Valuegraphics 101: Why people really care

What if everything you thought you knew about connecting with people was missing one key ingredient? 

Kara Mastel sits down with renowned human values expert David Allison, the founder of the Valuegraphics Project, to explore how understanding core human values—not just demographics—can revolutionize communication in agriculture and beyond. 

Fresh off his keynote at the Alberta Beef Industry Conference, David shares how values like financial security, personal growth, and happiness are the real drivers behind public support and behavior. 

With practical examples and a compelling look at how values-based storytelling can shape perception and build industry allies, this episode is a powerful playbook for beef producers—and anyone—looking to truly connect with audiences.

Listen For:

01:27 – What Are Valuegraphics?

08:56 – Beef = Financial Stability? Let’s Talk Economics

17:43 – Talk About What Works: The Three-Value Rule

28:31 – Demographics Reinforce Stereotypes—Here’s the Fix

GUEST: David Allison

Website | LinkedIn 

David Allison is a human values expert, CEO of a global research firm, and 2X best-selling author. As the founder of the Valuegraphics Project, he created the first global inventory of core human values, transforming them into measurable data. David helps major brands like PayPal, Google, and the United Nations Foundation connect with people by honouring their values.

His work is featured in college textbooks and prominent publications like Harvard Business Review and Forbes. His latest book, The Death of Demographics, has been praised as "convincing, insightful, and revolutionary."

CONNECT WITH HOST: KARA MASTEL 

Email | Website | LinkedIn | Phone 

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Chapters

• 1:27 What Are Valuegraphics?
• 8:56 Beef = Financial Stability? Let’s Talk Economics
• 17:43 Talk About What Works: The Three-Value Rule
• 28:31 Demographics Reinforce Stereotypes—Here’s the Fix

Transcript

Kara Mastel (00:09):

Welcome to another episode of the Bovine podcast, brought to you by Alberta Beef Producers. I'm your host, Kara Mastell, and as always, happy to be here. The first few months of the calendar year often end up being busy for conferences across North America and the Alberta beef industry is no exception. In today's episode, I'm joined by David Allison, who is a keynote speaker at the recent Alberta Beef Industry Conference held in Calgary, Alberta. David is a renowned human values expert, CEO of a global research firm, two time bestselling author and the founder of the Value Graphics Project. David's groundbreaking work focuses on transforming our understanding of ourselves, the people around us, and those we aim to engage with our professional lives through the Value Graphics project, the first global inventory of core human values. David has revolutionized the way we measure and interpret human values, providing invaluable insights for some of the world's biggest brands, including PayPal, five Star School supplies, United Nations Foundation, and Google. David, welcome to the bovine.

David Allison (01:14):

Thanks for having me over. I'm really happy to be here.

Kara Mastel (01:17):

Absolutely. Okay, so let's start, as I mentioned, founder of the Value Graphics Project. Let's talk a bit about what Value Graphics project is and how did it come about?

David Allison (01:27):

It's actually quite simple. I was in marketing for a very long time, and in marketing like any other part of the business world, including what producers are doing or people who are in journalism, first thing you do when you're trying to figure out what's going on and what your job is today is you figure out who you're trying to talk to, what do we know about them? And so we use demographics and we use psychographics to do that. Demographics, we're all familiar with age, income, gender and marital status, number of kids, all that kind of stuff. Psychographics is all the other things we know about them. They're likes, wants, needs, emotions, all that kind of stuff. And both of those tools are useful for certain things, but what neither one of them does is tell us how do we get people to do the thing we want them to do next?

(02:14):

How do we engage people and influence their behavior and their emotions and their decisions and the way they think about the world? To do that, you need to know what their values are because there's certain neurological pathways that fire up when we give people options that align with their values, they will gravitate towards that and they'll move in that direction every single time. 100% of the time don't even know they're doing it half the time. But that's how we make decisions as humans is which option, in any case, aligns with our values. So we've invented this thing called value graphics so that we can add that to the stack with demographics and psychographics, and instead of just knowing who people are demographically and what they did yesterday and how they feel about stuff, we can also say, here's the things you need to do to get those folks to do the things you want 'em to do next. So it's a whole new way of looking at groups of people and understanding what buttons you need to push to move the needle in the right direction.

Kara Mastel (03:12):

Super interesting. Yeah, we're complex as humans and it's more than just hitting the demographic.

David Allison (03:19):

Yeah, absolutely. And you know what demographics, when you think about it, well, not just when you think about it, our data backs this up. We've done a million surveys around the world now, but let's say Gen Z, everybody's running around right now talking about, Hey, gen Z wants this and Gen Z wants that. You know what? In the United States and Canada, there's something like 90 million Gen Z and you're trying to tell me they all want the same things and they're all going to gravitate towards the same thing and the same stuff. It just makes no sense. And so let's say we talk about Gen Z women. Let's put a thousand Gen Z women in a room together. How similar do you think they're going to be? They're going to be all over the place and you can keep going. Gen Z women who have a bachelor's degree and earn a hundred thousand dollars a year, put a thousand of them in the room.

(04:04):

How similar do you think they're going to be? There's still going to be all kinds of different people in that room, but in that room now, if I told you that one thing we know for sure with data is that they're all driven by anything that gives them more, let's say health and wellbeing, well suddenly you know what to say to them. You know how to get that room of a thousand Gen Z women who earn a hundred thousand dollars a year and have a BA to come along for the ride, whatever it is you're trying to convince them to do because you just frame it up around health and wellbeing and they're all going to go, wow, that's like they've been reading my diary. Of course I'm going to go do that thing. So it's the missing link. We've been trying to figure this out for the longest time and saying to ourselves, it's got to be in the demographics. It's got to be something about when you were born or what gender you are or how much money you earn, or something like that, because we didn't have any other way of really doing it, and now we do.

Kara Mastel (05:06):

So I mean we're talking, I'm hearing you mention human values, things like that. How do we differentiate what human values are and what's just personality? What is something that makes my personality and what is something I actually value?

David Allison (05:21):

So your personality will be an outcropping or it will be determined by your values. So your values are the building blocks that we all have inside us for everything that we do, all of our decisions, emotions, reactions, behaviors, our likes, our wants, our needs. Everything starts with our values, and you get your values when you're very young, late childhood, early adolescence. It's a process the sociologists refer to as socialization. So you go through this process and it's like whoever's the most important influential people in your life at that moment of human development, you imprint their values might be parents or your best friend's parent and a teacher and who knows is different for everybody. You get a set of values and then from that moment on, they're locked and those are your values for the rest of your life and everything that happens to you, even if it is an extreme difference from what happened to you yesterday, you form your basis for how am I going to behave?

(06:19):

This is like your GPS system. You go, okay, well, given that this is what's going on now, I'm going to behave this way, I'm going to do that thing, I'm going to believe this, I'm going to be upset, I'm going to be happy, whatever, based on how it aligns with your values. So it really is, that's a great way to think about, it's the GPS system for human brains. And so what we've done with value graphics is now we can look at a whole group of people and say, what values do they have in common? If you know that you know how they're all processing the world, which buttons are going to work for all of them, and you just talk about whatever it is you're trying to get them to do based on those values and the whole room, that metaphorical room of a thousand Gen Z women who are not a thousand dollars a year and have a ba, they're all going to go, oh, that sounds like a really great idea. Let's go do that thing, or let's believe that, or let's get excited about that thing. It's pretty cool.

Kara Mastel (07:13):

You've done some research into shared values that unite Albertan specifically, what are some of these shared values? What have you found?

David Allison (07:21):

Okay, so I'm going to tell you about three of them, but before that, if it's okay, I just want to set up why you should be listening to this

(07:28):

Because right now in the Alberta beef industry, in the beef industry across the country, in fact, I'm sure this podcast will be listened to for a very long time, but I know at this exact moment while we're recording it right now, we're under threat. The Americans are, well, not the Americans, one American in particular is doing some pretty crazy stuff, and we're all a little freaked out about what's going to be the future of this industry as are many other industries. So what we need to do right now as an industry, see, look at how much I've enjoyed working with the beef industry. I'm saying what we need to do right now is convince everybody else who's not in our industry, how important our industry is. We need as much support as possible. So what we've done is profile Albertans who are not involved in the beef industry whatsoever in any way, shape or form, so that we know how to talk to them and get them on side with how vital and important this industry is to the future of this province and the future of our families, the future of our communities, and the future of this country.

(08:34):

So if we use these three values I'm about to share with you, we'll be able to do that because these are the values they all have in common and that they're all listening for when they wake up every morning and running around trying to find things that align with their values. If we show them how the beef industry aligns with these values, they're going to be like, yep, that makes perfect sense to me. Of course, I'm behind this industry, so this is turning into a lecture. Sorry, you asked one simple question.

Kara Mastel (08:56):

There we go. No, it's great.

David Allison (08:59):

So the first value is financial security. Now, every value has a slightly different definition depending on which audience we've profiled with our database, and in this case, financial security is about long-term stability. So Albertans will gravitate to anything that shows them that it's going to give them more long-term stability around their financial situation, not about short-term stuff. It's not about saving for the future, it's not about, it's all about long-term stability. Don't want this boat to rock one little bit. We want a steady, steady as she goes around financial security. So we got to tell the story of the beef industry in a way that shows and proves that it contributes to the long-term financial stability of our provinces, our province, our communities, our cities, our towns, our villages. We now talk to them about beef means business, that this is not just about ranching and feedlots, but it's also about agricultural equipment and it's about the folks who work in the fields.

(10:02):

There's trucking and vets and processing plants and equipment suppliers and small businesses across Alberta. And without this generations old industry here in this province, if we don't continue to support it during these tumultuous times, we're not going to have the financial stability long-term that we would like to have. So making sure in the way we talk, if you are listening and you have some responsibility for speaking on behalf of the industry in any way, shape or form, however you can tie it back to long-term financial stability will be magically attractive to everybody else in the province, urban and rural. By the way, this sample that we put together, and even in an individual basis, if you're just sitting around in a restaurant or a coffee shop or a bar with your friends and they're not in the beef industry and they start talking about what's going on, bring it up and say, this beef industry that I'm involved in, the financial stability that it brings to this province is you can't even begin to understand.

(10:59):

So we can do it in small ways like that one at a time, and we can also do it in large ways if we're responsible like you are my friend, for telling stories through the media, the more we can beat on that particular drum, the better. So the second one is personal growth, and this kind of personal growth specific nuances for this particular audience is about just constantly striving to be better all the time in every way possible. So how do we tell the beef story in a way that's about this constant innovation and change and forward momentum around all the different things that people are concerned about, animal welfare and environmentalism, and back to financial stability and new farming techniques and the way we're making the product healthier and healthier and healthier all the time, and just this nonstop forward moving growth. So that's the second narrative we need to be focused in on. We've got financial long-term stability of the beef industry. Talk about that as much as we can talk about how it's constantly innovating and changing and moving forward and getting better every single day.

Kara Mastel (12:03):

We talk about this all the time in this industry is how do we tell our story? How do we educate on it's constant? We're like, how do we tell our story to the urban audiences, to anyone? And any advice there? How do we tell our story?

David Allison (12:18):

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm telling you that of all the things you could say, make them about these three things and everybody's going to pay attention If it's not about these three things, don't bother because you're just talking into an empty room. You're just yelling into an empty hallway. If you make everything you want to say about these three things, people will sit up and pay attention and listen. So I mean, if you're looking for a specific thing, personal growth, I used to be, back in the day I was an advertising copywriter. So I think about things in terms of slogans.

(12:52):

So the slogan that comes into my head when I think about this particular storyline and this narrative is better beef every day. It's just like everything's always getting better. We are an example for other industries of how to constantly be innovating and progressing and moving forward, and that's going to resonate with Albertans. They're going to be like, oh yeah, we like things that move forward and get better every day. We don't like to be stagnant. We don't like to go backwards. We want to move forwards. We want to get better in our own lives and in the lives of the people around us and in our communities. The beef making that happen. I love the beef industry. It's hard for me to answer your question with a direct example, unless we have a direct example. If we're talking about, and maybe when we're finished, if you want to throw a direct example at me, I can help you figure out how you'd frame it up.

(13:39):

But lemme move on to the third one. Really, I think of the three, the most interesting one. So people in Alberta more than anywhere else who are not involved in the beef industry, they overindex on a value we call possessions. They like their stuff, they like things, but particularly remember, each one of these values has its own specific definition in each individual case, and in this case, it's about stuff that makes them happy. So I know that this has been a constant sort of marketing thrust within the beef industry. Beef is the not what you're selling. What you're selling is happy. This is the stuff that you have at the backyard barbecue when you're with your friends in the summer and you're on vacation and you just cracked open that beautiful, icy, crisp beer, and you get to have a great big steak on the barbecue and it makes you smile and think about how great life is. It's a happiness tool. It's an object, a thing you can possess. You can go buy it at the store, but you're not buying that. What you're buying is the promise of happiness. It's date night, you're going out to the fancy restaurant. What are you going to order? Salad

Kara Mastel (14:50):

Steak,

David Allison (14:51):

You're going to order a steak and a little bit of a surf and turf, and you're going to have a beautiful glass of red wine with that. It makes you happy. It's a celebratory thing.

(15:00):

So if you wrap these three things up and think about them in terms of how can I tell every single story I want to tell to the folks who aren't in the beef industry, making it about this stuff makes you happy. This stuff is good for the financial stability of our province and our towns and our communities and the folks in your backyard, my friend. And this stuff is always changing and getting better and innovating and moving forward and being creative and thinking about bold new thoughts and ways to be even better tomorrow than it was today. Now, I'll just wrap up there for a second and say that none of those three things sounds revolutionary. There's storylines I've heard in the beef industry and in other agricultural sectors before, but what's different is of all the storylines you could possibly be telling, now we know for sure these are the three that work. So we don't need to guess. We say, wow, I don't know. Maybe we could tell the story about this stuff makes you happy. Well, yes, do that. That one's going to work. We have hundreds of millions of data points in the dataset that proves that that's the one you need to focus on. Happiness, long-term financial stability and constant innovation and growth.

Kara Mastel (16:07):

Was it just happiness that came up in there? Is that the main kind of emotional driver there when people are thinking of Alberta beef?

David Allison (16:15):

Well, happiness is the definition of the value of possessions because there's all kinds of possessions. So possessions for some people are about experiences, and for some people, possessions are about status. And for some people, possessions are about a hundred different. Other things. For these folks that we're trying to engage and influence and inspire about the Alberta beef industry, the possessions they're interested in are the ones that bring them happiness. So positioning the product as a thing that will make you happy. That's the answer one. All three of these are equally powerful. So it depends on who you're talking to, what the setting is, what the circumstances are. You're trying to do this on a website, you're doing this one-on-one, or you're giving a speech, you're talking to your team or you who depends on all those things, but use these three themes as tools, as tools in the toolbox.

(17:06):

And so every time you're about to tell a story to somebody who's not already in the industry, sit back and go, okay, well this time I'm going to frame it up around happiness. This time I'm going to frame it up around constant innovation and growth. And this time I'm going to frame it up around long-term financial stability. And if you just stick to those three themes of everybody in the industry, every time they open their mouths says something about those three things, you're going to have the entire province, Alberta having parades for you and saying, this is the most amazing thing we have to somebody save the beef industry. We have to be on side with the beef industry. You'll get so many fans pushed by pushing those three buttons.

Kara Mastel (17:43):

What challenges do you see when it comes to aligning the beef industry and maybe the values of Albertans?

David Allison (17:49):

Give me an example.

Kara Mastel (17:52):

Well, I don't know if I have a specific example, but I guess I'm just wondering if what you would see as, I mean, I know we see a big push right now, like you said, with animal rights or veganism or things like that. How do we change that messaging or educate maybe the naysayer towards Alberta beef?

David Allison (18:11):

Right, okay, so that's a basic communications question, and here's my response to every group we work with everywhere in the world, there are some people who are on your side. There are some people who are absolutely not your friends. You're never going to get them on your side. Don't waste your breath. Let them go and do whatever it is they want to do. Who you should be focused on are the ones in the middle. We call 'em the fence sitters. The ones who are like, eh, I don't really know. I mean, yeah, maybe it's a good thing. I like a steak every now and then, but maybe it's a bad thing. I don't know. Those are the ones you can get them. If you think about them as fence sitters, if you talk to them around everything around these three values, these three buttons you push, those folks will fall off the fence in the right direction. They're going to end up coming onto your side. Forget about the ones who are absolutely anti beef. They're full on vegan believers. Good for them, good for you. You're not going to change their mind, so don't try. Just leave 'em alone. Go for the ones in the middle where you have a chance of changing their opinion and getting them to see things from your perspective.

Kara Mastel (19:17):

Okay, so you're talking about shaping conversations and stories and how this resonates with diverse audiences. Any examples of how this has maybe worked in other industries for you?

David Allison (19:28):

Oh yeah, some really cool ones. Let me tell you this story. About two years ago, I guess I got asked to come and I do a lot of public speaking on stages all the time, and I got asked to come to a big giant global conference of people who employ the blue collar trades. So they have their employees, their workforces, carpenters, electricians, drywallers, HVAC folks, all that kind of stuff. And I'm going to use the word guys a lot here. That industry is still primarily guys. It's starting to change a little bit, but it's primarily guys. So what they asked me to talk about is how do we get more people to come into the blue collar trades? Like many industries, they're having a hard time recruiting enough folks. There is a talent shortage. So they're trying to talk to people and say, you should consider this.

(20:11):

So we went and did our study, got up on stage, and I said, okay, here's one value that you can use that you're not using really well right now. And it's the value of service to others in the United States of America. The value of service to others for the general population is way low on the list. Not a super important value, but for people who are considering a career in the blue collar trades, it's in their top 10. It's a super important value. So I got up on stage and I said amongst a whole bunch of other things, I said, listen, you're saying a whole lot of good stuff to these guys that you're trying to convince to come and join your industry. You're telling them that they'll make more money, that they're going to have a stable job, that they don't have to be on shift work at the bar, the restaurant, the grocery store where they're probably working right now.

(20:53):

Maybe this is their chance to settle down and start a family and have more regular no weekends work nine to five. But what you're not saying that they're aching to hear is that this is your chance to make a difference in people's lives and to give them a warm, safe, comfortable environment to bring up their kids and go to school and go to work, and all those sorts of things we like to do inside spaces where we need the blue collar trace to make sure everything's working the way it's supposed to work. This is your chance to be in a helping profession. You're not saying that. So I finish, I get down off stage, and there's always a few people who want to come over and say hi, and tell me something. And this guy comes over and he says, listen. He says, I've got seven offices in seven cities across the southern United States, and in each office there's a fleet of vans that goes out on service calls every day.

(21:46):

And in each fleet of vans, there's one that we've painted pink because all the money from that pink van every day goes to fund breast cancer research. Because my wife and he had a story about why they, and I said, my friend, you've just made my day. That's fantastic. You found the value of service to other, you didn't need to come to my keynote today. And he said, well, actually, that's not the story. He said, oh, what's the story? He said, the story is that every day in every one of those offices, my guys, they fight over who gets to be in the pink fan because they want so desperately to be helping people. I said, wow, what a great story. Now if you had sat down and said, okay, what is it going to take to get more people excited about coming to work?

(22:26):

Get them engaged, get people to come and work in the blue collar trades, would you have ever got to pink Vans? Never. But once you understand that service to others is a value they share, they're fighting over it, they're fighting over it. So that's what we've done here for the Alberta beef industry. We've said there's all kinds of things. You can sit around and say, well, I think we should talk about this. I think we should talk about that. Cool. But if you want 'em to fight for you, talk to them about how this is about happiness, long-term financial stability, and about continual evolution and growth and technological advancements and innovation. If you talk about those stuff, those are your pink van moments. Those are the ways to get Albertans to go, wow, this is really important to who we are and what we do and how we live our lives.

Kara Mastel (23:14):

I like that. A pink van moment.

David Allison (23:16):

Yeah.

Kara Mastel (23:18):

Any interesting conversations like that at the Alberta Beef Industry Conference that you learned? Any cool stories from beef producers?

David Allison (23:27):

I didn't get specific anecdotal stories from people, but I had people coming up to me afterwards and saying, wow, I didn't know where you were going with this when you started, but you've changed the way I think about things. Cool. So as a speaker, that's the biggest compliment you can get. There were a whole bunch of students there from Lakeland College who are studying to become part of the beef industry, and one of their instructors reached out, and he wants me to come and talk to the students at Lakeland College. He's like, they were all so over your message, they just couldn't, so can you come and talk to us at the school? So there was a lot of really positive reception from folks who were just, it happens not just the beef industry, but every time I speak, people are just kind of gobsmacked. They're like, this makes so much sense. I would never have thought about this, but here we are.

Kara Mastel (24:22):

So we're looking at human-centric insights in the field of it. How do you see that growing? How do you see that changing over the next while

David Allison (24:31):

Human-centric insights are going to become more and more and more important, we're moving into a period of time in human evolution where technology is speeding up at rates that we can't even get our heads around. Think about ai, think about the changes that that's bringing, how rapidly those changes are happening and how AI at this moment, it's at the dot matrix printer stage of its development. It's a primitive tool right now, and it's already rocking and rolling our world. Imagine when it gets to the laser printed, Bluetooth controlled stage of its development. It's going to be, we can't even imagine what it's going to be bringing into the world. But as that happens, we have to also remember that it's people using these things for the benefit of people. And if we don't understand the human side of these technological advancements, if we don't understand how to make this stuff work for humans, then what are we doing it for?

(25:29):

And to make it work for humans, we need to understand what humans care about. So for that reason, also for the political divisiveness that's going on in the world right now for the ideological divisiveness that's going on in the world right now, the only way for us to, lemme back that one up a bit. History has proven that doubling down on what makes us different is not a way to solve any of our problems. It's never going to solve any problems. The only way for us to ever solve any of our problems or the divisiveness in this world right now, is for us to realize what we have in common is to figure out where we can hold hands and agree. And then from there, start talking about the things we don't agree on. But first, we have to get to common ground. And the common ground we all have as humans all around this planet is we have some shared values.

(26:24):

So if we can use shared values as a way, and I get called to speak on this and consult on this all the time these days, how do we find the shared values between these two sides that are fighting around? It's not just politics in the us, it's things going on inside companies, inside industrial sectors. There's lots of fights. But if you can solve those fights by starting with the places we agree, then we have a chance of actually coming to some kind of resolution that's going to work for both sides. But yeah, and on and on and on. I can't see any situation that we're facing right now, the environment, the planet's falling, falling apart around us. We need to learn how to change our behaviors and quickly or it's just going to explode. Well, how do you get everybody to change their behavior?

(27:10):

You got to show 'em how it relates to their values. You look at what's going on in terms of the world of work right now, getting employees to come back to the office or adopt some new hybrid schedule and think about new ways of working with each other and all the turmoil and the engagement issues, and people who are just checking out and not just phoning it in and not really doing their jobs, and people are quitting companies and the churn rates. All of this turmoil around what does it mean to work today? Well, what's the solution to that? Understand what people care about, figure out what their values are, and then reorient the world of work in a way that aligns with people's values. And then be like, okay, cool. Well, you got it. You got it figured out. Now I'm back into my job.

(27:53):

I love doing what I'm doing. So there isn't a single thing going on in the world today that can't be aided by understanding what people care about. And now that we can do that with data, I think the potential here is for this to be an enormously powerful and important tool. And that's what my mission in life is, is to convince as many people as possible to start using values to understand each other instead of these outdated ideas about demo. Like all women, like Pink and Gen Z are all like this. And millennials, remember the millennials were eating all the avocado toast. The stereotypical stuff is nonsense.

Kara Mastel (28:31):

They were eating a lot of avocado toast though.

David Allison (28:33):

They were eating a lot of avocado toast. But avocado toast is amazing. I love it. And I'm a baby boomer, so they can't have that. It's not theirs. We can all have avocado toast this way of thinking about each other and the people we're trying to engage and motivate with our work, it's way more powerful than the old fashioned ways of doing things based on demographic stereotypes and past behaviors and all that stuff. That's all gone a place still. But nothing is as powerful as understanding how people are going to decide to do the next thing they're going to do and then using that information. So that's cool. But if we don't do this, that means we're going to continue using demographics to try and understand each other. And you and I have been laughing a little bit about how these demographic stereotypes are so stupid, but they're also not just stupid.

(29:15):

They don't work. They're inaccurate, they're inefficient. We're wasting our time and money if we use them. And they reinforce stereotypes because if you think to yourself that, okay, the folks I'm trying to engage right now, and it's like say this audience of people, the stakeholder group, there's 73% female. What do you do with that except leap to a stereotype and say, well, I guess it should be pink because women all like pink. And if you don't think it's happening, look in the toy stores at the pink toys and the blue toys. I mean, it's everywhere. We use stereotypes because we don't have a choice. What else have we got? And those stereotypes as bizarre and weird as sometimes they are, like as a baby boomer, apparently, I don't like any technology. And if you could see my desk right now, I'm surrounded by high tech stuff.

(30:01):

My life is all about technology. Those stereotypes, the worst part of them is that they're the fuel. They're the logs that are burning underneath things like sexism and ageism and racism and homophobia and ableism and classism, and all of these problems we're grappling with. I think all of us, no matter where you are in the political spectrum, can agree that these kinds of problems, they're not good. We should get rid of them. But what we keep doing every day is using demographics to understand people, and that just fuels the fire because it just makes us use stereotypes. So here's the big finish. If we could all just stop it, if we could all just use values to understand each other, what's inside our hearts instead of what color our skin is or who we love, or how much money we make or any of those other things, start thinking about other people and ourselves based on what's in our hearts. Well, we can make the world a better place. We can do better at work, better for ourselves, make more money, and at the same time build a world where we can see ourselves in each other and the divisiveness goes away and some of those social problems start to get solved. So there's lots of good reasons to be changing the way we think about each other, because if we change the way we think about each other, we can change the world. We really can.

Kara Mastel (31:24):

And I think it's not just a matter of looking at what other people care about. It's caring enough too yourself to recognize that it's important to look at what people's values are.

David Allison (31:35):

Yeah, absolutely. You got to start with yourself. If you just wake up every morning and say, okay, you know what? I am a values driven being my brain. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you're running around all day, making every little decision, whether you know you're doing it or not, what sweater you wear, how you're driving to work today, what you're having for lunch, who you're going to marry, what your job's going to be, where are you going on vacation? Everything is determined by the choice that aligns best with your values. So as soon as you start seeing yourself that way, you'll start to see why, oh, you know why I'm behaving this way of my values. You know why this is upsetting me so much because of my values. You start to see yourself like that, and then it forces you to see everybody else around you in the same way.

(32:20):

And as soon as you start looking at the whole world based on wow, everybody's just running around trying to find things that align with their values, the whole world starts to make so much more sense, and you can see why people are behaving the way they're behaving. You want to point to our friends in the United States right now, and again, just regardless of what side of the political spectrum you're on, why are people doing the things they're doing? Why are they behaving in ways they've never behaved before? Well, if you track it back and say something about what they're doing is aligned with their values, and if you can figure that out, you can give them other ways to behave that align with their values so they don't do those things and they do the things you'd like them to do. It's super powerful.

Kara Mastel (33:02):

Wow. Yeah, I could absolutely talk about this all day, but I know you have a very busy schedule, so I'm going to let you go. But I appreciate you very much for joining the Beau Wine today, and I know the beef industry is very happy that you are here to speak for us.

David Allison (33:15):

Thank you. Thanks for having me over. And yeah, values are the answer, and we just have to put 'em to work.

Kara Mastel (33:31):

Okay. This is seriously why I love podcasts. I love that I can go from talking about specific health and production issues to the broader scope of how humans behave. And of course, everything in between. This podcast covers so many different ideas and topics, and I just appreciate being your host so much. So thank you, of course, for listening. And remember, if you have something you'd like to listen to further, reach out with your idea. Even if you're not entirely sure how it may fit into the agricultural industry, you never know. If I can find a spot to make it work, I'll be happy to chase it for an upcoming episode of The Bovine. So you can send that as well as any questions or feedback you may have to kara m@albertabeef.org. Also, I just wanted to say, I know this time of the year can be very busy, whether it's calving seating or simply getting your yard ready for another season of sunshine, or maybe you're just trying to keep everyone fed, which is no small task on its own.

(34:34):

Please be safe out there. Make sure to slow down when you can, and don't only give your body some relaxing time, but also your brain, if you're stuck on the tractor, get out of the tractor. Do a walk around. It is amazing what a couple breaths of fresh air can do and to keep you rejuvenated for the day. And of course, lots and lots of coffee. If you're a coffee drinker that is, and hey, maybe you want to share some of that coffee with your neighbor head on over to your neighbor's house, it's amazing also what a little socialization can do too. Until next time, thanks for tuning into the Bovine. Stay safe and don't let that spring wind blow you away. Bye for now.