Chief Change Officer
#75 From Parking Cars to Parking Purpose: Robert MacPhee on Living a Values-Driven Life — Part One
Thu, 21 Nov 2024
Part One. In this 2-part series, we sat down with Robert MacPhee. From parking cars to co-piloting lives, Robert has gone full throttle with his best-selling book Living a Values-Based Life A former right-hand man to Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Jack Canfield, Robert now helps people figure out their life’s GPS—or rather, their VBS (Values-Based System). Why are we so bad at knowing what we actually value? How can aligning your actions with your core values make work feel less like work? And why does he have such strong opinions about clarity? Robert dishes out wisdom with a side of wit, helping us tackle life’s big questions with plenty of “aha” moments and a few laughs along the way. Key Highlights of Our Interviews: A Masterclass with Jack Canfield “I was fortunate to work closely with Jack Canfield, the co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Over nearly a decade, I learned invaluable lessons about personal development and training, which inspired me to branch out and develop my own concept—Excellent Decisions.” Living a Values-Based Life “My current focus, and the heart of my book, Living a Values-Based Life, is helping people clarify their most important values. Once they’re clear on those, they can create a life—and in many cases, a business—that truly aligns with what matters most to them.” What Are Values, Really? “At its core, values are what’s most important to us. They define how we want to show up in the world and guide the ways we choose to be. When we are clear about our values, they become a compass, fundamentally shifting how we navigate life and work." Why Are Values So Hard to Define? “Most people struggle to articulate their values simply because no one teaches them how. Schools don’t prioritize it, and while parents might model certain values, they often don’t have the tools to guide their children through truly understanding and clarifying their highest values. It’s not intuitive, and it’s certainly not a one-hour workshop—it’s a journey.” Values Are More Than Ideals; They’re Tools “Without clearly defined values, navigating life is like walking blindfolded. You may move forward, but without a compass, you risk heading in the wrong direction. Society constantly pushes external markers like money, cars, or houses as measures of success. But aligning goals with deeply personal values, like strengthening family relationships or contributing to a cause, brings fulfillment and focus.” _________________________ Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Robert MacPhee Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 3% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI, JP 2 Millions+ Downloads 50+ Countries --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What is the purpose of living a values-based life?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. A few years ago, I joined a growing venture as the chief people officer. It lasted just six weeks.
To that CEO, I may have seemed incompetent, but I knew exactly why I had to leave so quickly. It was a major clash of values. I believe in being true and ethical in both words and deeds, while he thrived on a man-made facade of showmanship and hypocrisy. Knowing my values made the decision clear. This experience ties directly to today's guest. Robert Mercier.
He's the author of Living a Values-Based Life and the creator of the leadership model called Excellent Decisions. In this two-part series, we'll dive into what values really mean, why they matter for leading fulfilling careers and lives, and why figuring out our values can be challenging. We'll also explore how to make our values visible and sustainable in a world that's constantly changing.
If you feel stuck in your current workplace, it's not necessarily your fault. Often, it's just a misalignment of values. Don't bend your values to fit in. Instead, find a place and a tribe whose values resonate with yours. That's where true happiness and success lie. Let's dive in.
Robert, I'm really excited to dive into the ideas behind your book, not just the content, but also the why behind it. What's the story behind this calling to write a book about value? Before we get there, I'd love to hear about your journey leading up to who you are today and the work you do, which have been shaped by your past, your experiences, your highs, your lows, and your challenges?
What moments or turning points in your life that brought you to this very stage?
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Chapter 2: What key experiences shaped Robert MacPhee's journey?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 so that they can then create a life and in many cases, create an organization or a business. that lines up with those values.
By your own definition, what exactly are values?
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.
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Chapter 3: Why are values so hard to define and articulate?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You mentioned that one driving force behind publishing your book was seeing how powerful it is when people figure out the values, align the behaviors with them, and act on them. The results, as you've said, can be extraordinary. Could you share some examples from your coaching experiences? without naming names, of course, that highlight this transformation.
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Chapter 4: How can knowing your values influence your life decisions?
Stories where someone identified their core values, made changes to align with them, and saw incredible results. I think those examples could inspire and show us what's possible when we live in alignment with our values.
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.
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.
And in that very first session, she got really clear that, 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.
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,
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.
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, 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.
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.
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Chapter 5: What are the categories of values and why do they matter?
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 we'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.
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.
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Chapter 6: How can aligning actions with values lead to personal transformation?
Absolutely. You've touched on something so critical. Figuring out our values is challenging because, as you said, we've been absorbing others' expectations, whether from parents, schools, peers, or society, like a sponge for years. And when we don't consciously question or explore those imposed values, we can feel stuck or out of place without even understanding why.
In the workplace, this disconnect often manifests as frustration, disengagement or being labeled as not a team player. But as you pointed out, is rarely about competence or work ethics. It's about a values mismatch.
If we take the time to understand our core values, it not only helps us find better alignment with a company or a team, but also enables us to navigate the environment more strategically we can identify where things resonate and where they don't, which teams and leaders share a similar outlook, and how to bridge gaps when values diverge.
This awareness gives us clarity on how to behave, communicate, and even set boundaries, thereby reducing stress and improving fulfillment. Wouldn't you agree?
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,
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.
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Chapter 7: Can you share real-life examples of transformation through values?
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.
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 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 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.
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...
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.
Just now, Robert shared with us what values really mean, why they matter for leading fulfilling careers and lives, and why figuring out our values can be challenging. In Part 2, we'll explore how to make our values more visible and sustainable in a world that is constantly changing and noisy. Come back and join us tomorrow. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard,
Don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.
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