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Okay, let's get into today's show.
Hello and welcome back to the show.
I am Patrick, and as always with Ben, we are joined today by Robert Glazer.
Gentlemen, how are you?
Doing great.
Thanks, Patrick.
Good.
Thank you very much.
Hey, Robert.
Good.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, Robert, for folks who don't know, you're an entrepreneur, podcaster, and an author.
Your newest book, which we're going to talk about today, is called The Compass, Within a little story of the values that guide us.
It's a parable about understanding the importance of core values, the process of defining them and the bravery we need to live by them.
The book is actually coming out on the day that this episode comes out.
So if you're listening to this, you want to get more from Robert, go find the book.
Again, it's called The Compass Within.
Let's just jump right into this big conversation about core values.
It's something that Ben and I talk about a decent amount.
And yet still, I think it's something that most people either think is one of those things like yeah, that's important.
I know my core values.
Like, cool, got it.
Or they just go ahead and just ignore it altogether.
And so let's start there is in your experience and talking about thinking about core values.
Do you find that most people are getting it, most people are trying but getting it wrong, or most people are kind of ignoring it entirely?
Yes, yes, and yes.
So I've done this poll in rooms and in some of my speeches and I usually ask please put yourself in one of three buckets.
And obviously, certain groups skew.
There are certain groups that have done this work more.
But I'll say, you know, haven't really thought about my core values, thought about them.
Maybe I have like a word like integrity or family or something like that.
Or I have like a defined list of four core values that are written down and I pay attention to.
And it's interesting.
It's sort of like 50%, 46% or 7% and like 2% have that written list.
And for a concept that I think people get and they kind of put it like yeah, that's kind of vague or abstract.
I actually think it's very specific and personal. particularly in the company context, too.
I used to think the core values were BS, because I'd go to all these companies and I'd see crap on the wall and no one behaved that way.
And I was very.
But then I came to see really great companies and that their core values sounded different and that all the behavior and reward systems in their company were about the core values.
And so there's a parallel to that in individuals, right?
And we can...
I'm sure we'll get into this, but I don't think one word values suffice.
They don't do what they need to do.
The most common people tell me are integrity and family.
And I can tell you why both of those don't really work for different reasons.
So yeah, I think it's a often discussed but misunderstood topic.
And in fact, why I wrote the parable was I had this vision of writing this book about core.
I had this framework that I knew worked.
I had been working with people for 10 years and I had this vision of writing this book called On Values and being in Barnes and Nobles and walking by and no one would pick it up because like, who wants to read a book on core values?
So i figured, if i could show them what i'm actually talking about through a character, and they're like oh, i've had that situation in my work with my partner in my community like that i could kind of like change the conversation and be like hey we, let's listen, because i think i can help you look at this in a different way.
Yeah, it was funny.
I was just at a little gathering last Friday and core values came up and I could tell that almost nobody had thought about them.
And then somebody said, somebody said authenticity, and everybody was like yeah, that's my core value.
I was like, probably not until two minutes ago.
Did you think that that was a core value of yours?
Yeah, and look, they like authenticity and they want to feel like they're integral.
But maybe it kind of starts to help with how I define it which is a core value, is a non-negotiable principle that guides your behavior and decisions.
Historically, people have been willing to die for their core values.
We even have the state of New Hampshire, live free or die.
They're intrinsic, they're not aspirational.
So when you figure them out, they actually reflect who you are and who you've been.
You can kind of like look back and be like, oh, that makes sense.
They're consistent.
They show up across all areas of life and work and relationship and personal decisions, which is why family doesn't really work well as a core value.
Family can be a priority.
And most importantly, I think they're clarifying.
They help you make better choices about who to spend time with, what job to take, where to live, kind of these big three that I talk about in the book.
So that would fail most people's core values.
That definition they say oh well, authenticity doesn't really help me with any of those things right.
And particularly have this kind of validation thing, which we can talk about at the end.
But when you start to look at it from that realm which is like look, what do I really care about most?
And, and I would argue, I think a lot of us have a sense of our values, but it's kind of the electric fence test in terms of like, if you get electrocuted when you hit the electric fence, like the goal was to not do that in the first place.
Right.
Most of us Know when our core values are violated.
The analogy I use in the book that people have told me really makes sense to them is that if you're driving a sports car down a tunnel and I turn off the lights in the tunnel, you're not gonna see the yellow line.
Your car's gonna hit the wall.
It's gonna scratch.
You're gonna go, oh, this is bad, right?
This is like, if I cross the core value, I'd be like, bad.
I knew that was like, did not feel good.
I'm gonna pull back.
I'm probably gonna hit the other wall And I'm going to get out of the tunnel, but my car is going to look like crap.
And knowing and being able to articulate your core values, rather than hitting the wall, would be like turning on the lights and be like there are the yellow lines and I'm going to stay in the middle and I'm going to stay away from these guys.
Because when we violate our values, it feels horrible.
So if we have these kind of like three ones that we've kind of said, that might not be the right way.
Family authenticity integrity, what would be an exercise?
Or how could we lead some people to core values that would help them understand the non-negotiables, the clarifying, help make decisions, what's it?
Well, let's tackle those right.
I'll give you as an example, and i kind of covered this in my hbr article on the topic.
So the problem when someone says to me integrity, i've heard 10 different definitions.
Some people it's telling the truth, others it's their words match their actions, which someone's told me and you know that's how he defined it.
So i would, i would you know.
If you said that to me integrity, i'd say ben okay, what does integrity mean to you?
This is like there's a scene in this, you know in the book, with with jack and jamie and, And as I got into that, I'm actually going to get to what you actually value, right.
And you might say, look, it's all about telling the truth.
And then there's going to be a story for me.
Either you had a parent that just talked about the truth all the time, or someone lied to you very prominently and early on in your life and it made integrity really important.
Those are almost the roots of all truth.
So when I dig into that, I can find the thing you actually mean and then I can show you how it is actually working for you and probably applies today in your leadership, in terms of where you live and your family and your friends.
So same thing with family.
What do you mean by family?
Now to some people because look, there are some families for whom look, family is one of my top priorities, but it's not an absolute.
And I don't mean it's an absolute in any way, in that I am not willing to let family do anything, because they're family right.
Because that violates other core values.
Like, do we let the drunk uncle just act totally inappropriate at the wedding because that's family?
Well, that's not integrity, right?
Or that's not...
Some are other values.
So same thing, when I say to people, what's family?
They're like, all right, it's a small group of people I can trust that have my back.
OK, well, now that's probably a little bit looks like how you lead.
I bet it's how you show up for your friends.
Some people say family, you know, their answer would be it's always being there and showing up.
And I was like here's a great example of why maybe always be there or show up or something like that's a better value for you.
Let's say you have a friend and their father dies and you're in the middle of a busy week and you're trying to decide whether to make the funeral or not.
If you were clear that your values always show up, you're gonna feel horrible if you miss that funeral.
Like in a week or two.
You're probably gonna regret it for years because you violated something that's important to you.
So those, they're kind of like signals.
But if we could get a level two below for people and we ask the right questions, I will find out what it is that they actually value, that they're using those one word things for.
What could our listeners, what are those questions that our listeners could ask themselves? yeah so so the the the values discovery process is sort of you know talked about in the book in the course and stuff and i'll tell people how to get at the end but it starts with these six questions and i'll go through some of them people are always trying to write them down so i just put i put a list of them at robertglaser.com six you s-i-x you don't have to write them down if you don't want to but they start with simple ones like in what non-work environments are you highly engaged And the answer I don't want to hear is when I worked for Patrick, right?
I want to hear more like I worked for Patrick, but it was a small team with independence and I had autonomy, kind of describing that.
Another one which is in that list, which is super interesting, is what advice, help or qualities do others come to you for?
What do people come to you for to help them solve that you're naturally really good at?
And then there's some inverse questions.
And we can talk about why inverses are often a really great clue to someone's core values.
Because again, it gets to that violated.
So what qualities in other people do you struggle with the most?
Or what are the personal and professional environments where you really didn't do well?
And again, don't tell me when I worked at Papa Gino's, which I did.
It's my first job.
Tell me like...
I worked at Babagino's and I had this micromanaging boss that was all over me and didn't let me do something, and I felt like I just had to follow directions and I had no independence.
So if you take all six of these questions, You kind of fill out the answers on six pieces of paper.
It starts to identify these themes.
And what you do is you kind of group them all together, the similar themes, and then you start running them through this thing that I call the core validator, which will ensure that you don't end up with a one-word core value.
And it will force you to word it in a way that it's actionable and decision-making.
How do we go?
So I have one word.
Okay.
Values.
So let's use you as a real world guinea pig here.
Yeah.
Cool.
So I started with three and I'm very much into the, I like it to be memorable.
So they're all H's, but it's humble, hungry, healthy, honest, and happy.
To me, each one of those has little sub descriptors for them.
So how do I how do I move that forward to be more actionable, to be more to help me more?
So let's pick one of them.
Maybe, you know, let's look at maybe humble.
Right.
And because, again, if you're kind of what's a humble decision or not humble decision.
So give me a sense of what is.
And look, you're ahead of 90 percent of the people.
Right.
Because you understand that those are recalling for you and their behaviors.
But I think the wording will help improve it for you.
So what does humble mean to you?
Yeah, maybe just to pull back a little bit.
I started with a little bit higher, a little bit a domino before that, which is kind of like what do I want out of my life, right?
And so kind of beginning with the end in mind and backtracking towards that I want to be.
These are kind of like the characteristics of what I feel like if I, as you said, if I don't have these things, I feel like I'm going to be the car bumping into the walls.
So if I violate these things, that's where I feel like I go off track.
It's also the type of thing that a lot of people, like you said, that will come to me.
And this is what we will talk about.
It's particularly the healthy one and the hungry being a coach.
For the humility one, which is also full disclosure borrowed from Patrick Lencioni, Humble Hungry.
He does Humble Hungry and People Smart.
And I love those hiring criteria.
Yeah.
And it's because that's like I really value being a part of a team.
And if I was to think, what is the ideal team player?
It is somebody that's humble, hungry and happy.
So the humility one is it's about collective wins, not about me.
It's not about getting my way or what.
It's not about who's right.
It's about what's right.
It's about a growth mindset.
It's not about I have the answers.
It's looking for not only accepting, but looking for feedback.
So it's not necessarily the old definition of thinking less of yourself.
It's thinking of yourself less, and i really like that.
There was a i think it was an air force colonel in terms of the humility one, which is humility is not meekness, it is actually the opposite.
It is the courage to subside your own views in an effort to be open to other people's.
So so, so you had you had some amazing phrases in there that i would, i actually would love to see elevated to the back, like think of yourself less, like that's pretty, that's and we can do, like that's pretty powerful, like it's about the team winning, right.
Those are the types of two to three letter words that they, to me, they're.
Anyone can say they're differentiated, right.
But if i was interviewing someone, you know, and i'd say, are they humble?
I wouldn't ask them that i, but i could.
I could kind of interview them like think of yourself.
Like think of yourself, that's super.
I know what that means.
I know when people aren't doing that.
If i'm making a decision, am i like?
Am i focusing on myself or other people?
So you said a couple things in there and i'd be curious like which one really kind of hit it for you, like what you said, what was the one about the team?
It wasn't when it is a team, but it was.
It was think of the team, or something like that.
So the example I give there when I'm working with my team or I'm hiring in the hiring process, is if we were on a basketball team and we're kind of thinking about our next opponent and you really believe that we should play man defense, but the coach decides to go with playing a zone.
Are you going to like throw a hissy fit?
Are you not going to give it your all?
Right.
It's because you didn't get your way.
Does that decrease your effort?
That's not what a humble person does.
A humble person looks for team wins.
And regardless if they get their way or not, it's full effort regardless.
So what I hear from you, it's really important.
It's like put the collective first, right?
And that is again, and I think if we played with that wording or you kind of got that, you would probably see that in your family that's what you're stressing to your kid and your spouse.
It's probably put the family first.
In work, it's put the team first.
And it's similar in friends.
That's my example.
What I keep hearing in your stories is it's not about you.
Put the group first.
Put others first.
Why I like that as a more specific core value for you is you could very clearly see how that shows up for you, probably in the work you do in the community and the team and family.
It would touch all of those things in different ways.
To me, that's much stronger.
I know what you mean by that versus you know humble, because it's interesting, another guy who kind of told me humble and then we dug into it and i always tell people as soon you'll see all the dots connect when you get this right he he, he kind of was like yeah humility, and what he actually came out with.
He, he was like no one is better than anyone else.
That was his and he had this story from being and actually all of his organizations were non-hierarchical.
He had actually built this like, like he wouldn't want hierarchy.
He remembered being eight years old And the guy next door in his pretty good neighborhood was basically telling his son if you don't work hard, you're going to be like that contractor who's working at our house.
And he was so disgusted by that and so like that, this guy would just say that this person was a lesser human being.
But again, yours are different.
You guys would get along, right?
But it was interesting because when you start looking at his life, that was his and you want to talk about what triggered him.
If anyone showed that I am better than you?
And obviously that has team connotations.
So this is why I think those drill downs just really get it more specific to you.
And it gives you language that you can show up in situations.
And you say, look, in our family, you put the family first, right?
And in our company, you put the team first.
It's the same principle for you.
I think it's stronger than humble.
You mentioned the core validator test.
I think it's useful to just go through those questions really quickly with this idea of like even if Ben, you end up changing this but the idea of, instead of humble, you know, think of yourself less.
The four core validator tests are, can you use the core value to make a decision?
Does the opposite of your core value cause discomfort in you when you think about it?
Is the core value a phrase rather than a single word?
And can you objectively rate yourself on it?
And just when you even, Robert, to your point, think of yourself less.
Yeah, exactly.
You can say did I, you know today, in my meetings with the team, did I objectively, you know, did I think of myself less?
Yes, no.
Give myself a score.
And so I think that that's actually... Did I put the group first?
I like that one.
Yeah.
So with those questions, I think it becomes a lot clearer as to, okay, am I just...
Am I just putting a nice word on the wall and making myself feel good?
Or is this truly a value of mine that I can strengthen as though it was a skill?
Yeah, and those questions, it's interesting.
The first two are, do you have the right theme?
Because a lot of people work on the right wording, but you might as well not work the right theme.
So it's like, do I have the right theme?
And then, yeah, can I get the phrase, and is it worded in a way that I could rate myself on it?
I argued pretty strongly with a nonprofit I was helping with a couple years ago because even in corporate I think these things have to come up in natural sentences.
I have to be able to be like, Patrick, you did not own it yesterday with a client.
You blamed everyone else.
That was one of our core values.
And this nonprofit wanted to celebrate diversity as a core value.
And I was like, you can include all perspectives.
You can think about whatever.
But you are never going to have a conversation that says Patrick, on the sales call yesterday you did a poor job celebrating diversity.
It's just not In quoting, it's just not going to.
You did a poor job in listening for So this is.
This is really where the nuance hits the road.
And this is you could run the process, for individual values and companies are very different, but this validator works for both.
You should have ones that you could make a decision on, and you should have ones that you could sit down and review and say you know, i did a good job and i can and i can, you know, i can test, you know, ben on, you know, this is the the the, this.
This will be low-hanging fruit, you know, based on what he just said.
But ben, when someone shows up in a group and they are just all about me me me me, me and my needs, like how does that, how does that land for you?
It feels awkward at best and yeah.
Terrible actually.
Yeah.
What's funny is when I ask people this opposite test, and Patrick, we can test with you in a different way, which we'll just start with the opposite.
People try to start off with, by softening what their response.
And then they viscerally like, nah, it's like, I hate it.
Like I want to like and then the like natural thing.
This guy was like.
He just looked like a look of disgust when he, when he said it to me recently and i was like yes, then we're, we're on to something there.
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Can we back up a little bit?
Because one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about is the distinction between harmony and dissonance as it relates to core values.
Harmony being.
We are sort of moving in line.
You know, our life is moving in line with the values that we hold.
Dissonance is we're like constantly bumping up against that wall that you were talking about in our car.
Can you maybe walk us back to why does this work matter?
Again, core value is one of those things that we can put on the wall.
We feel like, okay, check that box.
I've got my core values, whether they're strong or weak.
But why do we do this work?
Why does it matter that we sit and spend the time and spend the mental energy to actually ask ourselves these questions, to actually go through that core validator test?
Yeah, I can actually almost start with a why and then the dissonance.
So I think the why is like, look, do you want to live up to your potential?
And do you want to make better decisions, including your most important decisions in life?
There are not a lot of decisions that are objectively right and wrong, right?
Like I should steal or not steal.
A lot of these decisions it's just about.
Can we live with the outcome in five minutes, five days or five years?
And how does it feel like?
And we don't like when we get them wrong.
And so I think it's the ultimate decision-making rubric.
It's the ultimate am I doing what I'm meant to do and that I'm one of the happiest people.
And that's where the harmony and dissonance comes in, right?
In terms of if you have that clarity.
When you have that clarity and this goes to my sort of capacity building framework and elevate, you start looking around your life and you're like yeah, I got to do half of this.
I got to start moving away from this people and this community and this job, because this just frustrates me and boils my blood.
And I got to double down on these things that are naturally more connected to me.
If I'm Ben, I'm probably coaching my kids and I'm building teams.
This is where I am just going to be happiest.
The board I'm on that asked me to go out and do something by myself and not talk to anyone and do any team thing.
I'm gonna drop that because i realized god, that's been frustrating me and i've been so that work has been so exhausting.
Burnout doesn't come from the amount of work you do.
It does from the amount of things that are like hard and you know there's the stuff that we all do, that that seven hours passes, right and and you're working on it and you didn't even notice the time and you're in flow.
That's when you're in your value.
So Just because you're working towards your values doesn't mean that things aren't hard.
But you're willing to push through.
It's connected to what you want.
I mean, launching this book is hard.
Like, you know, launching any book is hard.
Versus like this is fun and I want to like, you know, connect it to more people. to more people.
So we're never going to be perfectly.
You know, there's things that like they have to kind of line up or be tolerant.
But then there's also these polar opposites.
Right.
And this comes down to relationships, too.
I talk about your partner in the book, and this is something I didn't understand.
You know, I always say my wife and I are different people, different personalities.
We have different hobbies, but we're always aligned on the big things.
I can't remember a really big thing about our family or living or whatever.
We could get on the same page quickly.
I think some people might get that backwards.
They may see that oh, we do some activities together and otherwise.
But because these things are so deep and these are based on real stories, imagine someone's married and this person came from a family where their mother was told that they had a year to live and lived for seven years from cancer when they were younger.
So their entire orientation was there is no tomorrow.
You live for the day, right?
This other person they marry came from a family for whom there was someone who always lived for the day and they never had enough money and they never planned ahead.
And they were like, I in life, it is going to be about plan for tomorrow.
So they come together and this is spend everything and live for today.
And this is save and think about tomorrow.
You can get away putting my hands for those who can see it if that's like this.
But imagine we invented three more scenarios like that.
And you are in a relationship with this person.
And every day you come with different operators.
It's like their Mac and your PC.
That's really hard.
And I don't think it's going to work.
And I hate to say that.
But the amount of energy consumed in trying to do that, that's very different than you play tennis, and I don't.
So let's say, someone finds themselves in that situation where they they they realize that they are a relationship they're in or the current job that they have is is misaligned.
Where does?
Where would you suggest people?
Because that's a big uncovering, that is big and just the awareness could be, it could be life changing.
But where would you kind of like what would be the process you would have them go through after that?
Yeah, and this is how I stay out of relationship advice.
But I think, Ben, you said it perfectly.
I think the awareness is, okay, this is my operating system.
This is theirs.
This is work.
Can I manage around it with this knowledge?
And does that work for me?
Are there enough other things that are deep that we Because?
Again, you can manage around one or two.
And some people don't have lined up core values, but they don't have opposite core values.
But imagine, Ben, like that inverse, right?
If your partner was that inverse, they always want to do things on their own.
They don't believe in anything about the collective.
And like...
But you thought they were, you know, you fell for them.
They were cute and attractive and you had fun.
But then you sit down and you start figuring out your family values and how you're gonna build your life and your friends, and you're like we have different operating systems.
And so I think first is awareness and then it's you know.
I think with that awareness you can make a good decision.
It's obviously an easier choice in your job.
And my advice is the opposite of what I give companies.
I always say be wary about the people that quit and stay.
But I think that you will set yourself free in your company.
We all can't have the Jerry Maguire moment where we drop the mic And walk out.
We have bills to pay and people that need food and all that stuff.
But I think the day that you realize that and you say, I'm quitting this job.
It doesn't align with my values.
I just haven't found my new job yet.
I think you'll feel this immense sense of release.
Someone who read a preview of the book and had taken my course sent me an email recently.
And they was like, look, I just...
I quit my job of 19 years because I just realized it was an irreconcilable values difference.
And I just was so worried about it.
And I can't explain to you the burden that has been lifted.
And look, sometimes what I've learned is that when you take some risk and you take this thing out that is negative in your life, somehow something else finds its way in.
Every time I've gotten rid of a horrible client that was building my business that I didn't want to get rid of because we needed the money.
Something happened that week where the universe rewarded us with a better client or something different.
I had someone come up to me after one of my keynotes on this a few weeks ago and because these things are very personal and they land differently for each person, She even said to me she's like look, I have the opposite core value of my son on something I realized.
And it's really kind of killing me.
But as we talk through it, I think whatever happened to her as a child, this became super important.
She reinforced this probably so much, and too much, that her son just tunes it out and doesn't want to hear it at all, which is very common right.
Like kind of yin and yang.
And I was like, that's hard.
I get it.
You got to understand that it landed for you this way.
It landed for him this way.
And that's kind of a danger zone for the two of you because you're inverse on this one.
Yeah, so in the book, it's Jamie, is that right?
Jamie, yeah.
He kind of goes through this kind of when we're talking about right now, but these different areas where core values show up work relationships, community.
And you just kind of said that relationships, we're not a relationship coach, and that's a hard one.
Work, if it doesn't need perfect alignment, but if enough, don't totally align.
Making that change can create such a relief, such a release of the burden.
What about in terms of community?
And what do you mean by community?
Yeah.
And just to finish on the personal side, I was actually working with someone on our team on their personal core values as part of a leadership training exercise.
And I did know they were going through a divorce.
We hadn't even talked about it.
And as we kind of went through those three, I was like, how do those sound?
And the person kind of looked at me and they're like and I knew they fit, but they were really quiet.
And I was like, what are you thinking of?
And they were like, my ex is the absolute opposite of two of these.
And I was like, yeah, that's hard.
Like, I get it.
So the community is the one I think we forget a lot about.
But you know where we spend our time either the town we live or the communities we join, whether those are religious or activity or otherwise.
Right.
They kind of should reinforce our values.
So Ben, I have also have a value of health and vitality, and that's been escalated for me after some health issues in the last couple of years.
And, you know, great example.
And I actually had a guy on from England only the only time I use this.
But I said, if you live in if you if you really focus on health.
Right.
And you want and you want to be around people in health like and you live in Newcastle, England.
You are you are you don't know if you guys know you are living in the wrong place.
Everyone goes to the bar at two o'clock in the afternoon and it's kind of an everyday thing.
Right.
So you're either going to hold out of that and feel kinda bad or you're gonna go and participate and feel bad.
And you probably.
If that's the most important thing in your life, then you probably wanna live in Park City where you can go out and play pickleball.
The social life does not revolve around drinking.
So imagine we have someone and there's some of this in the book in the characters who has a core value of include all perspectives.
They have curiosity and they like talking to people and they like hearing different viewpoints.
And they live in one of these towns where everyone's got a red sign or a blue sign.
And you better pick what team you're on or other.
It's just not going to feel really good to be in this place, where the things that are reinforced are the things that are not tied to you.
And I was coaching an executive team on their values and I saw this woman and she just had the moment.
She said it and she was like, my town is not...
Like she had the epiphany.
It was pretty interesting.
She's like, my town does not suit my values.
Like it's just not, I don't know what she did with it.
I don't know what she was going to do with it.
And again, there are different elements of community.
But willpower is really hard and you're much more likely if you surround yourself with like-minded people.
You're going to emulate the behavior of the group.
And when the behavior of the default of the group is not something you want to do and you'd have to spend all day trying not to do that.
You're not really setting yourself up for success with that.
It's hard to change that in the community, right?
So is the suggestion to move?
I mean, there's different definitions of community.
But again, imagine if you're... Or change your friend group.
Yeah, you can friend your friend group or your activities, or maybe make a decision not to do something.
So if you're, I promise you this guy, the no one better than anyone else guy, he doesn't live in a gated community.
But imagine that he just didn't think of that and he'd been telling his kids you're not better than anyone else.
And he moves into a gated community where people can't get in or literally are keeping people out.
He's eventually going to be like, oh, I'm living a lie.
This is not what i'm going to do.
So yes, you might not have to move and look, we all move at different points in our life, so i think this is just a good to have on your checklist, for you know, or me and my wife and i, you know, we're going to be empty nesters in a couple years where and how do we want to spend our time?
Right, this is a.
This is a good checkpoint for who are the type of people we want to move to as we think about where we spend our time, or or the community.
I think you know for a lot of people, you know picking up and moving is hard, but we all have a next move.
And sometimes it's a community is the town.
Sometimes it's literally the street or the community, or sometimes it's the activities you know that you're doing.
I think it's different.
I think it's different in each area.
Yeah.
But yeah, I'm someone who likes places that are, you know, approachable and interactive.
And I would never want to be in a place where it feels like you can't talk to your neighbors or you can't walk on their lawn or some you know security apparatus.
That just doesn't align with my sort of ethos.
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I believe, Robert, I think you've got it on your website.
I believe you've got five core values.
Ben, I think you listed five.
Is there a magical number?
Is 10 better than five?
Is three better than five?
And then as a follow up, do we also want to think about whether we have three or four or five?
Do we want to stack rank them in some way?
Is there a value to having a hierarchy in place within those values?
Yes, love that question.
Three is better than 10.
Five, because I am find a better way and share it.
So my core values are find a better way and share it.
Health and vitality, respectful authenticity, long-term orientation and self-reliance.
So because I'm a tinkerer and whatever, I have a hard time doing less.
So that's almost why I have five.
I think for most people, three to four is good.
We have three in our company.
I like everyone in our company could tell you own it, embrace relationships and excel and improve.
They don't need an index card.
It's been on their performance review is in their hiring and all that stuff.
So I actually think three to four is a good sweet spot.
Sometimes you have two that say the same thing and you can combine them.
Your question about hierarchy is super important because yes, I think, once you have.
So, there's one, Oh one, you know let's, let's get our values, and then there's two or two, let's use them.
And then two or two to three or three is you should have a hierarchy and why you should be clear what the hierarchy is.
Because some of the hardest decisions you have to make it's like choosing between your children are when you have a situation that forces you to choose between one value and the other, because you're really gonna struggle on that.
So I had someone.
I did her values with her, and two of her values were always tell the truth and the other was never cause harm.
And I was like, huh.
I was like, we should talk about this because I could see some situations in your life.
And she had a clear answer.
Someone might have had the other answer.
So to her it was, and now I'm gonna forget what it was, but I think it was.
You never do harm unless it means you're lying, and then you tell the truth.
Because if you find out that your best friend's partner is having an affair, are you going to tell them?
Or are you going to let them get embarrassed?
I think, in order to be able to again imagine how many nights sleep you would lose over that decision, versus if you knew your core values and you actually knew which was higher, you're like I can live with this decision.
What I can live with is I can't live with the one.
Not if she comes to me two months later and said you knew the truth and you didn't tell me.
I can't live with that.
I can live with her causing her some pain knowing that I was the person that told her the truth.
Right, so so Yeah, this gets into the advanced aspects.
But if you give me anyone's two values, I can come up with a situation that will put those in conflict.
And then it's interesting.
How do we protect against these things just being aspirational?
You know, you hear these and they're like, oh, yeah, that one.
Oh, yeah.
That sounds like I want to be, like that type of person, or even like goal oriented and missing that the trueness.
I guess it's I'm answering with already with the kind of the tests that you run it through.
Yeah, well, this is where I say you should be able to connect it.
You should be able to connect it to a formative experience in your life, a positive or negative one.
When Jamie has this epiphany in the book, when he figures out his value most people do when you actually figure him out, This guy with the hierarchy.
It looks like a stencil, and you start putting it back on.
You're like, that relationship, that job.
It goes all backward-looking.
It's not a, this is what I want to be.
It's, this is who I've always been.
If you go pull out and I've done this if you pull out your report cards from school, those words will probably be in there.
You literally my report cards from first and second grade said he wants to do things himself and he doesn't want to follow instructions and he wants to figure out the better way to do it and he's very respectful about it.
So i i actually did this with my company.
My mom found the preschool report card i had from five years old and i took it and i rewrote it up as a 360 review, like changing out the name bobby to bob and playmates to colleagues and i put it up in front of the company and i was like look, this is why 360 is important, feedback is important like who thinks that this is pretty accurate?
And they're like that is dead on, like 360 review of you.
And then i showed them that it was my report card at five years old in preschool and it was the same here's what he likes to do, here's what he doesn't like to do, And that's how to me, how you know you've found the right thing.
You're not doing it for marketing.
It actually, it feels fundamentally right or wrong to you.
To the health thing, it's interesting.
I don't know why and I don't know how but, my cousin, we used to throw out my grandmother's cigarettes and put these stickers everywhere.
The kiss me, I love you.
She was so mad at us.
But at a young age, we were like, this is not healthy.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
You had this 101, 202, 302.
For the 202 version of the use them, how do leaders or individuals actualize them?
Instead turn them from the, as you said.
You walk in and they're posters on the wall to operationalizing our values.
So different in a company sense.
We could have a whole different discussion about that because I've consulted some companies on that.
But let's say you go buy this book and you do the course that you can get with it for free this week and you come up with your list.
You're going to want to road test it.
And so what I suggest to people is write them out, put them on your desk.
Over the next couple of months, Look for these three scenarios to kind of shape them.
Look for this is really painful and hard and I'm frustrated by it.
And I can look on my values and be like, huh, is this captured in one or more things here?
What would capture it?
This is awesome and I'm energized and I love doing it and I can do more of it.
That should be the positive wording.
The frustration should probably be the negative wording.
It should be the inverse.
And then third is you have a decision.
You have an important decision to make.
Go back and look at that list and be like huh, as worded, do these things help me make a better decision?
When I think about long-term orientation on stuff I think a lot about.
Even as I launched this book, I had some opportunity to spend some short-term money that was expensive but that I thought would really change the long-term trajectory of the book.
And I was like duh.
I should definitely do that and and i remember even after covid i was so frustrated in our industry.
I mean, fitness was even worse.
But i i always like to focus on.
In my business i had a president who kind of ran the day-to-day and i like to focus on what were we doing three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now?
But the world couldn't look past 90 days and every board 90 days, and so i was i forced to be short term for about a year.
And I could sense how frustrated I was getting because it was everything I was doing was reactive.
It wasn't the stuff I like to do, which was to figure out the next and better thing and plan on how we were going to get there.
Let's start to wrap this up.
I've got one question maybe that can get us to the end which is Robert, as you've done this work with people of use, as you've asked them these questions, as you've asked them the follow-up questions, have you ever found that somebody came to a set of core values that was already aligned with the life that they were living?
In other words, have you ever, when you do this work, have you ever found people already in harmony and they're like, oh cool great, i figured it out?
Or is it the case that almost everybody, if not everybody, has a degree of dissonance built in, for whatever reason, we've all got it and this work is the work necessary to bring it closer to harmony.
Well, what's super interesting is it's a little bit of both.
It's amazing how much you've done this by hitting the walls and banging up your car a little bit.
To the point of that guy last week the no hierarchy, that no one's better than anyone else, and had designed these flat organizations.
It's just when we had that discussion he was like oh, that next level of awareness maybe will save him a little bit of time next time before he gets it.
Or ask a better interview question to someone about what's your belief on hierarchy or how teams should be oriented.
I, i think we tend to get there by hitting our car along the wall.
What i'm hoping is that and and it is fascinating to people how they have done these things, or mapped out these things, or found their way to a job that was the opposite of something you know that drove them nuts about a core value, just without the ability to name it you're you're, you're.
You're adding a lot of complexity.
So I think the ability to name and label it.
Ben was a good example in this discussion.
He kind of knows these things.
He's around them.
He gets there probably pretty quickly.
But I bet if he switches that humble to whatever we decided on, it's about the group.
Put the group first.
Put the group first.
He's going to go back and probably already change some language and some policy and some interview and get there faster and probably make one less bad hire in the next year.
Because of that he's already got the wording.
See, he rattled it right off.
He didn't need to look at a piece of paper, or you know.
That's how you want them to sound and feel and I'm guessing you'll see that language in something he's doing down the road.
Is there a value that you see pop up frequently?
Is there something that is kind of like maybe people – or maybe, in a certain way, that people, when you help them discover it, that you kind of like always – in the back of your mind.
You're like this is one that a lot of people have.
Just help move people forward towards this process.
You guys get the good question awards because we have not talked about these things, but these are all discussions I've been having.
We're actually going to take all this data that we're starting to get around the book launch of people sending us our values and try to map out like are there like 20 common themes?
Because I'm starting to hear and see.
There are definitely people who are, like, again, that sort of you need to include all perspectives.
There's one about like constant, never-ending improvement, like people who constantly have to improve things or tinker with them.
There's definitely people in this realm of, like, team over self.
What's super interesting is I've had two conversations in the last couple weeks with people around their version.
They grew up in the Midwest and South, and they have this aversion to this fake authenticity.
We pretend to be nice, and then we go talk about others behind their backs and say stuff.
Both of them told me an almost identical story and I can't remember how they worded it, but so, so i think they're ones that are affected by certain cultures and regions, but we're, i hope, in a year to have kind of a little bit of a values genome project, to say, everyone's is a little bit different but here are, because i, i like, i think archetypes are helpful in discovery, but here here are kind of 20 groupings that seem to come up a lot.
Trust is one.
Yeah, we'll have you back on because I've done this exercise, but it's all based off of singular words, right?
Here's the 100.
You know trust authenticity integrity, hard work, customer service, all those things that you like.
You pick and you kind of go like oh, those for somebody that's not creative.
I love that.
Right.
Right.
If you had those in the phrasal.
And I don't want to give people the word.
I want to give them the concept.
And that's the problem with all those keyword exercises.
What they encourage you to do is jump to the answer.
There are lots of words that I like.
I like authenticity.
It stops you from doing the work.
And if you answered these six questions and you started circling all the different themes that were the same, you'd start to see some words and stuff pop up that wouldn't come up in the concepts, that don't come up in a straight keyword list.
Yeah.
Yeah, most of the exercises out there are pick the keywords that resonate with you.
But this process is if you can figure out the why, if you can kind of figure out this theme that pops up over and over again, if you can connect it to something and be like yeah, that's definitely, I bring up the trust one.
I've worked with some people who, the why archetype, they are trust.
And I tested this guy yesterday.
When you are trust.
If you ask a trust person, if someone violates your trust, does it matter what they did or are they dead to you?
They go.
They're dead to me.
Right, and this guy actually grew up in a foster home and five different parents.
He started telling me, to me, the story and and, like you know, so that's just that's when you, when you, it's like when you can understand that like.
This isn't a keyword, this is like a really like.
I had to sort out, as a young kid being put in these homes, whether this was a safe environment and I could trust people quickly.
And so that is now my default way that I lead and manage and sort.
And, and he tells people that work with him, if you violate my trust, it's unrecoverable, right?
Like if you can make mistakes and all that stuff, but if you lie to me or you do something like this, like you know we're not, we're not coming back from it.
That's so much deeper than a keyword because you understand why it's important to you.
Those six questions, I believe the URL robertglazer.com slash six SIX.
And then you also mentioned a course.
You want to just point people towards that?
Yeah.
So as you said, the book is out this week.
If you go to compass-within.com, there's a form right in the middle of the page.
You can buy it, Amazon, everywhere you want.
Put in your order information and we'll send you the companion course for free.
It has the same information in the book.
It will just give you the scaffolding and coach you through as you're making these lists.
It'll show you how to do it.
It'll send you an email every week.
It'll give you some Tips and tricks.
So a lot of people tend to like the course as sort of the scaffolding around it.
It's normally 100 bucks, it'll go back to 100 bucks next week.
So I think it's a pretty good deal to buy a $17 book and get the $100 course.
So that it's a compass dash within.com is that form.
Fantastic.
Robert, thank you so very much for your time as your phone rang.
That's a perfect timing to get out of here.
But thank you so much for the work.
Again, the book is called The Compass Within.
I've already recommended it to two people and I just read it.
So I imagine I will continue to recommend it to folks.
Go find it.
I do recommend you read it.
Thanks, bud.
Thank you both for having me.
Thanks, Robert.
Thank you so very much for tuning into the show this week.
Two quick things before we go.
The first.
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