Three Questions to Help You Identify Real Core Values

Three Questions to Help You Identify Real Core Values

There is a tendency to confuse Core Values with Emotions and States of Being. In order to live an Inspired life, you need to be able to recognize the difference between being Inspired by your Core Values and being Motivated by Rewards or Coerced into Avoiding Punishments. The key is to make Inspired decisions that lead to Inspired actions and behaviors.

Identifying and defining your Core Values so you can understand why you are Inspired to do things is the critical first step so I wanted to share some insights on how to identify and define Core Values. 

Perhaps the simplest way to identify your Core Values is to answer this simple but powerful question: 

What words do I want other people to use to describe me and the life I've lived? I like to call the answers to this question the "What words...?" list.

Here are some examples and things to look for to help you identify real Core Values versus Emotions or States of Being:

Core Value- Example: Charity- You can take definitive actions that are charitable. This is an example of a Core Value.

Emotion- Example: Happiness- You can do things that contribute to your happiness, but you cannot do "happy". You have a higher probability of feeling happy if your decisions and actions are in alignment with your Core Values.
Source: https://goboomlife.com//why.html
State of Being- Example: Extraordinary- This is a relative and subjective term. There are no definitive actions you can do to "be" extraordinary in other peoples eyes. Some may think the things you do are extraordinary, other may think you're just doing normal things. You have no control over a state of being beyond your own actions.  

Source: http://sjafi.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/crowd-sourcing/

Three Questions

As you develop your "What words...?" list, ask yourself these three questions about the words you're selecting as your Core Values to make sure they will truly Inspire you:

1. Are there definitive actions I can take which would meet the criteria for fulfilling the definition of this word? If yes, add it to your "What words...?" list.
2. Does this word reflect a feeling or emotion? If yes, do not add it, but keep in mind you have a higher probability of getting people to use it to describe you if your actions are in alignment with your real Core Values.
3. Is there a universally recognized and direct relationship between this word and an action which, after you take it, someone would say, "Wow! What you just did was _______(your word)"  If so, it's a keeper. 

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How To Become Powerfully Social & Socially Powerful!

How Become Powerfully Social and Socially Powerful!

In the next few weeks, BoomLife will be announcing the beta launch of our GPS Theory App and I wanted to take a few minutes to communicate how it represents an opportunity for you to be both Powerfully Social and Socially Powerful. I like to break systems down to their simplest forms so I can understand how the components relate to each other and learn how they can be best combined to create more value than they could on their own. So, let's take a look at what it means to be "Powerful" and "Social" and how they create value together.  Since we're talking about creating value, let's discussion the concept of "Value" first.

Value

Life is all about satisfying the human craving for success in the form of creating or preserving value. The underlying reason any of us does anything is to realize a net-positive value. Value is

Source: www.visualthesaurus.com

a complex concept with many meanings. Our craving to realize a net-positive value, or success, relates to all forms of the word, it relates to getting what we want and being the person we want to be. I can promise you this, though, you can't get what you want if you are not, first, the person you want to be. But, what does "the person you want to be" look like? How can you achieve your ideal-self? Finding the answer to questions like these is where GPS Theory becomes a powerful tool. The simplest way for me to help you understand where to start is to advise you to know the answers to the following question and do the things it takes to represent, or personify, them so you can be the person you want and live the life you dream of.  

What words do you want others to use to describe you and the life you've lived?

The answers to this question, if you've taken the time to answer it fully and deliberately, equal your Core Values. Chances are, you have an idea of what success looks like but the fear of failure has driven you from doing what it takes to realize the success you seek. The problem lies in the gap between what you say you value, or how you say you want to create value in your World, and the value, positive or negative, you've actually created through your behaviors.

Become Powerful

Source: www.visualthesaurus.com

 Do you want to be powerful?  Or, do you want to do things that are powerful? Here's an example that relates to creating value within your World: Let's say you value "Honor". There are two ways you can approach honor. You can say you honor the people in your World whom you have relationships with. Or, you can show them honor through your actions and prove it to them! What do you want? Honor? Or, the illusion of honor? The same thought process can be applied to any Core Value to help you understand whether you're willing to do what it takes to personify it.

GPS Theory provides the means to be able to tell the difference between living your Core Values and creating the illusion that you are. The articles in the BoomBlog communicate the concepts behind GPS Theory; how you can identify and define the Core Values that can drive your success and the importance of being consistent in doing what it takes to personify them. The GPS Theory App is designed to help you understand if your decisions, actions and behaviors are in alignment with your stated Core Values. The term "stated Core Values" implies that you share the person you want to be with the people in your world.  Do you do that? Does it sound kind of scary? Does it sound like you might be putting yourself in a vulnerable position? You will. Just remember, the key to achieving success is breaking through the barriers your imagination creates when you perceive others may judge you harshly for living for what you believe in. 

So, how can you feel powerful and vulnerable to the judgment of others at the same time? The first step in the GPS Theory App helps you prepare for this by identifying and defining your Core Values.  This exercise is empowering!  With every meaningful Core Value you add to your "What words...?" list (your answer to the question, "What words do you want others to use to describe you and the life you've lived?") you will recognize that you CAN personify that word, especially as you seek to understand its meaning. You will see there is nothing stopping you from doing things that allow you to be that word in your own eyes and in the perspective of the people in your World. Now, that's empowerment! That's knowing how to do things that are powerful! Once you know how to do powerful things you will not need to rely on the judgments of others to determine what you can or cannot do.

Become Social

Source: www.visualthesaurus.com

The adjective definitions of the word "Social" provided by visualthesaurus.com 

Source: www.visualthesaurus.com

communicate what it means to be social. Terms like, "enjoying life," "friendly companionship," and "live together," evoke the sense of community we have the ability to build and share as human beings.  But, those terms are placed next to phrases in the definitions like "organized groups," and "groups or colonies of the same kind," which reflect the human tendency to separate into groups based on characteristics that make us different. Can you recognize how we've used the concept of social to organize ourselves by focusing on what makes us different from others? Is it possible to find common ground based on what makes us fundamentally the same through our human condition? But, what is common to all human beings beyond just our state of being human?  The answer, I believe and propose, is Core Values. 

I've already stated that we all seek to create or preserve a net-positive value. The fact that you're still reading this article implies, or assumes, you agree with that premise.  Take a look at the picture of the visualthesaurus.com rendering of the word "Value," above, and you will find one definition stating it is " the quality that renders something desirable...." That definition connects the concept of "Value" with "Social" through Core Values.  Core Values, remember, represent the words you want, or desire, other people to use to describe you. You choose your Core Values as representative of what you believe to be "good" and "right". So, here's the connection: You can only believe other people will use the words you want them to if you interact with them and show them the words you want them to use to describe you through behaviors that align with them.

Become Powerfully Social

Does the belief that people will use the words you want to describe you and the life you've lived mean they will? As we interact with people our intentions and motives are only known to us. How they are perceived by others through their observations of our behaviors is unknown. Often, our behaviors communicate different values than we intend to others as we interact with them. The GPS Theory App creates the opportunity to find out whether other people perceive our actions as representative of our Core Values.  How? It allows you to share your Core Values with the people in your World while you ask them to rate how well you personify them based on their observations.  

• Identify and define your Core Values. 
• Share your Core Values with the people in your world. 
• Sharing takes trust and courage. 
• Ask the people in your World to rate you on your Core Values. 
• Asking requires even more courage! 
• Pay attention to the feedback you get. 
• Think! 
• Focus on the Core Values you need to improve on and do what it takes to personify them. 

You will be amazed at they way others will react to you and how powerful your social network will become in helping you achieve success.

Become Socially Powerful

When people give you the gift of trust by asking you to rate them with the GPS Theory App, provide them with honest and accurate ratings. They cannot change if they don't recognize the need to do better. They will not change unless you show them gaps between actions they want to be perceived as "good" and "right" and the value they actually create. 
That's why the GPS Theory App doesn't ask you to:

• Judge others based on what you think of them. 
• Tell them how they've done you wrong.
• Tell them what to do. 

The GPS Theory App asks you to:

• Show the people who ask for your help which of their Core Values they already personify.
• Show them through your ratings whether you'd use the words they want to describe them and the life they've lived.
• Compel them to think more about how their behaviors will affect the people in their World before they decide to act in the future. 

The GPS Theory App provides you with a safe and secure environment to communicate without fear of conflict or reprisal. The ratings you provide are confidential. The person you are rating will never know what feedback you, specifically, provide. Your responsibility is to be honest and accurate.   

You can become socially powerful through the legitimate use of the influence you have in helping others recognize what aspects of their decision-making they need to change in order to do what it takes to get what they want AND be the person they want to be.

 

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If you want to become:

• Powerfully Social
• Socially Powerful

Read Finding Success for strategies on how to define your values and doing the things that reflect them!

Then, try the GPS Theory App on our website at: www.goboomlife.com

The Birth of GPS Theory

One morning, back in November 2012, I had a great idea!  It was the kind of moment where one sees things clearly.  I had a realization. I recognized a behavioral trend that explained the root cause of not only my greatest successes but also my deepest failures and my situation at that point in time.  The way I perceived myself didn't always match up with the way others did.  My professional performance hadn't always matched up with my behaviors in my personal life.  My career progression hadn't always reconciled with my accomplishments. Mainly, the disconnect centered around trust.  The people who had the most influence on the results I sought didn't always trust me.  The trend had nothing to do with whether I'm trustworthy, it goes much deeper than that.  

You see, I strive for excellence and I have a track record to prove it.  When I served in the Army, I earned the right to wear the Ranger tab. In the corporate world, I've led teams to triple-digit performance improvements and saved the companies I worked for millions of dollars.  I've been this way consistently for two decades.  In short, I've shown, time and time again, that I am willing to do what it takes to lead others and exceed expectations! So, why hadn't I moved up the corporate ladder as quickly as others who mainly "just put their time in"?  Why was I unemployed?  Why did I just lose a dream job opportunity to someone else? What was going wrong and how could I stop it? 

The answer came to me that morning. The facts were telling me, "People don't trust you because you try to push them out of their comfort zones."    

"What!?!," I resisted at first, "That's crazy, I've only given them what they've asked for.  They said they wanted something and I helped them understand what it took to make it happen!  I was always willing, they weren't!"  It didn't make sense!  Why would people say they want something if they aren't willing to do what it takes to get it? Nothing of value in life comes without risk! "How am I ever going to be successful if I have to work with people who think like this!?!"  

The question stopped me in my tracks.  It was a helpless thing to say. I sounded like I was a victim.  I'm not a helpless person.  I believe my life is the result of my own decisions and actions and therefore I am not a victim of circumstances!  There was an important message here.  So, I asked myself a question, "What does "success" look like to you, Tom?"

@goBoomLife Thank you for sharing your blog. My 1st thought was, & is, "When the Student is ready, the Teacher appears". Truly touched.~Deb
— Deb (@portlandrose143) November 13, 2013

I decided to take a minute to answer the question about the meaning of success.  As I did that, reason and logic began to return to my thought process.  I realized the main point isn't about money, power or authority.  It's about being able to look in the mirror and ask myself if I always try to do the "right" things.  The guy looking back at me already knows the truth, and he knows I have not always been successful at this.  The good part is, as human beings, we don't need to be perfect, what we need is to continuously try to be better. But better at what? Being right?  Life just isn't that black and white. The conversation I had with myself that morning led to the most powerful question I've ever been asked and it gave me the greatest insight into what trying to be better means to each and every one of us, "When it's all said and done, what words do I want other people to use to describe me and the life I lived?"  

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Making my "what words?" list was easy.  It was empowering!  There I sat, with a list of words I want other people to use to describe me and the life I've lived.  Now what do I do with it? How would I ever know if anyone would ever use those words?  After all, it's the kind of question that implies you won't get the real answers until you're dead, as if you could hear what people were saying at your funeral... and anyone can see the irony in expecting to find out anything at that point.  

It felt like I was getting close to something.  If I could help people create their "what words" list to identify and define their criteria for Life-Long Success (their Core Values) and then provide them with the means to find out if the people in their World would actually use those words to describe them, it would open doors for positive change.  You see, Life-Long Success has two components which must work together:

• Results which are material and temporal in nature.
• Behaviors that represent human Core Values.

Results are easy to measure.  Honest and accurate measurements of behaviors against the standards of Core Values seem impossible to acquire, but they're not.  You see, the people in our World provide us with what we need to know every day but they don't do it in a way that is easy to understand.

I set to work creating the measurement system that would help people improve the relationships with the people they need to succeed by clarifying the signals we often misinterpret because of the intricacies of ambiguous communications and our limited ability to translate them.  Why? So we can understand the true gap between the person we are and the person we want to be.  This system is called GPS Theory and it's available at www.goboomlife.com. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tom Eakin is the author of Finding Success and the Success Engineer at BoomLife. LEARN MORE ABOUT TOM...

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Why Are People Afraid of Success?

Why Are People Afraid of Success?

In every Situation, we make a Decision, take an Action (Behavior) and there is a Result.  This cycle is repeated continuously.

Every Result can be placed into four categories.  I call them "The Four Universal Results: Reward, Status Quo, Punishment Avoidance and Punishment.  

What we want are the Rewards.  

Seeking valuable Rewards requires Risk of Punishment.  We don't want Punishment so we tend to operate in our Comfort Zone, the place where we feel safe because the situation doesn't change.

The balance we have a tendency to seek by remaining in our Comfort Zone is intended to mitigate Risk of Punishment as we seek Rewards which means we limit our potential to truly grow.

I propose when we allow "The Four Universal Results" to be our primary drivers, we become most limited and fearful.  I call this "The External Results Model" (shown later).  

Before we try to find "Success" we need to understand what we truly value. 

 When we truly want to live according to our Core Values, we have less concern with the externally controlled and temporal results and more focus on being the person we want to be.

If we overlay the Core Values diamond over the The Four Universal Results, we can begin to recognize several insights:
1)  When we place the primary focus of our Decision-Making and resulting Behaviors on the person we want to be, our Core Values Inspire us to expand our Comfort Zone. 

2)  It's possible to be the person we want to be and enjoy the Results we desire when circumstances allow (Green, inside the Blue).  

3) Sometimes getting the Results we desire causes us to be someone other than the person we want to be (Green, outside the blue).  

4)  Often, being the person we want to be means nothing changes for us and we're stuck with the same Situation we were in before we decided to act (Yellow & Orange, inside the Blue).  

5) Sometimes, when we're not the person we want to be, nothing really changes either, but we don't have any control over that, do we?

6) Bad things can happen to us whether we choose to be the person we want to be, or not!

Life-Long Success happens when our Behaviors are in alignment with our Core Values.  We are afraid to succeed when we are afraid to be the person we WANT to be.

Be courageous! Be Bold!
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GET WHAT YOU REALLY WANT! 

Getting what you want and being the person you want to be can seem complicated and confusing! The GPS Theory Method will help you define what you want, what it takes to get it and realize the kind of success you never been able to achieve before! It's up to you!

A Few Simple Sentences about Life-Long Success

First off, the title of the article caught my eye because I typically wonder what person means when they discuss “Success,” so as I read Brent Beshore’s article, “12 Counter-Intuitive Practices for Long-Term Success,” I recognized many parallels with what we’re working to help people accomplish at BoomLife.  I want to make sure no one misunderstands something about BoomLife from the beginning, we don’t think we have all the answers, we focus on the questions.  After all, if you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the right answers, so there is a critical path we need to follow to find real Life-Long Success.

I could tell right away Mr. Beshore is genuine as he cut straight to the core with every sentence in the first paragraph.  I feel his first paragraph so succinctly communicates the human condition I’m compelled to place each sentence in its own bullet point so the reader can take the time to consider them separately.  I quote:

·         “Life is a complex combination of interactions, events, and relationships.”

·         “We all chase “success,” but we struggle to define it.”

·         “We all want true happiness, but we usually settle for the appearance of it.”

·         “We all seek meaning, but we often succumb to doubt.”

 I read on.  I encourage you to as well.  As you go through the 12 points of the article, think about these questions:

1.       When you’re receiving criticism, do you ask yourself, “What is this person saying, beyond any inappropriate reason and logic or emotional baggage attached to it, that is true about me?”  Or, are you ignoring the gift that is hidden in message because it’s wrapped up in such an unattractive package? 

I, personally, have troubles with this one…I tend to focus on the package in the moment and don’t get to the introspection being asked of me until later on, after I’ve refused the gift.  Don’t be like me.  I’m trying to get better.

2.       What value do you give away to the people in your world? 

3.       Are you a true subject matter expert in your field?  Or, do you hide behind on the expert power others have attributed you, based on your credentials, financial status or job title?   

Here’s the magic formula for real, genuine specialists: Be. Know. Do.  Do you?  What do you know? Are you?

4.       Are you grateful for the value others create for you through their gifts?

5.       Do you have the humility to recognize you don’t control the results?  If you don’t get what you want, do you react by blaming or making excuses?  Or, do you decide to do what it takes to try again?

6.       Do your decisions, actions and behaviors drive toward one simple Life-Long mission?  Do your efforts focus on it?

7.       Do other people really know who you are?  Or, do you communicate in a manner to make sure no one can pin you down so nothing will ever stick to you? 

I’m often amazed at the way people look at me when I tell them truths about some of my biggest failures.  I was just talking with someone today and I watched his eyebrows as I explained how I’ve burned more than a few relationships because I didn’t recognize that although I was genuinely trying to help those people but they didn’t want it and what I was really doing was trying to pull them outside of their comfort zones.  For about a minute, I couldn’t tell if he’d lost his forehead.

8.       Do you value yourself?  Do you know what you’re willing to die for?  Are you willing to live for it?  Do you find inspiration in what you feel when you do?

9.       Do you think you always need to be able to give the answers because admitting you don’t know is a sign of weakness?  Or, do you recognize that trusting others, that the vulnerability of allowing someone else to help you develops the real strength in the relationships with the people in your World?

Leon Hayduchok, the author of Dying to Control- The 21st Century Dilemma, summarized his powerful message like this, "When it comes to personal relationships, there is no greater way to express your commitment or to display your trustworthiness than to devote your life to the people you love."

10.   Have you stopped seeking to learn?  Or, do you recognize that everything you need to know about continuous improvement was given to you in 8^th grade science when you learned how to apply to Scientific Method to challenge every assumption and let the data, the facts you actively sought, help you increase your incomplete understanding?

11.   Do you stay nestled deep inside your comfort zone, surrounded by what and whom you know?  Or, do you seek to expose yourself to “new people, ideas and experiences?”

Remember, this is a sticking point for us at BoomLife, our mission is “To help other people achieve Life-Long Success.”  Don’t come to us if you want everyone or everything else in your life to change, we’ll ruin the relationship by telling you you can’t have it.  What do you want?

12.   Does uncertainly paralyze you from breaking through the barriers you imagine?  Or, do you analyze the situation, assess the risks, take the chance and accept the consequences? 

Finally, I'll attempt to summarize with a few sentences intended to be as powerful as Mr. Beshore's:

• Try.  
• Fail. 
• Be. 
• Know. 
• Do. Think. 
• Seek. 
• Communicate. 
• Thank. 
• Accept facts. 
• Value Yourself.  
• Inspire Yourself. 

Find Life-Long Success by BEING the person you WANT to be!  BOOM!