Ep #476: Values

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode 476.

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Hello friends. Okay, it is hot in Arizona. It was 95 today when we were playing pickleball outside and I was sweating. Let’s just be honest. It is getting to that point where it’s kind of like you want to stay inside. It’s really hot. I tried to go for a walk this afternoon and it was not happening.

We just had our team retreat here where we met with our entire employee team. There’s a hotel here called The Sanctuary and the whole team flew in to have our team meeting, and they had pickleball courts, so we played pickleball as a team. Our whole team. Everyone got out there and played a little bit. It was so much fun. All my pickleball dreams came true. It was great.

And we spent the two days that we met, Trudi was there too, Trudi and Charmaine and their team were there and we went through and revisited our vision and our values as a company.

And it was really an amazing, fascinating process, and one of the things that I’ve been talking about on this podcast a little bit and talking about with the team is really trying to separate out what is Brooke Castillo and Brooke Castillo’s vision and my value set, versus what is the vision and value set for the company and are they different.

And we came to the conclusion that they are different, so one of the suggestions that I had made is let’s just start from the very beginning and re-choose as a company, not as me personally, but as a company what our values are, and then let’s see how there are some differences between maybe what I value solely for my own life and what we value as a company.

And after I did this process, I thought it would be very important to kind of share with you all the importance of values and to understand what they are. If you have your own company, it’s very important to understand them. And if you don’t, if you just are a person in the world, it’s very important to understand them.

And I have been told this in many business books and from many consultants, “Make sure you pick your mission statement, make sure you pick your values,” and they just never felt like active things in my life until I started working with Trudi. And she really helped me see that whenever you have to make a big decision in your life or in your company, your values can really help you inform the decision.

So I would go to her and be like, “Hey, I don’t know what to do about this, this, or this,” and she would really pull up the values and be like, “Okay, which decision to do it or not do it supports your values more?” And to really make sure that you’re living within your values, you need to consider them for every big decision you make.

And one of the things that was really cool is we were kind of reviewing the values that we have had for the company and running through the actions we’ve taken as a company and seeing how they were very, very aligned. And we were just at the point of questioning, okay, are they the ones we want to continue with?

So one of our values for the school was to be an example of what is possible. And we really value that as a company, to kind of set the standard and be the example. And we really put that into our initial values because that was my value as a person.

I wanted my life to be an example of what is possible for a human woman life coach working online. And in so many ways, I have lived hard into that value and really I think realized the value, demonstrated it and realized it in many ways. So that was kind of an amazing thing to see.

Another value that we had for the company was to be thoughtful and to really think through and pay attention to our thoughts, and to acknowledge how powerful our thoughts are, and to make sure that we don’t expect other people to think for us.

One of my trainings that I do in my company, and one of the trainings that I do with all of you as my students is to really make sure that you are thinking original chosen thought for yourself. You are not simply living recycled thoughts of somebody else, or socialized thoughts from somebody else, or just programmed unconscious thoughts from your own life, from your own childhood.

And the way that that works in the business is we have a lot of filters. We have these programmed filters that we use for communication. And if you’re interested in knowing more about those filters, they are in my course called Entrepreneurial Management that is inside of our Get Coached Scholars program that you can join on the website.

But inside of Entrepreneurial Management and inside of our company, we talk about filters. So our company, it’s not really a practice to just ask someone else questions and take their answers and utilize them. We want every single person who’s on the payroll, we want to make sure that all of their brains and ideas are being utilized.

So I don’t want you to just ask what my ideas are. I want you to tell me what your ideas are. And I don’t want you to just ask the question. I want you to actually try and answer it. And I don’t want you to just ask me to make the decision. I want you to think about what the decision should be, so to be very thoughtful about that.

And that was one of, of course, the values in my own life is not letting other people tell me what is possible, not let other people determine what I can and can’t do, not let other people’s criticism or hate hold me back from my dreams. And so I have been very thoughtful in my own life and we shared that in the company.

Another value that we had was inclusivity and really making sure that we were considering all of the humans and including all of the humans in our company as employees and also as students and clients and when we created our material, really making sure that we were making it for the people that we had explicitly chosen to include and support and help towards their missions and visions in their lives.

And one of the last values that we did have was making hard work fun. And I think that’s something that I’ve always really valued. I have a very fun, exciting life, but I work very, very hard. And I think one of the reasons why my life works is because I really enjoy working. I’ve always enjoyed ambition and accomplishment and creation.

And so we value that in our company a lot, so if you’re someone who doesn’t really value hard work, and you don’t think working hard is fun, and you don’t think growing and accomplishing and being challenged is fun, you are probably not going to like working for us.

So those are our values. It was a great way for us to run through our values whenever we’re making a decision, and that included people that we were hiring, that included employees that were already employed in the company, that included decisions we were making in our lives.

And as we kind of went through this process to choose a new vision for the company and a new focus for our values, one of the things that Trudi asked me to do is write down what all my personal values are. And could I look at those things that I value in my life and see them realized, see them in evidence of what my life looked like and how I lived my life.

And it was crazy powerful to see that because I have lived this very conscious, directed life that I have really created a life that is super valuable to me. And I hadn’t put that together is that if you identify what you value and you live your life and make decisions and take actions from those true values, you will create a life that is very valuable to you.

And the same goes for your business. If you create values that you live into, then that business will become very valuable to the people that work there and the culture that you’ve created.

So I really want to recommend that you all go through this process for yourself. And don’t make it complicated. Don’t make it something that you have to research or read up on. Just sit down and write down the things that you truly value.

It could be very private. You don’t have to share this with anyone. If you value some things that you don’t necessarily want to be public, you don’t need them to be. You will see your life reflected in your values if you do this correctly.

For example, let’s say that you very much value your parents’ opinion. You will probably create a life that is very valuable to your parents. If you very much value the way your body looks, you will spend your time creating a body that hopefully you value the way that it looks, or your health, or whatever it is that your thing is that you value.

So here are some of my values to give you some ideas, and be very careful to say to yourself as you go through your list of values, “Is this something I think I should value, or is this something I actually value?” And you will know by the way you live your life.

And maybe there’s something that you value intellectually but you haven’t been living into that value. And that is a great opportunity for you, if you want to create a more valuable life to yourself, to live more into your values.

So for me, one of my values is outrageous financial success and independence. And the reason that I value that is that is one of my ways of being an example of what is possible, is playing the game of society, playing the game of the social norms of our cultures, playing the game of business, playing the game of careers, and really being an example of what is possible by creating some outrageous financial success.

And I very much have valued that my entire life and I have created that in my life and it has been very valuable to me. I have gotten lots and lots of criticism because I’m very public about that value, and because our society tries to villainize that value, especially for women.

And I have done my best as a feminist woman to change that belief system. I believe that outrageous financial independence for women is one of the most powerful things that we can do for ourselves. Not only because of the growth that it requires for us to overcome so many fixed socialized norms, but also because it puts us in a position where we don’t have to say yes as often. And I love that for us.

So when I get that pushback, and what’s been true is there have been lots of times where people on my team and people in my marketing and people advising us have said, “Don’t talk about money so much, it’s not all about money, people are feeling very pressured to make money around here.”

And I get it, and I understand that there’s lots of ways to measure success and success can be realized in so many different ways, and, but, I still really want to encourage those of you who have an inkling towards it to consider money as one of the things to value as an opportunity to create success and independence for yourselves.

I value fun. I value laughter. I value freedom. One of the reasons why I love having financial success and independence is it gives me freedom to really make choices and do what I want, and not have to work if I don’t want to work, and not have to take on jobs that I don’t want to take on, and not have to do things I don’t want to do because I have the financial independence to say no to some opportunities if I don’t want them.

I value women’s empowerment. I value love. I value acceptance, which to me means non-judgment of the humans, to really see that every human is 100% worthy and was born worthy and is worthy, and we’re all lost and found in so many of our own specific ways.

I value self-care. I value conscious self-awareness. I value punctuality and integrity. I value a contribution to humanity. I value self-actualization. Now, this is a very long list and the reason why I made my list long was just because Trudi had asked me to put everything that I valued, and I recommend that you do this.

Just brainstorm the things that you value. And how you word it matters. If someone would say, “What about your family? You don’t even say that you value your family. You don’t even say that you value your friends.” For me, that’s all included in love. That true, powerful love for me immediately, my friends and family are the biggest part of that.

But I’m also a big part of that. That’s self-love, that’s self-care. So make this list for yourself. Make this long list of all the things that you value, and then maybe get to about four values that you can live really as your priorities, and you can run your decision filter through, and you can look to to see, “Okay, am I making decisions based on what I value?”

Because if what you say you value - and you have to be honest with yourself. If what you say you value is personal financial success, but then you also value comfort and you also value other people’s opinions and you also value being part of the crowd and not standing out and not being criticized, you’re going to have conflicting values there.

And that’s really important for you to understand because if you have conflicting values, it may be why your life isn’t working the way you want it to work, and it may be why you’re unable to create a life that’s more valuable to you. And so having a look at that can be very helpful. And seeing, maybe at first glance, they seem to be conflicting but maybe there’s a way you reconcile them that makes sense to you.

So as we went through this process as a team, we created four new values for our company moving forward from here as kind of its independent entity that is really focused on the work of training life coaches, and helping clients learn this life-changing work.

And so when you understand your vision, when you understand your purpose, and you understand your values, you have a direction, you have a place to go. You have kind of a point where you’re heading. And every decision you make will kind of be like having a conversation with your navigation in your car, and which way should you turn and which way should you go.

So as we finalize these values, we’re going to be writing up copy and writing up new visions. We just kind of did the brainstorming process. We’re really refining them, and moving forward I will definitely share them with you and we always have them posted on our website.

But for you, for your companies and your personal lives, I want to encourage you to go through this process as well. And I want to encourage you to fast forward your life and think about what type of person will you be if this is what you most value.

And what type of life will you have if these are the things that you most value? And to be truly honest, I don’t believe that there is a right or wrong answer to this. I don’t think that there are a set of values that you should value.

I don’t think that anyone can tell you specifically what your life will be valuable to you. So this is a process you need to go through. What is the thing that you most value in your life? And are you living in alignment with that thing?

Are you taking care of yourself? Are you having fun? Are you having outrageous financial success? Are you in love? Are you loving yourself and the other people around you?

And when I look at my list of values, I really feel aligned. I really feel locked in. And I will tell you, the beginning of this year was the first time I’m going to say in a long time where I didn’t feel that way. I feel like I had some values I wasn’t living into. Some circumstantial things had changed in my life and I was living in a way where I was valuing those circumstances over valuing what my true values were and are.

And I will tell you, I made a very drastic change when I realized that. And I’m so thankful that I stayed conscious because when you’re on a train, it’s a bullet train of life that is taking you in a certain direction. It is very challenging to question that train, to question where you’re going, to question the fuel that you’re using, the people that are on there with you, and whether you’re going the place that you want to go.

And when you pause and you check against what is most valuable to you and you are willing to make drastic changes in order to align to your values, you’re going to live the life that you most want. And I would say the past several podcasts has really spoken to that and I’ve received a lot of feedback from a lot of you who are in this place.

You’re in this place of living a life that doesn’t feel right, that doesn’t feel like you, that doesn’t feel like you are aligned. And one of the ways that you can help yourself get more aligned and make the changes that you want to make is to understand what it is you most value.

What are your values as a person? You can do it as a person, as a couple, as a family, as a business, and it will help direct the decisions that you make collectively and individually.

So enjoy this process. Sit down with yourself. And then one of the things that you can do that might be kind of cool is once you have your values, read them to a loved one. The ones that you feel comfortable sharing, and see if they say, “Yes, that is apparent that you value those things, I see that that’s how you’re living your life.”

Or maybe if you say your list to someone, they may say, “Huh, I would never have known that you valued that. That seems incongruent with you.” And it might open up some awareness that you can reconcile with yourself if need be.

Alright my friends, have fun figuring out your values and I’ll talk to you next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

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