Lesson 8 | Values Exercise (7:30 minutes)
This lesson contains 3 videos. Please scroll down to view them all.
Values Exercise
The Next Level
Values Confirmation Letter
This lesson contains three videos. Please scroll down to view them all.
Values Exercise
So, how do we actually help your wealth holder clients discover what their values are? You could ask them. It's like, "What are your values?" The challenge is, they'll answer, and the answer is actually fairly typical. If you test this, it's kind of entertaining. But ask people what their values are and their values are honesty, integrity, community, hard work, and family. Why are they those values? Well, because those are social values. Those are the values that we're raised with. Those are the values that are respected in society. Honesty, integrity, community, hard work, and family are fantastic and beautiful, not harassing those values at all. But it doesn't necessarily tie to their lived values, the values that are actually driving their day to day decisions. We want to get at those values.
How do we do it? What we do is we take the Legacy Values Cards system, which is a deck of cards that has a series of values with simple explanations on it, including a few blank cards in it as well. You're going to provide those to the wealth holder. You're going to provide those to your clients and allow them to sift through those cards and look through those cards. You're going to ask them to pick out 15. Now, they may actually have all the values in the deck and then some. But what you're looking for are what are the values that show up the most in your life? Which are the top ones? Not better than the others, but you just simply tend to interact with them more often than the others. Have them identify 15 of the key values.
Once they've got those and they're there in front of them, you put the others to the side. Then, have them narrow that down. Say, "Okay, of those 15, which are the 10 that you deal with more often, that might cause you to get frustrated more often when you see it in other people's behaviors. Which are the ones that carry a little bit more weight than the other? Narrow it down to 10. If you can." They may say, "Oh, no, I can't do 10. It's 11 for sure, it's 12." It's like, fine, it's okay. It's an approximate, but go for 10.
Once you've got to the 10, now push them a little bit. Say, "Okay, of those 10, which are the five that if you didn't have these five in your life, it's not you anymore. This isn't you. Which are the ones that absolutely have to be there in your life?" Have them narrow it down to those five. Again, they may push for six or seven. That's okay, it's just going to take you a little bit longer, but what you're after are what are the things that they won't give up. Look for those five.
Once you've got it narrowed down to the five, now we want to make sure that those are real. We want to pressure test it a little bit. For each of them, ask them for an example about how does this one show up in your life? Let's say it's, I don't know, let's say they value sports. "I value sports." "Okay, good. Sports. Where does that show up in your life?" It's like, "Well, you know, it's something I think about a lot." All right, thinking about is good. "Do you play any sports?" "No." "Do people you're close to play sports." "No. No, not really." "Do you watch sports?" "No." "Do you have a favorite team of some kind." "No, but I just think that sports is really good." Well, if that's the case, you're going to want to park that one to the side and say, "Okay, I get that sports are really good. Now let's keep that there."
But you're looking for things that are actually in their lives, that are lived values. If someone's into sports like, "I play sports, everybody around me plays sports, I like watching sports in my spare time, I do sports, I read about sports, I got books on sports, let me tell you a statistic, here's my three favorite teams and this, but I think about changing here, or I'd never change because I'm a sports fan." You're going to know it when somebody values a thing. You're going to ask about it and get it down to those five or six where you've been able to pressure test it and see that they have examples of them in their lives. Once you've got there, then we can take it to the next level.
The Next Level
Okay, so you have five or six values that you've identified with the wealth holder. You've pressure tested it a little bit and seen that they have examples. Now, this is an opportunity to ask some questions that really help them understand it better and help you understand them better. So first, you want to ask them, "How does this value serve you? Having this value, how does that serve you? How does it work for you? How does it help you out?" And they're going to have their own answers and ideas around that.
The next thing you want to ask is, "How does this value impair you? How does it get in the way?" People don't expect that one, but when you start to look at it, it's because values are needs. Then, you require them, and so that's going to create ... that can create impairments of some kind along the way. The next question would be, "How do you respond when other people violate that value?" And try and get examples from them so that you actually really understand. "But when someone violates that value, how do you react? Give me an example." And sometimes, they may do nothing to them, but inside, they're seething or they're really upset or they write the person off or whatever it is. But you want to make sure that it's really, really solid.
And then, the last question around it is, "How could this create a blind spot for you?" If you have a lot of weight, a lot of energy going to a specific value, a lot of attention on a certain value, when your attention's in one place, it means it's not other places. So how could that create a blind spot for them, and how do we make sure that that blind spot doesn't show up in their planning? How does this value serve them? How does this value impair them? How do you respond when someone else violates this value, and how could this potentially create a blind spot for you? And let's make sure that we avoid that blind spot.
Values Confirmation Letter
Okay, so we got these values, but now what do we do with them? We've got these great five or six values, we've got some stories, we've got some clarity, we've got some understanding around it, everybody's feeling great, but what's the point? The point's to improve the result. We want to make sure that we anchor this and that we keep this. For any of the processes that we do, there's always a place to capture it.
Values is no different. Once you have identified these values and some of the backstory behind it, you're going to go to the Qualitate web-based application and for that client, you are going to go into the values section and you're going to list their values. Then you're going to generate a confirmation email about their values that essentially says, "We went through this process, we identified ... Actually, you identified these as top values. Here's a little bit about them that was identified. As your advisor, part of my attention will be on ensuring that we recognize these values as we do our planning, we respect these values as we do the planning." It creates a true confirmation for them that's essentially a product of that process that they went through. It's evidence of the work that you did with them. It's also evidence of the difference that's there. No one else is doing this with them.
