Robert MacPhee
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
It becomes far less of a case of having to work hard and put a lot of effort into something and struggle She just changed. You're the chief change officer, right? You know what I'm talking about. Like when people get really clear about something else that you already talked about in this conversation, their why, like why this is important and how important it really is.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
then getting into action and making changes becomes much easier. And then the second story I would share, just what comes to mind as you ask the question, is more of a professional example. And it's a company that I worked with recently that was a construction company. And they actually recycle concrete. So it's not the most glamorous company in the world.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
But I had the opportunity and go in and meet with their leadership team and do values work with them personally about their personal values and then transition that into some organizational values. And when we were doing the organizational values, I literally, I wasn't sure how this was going to go with a company like that. Because again, it's a very, these are hard hat guys.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
They're out in the yard and they're doing the work and recycling the concrete. And sometimes the kind of work I do is a little woo and a little strange for them. But they really engaged in the conversation and they let me push them beyond the initial question of what do you do and to go a little bit deeper. And we created this remarkable list
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
of the things that they do in this construction company? And the very first answer was easy. They said, we recycle concrete. I said, great. I put it up on the board. I said, what else do you do? And they looked at me like I was crazy. And I said, no, really, what else? That's not the only thing you do here. What else do you do?
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Think about your other stakeholders, your coworkers and your clients and your community. What else do you do? And And somebody raised their hand and said, we innovate, like we think of new and better ways to do this. And that kind of got the ball rolling. And then somebody said, we create opportunities for our people here.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
We're really committed to developing our people and helping them move their career along. And they went on and on and created this wonderful list of the things that they do beyond just recycling concrete. And you could just feel the energy in the group change because it's easier to get excited about creating opportunities for your coworkers.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And it's easier to get excited about contributing to your community or innovating and being the very best at what you do than simply looking at it as we recycle concrete. That's what we do.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
and then the other thing that was super fun about working with that particular company they really were committed to contributing to their community and and they weren't a great neighbor being a construction company and a concrete recycling company there was a lot of mess that they made so when we were doing the ways of being like how do you do what you do for the first time ever and i'm pretty sure the last time this will ever happen one of their ways of being was dust free
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And we all had a good laugh over that. But it was also really profound because they were very committed to being a good neighbor, to contributing to their community and being an asset in the community. And if we're making a big mess all over the place, they didn't feel like they were doing that.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
So they had all sorts of things they were doing to mitigate this problem of just making the whole neighborhood kind of dusty. So Dust Free, they were the first company or the first individual I ever had come up with a way of being that was really important to them called Dust Free.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Exactly. But without really making an effort to do what they do in the cleanest way possible, they would leave, there would be dust in the air all around where their yard was, there would be dust on the streets, there would be dust floating over the fence into the neighbor's property, all those things. But they were genuinely, again, the...
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Dust Free was really a manifestation of their commitment to being a good neighbor, to being a contributor to their community rather than just a nuisance, if you will. And they were serious about it. They had all these technology and all these systems and structure in place to minimize this problem that they had of dust. just making a mess while they do the work that they do.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
You can imagine if you're crushing concrete, there's going to be some dust and they were doing everything they possibly could to minimize that so that they were a good neighbor.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I think the simplest reason why most people either don't know or can't clearly articulate their values is that it's generally not taught in the places that we most learn things. So in school, it's generally not taught.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And from our parents, there may be some good modeling of values, but in terms of actually facilitating a process where people can explore and really tap into what their highest values are, most parents aren't taught how to do that. They don't know. If you ask them to do that, they would want their children to have really good modeling of values, and they're doing the best they can with that.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
to actually really draw someone's values out of them is not always an easy thing to do. And it doesn't happen. I have clients who say, I'd like to do a one hour workshop and wrap all this up. And I say, yeah, I'd like to do that too. But you know what? It doesn't really work that way. I was working this past week
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
with the second step of a process with a very large client that i'm working with and the truth is we have three or four more steps to go to really get them to a place where they're clear and in agreement about what their team's highest values are and in a position to really remember them keep them visible and most importantly actually apply them put them into action have them be useful
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And I think that's the answer to your second question is about why our value is so important is if we don't have that clarity, we're navigating through the world almost with like our hands over our eyes, like we're trying to move forward, but we don't have a target. We don't have a compass to really direct us. to the place that we ultimately want to go.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Again, it may be directed by someone else or something else. We're told in our society, we need to make more money. We need a nicer car. We need a bigger house. And I have no problem with any of those things. But I think we all know people who are on that chase. They're in that game.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
and they're not happy they're not fulfilled they're not satisfied they don't have a sense of purpose and meaning and in many cases they're not producing as much in the way of results as they potentially could if they were laser focused on what is most important to them and how this result they're trying to create is in alignment with that so for instance for me i can talk about wanting to make more money
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
But if I'm making that money to help pay for my daughter's wedding, that's going to have an entirely different level of meaning and purpose and significance for me. And I'm going to be so much more committed to making money for that. I already told you that's my top value is my relationships with my children.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
So if it's specifically intended to improve those relationships, then I'm much more motivated in that area of money. Money is just a made up concept. It's really just a way to exchange value. And so when we are really clear about what that money means to us, like what it will allow us to do, how it will change our life in a positive way, being measured by what our values are.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
then again, we just get much more motivated, much more inspired, much more engaged. And I know in my own case, like work cannot feel like work. And that's the way I want to live my life.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Yes, for sure. And there's actually really good research that proves that the level of engagement that a person will have at work comes not from their connection to the values of the organization, but from their awareness of their own highest values. So when someone does the work to discover and get really clear and be able to articulate what their own personal highest values are,
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
and then they look at the company that they're working with and they see alignment, that's where the real engagement comes from. Some companies think that if they come up with some really beautiful, articulate, flowery values words that they put up on the wall, that will really excite their employees. But in some cases, that can actually even backfire.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Because if a company has a wonderfully articulated list of words posted on the boardroom wall, and they point to that and say, these are our highest values. But when we look at that company, or if you're working for that company, if what is a behavior that doesn't align with those values...
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
then those values on the wall are not only not helpful they can actually be harmful they can make people feel worse about working there or doing business with that company as opposed to better but if an employee gets clear about their own values and my oldest daughter is a great example of this because she was working for a very large company she's a brilliant young lady i admit to being biased but she's very brilliant she has a phd in mathematics and
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
She was working for a very large company and making a very nice salary and doing very well and getting bonuses and stock options and all sorts of great stuff. But she wasn't excited about the work she was doing. And she actually got the opportunity to move to a different company where she's still...
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Being paid very well probably took a small pay cut, but she made a move to a company that's doing research into diseases like cancer and AIDS. And she's doing the same work. It's data science work. And she still does it very well. And she's still getting paid very well.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
But what really motivates her, in my experience, in talking to her about her work, is the people she's helping, the contribution that she's making, the difference that she's making by doing this data science work in an area where, for instance, she's very focused right now on AIDS vaccines and all the data that's coming in from all these studies that they're doing. She's the one who's...
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I can't explain the math. It's so far over my head, but she's actually helping the organization take that data and make it useful, make it helpful to develop new vaccines and help people who already have AIDS or prevent people from getting AIDS to begin with. So it's a different level of excitement and engagement for her because it aligns with her personal values.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
The story like that can be a very long story, but I'll start it in the middle. My first career really was very entrepreneurial. A friend of mine and I started a parking company when I first graduated from college. And it turned out to be a wonderful entrepreneurial success.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And as part of that, I ended up being the person in the organization who was handling all of the training and developing and hiring and everything. and growing our people and creating a culture, which I just absolutely loved. And eventually I loved it so much that I actually transitioned out of this parking company that we had created.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
My partner bought me out and I went into doing the training and development work on a full-time basis. And I had the opportunity to connect with an amazing man that Many of your listeners have probably heard of. His name is Jack Canfield. He is best known as the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. And he's well known for that because they sold over 600 million books worldwide.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I had the great pleasure and honor of working with him for close to 10 years on the training side of his company and learning from him and working with him.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And then eventually going out on my own, developing a concept that I called Excellent Decisions, which was about making decisions based on your vision and your values rather than all the external stress and pressure that we're faced with in today's world. Eventually, I narrowed that down even further and really focused mostly on values first.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Because I realized that it's great to have a really compelling and exciting vision. But if that vision isn't aligned with your values, then it's not going to take you where you really want to go. So my work right now and the book that you referenced, The Living a Values-Based Life book, is really focused on first helping people to clarify what their most important values are.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
so that they can then create a life and in many cases create an organization or a business that lines up with those values.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
You're right. It is a really big term and we can go really deep into it. And I love doing that. That's what really energizes me around this whole conversation. And at the same time, in my experience, when we talk about what values actually are, it can be a very simple answer. The answer I would give is that our values are what is most important to us.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
If we are really clear about the areas of our life that are most important to us and the ways that we want to show up in the world, like how we want to be in the world, the most important what we call ways of being, then it fundamentally changes our life. Most people... do not know or cannot articulate at least what their highest values are.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And what we say in our organization is if you don't know what your own highest values are, then chances are, at least to some degree, you're living your life and potentially running your organization in alignment with someone else's values.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Because in today's world, there's never any shortage of other people and other influences from media to social media to advertising, whatever it might be, that are pushing us to do the things that work really well for them, but in some cases don't really work out that well for us.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
Sure. You talk about exploring values. That's literally what I'm doing nowadays almost every day of my life. In individual conversations with people and in conversations with my clients, that's the juicy conversations that I'm in all the time. And the one distinction I would add to that is that It's really about, for me, helping other people discover their own values.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I have my own journey with continuing to clarify and refine my own values. But the work that I'm doing and the reason I was really driven to write this book and be doing the work that I'm doing is that I see the impact that it makes on people. when they get this clarity about what their highest values are. And you gave the specific example of honesty.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And I would say, yes, that's a really good example of a value that might come up when we explore with someone what is most important to them. And there's a really important distinction in our work that we explore values in a really unique way, which is by dividing values into two separate categories. The first category is what we call priorities.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
This is the areas of our life that we put our time and attention on. It's the areas of our life where we really want to create results that are creating the experiences that we want. And so we ask people, what is important to you? And we ask people to imagine what it would be like if they were living their ideal life. What would you be seeing? Who would you be with? What would you be doing?
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
How would you be feeling if you were living your ideal life? And people get connected to what is most important to them. And for myself, some examples that come up are my relationships with my children and my own health and well-being. and the contribution that I want to make in the world, the business that I want to build, the relationships that I want to have.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
These are the areas of my life that I want to be putting my critical time and attention on to create that ideal life, the kind of life I really want to live. And then the second category, and this is where your example of honesty would come up, is what we call ways of being. And ways of being are qualities and characteristics.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
It's the way we want to show up in the world, the way we want to be remembered by other people, the way we want people to think of us, and the experience that we want people to have of interacting with us, whether it's on a personal or a professional level. And like I said, like your example of honesty would, for many people, be one of those values that would be high on their list.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And I'll give you again an example from my own life. Some of the things that show up on the top of my list are kindness and caring. Humility is really important to me. That's high on my list. Being peaceful and calm. We talk about how crazy the world is.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I really pride myself on being able to keep my cool and stay peaceful and calm, even when I'm surrounded by chaos or under a lot of stress and pressure. So things like... Like kindness and caring and humility, those are my qualities and characteristics, what we call my ways of being. And again, your example in your question of the quality of honesty, it shows up on a lot of people's lists.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
It's interesting, as I listen to you and answer the question, I realize, okay, honesty is not on the top of my list. That doesn't mean honesty is not important to me, and I don't admire and try and live my life from a place of honesty. But there's literally thousands of words that we could use to describe what our most important ways of being are.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And I would say honesty is important to me, but pairing and kindness is even more important. And humility for me personally is even more important. So for each person, it's really a very individual journey to look at all these qualities and characteristics and say, which are the ones that I most want to live my life in alignment with? And it's a very powerful question.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I'll give you a couple of quick stories. One is more of a personal story with someone I was working with in one of our workshops. And the other is more of a business example. But the one from the workshop, it was a workshop that I led just recently, and it's a virtual workshop. So we had people from all over the United States.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I don't think that we had anyone international, but we had one woman in the group. And the first session of the group was diving into that category I told you about priorities, like what is most important to you? What is the area of your life that you want to really be putting time and intention in to create the kind of life you really want to live?
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And in that very first session of the workshop, it was a seven-week course. And in that very first session, she got really clear about that health and fitness, like her own health and being, was really important to her. And it was more important to her than she had really been thinking of and the more than she was really consciously realizing.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And she made a commitment in that moment to not only make this list of values and have it be an entertaining and interesting exercise,
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
But she made a commitment to really put that time and attention to stop doing some of the things that maybe weren't as important to her and weren't on her highest values list and put some of that time and attention towards taking better care of herself, exercising and eating better. And this was all behind the scenes to me. I did not even know.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
We had, I think, 15 or 20 people participating in this workshop. And I didn't even know this was happening, but I heard the story afterwards. So we went through the rest of the sessions and we had a session about ways of being. And then we had a session about how to implement this work into your life. And then we had a session to review and check in with people.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And then at the end of the seven weeks, we had a final session. And I was asking for feedback from the group and asking, what people had noticed as they had been in this conversation about values. And this woman, again, virtual class, so she virtually raised her hand, and she shared that over the course of the seven weeks, she had lost 35 pounds. And I asked her, I was honestly shocked.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
I've seen people get great results and I know the power of clarifying values, but there was something about all this happening just invisibly to me. And 35 pounds in seven weeks is a pretty significant result. And I asked her and she didn't make a big deal of it or anything. It was just very simple to her in that first session. she got very clear about what is most important to her.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
And so clear that she was compelled to take action. And again, we had a session about how to do that and how to apply it. But she got into action before we even got to that session. And she simply started doing the things that people who prioritize their health and fitness do. She exercised, she was walking, and she was just eating better.
Chief Change Officer
#162 Life GPS: Robert MacPhee on Values-Based Living — Part One
She threw away a bunch of junk food and bought herself some really good quality fruits and vegetables and good quality food. And she just acted differently over the course of those seven weeks and got the result of losing 35 pounds. And for me, it was a very compelling example of how simple it can be when we get clarity about what's most important to us.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
and focus and things like that like those are the qualities that i need to bring if i really want to make a bigger difference if i want to make a bigger contribution if i want to build a successful organization which is also on my priorities list i can borrow those values situationally i can bring them in it doesn't mean i'm no longer going to be humble it doesn't mean i'm no longer going to be kind and caring
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
It doesn't mean I'm no longer going to be calm and peaceful because I feel like those are actually very valuable qualities and characteristics in running a business. But I'm also going to be strong and I'm going to be disciplined and I'm going to be focused because those are also like really important things.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
for this area that I'm focusing on and creating the results and the outcomes that I really wanna create. So we can borrow values. We wanna make sure they compliment each other. We don't wanna say I can build this really successful business and make a lot of money by lying and cheating and stealing. That's never going to come out of the type of values work that we do.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
But in my experience, being strong, being disciplined, being focused does not conflict with being kind and caring and with being calm and peaceful and with being humble. It's almost bringing in extra team members to get more done. That strength and discipline and focus is going to help me create the results that I want in that area called contribution or building a successful organization.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
I think the message that I would want to finish with would be actually an invitation. And what I find when I have these conversations about values, they're usually very interesting and intriguing to people. Most people understand the importance of values. And we've talked about some real specifics around values here. And I think probably
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
gotten people to understand even better how important values are. And hopefully this approach of dividing values into two categories and getting really clear about what our highest priorities are and what our most important ways of being are. Hopefully people can see how valuable that would really be. So the invitation that I would want to leave people with is to do two things.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
To begin to explore what your own highest priorities are and what your own most important ways of being are. And you can do that by first asking yourself a question. To begin to explore what your highest priorities are, you can begin
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
by setting a timer for three to five minutes and taking a blank sheet of paper and asking yourself the question what is important to me over and over again just ask yourself what is important to me and write down whatever answer comes to mind don't question it don't judge it try and put them in order don't wonder where it came from just ask yourself the question
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Let your brilliant mind do the work to capture as many answers as you can in three to five minutes to that question, what is important to me? And from that, you can then start pursuing this conversation about maybe that top five list and what are the most important. But the first step is to capture the answers to that question, what is important to me?
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And then the second part of the invitation would be on the ways of being side. And the first step I invite people to take is to finish a sentence. And the sentence is, it is important to me to be blank. And you can do the same thing three to five minutes with a blank sheet of paper and just fill in the blank at the end of that sentence over and over again.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
If it was me, I would be saying it is important to me to be kind and caring. It is important to me to be humble. It is important to me to be peaceful and calm. And I might borrow those values I was talking about. It's important to me to be strong and disciplined and focused. But take those three to five minutes and answer that question and fill in the blank at the end of that sentence.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And then you've taken the first step on this journey to being able to clearly articulate what your own highest values are. And from there, you'll be able to start understanding Thinking from that place of knowing what your highest values are, making decisions based on those values, most importantly, saying no to the things that are not on your list, and then taking action.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Again, like you said, and I'm so glad you did, implementation, application, putting it into action is where we really make a difference. And without that, it's really just an interesting conversation.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Thank you for having me. When I first saw Chief Change Officer, I knew that you and I needed to have this conversation because values are such an important part of making the changes that we want in our life. So I'm thrilled we had the chance to do this.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
I'm so glad you brought that up because without that approach, without saying, how do we apply this? How do we put this into action? How do we implement it? It's all really just an interesting conversation. And you brought up a really good point. Sometimes people can get caught up in the words that really sound good and will make a good impression on someone else.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
When people are first doing this work, We live in a world where we're trying to impress other people and make other people happy so much of the time. Sometimes it's a really big stretch for people to really be honest with themselves and say what really is. Aside from what anyone else might think. What is really most important to me? And for most people, that takes a period of time.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Their first list might reflect what sounds good to other people. That's just normal. That's just the world we live in. But where the rubber really hits the road, where this really makes a difference in people's lives, is when we start to apply it. And this is one of the beautiful things.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
This is one of the reasons why I think our values-based life approach, where we are taking values and dividing them into these two categories, why it's so useful is because it's actually pretty easy to apply. Once we have these two lists, we can literally look at those lists and in any moment we can self-assess how we're doing
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
in the areas or the qualities and characteristics that are on that list. For instance, again, myself, I can look at my list of priorities and say, okay, I have declared that my relationship with my children is number one on my list. How am I doing? How are my relationships with my children? How's the communication? How much time am I spending with them? Do they know?
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Do they really know that I love them unconditionally? Do they know that I'm here to support them in any way I possibly can? And I'm really blessed because I can ask those questions and We'd have to double check with them to be 100% sure, but I'm very confident that the quality of those relationships that I have with my children is really good.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
I put the time and attention into that because I know it's always on the top of that list when I look at it. And I'll go right down the list and I'll say,
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
contribution is second on my list how is that going and honestly that's an area i'm putting more time and attention in because this values work i feel like can be such a huge contribution to individuals to organizations to the world if just imagine if more people What if everyone was really clear about what their highest values were?
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Imagine how that would change just like the political discourse for starters. Like what a difference that would make if people were coming from a place and acting from a place of real clarity about their highest values. So again, we can look at our priorities and say, How do I want to shift my time and attention to create more of the results and more of the experiences that I want?
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And the same thing with the ways of being. I can look at my list and I can say, I've said that it's my intention to be really humble. How am I doing with that? Am I being Mr. Know-it-all? I have all the answers and telling everyone else what they should do? That doesn't sound very humble.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Or am I really showing up in my relationships with other people and listening and asking questions and being curious and genuinely wanting to support? then I'm doing pretty good. I can literally look at all the items on my list of highest values and I can self-assess. And we actually, we use a process in our work called the four A's as an implementation process. And it starts with this assessment.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And the second A is area. It's assessing or choosing an area to focus on. Like I told you with my priorities, I might choose contribution as an area to focus on. I say, I want to make a bigger contribution. What actions can I take? There's that third A. That's the next thing we're going to look at and say, what is an action I can take?
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
What are multiple actions that I can take that will allow me to make an even bigger contribution? Because making a contribution is really important to me. And then the fourth A is accountability. Because it's one thing if I say that I'm going to take an action to make an even bigger contribution.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
But if I declare that action to you, and I know you're going to check back with me and say, hey, remember you told me that you were going to, you know, get on five podcasts a week to really get your message out there? How's that going? You is going to create the opportunity for me to be even more likely to complete those actions that I'm saying I'm committed to take.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think the simplest way for anyone who's listening to this conversation and thinking about their own values and what they might be, you can think back to an earlier time in your life. I'm in my 60s. I can think all the way back to college or high school. And what was important to me at that time in my life has changed. So, it's just, it's situational to some degree.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And I think as my life progresses and I get into my 70s or my 80s and I'm retiring and the things that are most important to me, some might change and some might not, but they're definitely not fixed. I had a fascinating conversation with someone this week who I had just talked to about this whole values conversation about two months previous.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And I was catching up with her and she was telling me a story about how her mother is not well. Her mother had a fall and was requiring quite a bit of attention and care and help. And so this had become a big priority for her.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
so literally just a couple of months ago it wouldn't have even been part of the conversation about what her highest values were but in all of a sudden that got changed like the world situations the circumstances the events that were happening in her world forced her to alter her values to alter where it was most important for her to put time and attention
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
So her family and her relationships were probably already on her list, but that specific relationship and caring for her mother and making sure her mother had the care that she needed had been bumped right up to the top of the list because of the specific situation and circumstances that were happening for her.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
So just in terms of navigating through our life from one stage to another, when we're single, our values might be different than when we get married. When we're in school, our values might be different than when we get a job and we start our career. If we have a job and then we decide we want to be an entrepreneur, our values might change. So that's a long answer.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
I probably could have just said, yes, values change. But those are some examples of all the situations and circumstances and just stages of life. That would lead to values changing and explains why this is an ongoing conversation. I would love to say that someone could read my book and declare their values and those will be their values for the rest of their life.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
But it's really a case of one of the things I spend the most time doing is encouraging people to keep their list of values in front of them, keep them visible.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
have it on your phone have it on your bedside table have it on the bathroom mirror whatever it is but have it somewhere so you keep revisiting that list i actually have mine in my phone and i have a daily alarm that goes off reminding me to just take five minutes take a breath relax go in revisit those values re-anchor into them remember them and in some cases say you know what
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
For this week or this month or this stage of my life, I'm going to make an adjustment here. I'm going to make a little change. There's something going on in my life that feels like it's calling me to alter my list. And we can do that at any time if we keep revisiting and clarifying what our highest values are.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
Yeah, I think this is a really good example that you brought up a couple of times about honesty because it points out a few things. One is just because honesty is not on my list of my top five most important ways of being doesn't mean that honesty isn't important to me.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And for some people, like this process of narrowing down their list, we generally go through a process where we do brainstorming and we tap into a deep heart energy to get beyond just our mental capacity and really tap into what's really most important to us. And we gather all these words that describe our ways of being and how we want to show up in the world.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
And we have honesty and integrity and commitment and kindness and care and love. And there's all these wonderful, amazing words. And then I feel like I'm torturing people because I say, OK, now pick your top five. And sometimes it's really hard for people and understandably because how it feels like you're saying no to some of these amazing qualities and characteristics.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
But but we're really not a couple of things we can be aware of and something that we can do. One thing to be aware of is we can do what's called borrowing values. Again, I'll use example from my own list. I told you I have values on my list like calm and peaceful and caring and kind and humility. These are the words that come up over and over for me. And I'm also an entrepreneur.
Chief Change Officer
#274 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part Two
I run a business like this work with values. I'm coaching people and I'm doing consulting with organizations and I'm getting this work out there and trying to make this big difference. And you know what? The truth is sometimes being kind and caring and calm and peaceful is not the most important quality and characteristics. Sometimes it's things like discipline and strength and
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
It becomes far less of a case of having to work hard and put a lot of effort into something and struggle She just changed. You're the chief change officer, right? You know what I'm talking about. Like when people get really clear about something else that you already talked about in this conversation, their why, like why this is important and how important it really is.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
then getting into action and making changes becomes much easier. And then the second story I would share, just what comes to mind as you ask the question, is more of a professional example. And it's a company that I worked with recently that was a construction company And they they actually recycle concrete. So it's not the most glamorous company in the world.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But I had the opportunity and go in and meet with their leadership team and do values work with them personally about their personal values and then transition that into some organizational values. And when we were doing the organizational values, I literally, I wasn't sure how this was going to go with a company like that. Because again, it's a very, these are hard hat guys.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
They're out in the yard and they're doing the work and recycling the concrete. And sometimes the kind of work I do is a little woo and a little strange for them. But they really engaged in the conversation and they let me push them beyond the initial question of what do you do and to go a little bit deeper. And we created this remarkable list of,
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
of the things that they do in this construction company. And the very first answer was easy. They said, we recycle concrete. I said, great. I put it up on the board. I said, what else do you do? And they looked at me like I was crazy. And I said, no, really, what else? That's not the only thing you do here. What else do you do?
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Think about your other stakeholders, your coworkers and your clients and your community. What else do you do? And And somebody raised their hand and said, we innovate, like we think of new and better ways to do this. And that kind of got the ball rolling. And then somebody said, we create opportunities for our people here.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
We're really committed to developing our people and helping them move their career along. And they went on and on and created this wonderful list of the things that they do beyond just recycling concrete. And you could just feel the energy in the group change because it's easier to get excited about creating opportunities for your coworkers.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And it's easier to get excited about contributing to your community or innovating and being the very best at what you do than simply looking at it as we recycle concrete. That's what we do. And then the other thing that was super fun about working with that particular company, they really were committed to contributing to their community. And they weren't a great neighbor.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Being a construction company and a concrete recycling company, there was a lot of mess that they made. So when we were doing the ways of being, when they're like, how do you do what you do? For the first time ever, and I'm pretty sure the last time this will ever happen, one of their ways of being was dust free. And we all had a good laugh over that.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But it was also really profound because they were very committed to being a good neighbor, to contributing to their community and being an asset in the community. And if we're making a big mess all over the place, they didn't feel like they were doing that. So they had all sorts of things they were doing to mitigate this problem of just making the whole neighborhood kind of dusty.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
So Dust Free, they were the first company or the first individual I ever had come up with a way of being that was really important to them called Dust Free.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Exactly. But without really making an effort to do what they do in the cleanest way possible, they would leave, there would be dust in the air all around where their yard was, there would be dust on the streets, there would be dust floating over the fence into the neighbor's property, all those things. But they were genuinely, again, the...
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Dust Free was really a manifestation of their commitment to being a good neighbor, to being a contributor to their community rather than just a nuisance, if you will. And they were serious about it. They had all these technology and all these systems and structure in place to minimize this problem that they had of dust. just making a mess while they do the work that they do.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
You can imagine if you're crushing concrete, there's going to be some dust and they were doing everything they possibly could to minimize that so that they were a good neighbor.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I think the simplest reason why most people either don't know or can't clearly articulate their values is that it's generally not taught in the places that we most learn things. So in school, it's generally not taught.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And from our parents, there may be some good modeling of values, but in terms of actually facilitating a process where people can explore and really tap into what their highest values are, most parents aren't taught how to do that. They don't know. If you ask them to do that, they would want their children to have really good modeling of values, and they're doing the best they can with that.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
To actually really draw someone's values out of them is not always an easy thing to do. And it doesn't have, I have clients who say, yeah, I'd like to do a one hour workshop and wrap all this up. And I say, yeah, I'd like to do that too. But you know what? It doesn't really work that way. I was working this past week
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
with the second step of the process with a very large client that I'm working with. And the truth is we have three or four more steps to go to really get them to a place where they're clear and in agreement about what their team's highest values are and in a position to really remember them, keep them visible, and most importantly, actually apply them, put them into action, have them be useful.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And I think that's the answer to your second question is about why our value is so important is if we don't have that clarity, we're navigating through the world almost with like our hands over our eyes, like we're trying to move forward, but we don't have a target. We don't have a compass to really direct us. to the place that we ultimately want to go.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Again, it may be directed by someone else or something else. We're told in our society, we need to make more money. We need a nicer car. We need a bigger house. And I have no problem with any of those things. But I think we all know people who are on that chase. They're in that game.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
and they're not happy they're not fulfilled they're not satisfied they don't have a sense of purpose and meaning and in many cases they're not producing as much in the way of results as they potentially could if they were laser focused on what is most important to them and how this result they're trying to create is in alignment with that so for instance for me i can talk about wanting to make more money
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But if I'm making that money to help pay for my daughter's wedding, that's going to have an entirely different level of meaning and purpose and significance for me. And I'm going to be so much more committed to making money for that. I already told you that's my top value is my relationships with my children.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
So if it's specifically intended to improve those relationships, then I'm much more motivated in that area of money. Money is just a made up concept. It's really just a way to exchange value. And so when we are really clear about what that money means to us, like what it will allow us to do, how it will change our life in a positive way, being measured by what our values are.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
then again, we just get much more motivated, much more inspired, much more engaged. And I know in my own case, like work cannot feel like work. And that's the way I want to live my life.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Yes, for sure. And there's actually really good research that proves that the level of engagement that a person will have at work comes not from their connection to the values of the organization, but from their awareness of their own highest values. So when someone does the work to discover and get really clear and be able to articulate what their own personal highest values are,
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
and then they look at the company that they're working with and they see alignment, that's where the real engagement comes from. Some companies think that if they come up with some really beautiful, articulate, flowery values words that they put up on the wall, that will really excite their employees. But in some cases, that can actually even backfire.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Because if a company has a wonderfully articulated list of words posted on the boardroom wall, and they point to that and say, these are our highest values. But when we look at that company, or if you're working for that company, if what is a behavior that doesn't align with those values, then those values on the wall are not only not helpful, they can actually be harmful.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
They can make people feel worse about working there or doing business with that company as opposed to better. But if an employee gets clear about their own values, and my oldest daughter is a great example of this because she was working for a very large company. She's a brilliant young lady. I admit to being biased, but she's very brilliant. She has a PhD in mathematics and
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
She was working for a very large company and making a very nice salary and doing very well and getting bonuses and stock options and all sorts of great stuff. But she wasn't excited about the work she was doing. And she actually got the opportunity to move to a different company where she's still working
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Being paid very well probably took a small pay cut, but she made a move to a company that's doing research into diseases like cancer and AIDS. And she's doing the same work. It's data science work. And she still does it very well. And she's still getting paid very well.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But what really motivates her in my experience and talking to her about her work is the people she's helping, the contribution that she's making, the difference that she's making by doing this data science work in an area where, for instance, she's very focused right now on AIDS vaccines and all the data that's coming in from all these studies that they're doing. She's the one who's...
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I can't explain the math. It's so far over my head, but she's actually helping the organization take that data and make it useful, make it helpful to develop new vaccines and help people who already have AIDS or prevent people from getting AIDS to begin with. So it's a different level of excitement and engagement for her because it aligns with her personal values.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
The story like that can be a very long story, but I'll start it in the middle. My first career really was very entrepreneurial. A friend of mine and I started a parking company when I first graduated from college, and it turned out to be a wonderful entrepreneurial success.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And as part of that, I ended up being the person in the organization who was handling all of the training and developing and hiring and and growing our people and creating a culture, which I just absolutely loved. And eventually I loved it so much that I actually transitioned out of this parking company that we had created.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
My partner bought me out and I went into doing the training and development work on a full-time basis. And I had the opportunity to connect with an amazing man that Many of your listeners have probably heard of his name is Jack Canfield. He is best known as the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. And he's well known for that because they sold over 600 million books worldwide.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I had the great pleasure and honor of working with him for close to 10 years on the training side of his company and learning from him and working with him.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And then eventually going out on my own, developing a concept that I called Excellent Decisions, which was about making decisions based on your vision and your values rather than all the external stress and pressure that we're faced with in today's world. Eventually, I narrowed that down even further and really focused mostly on values first.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Because I realized that it's great to have a really compelling and exciting vision. But if that vision isn't aligned with your values, then it's not going to take you where you really want to go.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
So my work right now and the book that you referenced, The Living a Values-Based Life book, is really focused on first helping people to clarify what their most important values are so that they can then create a life and in many cases, create an organization or a business. that lines up with those values.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
You're right. It is a really big term and we can go really deep into it. And I love doing that. That's what really energizes me around this whole conversation. And at the same time, in my experience, when we talk about what values actually are, it can be a very simple answer. The answer I would give is that our values are what is most important to us.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
If we are really clear about the areas of our life that are most important to us and the ways that we want to show up in the world, like how we want to be in the world, the most important, what we call ways of being, then it fundamentally changes our life. Most people... do not know or cannot articulate at least what their highest values are.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And what we say in our organization is if you don't know what your own highest values are, then chances are, at least to some degree, you're living your life and potentially running your organization in alignment with someone else's values. Because in today's world, there's never any shortage of other people and other influences from media to social media to advertising.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
whatever it might be, that are pushing us to do the things that work really well for them, but in some cases don't really work out that well for us.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
Sure. You talk about exploring values. That's literally what I'm doing nowadays almost every day of my life. In individual conversations with people and in conversations with my clients, that's the juicy conversations that I'm in all the time. And the one distinction I would add to that is that It's really about, for me, helping other people discover their own values.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I have my own journey with continuing to clarify and refine my own values. But the work that I'm doing and the reason I was really driven to write this book and be doing the work that I'm doing is that I see the impact that it makes on people. when they get this clarity about what their highest values are. And you gave the specific example of honesty.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And I would say, yes, that's a really good example of a value that might come up when we explore with someone what is most important to them. And there's a really important distinction in our work that we explore values in a really unique way, which is by dividing values into two separate categories. The first category is what we call priorities.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
This is the areas of our life that we put our time and attention on. It's the areas of our life where we really want to create results that are creating the experiences that we want. And so we ask people, what is important to you? And we ask people to imagine what it would be like if they were living their ideal life. What would you be seeing? Who would you be with? What would you be doing?
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
How would you be feeling? If you were living your ideal life and people get connected to what is most important to them. And for myself, some examples that come up are my relationships with my children and my own health and well-being and the contribution that I want to make in the world, the business that I want to build, the relationships that I want to have.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
These are the areas of my life that I want to be putting my critical time and attention on to create relationships. that ideal life, the kind of life I really want to live. And then the second category, and this is where your example of honesty would come up, is what we call ways of being. And ways of being are qualities and characteristics.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
It's the way we want to show up in the world, the way we want to be remembered by other people, the way we want people to think of us, and the experience that we want people to have of interacting with us, whether it's on a personal or a professional level. And like I said, like your example of honesty would for many people be one of those values that would be high on their list.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And I'll give you again an example from my own life. Some of the things that show up on the top of my list are kindness and caring. Humility is really important to me. That's high on my list. Being peaceful and calm. We talk about how crazy the world is.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I really pride myself on being able to keep my cool and stay peaceful and calm, even when I'm surrounded by chaos or under a lot of stress and pressure. So things like... Like kindness and caring and humility, those are my qualities and characteristics, what we call my ways of being. And again, your example in your question of the quality of honesty, it shows up on a lot of people's lists.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
It's interesting as I listen to you and answer the question, I realize, okay, honesty is not on the top of my list. That doesn't mean honesty is not important to me. And I don't admire and try and live my life from a place of honesty. But there's literally thousands of words that we could use to describe what our most important ways of being are. And I would say honesty is important to me.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But pairing and kindness is even more important. And humility, for me personally, is even more important. So for each person, it's really a very individual journey to look at all these qualities and characteristics and say, which are the ones that I most want to live my life in alignment with? And it's a very powerful question.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I'll give you a couple of quick stories. One is more of a personal story with someone I was working with in one of our workshops. And the other is more of a business example. But the one from the workshop, it was a workshop that I led just recently. And it's a virtual workshop. So we had people from all over the United States. I don't think that we had anyone international.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But we had one woman in the group. And the first session of the group was diving into that category I told you about priorities, like what is most important to you? What is the area of your life that you want to really be putting time and intention in to create the kind of life you really want to live? And in that very first session of the workshop, it was a seven-week course.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And in that very first session, she got really clear about that health and fitness, like her own health and being, was really important to her. And it was more important to her than she had really been thinking of and the more than she was really consciously realizing.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And she made a commitment in that moment to not only make this list of values and have it be an entertaining and interesting exercise,
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
But she made a commitment to really put that time and attention to stop doing some of the things that maybe weren't as important to her and weren't on her highest values list and put some of that time and attention towards taking better care of herself, exercising and eating better.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
and this was all behind the scenes to me i did not even know we had i think 15 or 20 people participating in this workshop and i didn't even know this was happening but i heard the story afterwards so we went through the rest of the sessions and we had a session about ways of being and then we had a session about how to implement this work into your life and then we had a session to review and check in with people and then we at the end of the seven weeks we had a final session and i was asking for feedback from the group and asking
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
what people had noticed as they had been in this conversation about values. And this woman, again, virtual class, so she virtually raised her hand. And she shared that over the course of the seven weeks, she had lost 35 pounds. And I asked her, I was honestly shocked.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
I've seen people get great results and I know the power of clarifying values, but there was something about all this happening just invisibly to me. And 35 pounds in seven weeks is a pretty significant result. And I asked her and she didn't make a big deal of it or anything. It was just very simple to her in that first session. she got very clear about what is most important to her.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
And so clear that she was compelled to take action. And again, we had a session about how to do that and how to apply it. But she got into action before we even got to that session. And she simply started doing the things that people who prioritize their health and fitness do. She exercised, she was walking, and she was just eating better.
Chief Change Officer
#273 Robert MacPhee: Robert MacPhee: Clarity, Chicken Soup, and a Midlife U-Turn — Part One
She threw away a bunch of junk food and bought herself some really good quality fruits and vegetables and good quality food. And she just acted differently over the course of those seven weeks and got the result of losing 35 pounds. And for me, it was a very compelling example of how simple it can be when we get clarity about what's most important to us.