Jay Papasan:
I’m Jay Papasan, and this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
This week, I get to chat with my very favorite human being on earth, my wife, Wendy. We’re going to talk about all things core values – how to identify your core values, how to use them as a compass for making better decisions. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear three specific applications- how to use core values in your personal life, how to use core values in your relationships, and how to use core values with your team.
I hope you get a lot out of this. If there was one thing I could add to The ONE Thing book tomorrow, it would be this idea of identifying your core values on the path to finding out your purpose.
Wendy Papasan:
I remember what’s interesting is that core values never really made it into The ONE Thing. Is that right?
Jay Papasan:
That’s right. I mean, when we started, we organized the book around the three principles – purpose, priority, productivity. So, like, that’s the organizing principle of the book. And it was nice, the alliteration purpose.
Wendy Papasan:
All the piece.
Jay Papasan:
Yes, and we had a formula for it-
Wendy Papasan:
Because we’re Papasans.
Jay Papasan:
That’s right.
Wendy Papasan:
So, we love that.
Jay Papasan:
We went deep on purpose and that is the foundation. What I didn’t know, at the time, is how difficult it would be for a lot of people to ask that question, like why am I here?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, for sure.
Jay Papasan:
But it is valuable. And as more and more people read the book, we would hear back as like, my one thing is figuring out my purpose. So, one of the first resources we created was a PDF guide to figuring it out, but it’s challenging and it feels heavy.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right? Like, it was like a mission statement.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
And people felt embarrassed, like, “Well, do I share it? Is it private? Is it public? What do I do with it?” And it was only in the course of training and teaching that kind of core values kind of came in the side door. But I was struggling to teach the purpose part. And I’ll be honest. I didn’t know my own purpose statement.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
I think you remember for a long time, I just kind of was working with my big why. I want to be the best husband and father I can be. And I knew that when I put those hats on right first, like it was a great guide to not having regrets, but it wasn’t quite the same thing as having like the full on purpose statement.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, it’s very different.
Jay Papasan:
Can I put you on the spot?
Wendy Papasan:
Sure.
Jay Papasan:
You’ve got your purpose statement.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Will you share it?
Wendy Papasan:
I call it a mission statement, I guess, but same thing. And my mission is to empower and inspire big thinking leaders to create lives of abundance.
Jay Papasan:
And that acts for you as a guide. Like what should my priorities be based on that?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. It’s amazing because, you know, I think so many of us are inundated with opportunities and you do get to a certain kind of point in your life where you have an abundance of opportunities. And it’s almost that wealth of opportunities can become almost destructive because you get so many opportunities. And so, having a way to say yes to the things that align with who you are in your core is actually essential.
And so, I know for me having that mission statement allows me to say yes to opportunities that come my way. Let me give you an example. So, if your mission statement is to empower and inspire big thinking leaders to create lives of abundance and someone from an organization like KW Next Gen, which empowers the next generation of leaders, comes to you and says, “Hey, do you want to be the chairman of the board?” you know, that’s a yes for me.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, that’s a pretty strong alignment there.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. I got another opportunity to be on another prominent board in Austin, let’s say it’s Austin Pets Alive, another amazing organization. Very different and doesn’t align with my mission. And that’s just an easy no for me.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. So, that’s how you’re using it to make big decisions on how you invest your time and resources.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
So, like, I love that you got there and we got a lot of people there, but the reason we pivoted to core values ’cause it was just it got people there faster. And I would think from, like, a benefit standard, like the work that you do and your purpose is ultimately where you want to go. But in a small amount of time, I think you get 80 percent of the benefit from the core values.
So, I remember I was reading Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead. And in the back of the book, like you have to get to the end, and I’m good at that part, she did have a core values exercise, and she talked very frankly about she was talking about her top two, and she wanted her first one to be family, but she realized it had to be courage and that was how she lived her family value. And I remember sitting back and thinking about that and going, “Wow, that’s really cool.” And that’s like her purpose, I think, is like very tied up in those statements.
And then, I remembered, I can’t remember the year, it’s probably 2014 or 2015, I heard that a very prominent online business person – and I don’t have the permission to say this person’s name, but he’s a good friend – had sold his business after reading our book. And I ended up navigating a phone call, and got on the phone with them, and I said, “Hey, I heard that you read our book and the end result is you, like, sold your business that you’d spent all these years building.”
Wendy Papasan:
Wow.
Jay Papasan:
And he confirmed it and he said,” I read your book and I realized like so many others, like I needed to figure out my purpose,” and he’s like, “What are my top three priorities in life?” And he came up with this idea, like, “I want my work to contribute to my family, not take away. I want it to maybe make a lot of money,” and something else. And his shock was, and he stayed up all night, they were camping, his whole family was in the same room, and he’s staring at the ceiling because he realizes the business, “I’ve been building and so successful does not make the cut.” And his wife got up the next morning-
Wendy Papasan:
Wow! Wow!
Jay Papasan:
… and said, “what’s going on?” And he kind of unloaded, and he goes, “I think I have to sell my business.” Like I know we’re on vacation, but big life change.
Wendy Papasan:
Wow.
Jay Papasan:
So I remember I put those together. I looked at-
Wendy Papasan:
That’s why you need a better mattress when you’re camping. Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah. Hopefully that wasn’t on the air mattress. I think it was, like, in a cabin.
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
So, he looked up, he does sell his business and it was like, he never had to regret. Like it was the right move. He was able then to build a business-
Wendy Papasan:
So brave. So brave.
Jay Papasan:
… that aligned with who he wanted to become.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, wow.
Jay Papasan:
And I thought about that and I love the Greg McKeown story about if they’re not a nine out of ten, and then I looked at the core values exercise and I said, “Well, what if we did an exercise where we help people identify my one, two, three top core values?” And I’d done the exercise and I was like… it took me like 15 minutes and I was like, “Holy cow, this is really good.”
Wendy Papasan:
Wow! Yeah, piece of cake.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah. I can do this.
Wendy Papasan:
As opposed to like a purpose statement, which so many people struggle with. And so many people think it has to be with their… something to do with their family or all of that stuff. Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
It just is heavier.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
And it is important. It’s just harder.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right? And so, it was like, wow, I love things that are simple. They may not be always easy, but this is simple. People can do this.
Wendy Papasan:
At the very least, you could get down to like five-
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
… or something like that. Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So, I think when you came to our event, that was maybe the first or second time we rolled it out as a grand experiment and asked a lot of people to do it once. And so, the goal becomes identify your top three core values. And then, when you have a big life decision, kind of like when you’re trying to choose between these two nonprofits, now I have a compass. And the scorecard is if it’s not a nine out of 10 on all three, you probably should say no. I’ve heard a lot of different people in this space, I think it was Tim Ferriss who said, if it’s not a heck yes, and he didn’t say it quite so nicely, it’s a heck no
Wendy Papasan:
I thought that was Oprah.
Jay Papasan:
Well, maybe he was quoting her. I didn’t attribute it.
Wendy Papasan:
I think… I think Oprah said…
Jay Papasan:
I heard it from Tim Ferriss.
Wendy Papasan:
I think… what I think Oprah says, to do that in the dressing room. You know what I mean? When you’re trying stuff on.
Jay Papasan:
Oh, okay.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
There you go, lots of application. There we go. But he said like it’s… you have all of these things. And I actually think, whether you’re… you have a lot of success or not, every day, most people have to make a lot of choices.
Wendy Papasan:
Absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
And do you have an approach to make better choices that you’re less likely to regret?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
And so we’ve been doing this now for like seven or eight years.
Wendy Papasan:
And so… so, walk us through, like, what exactly that looks like? If I’m at home and I’m saying, like, “Oh, I want to do this exercise,” how would I do the core values exercise?
Jay Papasan:
We actually created some free resources around this and we can put that in the show notes for people who want to find it. We’ve got resources around that and also our core values deck.
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
So we have a PDF tool as well.
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
So depending if you’re in our trainings, we provide the tool and we also have the tool out.
Wendy Papasan:
And what’s on the PDF? It’s just a lot of?
Jay Papasan:
It’s a list of all the core values. And so-
Wendy Papasan:
All the core values, okay.
Jay Papasan:
… what we tell people to do is like, whether they’re doing it on paper or with the deck, go through and look at each word, just read it aloud in your head, right? Whatever the words are like abundance, ambition, learning, children, whatever that is, like you just go through the long list and you’re going to start circling the ones or setting aside the cards that kind of speak to you.
Like, I remember the first time I went through, they were like, 10 or 12 words. I was like, I kind of like that. I like creative. I like to create things. I like leadership. I came up with a lot of different words. I was like, that speaks to me. And then, the hard part is you go through it again. Now, you keep narrowing it down until you get to just three. And I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been there.
Wendy Papasan:
What if your value-
Jay Papasan:
And people are like, “I don’t want to choose.”
Wendy Papasan:
Well, we’re like, what if your value is abundance? Like, do you get a couple more values then? Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
There’s no cheat code here, Wendy.
Wendy Papasan:
Just curious.
Jay Papasan:
That’s very your personality though.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
I love that.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So, you look up and you make the choices. And a lot of times people I’ll say like, are there words that are connected that kind of mean the same thing?
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
And that was kind of the breakthrough that Brene Brown did that I love. Like she’s trying to choose between courage and family. And she realized if I live that value of courage, that’s the thing I most want for my family. And sometimes, we can align those dominoes and get more clarity.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So, usually, like in person with the decks, I love it because they’re beautiful. You put them in a circle and you put your top three, and all the other ones that were kind of associated, we tell people take a picture of it.
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
Keep it on your phone.
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
So, now your top three are there, but you’re reminded of the other things that were close because we tell people to do this every year, I know some of our coaches who ask their people to do it as often as twice a year or three times a year.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, it’s so good because your values do change a little bit. I know mine have over the years.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, mine changed three years ago. And we’ll go through that when we share.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So, we looked up. This is, now, this thing that we teach all the time. It’s unlocked for a lot of people, you know, how to make better decisions in their lives. And the goal is to have fewer regrets. That’s the whole goal of the thing. So, why don’t we take a quick break? And on the other side, let’s share our core values. And let’s talk about how we put them to use so that it’s not just something we know about ourselves, or we post to Facebook or whatever. It’s something that we use to actually live better lives. You cool with that?
Wendy Papasan:
Sure.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. We’ll be back in just a second.
(ad break)
Jay Papasan:
All right. Do you want to go first?
Wendy Papasan:
So, yeah, I can remember the first time we did the exercise at the goal setting retreat, and I came up with my core values. I think they were slightly different then,
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
But we’ve done it every year since then. And I essentially landed on leadership, adventure, and making a difference. So, those are my top three.
Jay Papasan:
Leadership, adventure, and making a difference are your top three.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
The first time I did it, mine were family, impact, and abundance. And I used to teach that all the time with my co-founder and one of his was something very related to impact and you’re making a difference. And so, like one of the first unlocks I got, because I hear I had a business partner and a life partner, and when we don’t agree on where we should go, where do we all align? And that was almost always a tiebreaker. Like if I wanted to get on board with what you wanted to do, and it really aligned with making a difference, it aligned with my impact and vice versa with my business partner. So that was like one of the first unlocks is if you share your values with the people that make decisions with you, you have a chance then to make decisions that align with both people.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. This is so valuable. I mean, we do this on our real estate team. And so, every year at our retreat, it’s one of the things we talk about. Everyone shares their core values and how it shows up for them.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
And it’s a really powerful experience because, you know, everybody’s values are very different but yet aligned. And as you grow a business for those of you that are business owners or aspirational business owners, at some point, you’re going to create values for your business that also align with your purpose and your core values. And what’s great about that is, you know, so my values as our real estate team here in Austin, Texas is be bold, lead others, be authentic, give back and have fun.
Jay Papasan:
Okay.
Wendy Papasan:
And so a lot of my core values are actually baked in there.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
And what’s great about that is… and I have this happen a lot, is when we get a new team member, they join the team and, invariably, they always say, “You know what? I just love everyone on the team.” Actually, we have interview questions around our core values. So, when we’re doing a group interview, we ask our prospective person questions around each of those values. So, one person will say, “One of our core values is to be bold. What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done outside of real estate?”
Jay Papasan:
Okay. So if Greg McKeown is listening, and he heard the origin story, it’s like, we’ve come full circle.
Wendy Papasan:
Full circle.
Jay Papasan:
That was kind of how it showed up in his book, Essentialism. They kind of inspired us to build this as a compass for people’s lives. And that’s one of the ways that you use it.
Wendy Papasan:
And that’s how you build culture.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
That is how you build culture. And so, that’s exactly what you’re talking about is like having a business partner, a life partner with similar shared values. But you know, our values aren’t always similar. So there’s probably a lot of people out there who have life partners or business partners where the values are different. Like, what would you say to them?
Jay Papasan:
Well, I mean, we have got a great example on our team. One of our coaches and trainers, Mark and his wife, Jenny, and like, we trot them out a lot.
Wendy Papasan:
That’s true.
Jay Papasan:
Because like his number one value is fun and her number one value, is it like order or something like that?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, I think so.
Jay Papasan:
And they had been fighting. They weren’t sure if their marriage was going to last.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
They did this exercise, and they realized, now, when he’s wrestling and tearing up the living room with the boys, when he comes home, he’s expressing his number one core value. And when she was cleaning up while they’re still playing, she was actually showing her love and her number one value. She wasn’t trying to shut down the fun.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So, they were able to kind of start interpreting each other’s actions to a different light. So, it is a huge unlock in understanding people. And we share them on our team too as one of, like, I have everybody’s contacts on my team. I try to put their core values.
Wendy Papasan:
Oh, that’s a great idea.
Jay Papasan:
You have the notes section because it’s one of those things I don’t always remember.
Wendy Papasan:
That’s a great hack. Yeah, of course.
Jay Papasan:
So, I’d stick it in their contacts when I learned about someone. And if I’m wondering, like, where they are on the topic, I can sometimes look at their core values and make a pretty good educated guess. One of our team members, their number one core value is competence, right? And that’s going to show up. Like, if someone’s not performing, I know who’s the most irritated on the team. I hope it’s not me that they’re irritated at, right? But it gives you an unlock on how to understand and connect with people better.
Wendy Papasan:
It’s so good.
Jay Papasan:
We mentioned earlier I shared mine, but they’re not my current core values. So, mine changed. I remember, I looked up at my year end review, and I was looking at the big decisions that we’d made together, we’re doing our goal setting retreat, and some of the ones that I thought we did well and ones that I didn’t feel as good about. And I just realized that I had been pushing that family was first for a long time, because this is a big job, and a lot of times it can stress me out and take me away from the family.
But I realized I was making all of my decisions first around impact. So, I wasn’t being completely honest with myself or the world. And so, I was, kind of, open about it. I was like, “I’m going to flip it. It’s going to be impact. Family is still important to me and abundance. Those will be my three, but I’m really leading with impact.”
And now, like, I don’t think I figured it out at the time. Like we were really close to becoming empty nesters. And as our boys were getting older, if I missed dinner, it’s like they were kind of happy to go eat in front of the TV or something. It wasn’t the same as it was. So, it didn’t have the weight of regret.
So anyway, I would just share with those folks out there. When you find them, don’t rush out and get a tattoo, right? Live with them for a little while. They may change over time, and you can get closer and closer to what they mean for you if you use them as a compass.
Wendy Papasan:
Well, I love that. And thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable. I think so many times, as parents, we do feel like that has to be–
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
It doesn’t mean our family’s not important if it’s not our core value, but you know, we are… you know, I was 33 years old before I had my first kid, you know. So, I had a whole life before I had my children. And I actually had an aha at the last retreat where I thought one of my values was going to flip. So I tried it on for a while. So, I really was – I don’t know -in some ways, moving out of some-
Jay Papasan:
Which ones we’re going to flip? Are you gonna-
Wendy Papasan:
I thought… well, actually I was going to get rid of leadership to be honest. Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Okay.
Wendy Papasan:
And then-
Jay Papasan:
Go all in on adventure or something else?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Empty nest? Here I come!
Jay Papasan:
I’m gonna become a pirate.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Wee! But no, I was going to substitute connection for leadership.
Jay Papasan:
Okay.
Wendy Papasan:
And I kind of tried it on and I actually put it on my 411, and I looked at it, and it just didn’t stick. You know, it was like sort of a fleeting thing. I would say that’s probably a top five for me, but-
Jay Papasan:
You mentioned it’s top five. So, this is the reason it showed up, connection?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Papasan:
You mentioned 411 and this is one of your hacks and I want to share it. So, a 411 for those who aren’t familiar with The ONE Thing and how we live it, it’s like a one-page goal sheet. You put your annual goals at the top, and then we have a process called goal setting to the now where you work backwards from your goals. So, you have your annual goals and each month in January, you’ll say, what do I have to do in this month to be on track for my goals? And then, the first week of January, say, what do I have to do this week – that’s your weekly goal – to be on track for my monthly goal? And so, you’ve got your annual goals, your monthly goals and your weekly goals all on one piece of paper.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
You added your core values to that. Will you share?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Well, this happened the year the goal setting retreat was virtual.
Jay Papasan:
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. So, I was at home sitting on the couch, you know, online or listening or whatever I was doing, and I kind of had a big aha. And I thought, wow. ‘Cause I always had my values at the top of the 411, but then I realized if I could align my activities, if I could align sort of my big rocks, my big goals underneath those values, then every time I opened up my 411, it would just make me super happy.
Jay Papasan:
Okay.
Wendy Papasan:
It’s kind of goals, right? So, I’m a business owner. I’ve been a business owner. You know, I haven’t worked for anyone in 20 years. I’m certifiably unemployable. And I’ve been really running towards my joy. You know, I’ve been running towards what makes me happy, and being very conscientious about doing less and less of the things that I don’t love and more and more of the things that make me really happy. And so, what I did was I said, I’m going to put adventure leadership and making a difference on the top of my goals. And then, I’m going to put all of my goals that fall under those core values.
Jay Papasan:
Give us an example of each.
Wendy Papasan:
Okay.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah. And I really want to hear what your goal was for this year for adventure honestly but-
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, that’s great. Because on the 411, I’ve got personal and professional.
Jay Papasan:
Right.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. So, for leadership, I lead a lot of things. So, I lead-
Jay Papasan:
Obvious.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
You have to lead your team, so yeah.
Wendy Papasan:
I lead my real estate team. I lead Her Best Life. I’m the chairman of… you know, I’m on two boards. I was the chairman of two things. I’ve got this other company. So, that’s all the leadership stuff.
And then, adventure, I have, you know, all my travel. Of course, love to travel. All of sort of my growth stuff. Anything that maybe I want to learn. Like for this year, I really wanted to join a bowling league. So, for me, that’s the adventure. You know, I’m doing something different.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, and you did it last week.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. And then, making a difference, which of course would be a lot of my charitable work, but also the other stuff that I do. So, I would put… we have another podcast called Empire Building podcast, And that, for me, is, you know, I make a difference.
Jay Papasan:
Making a difference.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, I make a difference there.
Jay Papasan:
Cool.
Wendy Papasan:
So, our goal setting retreat, for instance, was under there. Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So, that’s just an example of how you’ve tried to keep your core values front and center, so that you’re not cheating. Someone was asking, like, why three? And you’ve got goals under each. And I usually say, like, if you have a dot on a map, I can draw a line in it in any direction. If you have two dots, you can always draw a line through it. If you have three dots, you really have to work to get one line to go through them. And the point of the three values, like, I would be curious. Well, I’m not going to put you on the spot now. I bet there are a lot of your big goals that line up with all three.
Wendy Papasan:
For sure. Yeah, 1000%
Jay Papasan:
Yeah. And so, I also put mine at the top. I don’t write out all of my goals under them, but I like to connect them and check the ones that I know are going to take a lot of time. It’s like, is that going to help? Like if I’m writing a book and I have to finish it, like it had better line up with a lot of that.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah. Well, a perfect example of that is Her Best Life company, which is helps women in leadership.
Jay Papasan:
Right.
Wendy Papasan:
And one of the main things we do is we take retreats all over the world and have adventures. Well, we do it. And then we get back, so.
Jay Papasan:
You’ve done a great job of life by design. I’ll share, like, my hack for those. Like the goal here is if you’ve got a compass, how do you use it and not cheat on it? So, yours is to put it on your goal sheet and organize your goals around your values. I don’t take it quite that far, but every time I look at my goals right at the top, I’ve got impact, family and abundance. And so, I keep it front and center. And a lot of times I’ll share this. I created a screensaver. I went on Canva. You can, like, design your own screensaver. And I just put “impact, family and abundance,” and I made it the screensaver. And I did this. I was doing some article about how distracting our phones are. And it said that we look at our phones on average 87 times a day. And you’ve pointed out realtors, probably a lot more.
Wendy Papasan:
Yes, for sure.
Jay Papasan:
So, I wanted to, every time I looked at my phone, just kind of be confronted, you know, with these are the things you say are important. And you have to ask the question, am I still living them?
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
So just like, you know, if you see the cliche, the Olympic athlete training, they have a picture of a gold medalist-
Wendy Papasan:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
… on their mirror when they’re getting up at 3 a. m. to ride their bike through the snow to the gym. Like, what is the picture of success look like? That’s what I would encourage people to do. First, I would love for people that, hopefully, they’re inspired, they realize that if they can get clear about their core values, one, it will get them closer to their purpose statement. If you understand those things, you kind of can say no to a lot of stuff, right? Like I was talking about, if it doesn’t hit all three dots, it becomes kind of a hard no. So, this compass, well, one, keep us from making bad decisions and it helps us make good decisions faster.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, I love that.
Jay Papasan:
What would you tell people is the number one benefit? Something maybe that I’ve missed. How do you use them?
Wendy Papasan:
I think it can help give you a compass for your personal life and your professional life, and then really help you live your life by design. Like when I think about it, you know, I’ve really been blessed to have been given all the gifts to really create this life by design. And some of it is just being able to get into business with good people who can take the things off your plate that you don’t really want to do, maybe that don’t align with what makes you happy.
Jay Papasan:
That’s where I wanted to go.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Like you’re using it as an entry gate onto your team.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right. So, you’re trying to make sure that the people you’re letting into the closest circles of your life more or less match your values.
Wendy Papasan:
For sure.
Jay Papasan:
I knew there was a reason I wanted to throw it back to you and you just got me back.
Wendy Papasan:
Well, yeah. And what’s amazing is, then, if you work with your values and keep running towards them, you get to look up and have a really big impact, like maybe bigger than you would have otherwise. And I think about, you know, we’ve raised over 3 million for different charities around Austin. You and I have given away over a million dollars. You know, my real estate team has been heavily involved in all of that, you know, running all the events and things like that. And that’s a big impact, you know. And I think part of that is, you and I have that shared value, you know. That’s huge.
Jay Papasan:
And I think when you connect those activities to your purpose, you know why you should keep doing them. Like, let’s make it a priority because this is a priority for us.
Wendy Papasan:
Yeah, of course.
Jay Papasan:
Folks, thank you for listening to us. Hopefully you got something valuable. Wendy, thanks for sharing.
Wendy Papasan:
Thank you. And thanks for having me, Jay.
Jay Papasan:
Well, that’s a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Wendy, where we talked all things core values, but the first step is you got to identify them, which is why our challenge this week to you is to go to our website at the1thing.com/freeresources. That’s The ONE Thing with the number one. Download our core values exercise and take it. In about 30 minutes, you can identify your top three core values and start applying them to your personal life, your relationships, and your team. I hope you’ll take the challenge and report back. Let us know in the comments and in your reviews if you did it and what it did for you.
Now, next week, we have a very special guest, the one, the only Gary Keller, my coauthor and partner. We’re going to talk about the power of making small changes in your life that lead to huge outcomes. It’s about finding your intensity and your consistency. It’s always a pleasure to have Gary Keller on the show. He always has a lot to share. I hope you’ll join us.
