272. Robert Glazer | The Compass Within

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better.

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books.

In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Robert Glaser, author of The Compass Within. Robert is a number one Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international bestselling author of 7 books, including Elevate, Friday Forward, and Elevate Your Team. He's the founder and chairman of Acceleration Partners, a global leader in partnership marketing, and the creator of Friday Forward, a weekly newsletter read by over 200,000 leaders in 100+ countries. Robert is also a TEDx speaker, top-rated CEO, and host of the Elevate Podcast, a top 1% global show with more than 3 million downloads. Robert has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, the Today Show, Forbes, Fast Company, and Inc. magazine. He's known for helping individuals and organizations clarify their values, elevate performance, and build cultures that actually live their principles. In this episode, you'll learn how to uncover and articulate your personal core values using 6 deceptively simple questions, Why alignment across the big 3 decisions— partner, community, and work— determines your daily energy and long-term success, and how to turn your values into real decision-making tools, not wall art, with a validator test and practical rituals. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Robert Glaser.

Robert, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm excited to chat with you. about your brand new book, The Compass Within. And my first question comes from the introduction. You highlight the misalignment most of us experience between the roles expected of us and our core values. So my question for you is, when did you start thinking about this subject and when did you decide that it should become a book?

So this is a decade-long story that I'll try to get down to 2 minutes, but In 2013, I was building my company. I was growing, becoming a leader. I wasn't feeling awesome about my leadership. It was all new to me. And I got invited to a pretty exclusive global leadership program for 4 days as part of Entrepreneurs Organization. And I went and I thought it was gonna be, oh, we're gonna learn all these tactics on how to lead people and manage an external. And the first 2 days were like this big mirror, like, who are you and what do you value? And like, that is going to be the foundation of your leadership. And I, I was like, wow, I think I'm really values-driven, but I can't articulate it. And by the way, you guys did like the Simon Sinek to us. Like, you got me excited about why, but like, you left me with like no tools to figure out my values. So, I went on sort of a 3 to 6 months odyssey, looked around, found all these like keyword list things. I'm like, these aren't like values. And I figured out my sort of 5 values and started realigning my life around them and saw kind of everything change. And I believed in it so much that I started training our— I turned it into a curriculum. I started training our leaders at our company, like our classes on leaders, on their personal core values. They were like, we're not doing the company values? I'm like, no, like, do this. And at the same time, I wrote this book Elevate, and I talked about spiritual capacity, and I talked about understanding your values. And the number one thing from Elevate people would ask me was like, all right, I'm in on this values thing. How do I do it? And I'm like, well, I've been teaching this. I don't have— I can give you some tools, but I don't have it all together. So basically, I turned it all into a course and that curriculum, and I opened it up and 2,000 people have taken it and they all wrote me notes and this is kind of amazing. And I was like, I want to get more people with this. I need it to be a book. But I just envisioned no one reading a book walking. I had this vision of being at a Barnes and Noble, me walking by a book that's called On Values and being like, I'm not going to freaking pick that up. And so my daughter separately had kind of challenged me like, you only deal with nonfiction? Why don't you think about fiction? I had read Pat Lencioni's latest book, and I was like, huh, I think this would work better as a parable to maybe show people. I have no clue how to do this, but I think this would be a much better thing to show this and show people in this. Because a lot of people yawn when they hear— to me, it's an often talked about, but mostly BS'd, you know, vague in the personal world and BS'd in the corporate world. And I think the people that have engaged with this book in this process understand that it's pretty different.

Robert, I have so many things to unpack with you from that answer. I tried.

I had to get a decade into 3 minutes, so hopefully I did.

Oh, you did. And that's actually the first thing that I'd like to highlight. So, one of the reasons that I love reading books like this is that I get to learn from people like you who are condensing usually a decade or more of their life experience and greatest life lessons on a specific subject into a book that I can read in a day or less. And that's pretty special. That's why I love reading and implementing books like this. Now, I know you're a big reader as well. Have you always been a big reader?

Yeah, I've been a big reader, but I think we're facing, you know, this book is 70 minutes, 80 minutes. When I wrote Elevate, it was an hour and everyone would text me and be like, I finished your book. Like, you know, we're hitting societal ADD where people don't want to read 350-page nonfiction books that make the same point over and over. So, I think we just need to meet the world where it is and kind of smaller books.

I think so too. I think so too. The second thing I'd like to unpack that you talked about was Simon Sinek. Funny enough, I recorded a video with Rory when he was launching Wealthy and Well-Known talking about how you shouldn't start with why. And so, it was just funny that you mentioned that. I think that while that book does have obviously a very positive influence on society, you're right in that it does leave you wanting a little bit more. If you know why and you don't know how, or if you know why but you don't understand your core values, then it can be a confusing place to operate from.

Yeah, I think his first book convinced people. He didn't come out with the second book, Now Discover Your Why, until years later. But the first book was, it got everyone on like, oh yeah, this why is like, I get it, it's important, but like going to find your why is like not that easy. How do you do that? So, I mean, there's a very, Behind the story, you watch the kid, there's a very systemic framework on how to build actual core values after you read this book.

Yes, which we will highlight in just a minute. The final thing I wanted to unpack quickly and just display for our audience is that you put the course out before the book and you had inbound natural momentum of people asking you about this subject. We see so many authors who just have a bright idea one day to write a book and they go forward with it and they haven't proved out the concept. So, the fact that you collected feedback from thousands of people going through the course before you decided to put it into the book is a great sign that this book is going to be successful. So, just a little keynote to— just a little footnote to how— Yeah.

And then we upgraded the course. It's a totally new course as of launch with everything we learned from that. So, yeah, it's not the normal order. But, but I think it was, as you said, we had, we had real-world stuff to put in there.

And you talked about, okay, businesses and core values, oftentimes it's BS. Individual personal core values, oftentimes they're vague. In chapter 1, you highlight how this character Jamie is walking through the lobby of his building and he sees the core values of the company written on the wall and he sort of thinks to himself, Well, I haven't had these articulated to me verbally or out loud since my orientation three years ago, and it feels like every single company is exactly that way. Why are core values not more of an actionable priority within businesses?

Yeah, I'd say 98% are BS. I don't know whether PG or 13.

Now go ahead, go ahead, go for it.

Yeah, I mean they're bullshit like most companies, but if you've ever seen some really amazing. Cultures and companies and seen their core values, they sound totally different. But if you walk around the organization, you'll find them in the reviews, you'll find them in their onboarding, you'll find them in their shoutouts. So the problem is people are trying to be everything to everyone. So they put respect, integrity, and all this crap on the wall, and it's not, no one knows what they are and they're not rewarded. When you see ones that are really distinct, like we go the extra mile, or, you know, we do one more, or no one is better than anyone else, right? And then you see that basically reinforced everywhere. And look, those are powerful decision-making rubrics. My friend Gary Ridge, who's the CEO of WD-40, ran this experiment at 100 different companies— I mean, campuses— where he gave students groups a problem to solve. And he gave the— an hour. And he gave the first group no values, the second group values, and the third group hierarchical values. And over 100 times, the first group is still arguing at the end, the second group's done in 50 minutes, and the third group's done in 30 minutes. So, it just proves that like our— and that's sort of— he was always like, if you make a decision in line of one or more of our core values at the company, you're safe. That was my aha for an individual. Hey, how do I know that I'm— particularly around these big 3, how do I know I'm making— I'm safe with the decisions that I'm making? It proves that Decisions aren't right or wrong, right? That lens of the values of what was that decision right or wrong for that company? And is that decision right or wrong for that person based on what they truly care about? And the problem is that most of us, I think, know our values or have built things around our values unintentionally or by feel or by hitting the electric fence and then pulling off it. It's a whole different world if you could articulate them and then be like, I'm not going over here and I'm going here.

I will ask you, how do we get more clarity around our values so that we can articulate them in just a moment? But first, I wanted to— I remembered one other thing that you mentioned during the introduction, your introduction, which is that you decided to write this book in a parable format.

Yeah.

It reminds me of a debate, sort of a fun debate that I had in college with a public speaking professor. I had just fallen in love with nonfiction business and personal development style books. And this professor challenged me by saying, I think that fiction is a more accurate representation of reality because when you can portray things onto a third-party character instead of admit them yourself, sometimes you could be a little bit more honest. So what's your opinion on that?

Well, here's what's interesting. So Jamie is a mirror basically, right? He is going through these core value, uh, uh, struggles in his personal life, in his relationship, in his company, in his community. Multiple people who've read the book have told me, I had that moment, or I like, you know, it's, he's just a mirror back to people to then see, oh yeah, I had that moment and that's what it was. Or I just had this thought about my partner or my company. And so what's interesting is that I think rather than telling, people are able to see themselves in Jamie and then be like, oh, like I can see myself in this rather than being told. So.

Yeah.

I think Jamie is just almost a vehicle more than anything.

Yeah. And Jamie was a vehicle for me to think about how my team at BookThinkers thinks about our core values. And I was challenged, I think, by your book in a very positive way. We have our core values. We spent a lot of time as a team defining our core values. And while I think that we do live them within the business very regularly, I don't think that anybody on my team could articulate all 5 of them back to me if I called them up right now. And that's part of the problem is that, you know, they need to be a little bit more top of mind.

Yeah, I think the ideal number for a company is probably 3 to 4. And, and if people have worked at your company for 90 days or more, I mean, 30 days or more, you want a 90% comprehension. And by the way, they'll have that if there are weekly shoutouts on the phone call being like, hey, Nick, Nick really, you know, our core values of our company are own it, embrace relationship, and excel and improve. So, people can tag people in Slack and be like, Nick owned it with that client. Like, you're just hearing them all the time. You saw them on your performance review. You voted for your friend to win the Own It Award at the core value award. So, companies all have culture and values, whether they're stated or not, because people, we're training a puppy these days, and what do you do? You give treats for certain behaviours and you give a bad dog for, And humans are the same way. We respond to what is rewarded or what is sort of disrewarded, you know, or punished. And that's where our behavior goes. And so a company has values like a person. It's just the crap on the wall may not be what they're actually valuing. They may be valuing like long work hours and sacrificing your personal life. And everyone can see that like that's the thing that gets you promoted.

Yes, 100%. And like I said, we have some work to do. I'm not afraid to admit that.

Well, let's talk afterwards. I have a, I have a similar but different rubric for, for company core values. So we should talk about that.

Absolutely. Yeah.

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Tell us about the 2 names on the front of your book.

Oh yeah, the— so I was super excited to have both Pat Lencioni, who helped with the title, he's very good at that, and Bob Berg, who are sort of, you know, distant mentors of mine. I love their parable format. And, you know, I had real imposter syndrome sending them each a draft of a parable. That I had written, but they're both incredibly supportive and supportive of the book and Bob too. And so, I was excited to kind of have their blessing and their feedback.

Yeah. The longtime listeners of my podcast will know that Bob has been on a couple of times and his co-author, John David Mann, has also been on a couple of times and that I'm such a big fan of their work. And yeah, I could see the writing style similarities. And like I, like we've already talked about a little bit, I think that the parable format is such a great way to teach people real-life lessons. So going back to the big 3, talk to us a little bit about that.

Yeah. So the big 3 are your biggest decisions in life, who you choose as your partner, if you have a partner or want a partner, uh, your community that you choose and, uh, your work. And your work can be 2 parts. It could be the type of work that you do or where you choose to do it. And My hypothesis is that if these decisions aren't aligned with your core values, they have very little chance of success. And if you are out of alignment on one of these, it's gonna feel like a chair that's not comfortable or some scraping on your— if you are out of alignment in your life on all 3 of these, it's gonna be pretty painful every day. And I think it's just a new lens. Look, your core values help you with every decision. But to me, these are the, these are the most critical ones and the ones you can't get wrong.

I had a friend call me the other day, Robert, and he was talking to me about the fact that none of his friends are representative of his core values. He says the only people that he sees regularly are at the gym. And he says he would be embarrassed to be seen in public with most of these people. And that just goes to highlight that a lot of times people are living out of sync and misaligned with one of the big 3. So on that community one in particular, are you a fan of the idea that we are the average of the 5 people that we spend the most time with?

I mean, 100%. I'm also, I also believe that willpower is consumable. So putting yourself in an environment in which it takes a ton of willpower to not do what the community is doing is an extreme drain of energy. So look, a lot of people may have health of a core value. They may have that because they had a health issue or they had a parent that had a health issue. And so, you know, my example is, you know, if health is your priority and you're living in Newcastle, England, where everyone goes out to the bar at 2:30 every day, like, and that is the dominant form of socialization, you're gonna feel 2 things. One, you're not gonna go and you're gonna feel out of connection, or you're gonna go and try to not drink and, you know, not feel great, or you're gonna drink and then be like, I didn't wanna do this. So, you're just, being forced out of it. I'm in Park City this week. You should move to Park City. You should move to Boulder, where the socialization is all around, let's go hiking tonight, and let's do the pickleball club. And it goes to— there's towns, and the sort of fake town in the book, where if you're someone where your core values include all perspectives, and there's some towns where you better have a red sign or a blue sign in your yard. And if you're someone who likes to talk to people and you feel purpley, you know, and your town is all about like, which team are you on? Like, that's just not going to feel great. So I look, community, someone had asked me last time, you know, it may not, community has a lot of different forms. You can live certain places, you can join religious groups or otherwise, but most people move or they think about the different phases of their life. So that's the one that's hardest to maybe change overnight. But if you identify that there's a real misalignment, like as you do your long-term planning and that sort of thing, You know, you should pay attention to it because it's just, again, it's going to consume energy.

Yeah. And in the spirit of transparency with my audience, I think that I don't know if I've talked about this much in the past, but the, the place that I live, which is a suburb of Boston. Yeah. It's, it's cold for 6 months of the year. And so most people in Massachusetts are angry And they're spiteful and they're upset and it's dark and it's cold. And no wonder we have some of the most aggressive drivers in the country because—

Yeah.

Yeah, if you get cut off, you're just looking for a way to release that negative energy. And so, of course, you're gonna get the finger or something like that. And that's not the kind of energy that I like to be around. I love— now, Park City's not necessarily warm, but I love warmer environments where people are more active all year round and they're not using the weather as an excuse Excuse to be angry 24/7. And so my wife and I are talking about a move to a warmer climate, and that's one of the reasons.

Where, where do you live?

I live in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Okay. I live in Needham. Did we—

I don't know if we talked about this, but, uh, yeah, I guess we didn't.

But actually my answer to that is my family skis. And so in the winter we assimilate with the skiers who are happy when it's snowing and when it's whatever, and we go up to New Hampshire. And so you're right, rather than sitting around and stewing, but No, thank you for sharing that. Because look, it's a real thing. You want to be around in a place where people are doing what you want to do. And like I always say, we come out here to Park City a lot. I can hike in Needham. There are trails in Needham. I can go do that every day. But when it's not what the community is doing every day, it's a lot harder to do versus walk out the door here and 10 people are like, want to come hike? Want to go do this? We're going biking today. So, there's a culture to different communities.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. Talk to us about the partner one. I saw, I saw a video sometime recently where Naval Ravikant was talking about some of these big permanent decisions that we make in life. We require more time to make the decision, but most of us rush into decisions, even who we decide to be with. So talk to us about the partner one.

I'm going to say something I haven't said on a podcast or in general because it's a key, but it came up yesterday. after talking with 2 people who had gone through terrible divorces. And that is like, marriage is not a permanent decision. Having a child is a permanent decision. And in fact, the problem for some people is once they pass the marriage threshold, they don't rethink like, do I want to do this permanent thing with this person? And do we share values? So I don't think relationships can work if you have a real conflict of values. So because, because values come from such foundational formative things in life, it's like you're bringing different operating systems. And I think what I didn't understand in my 20s and 30s is that compatibility is not about, do we both play the same sports? Do we like the same music? You know, they have the same activities. Um, you know, when you start building a life with someone, what's our community? What's the values we want to imbue to our kids? These are the things like my wife and I are very different on the surface, different personalities, but we are always on the same page about about the big things. I think a lot of people get that backwards. They start being with someone because they see a lot of surface-level compatibility, and then the big issues come up. And so let's pretend just as an example, like, you know, there's 2 people in a relationship, and Sarah, you know, Sarah grew up in a family where there was never enough, you know, food on the table. And so she really believes in abundance, and there should be, you know, a lot. And, or let's Let's actually, sorry, different example. I'll match up these 2 'cause this is a real example I heard. Sarah's mom was told at 10 years old that she had a year to live and she lived 7 years. But for her entire teenage year, it was, there is no tomorrow and we only live for today, right? Then grew up with a dad who gambled a lot and spent stuff and basically always lived for today. And there was never a tomorrow or any forethought. We wanted to go to college, there was no money. So, so Sarah and Ben get married. Now, this is a particularly, and this is why awareness, this is gonna be a challenge. Sarah is going to be about living for today, and Ben is going to be about saving and planning for tomorrow in the long term. If this is one point of misalignment, they can probably work around this and they'll know on this issue, if they both have this awareness, can talk about it. Hey, you know what? You get to plan one vacation a year and I get to do one spontaneous one. And we try to, And as long as we save X amount of money, you can— okay, great. But imagine I come up with 4 different scenarios like this in which these people are on the opposite side. That's just really hard. Every day it's gonna be you and your partner come from the opposite viewpoint. I'm a saver, they're a spender. You know, I'm an exercise person, they're a lazy per— like, I, I, I, I, it's really hard. And, and, and I did this work with someone in a leadership capacity. a couple of months ago, and after we did their core values and I sort of repeated them, I just saw this weird look on her face. And I was like, because I was like, yeah, your value is X. And I was like, what's going on? I just saw that. And she's like, I knew she was going through a divorce. And she goes, my ex is the absolute opposite of these 2 core values. And my answer was, that's actually not surprising, and that's really hard. So look, awareness is the first step. With awareness, we can understand where we're running into these things. Um, but I guess the question is, is, are we a little off here? Or like, imagine flipping a magnet and it's an inverse and we come at everything from an inverse orientation, because I think that's really hard.

It is. Yeah. I'm fortunate in that I dove into this space of personal development and I found different ways to articulate my values before I met my now wife. And so I think that, I think that we were pretty clear on those things. And I knew and I understood that we needed to fully understand each other before we made this lifelong commitment. And you're right in that while a lot of people look compatible on the surface, they are not compatible behind the scenes. So interesting that you stated marriage is not permanent. Having a kid is permanent, but marriage is not permanent. And we'll see how the audience feels about that one. So everybody's welcome to comment their feelings down below.

Yeah, I mean, that's a, that, that That is a truth. But, uh, you know, I just— there's some people for whom the divorce isn't the problem. It's just they, they have kids now and their, their different orientation on the world is irreconcilable. And it's just— I, I feel bad for them. It's really, really hard watching it and, you know, listening to them on it. Yeah.

And we live in a society today where a lot of people do live at extremes, and we get sucked into those extremes because of social media, Or the news cycle. And so, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that people who never previously talked about politics end up getting married and find each other on completely opposite ends of the spectrum fighting every day about it, because that's now a very common thing to talk about.

Yeah. What's interesting though, and I don't want to get too far into the politics, is that our politics these days is very tribal. And I actually think why we are tribal is that we have lost the anchoring of our values where you could be— where you could say, you know what, like, that doesn't— I'm not joining Team X on that because I am consistently against that behavior. And so when you don't have values to anchor yourself in, you become very tribal. Behind these politics could be real, like, differences. But I actually think the problem is it's become more of this, you're on my team or not on my team, you know? And I see some incongruous stuff where people are like, look, we love and respect all people except these people. And you're like, that's not a consistent value. That's, that's, that's you getting pulled into tribalism. And I actually think you're twisting yourself into cognitive dissonance, not probably, you know, uh, you know, joining these different teams of things that are not congruous in your belief set.

I think you and I view things in a very similar way.

Yeah. So I, I, I believe people would be less political if they had clarity on their values and would carry those consistently, you know, across different facets of their life.

I think you're right. I think you're right. I find that my values sit across a spectrum that blends both of the major political parties within the US, and I'm not afraid to say that. But you're right in that most people are because they don't want to be kicked out of the tribe, right?

Yeah, it's dangerous.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay. We talked a little bit about partner. We talked a little bit about community. Talk to us about the third of the big 3, just giving the audience a preview for what they can learn in the book.

Well, there's 3 facets to this. I think as an employee, there is like, does— is the work you're doing aligned with your values? Is the vocation aligned with your values? If you're someone that's include all perspectives, you're going to want to find a job in which you're talking to a lot of people, gathering a lot of information, and You know, you probably want to be in marketing or customer service, not in a job where you're asked to go make unilateral decisions on your own, right? So it's matching up the job and then it's, hey, do my values, with the clarity of my values, match up to my company's actual values, not the stated values? And to me, that's what is being rewarded and what are the behaviors being rewarded? And realize that if those are out of alignment, it's probably unreconcilable.

Yeah.

The third piece of it is, I think, again, we all lead from our core values, whether we have awareness of them or not. So, if you're talking about wanting to be an authentic leader, if you had this language and you had a team and I had a trust core value, I would say, Nick, welcome to my team. Like, for me, trust is really important. And by the way, like, little asterisk, anyone, 90% of people who have trust as a core value or as a why had a major violation of trust in their childhood. 'Cause I've asked the— I don't ask what, I ask the question. I watch them go ashen face or a tear roll down. And I'm like, okay, so this is real for you. Like the signal that someone cannot be trusted is baked into you and you're a very trustworthy friend. You probably have a small group. The problem is if you go into a work situation and you don't know how to articulate that and say, look, trust is really important to me. And if you're late and you miss assignments and I can't find you, that trust is broken. When it's broken, it's really hard to get back. So if I feel distant, you should probably come have a conversation with me. That's very different from what I've seen, where someone doesn't have that awareness and they're driving HR crazy 'cause they're constantly just putting people in the penalty box. They either trust people or they don't trust people, but the team doesn't understand what's going on. And suddenly, Nick, you're in the penalty box, you're not getting any projects and you're not getting any, you know, whatever it is. And why? Because you've been late for 5 minutes, you know, every day. And so I'm like, Nick isn't trustworthy. I'm getting alarm signals. If I communicated that to you, that trust is important, you might come to me and be like, I've been 5 minutes every late. I don't want to tell you, but my wife and I are going through some tough times, and I'm actually— I moved out and I'm taking my kid to school, and that's when I'm late. Now this leader would be like, thank you for trusting me with this. We're like, we're all good. So I always say, like, you are leading from your values. The difference is you either have the steering wheel or you're the 16-and-a-half-year-old in the car getting your permit where the instructor has a second steering wheel and they're You know, jerking it around for you. So when when I do this work with leaders, what they normally do is they go back to their team and they're like, "Let me explain you to me. Let me give you the instruction manual because this is how I'm gonna lead." And and I think that's like really refreshing and empowering for people.

I do too. Yeah, my wheels are spinning. I mean, I'm the leader of a business, and I think that yeah, if if as an employee you see a big difference not only between how you operate and the company's core values, but also how the leader of your business. business is operating or the company's stated core values. Yeah, that, that's obviously a really big red flag too. So, uh, let's, let's rewind a little bit as we get close to the end of the show today, Robert, and talk to us about how do you even begin to think about articulating and discovering your core values? How do you inject more awareness into this subject if it's not something that you've really thought much about before?

So this is, this is in the book, and I encourage everyone to, to just do this basic first step where there are these 6 questions. That if you grab a cup of coffee and a half hour and answer these 6 questions on 6 pieces of paper, and we can talk about some of them. People are always trying to jot them down. So, I just put them, if you go to robertglazer.com/six, you'll just see the 6 questions right there. So, these are designed to kind of pick out these highs and lows in your life. And I think if you filled out, there's more, and then there's how do you distill that down and all that information. But one of them is a question, what kind of What kind of help and advice do people come to you for? What do you want said about you at your eulogy? How do you want people to talk about you? Interestingly, one of the true tests of a core value from my validators is that the inverse makes you really uncomfortable. The definition of a value is that when it's violated, it doesn't feel good. So, like, when you think about someone who— not someone specific, or maybe, but like, what's something, a behavior or something they really do that drives you crazy? And what's interesting, and When I asked a couple people I interviewed with this question, they'll start off with like, it goes like this. And I could have asked you and we could have did it, but now I'm already half pregnant on this. So they'll be like, you know what I really don't like? Or, you know what kind of bothers me? It kind of bothers me when people think they know more than— like, I really freaking hate when people think that they're better and then their face gets tight. And I'm like, okay, we're locked in here. So like, You know, and this one podcast host was talking about, I hate when people think they're better than each other. And he had this flashbulb memory to childhood about the neighbor basically telling his neighbor's dad, telling his friend, if you don't do better in school, you're going to end up like this contractor who's working at our house in earshot of the contractor. And what's interesting was, as an adult, he had designed all the organizations that he had been in to be non-hierarchical because He believed, you know, he believed, like he got there accidentally, but he had never articulated it in a way where, look, sometimes you need hierarchy. But what he now wanted to do was say, look, my core value is no one is better than anyone else. That's how we operate in my family. That's how we operate in my business. Yes, you might report, Nick might report to Steve, but like no one's better than anyone else. So there are these 6 questions and basically you take the answers to the questions, you start through the process, you synthesise them into themes. And then you run them through this validator test, which won't let you get away with like a one-word value that you can't make a decision on.

What role does AI play in this process for people as they work through it? Do you suggest that they journal into ChatGPT and then have it synthesize for them, or is it more valuable to do it manually?

Well, it can really help with the wording as you try to like solve it. I actually have taken the book, the course, all of my stuff, and trained it into a GPT. Because I, I, I— if the book has the impacts I want to have, I work with a lot of people. Companies will buy a thing and ask me to do a live session for them. And while I love doing those, it obviously doesn't scale. So I have been training my own GPT. So if you buy, if you, if you buy the book or take the course, you'll, you'll get sent that. And it has all the rubric in it, and it knows what good and bad is. And yes, it can be super helpful. I'm trying to make it As good as me, because as much as I love sitting with you and doing this for an hour, it's going to go real slow in the world if I have to do that every time. But you have to do the thinking for yourself because that's the emotional piece. I think AI can be helpful in terms of the wording and ideas and, and trying to apply it against the rubric. But rather than you having to dump all that in, I've, I've done it for you.

That is very helpful. Yeah, I love when people put constraints on top of a platform like ChatGPT and just allow us to pick your brain. So, thank you for that. Where can people go to get a copy of the book and to go through this process themselves?

Yeah. So, if you want the book and the course for free through launch, go to compass-within.com and you order the hardcover through next Friday. You scroll down the page, there's a form right there. You can order it from Amazon and just give us the order number and the receipt, uh, and we'll send you access to the course. Uh, if you wanna just play around with those 6 questions, again, you can do that at robertglazer.com/6. And all of my other courses and writing and books and everything are at robertglazer.com.

All right. Thank you so much. Final question for you today. If The Compass Within was deleted, but you could leave the world with just one simple message from the book, what would that be?

Understand what you value.

We'll end it there. Thank you, Robert. Great podcast today. That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.