While challenging to identify at times, understanding your own core values is helpful in navigating life and a career. I share my top core values and why they’re important to me, as well as a few resources for beginning to identify your own.

Really?

Yeah, I was reluctant at first to embrace this practice. Why? Because I’ve seen this attempted at off-sites and team-building events.

But things finally changed for me when the practice of identifying core values came up both while working with a coach and while earning a Tech Leadership Cert.

The first coaching homework was core value work. The first course at Cornell chose was Values-Based Leadership.

I was like, shit. I guess this may be a helpful thing to do.

The reality is that while I was avoiding the practice of identifying them, I had been using them all along. We all do.

Sometimes it’s easy to follow your values. Sometimes it is quite difficult.

But recently, the teeth, so to speak, of having core values has been felt. These are the times when it costs you something to live in alignment with them.

And living and working when you’re in alignment – that’s the goal. That’s when you feel like the time you spend matters and there’s a positive feedback loop going on. But when you’re not in alignment, I think it’s these core values pulling you back toward that state.

And once you realize that logos, teams, and email signatures change, having a few lodestars to help navigate those experiences can be very helpful.

They’ll help you have some sense of consistency and fidelity along the way.

Here are my top core values.

Creativity

Being caught up in the act of making something new must be one of the best parts of being human. To create just to because. To tinker and build.

For me I’ve had a highly creative career. Well, that’s how I’ve viewed it and it has been a fun ride. It takes immense creativity to write code, support users, build products, construct, scale, and lead teams.

It’s also been fun to express creativity through a few hobbies like

◦ House projects ◦ Leather working ◦ Photography

At the end of the day, it’s fun to feel that rush when something that didn’t exist, does.

Without creativity there is no future. Let’s be about it.

Sportsmanship (Tolerance in action)

This is Tolerance in action. To treat the world around you with respect and dignity regardless of your judgement.

Tolerance is “willingness to accept behavior and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them” ^

But how to do you that? How is that acted out?

To me that’s Sportsmanship – the specifics of how you show you still respect and have dignity for those you interact with, compete with, compete for, etc. This is how you treat the game, field, industry, and fans.

This is how you handle yourself when you’re passed up for the promotion.

How do you handle yourself when you do get the promotion!?How do you treat any that didn’t?

How do you handle feedback? How well do you take direction?

This is what it’s like to experience being your teammate, competitor, etc.

Are you a good sport?

Curiosity

I’m not sure if this should be learning or not. But I think it’s more of the act of experiencing something I didn’t know existed before. Like life being revealed. It can happen on a mundane or cosmic level.

To me staying curious keeps away hardening that happens when we get stuck in our routines. It’s more about being open to something new than hanging on to something the longest.

Staying hungry to learn and understand new things is a key to staying relevant (read: connected) and being able to bring value to the table.

And it’s just fun.

There are downsides for sure. You have to get familiar and comfortable with dead-ends and failures.

It’s not always productive in a many senses. And it can also seem bizarre to some due to all our different tolerances for risk and change.

Humility

The posture and mindset of being willing to learn from anyone and everyone.

This is about having a mindset where learning is always available to oneself.

Not to be confused with timidity.

This is not about bending the knee towards bullies.

This is about bending the ear to world to see what can be understood.

It is not thinking less of yourself.

It is thinking more of others.

The posture of being willing to learn from anyone and everyone.

BONUS: Teamwork (Complimentary Skills)

This one is short. Much more is accomplishable when you have a diverse skill set that you can direct at a mission or problem.

That’s what moves the needle.

Because teams act like amplifiers and multipliers of their own core values and skills.

When aligned, trained, and treated well - a team is a formidable force.

It’s where we get to experience that weird human thing we call connection or camaraderie and we seem to come alive a bit.

Here’s to more teams!

Ready to dive in?

Want to uncover your own core values?

Here’s are few resources to help you identify them:

• Brene Brown
• James Clear
• HBR

It can be a challenging process but very worthwhile.

I plan to share more on the nitty-gritty details of this soon.

Good luck and reach out if you want to discuss before then.