Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence

Borrowing Beliefs? Try Writing Your Own Values

• Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence • Episode 3

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John and Josh explore why clear personal values make hard decisions simple and how to align daily behavior with what matters. John shares the pitfalls of borrowed values, how safety and fear and recognizing what you can control play a roll in getting started, and an exercise to define, score, and live your core beliefs.

  • Email us: awesomelifenotes@gmail.com
  • Learn more about John: JohnSpence.com
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About John Spence: John is a globally recognized business thought leader, former owner/CEO of five companies, and advisor/coach to organizations from startups to the Fortune 10. He’s lectured at more than 90 universities and was named by the American Management Association as one of “America’s Top 50 Leaders to Watch.”

About the show: Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence focuses on personal growth, happiness, clarity, and the everyday habits that compound into an AWESOME life.

Credits: Hosts John Spence and Josh Wilson • Produced by Josh Wilson for Familiar Wilsons Media • Special thanks: Amanda Wilson (writing and production), and Domingo Jimenez (writing and marketing).

SPEAKER_01:

This is a familiar Wilsons Media Production. John Spence is recognized as one of the foremost business thought leaders in the world, a global top 100 business thinker and advisor to companies from startups to the Fortune 10. But it didn't start that way. In college, John hit rock bottom, kicked out of one university and rejected by another. That's when he made a decision to change his attitude and take a systematic approach to building the life he wanted. Through hard work and relentless learning, he went on to create a life full of meaning, joy, and connection. I'm Josh Wilson, and this is Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. We invite you to join us in conversation as John shares with us the lessons, habits, and tools that he used and that you can use to build an awesome life. Welcome to Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. I'm Josh Wilson. And I, surprisingly enough, am John Spence.

SPEAKER_00:

In the title, you know, what the heck?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, the next time we do this, I think that I should start by saying, Welcome to Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. I'm John Spence. Just like I am Spartagus. All right. So today let's talk about values. That's the foundational stuff that undergirds who we are and what we believe. And I'm excited to talk to you about this today because to me, this is the secret sauce. This is where everything begins. Now, your primary venue is the business world and the idea that every company needs a set of values that's taken as given. But here's my question to you: Is there a difference between how one approaches business values and how one approaches life values?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I as you were describing that, I thought of something. No, there isn't because most organizations don't live their values.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, sure.

SPEAKER_00:

And most people don't either, or many people. I don't like to say most. I don't want to generalize. Nobody lives their values. Yeah. No, now that you say it, it's like, is it on the walls or do you live it?

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But but you know, companies like we must have a value statement. I don't know that every person goes, I must have a value statement. Um, actually, I can back that up. And I'm I'm extremely excited about this episode upside, but mostly I'm just excited to see you. But uh, I mean who would be? Uh but this is a topic that, like you said, I think it's a secret sauce. Uh and you're gonna hear me, we've gonna bounce back and forth between business stuff. I've been teaching a class at the Wharton School of Business uh to very high financial level people for about 25 years, and I've been honored to teach this class there a little bit. And I always start the class with the same question. And I get about a hundred very senior executives in my programs. How many of you currently have a written list of your personal core values that you use to live your life by on a daily basis and to make all the major decisions in your life? I've been asking this for 20 years, a hundred people in a in an average group of a hundred people. How many people raise their hand?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I know the answer to this because we've talked about it. Oh, but it still shocks me. So go ahead, uh, hit me. How many?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's one or two, two at the most. Jeez. Um, so I've got ninety-eight people in there who are supposed to be successful, uh, who have who have never taken time to sit down and think about what do I truly value in my life? What's what's the most important things that are the highest priorities that I should use? You know, when I I've got a Walt Disney quote I love. When values are clear, decisions are easy. When you deeply understand what's most important to you, even the most challenging decisions become easy to do and obvious. Does it match my values or does it not? It's pretty pretty binary there. Um, so the first exercise I do when I have them, and and you know, we've mentioned I teach this to high school kids to Fortune 10. Uh first same first exercise. I ask people to write their top five personal core values. Uh in priority order if they can do it, but not necessary. Uh, I would say that out of a hundred people, 20 stare at the sheet and never write a thing. Never write anything. And I give them 20 minutes to do this. Nothing. They just stare at the sheet. I'd say, and you know, I'm great because I'm gonna go another 30, another 50, it'll add up to 125, you know, uh 100 percent, 125%. But another large portion will write one or two and then stop writing. Uh the other ones will will struggle through it, uh, and though and the one or two people just write it down in two seconds.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So we'll get that. And then I take it a level further. I said, okay, then I'd like every one of you to rate on a scale of one to ten how well you currently live those values in your life. You know, ten is I'm the Buddha. You know, I am a shining example. If someone off the street met me, they would immediately know what my values are. I live them 100% every day, all the way down to one, which is I wrote it down here, but I've never actually done that. Um, I would say a fairly large portion of the group is at five or below.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I'll tell one more story and then you can ask me some questions. I'm going on long on this one. But years ago, I had a woman in Atlanta, uh, senior executive at a different at a large company, and we were doing this. And as I was asking them to score, she started to cry. And I don't mean to like, I'm like tears running down her face. I thought she was having an I literally thought she was having a breakdown or something. And I asked her, Are you okay? What's wrong? She goes, I put faith and family as my top two. Faith, I haven't been to church in five years, and I only see my kids like 15 minutes a day. I no wonder, and this is no wonder I'm so unhappy. No wonder I'm so stressed. No wonder I have so much anxiety. Um, I'm happy to report that several months later she sent me an email and said, I take my family to church every weekend now, and we have two nights a week. That's family dinner. We put away all electronics, we do, we hang out, we talk, we talk about what we learn. Uh, and she said, My life is completely turned around. I'm a completely different person. I see that a lot where people look at it and say, I like companies, we say we value this, uh, but they look at it and go, they realize I'm not living this at all. So let me stop there and you can ask some more questions. I I had to get both of those stories in.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, no, no. I'm glad you did. But let me ask you, when was the last time that you felt that there was an appreciable gap between your chosen values and your lived values? Me personally? Yeah, you, Spartacus. I can't remember. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, I I honesty, health, love, laughter, learning, contribution. Those are mine. Oh, wait, say those slower, those are your values? Honesty, health, love, laughter, learning contribution. I would say the let's do this. Uh about 10 years ago, this is a great one. Health was not on my list.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I'd been very healthy my whole life, played sports, did weight, you know, heavy power lifting and stuff. And then I got in a car wreck and I gained about a hundred pounds.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I'm already a fairly big guy. I was up over 340 pounds. And I was definitely not living my value. Well, I actually health wasn't a value then. Um, and then a couple things happened. I realized it needed to be, put it on there, and then one of my really close friends, uh, very close friend, called me and said, I have signed you up to be the keynote speaker at the American Heart Association's Heart Healthy CEO conference with 700 CEOs.

SPEAKER_01:

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm like, I'm going to kill you.

SPEAKER_01:

He's either a really good friend or someone really out to get you.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, I was like, you know, this is death. I this is not funny. I'm not, he goes, We already put your fat picture on the poster and we're selling tickets. Jeez. So I show up there and I'm standing in front, and a lot of the people are people I know. And I was standing up there and I looked up and I said, I can't do this. I'm completely out of integrity with my values. Um, I can't, I will talk about something else, but I cannot talk about being heart healthy today. But I will come back next year and I will be a hundred pounds lighter. Then I will talk to you about heart healthy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I didn't make a hundred, I made 88.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I've now passed 100 and kept on it. And my friend checks on me all the time, you know, asked me to take a picture of the scale. You know, what are you doing now? Uh, he doesn't know I have one foot on the toilet. I'm trying to educate. No, I honestly there. And you just said it actually, I I don't know if you were saying it seriously or sort of sarcastically, but that's probably one of the most loving, kind things that anyone has ever done for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

To push me out and show how out of congruence I was with something that I said that I valued. And it so it's probably been about 18, 15 years since I had a major I ran up again. Now, I have another interesting thing to say, Josh. Sometimes people write down values and they don't live them because they're not really their values. And I believe that if you constantly are not living that value, then it it really isn't a value to you.

SPEAKER_01:

No, sure. And we talked about this before. This whole exercise that that we are going through together with this podcast is this idea of assessing and reassessing yourself with the most honest eye that you can to determine who you are and what has influenced you. And we'll talk about this idea of influences on a later podcast. Um, I used to work with high school students, and I'd seen it time and time again where a high school kid will graduate and take with them the values that they inherited from their parents. Yes, and you know what usually happens, and that is those values get tested, and sometimes they come out the other side with a whole new set of values. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you know, it's kind of like the rich, famous, and powerful is the definition of success. An awful lot of people take in the values of society or their family or other people without uh examining them. They just wholesale, grab them, and say, okay, I'm I believe in this and this, this is a value. And they they never really have taken the time to look in their heart deeply and say, am I willing to make tough decisions based on this? I mean, if I go up against something and it doesn't match my values, I am very, it's very easy for me to walk away from it and say no. And I want to make a point, and I should make it at everyone. My life is not anywhere close to perfect. You know, that's one of the reasons I have a hard time teaching this, is I don't want people to think I'm standing up there going, look how good I am. No, I'm screwed up too. I'm just a little less screwed up than I used to be.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, brilliant. Folks, you heard it here first. Our new marketing campaign around the podcast. John Spence, just a little less screwed up than you are. Thank you. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00:

Then why are they listening to the podcast?

SPEAKER_01:

Add this to the list of things we should think but not say. But I do appreciate your point in the Heart Association story, and that is that you do have to regularly check in on your values because you can genuinely believe something with all your heart for a stretch of time and then fall out of love with that value. And that's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the reverse is I don't have kids, but I've been told that a lot of people's values change when they hold the baby in their arms for the first time and look at it and go, you know, I would take a bullet for this baby. You know, my wife, not so much anymore. She used to be number one, but now or my husband. But this, my whole life has changed. And and unfortunately, Josh, it's usually some sort of major life event negative, yeah, that makes people look inside and heart attack, health scare, losing a job, getting a divorce, something like that where people back up and say, I need to reevaluate. Sure. I think it would have been good if we evaluated before that happens, if possible.

SPEAKER_01:

But let's talk about that though, because um, hopefully we have some people who are listening to this who aren't facing some sort of traumatic event, but they're open to this idea of gosh, you know, I'd really like to explore what my values are. So, how would one start?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great question. I have to think about this for a second. I'm thinking myself, I think first about things that I would not accept.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, things that I just there's just no way you're not lying to me. And I'm not gonna lie to you. Honesty, first one. If it isn't the truth, it's one of the reasons I I left the Rockefeller Foundation. It became very political. I started spending a lot of time in Washington, D.C. with people who would look right in my face and lie to me. I knew they were lying, they knew they were lying, and I said, This is not fun. So I think part of it is what will I refuse to accept in my life? And then the other things are what are the things I and I'm gonna phrase this carefully, I want to hold most dearly. And may not right now, like the woman in Atlanta, I want to hold faith and family as my most important. That is a true value. I'm just not living it well enough right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so start with your never, that line, that boundary, and your dearly held hopes and dreams, even if you're not living them perfectly yet. But what if you're trying to add a value and it just never sticks? Like we talked about this idea for a lot of people, it's health. I think health is a really good one. Um, yeah, it's good, but a lot of people struggle with that. They know that it's important and they're trying and they're trying and trying, yeah, and it's just not sticking. What then? You drop it.

SPEAKER_00:

You say it obviously, and this is my opinion, all this, but is if I put it on the list and I'm constantly a one-one one-one and I'm not doing it, I'm not invested, and I won't spend the time on it, then it's really not a value. It's something I thought I should write down. Uh, or something maybe I thought I should value, but I'm not really willing to put the effort. Health is a great one. Is, you know, uh uh people ask me, oh wow, how do how did you lose all this weight? I'm like, it's easy. I stopped eating stuff that was white, I cut down my calories, I you know, cut down how much alcohol I just quit drinking a while ago completely. Uh and I did some exercise. Like, wow, that must be hard. No, if you want to live, it's not that hard. Sure. You know, nobody shoves food in my face. I put it in my own pie hole there. I'm the one that's picking up the fork and shoving the food in there. If it's important to me, I'm gonna I'm gonna you eat healthier food. You know, and one of the ways I do this is I remove everything from my house that's not healthy. I can't get up and snack or you know, whatever if there's no ice cream or chips or anything in the house. So that's another thing is it's important, is set yourself up for success.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I'm when I when I'm going to the gym, you know, used to be when I was doing really heavy lifting, I kept three gym bags. I kept one in my car, one in my office, and one at the gym.

SPEAKER_01:

Huh.

SPEAKER_00:

And that way, tennis shoes, lifting straps, everything, there was no excuse. So if I say I value this, let me make it easy by setting myself up for success. And I think that idea stretches through all parts of your life. If you want to achieve something, take down the hurdles that that you can take down and make it as easy as possible for you to win.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and this all goes back to this idea of honesty. And the most important honesty that we can have is us being honest with our ourselves. And if we're not willing to make that a value, I don't know if we can make any of these other things work. Fully agreed. And that's tough. I don't want to sit here and lie and say that that's the easiest thing. That's tough. And it's it's why people put off embarking on this type of journey.

SPEAKER_00:

Because it's fear. It's fear of realizing, in my opinion, fear of realizing that you haven't been loving up to this, fear of how hard it might be, fear of the sacrifices or changes you will have to make to move in a different direction, and not being able to do it, having to look yourself in the mirror a year from now, me, and saying, Well, I said I'd lose 100 pounds and I've gained 10. Uh, instead of saying, uh, this is not going to be easy, but I am going to do it. Uh, and you and I, and everyone listening still has goals like that. You see, this won't be easy, but the you know, the result is worth the effort to put into it.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, but this speaks again to this idea of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and one of the most foundational needs that we have as human beings is to feel safe. That's why we oftentimes don't embark on these journeys, or we don't assess ourselves because we don't feel safe enough to do it. And of course, I'm talking emotional safety here.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree. Two sides, same coin fear and safety. Um, people want, you know, I I it's not all of Maslow's, but uh when I teach at companies, I say there's three things most people look for: SBA, safety, safety, belongingness, and appreciation. Three fundamental things that employees look for. Uh everybody, but safety's a big one, and when you feel unsafe, it's you feel anxious and stressed and concerned and worried and overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_01:

So you've done this work, this self-assessment. As you've gone through this process, where does your feeling of safety come from?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's a great question. One of it is that I've been through uh some tough challenges, not physical abuse or anything like that, but some tough challenges. And I look back now and say, those were great, and they've made me much stronger. And if I could get through that, I could pretty much handle anything else. So I don't feel threatened by catastrophes or big issues or big problems, because as I said, I think of one of the this one and one of the other ways. Everything always turns out good for me. Even if it's bad, I find a way to look at the good in it. Uh and then the other the other safety, and this is a really interesting one, is realizing what you do have control over and what you don't, and letting go of all of the stuff you don't have control over. And I think a lot of people don't feel safe because they're trying to control things that are out of their control. Like you can't control your health, you can impact it, influence it, but not feel not feeling safe that I'm gonna uh I'm not gonna get ill or get cancer or whatever, that constant stress and worry about that, that's just wasting time, energy, and effort.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and the amount of things that we actually have control over, that list is shockingly small.

SPEAKER_00:

Two things uh what you think and how you behave, that's it. As far as I can tell from all my studies, uh the only things you totally have control over, totally, are how you think and how you choose to behave. Everything else, there's a big certain, there's really three circles. There's the tiny circle of the two things you can't control. Yeah, there's a middle circle of things you can impact or influence but can't control, and then there's this massive global side circle of stuff that you can't control and never will control. Uh that list is long, really long. And I see people uh that I come into contact with that are in a lot of pain, spending a lot of time, energy, effort, worry, emotions trying to control things that they will never ever control. And at the top of that list is other people.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so right, exactly. So bringing this back to values, though, there should be a connection then between what we can control and how we set our values. So if our value is wealth and status and influence, all those things that you talked about, that's outside the realm of our control, really, when you think about it. Um, but love, honesty, compassion, empathy, these things are within our control. And it seems to me it'd be a lot easier to set your values on things that you have more influence or control over.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, you make a great point I never thought of before. So yeah, if if you pick a value that you can't control, I'll I'll give you an example. And it wasn't a value setup, but I asked in a class once, what makes you happy? And one of the respondents said, When my mom's happy, my dad's happy, my kids are happy, my wife's happy, I'm happy. And I said, How many times in your life has all of those people been happy at the same time? You went never. I said, Well, we have a problem. Your happiness is pinned to something completely external to your control. So if you're depending on other people to make you happy, you uh especially a large group like that, yeah, it's not gonna happen. Um, and you've made a great point is if you pick a value uh that is dependent on other people, you will you will always have stress and anxiety because you can't control that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's good stuff right there. And we're near the end of our time. Um, but there's so much we didn't get to or talk about. That's what more podcasts are for. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what episode 29 or 700 is for.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, absolutely. Tune in to episode 700, folks. But in the meantime, I do want to encourage people to do what I'm gonna do uh following this podcast, and that is really examine the connection between the things that I can control and the things that I value. And are those two things in dissonance or are they in agreement? John, do you have homework for us?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, um, out of all the stuff in the in my strategies for success book and all the stuff I teach, I think, and you said at the beginning, having clear values is fundamental. It it without that, nothing else is going to happen effectively. Uh and like we also said at the beginning, if you will take the time to reflect on that, do that, write it down, score yourself. I whenever I teach this class, I take the whole class with my group. I score my values, I write everything down, I I do every every decision I make, I count, you know, does this match? Um, if you take the time to do that, you will be in that. Ready for this? 1% or 2% of people, one or two percent of people that have actually taken the time to identify their values and attempted to live by them.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's my hope for everyone listening to this podcast. And mine as well. We want to add to that one percent. Folks, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line, ask us questions, tell us how you're doing on the journey by emailing awesomelife notes at gmail.com. That's awesome life notes at gmail.com. To find out more about John Spence, you can go to johnspence.com. This has been a Familiar Wilsons Media production. You can find out more about the other podcasts we offer at familiarwilsonsmedia.com. Or maybe you want to start a podcast. Let me know. Special thanks for this episode, of course, goes to Amanda Wilson and Domingo Jimenez. And until next week, folks, you've got your homework. Now go out there and live an awesome life.