So one of the hardest things about living a values-led life is that it requires us to give up something. I mean, if it didn't require us to give up anything, it'd be pretty straightforward. So we have to give up something to live in line with our values. And this tension is what makes things particularly challenging. And so I like to look at these things that we are giving up as trade-offs. And that's really what today's episode is going to be about is exploring this concept of trade-offs and what does it mean. So welcome to the Values Lab, a podcast series for founders and portfolio career professionals who are seeking to live a more values-led life. I'm your host for today, Viran Tuckrah, founder of In the Game and Values Map. And today's episode was inspired by my guest Ruhi when she was talking about the value of courage and talking about what the opposite of courage looked like to her. And actually, this got me thinking about the concept of trade-offs, and it's something I talk a lot about in my values work, in that trade-offs aren't necessarily looking at opposites, but they're talking about what you're actually willing to give up. Now I find it's often easier when we're talking about trade-offs to start with a non-values example. I was share a time, I guess, when we're talking about trade-offs. Um, a few years ago, I was really into the swing with running, I'd really built up a lot of momentum, and I decided that yes, I need to train for a marathon. And as you can guess, training for a marathon is something that is a significant time commitment. But it's not just about the time. So when I was training for a marathon, I gave up going out as much or partying less. You know, I love listening to live music and going out to gigs. Um, but because of the training commitments, I was like, this is a trade-off I'm going to make. I'm going to be going out less. And because of that, and because of wanting to run pretty much five days a week and be fresh for my runs, I'm drinking way more water and way less alcohol. So not that I'm a big drinker anyway, but actually still making cutbacks on, you know, am I having this glass of wine with dinner? Probably not, because I've got the run tomorrow. So let's just have a glass of water instead. Um, the long training runs on the weekends when I've got three young kids, so I'm giving up quality time with the family to go on these long training runs. So there's a trade-off there. And of course, I've got a bunch of other hobbies that I like doing. I love video gaming, I love DJing, and the time that went to the marathon training got taken away from those things as well. So I was gaming less and I was DJing less. So I'm trading off all these things in order to do the marathon and gave up all these positive things. And that's the really key thing we're talking about, trade-offs. I'm giving up all these other positive things in order to focus on this particular thing. So I feel like it's easier when we talk about trade-offs when we're talking about non-values-based things. And I think it becomes a little bit more complicated when we talk about values because it's slightly more abstract. But I think one of the key things with trade-offs is whatever we're trading off, it has to be something that's positive. Otherwise, it's not really a trade-off. So as you probably know by now, I value fun. And I could say other, you know, I value fun, and my trade-off is not doing boring things. And that's that distinction and that trade-off is not very, very useful. The way I like to look at trade-offs, express trade-offs, I use two different techniques. So one of them might be I value X over Y, where Y is something that is also positive, or I value X even if it means Y. And again, that's where Y is something really positive. And X is the value in question. So I think this is where some examples are helpful. And I think if I look at my values for for like values of fun and creativity, um, you know, when I explore this, I think what is the positive trade-off here? And inadvertently, what tends to happen when I want to do things in a more fun and creative way is that I actually become less efficient. Now it's not always the case, but it often is the case that what I'm what I'm trading off is efficiency. So I value creativity over efficiency, or I value fun over efficiency, uh, is the is the trade-off. So the the thing I'm trading off, it has to be something positive. And actually, what's a useful litmus test is is it positive enough that someone else might value it? And in this instance, I can wholeheartedly say yes, it is something that someone else values because my wife values efficiency. And so I know that's a value that someone can hold, and it's a positive quality. Um now just because my value of fun or my value of creativity, my trade-off is efficiency, it doesn't mean it's the same for everyone else. So each person, everyone who's got that value of fun, might have a same trade-off, they might have a different trade-off. It's a very unique and personal thing coming off up with the with the trade-off trade-off. And then to give you another example, as you know, you probably know, I value freedom. And so the trade-off here is I value feed freedom, even if it means I've got to take a less conventional or less charted path. Now, some people love conventional, some people love doing things that are well mapped out, they don't like ambiguity, so they could hold that value of being conventional, being more structured, d doing things in a kind of no known way. But I don't really like that's the thing I'm kind of giving up for freedom. So the key thing is the trade-off here is unique to you and it must be something positive. So if you can start thinking a little bit about the values that you've got and start thinking a little bit about what's the thing you're trading off, what's the thing you're giving up in order to live that value? So for me to live that value of fun, to live that value of creativity, I give up efficiency. Now, actually, figuring out the trade-off matters at your kind of individual value level, it really uh matters because what happens is there'll be things that pull you away from living your value. So in my case, there society at large values efficiency. Efficiency is generally seen as a pretty positive thing. So I'm gonna get drawn into doing things in a more efficient way. Um, be that society, actually, be that my wife, she, you know, she'd prefer I do things efficiently. So there's going to be this pull. And if I don't express the trade-off and I haven't named it, you'll start feeling these instances where you've got this dissonance, you're not quite feeling right. And if you haven't expressed it in terms of trade-offs, it's sometimes quite difficult to explain why that is the case. But once you've got the language for it, once you can kind of understand it, it makes it much more, much easier to process and deal with. So if I know, hey, my wife wants to make me want to do something a little bit more efficiently than what I'd like. I'm feeling this tension, I want to do it in a more front and front and creative way. Well, great. Now I can kind of actually work with that. I can actually make a decision around, well, is this something that actually I should do more efficiently? My wife's probably right on this instance. Or actually, nah, this is not the point where efficiency needs to come to the fore. I can live in a more values-aligned way. And so by giving ourselves the language around not just our values, but the trade-offs, we can make our values more useful on a day-to-day basis. And the other thing I find is that you need to stop living in this state of kind of dissonance and this pressurized state, which is always the thing. Once we can start naming stuff, we can say, hey, these are the values that society is pushing on me. I don't have those values, or I'm trading off those values. Now I've got the language to kind of explore that. And I'm not sitting in that tense state. I can kind of explain why it's there and I can approach it in a much more kind of calm and I want to use the word rational, but it's not quite the right word, but more rational way. So that's the that's the kind of trade-off at the first level. Now, the next, I guess, trade-off is when your strongest values conflict or compete with one another. It's a much harder scenario. So you've got strong values and then compete with one another. Now, this has happened a lot in the previous episodes. So if I think about when I spoke with Shelly, she talked a lot about her value, core value of sustainability, but how that sometimes comes into competition with achievement. It's like with my wife Bridge, her value of independence sometimes conflicts with her value of connection. When I talked with Sasha, talked about his value of calm, it sometimes competes with the value of ambition. So this is quite common where our strongest values compete with one another. So this is this causes the most dissonance because they're essentially saying these things are two things are really important to me, and now they're competing with each other. Um it can be quite difficult when we have to deal with these situations. Now, the one thing is these values can coexist. I think Shelley's talked a lot about how she's managed to figure out a way to make sustainability and achievement coexist. Um, my values around fun can coexist with my values of achievement. You know, these things can coexist together, but there'll be times when they do conflict. And it is useful to, again, to have the language around, okay, I'm feeling this strong sense of dissonance. My value of fun might be conflicting with my value of achievement. So that's a common conflict for me. So if we think about what achievement often requires, it often requires a bit of routine, a bit of reposition, a bit of grind, a bit of showing up daily, even when the conditions aren't perfect. But my fun value wants to do whatever I feel like doing. What are what's what am I in the mood for? What's the vibe? Uh, what can I do like spontaneous in a spontaneous way? So that achievement and fun value, they they come into tension. And so having the language and to be able to express, okay, this is actually what's happening now. That now it brings the decision into the conscious realm and I can actually start dealing with it. And then I can start asking myself the question: is this just a temporary thing? Do I just need to, like, is it today? I just need to sacrifice, I just need to get some stuff done. It's boring stuff. Just calm your farm a little bit, forget about fun for a bit, focus on achievement and knocking the things out that you need to do in order to have an impact and achieve the thing you want. Is it just a temporary thing? I just have to kind of get over myself a little bit. And again, just having that language to express that this is the values, these are coming into conflict, there's a trade-off that needs to be made, is really useful for me. Sometimes it's a bit more than a day. It might be a bit more of a seasonal thing. So I definitely had a period when the kids started school where I my value of freedom was very strongly hit. Like it's um, you know, schools are much more, they've got to be dropped off at 8:30. They've got to be picked up at 3.30. Like it's very structured. And one of the things I love about being an entrepreneur and a founder is like I can just be really fluid in my time. And I've, you know, I there's a period I was getting really frustrated where I'd just be getting into flow and then my alarm goes off, and it's like, oh, sugar, I've got to go pick the kids up. And it was frustrating me for a while until I kind of sat down and gone, like, this is a seasonal thing. My value of freedom is um impinged a little bit. And so I kind of need to kind of accept that this is the context I'm operating in. But the other kind of tweaks I made then is okay, if that this is the case, well, how can I, you know, one of the reasons I started the business is the freedom to then go pick up my kids and and and once I pick them up, hang out with them a bit. So actually, reframing a lot was really helpful for me in this scenario. So whilst it felt like there's this impact on freedom, kind of trying to look at it. Well, how can I increase maybe some of the other values like fun? So hanging out with kids is super fun. Uh, maybe they come home from school, we play ball games together, we do some fun things. Great. So I think it became just really useful for me to think a little bit about this. It's a seasonal thing. It's still obviously still going on. They're still at school, it's gonna be this way for a while. So, but it's still a season, and then that season is over, and the freedom will probably lift once that happens. So it's useful when we're kind of thinking about our values, thinking about when they kind of come into conflict, that often it's not a permanent thing, it's a temporary thing, it could be a daily thing, it could be a couple of years. Um, but once we have the language to express what's going on, what the dissonance is, what the friction is, it it's just it's really useful to kind of move forward. And be the moving forward might be reframing, it might be amplifying other values. There's a bunch of things you can do, but um the language and expressing the trade-off is really helpful. So, a couple of things for you to try now. First thing is maybe pick one of your stronger values and figure out what is the positive trade-off you're making. So, frame it, you know, I value X over Y, or I value X even if it means Y. So pick one of your values and think about what's the positive thing you're giving up in order to live that value. And then if you're up for it, second activity is think a little bit about which of your two values come into conflict the most. Uh, when does it happen? Is it like a usually a temporary thing? Is it more of a seasonal or constant thing? And figure out, well, what are some of the things you can do to navigate that tension? Is it a case of reframing? Um, is it a case of dialing up one of your other values or bringing one of your other values into the equation? And that wrap wraps up this week's episode. So, as I mentioned, trade offs is something I find really useful. So I hope it's a concept you'd found useful too. If you've tried the activities or something's kind of come up for you in listening to this, please reply and let me know. I'd love to know how it landed for you. Until next time.