Many moons ago I crewed for a personal development coach in Hawaii and both coasts. I used to help usher folks across beds of hot coals and jump off telephone poles. My third job was also to dance like crazy to the Village People and Jock Jams. You know, to get everyone suitably pumped up for the fire walking and what not. Pretty fun to do this gig as a single lady, I’ve got to say.
And, Mr. 70 Billion Bucks (as I’ll call him here) gave great tools. So I stole away with the highest value tools-per-conference and practiced them for real, my way. And I noticed my results.
The Latin valere means “be strong, be well; be of value, be worth.” More concepts moving around this include: standing for one’s values, being of value, providing value, valuing ___, valuations, getting evaluated, and being valued. In other words, value is one of my favorite terms of endearment
And holy moly, they worked. I “manifested” (otherwise known as I took strategic action, did things, and amazing people helped me), and got some pretty cool results, like launching a business, meeting my husband, and some other notable stuff. Getting stuff done in the way you’d like feels pretty awesome.
Getting your head out of your keister, even better.
Below I’ll share the absolute core of this fancy week long program. I’m also willing to set up a half-day to lead this with a small group of individuals, providing guidance, support, snacks, and great music breaks, but you’ve got to let me know you are interested or I’m not doing it.
I guess I’ll call what’s below a distillation of his week long program, taking it from something like a large vat of fancy-man colognes and making it into a single, perfect drop of fine perfume.1
So, f you can hold focus by yourself, well then, everything you need is below. If not, here’s another reason to consider getting to it anyway.
Do you feel like re-prioritizing your life is in order? Like wondering why you are doing the same old things in your work or home life, and they are no longer working?
It is important to take your values out of the realm of the mystical and get clear on what they are – in order – with some rationality. Values change, by the way, over time, so revisiting this every maybe 7-10 years is a really good idea. I’m vouching for that. Mine had a complete overhaul. Funny how midlife will do that to you.
As a pertinent aside, because I still believe in the original promise of the Internet, which is that it can be an egalitarian library of quality information for anyone who is willing to find, discern, and apply knowledge. Because of this, I’m sharing this version of this process FREE. That does not mean it does not have value. It just means paying forward the finest stuff strengthens faith that the flow will go where it needs to, much like nature does.
Are you ready?
Clarifying what YOU value – in clear and authentic order – can help sort even your toughest stuck points. Because they come from your authenticity. This is why the exercise below is so powerful. It bypasses all your “I should value” crap and gets you clear on your real deal values. But you must do the steps in their laid out, slightly tedious order. Please don’t take shortcuts. Your results won’t be as good.
And honestly, this is magic.
Mini Workshop: know what you value in order. Time: 2-3 hours, in a happy place for you.
Discovering Your Top 3 Aligned Values is achievable in three hours with movement breaks, and carries the entirety of the value of a $10K experience.
Knowing what you value in order, is perhaps the most important things you can know about yourself. Even more than your goals. Because your values are shaped by your experience, your perspective, and your intrinsic nature.
Below is the step by step. I just re-did mine and it is already manifesting great stuff by the grace and kindness of some rather extraordinary individuals, amazing opportunities, fun work, and grace.
Discovering Your Top 3 Values
First and foremost, find and PRINT yourself an existing list of lots of values perhaps like this nice one from Brené Brown. though any longish list of values will do.
- On another sheet of paper, write down, freshly in one column, every value that speaks to you even a little from that sheet. Aim for writing at least 20-25 values down one side of the page. You are not a simpleton, right? You care about many things.
- Compare the first-positioned value on your page to the second-positioned value on your page and ask yourself “which one of these two is more important?” Put a little check to the right of the value that wins.
- Compare Value in position 1 to the value in position 3, put a little check mark next to the winner.
- Go through entire sheet like this: comparing value in position 1 to every other value below it. If you started with 25 values, you’ll have 25 check-marks spread out in various places.
- Now, compare the value in position 2, to value in position 3, making check marks to the right, piling up check-marks wherever they land, fast and careless, with no more thought than answering the question “which of these two is more important?” Go all the way down the list. Some values will have multiple checks… this is exactly as it should be.
- Do the same for value in position 3 comparing that value with each value below it.
- Keep going with this process until you are comparing the next-to-last value to the last value. This means you have compared every pair and marked the most important each time.
your completed check-o-rama sheet may look a little like this. - Count your check-marks for each value, and re-write your list in descending order of most check-marks first.
- Stop after you’ve written your Top Ten Values
- Focus now on your Top Three. Yeah, surprising right? Maybe a little?
Okay. This is now your time to construct some experiences around your values. Maybe you’d like to make a graphical home screen image for your phone to remind you of what you discovered? This is wildly effective. (Or ask me to, I’m a pro graphic designer after all – so until April 15, 2026, for $111 you’ll get graphics made with intuitively-selected colors and typography for your phone home screen featuring your top 3).
How to live with your Top 3 Values. How this works is you run decisions by them, especially conundrums, saying yes or no to things, and setting new goals.
Don’t know if you should stay home with family or go to a leadership conference? Check your values. Don’t know if you should start jogging at night? Or starting an organic food company? Check your values.
Let’s say your Top Three wound up being “family, healing, and adventure” in that order, how would you answer the questions above? What if they were, “education, altruism, and making a difference”? See how knowing yours can add clarity where there may have been a conundrum?
Want to set an irresistible goal… one that practically achieves itself? Set a goal that clearly addresses your top three values.
I sincerely hope you print a sheet of values now and at least circle a few. That’s an easy first step and solid kick off to self-knowing. Let me know if you’d like a led experience doing this too. Happy Clarity to you!
FOOTNOTES & SUB-SUBTEXT ;)
- If I were to alchemize this metaphoric perfume into a real perfume, I’d call it ValereTM. ↩︎