The first time I identified my core values was in 2015.
After 5+ years of working 60-80 hour work weeks at Teach For America (typical nonprofit martyr stuff) and Skillshare (common 2nd employee at an early stage VC-backed startup stuff), I was recovering from serious burnout and following a couple of entrepreneurial dreams.
My coach, Elise, helped me process the invaluable gifts and steaming piles of trash I was carrying with me from my prior professional experiences. She also offered support as I decided which creative project I’d pursue (Pop-Up Shabbat won out and turned into Arq, First 20 never saw the light of day but might be time to revisit!) and which full-time job I’d commit to next.
One of the most powerful tools she introduced me to?
Core Values
How do you make decisions for yourself, your family, or your company each day? What are the principles that guide the way you show up as a leader, neighbor, family member, or friend? How do you remain steadfast in your way of being or your plans when they're challenged? How do you navigate a crossroads or shift?
Articulating strong, unique values - and sticking to them - takes guts. They limit your freedom and behavior, but creativity comes from constraints. They also inspire those who share your values to join your team, your community, your family, or your work. When you live in alignment with your values, you are whole, not exhaustingly fragmented.
Every time any of us makes a choice - about what to do or how to be - our core values act as foundational building blocks that keep us grounded, consistent, and confident in the direction we’re going.
Back in 2015, my (too-long) list looked like this:
Insight
Growth
Chutzpah
Integrity
Warmth
Gratitudement (my mashup of acknowledgement + gratitude)
Choice
Connection
These values reflected my commitments to self-awareness, constant learning, being bold, being trustworthy, inclusivity, agency, and more. They helped me understand why I’d felt excluded or offended at times — my values were being stepped on. I learned that my values were often the deeper source of my gut feelings about the right directions or relationships to pursue.
My Chutzpah, Integrity, and Warmth were the strong and steady hands at my back in Spark Capital partner meetings. Growth and Connection powered my solopreneurship. Insight, Warmth, and Gratitudement accompanied me during 98 days in the NICU with my daughter. My personal values informed and aligned with those of my company, Arq: Inclusivity, Tradition, Intention, Adaptability.
For years and years, these values showed up and showed me the way.
Then, a few months ago, I hosted a core values workshop for a group of women founders of venture-backed consumer startups, and I joined them in the exercise!
Here’s my 2023 edit (which could still use some…editing):
Choice
Self
Love
Aesthetics
Pleasure
Spirituality
Choice stuck around, Warmth became Love, Growth and Insight matured into Self acceptance and trust. Pleasure, which had been a given in my 20s, now needed specific attention and recognition. Aesthetics emerged as a container for the beauty I appreciate and the simplicity and clarity I prefer. Spirituality speaks to the wisdom I’m starting to feel I hold and the mystery I’m becoming more comfortable with.
It felt exciting, grounding, validating and full of possibility to articulate this fresh list. It’s a list that’s caught up with my evolution and that I know will support and push me as I step into a whole bunch of new seasons — as a coach, as the parent of a soon-to-be-kindergartener, as a former triathlete who now loves to swim meditative 6:30am laps at the Y and do 20-min. yoga videos in my living room.
I believe everyone can benefit from articulating their core values.
Over the years, I’ve offered this exercise to my coaching and advising clients, from startup founders & CEOs to independent freelancers and ambitious working parents at the top of their careers. While my belief in this practice has only deepened, my approach to it has shifted.
Originally, I simply offered a list of hundreds of values to whittle down, leading from a more linear, intellectual place. And, it worked…well enough! But now, with my integral coach training, my increasing experience with somatic (body-based) and mindfulness practices, and the abundance of kid-friendly art supplies in my home, I’ve designed a more creative and holistic exercise that I’ve seen lead to more authentic and meaningful results.
I also love doing this work in community when I can and encourage you to team up with friends, family, or colleagues if you try it out. It's powerful and empowering to witness the emergence of this clarity in others and to be seen in all of your own complexity.
You can identify your core values and articulate your vision anytime, but these tools can be an essential accompaniment to your reflections and intentions as we approach a new year. Doing this work will make it more possible for you to create and stick to the commitments you make to yourself, your company, your family & friends, or community moving forward.
Bonus activity: once you’ve identified your core values, reflect on your alignment with them.
Living your values in any context is about finding integrity, balance, authenticity – being who you really are. It’s tiring and demoralizing to play a role or deny your own truth. And, it takes awareness, courage, and practice!
Think of one example of a time when you were out of alignment with one of your values. What were you thinking, feeling (emotionally, physically), saying, doing? This is not about judging or blaming yourself, just noticing and learning and then doing differently.
Grab a partner and share and reimagine that scenario by a) having your partner role play the scenario with you or b) visualize an alternative approach that has you responding from a more centered, grounded place. Get really vivid to make this the most effective – what are you wearing, hearing, seeing, feeling, doing?
What’s one new or different thing you’ll do based on your takeaways from this exercise?
I’d love to hear how this all goes for you! What are your personal core values? Your company or family values? When do you feel most aligned and clear?
If you’d like me to guide you in this practice, send me a note at danya@danyashults.com. I love doing this work individually or in a group, for you personally or for your company or team.
This newsletter is sporadic, both personal and professional, and written by me, Danya Shults. I’m an executive coach and startup advisor, among many other things (we all contain multitudes!).
I’d love to hear the things you’re doing and thinking, too. You can reply to this email anytime and I’ll be on the other end. 👋