How to be the World’s Best Lover

All you need is the right kind of lovership.

When I was a Hollywood producer, I was friends with a famous actress voted by Esquire magazine to be “The Sexiest Woman Alive.” I remember congratulating her on the accolade and the incredibly hot spread photoshoot that went with it. We laughed about the deliciousness of it all and then, off of her concerned expression, I asked her what she was worried about.

“I'm just wondering,” she said, “is it really true?” Could I really actually be the sexiest woman alive? I mean what about Angelina Jolie?” The massive compliment had taken an anxious turn.

I was starting to study psychology at the time so I made a note to myself about the ego and how literal it is. Her ego had been stoked and she could only see the black and white in the situation. Was she actually the best or, unbearably, actually not? And how could this be ultimately proven? Next year the position would be filled by another sexy woman. It’s so hard to enjoy a complement but not get too attached to it.

Many years later I received my own significant accolade. On Mother’s Day my eldest daughter (age 8) gave me a (fake) Oscar trophy for “Worlds Best Lover” — it wasn’t even World’s Best Lover Alive presumably, this covered the past and the future! But along with the initial rush of excitement at a long-overdue validation, came the question — but Wait but how does she actually know about what a good lover I am?!

And then my heart opened. Looking at what a lover is through my daughter's eyes. Not someone good in bed but someone good at tucking her in and making her feel seen and special!

Thinking of my daughter experiencing me as a lover of course made so much sense since I take that loving part of the mother's job very seriously. I could see that through her eyes I might actually be the World's Greatest Lover, but what about through my own eyes?

Looking at love from many angles, I could see that my maternal love was great, my partner love was under reconstruction, my erotic love was going through a renaissance. And, as I navigated a divorce, my self-love was incubating along with the sense of agape or universal love that tends to go with it.

Shortly after my accolade I hosted a women retreat and handed out trophies for everyone to discuss and tune into where their love is already right and how their love is growing.

What are the strongest parts of our love?

Where do we still need to grow?

How can we become masters of the richest loves within us and carry them into service, out beyond us and into the world?

“World's best lover” is an archetype to address all the loves and their potential intersectionality. At its core, it is about loving your life. Receptively. Creatively. And carrying this love forwards into action and service.

When it comes to love, there's plenty of room at the top.