Values don’t mean much – if they don’t cost you something

Values don’t mean much – if they don’t cost you something.

A scary road

A couple of years ago, we took a driving holiday through Italy. One of the highlights of that trip was our time at Lake Como.

But getting there was another story.

The road leading up to our small chalet was terrifying – especially the last two kilometers.

We had to drive a two-way road that felt more like a footpath, with no guardrails at all.

(You can see what I mean in the photo.)

That’s how I think of values.

They’re the guardrails that guide our behavior – helping us decide what we will or won’t do.

Guardrails keep us from falling over the side of the cliff.

Or in a different context, from straying from our chosen values.

Two of my chosen values are helping and inspiring

Everything I talk about, write or even comment on is filtered through the values of helping and/or inspiring.

If what I say won’t help someone – even just one person – I ask myself why am I saying it?

If what I do isn’t in the service of inspiring others – even just one person – I ask myself why am I doing it?

Everyone ends up choosing what’s right for them

I think the journey of choosing your own values is an important one. It’s more than picking some pretty words.

The values I chose came to the surface as I read reviews from our Training Participants.

Listening to what they had to say helped me crystallize ‘helping’ and ‘inspiring’ as two of my core values.

While initially related very much to ‘work’, I found that I could extend these values quite readily outside of work into my daily life.

That means I can ‘live’ my values – whether at work or not at work.

If you find you can’t live your own values across all dimensions of your life I’d take a deeper look at that.

I think of the popular science fiction show “Severance” because in that show one person gets split into two different people – the person at work and the person not at work.

Trying to twist yourself into one set of values at work and different set of values in your daily life can cause a lot of internal tension.

And I don’t think it’s healthy or sustainable.

My values cost me a Client

As a Trainer, one of my firm rules is that I will never scare or embarrass a course Participant.

That rule was tested once when a senior leader at a client company asked me to randomly call out participants during a session – to make sure they weren’t “sleeping” (their words).

I said no. I explained that in training, psychological safety matters.

When people are thinking about something new – or in a new way – they need to feel safe, not anxious.

That decision ended up costing me a Client. And I won’t pretend it didn’t sting.

Losing business is never easy. But if values never cost you anything, are they really values?

Or just good intentions?

In the long run you gain more than you lose

My example was about loss. Specifically the loss of a Client.

And when you choose your behaviors in accordance with your values, you’re bound to lose something.

For example comfort or convenience when you give up your seat on the bus for an elderly passenger.

But what I’ve gained by staying true to my values has been so much greater.

I believe that people who actively seek and define their values – and live by them, through the good and the bad – set themselves apart from others.

Who are you? What makes you different? Why should someone pay attention to you? Listen to you? Give you those opportunities you seek?

When values are just words on a page, they don’t mean much.

It’s only when they cost us something – comfort, convenience, or in my story a Client – that they become real. Our guardrails are in place.

And in closing, I think that it’s the very act of standing by our chosen values that brings us the right opportunities, the right people to be around and the right work.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/feedback-changed-my-life/