Now, when do you actually discover your values? Is it when things are not going so well when you're going through a crisis? Or is it when life is going really well and you're in the zone and things are just amazing? And actually, you know, both scenarios hold the key. We can actually look at both our peaks and our pits to identify what our values are. 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 and portfolio career professionals seeking inspiration to live a values-led life. And I'm your host for today, Viran Tucker, founder of In the Game and Values Map. And today's episode, the inspiration comes from a chat with Adam and when he talks about how he discovered his value of humility and how that came from experiencing, you know, severe burnout. And the interesting thing is this concept of identifying your values through going through a very bad or negative experience has come up a number of times. So if we think back to the episode with Sasha and Megan, both of their values came from a negative period of their life. But it's not always that, you know, those kind of instances where things are not going well do cause us to evaluate a life in uh more detail and through a microscope to kind of figure out well what's not quite right here. But actually, we can think about the opposite and think about what lights us up. And both of those things can be really useful. So when we think a little bit about, you know, the negative times, what tends to happen here is the negative times surface values because we're living in a misaligned way. And what the misalignment shows is that we're missing something that we we need, or there's things that are really, you know, drawing us away from what our values are. And so if we don't pause and think a little bit about what kind of what's missing here or what's pulling me in the wrong direction, or what's pulling me away from what I actually want, um, we don't draw out the insight. But often I find when we go through those negative periods in life, it kind of forces us to really reflect on what our what our values are. The good times actually, what they tend to show us is, you know, when we are living in alignment with our values. And sometimes we do this by accident and we do stuff and we don't know um why we're doing it. But often there, when we kind of reflect back, there'll be a pattern there in that when we do things that bring us meaning, bring us joy, it'll be often there's a strong alignment with what our values are. So basically a lot of this, a lot of this requires us to us to reflect and sit back and reflect on the good times of the bad. So we'll start with looking at the good, good moments. And here we can, you know, start small and then we can kind of zoom outwards and when in terms of the questions we ask ourselves. So when we're kind of zooming in a little bit, you can even just look back at, you know, the weekend that's just gone, or the week that's just gone, what's been a real peak moment and what made it great. And you can zoom out a little bit more and go, you know, thinking back to the last month, the last couple of months, what were some of the best moments? What were some of the highlights? And again, what made them great? And you can zoom out completely to look at your kind of life and think about what are those moments that you come back to time and time again that you go, these are kind of peak moments in life, the moments I had that I found most meaningful, that brought me the most joy, the times where I felt most alive. When when were those moments? And I'm sure as I'm kind of asking you these questions, you there's examples of moments coming to mind. And what we want to do is interrogate those moments. And often I think it helps writing these things down, even if it's just sticky notes or just mind mapping and just writing down everything that comes to mind. And what you want to look for is patterns here to go, hey, what are what do these moments have in common? Um, what does that tell me about what my values are? Are there things that are pres present in all the examples? Oh, are there certain things that are present uh present in only one or two? And what we're looking for is those consistencies in the patterns. You don't need the same things present in absolutely every example, but you'll start seeing that certain patterns and trends come up. Now, for me, even the interesting activity, um we're we're just moving house. I've just uh cleaned my office. But just prior to cleaning my office, if I looked around, there were even symbols of the things that I valued in peak moments in my life. So when I look around, I would I would have seen, not anymore, but I would because our house is uh decluttered. But what I would have seen is that I had medals from my some of the runs I'd completed um hanging up on the wall. I'd had some actually old trophies from that I got from work. And when you kind of look at those things, though they've they've been really peak moments, actually. Some of the races I've completed have brought me a lot of meaning and satisfaction. Those peak moments at work, we're getting the kind of acknowledgement and recognition for certain things I've done. And again, there's this common pattern there of achievement. Then I might look around a little bit more and I see that I've got a board game collection and I've had so much fun playing board games with the the kids and playing board games with friends, and actually, outside of the board games, video gaming as well, brings me a lot of um fun and enjoyment. Again, there's indications there that those moments that I enjoy that bring me meaning have got fun in them. And then what used to be right behind me was my DJ decks and love getting behind the decks. Again, some of the my most fun moments just in during the week or on weekends, is just getting getting a chance to spin some tunes and sit behind the decks. It's a great way for me to express creativity. So there were symbols around me which gave me a good idea of these what my peak moments are and what my values are. So whilst the peak moments are really useful, I think it's worthwhile then flipping the other way. And actually, again, we can zoom in and then zoom out and think uh think a little bit about the uh the pits and what the pits tell us uh about our our values. And so maybe you think about a recent low point. What what was missing for you? Was there too much of something or not enough of something? Think about some of those real past struggles that you've had, those times which are particularly challenging. Um, what made those times particularly hard? What would have made those times better? And even think about the things that drain you. So if you're thinking about your job or certain projects or certain friendships and relationships you've got, what doesn't work and what kind of drags you down and what drains you? And similar to before, what we want to be doing is looking for kind of patterns and trends across the different examples to see now. Just speaking from personal experience, if I think about one of my low, low points uh from a couple of years ago, I'd worked on building a new thing, new product as part of the business and launching it, and it kind of went okay, but not how I expected it to go. And there was this big gap between my expectations and what ended up happening, and that really uh threw me into a bit of a bit of a pit. And then once I kind of got out of the pit and reflected back on it, um I realized what had happened there was this mismatch in kind of expectations around what I was going to achieve. So coming back to the achievement value. What the pit showed is that how important achievement is to me and how important then, you know, I had to be really mindful of achievement and how I frame achievement. And so it's useful the pitch shows you kind of like what's missing, why, you know, what you need. And this misalignment is particularly hard because, you know, it's it your values aren't being honored in those in those instances. The other thing I'll add with pits is that there are instances where it maybe doesn't get to the point where it's a pit, but we react really adversely to something. And the thing we're we're reacting probably in a way that's not rational or logical. Um, and as Chris Foss talks about this concept of violating your values. And actually, you know, this is a I think it's a great phrase because I think you'll go through moments in life or interactions where you'll get this strong adverse reaction. It's kind of outsides to the thing that's actually happening, and often it's the violation of our values that's that's at play, and that violation of values can illuminate us as to what our values are. So I I have quite strong adverse reactions to situations where my options get constrained. So if people are making choices for me, you know, even things like when when I my wife had initially suggested like a shared calendar, you know, I reacted disproportionately, um, poorly to actually the the concept, a logical concept, but it was all about because it was constraining my freedom. And so it was violating my value of freedom. It felt like our choices were being reduced. So the chances to be free, make choices were constrained. And so I was reacted in a in a negative way. And so these moments actually, we don't even need to get really low. We can just m analyse the micro moments where we react in an adverse and a poor way when we logically we shouldn't. There's sometimes an indicator there that what values are being violated here. Again, it's a good clue to what our values are. So I'd love for you to think a little bit about even as just a prompter, maybe think about a peak moment or a pit moment, or even a like a micro moment that you've reacted in a in a very strong way, and start thinking a little bit about what does that tell you about what your what your values are, what um how your values play out. So you can find your values in good times and in bad. The peaks shows us what we're kind of drawn to and what builds a meaningful and fulfilling life to us. The pits tell us that there might be things missing that things aren't quite right, and we can learn from both by reflecting and diving a little bit deeper. That's all for this week. I hope you found it insightful. If you've had any kind of key insights into your values or you found something particularly useful, uh shoot me a message. I'd love to hear from you. Uh but that's all for now, and I'll see you next time.