6 Best Values for 2026: No. 4 - Kindness (Huilo Huilo, Chile)

Are you ready to bring your internal power into the outside world?

In this episode of Engineering Emotions & Energy, Justin continues the 6 Best Values for 2026 series with Value #4 that connects integrity and joy for those around you: Kindness.

Recorded from the breathtaking landscapes of Patagonia, Justin breaks down how kindness is:

• Strong, not passive
• Honest, not avoidant
• Boundaried, not self-sacrificing

If Integrity builds your foundation, and Joy builds your inner world — Kindness is how you bring that strength into your relationships and the world around you.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Kindness ≠ Niceness
• Kindness is not weakness
• Nice people often become resentful.
• Kindness is strength guided by care.
• You don’t owe everyone an explanation.
• Kindness starts inward.

🌎 Why This Matters for 2026

Kindness builds:

• Better relationships
• Better leadership
• Better boundaries
• Better internal peace

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite platform

📺 Watch the episode filmed in Patagonia on YouTube → Justin Wenck, PhD

💬 Comment: Where are you being “nice” instead of kind?

📩 Join the LEAP Practice + updates → justinwenck.com

🔔 Subscribe so you don’t miss Values #3, #2, and #1

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.

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Transcript

Justin Wenck: 0:00

Today, I'm going to be bringing to you number four of the six best values to have for 2026 and this one is incredible, because the previous two, which was integrity and joy, really are about building your internal world. And this value is really going to be about connecting to your external world, and so you're not going to miss this, because today's value that I'm going to be talking about is kindness, and I am bringing this to you from Port of ours, Chile, the gateway to Patagonia, as some call it. So stick around. You're gonna want to catch all of this. Are you ready to live a life with enough time, money and energy have relationships and connections that delight you? Are you ready for the extraordinary life you know you've been missing? If so, then this is the place for you. I'm a best selling author, coach, consultant and speaker who's worked in technology for over two decades. I'm a leader at transforming people and organizations from operating in fear, obligation and guilt to running off joy, ease and love. It's time for engineering emotions and energy with me. Justin Wenck, PhD, so let's get started kindness. Why is this such an important value? First, let's talk about what kindness is not. Kindness is not niceness. And also, kindness is not weakness. There's a strength, a kindness, a power in kindness, and it's so powerful that it is caring, it's measured, and it's caring so already, and I'm behind me, this is no if you're watching on YouTube, which I highly recommend, Justin Wenck, PhD, check it out. Follow, subscribe all that stuff, you know, or be following me on the socials and you can, you can see the pictures from from this trip. But yeah, I'm in near Port of our US, Chile on this amazing Lake, and so I've got all this beautiful, lush greenery. It was raining earlier this morning. Stuns starting to come out, actually, in the shadow of two incredible volcanoes. One of them, I believe, is the toll is like the third most dangerous volcano, and Chile, I believe, yeah, just a really powerful, magical spot here on Earth, down in the southern hemisphere, got seas, some beautiful lakes and some amazing waterfalls with some of the most turquoise, beautiful green. So I'm very happy to be bringing this value to you from such an incredible place. And so kindness, as I said, is not niceness. Niceness is wanting to avoid conflict, wanting to just please people, be a real people pleaser. And nice people actually end up being kind of cruel and mean, because the the niceness isn't coming from a place of strength, it's coming from place of fear and weakness, of like. Well, I want, I want to be liked, I want to be included. And I want, I want. I'm going to do this for other people so that they'll do something, something for me, a real great book about this is called no more. Mr. Nice Guy. Anybody can, can read it and get, get great messages. But it talks about this concept of having secret contracts of like, well, I'm going to, you know, help somebody do this, and then I'm expecting them to do something in return. And when that something in return doesn't happen, eventually the resentment builds and builds and builds, and then, boom, there's a snap, and there's anger, or maybe there isn't a big snap, but there's all these sort of, yeah, just these being resentful. It ends up being not so nice and absolutely not kind. And one of the things I sometimes like to use as a very extreme example between niceness and kindness is, you know, say somebody's possibly about to get run over by a bus in the middle of the street. The the kind of person is is going to yell at the person, or even push them out of the way of the bus, because it's like, well, this is want this person to live. We want this person to be safe. The nice person is going to overthink it and be like, well, maybe I should ask for permission if it's okay to touch them. And you know, and well, I don't want to yell. It's not right to yell at people, especially if you don't know them, and boom, the person gets run over by the bus. So there's there's a power, there's a forcefulness, there's a willingness to tolerate discomfort when. And when we're being kind. So kindness is not is not weakness, because kindness allows for the speaking of boundaries and also the speaking of what somebody wants. So it's very honest. It's in alignment with integrity, and it's in alignment with Joyce. Is why I mentioned that kindness really is about connecting the world you want internally with the world you want externally. It's about how how you communicate the truths and how you ensure that you can continue to create that that state of joy internally and in around you when necessary, because kindness allows you to say no, or allows you to say this is this is what I want. But it's done with care. It's done with awareness of the other people around you, of the surroundings, of the context, and it allows there to be some negotiation and some willingness to cooperate, collaborate through communication. And so kindness really is such an amazing value that it's going to allow you to start to have a joyful interactions with other people, with your world, because kindness can also be of how you care for you know, the people and the things in your world, like, you know, and also for yourself, like, what are you eating? What's the kind thing to eat? You know, allow some joy, but then also nourishment. Because it's it's not about indulging. It's not about like, I'm just going to do whatever, whatever feels good, because that's because it's about going beyond and having the care for knowing the consequences and how things are going to work out, and being skillful. And it's also about being kind to yourself when you're maybe not so perfect, and maybe you communicated something you know in a harsher way then you could have and but being kind and going like, Oh, I didn't do that so well. Maybe I could do that better, but not being harsh and you're like, Oh, I'm awful and I'm a really bad person, because I person cried when I said that. Like, it's not, you know, it's not about beating yourself up. If it's about going like, oh, okay, yeah, there's something, something that I could do a little bit differently. I did my best, and now that I've gone through that, I've learned, I've grown, and I can do better. That's that's kind to you, and then to the people you're going to encounter in the future, because things are going to be different in the future, and all you can do is do your best to interact, to proceed, to step with kindness. And so remember, kindness, it's not niceness. It's not just making everybody around you happy. In fact, sometimes you might disappoint people, but that is going to be the kind thing, because if you just please other people. You're not pleasing yourself, but it's also, you know, not just doing what's only best for you, right? Because that's going to harm other people, and inevitably, if you harm others, the harm eventually, whether you're aware of it or not comes back to you, because there really is no separation between you and me and other people. We're all very interconnected, and so being kind to others is being kind to yourself. Because if you're not kind, if you're if you behave like an asshole to other people, inevitably more and more people are going to behave like assholes. Back to you, and that's going to feel harmful on levels, that even if you don't recognize it, your body's going to recognize it, your brain's going to recognize it, and it's not going to work out well in the long run. In the short term, you might get some short term gains, yet eventually, like anything that's not done with care, it's not done with kindness, it's going to cause degradation, it's going to cause harm, and it's going to cause a Yeah, it's going to it's going to be not good. It's going to be not so good. And you want things to be good, because, again, remember, if you're keeping up with the values for 2026 if you want joy, you got to care. You got to put a little effort. It's awareness with care into being honest with what's what where you're at, and with what the surroundings are, and with how the people are, and that can end up being things need to be done or said that don't seem great in the moment, but ultimately, our best overall, like, a really good example, is if a relationship just isn't isn't working out, like, it's like, it's not fun to go like, Hey, I don't want to, I don't want to spend time with you anymore. But if you continue to be around somebody, you don't want to. Around, you're likely not going to be that nice to them, or if you are, you're being incredibly mean to yourself, making yourself do something that is possibly harming you. And so to deliver that message of, hey, I don't think I want to show up to this. It's not the easiest thing, it's not the most fun, yet, it's going to allow you to live your life. It allows the other person to live their life. And again, the kindness is in how you deliver the message. And sometimes not much needs to be said, because sometimes it can just be a simple No, thank you. If you don't want to spend time with somebody and they invite you, you just go, No, thank you. And this, I think I've this trick is, in my book, I think I've talked about it other times, you don't have to give explanations there. There doesn't have to be a why. Because ultimately, anything you want or don't want, there's actually no good reason. We like to create reasons of why, why this makes sense. None of it makes sense. Really, there's, there's no there's no logical explanation to anything in your experience. It's all pure desire that comes from wherever, because it can change. And we all have different desires. We all have different things we want to avoid. They can change over time. So there really is no good reason, and you don't have to give a reason. It can just be this is not what I want to do. And just as equally, it can be like, this is just what I want to do right now, and it's okay. Yet it can be, you know, more kind to give a give an explanation or give a reason that is, you know, in alignment with the culture, the values or whatever, of where you are, what you're doing, things like that. So it's not to say that you shouldn't. It said you don't have to, and it doesn't have to be your true reason. And so you're like, oh, but this is integrity and but there's, there can be some, some nuance of of kindness, of how you deliver it, right? That allows there to be saving a face, right? We don't have to overly harm somebody just because you want something a different you know, there's there's kindness and and politeness. Yet doesn't mean that you go without what you truly want or what you truly need to set a boundary and avoid. So I'm curious, what are your thoughts on kindness like? Is there a way that you could be more kind to yourself, to others, bend to your to the world that you live in, and again, the world that you live in, could just include, you, know, making your bed like as that's kind of your room and kind to you, because you get to have a more uplifted experience when you go and see a made bed, because I experienced that. So yeah, what are some ways that you could be more kind and yeah, how are you finding this tying in with the values of integrity and the values of joy, because those really are very internal things that you have 100% control of, and now starting to take it out. This is how you take it out into the world. Like I'm going to be care, caring. I'm going to be aware, and I'm going to be measured in how I interact with with myself and my world in alignment with with integrity and with joy. So been so happy, joy, overjoyed, if you will, that I've gotten to share this fourth value of the six best values for 2026 and that means we have three more to go, and you are not going to want to miss them, because again, if you, if you really embody these values, you're going to see your life and your world shift in ways that you you can only dream of, but it'll probably be even better than you can dream of. So you are going to want to keep listening and learning what these values are and how to really embody them and shift your life with these values. And I've also got some some bonus related topics related to values, because there's a lot of values that people think are great values. And I'm going to probably do an episode on how those those are garbage values. They are total shit. And I'll explain that, and it's gonna be a lot of fun. So with that, let me know, make sure you're following, and it's gonna be continuing to adventure here in Chile for another week, week and a half, and already starting to get some things posted, and likely going to get some more videos posted in the future. So do make sure you're liking, following, subscribing, commenting, all that stuff. And yeah, when we get back to the US gonna start getting doing some. More workshops and things like that, so do make sure that you're following and you're subscribing and all that stuff and with that, thank you so much and a good day. Thanks for tuning in to engineering emotions and energy with Justin Wenck PhD, today's episode resonated with you. Please subscribe and leave a five star review. Your feedback not only supports the show, but also helps others find us and start their journey of emotional and energetic mastery. 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