5 ways to find and fortify your values and empower your life

We’d all like to have more control over our lives and our destiny. But how can we make it happen?

Gandhi had said the following:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.”

In other words, if we want to create positive outcomes in our lives, we need to identify our core beliefs and then live them out. It sounds simple - but in practice, it can be anything but.  

A friend once told me he was against killing animals. Then, a year later, he said he was going on a bird hunt - a family tradition. Harvard University professors Drs. Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey talk about this integrity issue in their book Immunity to Change. They say that people will say one thing and do another—even if it is a life or death issue—because their genuine intention is not inline with their assumptions of who they are. In order for my friend to align his actions with his stated personal value, he would have to address his beliefs about who he is.

If we truly want to live out our values, we have to take action. As Simon Sinek says, values are verbs.  He says: “always tell the truth” has more ring to it than “be honest.” So in this case, saying: “never kill animals” would be better than “be against killing animals,” but being able to say that would require a change in core belief.

Determining our own values - so that we can live them out with integrity - is a process. Asking ourselves who we want to be, and watching how we actually act, take time. So I began writing this piece as a journey, exploring different ways to get clear on my own values. Here are six strategies I employed and found helpful - and I share them here in hopes that you might, as well. 

1. Identify your top ‘value verb’ and small changes you can make. Using my coaching school’s “Reorient Around Your Values” program, I selected 20 values from a predetermined list of mostly actions (verbs!). Then, I threw out those “values”  that were needs or things that I do in order to get something else, or things that don’t come easily (“shoulds”). My list narrowed to five: Beauty, To Catalyze, To Contribute, To Create, and Mastery. Then, I picked one of the five, “To Create” and came up with 10 life changes that were aligned with that value, such as “design a new garden,” “polish 5 piano pieces” “perfect 10-11 katas,” etc...  These changes could be done within the next 90 days. In a month or so, I plan to do the same thing with the other four values. 

2. List what you love - and hate - in yourself and others. Using google, I found self-assessments and a tip that recommended listing what I most despised in myself and others: (betrayals, dishonesty, cruelty, inefficiency/neglect, stupidity, pig-headedness, entitlement). And then identifying the opposites: fidelity, honesty, kindness, efficiency/care, good sense, open-mindedness, humility.

3. Revisit the wisdom of Stephen Covey. I reread Stephen Covey’s books and the parts on how our values should be principle-centered. Principles are immutable, laws of nature. In his books, Covey gives the example: you can’t sow your crops one day and expect to harvest them the next. We can’t change our behaviors, if we don’t know our beliefs, morals, and values, as best illustrated by his quote: “People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.”

4. Embrace Your Intuition. I hired leadership coach Vicki Haddock, who used a less cerebral, more meditative technique that connected me to my intuitive—or higher—self to identify what was important to me. My list was self-generated and a reflection of what I was feeling and thinking that day: Seek the truth, keep a big picture, be grateful, walk the talk, be courageous, assume the best in others, nurture, trust yourself, embrace serenity, beauty, be compassionate, and educate.

5. Start with Why. I attended a Simon Sinek “Start With Why” experiential webinar, read his book, and rewatched his popular Golden Circle Ted talk, during which he explains that the “Why” actually catalyzes people to action, not merely the “What” and “How.” I was paired up with another participant and we worked on each other’s messages. The webinar resulted in the following “why message:” “To help people learn the best versions of themselves so that they can live impactful and meaningful lives.” 

6. Think Like a Monk. I read Think like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day by Jay Shetty, in which he says to look at your calendar and at your expenses. Where you spend your time and your money can give you an idea of where your values lie. Look at your "wants" and write them down.Then ask yourself, why? Then question... do any of them not come easily? If so, they are probably "shoulds" and are therefore not values? Looking into my calendar, I found piano lessons and practices, runs, karate classes, dog walks, coaching sessions, and admin, indicating that I value creating, catalyzing, and mastering as well as health and connection.

Identifying our values can be a complex process - and living them out, even more so. But if we truly want to take control over our lives, it’s essential to get clear on what we care about - and what we can’t stand - so that at the end of the day, we’re living in integrity. 

Powerful productivity strategy recommended: How to leverage your ‘orphaned’ hours

Effective scheduling strategies, once reserved for the self-employed, are now crucial for professional creatives working from home. How can we—writers, architects, programmers, and designers —become more disciplined about the way we use our time, without sacrificing our creativity, when we’re already feeling burned out? That’s a question I’ve struggled with for years, and I set out to find an answer.

Stress is something my coaching clients and colleagues are reporting, caused partly by blurred boundaries between work and personal life. The benefits of technology, such as eradicated commute and travel times, have created the downside that we can hold meetings at odd hours and places, such as in our cars (to avoid waking up the family), extending work time into family and self-care time.

Working at home is plagued by increased interruptions. There is nothing more frustrating for a creative to have to switch gears once totally immersed and “in flow.” After discovering the difference between “manager schedules” and “maker schedules” thanks to an article by Dorie Clark, who introduced me to computer programmer Paul Graham’s post on the subject, I realized that the possibility of distractions made me unwilling to commit to writing in the first place. The half-day minimum was not enough for me. So, I started planning out my ideal week, dedicating entire days to my craft.

My Initial Strategy

My ideal week, I decided, would be split into three categories: self, work, and social/music. Within the work category, I applied what I learned from Clark and Graham. I turned two days into “maker days.” These would be for research and writing articles. I turned three-and-a-half days into “manager days” for appointments with clients, prospects, networking, professional development, and volunteering. I picked days these days around recurring appointments such as therapy, strength training and karate.

At first, it didn’t go as smoothly as I thought. After making Tuesday a “manager day”, I found it empty and I needed a day to go over the prior day’s writing. So, I turned it into a “maker day,” and converted my Saturday afternoon, which was reserved for the writing that I often missed due to admin, into “manager” time.

My Discovery 

Then, I found them. The orphans.

These were the sometimes present, odd, unclaimed, lone 45 unscheduled minutes. They were too short to do anything creative or to get into flow, but too long to just ignore. I wondered what to do with these outliers.

I looked at my commitments list. I had signed up for Dorie Clark’s Recognized Expert Course with its 50-plus hours of content to go through. I was enrolled in an IESE Business School financial accounting class. I realized that these commitments had been sources of stress, because I hadn’t been able to find the time to accomplish the course work. I had a lightbulb moment. Those “orphaned” hours were perfect for reading, and watching course lecture videos, and taking notes and quizzes. Yes! I would get through these courses after all!

A sense of relief overcame me. No, I didn’t have to sacrifice my free time to take those professional development courses. I could fit them into my workweek and keep my free time really free.

Now, I feel a sense of control and happiness when I look at my schedule and feel I’ve accounted for everything. Creating an ideal week and constantly updating it, helps me to juggle my commitments as well as my needs.

How would you, dear reader, apply this strategy to your calendar? Or what strategies have you used to deal with those orphaned minutes or hours? Why not schedule an introductory call if you are interested in working together to make your time even more productive and meaningful.

Dr. Constant Mouton | How professionals can build community and stay mentally healthy during the pandemic

The benefits of building community have been well proven, but often, we feel we don’t have time to do so outside our work and family obligations.

But there are serious mental health risks associated with not-disconnecting from work according to psychiatrist and addiction recovery specialist Dr. Constant Mouton. 

 "If work and/or family are your only community, then you get into trouble with things like burnouts," Mouton says. Family and work are important but they can't meet all of our social needs. If we rely too much on family or colleagues, we will miss out on opportunities for personal and professional growth. 

Burnout occurs when the feeling of overwhelm, emotional drain, inability to meet constant demands continues for six months or more and we begin to lose interest and motivation in certain roles that we took on in the first place. 

In the Netherlands, where Mouton works, people who have been experiencing serious stress for less than six months can apply for sick leave and are asked to participate in various coaching activities, including finding activities in communities.

“In the Netherlands, much is focused on self care, wellbeing, finding balance and finding communities that lighten your spirits and lighten your burden - like a counterforce to work,” he says.

Mouton’s lectures on the neurobiology of addiction and burnout are quite similar. "I can just as well use that same lecture for burnout because the biological ways and the roots are very similar to burnout. It's all sympathetic overload, you have to work with your parasympathetic nervous system. You have to do a lot of winding down and calming down, mindfulness."

Community outside of work and family is a choice and it provides us with—what Mouton refers to as—collective resilience. 

“The real difference is that family is a group of people who are closely related to one another by blood or marriage or adoption, or nowadays also by choice,” he says. “Community is often a choice.”

“By building these communities, in the same way that we build family relationships, we can actually access that collective resilience and strength in everything we do and all the work we do to overcome adversity, trauma, loss, discrimination, all of those things,” he says. “Both families and communities have a lot in common. They support us in finding connection with others and that helps us grow and develop and also heal. Families and communities are really an abundant resource for stories and shared beliefs. And that makes us understand our process in a current situation.”

Dr. Mouton is certified in a unique kind of interventions, working long-term and with total transparency, with families whose members suffer from addictions and various mental health issues. In his work, he uses a "5 to 1" ratio. It takes five care professionals to replace one family member. And the equivalent of a minimum of 3.3 family members are needed for successful outcomes during such interventions.

"If you help people find communities that can support them, that will help them process things and aid the recovery as well,” he says.

“The function of a community is about that connection, mutual support, social participation, cooperation, and it’s usually towards a certain goal,” Mouton says. 

“I just love the African proverb: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” says the South African native.

Mouton recommends joining three different types of communities that are aimed at higher goals. "In finding them, look for groups that meet up with your core beliefs, but that also add something to your life in terms of what you like or what you aspire to be." Do something for your body, your mind, and your soul.

• Body-wise: running club, a gym or fitness or a judo, karate or whatever you're into.

• Mind: take up a hobby that kind of sparks your imagination, like art class or writing or something creative

• Spiritual: like yoga or meditation

“This way you cover all bases. It’s quite nice because you combine self-development with community,” he says. The rest and relaxation helps to disconnect from work and other obligations.

What if it feels like no one in your area has your interests, goals, norms, and values? 

A traditional community would be referred to as a collection of people within a geographical area, but Mouton says there that today thanks to technology, the community can be online.

"The community doesn't have to be local. You can also find things online. There's also more out there than you think. The first step is to always dare to be vulnerable and to look for the others that don't fit the mold. The internet is a wonderful resource for those kinds of things. Nowadays with modern technology, things like Zoom and platforms, you don't need to be limited by your geography.” 

Does one start with interests or values?

"You might start with interests and then work out the norms and values amongst each other. I think if you're an outsider who wants to join a community that's already there because the community has a life of its own. It's also an entity of its own. The norms and the values are there already.

"You find communities that have a common goal. It can be one that is trying to overcome a potential threat, like discrimination, "which is in the media of late." 

What if we are expats?

If you live in a foreign country, and depending on the cultural boundaries, you could ask for recommendations at work. “If you're an expat, it is best to start with expat communities and branch off from there.”

What if we are older than 29?

The older we get the more difficult it seems to make friends. When we are young we are "less inhibited" and that's got to do with the brain and prefrontal cortex development. "In our 40s, we become more reserved as we get older. We know ourselves better... So in a way, we get more particular with whom we want to be friends or not."

What if we are single?

Single people need not despair. It is a good thing to be individualistic and do your own thing whether you are single or in a relationship. 

"In the Netherlands, people often go out with friends and leave their partners at home and say, well, this is a friends' evening and I'll see you later. This is quite acceptable."

So join a running or a yoga club, take up a hobby, and something creative that you can do. All of this can help you live a richer, more resilient life and help you in both burnout prevention and cure. The basic resilience is there already. 

Constance Dierickx, PhD | 9 flags to look out for when onboarding new clients to save you money

As coaches, mentors, or consultants, we’ve all experienced those clients. You know, the ones we have to chase for payment, who send us War-and-Peace-length emails, cancel sessions at the last minute, try to micromanage our process, resist any real work in (and in between) sessions, or who—citing a lack of real friends—try to pressure us to attend virtual one-on-one coffee chats. 

Don’t you wish you had that magic toolbox to triage clients, separating out good prospects you can truly help from those who need clinical assistance?

That’s why screening prospective clients is key before onboarding them, according to Constance Dierickx, author, clinical psychologist and executive coach. But how? “I have a framework in my head,” Dierickx says, which she says is embedded now after years of clinical practice. Referred to as the “Uber-coach” or the “corporate secret weapon,” or The Decision Doctor®, Dierickx is used to pressure-cooker scenarios such as high-stakes decisions, transitions, and crises. 

As coaches, we don’t all have a PhD in psychology—like Dierickx has—to help us weed out those bad clients, but she says there are some behaviors to look out for. 

Saying no to income is hard for any coach, and takes courage. But here are 9 red flags that could save you time, money, and aggravation.

1. Self-proclaimed experts

It’s a simple but powerful truth: if your client isn’t willing to learn, your coaching engagement won’t go well. Recently, Dierickx decided against working with a very successful entrepreneur, because that person showed “a pattern of behavior wherein she could not give up being the expert.” This person had to prove to herself that all her learning came from her own choices about whom to talk to, what environment to be in, what decisions she made. She had to give herself all the credit for learning anything. “And I think it's very antithetical to learning,” Dierickx says. “I think one of the wonderful things about great leaders that I've worked with is that they can say, ‘I didn't know that. Tell me more.’ And so they're doing more than one thing at a time. One, they're learning. Two, they're reinforcing the behavior of someone else to share what they know. And three, if they do it in public, they're saying, without saying, to a group of people: “This is a learning environment. This is an environment where we're going to continuously learn and grow.’”

When leaders say they are learning from others but don’t demonstrate it, it shows a lack of integrity. “It's just the worst possible scenario because the leader is showing people that they're saying one thing and doing another,” she says. “Learn in public. Wander around and learn in public.”

“I will tell you that some of the worst people to try to coach are people who think that they're coaches,” she says. “And the same is true if somebody has a PhD or a law degree or whatever, and every five minutes, they're telling you that.”

Such clients have what Dierickx calls “cognitive rigidity” or the inability to think about something in a different way. “They are so defended that they can’t tolerate a new idea,” she says.

2. Potential rescue missions

During our coaching development, we learn to identify good prospects by their willingness to change. Dierickx takes it further. Being willing isn’t enough.

“It's beyond willingness, it's ability,” she says.

The way to determine a prospect’s ability to change is to explore his or her past changes. This determines whether they are not only open and willing to change, as well as whether they can change at all. The key is to ask them to tell you about something that they changed about themselves or their circumstances that they feel proud about. 

“I ask: ‘What's something you're proud of that took a lot of effort on your part to go from what was, to what it is now?’” she says.

They need to have actually changed something about themselves. If that prospective client can’t give good examples of prior change, then decline working with them. Any work with this client will become a rescue mission. They may change their behavior in the short term, or on a surface-level, and get a promotion, but the change will only last a few months. 

Ask provocative questions. Some clients—whom you may have been hired to help retain—are already hell-bent on leaving a company. You can save a lot of time and energy by finding out what they really want on the front end.

3. That ‘ick feeling’ 

Many people talk about the importance of heeding ‘gut feelings.’ But that’s only half the battle, Dierickx says. “So when someone says to me, ‘it was gut instinct,’ get it out of your gut and put it in your brain and analyze what’s going on because that’s going to help you more,” Dierickx advises. 

She tells the story of the CEO who came to her and asked her to work with a woman whom Dierickx later found out was ‘a train wreck’. “…this senior executive starts talking to me and just wants to be my best friend in 90 seconds. And my radar is going [off].” 

Although the woman was charming, enthusiastic, attractive, executive was well put together, and exhibited very high verbal ability, the interaction was “Too much, too fast, and too personal,” Dierickx says. 

“Going around saying, ‘I did it by gut,’ you’re depriving yourself of learning what we call pattern recognition. I took that feeling of ick about this person who had a very senior job and I moved it up to my brain and asked myself, so what made it ick? Too fast, too personal, effusive, high emotionality.”

“Pattern recognition for a coach is gold,” Dierickx adds. 

Such personalities can be seductive, and there’s nothing wrong with us if we get sucked in once in a while. Even the most rational types are human beings too and can be candidates for seduction.

Dierickx remembers a patient years ago who kept getting seduced by the wrong men. She cried in her office and was convinced there was something wrong with herself. Dierickx looked at her and said it was her radar—or detection system—of that particular thing that was the problem. It was too slow. Working on her radar and strengthening it to become more sensitive helped her and gave her a needed sense of control to make better decisions. 

4. Our own too-rapid judgments

When we form too-rapid judgments about potential clients and don’t examine them,  that can lead to taking on the wrong clients too quickly. We are all prone to making inaccurate judgments about people based on our distorted views or on incomplete information. Just because someone is able to cry about their mothers, doesn’t mean they are empathetic. They may be crying about themselves.

“I'm trying to avoid a cognitive bias, which is really hard to do because we're all human and we have these,” Dierickx says. “And the reason I'm doing it is I don't want to get sucked in, and I know I can get sucked in. I'm not so grand about my ability that I think I can't get sucked in.”

“If somebody tells you, you're a horse's ass, that's just their opinion. If two people tell you, it's a coincidence. If three people tell you, buy a saddle,” says Dierickx. 

We should always be looking for data pieces that hang together. It’s a screening process that ensures we are “not simply looking for confirmatory data.”

 “And this is where adopting the mind of a scientist is incredibly useful,” Dierickx says. She goes on to explain the following methodology when she is trying to decide whether or not to work with somebody or if she is doing an assessment for a client. 

She listens, watches for, and captures data.  She writes “HO” for hypothesis, followed by whatever her head gives her, such as “controlling or unwilling to learn” or whatever her hypothesis is. 

“And then I force myself to come up with evidence for and against,” says Dierickx.

She goes back to the example of the effusive executive who gave her all those compliments. “Up to a point they were pretty pleasant. And then when she asked me to turn around, then it became unpleasant,” she says.

5. Loose boundaries

If someone is too effusive, too fast, too personal, too charming, that’s a red flag, such as when a potential client says: “I trust you. I trusted you from the moment we met.” “I'm thinking to myself: ‘You're going to hate me in about 90 days or less,” Dierickx says. The problem is that the person likely runs too hot, then too cold. 

Dierickx says this example is blatant. But what if the loose boundary is wrapped in charm and is more subtle?

Sometimes the “ick” feeling isn’t there. So what do we do then?

“Boundaries is it. Boundaries is a huge thing,” Dierickx says. We have to watch for signs.

6. Rate balkers and quibblers

Hiring a coach, consultant, or mentor is an investment. Dierickx advises us to drop prospective clients who argue about our rates. 

“You don't work with somebody and invest your intelligence and your experience and your goodwill and your hopes for them, you don't invest in them until they've invested in themselves,” Dierickx says. Interestingly, the self-proclaimed expert mentioned above had asked Dierickx to cut her fee in half. 

Dierickx counsels coaches to change peer consulting groups, if they find themselves being told to lower their fees. “Get a new group, because the problem isn't what the market will bear,” Dierickx says. “The problem is how we feel about ourselves and articulate our value.” 

People who quibble about the terms of the engagement. They may ask for eight references, giving the excuse they’re really analytical. But they are really showing a reluctance to commit to the engagement.

7. Control patterns

Coaching a micromanager or someone who is being controlling is possible, if the client can come to see the connections to other parts of their lives, according to Dierickx. If such a change isn’t possible, such a person might need a therapeutic intervention.

“As a coach, you're not responsible for that. That's their little red wagon, but you want to be able to detect it so you can make the decision, but it doesn't have to be no,” Dierickx says.

Identifying potential clients who might turn out to be the ones who try to micromanage every minute of working together is possible through the mind body connection. Typical  body sensations we feel when somebody is trying to control us include a feeling of constriction and flinching, according to Dierickx. The feeling may be intense. The key is to take that physical reaction, realize that it’s healthy and good, and ask ourselves what it is trying to tell us. If we try to verbalize what we are feeling physically, then we can do something about it rather than leaving it in the gut. The gut is the warning system, or “the sentry” that alerts us that something is wrong.“So what happens when a person is controlling is, they start showing you that very early,” says Dierickx.” They'll say things like: ‘Here's my number. Call me at the appointed time.’” 

Dierickx calls this data. That person is immediately assigning the caller role to us. 

Or controlling patterns will show in the form of questions or the following interaction:

"Well, how many times are we going to meet? What's your hourly rate?" 

"I don't work like that." 

"Well, you have to work like that because your fee has to be based on time." 

"It doesn't. And it isn't." 

"No, but you must have, at some point in time, figured out your time."

 "No, I don't."

 "Oh, come on." 

“And they just keep at you,” Dierickx says. “So I get that question about fee and time, because my fees aren't based on time. They haven't been for 12 years. I'm not pivoting to satisfy somebody who wants to implant their template on me about how I'm supposed to work.”

8. Going against advice from peers

“If you're struggling with whether or not someone's going to be a good client for you and you call a peer colleague and you ask for advice and they tell you not to do it. And you argue with them, you better look at yourself,” she said.

9. Quoting others 

If a prospect starts to quote other people when asking questions, be careful. 

That prospect may say a friend or a spouse told them to ask us a certain question. That friend or spouse is not the client in the room, so bringing them into the discussion changes the relationship from a dyad to a triad. You can’t work with someone who isn’t actually showing up. 

Dierickx had a prospect once who quoted her husband during an introductory meeting, to which she asked her whether her husband was in business with her and found out that the husband ran his own consulting firm and was not doing very well.

As Maya Angelou said, “be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.” And in this case, the naked person isn’t even in the room.

Every coach or consultant wants to work with clients they can genuinely help. So we need to practice detecting behavior patterns and collecting data to help determine who will be a great client - and who won’t be. If in doubt, refer out to a therapist or psychologist or someone with a set of clinical tools. Who knows, that prospect may be able to change whatever it is that’s holding them back and return to you in a healthier, coach-able state of mind.