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Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Differently is for when you need to get out of your head and back into your life.
Created and hosted by Carla Reeves, creator of The Differently Journal, her work is built on over 20 years of helping people use writing to navigate real life. Not as a habit to keep up with, but as a way to calm your mind, get clear, and move forward.
You are always writing your life, whether it’s in your mind or on paper.
It's time to take the pen back.
Turn overthinking and self doubt into clarity, confidence, creativity and momentum.
Stop surviving your life. Start creating it.
Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Living Your Values with Melissa Davis
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Have you considered the important role that your values play in your daily life?
Today, we'll delve into some of the ways that values impact our everyday life, relationships and business interactions and decisions. Our values act as a compass, a guiding force that shapes our motivations and directs our actions. Melissa will help us understand how this internal motivation system can help us to create a profound shift in our life and biz.
Through her work with startups, entrepreneurs she's uncovered an invaluable process for helping people get clarity around their values to sharpen purpose, focus & impact.
Join our conversation listen for her practical insights, thought-provoking stories, and actionable steps that will inspire you to unlock your own inner reservoir of values.
Enjoy!
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Thank you for listening!
I'm Carla Reeves, and this is differently. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change, or seeking more for your life, may this podcast be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic, and in alignment with your deepest values. After a decade of coaching individuals from corporate leaders to creative artists to multimillion dollar CEOs, I'm convinced we are far closer than we realize to what we deeply desire, and it's a willingness to do differently that can change everything. Welcome, listeners, to another episode of Differently. Today I have another special guest, Melissa Davis, who is a beacon of wisdom and insight on the subject of values. In a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming, Melissa's here to remind us of the immense depth and power that resides within understanding our values. Through her journey and experiences, she has discovered that alignment and focus on our values allows us to forge connections and increase our impact to not just survive but truly thrive. Melissa's on a mission to make sure that every potential change maker has a fair shot at bringing their impact to the world. Through her work with startups, entrepreneurs, and change makers, she's uncovered an invaluable process for helping them get clarity around their values to sharpen purpose, focus, and impact. Today we delve into the essence of living our values and embracing a more intentional existence. Our values are like a compass, a guiding force that can really shape our motivations and direct our actions. She's going to help us understand how this internal motivation system can create a profound shift in our lives. Join us in this conversation as Melissa shares practical insights, thought-provoking stories, and actionable steps to empower you to unlock your own inner reservoir of values. Get ready to be inspired, uplifted, and motivated to create a life that aligns with your deepest values. Without further ado, let's welcome Melissa Davis. Hi, Melissa. Welcome to Differently.
SPEAKER_01Hey there. I'm really excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00I am really excited to have you. So for everybody listening, Melissa and I met in Shifco, and gosh, that was quite a while ago that we met to the point of when we kind of picked up like staying in touch again around our businesses. And then we got to kind of experience each other's work just a little bit. I can't even remember why we decided to kind of, I think just to really get an inside picture of like what I do and me get an inside picture of what you do so we could share each other's work. And in doing that, I just fell in love with the work that you're doing around values. And it's something that I had wanted to tie into my work for a very long time, but just didn't feel like I had the expertise to do it. And so since then, you and I have been dabbling a little bit inside of putting something together and collaborating to bring to my clients. And I've just been um really my mind has been blown around how much depth there is behind values. And so I would love for you to just like why values, Melissa? What how did this get into your life and what's your passion behind this?
SPEAKER_01Oh, good question. Well, first can I just say I had no idea how much I needed to understand what our survival model looked like and what it can become. And so, you know, going back to, you know, when we kind of shared our work with each other, because sometimes you, you know, you you meet each other um, you know, on a kind of a common thread, right? So in Shift Co., you know, we were, you know, you were your coach and you know, you were there to support. Um, and I never really learned specifically what you did in your coaching outside of Shift Co. And so what I loved is us getting to share that with each other, you know, with with understanding my own survival model, you know, and then us kind of taking a look and both of us being creative and collaborative and really having this deep desire to understand how all of this fits together and all of the pieces that provide us clarity in our lives and the ability to move forward. So anyway, um it's been truly amazing, and I I really, really loved collaborating with you. But um, so values for me really kind of happened out of frustration. You know, um, I've worked with entrepreneurs and startups both in it and then later um supporting them, um, and and just absolutely got all of my energy from working with entrepreneurs and people who are determined to make it an impact or a difference in the world somehow. Um, and I'm I'm particularly drawn to entrepreneurship because there's this intention of doing something with that clarity that really drives me. But um yeah, I got started out of frustration. I got started when I saw values not aligning and the, you know, and the kind of detriment that it caused startups when they didn't have that. So, you know, it just like, you know, with us and our values, you know, we notice when they're not in alignment more than we notice when they are. And that's how it, that's how it started for me too. And I I just really became obsessed with them. I became obsessed with noticing what was happening in the world and when things worked and when they didn't, and when people were engaged and when they weren't in um in that entrepreneurial space. And I think it's all about connection, you know, when you you connect and thrive when your values are aligned and you don't when your values aren't aligned. And it's been this amazing journey of understanding the intricacies and depth. You know, as you said, there's so much to values that I mean, it even surprises me. And I'm continually learning about how values show up and impact us in our lives. It's the coolest, it's magic. So I think we just have an obsession with it.
SPEAKER_00So um, so two things. One is you said, you know, it came out of frustration, which I think is so important for people listening to, is that sometimes those moments of frustration in our life are truly a catalyst, right? It feels so uncomfortable and we might resist it in the moment, but those those frustrating moments are usually the catalyst for something, right? Like in that moment where your value speak to that frustration where your values getting rubbed because of what was happening. What you were inside of a company at that time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, at that time I was I was in HR. Um, and you know, initially really enjoyed the position of shaping culture within the within the company. As time went on, I realized how little um influence I had on culture because it didn't come from the top. And the leaders in an organization have to have this kind of unified value system that they build into the culture of an organization. It's not built out by HR. Um, and I remember sitting there and looking at the values up on the wall that the marketing department had created for the company. And I just laughed and I, you know, and rolled my eyes, and I've ever since called them eye roll values. But they weren't, they they had no real representation of what was actually happening in how the company operated and why the employees were there and how they decided to all go in one direction, which they weren't all going in one direction because there were no, there was no sense of we're all here because we value X. And um and yeah, and so oh man, you know, it's worse for an organization to have what I call eye roll values than to have no values listed at all. Um but it was just eye-opening to me. It was. I was with, you know, sitting inside a company and asking the people around me, why are we here? Right? We are we are all here for a reason, you know. Um, but what is it? What is it about the values here that keeps you here, that keeps me here? How do we talk about it? The the big frustration was that leadership had no desire to do that. They had VCs, you know, they had investors who had their desires, they, you know, had these new deliverables and they had no desire to invest in it. And so that was part of the deep frustration.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say, was that the moment that you kind of knew like that it was time for you to move on?
SPEAKER_01It absolutely. You know, it that was that was a very pivotal moment for me. It wasn't the moment that I realized truly the extent that values would play in my life and career yet. Um, but it was the moment in time where I recognized how critical they were for the success of a business. And um, I yet I didn't yet know what my role would be in that. Um I knew I didn't have a role within that organization to help them navigate it. But um, those are always the drivers, right? Like you said, you know, that deep frustration. And when you realize something isn't in alignment and that you have some role in it somewhere, you can't stay.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so true. So going back to, you know, you did a little bit of work around your survival model. So you understand that. And we've talked about that um in some previous episodes. There's one, I think, are you in survival? You guys can go back to. Um, but in that work, once you know your survival model and what is causing you to continue to just survive life instead of really intentionally build life. The reason I wanted to pull in the values work into my work was because after you understand your survival model, then it's time to really build a new model so that you can align your life and start to live more intentionally. And that your values and your vision are so essential. Like you talked about that company, like not everybody's moving in one direction, which totally impacts everything. It's the same thing in our lives when our when our you know, our thinking and our values and our beliefs and what we're actually doing, our actions are all kind of crisscrossed and out of alignment, then typically your results are messy. You know, you don't feel like you have any power or influence. And that's that's the role that I really saw in values and vision, um, you know, inside of my work. And that's what I'm so excited about what we're doing. So speak to what what are values exactly, like in the way that you describe it and why are they so important?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the amazing thing about values is of course they're always there for us. We're always operating with the navigation system or the lens of our values. And you can kind of look at it, you know, I often describe it as a lens that we look through, but it's it's really this navigation system that we have inside of us that helps us to operate in the world. It helps us to make decisions, it helps to guide our thought process. So it guides how we tell stories around us, um, it guides who we're attracted to and not attracted to, um, it helps form our opinions and you know, so many other elements of our lives, but it it's the guiding force that that um that directs us how to move around in life and and who we surround ourselves with and the thoughts that we have. And so um when we know what the guiding the guidance system looks like, right? So when we can articulate our values and when we understand them, we can intentionally align to that. And you used the word intention. And to me, the magic of understanding your own value system is that you can operate with intention. When you can't articulate your your own values and when you don't know what your navigation system actually looks like, you're stuck relying on feeling. And feeling can be really deceiving because, you know, as you know, and we look at that survival model, we tell ourselves all kinds of stories about what's true and not true in the world, right? And we may really not understand what's impacting those stories. Is it our value system that is playing a role here? Is it an experience we had when we were three or four or five years old that is deciding what that story is? Are they, you know, family or school or religious beliefs that are guiding that story? What are they? So without knowing and articulating these values and identifying, you know, those elements of your survival model, you're operating based on feelings that come from all different areas of your emotional being. And so we can be led astray when we're only relying on feelings to guide how we operate in the world. Um it may simply be fear, it may be a lot of other things outside of our values. And so, you know, I just come back to it, when we know what our values are, we can intentionally align to them. And and that's the key is is intention.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure if I answered your question. No, you did. You you definitely did. And what you just said is so important because what I found in my life and what I see with people I work with is what you're talking about, like running my for many years, I my feelings led the show, right? And yeah, and understanding your values and what you're committed to, like it it almost takes so much, like um it removes all this overthinking. Like, do I feel like it? Do I want to, right? Instead of like, what let me look at what I'm committed to and what my values are and let that sort of lead the way and help me make the decision. It takes off so much pressure and so much wasted energy thinking, overthinking, um, whether to move forward or not.
SPEAKER_01And we can then evaluate our feelings with effectiveness because now we can say I'm experiencing fear right now. Is it because this decision is not in alignment to my values, which is a very real possibility? Because our feelings are very powerful. We, you know, when we're operating it against our values, we do we feel cognitive dissonance. We feel yucky. It can actually make us sick. We want to be able to rely on our intuition and on our feelings. Yeah. But without knowing why we're feeling the way that we're feeling and having tools to recognize what's really going on, the more tools that we have to explain how we're feeling, the better off we are in life, right? You know, if I can say, oh, this is an alignment to my values. So what else is going on? Is it an old story that I'm telling myself from my survival model, you know, that's really sabotaging me right now? And and instead, I'm using my intention because I know I'm aligned and I'm gonna apply my new model. It's just, you know, there's power in the tools and understanding ourselves. And it's yeah, amazing.
SPEAKER_00I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. So take us back to that second moment, a critical moment, where you like discovered, oh, this is my work or whatever you discovered. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I left that job, right? I left HR. I I know, and it was in that moment I decided HR was not for me. Um, I'd been in HR for oh, seven or eight years. Um, and it didn't have, it didn't have the ability to impact I thought it would. Um, I was still, you know, fascinated with culture and teams and how we behave. I mean, it you know, how and why we behave has always been really important to me in understanding that. So I left that job and I took what I thought was this amazing cool opportunity, um, running a program that checked all the boxes for me, or I thought at the time. And I lost that job. I got laid off three months later because I lost the big client we were developing this big program for. Um and I started looking for other um for other positions and I just felt sick. I just I you know I was offered several, I just couldn't take them. I just knew it wasn't nothing felt right. Um and it took me probably three or four months of searching um until I realized that the values work that I had done and tried to apply um in those startups was more impactful on myself, that I could and should turn that around and apply it to myself. I sat there and realized I didn't understand my own values. I'm trying to, you know, to understand what these companies' values were and and how we ended up where we ended up and how they could fix it and all of these things. And I realized I didn't understand my own values. And it was kind of the one of those, like, duh, you know, wouldn't wouldn't this have come first for me? But but no, I and I think that that's the surprise I have with people all the time with my clients. I never really I knew values were important, you know, and I know values are important in my business, but I never really invested in understanding my own values. You know, I've gone through, I've even done values exercises before, but I've never really understood them, never really applied them with the lens and looked around at my life to understand what really drives me or holds me back or all of those things. So that was a really pivotal moment for me. Um, and I decided in that moment that I would deeply study values and that I wanted to start a business around it. Um it's been, you know, quite a journey from there, but but that was the moment. It was a big aha moment and a kind of a stupid one, but you know, this, you know, why haven't I done that for myself? And I really want to to understand and teach us.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's interesting because I mean, obviously that was like the perfect experience to launch you into the work you're here to do, right? And but but I mean, same here. I wasn't ever taught, like, you know, what how great would that be if you like went through that in college, you know, like really discover your values or high school and and maybe repeat it throughout your life. Yeah, repeat it throughout your life. So, would you be willing to speak to one of the values that you discovered and how that knowing that has impacted your life and work?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Um so one of the one of the reasons I'm really drawn to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs is this value of creativity and innovation that I have. Um, you know, I have a really high value for personal accountability. I have a really high value for um growth and personal development. So, you know, I really like, trust, and respect people that share all of those top values. Um, but what kind of distinguishes where I show up and do my work for me and how is really in that creativity and innovation. And it's it's one of the reasons I'm really, really drawn to startups and I'm really drawn to people doing really creative things in the world that that are out there to make an impact. Um and that creativity shows up in the work that you and I do together, right? It's creating. If I'm not creating, then I'm not living. And, you know, I will never be happy with, oh, I've created this process and this program. I have a coaching program, and this is what I do, and this is what I'll always do, and that will make me happy. That's just not true for me. And I, you know, knowing that, you know, is really important to me because it's a value, not ADHD. There's that too, but um, but it's it's that it's a high value for me. And so constantly creating and and collaborating and looking at things in new ways is how I need to operate in the world for me to feel fill feel fulfilled and happy and aligned. Being static and not being able to create anymore, not being able to start something new. Um Wouldn't feel good for me. And so there it's really fascinating how these values show up for us. And, you know, for example, kind of back to personal growth and in a accountability, those are deal breaker values for me and my clients. So all of my clients share the value of personal accountability. And what that means is that not only do they show up when they say they're going to show up, it's more about I take ownership of where I am in my life, and I'm ready to just take the reins and do what I need to do to get myself where I want to go. They're not blaming, they're not, they're not putting themselves in the position of being a victim. They take responsibility for not only where they are, but the impact that they have on the world and on others around them and themselves. So, you know, just an example, and I would call that like a two-way street value, you know, and in in my business, when I require that of other people around me to like, trust, and respect, I call that a two-way street value. Um, so just an example of how values show up for me.
SPEAKER_00And then so a two-way street, uh two-way street value you just described, but what's a one-way street value? That's when we have a value that we just require for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So for instance, if I use, you know, my own personal value of innovation and creativity, um for one person, it might be a two-way street value, meaning I hold a two-way street value means I hold other people accountable to that value, sometimes even more than I hold myself accountable to a value. Um if I require the people around me to share it, you know, for me to like, trust, and respect them, um, it's a two-way street value. But if for for instance, I have a value that is really important that I live it, but it doesn't matter to me at all if you, Carla, live that value or not. So let's take maybe the value of um beauty, right? Or of, you know, um calm and beauty or a space around me, right? That I it's really important for me to create that kind of space and environment and in the way I operate in the world, but it's okay if you don't value that, right? Um, that would be a one-way street value where it's really only important to me, and I don't think less of you if you don't live that value. Most of the um conflict and judgment um that we experience in our life is because someone around us is not living one of our values, our top values. We have a many, many, many values, but it's usually those top two or three values that get stepped on that cause the most friction for us in our lives. Two Way Street values.
SPEAKER_00I want to come back to that. But I want to ask you what you were talking about before is like when we are not in alignment with our values, for people listening, like what are some of the indicators or signs that you see when you're that they can be noticing or aware of that may indicate uh values misalignment?
SPEAKER_01Judgment. Um judgment is the most common thing, um, or when we get really pissed off. So the really cool thing about values is there's there's tangible evidence all around us, every day, every minute. And when we experience judgment, when we experience frustration or anger, usually it's because something is happening around us that is not in alignment to our values. Um, it's not always the case, but judgment's a super easy one to um identify. And it's kind of one of those things, you know, as an exercise that you can do is just notice when you're judging, right? And when you're judging, what's showing up there? Why? And so just kind of asking yourself, why am I judging this? Interestingly enough, so we we have all these values, and we, you know, the options of living them are I fully live them. So I fully embody this value in my life. I'm always taking personal accountability, I'm always apologizing when I'm wrong. I'm recognizing the impact I make on other people. You know, there's partially living something where sometimes you're living it, sometimes you're not. This is most of us most of the time. You know, this is we're humans. Um, most of us are not living in 100% alignment to our values all the time. And it can be true that we have a really high value for something and not really be living it at all. And that, ironically, is where judgment shows up the most for us. We judge other people on these top values and may not be holding ourselves accountable to them. And it'll be interesting when you kind of look around and when you notice yourself judging something, judging somebody, take a look at the value. It's often because it's hitting on a nerve, it's hitting on a judgment of yourself for not living this top value.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you talked about, you know, we can even make ourselves sick when we're not in alignment to our values. And so I imagine feeling, I don't know, you actually doing this work with you. Um, I had an insight one day where I was just like feeling off, not feeling inspired or motivated around, you know, inside of something I was doing in my business. And I remembered like, oh, look to your values. And I realized that one of my values is courage. And it's more like an aspi you call an aspired value, which is one you like want to live into, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it's really important to you. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And I realized that I was stalled out because I was afraid to take action, and that action was exactly what I needed to take. Courageous action, even if it was just a little small step to kind of move me out of that space I was in. And it absolutely shifted everything. And it's like something I'm thinking about ongoingly now. So that was super insightful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I love that. And that comes, that came with a more evolved understanding of your values and how they show up for you, you know. Um, and so that's the cool thing, you know, once you really start to understand them, you can apply them in that way. You can apply them to create solutions in your life and to get yourself out of funks and you know, and to make decisions that are gonna throw you miles ahead of where you were, um operating in that survival model. Because that's where we operate until we create intention around it. And it's that blew my mind. It just blows my mind that it's you know, that you can go from a zero to a one by applying by pausing and applying intention and understanding, you know, yourself in these ways.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean going from a zero to a one?
SPEAKER_01Like each decision, I believe, in our lives has the potential to kind of launch us in a very different direction. And I think sometimes we think the work that we do with ourselves is this little incremental process. Um, and of course it is. Of course, it takes some time and effort and intention to move beyond a survival model and into a new operating model. But I also believe that with information about ourselves, with clarity, and just pausing to recognize what we were doing before and why it wasn't moving us in the direction we wanted to move, that these now individual decisions that we make in our lives have the potential to really accelerate our growth very, very quickly. Um yeah, I it's I don't know, there is so much potential for rapid growth in us. And um at least in certain areas, with you know, with making some of these moves in our lives.
SPEAKER_00So speak to the hose, speak the garden hose, because when you shared that, I was like, wow, that really kind of brought it all to life.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love this analogy. So we have a certain amount of resources on any given day at any given time. Um and the resources that we possess are our time, our energy, and our money. You know, um, you know, I've heard this from a lot of people. Um I can see what you value when I look at your calendar and your bank account, right? What do you spend your money on? What do you spend your time on? And I'll add, what do you spend your energy on? There's we have this emotional energy and we we have so much of it at any given moment. What do we put our attention on? Um, those are our resources. And so we can, let's call, let's, instead of resources, let's call it a certain amount of water. I can push a certain amount of volume of water through a garden hose. I can spray it around and it gets stuff wet. I can, you know, spray you, you'll just get wet. Um it's fun. If I take the same amount of resources, the same volume of water, and I narrow the focus of that flow. Um, and I take a look at a water cutting machine. This is this is an actual machine that pushes water through a very tiny focused spout, and it can cut through, it cuts through steel. That's what the purpose of that machine is. The same volume of water cuts through steel that would go through a water hose and get you wet. The impact, and so the difference here is the amount of impact that you can make in the world. And when we narrow the focus of what's important to us, how we spend our time, our money, and our energy. So when we have that intention around what's important to us, those values, then we have the potential to make a much bigger impact in the world. A much, much bigger impact in the world. So instead of getting something wet, we're cutting through steel with our intention. Um, that's the power of getting clarity on how you show up in the world and how to use the lens of your values to guide your decisions and your actions and your thoughts. Um, I love it. I just, there's so much potential for um for us there.
SPEAKER_00That just gets me so excited for everybody listening. I mean, just everything you just said, I recommend going back and listening to because that is you just described in a nutshell the, you know, what had me just get so excited about bringing this work into the work I'm doing with clients, because that describes it all, is like having that intention and that focus to be able to have the impact you want to have in your life, in your work, in your family, whatever it is for you, that that is the power of it. So, what if if listeners are excited, which I'm sure they are, about this idea, and how how can they take some very simple steps on their own to begin to identify their values and you know, live those values?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I think the first thing that I want to point out is that oftentimes when we take a look at a list of values, we've all, you know, I am I almost guarantee that everybody in your audience has done a values exercise. I mean, you know, everyone here is invested in personal growth. You're not listening to this if you're not. Um, those words bring feelings up for us, right? And when we kind of take a look at them, sometimes the thought process goes with, yeah, but I'm not doing that, right? So we'll see a value and we think, I'm not living that. It must not be a value for me, right? It excites us and it brings up an emotion for us, but then our kind of more evolved brain tells us stories around it. And so my my guidance for you in just doing this on your own is when you kind of take a list, a look at those big that big list of value words, um what excites you? What gets you excited? What brings up that emotion for you? And write them down anyway, even if you're you start telling stories about them, right, to yourself, it may be that you're not living that value, but that doesn't mean it's not a value for you. What it means is there's a huge amount of potential for you to change your life very quickly because you could align to that value. So, of course, there's a lot of nuance to values and a lot that we could talk about. But what I want people to know is that a value not lived is still a really high value for you. And um it's worth an exploration and it's worth understanding why you're not living your top values. Um, there are a lot of reasons we don't live our top values, and none of them have to do with how good of a human being you are. So um what it means, I think, in a in a really exciting way, what it means is there's a huge amount of potential for you to change how things are showing up for you.
SPEAKER_00So beautiful. Well, and I love that that it's you know, that just because we're not living it doesn't mean that it's not a value. I it made me think back to, you know, like movies that I tend to gravitate to or that would really move me, tend to be these movies, these um movies where people are overcoming their circumstances and overcoming their odds, which meant courage and growth and right, which applies to my values. And so it totally makes sense. So I think we can look to our everyday lives, like you're saying, like those in those lists to say, even just starting with one, right? And starting to look through the lens of that word or value. And I often will ask myself, you know, what would courage do here? What would confidence do here? Or how can I look through this choice, look at this choice through the lens of a value? And how can I lead with that value in this decision-making process? Or you've helped me see so many different angles that we can pull these into our everyday life and business to really guide us and help us to be more of a force, right? Um, with that water hose analogy. Okay, so this may put you a little bit on the spot, but rather than me describing it, I would love to share with listeners a little bit about what we're putting together. Um, and it's you know, it's we're piloting this, we're building it, but I I would love to share a little bit about what we're doing. And I would love for you to, they hear from me a lot. So I would love for you to kind of share from your angle what you feel like we're putting together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we talked um about the survival model, and um, you know, I did that work with you and I was blown away. You know, I do all this this work with values, and what it what you and I both got excited about was how values work bridged, helped to bridge that old survival model, kind of overcoming, understanding when we can just understand and bring out into the open what that old survival model looked like. And we have this intention of building a new model, right? Which is what you do with your clients, and it's just the coolest thing. So, what we kind of understood, started to understood, understand together is how values can be this really great tool for bridging, moving, migrating from this old survival model to a new operating model. This new model that guides us and is intentional and is tangible is this really clear understanding of this is how I operate in the world that aligns to my values, that aligns to the intention of where I want to be. Now that I've shed the survival model, where values fits in is understanding the internal guidance that's truly aligned to you. And it gives you the that gives you the specific elements, the building blocks that are helpful in really setting the foundation for that new operating model that is the intention, that is the promise and the guidance that you develop for yourself based on real evidence about you. And that's I think what we get excited about is like values played a role in really being able to help with understanding what those building materials are for your new model. So that's where I got really excited because I've done, you know, I did this survival model with you, and it added such a great, amazing layer and way to take action on values that I hadn't put together, right? So it really the magic for me was wow, this comes together in a really cool way. Um, and I just absolutely love the work of that you're doing with your clients and building that new model. And so um, yeah, that value is was a great tool to reveal.
SPEAKER_00I think what we're finding is it's really a deep dive into their values. So it's not just knowing and identifying those top values, but doing such a deep dive. Um, yeah, where it gives you what I noticed is that um, you know, in our pilot, it gave her such clarity about how she's showing up in her life, how she's making decisions in her life, in her family, with her husband, in her business, and when she's leading her team, and how much power that gives you as an individual to not only understand yourself, understand how you're impacting other people, and sometimes how our values or a lack of understanding of our values can just create messy in our life.
SPEAKER_01And how even conflict, you know, as as we saw. So yeah, and and not understanding why leaves us powerless. When we understand what's happening, we can be intentional about how we show up because we can prioritize what's important. Yeah, it's it is a really big deep dive. There are it's very nuanced. Values are very nuanced, and there are a lot of qualities to values and a lot of layers that they show up in our lives and and how they're applied and how they make us feel and how they interact with other people around us. I'm always blown away, away at you know, the reaction of like, wow, that's why this didn't work. You know what I mean? Or more that than wow, that's why this was amazing. But it's, you know, it's wow, that's why this didn't work. Well, and we can kind of develop some other stories around things that we may have applied.
SPEAKER_00Um well, an understanding of wow, now I know why that didn't work, but also now I know how to set up a future partnership or relationship with the ability for it to be more successful because you have that clarity of your values. So a deep dive in your understanding, identifying your values, understanding them, doing quite a deep dive on them, and then allowing that, those to be a building block to create a vision that really becomes like this guiding, guiding um, you know, like these pillars that can guide your life going forward and the actions you're making today. So more to come on that. Um and Melissa, tell us about the work you're doing today and how people can find out more about that.
SPEAKER_01So um I work with entrepreneurs and change makers, people that are really aligned to positive impact in the world through their lives and their work. Um they can find me at humanityinc.world. Um, I'm on LinkedIn as Melissa Heisley Hyphen Davis. I think they might be able to find me as Melissa Davis as well. I think they're both searchable. Um and I um am always happy to connect and and meet and and talk about values. I am truly a student of them and will continue to be, and am just blown away at how impactful they can be. And I'm always excited to share that, but also to learn about learn and meet people invested in doing impactful things in the world.
SPEAKER_00Well, I am especially grateful for this organic, like very organic unfolding of you and I connecting and meeting. And I even remember there were some, you know, like we we didn't get to meet and we couldn't meet, but there was like something that had us keep coming back. And I am so incredibly grateful for this process. And it's been fascinating to see how our values are very similar, and maybe that's why we were uh attracted and there was like this gravity pull to each other because it's been fun to see how those play in our relationship. And thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing here to my clients and audience.
SPEAKER_01Oh amazing.
SPEAKER_00So, to be continued, I would love to have you back on the podcast to go into some more specific areas around values. Um, but for today, everybody listening, go see where you can tap into a value and start looking through that lens, playing with that, experimenting with that in your life. And Melissa, thank you so much for being here today.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank you. It's been so much fun.
SPEAKER_00Hey, thanks for tuning into this episode of differently. I hope it stirred your thinking, and I invite you to take one inspired action from something that stood out to you. If you want to hear more conversations like this, be sure to hit follow on your favorite podcast app. And if this episode can impact someone you know, please help us spread the word and pass it along. Remember, new episodes drop weekly. See you next week.