Values Quest | LIVE Coaching to Illuminate Your Path - Grab a Pen & Paper!

Hey you masterful listener. Guess what? This episode is gonna be a little bit unique. We're gonna do a sort of live coaching activity. So this is really more of an interactive one where I'm gonna invite you to grab a journal and a pen. Do it now.

Let's do some actual work today. It's episode 11, it's the end of the season, and as we wrap up 2023, it's a great time to get ready for next year. You know, as a coach, not only have I learned the power of listening, and hence uh that's why I started this podcast, Masterful Listening, right? I always say listening is the one skill most of us are never taught. So welcome back to the listening school. If you've heard the episodes prior, awesome. I hope that listening muscle is getting stronger and stronger, and that you're actually enjoying listening masterfully. And if you're just tuning in, awesome. This is

actually the first coaching exercise that I wanted to share as a gift uh with whoever tunes in. This is an activity that I do at the beginning of every single coaching engagement that I have ever had at this point. Gosh, I think I have over 2,000 hours of coaching, which I think might actually be the like master level. I'm not sure about that. And when I say master level, I mean I'm a certified coach. And so through the International Coach Federation, you can have different accreditation. And I'm a PCC, which means professional certified coach, which I think means I have 500 hours, but that was a

few years ago. And the reason I'm telling you this is not to show off, it's to tell you that I've coached a lot of people, and this works. So what is it? It's a values exercise. So, A, tune in. Do you want to do an exercise right now? Uh that might cost you, you know, 600 bucks if you paid me to do it with you. Of course, it's not gonna be exactly maybe as powerful because it's not specifically me and you live. However, I am live and you are listening. And if you listen masterfully, then you're gonna get out of this a lot. You know, we

get out of things what we put into things. So your invitation is grab a notebook, grab a pen, and I specifically want you to follow along and write by hand, because as I've said many times, uh when we write things down, we remember them better. And this is something I want to ingrain in you because this is an exercise all around your values. I'm gonna talk about what that means, why it's important to know your values, but then to honor them daily. And I'm gonna walk you through an exercise that I created uh that again is super helpful in helping ourselves, but also others tap into

their values, what's important to them, what do they care about, and what they can do, frankly, to honor that. Because I'm gonna tell you this is something I'm very confident in. When you A, know your values and B live by them and honor them, you are more fulfilled and enjoy your life better. Period. Bottom line, mic drop. All right, also, I want to acknowledge in advance that if I cough, forgive me. I've been putting off recording the end of the season, which is why I'm having a bunch of episodes come out right at the end because I've had a pretty rough cough and I didn't want

to be coughing online, but you know what? I'd rather release something and cough than not. Because one of my values is actually keeping promises to myself. I have to figure out like a short word for that. You can say self-love. For me, it's self-respect or perhaps self-accountability. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay, so with that, I'm writing this down. Seriously, I'm I'm I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna show you the end of my notebook, the final page here for those watching. I just start, and then as I do any coaching exercises for myself or for others, I always write things down. It helps you remember. For

me, it's fun to see. So, however, you like to take notes, I invite you to do it so that you can really get something out of today, more than just learning something. I want you to like be doing something as you're being something in this moment. So I'm inviting you to be a masterful listener. What does that mean? Listen to my words. Don't be thinking about yourself. If you catch yourself in your mind, starting to think about yourself, bring yourself back and pay attention. I'm gonna be giving instructions. When I give you instructions to think about yourself, please do that, right? It's important for us to

be able to follow as listeners a variety of different types of experiences, right? So if you're listening in a course or a workshop, you want to be following along well enough where you know when to listen and just take things in, and then you also know when to do something. And partially it's my job as the host to be clear and give good instructions, and it's your job as the listener or student to, you know, do what you gotta do. Do what's being told to do, and you know, do it in your own way. I'm sharing what works best for me, and I always say take

what resonates, leave the rest. But if you are gonna follow along and do this like a coaching exercise, then uh follow my instructions, okay? Be a good student. Listen masterfully. Also listen to my energy. That's masterful listening, right? You're paying attention to the words, what's in between the words, the energy, the whole being, and pay attention to yourself. Notice if part of this is hard, notice if you get excited. In fact, as we get into the values exercise, values get you excited. So, what is a value first? Because that word is, you know, it's used a lot. My values. What are my values? I think sometimes

in life it's easy to know your values, meaning what do you value? The word value is very important. You know, a lot of people talk about how much something costs. I never think about cost, I always think about value. Meaning, if I spend six hundred dollars on a coaching session, but I get something out of that that helps me make half a million dollars in the next six months, which by the way, has happened to a client. Is that worth $600? Because that's a very different question than, whoa, is it worth me to pay $600 for one hour of a coaching conversation? Like, what can that

lead to? That is a very different perspective and experience. And you know what? Someone could have had that experience. That's why the idea of value and values is expansive, but essentially, for the purpose of this exercise and from a coaching perspective, values are like the pillars, pillars of your life. What are the things that really matter to you? And when I say things, I don't mean physical things like my car matters to me. Although having a great car and enjoying long drives could be values, so that's the other thing. No one can tell you, not even me, what your values are. You know best, but what

I'm gonna do is guide you by actually doing this exercise on myself, sharing my internal process, and you'll be hearing me essentially coaching me, asking questions as a coach, responding as a client, but I will be responding authentically. So I'm not like pretending. I'm gonna really go in the moment. I haven't even honestly thought a lot about what I want coaching on as a client because the whole point is to help me look at my values again. And you know, it's important to do this. I probably haven't honestly repeated this values exercise for myself in a while, definitely not this past year. And I am a

new human going into 2024 than I was going into 2023, as are you, right? Like if you've been living and learning, you are a different new human being. So your values might change, right? It's really important to do this consistently. So, okay, first of all, when I want to know someone's values like mine or yours, I don't just say, what are your values? It could be hard to answer that, especially if we're going through a time of transition or confusion. It's like, what do I value? So that is not the question I ask. The question I ask always, and feel free to use this if you

ever want to do this with your own clients. I say, tell me about the last amazing day you had, like a day that you just loved. And then I listen, and as the person responds, I am taking notes of things that I hear in what they say that sound like values. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna answer that question right now for me. And I want you to just listen to this part. So don't be thinking about your own answer yet. This is gonna be hard. You're gonna do it. Okay, come back. And then after I'm done, I'm gonna give you a few minutes

to do this for yourself. Or I'm gonna ask you to pause and do it. That way we're not just like chilling too long. Okay, cool. So let's see, what is the most awesome day that I can think about recently? And also, it's important not to overthink this. So let's see. Okay, I mean, honestly, the days uh this week have felt pretty amazing uh in a few different ways. So, first, they were like super spacious, like I woke up kind of when I wanted to, which it's not like I usually don't. I just there was no alarm. Um, so yeah, it was kind of slow paced. It

uh I painted in the morning for at least an hour or two. Um and I took nice walks with Rad. They weren't as long as I'd like, but it'd been raining. So it was sort of this balance of I know I want to take care of him, but I also know he doesn't love walking around in the rain. I don't always love walking around in the rain, but we did take a beautiful uh night walk right by the water in Sausalito underneath the full moon, and I like reflected on my year, and uh I smoked a cigarette even though I've been coughing a little bit. Um,

I think the rebel in me was like, I want to do what I want to do. Um I thought a lot about stoicism and Taoism, and that actually was really cool because I recorded an episode. I think the last one was about these ideas that really changed me and taught me. And so, and then I painted a little more, had some great food, and went to bed kind of late, but it wasn't about late or early. It was like it just felt cool and I accepted it, kind of went with the flow. All right. So now as I was talking, I was just jotting down a

few words of like values that I heard. So let me give you those as examples based on what I said. Okay, and also notice here if when I say the words, they make sense to you based on what I shared about my day of waking up really slow and you know, making art, walking with rad, taking the full moon reflection, stoicism, like all the things I mentioned. Here's what I heard. I heard first spacious, slow, art, creativity, balance, love, reflection, home, rebel, stoicism, Taoism, learning, nourishment, and go with the flow. So that's what one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,

fourteen. Cool. There's no right number, but just the key here is just get them out. So, right now, go ahead and in a moment after I give you the instructions, pause and take like three-ish minutes to do this part. And there's a reason I'm saying three-ish minutes. This should not take you hours. This is meant to be done intuitively and not overthink it. Because that's the other thing. When we start overthinking our values, that it actually takes us away from the authenticity of what they really are. That's why just answer the question. And the question is, what was the best day that you can think of

most recently, and then describe to yourself exactly what you did. You don't have to write this down, you can just say it out loud or think about it. And then as you do this, just write down the words. So if you're saying I woke up in the morning and I went to the gym, then what I'm hearing there is health, fitness, right? So write down what you hear, do it right now, and when you're ready, come back and we'll move forward. Okay, so now you have your perfect day. The next question I ask is describe your perfect work day. Meaning the last time that in a

professional sense, whatever you do, whether you're in tech and marketing and you work in a startup or you have some super creative job as uh, I don't know, an architect or a creative director, or maybe you're in the personal development space, whatever your work is, think of the best recent workday and then describe it again out loud. I'm gonna do that. And as you're describing and thinking about it, jot down what you're hearing as values, just things that feel important. Now, as I answer the question myself, listen masterfully. Do not think about yourself yet. Really work on practicing this. This is a massive, masterful listening tool.

I find that when we're in a workshop or we're learning and we know there's an activity, you know, you start thinking about your own answer before you get to you. Like if there's a group and everyone's sharing, like think to yourself, how often did you already kind of start thinking about what you're gonna say when it's your turn versus just listening to someone else's experience and then trusting that you'll be totally correct with your own. There are no wrong answers here, right? So practice that now because you might get distracted as I'm talking. Okay, usually I take a deep breath too before I answer something kind

of like out of my head, but more for my intuition. And my uh first thoughts here are because yeah, you know, intuition is also thinking, it's like all the things, just not overthinking. So actually, my yeah, uh I, you know, it's not like a one day, but I can tell you there was a time a few weeks ago where I think it was like a few days in a row, where I received and I had like emails coming in for new opportunities that were amazing, that I was so excited about. And I had like a new training at seven in the morning for this new client

I have out of the UK where I'm gonna be leading um experiences, learning experiences for like thousands of people at the same time. So then I was like, whoa, how did I do that? Um, meaning I was like kind of proud of myself and kind of nervous. Like I felt like I was like really growing and also somehow like wow, that's crazy that like I get to do this. Um

and then I had a great conversation with uh kind of my um, I guess my manager uh with the client I've worked with now for I think over four years. I love, I'm a consultant, but I teach these amazing uh courses for a company called Hone. It's uh educational platform uh for the business world where we have, gosh, I think over 50 courses. So I love teaching that, like literally facilitating. Yeah, uh that's W value without me even re-listening to this or thinking about it. Uh, really love this woman who I work with. So that was enjoyable. And then I think, yeah, I received an email

the next day from someone like, hey, there's this opportunity. I think you'd be great. Are you interested? So it was like I felt, I feel like finally, all that hard work that I put in for so long looking for clients, figuring out how I'm gonna be stable, like all of that is really real in that entrepreneurial world and experience. Um, and yet now it's it is paying off. It's like it's like this blend of I surrendered, but I like did the work. I stopped trying to like hack the system, and I was like, no, some things you just gotta do. Do your job well, build good

relationships, and like enjoy it and grow. So yeah, that was a great work day. Uh, and here's what I wrote down I wrote success, proud, nervous, and see, they don't have to be all the same tenses, just write down the word that you feel. Um, constant growing, uh, facilitation, relationships, surrender, and hard work. So now I have like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, another ten or so. So now it's your turn. Okay, drop what we just did. That was just an example for you. I want you to ask yourself, what is a workday that I can remember? The first one where that was just

awesome. I felt great. What did I do? How did I feel? Now pause this, take three-ish minutes, and just say it to yourself. Think about it and write down what you hear. The words, the things that stand out as values, things that matter to you.

Okay. So once you've done that, you have your day that was awesome and the values you wrote down. You have your workday that was awesome and the values you wrote down. Now you look at your list. I'm looking at my list right now, and I'm asking myself, and you're gonna ask yourself in a moment, what's missing? And I can tell you right away, something that's missing on mine is gratitude, and that is definitely a value. And it just somehow didn't get written down, which is totally normal. Because again, this isn't like I'm gonna answer the question by mentioning the words that are values, you're just answering

the question, and then you get to fill in anything that needs to be there. You know you're The best. So I wrote down gratitude. Um

I'm also gonna say the word that's coming is elevation, but that's not uh, I think it's ascension, and to me, ascension is just this like ultimate word that captures like growth, evolution, moving forward as I say this, the fog is slowly rolling in, it's so beautiful. Also, that presence so like yes, I just being present in my life, mmm, and I mean pleasure, but I feel like is there a word for like moderate pleasure? Moderate pleasure, maybe just as a reminder, like I don't want pleasure all the time. Honestly, you don't even appreciate it, I think that way. But like moderate pressure and then pressure, actually,

that too, but that's not gonna be a value I really want. All right, point is do this right now for yourself. Ask yourself what is missing, and then just write those words down. And remember, you're not committing it to anything at this point, you're just writing stuff down for yourself. Do it now. Three minutes. Okay. So I also wrote down discipline, by the way, because this could be aspirational. This doesn't just have to be the stuff that like you've been doing. This could be something you've wanted to do forever and you just haven't. Oh, you know what else is like performing. Like I realize, like I've

always had this dream of like being in the theater, like performing on a stage, and I've performed in some ways. I feel like I've been performing sort of online with like the thousands of videos I've made. Maybe this is some people consider performing, but this to me is more like service and fun. Oh, yeah. See, they keep coming, but the point is if you have a bazillion values, you can't no, we need to get down. I think I have 30. So here's what you're gonna do now. Next step: look at your list. And when I ask you to pause, you're gonna look at that list and

you're gonna circle 10. And you better have more than 10 at this point, by the way. Okay. And if you do not for some reason have 10, however many you have, take a moment, get real, ask yourself what else is missing? Write down either the things that you've really already honored, or what you want to honor. You want to be more disciplined and procrastinate less. Great. Put down discipline, commitment. You want to have more fun and pleasure and sex. Cool. Yeah, that could be love, that could be relationships, that could be hedonism, that could be pleasure. You choose your words. All right, do it, do it,

do it now. And I'm gonna do it now. All right, I'm doing this now. And also, here's the thing: you got your words. I'm just gonna super quick do it. I'm circling slow. I'm circling home. I'm circling stoism, Taoism, and I'm combining those together because to me, it's like actually the perfect blend of the two that grounds me as a value. Then there's do to do to do, then there's go with the flow, which makes me think of slow, but it's okay because we're still just doing this as a brainstorm, discipline, gratitude, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ascension, presence, eight, um, nine, moderate

pleasure, and let's go with surrender. That's ten. Okay, so now you have ten, I have ten. Next step after I invite you to do this. Please pause and do it. Look at the ten. If you feel it's easier because it gets messy, rewrite them on the side. I'm gonna do it too. And then circle five. Five. Get to five, don't overthink it. Yes, you can pause, do this now. Two minutes or less. Probably 60 seconds is enough time, but you take your time, okay? I like it slow. Go, go, go if you haven't. And you're back. Okay, so my five are go with the flow, surrender,

and we definitely have discipline. We definitely have gratitude. Um, and now I'm looking, and I have a few others. Like I have ascension, presence, pleasure, moderate pleasure, there's home. Um, oh, there's there's so many. There's performing. So here's what you do. If it's hard for you to get like from 10 to 5, you want to bucket things. So when I look at my words, like for example,

uh stoicism, Taoism, and then moderate pleasure. That to me kind of is the same thing. I feel like moderate pleasure and presence could both go in either the go with the flow or the um, yeah, the stoic Taoist thing. So look again at your list and see if you could bucket anything. Like I had things like growth and learning, but that goes under discipline for me, right? And then um ascension can kind of go with uh yeah, actually, that one's unique. I probably would just keep ascension. Gratitude might go under presence. So check back one more time at your list and see which ones just really

jump out. Remember, when you're picking values and we're gonna get down to three, it doesn't mean you do not value the other things. But the point is we cannot focus on 17 things at the same time. This whole multitasking thing is a bunch of BS, meaning we we just can't do a bunch all at once. Even those of us like me with the ADHD, I can sometimes do a bazillion things at the same time, but not sustainably, right? So for me, now that I've looked back, and if you haven't, please pause right now and then do this bucket the words, make sure you got the five

that really stand out. And for me, the five are discipline, presence, but I write it as presence, huh? As a little uh fun thing. Because again, I'm the creator of the universe, so I can decide what words I use. You can make up your own word that doesn't even exist. Uh okay, discipline, presence, presence, uh, surrender. Uh oh yeah, creative expression, which is actually one that came to me that captures literally performing, um, pleasure, creativity, yeah. So creative expression, discipline, presence, surrender, and

and I'm gonna add home because for me, as a cancer, like feeling a great feeling of you know, my space and home is really important. So now I have five, and even as I look at these five, I realize, damn, it could be really hard to go from five to three, but we're gonna do it. Because you know what? We can do hard things. I think that's actually a part of discipline too. Sometimes hard, right? That's okay. What if we learn how to love the hard? Just saying. Look at your five. And when I say three, I pause this and circle three. Don't overthink it. Okay,

I'm gonna do it too. One, two, three. Okay, I circled creative expression. I circled discipline, and I'm gonna circle of the home, the surrender, and the presence. I'm gonna go with

uh gosh, this is tough. See, and I'm overthinking it a little bit because I'm realizing none of these are it. So that's the other thing. If you notice, wait a minute, is something still missing? What is it? How do I combine what needs to be combined? But also, you might have four. That's fine. Three or four is okay, but just don't, we can't have more than five, I found. It's just too much. It's harder, it's hard to even honor one thing. I find three to five is like there's a good variety, but you're not like overwhelmed with, oh my gosh, there's 17 things that I value

that I'm not, you know, valuing well. Because I'm pretty sure one of your values isn't gonna be, you know, shit storming yourself all the time, shit spiraling, you know, spinning out in your head. Yeah. Uh most of us don't value that. We do it. This isn't about what you do, this is about what you want to do and who you want to be and what you care to experience, right? Mm-hmm. So let me just take a moment here, genuinely, and you can take a little breath here, too, with me, and not even pause it because I'm just gonna take this pause live. For me, it's definitely

creative expression. I mean, I have to paint creative expression is my mental health, my mental wealth for sure. And that's the point. Like, I gotta take care of my mind, you gotta take care of your mind. Without our mental health, we do not have any wealth. That is our wealth. That's what masterful listening is all about. When we listen to ourselves and to others, we're healthier, our relationships thrive, life is good. All right, I think that cov served as a hell yeah. Presence has to be there. Presence and surrender go together. I feel like surrender is like saying yes to the present moment. It's like a

yes and.

I say that all the time. I say my favorite word is no, but actually a yes and is kind of a no as well, weirdly. It's like when you say yes to the no, it's a yes, right? When we get a rejection, and then it's like that's a no. But if you're like, yeah, okay, that's a yes to the no, mmm, I kind of like it. That's creative. See, and just figuring that out, I honored my creativity. And then the discipline is something I always want to keep working on because for me, I heard something recently that really actually made me want to get more disciplined.

And it was like, discipline is the ultimate form of self-love, which to me, those two were so different. Discipline felt very harsh and like masculine, and self-love was very like loving and feminine, and like oh, they're both okay, like all of us. So now you have your three values, and I have mine, and mine are yes and no, huh, uh, discipline, and creative expression. And the thing is, the reason I love created expression is because creative expression is when I'm creatively expressing myself, I am performing, I am cleaning my house, making it beautiful, I'm doing work that I love. So that one is a massive bucket.

So here's the next part of this. You look at these values and you ask yourself, on a scale of one to 10, how much am I currently honoring this value? So, for example, when I look at the yes and no value, I gotta say, I think I'm honoring this one. Shit, I want to say at a nine or 10. And I always say it's very rare you're at a 10, but like the mantra, a no is a yes to something better, and yes and is huge. But you know what? I could always honor it a little more. So let's go with a nine. Even if I

was in a 10, I'm gonna say, let's get to 13. And then the discipline for me, I'm gonna say the first letter or number that came was four out of 10. And then the creative expression, ooh, that's that's hot. But the only thing that's missing there is like I think I'm gonna add a fourth one, which is the stoic Taoist thing. I think that's the problem, is it needs to be a little more organized, literally, like physically organized, and maybe time. And I could work on that a little bit. Um, so the creative expression, let's go with eight, and then the stoic Taoist thing. Geez, I

mean, that's something that just grounds me. And I think about it quite a bit. Let's go with like a seven. Okay. Look at your numbers. Do it for yourself right now. Pause and give yourself a rating from one to 10 of how much you are currently honoring this value. So if you have a value of uh balance, how balanced is your life? For real, this is legit. Like, don't lie to yourself, make it real, check in, write it down, don't overthink it. Okay. So now ask yourself, looking at these numbers, where do you want to be? So let's say for me, the yes and no value.

If I really feel like I'm at a nine or 10, yeah, let's I want to be at a 13. You don't have to worry about what that means right now. Just where do you want to be? My discipline, I want the four to go to a nine this year. I am down to really invest in this one. Uh creative expression, let's go from an eight to a 10. Hell yeah. Why not? That's always a good thing for me to boost. And then the Stoicism, Taoism, yeah, I want that to keep growing. I want to be at a let's go nine. Yeah. I will I I feel

I feel like here a nine would be perfect enough. So now look at your new numbers. Uh, and if you like to do math like me, I'm gonna add the four scores that I um actually uh wrote down. So the first ones, so like at first I had a nine, and then I want to get to a 13 for the yes and no. For the discipline, I had a four, and I want to go to a nine. For the creative expression, I went from an eight to a ten. And for the stoicism Taoism, I went through a seven to a nine. Now add up the first

score and the second one. So this is like the OG, and the second one's the aspirational. Mine went from 34 out of 40 to 13 plus nine is 22, 22 plus 10 is 32, 32 plus 9 is 41. 41 out of 40. Love it. So I want to go from a 34 to a 41 out of 40. However, your numbers are, look at those numbers. And now ask yourself this on a scale of one to 10. How confident am I that I'm willing to put in the work to get from the 34 to the 41, whatever your number is? How confident are you that you can

actually do this? Take a sec right now. Pause and come back. This is a super important part of this process because often we set these massive goals or we set like super easy goals. And it's like if you're a hundred percent sure that you could do this because it's like seems super easy, I would up the number because you don't want it to just be like stuff you already do. The whole point of this is you want to improve, you know, grow. Uh, but if you're like, oh, there's no way I could go to these numbers, like they seem super unrealistic, then maybe lower them a

little bit. Again, this is about a good challenge. I find that when we overburden ourselves with way too much unrealistic shit, it doesn't work well. It's like in sales when we were given quotas that were just so high that no one was gonna hit them, it always caused more harm than good. But if you set, you know, one that's just a bit more elevated, push yourself. That's cool. You know, truly, like I'm going for a 41 out of 40. That's kind of like more than 100%, right? And yet, even if I get to a 39, cool. We can celebrate along the way, we can be present

with what is, right? Say yes and so I'm like I'd say an 8 to 9% confident that I could do this. Because the discipline one still makes me a little nervous, but uh I'm down. And now you're getting real with yourself. Okay, so you're pretty committed. I'd say if you're not at least a seven, then you need to do this when you are more committed. And then I'd ask yourself, what do I need to do? Who do I need to be? What do I need to change to be committed if this is really important? Because if these values aren't important enough for you to dedicate yourself

at at least a seven, I would say they're probably not actually values that you really honor. Do you know what I mean? Cool. Let's just assume though that you're committed. All right, even if you don't know exactly what you're gonna do yet, let's talk about that now. So now for each value, I want you to ask yourself, what is one thing that I can do in the next week? It's the first week of the year, perfect timing, to honor this value more. So, for example, it can't be something you're already doing, but it can be something you're already doing like here and there that you want

to do consistently. And then it's important to get clear on what exactly you're doing for how long and when. It's always better to have a consistent schedule with things, especially as you're building a habit of honoring a value. And, you know, who will I tell? How will I keep accountability? That's kind of the last piece we'll talk about at the end. So for me, uh, the yes and no up to a 13, it's just honestly, I'm already doing it so well. I think the thing I could do to elevate it is um, you know what, that's tricky. I'm uh just keep doing what I'm doing there.

That's not gonna be one where I need to really push myself. The discipline is so something I could do that I haven't been doing to get that four to a nine, specifically around like I moved a few months ago and my place is still a mess. And I've had trouble just like getting the discipline to just like get the art supplies organized and get it cleaned. So my new commitment to get from a four to a nine, an action I can take is uh

I need I need a discipline, an accountability buddy. So I think I need a system where I'm going to write into my calendar blocks of like I'm gonna come up with a fun word for discipline. I'm not gonna do it right now for the sake of time, but like a fun section that is um blocked off and that in the moment that I've committed to doing it, I have to call that accountability buddy and they have to champion the shit out of me. So I'm gonna design this with a friend. So I'll like call my best friend and say, hey, I'm supposed to clean right now.

Can you pump me up? Can you, you know, be my cheerleader? Yeah, maybe I'll call it cheerleading. If anyone wants to be my cheerleader, by the way, reach out, okay, because I'm taking applications. Uh, that's what I'm gonna do for that. Or that's one option. You're not actually committing at this point. So when you do this exercise, and by the way, go ahead and do this right now, where pause and then go through each one and write down one action for each value that you have on your final list of three-ish that is gonna help you elevate wherever you were on a scale of one to

ten to wherever you want to be. Okay. Do it now, come back. Okay, you're back. It's funny if someone didn't pause this and do this, uh, because it's gonna be you listening to me saying, Okay, come back, come back. You'll be like, oh my god, I've never left.

Oh, yeah, comedy is probably another value, but that's kind of creative expression. Anyway, I got it. Look at the actions, and you know what the last final step is. That's actually the most important one, the hardest one, but actually the easiest one. Just do it. Just do the thing. You now have the thing that if you do, we'll honor your value more. And if you honor your values more, you're gonna enjoy your life more. Period. Trust me. Trust me. You know this is true. And it's sometimes hard to do what you say you're gonna do, even the things we know are good for us, right? So,

your homework as we wrap up is first of all, if you listen to this but you didn't like do the activity, then re-listen and do it. And share it with someone who you think could benefit. It's literally the end of the year, it's a great time to reassess values. And I'm so excited to find my cheerleader. I'm literally gonna do this today. So, last part, choose your action or actions. Don't over choose 17, choose up to three that honor whichever value or values you really want to focus on first. And remember, just because you focus on one doesn't mean the others don't matter. We have to

do things one thing at a time. It works better. There's a book called The One Thing. I'll share it. Uh, I'll also summarize it. Just do one thing at once, it works better. Seriously. Uh decide when you're doing it, buy when deadlines are necessary. Necessary. You can move them, but have one reasonable deadline and have an accountability buddy. Someone that you share this with who can just design what that looks like. Doesn't mean they're checking in on you every day, unless that would work for you, and they agree to it. And loves. Thank you. I hope that you did that. I'm so curious how it was.

This is the first time I've ever done a coaching exercise as a podcast, which is fascinating because I can't actually interact with you, which is uh kind of, you know, I mean, amazing if it worked, if it helped you. Please email me, message me, leave a review, uh, share this. Let me know how this worked. Because honestly, if you all like this, I will keep doing it. That's something I want to start doing more next year in next season, which is launching uh next week, um, is more live coaching, more interactive stuff. I really want to share these tools. And frankly, not everyone can afford to

pay for coaching. And I want this to be another way that you can get the support you need on your own time if you so choose. So thanks for getting clear on your values. Uh, did I mention to like and subscribe and leave some reviews? Apparently that matters. Uh, for you know, the algorithms doing its thing and sharing. Don't we all want the world to be masterfully uh listened to? Don't we want to be masterful listeners? Uh yeah. See ya next time.