What are your values?🤔

It’s not always the sexiest question or topic…

But the truth is, values matter.🤷‍♂️

Most people don’t really spend a ton of time thinking about them though…

And I think that’s a mistake…❌

Because understanding your values can help you to make confident decisions, impact your happiness, and ultimately serve as a roadmap with which you navigate through life.

So for example…

My #1 Value is Impact

When I speak of impact, I’m talking about helping people to achieve more freedom, happiness, and fulfillment in their lives.

I live this value by working on projects and investing in companies that help others to achieve those ends. It serves as a filter for new projects because if it’s going to make a lot of money but not have a lot of impact, I’m less likely to do it.

This value influences my relationship with money too – because money is a means that allows me to achieve greater impact as my ends. Knowing that helps me to have less hang-ups on money, because I know I’m pursuing it for the right reasons, and I think of money as a positive tool vs. something bad that I should shy away from.

It also governs the way I relate to my family. I want to help support my wife and daughter so that they can achieve freedom, happiness, and fulfillment too. When I’m not having an impact in their lives, I personally don’t feel fully happy or fulfilled.

And finally, impact is why I can get frustrated if a business I have isn’t growing or plateauing because that lack of growth is limiting the potential scale of my impact.

Now what’s interesting is understanding that some of the other things I “value” really fall underneath the filter of impact, too.

Take “Freedom” for example.

I do indeed value the freedom to make my own decisions, pursue the projects that I’m passionate about, be creative, be myself, and so much more…🤩

But I think one of the big reasons I value those freedoms so much is because, like money, they are the means which will allow me to have the greatest impact.👌

And then another value I have is Empowering Relationships.

I didn’t used to think of myself as a “relationship person”, but that’s changed. I really value my network and the people who have come into my life. I look for relationships where I am empowering and impact others, and where they are empowering and impacting me.

So this is now a filter through which I decide if I want to invest in a new relationship, and also if I want to continue maintaining an existing relationship. If we aren’t empowering each other, there’s a lack of impact, and I’m unfulfilled.

Anyways, these are my values…

But what are yours?

I’m curious, and also don’t forget that your values can (and will) often change.

For example, a value you had in your 20s may not be important in your 30s or 40s.

When I was a younger man, comfort was a big and important value for me.

Today, I still like being comfortable…

But I also like trying to push myself to grow through being uncomfortable…

And regardless, the values of comfort/discomfort are significantly lower on my list of priorities compared to impact.

Make sense?

So even if you do “know your values”…

You may find it helpful to take a few minutes to “update your inventory”…

And see if there’s anything you want to add, subtract, or rearrange.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link