So you've sat down, you've mapped out your values, and you've got your list of five words that describe what your values are. Now, unfortunately, if we could just stay at that level and we don't add any other detail, our values can stay really abstract and they're really hard to use practically. And actually, what we want to be doing is to go into much more detail about what each of those words means to us. And that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. So welcome to the Values Lab, a podcast series for founders, portfolio career professionals seeking inspiration to live a more values-led life. I'm your host, Viran Tucker, founder of In the Game and Values Map. And the inspiration for today's episode um came from my chat with Nick. And one of the things I observed when we were talking when we were talking about Nick's value of community is that something interesting happened. As soon as we started talking about this value of community, a lot of other concepts started coming up. And I heard things that Nick spoke about that are quite different to what other people might speak about when they talk about community. And so I think this is actually true of all values. We we have a collection of single words for our values. And actually, what those values mean to us can show up quite differently, even if the word is the same. So, you know, I've got the value of fun. I had Steph on the episode, she has value of fun. I've got a lot of friends who have that shared value of fun. And whilst there's similarities in uh in what we mean by fun, there's also quite a lot of differences as well. And so the detail is really useful. The detail is what makes the value unique to us and it makes it really useful to us. So an exercise I like to do with people to go beyond the word is it's quite a it's a simple mind mapping exercise. And I'll walk you through uh a bit of an example, then I'll take you through the mind mapping activity so you can do it yourself. But essentially, if I look at the value of fun for me, now so if I sat down, blank piece of paper, pop fun down in the middle of the page, and then start thinking a little bit about all the things that fun means to me. And so when I dive a little bit deeper, well, fun for me means doing things that are that are novel and that have a good degree of variety to them. I think fun to me means doing things that make me laugh and have a um a good degree of humor to them. I'm a really big fan of banter. I love banter, and so banter to me is something that's core to this concept of fun. Uh, I find competition really fun. So I like um competing with others and taking on challenges with others, and that's fun to me. And so I can I can kind of go on like this, and what will happen is I'll end up with this uh value of fun in the middle, and then all those details tell me what fun means to me. And the interesting thing here is that those words are going to be different for other people. So if other people pop fun in the fun in the middle and they pop those other words around the outside, they're going to end up with different things, and so their meaning of fun is a little bit different to mine. Sure, there'll be things that overlap, no doubt, but it will end up with something unique and personal to us. And so this is an activity I'd I'd love for you to complete, is maybe take one of your values uh now, uh, get a piece of paper, jot the value down in the middle, and start popping down words or concepts or ideas that go into a little bit more detail. And I find sometimes the guiding questions help as well. So here's a couple of questions for you. Um, what activities or experiences come to mind when you think about this value? Uh what does it feel like when you are living in alignment with this value? What does it look like in practice? So, what kind of behaviors and choices are you making? What kinds of environments are you seeking? When you think about this value, what are some of the non-negotiables? And if you imagine you had a day just focused on this value, what kind of things would you be packing this day with? And what I recommend when you start is just write down everything that comes to mind. Don't worry about kind of filtering and organizing. Try and just get everything down on paper and kind of exhaust yourself, just keep going. Sometimes it's helpful to set a bit of a timer so you can like five or ten minutes so you can just keep going and don't uh don't stop the first time you get stuck. Just try and go as deep as you can. And what you'll find is you'll start seeing these kind of patterns emerge around what this particular value means to you. And then I think if you've got time, the interesting thing to do is to do this for all your values. So once you finish that one, do it for the the other values that you have. And what you'll start to see is that there are connections between your values as well. There's sometimes a bit of a thread, sometimes there's a little bit of overlap, which you can interrogate and question: should there be an overlap there? Is there another value at play? So I think this process of kind of getting it all down on paper, especially for all the values, then helps you kind of interrogate the nuance in your values and the differences between them and the similarities across them. So it's just a simple practice for today, which is really kind of go beyond the word when you're coming up with your values and get into a little bit more detail. Now, if you give this activity a go, I'd love to hear how it goes for you. Uh, what kind of things emerged? Um, if you do this for multiple values, did you see any kind of patterns and trends across your values? Um so if you give it a go, um, get in touch with me. I'd love to hear more about how you how you went. Um, hopefully something you find really useful. And I'll see you again soon.