosity is a sacred thing. And I love studying dreams. I love the personal imagery, how they're all based on memory, and the reflective quality they offer. It's a language that only you can understand."

"I love being a father to girls. They're a true blessing to a single dad. Nothing has rounded me out more as a man than being a provider and a sole parent to twenty and twenty-four year old daughters. The lessons I've learned...you just don't read it in a book. I also have a business that I started six or seven years ago. That's awesome too. But that literally wears me down and makes me more cynical. I really have to work at staying up. But my true source of inspiration is being a single dad to daughters. They've taught me to learn to listen and pay attention. Not to the words, but between the words. I'll share a story with you, and I'm not going to give you all the details because you'll probably be able to figure it out. There was one night where my youngest daughter, she was in eighth grade, and it was a school night, and around 8:30 she walked into the living room and said, dad, I've gotta go to Target. So I asked why. She said, I forgot that tomorrow is picture day and I need another blouse. So we hopped in the car and headed to Target. When we got there she told me to go look at stuff and just meet her at the cashier. And yeah, there was a blouse, but she also had something else underneath it. And that was mind blowing. So that Christmas, I gave her her own Target gift card. And that is the kind of thing that is a blessing to me as a father. It's never what you think it is. As you get older and more confident in life you think you've seen it all. And that was very humbling. I've been influenced by what I learned in that moment to not go into everything so confident about what's being said. There's always something behind it."

"I love to make pottery. It's a hobby of mine. I love working with clay and with my hands. I love being able to create and see the end product and use them in daily life. Even just seeing them sitting on a shelf is really cool."

"I love hiking. Next month I'm hoping to do a month on the Appalachian Trail by myself. I'm currently saving up for it. It's been on my mind for over a year. I need to do a lot more planning for sure. I'm pretty spontaneous. I just feel like it's the right time. I've only been camping for a day or two. In a previous job I was walking a lot, so I want to be open to this experience. I just want to make it from Georgia to Virginia. I love being in nature and being in the moment...not being occupied by other thoughts. I love making connections with people from different walks of life. I was recently let go from a job, and I want to do a career change, so in between now and doing that, I want to fit this in."

"I love nursing, taking care of people, and laughter. I love to love on people when they're afraid or when they don't have anyone else to love them...when they don't have visitors and they're scared of being in the hospital or they're facing surgery or illness. Once I worked with a patient that couldn't speak anymore because he had cancer of the larynx and they had to take out part of his esophagus and larynx. So, he had to write on a dry erase board. His cancer got really bad and his family wouldn't come to visit him. It was around Christmas time and told me, through writing, that he loved and really missed decorating for Christmas. So I went to the store and bought a bunch of Christmas decorations and decorated his room that night with a tree and lights. He said it was the best night he'd ever had. You could see the lights from the street. He was on the sixth floor of the hospital and we took pictures for him. He ended up passing away seven days later. I love that I was able to make him smile even though he knew he wasn't going to make it."

“I love being open minded. I love being in open space, in nature or just in general. It gives me a loving feeling. I love catching a sunset on a lake or going fishing, or anything wilderness related. I love mountains, trails, hiking. Those kinds of things help put everything into perspective and help remind me why I’m here or why I’m made for something. I like it because you don’t need anything else. You’re just out there experiencing the best…things that money can’t pay for. That’s where the best of the best in life is.”

“I love the feeling of standing next to something big and feeling so small. I get this feeling when I’m standing at the ocean. It puts things into perspective and reminds me that this world wasn’t made for me and that I should probably be living more for others than for myself. Any time I go to the beach, I have that one night where I just think, that ocean and that horizon are huge. It’s like, oh, you want to swim across that ocean? Go ahead and try. I can think of a hundred ways to help you and you’ll still probably need help.”

“I love challenges. If you don’t push yourself, you don’t grow. I didn’t find that out till the last couple years. I refuse to stay stagnant. And that’s probably why I love this type of contractor work. I’ve taken the real estate exam five times. The good news is I passed the national portion the last time. So now I just have to pass the state portion. But I refuse to give up. I’ve had so many opportunities to give up before and I’ve recently learned that I’ll only grow if I push myself, whether it’s in the gym, at work, or in life. I love it when people tell me I can’t do something. That just gets me fired up more than anything else. Even when I’m in here working when it’s freezing cold, my mind tells me, hell no, I’m not going to quit. It’s not the end. My little girl was in the NICU for 104 days. She was born at 25 weeks. She weighed one pound, ten ounces. She was about the size of a twenty ounce Coke bottle. The biggest thing I learned with what she went through was to not give up. You can achieve any challenge that you’re faced with. You learn to take it minute by minute, and hour by hour, and day by day, and then week by week. It’s crazy what she went through. And you can’t even tell now. She’ll be four in August. Talk about a miracle. At that point I was working about eighty hours a week at Tire Discounters. I would go in and the first thing you have to do when you enter the NICU is wash your hands. And I would go in and my hands would be totally black from work, and even after washing them, I’d be holding her and they’d still be black. But it was a constant reminder that this is what I’m doing it for. You forget about all the pain you go through at work. It doesn’t even matter at that point. It’s also really rare for a kid in the NICU to not go home on ventilation, and she didn’t go home on anything. She literally died twice. Her heart rate stopped. One of the times I was actually holding her. At that point, after sixty or seventy days in the NICU, you’re just numb to it all. You feel nothing. And the hardest part is that there was nothing I could do as a parent, other than be there.”

“I love my wife, my kids, and my grandkids. I love everything about them. They’re my little hellions. We have four kids and three grandkids. In my previous life I was a fireman. Then it was just me and my wife. If something happened, something happened. Now I try to stay healthy a bit more to see them grow up.”

“What I really love is this one spot at Withrow Nature Preserve. If you go there, on the top corner of it there’s a park bench that overlooks the Ohio River. So me and my girlfriend would sit there and drink Franzias, you know White Zinfandel, or Sutter Home, whichever we could get our hands on, and we’d sit there and sip it and watch the boats go down the river. The first time we went there I fried a whole bunch of chicken, made homemade potato salad, and put rolls in a picnic basket. We’re sitting in the grass, there are some cars parked there…we didn’t know there was anything there. There’s a church steeple or chapel and something else, and all of a sudden here comes twenty-five college girls running out of the weeds, all with yellow shirts and yellow shorts. We’re all like, where did they come from. So we get up, and once you get through the bushes we were sitting by, there’s a trail. So we just started following the breadcrumbs and next thing you know there’s a cabin or some kind of old red house that goes around in a circle. We had her little shelties with us, her little sheep dogs. So we walked all the way around, and on the corner of the trail there’s a park bench. You have to walk maybe ten feet off the trail. You’ve got to look or you won’t find it. But when you get there it opens up and there’s the Ohio River and a park bench. We swore we’d never tell anyone we did something that stupid.”

“I love my son. I love everything about him. He’s ten months old. I care about him a lot. When I get home he walks to the door and just wants to be with me. I don’t get that much time with him at home when I’m working, so I’ll FaceTime with him and talk to him. When I’m at home on my days off he’s with me the whole time. We are attached.”

“I love to travel the world because you get to see how other people live. You get to learn about what makes people tick. I’ve been really fortunate to be able to see some amazing people and things in the places I’ve been. The best experience was going to India. I went there to visit a missionary friend. We went to Varanasi, India, which is kind of the cultural center of Hinduism. We got to travel down their holy river and see the thousand year old temples and it was a peek into their way of life. That place is so different though. People ask me how it was and I can’t even describe it. You just don’t know till you’ve been there. I think the trips that have had the most impact on me were the ones where I got to build a real relationship with somebody from another culture. Those kind of friendships are the ones that make a trip go from a vacation to a real life-changing experience.”

“I love my bed because it’s so comfortable. I love my bunny and my blanky. It’s so fuzzy. I love pizza, ice cream, cookies, and donuts. I love Grammy and Gramma. And I love Wilder (brother). He’s cute.”

“I love Jesus. He’s everything that I’m passionate about. Right now I’m doing a personal study on 1 Corinthians 13 and really focusing on the verse that says, ‘love is patient.’ I’ve been studying those three words all day long. He’s so much fun to learn about. He teaches me how to love every day.”

“I love Jesus. I love how He redeemed me and set me free. I love the joy and peace I find in Him. I’ve known Jesus for almost six years. I now have purpose and freedom in life.”

“I love when people walk away from High Five Salon feeling like the best version of themselves. Feeling more clear of who they are and who they were made to be from their interactions there. And not that we’ve convinced them that that’s the case or that we’ve done anything to add to that, but just reminded them of who they are, something that was already there. We just help uncover that. When you’re sitting in front of the mirror, and you’re forced to come to terms with the person looking back at you, that can be a pretty volatile thing. There can be good we see in that person as well as bad. And what we want to do is remind that person of what that good is and how that should define their life. It’s effortless. There’s no trying here. It’s not like, man, this is going to be a hard one. I feel selfish sometimes because I’m so filled from these interactions as well. It’s so easy to find that hope in people and to speak it over them. It’s such an easy gift to give.”

“I love my family. If you’re not living for your family you’re not doing it right. If you’re not having fun at your job you’re not doing it right. I’m the one that works. They’re the one that takes care of me.”

“I love coffee. I love being able to share the stories of farmers in other countries with people here. I like to offer an agricultural product from another country to people in such a way that its story is present with them.”

“I love serving people. Being able to provide something for someone, no matter how small it is, and to give them a little bit of joy in their day really fulfills me. I love doing that in any capacity, whether it’s for customers at M5 (coffee shop) or for my wife at home. I just really dig little acts of service. A couple weeks ago we had this weird snow overnight and my wife had already gone to bed and I looked out and saw that the snow had already collected on her car windows. And I know she doesn’t always get up in time to clean them off. So I went out there after she fell asleep and cleaned her windows off. Then she woke up and drove to work the next morning and was like, you wouldn’t believe it, my windows were perfectly clean and everyone else’s were covered. And I never told her. It’s like my little secret I have. I like that I was able to do that and not tell her.”

“I love being able to pour into people and really connect with them. I think it’s an area where there’s opportunity to grow, but I love being able to disciple or lead men and rally them together with the purpose of the gospel, with the purpose of seeing God work in people’s lives and being a part of that. I think I often times struggle with being compassionate and gentle, but I often pray that God would grow my heart to love people more than I do. When you think about what we do, working 40 plus hours a week, we have families, we have commitments. Life is just busy. But when I get to the end and think, what did I live for, what was I building into or pouring into, I want to look back and see that I was investing in people’s lives. I get passionate about loving people, even though I think there’s a tremendous opportunity to grow in that. I also love to experience the Lord in the outdoors. I love to get out and go backpacking and camping and connect with brothers and have a chance to unplug and get away and be refreshed. I love being able to connect with God in that way, being outdoors and being able to worship Him through the mountains and the rivers and the oceans. So those times of refreshing that I love build back in by ways of using our efforts and energy to love people more, to build into people, and sew into people in different ways. And that relates to my wife and my four children who I love so much. I’m so blessed.”

“I love genuine, quality time with people that I love. I’m not much of a talker. I’m kind of an introvert, so when conversation can flow naturally, even when we’re just hanging out doing something silly, I think that’s really special for me. I share this with my mom. We’ve always been pretty close. I try to see her all the time, even to just walk my dog. I really love those little moments. I have my few friends that I really love and care about and it’s the best when we can just be together and not even have to do anything and it still feels like so much is happening and we’re connecting so well.”

“I love people, caring people. People are nice. People take care of each other. I love humanity in general. The good humanity. Not so much the bad humanity. When I was little, teachers would try to say I was stupid and I couldn’t relate because I had ADD. But my mom told me I don’t need to go on all the pills. She told me I just need to focus and that she knew I could do it. And I’ve ended up proving a lot since then. And I love Springtime. Springtime might be my passion actually. I feel more alive in the Springtime. I feel rejuvenated. I kind of feel like I’m in a lull during the Winter. Then the Summer comes and it’s a little too hot.”

“I love my family. I have the most fun with them. Anytime we get together it’s so fun. My brother is hilarious. You wouldn’t be able to tell because he’s so quiet. My sister is so dumb, and it’s the funniest thing ever. She does the stupidest things. Not in a dumb dumb way though. She just tries to be funny. And my dad is so caring. He’ll do anything to make you happy and do anything for you. He’ll know when I’m hungry at work. He always brings me food, even if I don’t ask him. It’s really cute. Everyone at work is always like, oh my gosh, I love your dad. He’ll bring home cooked meals in little Tupperware containers with a side of fruit. It’s always healthy and good. He always does that kind of stuff.”

“I love playing guitar. I love getting to express myself and learn songs that I like. It’s easy, fun, relaxing. I’ve been playing for about three years. I’m kind of shy, so I don’t really like playing in front of people. Hopefully I’ll get out of that. We’ll see how it goes.”

“I love coffee, tobacco, and sex. I love to hold my son and look at him and see three generations down the road. I love to plant seeds and think about what’s going to come out of the ground when I’m dead. That’s the kind of work I love to do. I love to go sit in the woods as often as I possibly can with a pen and paper and search after God’s heart while trying to understand my own. I love shabbat a lot. I love coming into rest. I like to work really hard and I like to rest really hard. So coming into places of peace and wholeness, in lieu of building and constructing and evaluating and working…I like that six on and one off where I work six days and rest really well for one day. I like coming into alignment with the way life was designed to be and working pragmatically towards good things. I love that. I love my kids and my wife a lot. I love my parents. I love sitting with my mom and with my girls. I like generations a whole bunch. I’m a huge believer in redemption because my life is pure redemption. I was so ruined as a child. I love generations because I was born into a line of darkness, where men abandoned their families and hurt children, and death was all over it. We were living in survival mode, where we were like, will we eat, will we live, is he going to kill me. I was on that path, but then when my mom married dad, and he adopted us, I went from living in a home that was dark to seeing what a man was supposed to be. He was gentle and truthful and kind and restorative. It was a gift given to me. I think it was the prayers of my mom. Now there’s a new thing and the whole story has changed, for every one of my brothers, for every one of our kids. It’s a new path. And it’s not easy, but it’s good.”

“I love snacks, alligators, and chocolate & tea time with Mommy.”

“I love at the end of every night when I snuggle with Tessa. It’s dark and quiet in her room. She’s getting ready for bed. I play with her hair. It’s a good time for me to think about our life together as a mother and a daughter and how quickly she’s already growing up. I pray for her future and speak truth over her and tell her that I love her and that I’m really glad she’s my daughter. It’s a really nice deep breath at the end of the day. I look forward to it.”

“In life, I love people. People are friends. Everybody, in my opinion, is brothers and sisters because everybody is a child of God. I love opening the communication between all people, black, white, red, brown, yellow, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, whatever. There are different trails that people take to get to self-realization or God-realization. I also love music. Sound vibration can be healing. In 1997, at the Lake Tahoe Reggae Festival, we were camping in the mountains above Lake Tahoe and you could see Lake Tahoe in the distance. It was cool. Somebody gave me a side-blown bamboo flute and I started messing around with it. And two weeks later I was on the front page of a newspaper in Aspen, Colorado. I was playing in downtown Aspen and a little crowd got together and somebody asked to take a picture. And come to find out they were taking a picture for the Aspen Times. Next day somebody came running up to me, “Steve, Steve, did you see the paper?” They showed me the paper and it was a big picture of me on the front page. It was cool.”

“I love the look on my son’s face when I get home from work. He’s very animated and excited to see me, and that’s really fun. I don’t get that look from many people.”

“I love being part of something bigger than myself. Getting together with others and putting something together that more people can enjoy gives me the best feeling in the world. That is why I enjoy Disney, costumes, and the arts. Performances bring together lots of people from many different backgrounds that allow them all to share something wonderful together.”

“My one true passion growing up has been sports. I was blessed enough to sign with the University of Charleston for football. That’s what I love.”

“I love being active. Walking, hiking, weightlifting, interval training, even dancing - I love using the time to clear my head, focus, and challenge myself in new ways with the body that God gave me to care for.”

“I love bikes because I’m a cyclist. I’ve been doing that for a really long time. I’ve gotten to explore so many new areas because of my bicycle. And through that I’ve learned a lot about health, both mental and physical, and all the important aspects of physical exercise, and exploring new places, new cultures, and new ideas. I’ve grown a love for bicycles because of everything that they’ve done for me.”

“Some things that I love are Star Trek, cats, and coffee. I’ve probably learned most of my social skills from cats, which is interesting. I really love Star Trek. I talk about Star Trek all the time. I think it’s interesting and it’s flawed and it’s a great look at the human condition. And sometimes it’s just hokey and wonderful. And aliens and sci-fi are cool.”

“I love animals, especially my little dog, Finny, because of their unconditional love. They accept you exactly the way you are.”

“One of my favorite things in life is finding a good challenge. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m always so busy and have so many hobbies and never have any free time in my schedule. I just love growing as a human and getting better at whatever I can get my hands on. The goal at the end of the day is to help other people with things I’m proficient at.”

“I love the opportunity you get to prove yourself. I love the chances you have to step into bigger roles in life. I can feel that starting to energize me more and more. I think that’s kind of part of proving things to yourself. I love seeing my friends thrive. And I love seeing people that I believe in start to embrace opportunities. I think that’s a big reason why I coach basketball.”

“One thing that I particularly love is the sky. It reveals to me a lot about God and His character. He didn’t have to make it so beautiful, but He did. And it’s new every single day. It just reveals a lot about His character to me. I love it.”

“I love to see things come together. I love to see people realize what their strengths are. I love to see order come to chaos. I love to see the Kingdom advance. I think when we fall into the thing that we’re wired to do is when we come alive. It’s when we do the things that we’re meant to do. It’s a gift to see other people come into that identity and move things forward in a way that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I just think it’s beautiful and I think it’s really inspiring to see people fall into that."