The Case for Sharing Your Core Values

I was thinking the other day wasn’t easy, mildly painful. I stuck it out, though I just kept doing it, I was thinking about why it is that companies share their values, they put them on their websites, they share their mission statement, they share their values that talk about what the company is all about. And it was in relation to that got me thinking about well, why don’t we as individuals share our values, because we certainly share lots of things with one another, there’s people out there that share their pronouns, talk about where we’re from, where we grew up, we talk about what we do. But we don’t, it’s not a common thing to say, these are my values. And I think that that would be a really valuable thing for a lot of different reasons. And so that’s what I was thinking about and wanted to share some of those thoughts with you. In fact, I’m going to share all of them with you. So the reasons that companies share their values, I think that there are three primary reasons that they do it, they want to let their employees know that they they need to publicize, this is what we stand for, we believe in these are our values. So that when they are trying to hire people to come work for their organization, to say, Hey, if you are aligned with what we are doing, then this is probably a great place for you. So want to share that with our customers, with our employees rather. And then the next one is we want to share that with our customers. So why would you want to do business with our organization? What do you stand for? What do you stand against? And then we can make good decisions and determinations, I choose to work with this company, I choose to buy this company’s product over that company’s product. We’re seeing a lot of that these days. With Budweiser, specifically, with there’s just lots. So I think it’s at the heart of it comes down to what the values are. How are you investing your money? Who How are you advertising your company? Who are you aligning and associating yourself with? And then finally, it’s the greater community. So companies, again, want to get really clear on what their values are, so that their employees understand what they are their customers understand, and then just the general community, so folks that don’t have a financial interest in the organization, then they’re still clear. And I think that we’re actually seeing this played out really nicely with what’s going on with Budweiser, because they made some decisions about how they wanted to advertise. And now they are reevaluating that, and they are backpedaling, and they’re doubling down there. It seems like they are a little bit unclear in what’s really going on. And this is a case study in why and how a company can go sideways or make mistakes when it comes to the values. Because it’s really, I don’t think it’s clear to a lot of people. What is most important to Budweiser is a beer company. But it’s more than that, because it’s an American institution. It’s Clydesdales it’s, what’s up. It’s real men of genius. It’s Budweiser is it’s it’s been a wonderful company and wonderful American company for a really long time. And now it’s no longer that, I guess, as those words come on my mouth, but you get the idea. It’s still an institution. And I imagine that we’re going to see a refocus from them as they take a big step back, and maybe they will, maybe they won’t, maybe they’ll re clarify what, what their values are. And then they’ll share that, or maybe they’ll choose not to, I have no idea. But essentially, this is why organizations ought to be doing a good job, they put themselves on the hook by publishing, these are our values. And then when we know what they are, and they act in a certain way that is aligned with that, you know, we give them a thumbs up, or when they go astray. And they, they, they they they veer off course, and they act in a way that is not aligned or congruent with their values. Say, Hey, what’s going on here? We’re not gonna do business with you anymore, potentially. So these are all opportunities. So why don’t we Why don’t we as individuals share our values? Again, we share lots of things we share. Some people share their pronouns, we talk about where from all this kind of stuff, but why not share our values? I think that so much good would come from that. Number one is if you are going to To share your values with somebody else, you need to know what your values are. So it’d be an opportunity for you and I to sit down and get out of pen. Take our brains out, turn it on, start using it, think about, okay, what, what are my core values, what values are most really resonate with me and are most important with me, there are so many of them, there’s so many great values. So it’s a process of looking at the world of values and distilling down. Yeah, these are the the handful, the three, five, however many you want. It’s not a rule on that, that say, these are the ones that that really resonate most with me. And now that I’ve done this work, I figured it out, I think it’s cool, and I want to share with other people. And in so doing, then you put yourself on the hook to it, say I value, you know, friendship, but, you know, I’m being a colossal jerk all the time. So you kind of get the idea, this is what’s important to me, and my actions actually are aligned with it, or they are not. So there is so much value, again, in that process of filtering down, which ones are most important to you. When you do that, what a value, what what values, and I guess the greater is beliefs, what that gives you is your values essentially become the filter through which you take in new information, and then you process it through your values. So when you’re making decisions about what you’re going to how you’re going to allocate your resources, you do that through the lens of your values through the filter of your values, is this something I’m going to spend money on, is this something I’m going to spend time on is this something I’m going to give my attention to is this something I’m going to allocate my energy towards. So when you are clear in what your values on what’s most important to you, you’re putting yourself in position to make better choices, you’re making values based decisions, as opposed to whatever feels good at the time. Now, there’s certainly there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think that the more aligned we can get with our decision making process, it’s going to help us to prioritize things which help us to make better decisions, which gets us closer to the left who actually want to be living. So it’s immensely valuable to be clear on what your values are. Because you know, that every time you say yes to something, you’re saying no to the whole universe of everything else, you only have, you know, 24 hours in a day. So if you’re going to sleep for 10 hours, well, now we have 14 hours, you can sleep for five hours, you get the idea. So you’re going to spend time reading versus watching television, if you’re going to choose to buy real estate, instead of invest in the stock market for you to buy bitcoin instead of Aetherium. These are all decisions, and they can all be values based if you choose to do that. So I think that there, it’s a really worthwhile exercise to figure out what your values are, and an even more worthwhile practice to try and be thinking about your values in relationships to the decisions you’re making. And again, you know, unless you’re independently wealthy, and unless you’re gonna live to 500. And you’re gonna maintain same level of energy all the time, we need to make good decisions about how it is that we’re allocating our most important resources. So for the longest time, and it’s still true, that three core values that that I shared with everybody else, my core values are friendship, justice, and learning. And I learned those when I was in my late teens, and they really resonated and still do carried with me until earlier this year. So now I’m 44 years old. So those have been my core values for a long time. I’ve updated them to degree, and I tell you that today, my three core values are freedom, justice, and responsibility. So freedom, justice, and responsibility. And you can take each of those in a lot of different ways. But for me, they apply to individuals. So it’s individual freedom, justice for the individual, and it is individual responsibility or personal responsibility, say personal freedom, personal justice, personal responsibility.

That is those are the values which are highest and most important to me. Friendship, learning still right there, I can have five, and I can, it would be those. So I should just start saying that I have five core values instead of just three, because I don’t think that there’s any rule to it is there a rule to it says you have to have three values, it just rolls off the tongue a little easier. It’s really easy to remember three, sometimes a little hard to remember five, even though they are your core values, you know, your brain get a little older and start to forget things. So how about you? Our values, something that you’ve thought about in the past? Is it something you think about all the time? I’m really curious, and know that super easy just to, you know, go through the business of our daily lives. And we’re not always, we don’t always have the headspace. In fact, rarely do we have extra headspace to be sitting around thinking about this kind of stuff. But once you do it, then you have it, you have them forever. And then somebody asks you, hey, you ever think about your values, your values? What are your core values, you can say, Yeah, mine our friendship, justice and learning mine our freedom, justice and responsibility. So for me, it would be freedom, justice, responsibility, friendship and learning. You get the idea here, I need to restructure those this so that they sound a little better. So again, there’s so many great values that are out there. And I know that I like a framework, because if I would just ask you what your values are. And it’d be pretty ambiguous, you just start wondering and thinking. So I’ve developed a framework for helping to figure out what your core values are. And I bundled it up, bundled it up or packaged it up in a course which is free, that you can access. It’s called the values course, excellent at naming things, one of my unique abilities, and you can access that on money, alignment academy.com/courses. You’ll also find there the goals course. And what I think for sure is that when you are in the headspace of thinking about values, it’s an awesome time to be thinking about goals as well. So it encouraged you to do that. And then finally, just to round it out, there is also a get out of debt course for free. And if you find yourself in the situation that I certainly was for a long time, mired in credit card debt, which is crappy, take advantage of that as well. So thanks for your time and attention. I’m grateful for it. You chose to give it to me. Hopefully it’s been aligned with your values. Remember, and as always, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai