The Relevance of Values For a Business That Breathes With You

Welcome back to our little corner of the internet, angels. In today's episode of our podcast, we delve deeply into the role values play in shaping your success.

I share practical questions to audit your own business as well as insights from my own experiences, exploring how realigning with our core values transforms the breathability of our business environment, making every step in our business journey not just necessary but nourishing. 

We cover:

• Embracing Values in Business: Unpacking the transformative impact of aligning deeply with our core values, making our business a reflection of our truest selves.
• Living Values Authentically: How authentic value alignment enhances the well-being of everyone and creates a breathable, living entity out of our business structures.
• A Guided Audit of True Alignment: Using the value of 'freedom' I offer you a prompting question to explore different areas of business and how you're integrating (or not) your values.
• Performing vs Embodying Your Values: Drawing from my past roles and personal experiences, I share the contrast between businesses that 'perform' values and those that embody them and the impact on overall success.
• Edit to Exhale Sessions: At the time of recording this episode, these sessions are available at a VERY special price. You can explore these sessions here (please not these sessions my increase in price or become unavailable in future)

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Transcript

0:37

Hello, angels. And welcome back to the podcast. In today's episode, I want to share with you. A little bit of a conversation and unpacking, let's say into the impact of values in business now. The reason I want to share this with you today is over the period of the last 12 months. As I shared in the previous podcast episode, a lot has happened in my world. And when we face challenge. And learnings that, you know, weren't expected. I mean it's often that they aren't expected. We tend to enter this space of being quite reflective and really gaining perspective on what's working and what's not. And an almost gives us like a little bit of a push to realign and to rethink areas of our life that we would like to be different and, you know, taking action in implementing those changes and. One of those things for me, especially in the world of my business, was to reflect on how I was implementing and integrating my values into business. Now, this is something that I. Used to be very conscious of and very intentional with. And I think along the way, I just. Got a little lax with it. Really. It was something that I think I stopped. Asking the questions I stopped checking in along the way, you know, to make sure that the implementation was still happening to make sure I was still leading from a place of my values. And the reason this is so important is because. When we create a business on the foundations of our values, it allows us to have a breathable business. Now I bang on about having a breathable business so much. And there's good reason for it. And the reality is we don't get into business too. Be all choked up and bothered and overwhelmed and stressed and all of the things we get into business to feel alive. Right? We get into business to lead a movement and leave, leave a legacy that really impacts people and leaves a positive impact on the world. And that really can happen in any form. Like it can take any form. It doesn't always have to be, you know, you being this personal development speaker and sharing inspirational thoughts and things like that to whip people into action. Like that's not the reality. We know that, however, when it comes to having a breathable business, what is important, no matter what form your business takes is to lead from values. Now, this is something that I remember when I, you know, have worked for companies in the past and they would always, you know, have their core values of the company. And this is what we live and breathe by, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, there were times where, and I say, blah, blah, blah. Because. As an employee of certain companies, there were times where. I could see that those values were reflected, integrated and upheld really well. And then I could see where those values were more, just a performative, tokenistic, you know, fill in the blank situation. They weren't really upheld very well at all. Now, when I think about the experiences of differing companies, what is really interesting is I, as an employee of those companies, I felt that I could breathe more deeply. In the company that those values were upheld within. And I share this with you, because I think it's important to recognize no matter whether you're in business with yourself, you know, you are the sole trader, you are the head of the company, whatever it is, or whether you're an employee of an organization. Values are so important to the experience and the performance and the success. Of all of it, of you as the business owner of you as an employee of the business, as you know, its core entity. Right. So when it comes to values, this is something that I really encourage you to take some time to. Sit with and do a little audit of your business. I'm going to run through a list of different values. And then I'm going to give you some questions essentially on different areas of business and what questions you might ask yourself in those areas of business to sort of check in and see whether your values are being reflected in those areas. And it's quite interesting, and it can be quite shocking and confronting when you. You know, you sit there and you list out your values. You're like, yep. Nope. These are my values. I know my values. This is what I live and breathe by. Yeah. When you sit back and you look at the patterns of behaviors, the processes, the ways that you show up, the ways things outline, the ways things are created. There can be some in congruence and it can be a little bit uncomfortable to sit with sometimes because the reality is you are the one that's responsible for that in congruence, because you are the leader of your business. You are the leader of your movement and your legacy. And to sit in a place of self-responsibility for that, it can feel uncomfortable. And I really want to acknowledge that and recognize that. It's not that you've done anything wrong at all. It is the fact of we are human. We have so much noise coming at us all the time. So many things that were told, you know, this should be the priority and that should be the priority. And the reason I want to really encourage you and invite you into. Taking your values in business and the integration of them seriously is because it will spread throughout everything you do, and it will make your experience so much more breathable. You will get to release so much of the overwhelm, so much of the confusion and really step into and receive that access that, you know, You were here to experience. I, so let's dive into a list of different values and then dive into the questions that I'm going to share. Like I said about each area of business and I'm going to, for those questions, I'm going to use a single value. I'll use the value of freedom, for example throughout those questions, just so you can hear the questions in a way that. You know, It flows. It makes sense. So you sort of brain can catch on a little bit and you just replace freedom. The value of freedom with any of your values. Okay. So let's dive in to a list of. Pretty common values. Now I'm only going to list a few. You can Google online and find a list of values. If you Google values and Bernay brown, a really great list comes up. She has a list on her resource on her website. Or, I mean, you can jump into chat GBT if you really want to and ask it to help you with. You know, find your values or give you a list of values, you know, so whatever it is for you you can dive into that. I'm just going to give you a few to get you started and sort of anchored into this conversation we're having and the way that this might unfold for you. So. A couple of values. Number one, integrity. Number two. Empathy. Number three quality. For diversity, five connection. Six. Balance seven creativity. Eight. Learning. Nine respect. 10 accountability. 11 flexibility. 12. Authenticity. 13. Generosity 14 courage. 15 fun. And one more that I hadn't written down, but I want to throw in there is honesty. And this is another conversation that I am going to record a podcast on the theme of the topic of honesty and. Just our relationship to it because it's something that I have noticed a lot recently in conversations with friends and clients, my own reflections within my own world. And I think it will be a powerful conversation to have, especially if it is a value of yours. So, those are just a list of 16 values to sort of get you started, get you thinking, get you tapped into your values and maybe what they are. And if you already know what they are brilliant, this is going to be a lot more of an ease for quick process, kind of quick process for you to, you know, go through the questions and really reflect on where your values are upheld in your business and where they're not. For you, if you don't know your values, That is okay. It is more than okay. Even it could be a great idea to revisit them and make sure that that is still what feels true and real for you. There might be just that little bit more work into establishing what those are for you. So the areas of business that I am going to explore, I'm just going to list them out. And then I'm going to give you the question with it. Feel free to write these down, or if you're driving. Maybe you come back to this episode where about nine and a half, nine minutes in so you can come back to this section of the episode and write them down and, you know, do your process a little bit later, if that need be. Okay. The first area of business I want to speak to is when we are assessing, you know, new opportunities or projects. Whether we take on an opportunity that we've been invited into, for example, now the question you can ask yourself when deciding on whether this is right or not for you, is does this opportunity enhance freedom within my business and personal life? And as I mentioned, I'm using freedom as the value example. So just replace freedom with whatever your value is. If it's not freedom. Now, when it comes to this. This is really important because if you were taking on new opportunities or projects or clients or anything like that, And you take it on from a place of feeling like you should, or, you know, something I see really often is people taking on like clients for an opportunities for the money, right. When it comes to this, if you're asking yourself, you know, maybe your value is fun, right? And you ask yourself, the question does taking on this opportunity, enhance fun within my business and personal life. And for you taking on this opportunity and asking yourself that question, which you were initially going to say yes to, by reflecting it and pulling it through your values, you can see actually. It would put a lot of pressure on you. It would put a lot of stress on you. You actually wouldn't find it that fun. It would be, you know, you'd be doing it because you felt like you should, or you had to, or that, you know, there was some sort of force essentially in it. Or expectation. So that's a powerful example of how our values can support us to make correct decisions and invest our energy wisely in our business and in our life. Number two relationships and collaborations. Now, the question for this one is by investing in this relationship or collaboration, does it foster freedom. Once again, you input your value. If it's not freedom. By investing in this relationship of collab or collaboration, does it foster freedom? The next one processes and workflows all the foundations, the juicy systems and processes and all of the things. The question for this one is, are these processes making my business operations more aligned with my value of freedom? Or are they detracting from my ability to uphold this value? When it comes to processes and workflows, this is a really interesting one to run a value through because like the example I shared earlier with fun. If you run this through the processes and workflows, if you have a value of fun to have fun processes and workflows, it could mean for you having a project management system that is customizable and colorful. So you feel really, it feels fun and engaging. It might be that you have a process where, you know, when something gets done or like a new client comes through, you have an automation that. He sends you an email celebrating you and it's like, how fun is that? Right? You have a close, a client sign on, and then you've set up an automation. So you get an email. It just really takes a moment to congratulate you and celebrate you and welcome you into this new opportunity. Right. So there's different ways that our values can blend into these different sections of business. The next one, marketing and communication. The question here is how am I waving freedom into my marketing and communications? Now, when it comes to marketing communications, we're talking social media, we're talking, you know, this podcast as an example, we're talking. Email marketing, we're talking, networking in person. We're talking your market research. Like when you're having conversations with potential clients or past clients and doing market research, this is all in that. How am I weaving freedom into my marketing and communications. In your messaging, like does the messaging, if you've got a value within your business, that's freedom. Does your messaging reflect that? Does your movement reflect that? Right. Next one client nurturance. This is one of my favorites. I love. Getting into businesses and looking at the ways that they nurture their clients, because I have been in. You know, like I said earlier, worked for companies and things where the care hasn't been there and the care has, and the difference in my performance and the performance of my colleagues was astounding. Now I have also been in online programs from other coaches and service providers where wasn't that great. And there's been other ones where it was phenomenal and it really creates a massive impact. So when it comes to client nurture, it's a question you can ask yourself is how can I infuse freedom within my client care to enhance their experience?'cause the other thing with this is it's really likely that a lot of your clients will have similar values to you. And they will be attracted to you by the way that you present and show up in your values. Now, if you have shown up in your values in your marketing, However behind the scenes in your client nurturance, you know, once they step through that door, if that drops off. That's a problem. And then not going to have a really great experience. I mean, you see it a lot where people share experiences of, you know, I was really excited to work with, you know, let's give an example of X coach and, you know, but when I got into the program, like it just, it was all like smoke and mirrors. It just didn't feel good. I didn't feel seen, I didn't feel heard. I didn't. You know, get the support that I needed. X, Y, Z, like all of it, right. That's an example of when. Why it's really important to. I show up for your values front of house and back of house. Right? Now another one that is really important in terms of the front and back of house as well is, I mean, they all are this one being team development and leadership. So if you have employees team, anything like that, this is a really great one to think about. And it is the question for this one is in what ways do I lead by example to embed freedom in my team's culture? This is the thing when it comes to team development, team, relationship and leadership is you are the anchor in your business, right? You are the leader. So how do you lead by example within the value of freedom or, you know, insert your value here, essentially, because. When others see you in action and acting and showing up and really being grounded in your values. It will lead and encourage and guide them to do the same thing. Similarly to how your clients will. Come to work with you and be attracted to you by way of you showing up in your values. Your team is the same. Right. Your team is likely to have very similar values to you. And another note on this, when it comes to hiring team. You don't necessarily have to have bang on, you know, same values, one to five, right. What is important to though think about is if you have differing values, does your, one of you. You know, like let's use an example of. Like, if you have a value of integrity, right. And your client, like you've sort of, you've got a team member. And they are like, you know, Integrity isn't necessarily one of their like spoken values. I wouldn't highlight integrity as a value. However, one of their values is honesty. Honesty supports integrity. Right? So what I'm essentially saying is you don't need bang on same, same values. However, the values need to support each other. If you are someone who really values. Structure and you know, everything really in order, and then you have a team member come on and they really value. Fun and changeability and really, you know, being innovative. That might not be as great, right. It might not work as well. And it's really important when you are bringing on team to really assess. What the energy is that you want to bring into your business? What is the kind of support you want in your business? Because maybe you have realized that while structure is a value of yours, it's actually starting to hinder. Your business. So you need someone to come in with fresh eyes and fresh energy to really balance it out and create a healthy expression of that value of structure. Right. Next one. Fire natural decisions and investments. This one is so important because we, as business owners are constantly investing in either our growth, our business support. In so many things, right? Client care, all of it, our systems processes, everything. Now. It can be really easy to get caught up in investing in things left, right. And center and not really taking the time to make correct decisions. And if you are like, oh God, how do I know I've made a correct decision or not? I really encourage you to anchor back into your human design or authority. Which, if you aren't familiar of what your human design authority is, that is something that I invite you to have a look into. You can Google to get your chart. You know, maybe I'll do another episode on these scissors. It'll send me off on a tangent if I keep going. But most of you here will know. Or be familiar with human design and you probably know your authority. So anchor back into that is my suggestion there. However, Back to financial decisions and investments. The question for this one is, does this investment contribute to my value of freedom or take from it? Insert any other value? Does this investment contribute to my value of fun or take from it? Right. When you are. The investing and spending the money in the means of your values. My gosh, it makes a difference. It makes such a difference, especially to the energy around the money. Right. Another great thing to think about here. And this is something that my past one of my past mentors taught me a long time ago, was this mindset shift around investing. And especially in the early days of business where maybe your income isn't as consistent, maybe it's you know, it's not as high as you would like it to be. And you're sort of feeling a little bit of pressure in that. And. What she shared with me was to reframe. The way we speak about money, especially when we have desires to invest in things, how are we don't have the capacity or the means to do so in that moment? Instead of saying an affirming to yourself. I can't afford it. Instead say this is not a financial priority right now. Because the reality is it's not right. You have financial priority likely to get food on the table to keep the roof over your head too. You know, feeling well, and that is brilliant. That is amazing. That is, what's serving you right now. And when you continue to expand your wealth and your income. You will then be able to shift your priorities or expand your priorities and make that investment. So that's a really, a really juicy one that I like to run values through for sure. The next one. Is your products, offers and services. The question for this one is, is this offer grounded in freedom, insert any other value? If not, how can I embed it further into this offer? So if you have a, say a group coaching program, And the value is freedom. What that could mean is that you have freedom in your calendar. So maybe. You have a coal consistent group called booked fortnightly. However those who were in the program, they also get one-on-one calls, but instead of making them schedule those one-on-one calls at the start. Maybe the value of freedom shows up in the way that they can schedule those calls whenever they feel they need them. Throughout the duration of the program. Right. Maybe freedom is in the way that you, the different payment options that you offer. There were so many ways that you can think about. The ways that values integrate into your offers. And on a side note, if this is something that, I mean, if you're listening to this at the start of November, I am currently offering$99 edit tax health sessions, and they are a business strategy session, essentially, where we go in and look at the areas of your business or particular area where you're feeling really overwhelmed with things are feeling sticky. It's just the, flow's not there. There's a kink in the hose. This, these sessions can also be a really great way to look at how you're integrating your values into your business. And for example, we could use this session together to really look at how your values show up in the way of your offers. So how they're being integrated into your offers. And if they're not at all, what tweaks you can make to integrate them further into your office, because this is something that's really powerful. Like I was mentioning earlier, your clients will be attracted to you by means of how you show up in your values online. And. And the way that they witnessed you in those values, and if they move into an offer and those values aren't existing there, there's going to be an incongruence. It's going to be a disjoint and. Really having those values reflected in your offers is such a powerful move. Not only for their experience, but also for your own. You don't want to create an offer that you end up feeling really. You know, overwhelmed and just out of vibe with like, you want to really love and be excited by the offers that you share with the world. Now another one is another area of business is your time and capacity management. This conversation is such a huge one with clients every single time. It is really interesting just to witness the way that people approach their management of time and their capacity. I see them as two different things, time and capacity, completely different. In this sense, I'm going to put them in the same category because there is similar themes there. So the question here is how does my approach to managing my time and capacity, reflect freedom for insert your other value. And does it support my wellbeing alongside my business expansion. Because this is a thing when it comes to being in business and the management of your time and capacity. The biggest sticking point I often see is people start to feel burnt out because they haven't well-managed their time or capacity. And this is why I make this distinction, you know, in that oscillation between feeling supported in both life and business in your wellbeing and in your business expansion is because it's really important to have the two front of mind to not prioritize essentially one over the other. Yes, there will be seasons of life in business where one is prioritized over more than the other. It doesn't mean though, that you need to. Push yourself out of your realm of capacity or time, right? We're not pushing you outside of your means, essentially. So just to repeat that question is how does my approach to managing my time and capacity reflect freedom? So you're getting the awareness here of seeing how it shows up in your way of managing time and capacity currently. And does it support my wellbeing alongside my business expansion. So there's that just deeper exploration there of, does it support you in business and does it support you in life? Next one is personal development. And the question here being what actions am I taking to develop myself in areas that uphold freedom? And how do these efforts enhance my capability to serve my clients better? Especially, if you have a value of learning, like what do you, what is your learning look like? Like how do you show up for your learning? How do you prioritize your learning and how do you implement your learning? It's all really well and good to say. You are someone who loves to learn. However, if you're not implementing that learning, it's essentially a. It's a bit wasteful, right? You learn because you have the desire to expand and to have a better experience. Right? So if you're not implementing, there's that little bit of a disjoint there. So it's really important to look at and identify like the actions you're taking to develop yourself in the area of your value. And I mean, maybe your value is. Let's get back to fun. What ways are you developing more fun in your life? And it could seriously be looking at ways that other people have fun. It could be watching YouTube videos. It could be learning a random new hobby of something you've never done before. That's the most random thing ever. However, it's fun because there's no need for you to be perfect at it. You are just in it for the fun, right? And how then does that help you serve your clients better? And I have shared a real, very recently on these in terms of creativity. Creativity is a really high value of mine, and I fell out of touch with it a little bit over the last 12 months. And it really reflected in my business. I. Started to not feel as creative in my business. I really lacked creativity and desire in, you know, showing up online and creating content. It just wasn't there. So for me, I knew this was one of my reflections of, you know, how am I showing up in my value of creativity? And I saw that I wasn't, as much as I knew I needed it. And when I say I knew I needed it, I say that because it really deeply supports me because since really infusing creativity back into my world and my life and my every day, My creativity in business has like 10 X it's insane. And you know, it's no shock to me because I know that. And it is just so beautiful though, to see that when I prioritize my values, the payoff is just so delicious and so worth it. And I mean, take that as example, take that as permission or invitation to. No, that it is worth giving the time and energy to implementing your values into your life and business in all of the ways. Now the lucky last I'm going to speak to is community engagement. This comes back to things that I've themes that I've been speaking about already in terms of, you know, clients being attracted to you by means of you showing up in your values and then witnessing you in that. Now, the question for community engagement is how am I using the essence of freedom or any other value to contribute positively to my community and industry? So this goes a little step further out than your client's. Right. This is the community piece. This is the industry piece. How are you using the essence of your values to contribute positively to your community and industry? And maybe you can have a bit of a brainstorming session to really sit with by me showing up in my value in X way. How might this positively impact my community or my industry? And what I know to be true is that. Whatever industry you're in. You could find at least one thing that you don't love about it. Right. If I think about. The coaching industry for me. I don't love the fear mongering and the, you should do this and you shouldn't do that. I know better. Energy that's about, and sometimes it's rampant and I'd really disliked. However I don't. I don't let that sort of set me back. I think about, okay. If. If my value is creativity, how can I utilize that value of mine and show up in that value of mine? To positively impact my community and industry. And the way that I do that is by showing my creativity, showing me. Getting lost in all these different little creative projects and sharing the joy that, that brings me sharing what I learn. The most messages I get are in response to me showing up in my values, specially my creativity and honesty. When I share anything creative or when I share any of my poetry or. Personal. Perspectives on, you know, things I've gone through anything like that. That's when I get the most response. And there is no surprises there and there shouldn't be. If you are not getting response and engagement. I can almost guarantee there's an incongruence in the way that you're showing up in your values to your community and in your industry. You showing up in your values and your industry will set you apart in that very industry. And like I mentioned, there is something you will find that you don't like about your industry. The answer to being the antidote to that is to show up in your values to really embed your values into the way that you live, breathe, lead, and create in business. And overall when we do that, we have the most delicious burrito bubble businesses ever, because let me remind you. Business is meant to be delicious. It is meant to be expansive. It is meant to be fun. It is meant to feel successful in your own unique version of success and mad at. So please, if you are in a space right now where something in your business is not feeling juicy and delicious, and let me be Frank for a second, we are always going to comp against. Listens challenges and things, Asper our attention that feel uncomfy right. It doesn't mean we need to sit in them any longer than we have to. We get to be. Active in the solution, finding of those things. Now, like I mentioned before, if you're listening to this at the start of November, I'm currently offering. 30 minute one-on-one$99. Yes, no, I'm serious. Yes, no. I'm serious. Strategy sessions. They are the edit to exhale sessions. You can find the link in my Instagram bio. You can also I'll add the link in the show notes of below. And. If you feel like you want to dive into one of those, you want to have my eyes and the values of your business, or there's maybe there's something else that's coming up for you dive on in. They will only be available for a little while longer. I don't have an exact timeline. I said on Instagram. Which was quite funny. And people thought it was quite funny anyway, and I laughed at myself because that's what I do. I find myself hilarious. Is that the timeframe for this offer being available will be until my defined root center says no more. Not a dumb goodbye. So jump on those I invite you to do so if you have any questions, you can find me on Instagram and send me a DM. I would love to hear from you. And if you've had any value from today's episode, absolutely. Send me a DM. I love having chats with you in the DMS and. I really trust that this episode has supported you today in the exact way that has meant to. And I will be back with you soon with another delicious episode.