What Do You Stand For? A Guide to Identifying Your Core Values

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to talk about, I want to discuss discovering or determining your core values. Determining your core values. Now, what am I talking about here? What I'm describing is a process for you to figure out kind of what it is you stand for. Your values, your core values, your creed, if you want to call it that. What is it that's near and dear to you, that's very important to you? What words describe the exact type of people you want to hang around, the relationships you want to have, the aspirations that you have, that you want to live up to. What are those words? What are those core values? Now, let's start by why do you even need this? My take, my belief, my experience with this in establishing your values, you can use them for a variety of things. First thing that comes to mind for me, I use mine as a filter, a filter. So I filter all different sorts of things. Against these core values. Maybe it's a new relationship, or maybe a new hire, or a partnership, or a business venture, right? You name it. Maybe it's an activity or something I want to partake in. I'm going to look at that person or that activity, that thing, and I'm going to scrub it against these values and ask myself, do they in fact align with one another? Is this person or this activity or this project, does it align with what it is I stand for? Does it live up to, you know, my creed, my values, right? So how do you go about creating these values, right? How do you go about doing it? And you know what, before I do that, what I ought to share with you is, are my core values, like what do I have in my arsenal that I filter against, I scrub against. This is for me personally, right? So I'm being vulnerable here. Uh, some of these may make no, no sense to you, but maybe they get you thinking. So here are some things that I live by. Number 1, any relationship that I have, uh, with an individual, that individual has to be solutions-based. They must be solutions-based. They can identify problems, that's great, but they gotta have a solution. They gotta have a proposal, even if it's a terrible one. I only want to hang out with people that are solution-based. Number 2, I really want to spend time with individuals that have what I would describe a whatever-it-takes attitude, right? Like no matter the storm, they bring in the ship. They have a whatever-it-takes attitude. Number 3, they take ownership. People, people in my world that I aspire to be around or that I currently spend time with, they take ownership. Number 4, honesty. They always tell the truth. Relationships that I want to be in, they always tell the truth. Number 5, trustworthy and dependable. Those words kind of speak for themselves. And lastly, people I hang around or I aspire to hang around or people that I'm looking at bringing in my world or partners, whatever it may be, They've got to be giving individuals. They got to give and they've got to expect nothing in return. They give expecting nothing in return. Now, these are values near and dear to me. Some of them may make sense to you. Some of them may make no sense to you. But I take these values and it's what I stand for. It's what I attempt to be. I attempt to be solutions-based. I think I display a whatever-it-takes attitude. Sometimes I don't, but I aspire to every single day. I try to take ownership in all situations. I own the results regardless of how we got there. I pride myself on honesty and telling the truth, sometimes maybe a little too bluntly. I'd like to think I'm trustworthy. I like to think I'm a dependable individual. And lastly, every single day I aim to be a bit more giving than I was yesterday, and I have no return, nothing, nothing that I expect in return. Now that's what I strive to be, and that's who I want to hang around. What are your values? Now going back to this, you know, how do you create them? Well, one idea, one thought, the way that I, you know, I've worked on mine over the years, obviously the more knowledge, the more experience that you have in life and in business and relationships, naturally you're going to form some core principles that you stand by. So experience is number one, like just look back over the course of your life and figure out what gave you energy and, and what took it away. But one specific thing you can do today, look at your closest relationships. I'm not talking about family relationships. I'm really talking outside of family. Look at your closest relationships and ask yourself, why is this port— this person so important to me? What, what is it about them that I'm drawn to? Based on that answer, you may find some, some principles that are clearly very near and dear to you, which is why you care for this individual to the extent that you do. Another thing you can do, maybe look, maybe take the opposite approach. Look at relationships that didn't work out. Look at failed relationships, right? Be it friendships, business relationships, or even, you know, significant others that maybe didn't go the direction you thought it was going to go. Look at those failed relationships and ask yourself, why did they fall apart? Where did we not align? Where were expectations missed? Where was communication poor? Like, what were the core principles that we just didn't see eye to eye around? Some things may come about that you recognize are near and dear to you. And lastly, you know, look at your successful partnerships in business. Look at successful hires maybe that you've made. Why were those partnerships successful? Why were those hires successful? When I look back at my business career specifically, and I ask myself, gosh, who's had the greatest impact? Who's been the best partner or the best hire? I mean, I look at my core values and I'm like, yeah, these people are solutions-based. They work their asses off. They're whatever-it-takes attitude. They take ownership. They're honest. They're dependable. They're trustworthy. And They all give, give their time, give their energy, give their money. They're all giving individuals. Again, that goes back to my values, but what are yours? So in conclusion, you know, I want you really thinking around your values or determining them or questioning what it is you believe your values to be today and determine, you know, what are the 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 things that are near and dear to me that I'm married to by which I can scrub or filter all things in my life, particularly relationships. But you can see, like, you could apply this in a variety of different ways. What is near and dear to you? Let's figure that out. Another question to think around is, what are the values of my family? What do I want my kids or my family members— like, what, what do we all stand for, right? Like, I, like, I tell my girls, listen, go out and fail, right? I'm okay with that. I'm okay with you failing. I'm okay with you screwing up. I'm okay with you making some bad decisions. That's life. That's the way it goes. What I'm not okay with is you not putting in effort. What I'm not okay with is you lying. What I'm not good with is you not taking ownership over, over something you did, right? Again, this is important to me. May not be the same for you, but you've got your values. So let's go figure him out today. Okay, that's, that's the focus. That's the focus. That's all I have for you today. No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.