An Excellent Wknd [26.02]
Some thoughts on creating rock solid values
Hello, hi, 👋
Happy Saturday, my friends. Here’s hoping you all have a solid weekend planned, filled with good coffee, good friends, and a good workout.
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Let’s get into it!
YOUR VALUES AREN'T ASPIRATIONS
We treat core values like New Year’s resolutions - picking words that represent who we want to become. Integrity. Authenticity. Excellence. They sound good. They feel important. But they’re not actually ours.
Real core values aren’t aspirational. They’re archaeological.
As Robert Glazer told us, your values should reveal who you’ve always been, not who you hope to become. If you dig deep enough, you’ll find them in your childhood report cards, in the decisions you made before you knew you were making them, in the patterns that have followed you from job to job and relationship to relationship.
When Robert shared his preschool report card with his team, in fact, they thought it was a current 360° review. “He wants to do things himself. He doesn’t want to follow instructions. He wants to figure out a better way.” The same observations at five years old and forty years old - because values don’t change with age, they clarify.
This is why keyword exercises rarely work. Picking “authenticity” from a list doesn’t tell you anything. But if you can connect a value to a formative experience - the time someone lied to you, the parent who modeled something, the moment that shaped how you see the world - now you’re onto something real.
Your values aren’t something you create. They’re something you uncover.
When you find the right ones, they should feel like a stencil you can place over your entire life. You look back and think, “Oh. That’s why I struggled there. That’s why this felt right. That’s why I couldn’t make that relationship work.”
The goal isn’t to design better values - it’s to finally see the ones that have been driving you all along.
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🎧 How to Stop Drifting Through Life & Start Directing It (Vision, Anti-Vision, & Values)
Bringing together three conversations that show how vision and anti-vision work as a push-pull system, why values need to be operational filters instead of inspirational words, and why writing it all down transforms vague ideas into actionable direction.
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#179: Grace Under Risk
Next week, we’ve got two powerful conversations dropping for you.
On Monday, friend-of-the-show Brian Johnson joins us to talk about building anti-fragile confidence through protocols that outlast motivation. We explore why your daily systems matter more than your momentary feelings, and how small, consistent actions compound into unshakeable self-trust.
Then on Thursday, Zack Kass—former head of go-to-market at OpenAI—helps us navigate the AI-driven world we’re all trying to figure out. The key? Anchor your mission while staying flexible with your methods, because the tools will change faster than you think.
Until then, keep on chasing.
🤙🏼 Patrick
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The archeological framing is useful. I've seen too many orgs pick values off lists that sound impressive but dont actually guide decisions when pressre hits. The preschool report card example nails why retrospection works better than aspiration for finding real values. Once worked with someone who realized their "core value" of collaboration was actualy just social anxiety dressed up, while their real pattern was solving problems independently. Values as stencil over life makes sense.