“It’s kind of like the Grinch,” I told my oldest son.

“When we have another kid, God helps us grow our heart so that we can love and support each of you 100%.”

Bo gave me that perplexed brow that he always gives me when he’s punching above his weight while processing a complex idea. Luckily, he understood and trusted me enough to take a leap of faith and believe me.

Truth is, I get why he was so torn. Soccer has been his thing: for fun, for confidence, and for having our whole family be his fans. And now, Myles, two years his junior, was encroaching on a precious source of love and stability by having his first game. For Bo, soccer was no longer just his thing.

He needed to understand that our love wasn’t a limited resource—our hearts have grown big enough to fully support him, Myles, and their younger sibling. Like the Grinch, our love expands with every child, every moment, growing larger as life calls for it.

But I could see his hesitation. He was still trying to understand how this worked. How does our heart grow? How do we become the Grinch? Where does that process even begin?

So, where do we start? I believe it begins with making sure we aren’t turning into ‘black holes’ of emotional energy—the kind of person who constantly drains others because their own heart feels empty. We all know that person—the one who pulls love and attention from anywhere they can, but can never seem to hold onto it. To truly let our hearts grow, we need to stop the leaks in our own cup and learn how to fill it.

Once we’ve learned to hold onto love and stop draining it, we realize something else: love is all around us, waiting to be noticed. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing the world is cold or that people can't be trusted—after all, negativity shouts louder. But if we stop and pay attention, we’ll see that love is quietly everywhere.

In my experience, the ugliness just seems louder, drowning out the love that’s quietly waiting to be seen. If we actually pause and look, we’d notice that so many people are eager to share love—they’re just waiting for a small sign to open their hearts. I’ve seen this firsthand in the smallest moments.

When I go for a run, for example, I make a point to give a thumbs-up to cars and pedestrians as I pass by. People almost always wave back—90% of the time, they respond. And I remember doing a ride-along with the Detroit Police when I worked with them. Even in the roughest, most violent neighborhoods, there would still be one or two houses with cut grass and flowers, standing as a beacon of love and care.

When I’ve stopped and paid close attention, it’s clear—love is everywhere, like water behind a dam, waiting to rush forward. It’s in the small gestures, the people around us, just waiting to be released. But love doesn’t just sit there; it does something magical. For me, that magic has two parts. First, love starts to mend the leaks in our emotional cups. Where there were once holes—places where fear, doubt, or loneliness drained us—love flows in and seals them up. The more I’ve opened myself to love, the less I’ve felt those leaks, and the more whole I’ve become.

That’s the first part of love’s magic: it stops the leaks.

The second part is when love begins to pour in, like a river rushing into an open cup. Once we slow down, notice the love around us, and give just the smallest signal that we’re ready for it, love bursts in. It fills our cup, and when it overflows, that flood of love makes it easy to share with others.
And that’s when our hearts start to grow. Just like the Grinch, our hearts expand to hold all that love, naturally growing larger so we can give even more of it away.

Then it’s inevitable for our hearts to grow, like it did for the Grinch.