Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth for all of my listeners. And joining me on the other end of the line from Sonoma, California, which isn't that far away from Encinitas here. He actually used to live down in San Diego, California is Robert MacPhee. Robert, good day to you, how you doing?

Robert MacPhee
I'm doing great, Greg. It's great to reconnect.

Greg Voisen
Well, it is definitely in our are our contact person, besides being Jack Canfield is Kathy. And I want to let my listeners know that way back in September 22 2013, Robert did an interview with us, called Manifesting for Non-Gurus. I'm gonna put a link to that just because, because that's a great little workbook that he created, it seems like a lifetime ago to him and to me, but it is what it is. Let me let our listeners know a bit about you. Robert is the creator of excellent decisions leadership approach. He's an expert in experiential learning, peak performance and leadership specializing in coaching, consulting, speaking, and facilitation of interactive, experiential, and fun workshops. He is the former director of training for the Jack Canfield training group, a founding member of the former executive director of the transformational leadership council, and co-founder of the Southern California Association of transformational leaders, and a former executive board member of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of conscious capitalism, and the founder of ally ring, social justice movement, you can learn more about his company at www values based life.com, there's going to be an offer there as well for all of our listeners. So that's www values based life.com. Well, it's a pleasure having you back on the show, even it's been 11 years, I want to let our listeners know that we it's not like we didn't talk within that 11 years. Yeah, we stayed, we stayed and we've kind of stayed in touch. Let's kick this off. Because this is an easy-to-read book. This is and you said very, very tough for people to do that to actually put something around values together. But in the book, you emphasize the importance of values clarity for living a fulfilling life. Could you share with the listeners why you believe this clear, clarity is so essential, and why it doesn't have to be such a heavy lift.

Robert MacPhee
Yeah, and I think it's so interesting that we track back all the way to the previous conversation that we had about the kind of the previous iteration of my work, which was called Manifesting for Non-Gurus. And one of the lessons out of that, for me was that that's a clever title, but a horrible brand. And in terms of me, reaching out into the marketplace and sharing the work that I do, that you talked about in the introduction about facilitating and speaking and in coaching, and consulting, and all that work, people just never got that. And now navigating through the work I did in excellent decisions with helping people make decisions based on vision and values. And now the real laser focus on values, what I have found is that it's a completely different experience with branding. Because the way people respond to the conversation about values is, is like they immediately get the importance of it, like people know how important values are. And most people, if you stop people on the street corner and say, hey, can you tell me your five highest values, 99% of people cannot tell you that. So, they know it's really important. And they're not able to articulate and in most cases, if they're not clear about what their own values are, they're living in alignment with someone else's values. And we live in a world where that's not difficult to do, because it's through media and social media and advertising and our friends and our family and our boss and everybody else. There's always somebody who wants us to do something or wants us to do it in a certain way. So there's no no shortage of influences that will push us in a certain direction to do things. But when we get clear about what our own values are, it's literally a life changing experience, like like, to be clear, because I defined values very simply as what is most important to me. And when I get clear about what is most important to me, and I start let, letting that drive, the way I'm thinking the decisions that I'm making the actions that I'm taking. It literally changes our life completely and it

Greg Voisen
influences us in a way that all our buying decisions, all of our personal decisions. change when we know, I think, you know, for a lot of people though, Robert the, the area's kind of foggy, you know, it's it's, it is if I use this term lightly, but it is kind of a fog, because the values usually for a lot of people, their values stay the change, but then there stay. But in some cases they can change based on something that influenced you during your life. But you introduced this concept of priorities and ways of being as two distinct areas of values out of these two categories complementing each other. And why is it important for individuals to understand both aspects of their values? Well,

Robert MacPhee
you spoke to, to what I believe is the exact reason which is that values are complicated, and they do change. And my personal experience years ago, it's probably eight or 10 years ago, trying to clarify my own values was that it was confusing. Like I was trying to clarify my values in a way that I could actually really apply them in my life. And as I went through traditional values work, I never was able to get to a point where I ended up with something that was concrete and applicable and usable. And I tell people, I've been doing this work for more than 20 years. After all that time, I have three original pieces of content. And this piece about separating values into two categories, our priorities, what is most important to us. And our ways of being which is how we want to show up in the world is one of those original pieces of content, because it was it was driven by it emerged from that frustration and that confusion that I was experiencing, trying to clarify my own values. And as soon as I separated them, two things happen. As soon as I got clear about what is important to me, the areas of my life, the things things like my family, and making a contribution in my health and well being in my business and financial success. These are things that are important to me. But they're separate from how I want to show up in the world, the qualities and characteristics that I want to exhibit that I want to the way I want to show up the way I want to be remembered things like being caring and being humble, and being loving, and being calm and peaceful. Like this is how I want to show up in the world. And as soon as I had two separate lists, for me, they became applicable because I could self assess in any moment, like, how am I doing? Am I putting my time and attention on the things that I've personally chosen to be most important? And am I showing up in the world in the way that I've chosen that I I've determined that like I aspire to be caring, and kind and to be calm and all those things. And so I can self assess and adjust at any moment. And suddenly I wasn't confused. I had something I could actually use. Well,

Greg Voisen
I think that you know, one of the things and I used to teach courses on defining your purpose it you know, when people have prompts, it's almost like creating like a little prompt. Even in your book, you've created prompts. Sometimes we need those as reminders. Like I said, it's foggy, we get stuck. We're so busy doing what we're doing. It's not something that we think about what are my values today? It's more of a knee jerk reaction kind of thing. But can you walk us through this interactive process outlined in the book for discovering and articulating one's highest values? You You really did make this simple. I just want to tell people look, this book is not that thick. He even told me that he wrote this in about a month and a half. So but you got an expert writing a book, which is a little different. Now what makes your approach unique compared to other values, clarification strategies? Well,

Robert MacPhee
I think there's the single thing that makes it most unique. And the thing that ironically, in that conversation I was describing about people understand the importance of values, but they can't articulate their own highest values. It kind of makes people feel guilty. Like they're like I know it's important, but I haven't done it, I should do it. And so it kind of makes people feel bad. And at the same time when we introduce something new and unique and different, which is there's two different categories. It gets people back on track to say, Oh, well, like no one told me that. Like, I didn't know I was supposed to do that. I didn't know that was an option. So it's really excited. It's been exciting for me. And I told you the story. You know, I did this for myself eight or 10 years ago, and I told you I've been around this work for 20 plus years and you would think as a coach and consultant that I would have been sharing this technique since it works so great for me, but the truth is until about a year ago, I wasn't sharing it. I can't even tell you why like it's crazy right now, given the response to this work that I'm seeing and how important it is and and how people are responding to it. It's crazy that I wasn't sharing it But when I did start sharing it, and the process itself is is pretty simple, we look at the two different categories, we do a discovery process, which is designed to address multiple learning styles. So rather than just lecture about it, or just give people the information or give people a list of words to choose from, we do a guided visualization to tap into some more kind of heart energy, in addition to the, to the mind, work the head work, if you will. And we do that on both sides for both the process where we help people discover what their highest priorities are. And then we redo the process slightly differently. But very similar tapping into that heart space and the headspace, for the ways of being. So people end up with these two lists these, this is what is most important to me, this is how I aspire to show up in the world. And then the next steps are about clarifying. Because like you said, values change in our life changes and, and we keep thinking about this. So we want people to keep their lists in front of them and remind themselves and change the language a little bit like, like, for me, I always kind of go back and forth between kindness and caring and my ways of being like. They're similar, they're really similar. And I tend to use both actually, most of the time. But there's, you know, I've been doing this with my list for over 10 years now. And I'm still refining and clarifying. And sometimes it feels like I want to change something. So I can, I can add something or delete something or just changed the language, just to make it feel really authentic to me.

Greg Voisen
In a book like this step three, you give people they can't see this, because there's a little blurry on the screen. But I'm going to say, reviews of list, ways of being examples. You know, accepting, accountable, accurate, clear, clever, comfortable, compassionate, controlling cooperative, you so you actually give people and that's the great thing. I say, this is kind of a little workbook on top of it. It's like you can work through this. It is an inexpensive book, and people should get it if you're really of interest, and clarifying your values. The other thing is, is that okay, let's say I get there, Robert, and I go through some of this. And I create those values. And then I look at my priorities or ways of being I should say, how do you suggest individuals assess whether they're currently living their lives in alignment with those highest values? And what indicators should they look for? And how can they identify areas for improvement? Because that's a big

Robert MacPhee
one. You you have a way of weaving like four questions into one question.

Greg Voisen
That's right. That's the that is four. There were four and that

Robert MacPhee
one podcast interviewer sensei. So but but what I see I see what you're saying, and I think you and I, we have a lot of mutual friends, you mentioned Jack Canfield as one of them. And I had the great pleasure and honor of working closely with Jack for a very long time. And one of the things I took away from that is the importance of the experiential, interactive learning model that we don't just give people information, we have them really experience the information. And that's why the book is set up, like he described it as kind of like a workbook. And that's why it's set up that way. So people can really engage with it and really get the learning into their body. And the other thing that I learned from Jack and I really took away from the time working with him is it it's great to share the information and the ideas and concepts and all that. But But I want people to apply them. I mean, it breaks my heart when I walk away from working with a client. And I just feel like okay, yeah, I gave it everything I had, but they're not going to do anything with it. It whether it's an individual or an organization, if they don't have the commitment. And if they don't have the structure and the system set up to really be able to implement. It's kind of heartbreaking, because it's entertaining, and it's interesting, and people had a good time, but they're gonna look back in six months and say, Well, what did we really change because of that? And, and in too many cases, the answer is nothing. So I'm really committed to being. So I look at this work, like the discovery process that we've been talking about, about going through and discovering these two lists, like what are my highest priorities? And what are my most important ways of being? That's the first step. But there's two steps after that, really, because the next step is clarify because almost everyone, once they do that first discovery, there's kind of a reflection and an editing kind of stage that goes on where I think about it, I keep it in front of me, I put it on a three by five card and post it on my commute computer monitor, or I have it on the dashboard of my car on my bed nightstand or my bathroom mirror, or all of those places write to remind myself like this is how I want to live my life. This is where I want to put my time and attention. And this is how I want to show up in the world. Because we've already got these habits like everyone has values that we're living By now, they just may not be the values that we want to be living by. But it's a habit already. So in order to change it to circle back to I think what what your real core question was there is how do we implement this? How do we apply it? How do we make sure it doesn't just become an exercise that was interesting and fun and engaging, but it doesn't make a difference. And I think there's several elements. One is this reminding, like keeping it in front of us having it available, I have my values in my phone and a reminder app. So every day a reminder goes off, and I hear a little chime, and I see a little red dot, you know, that's the way that engineered our phones, but I want it to engineer to remind me of something, I want to be reminded of not to go to Facebook and check my feed or whatever. So I have it there. And I see it, and I'm reminded, but but you want to put it everywhere, put it all over the place, especially in those early stages. So you can do the clarifications and the massaging that you want. And then on an ongoing basis, once the values are really lined up and articulated the way that feels really in alignment with what's most important to you. That's when we get into looking at the two lists, like my priorities to start with and asking ourselves, How am I currently spending my time? So if I say that number one on my values list is in terms of priorities, is my relationship with my children? Well, how are those relationships? How much time and attention Am I putting into those relationships? And it's actually really easy to assess those things. I could do the same thing for my health and well being I say it's important. But I haven't gone for a walk or a run in two weeks. So am I really making it important?

Greg Voisen
Well, I think it comes, I think it comes back, Robert not to interrupt you, but we have so many things in our lives, but the priorities. So it's really the importance of that relationship with those children. I know for me, I could say, Well, I haven't done the greatest job. But on the other hand, if I asked my kids, they probably say, Hey, you're a great dad. So I hear people today saying I'd rather I want to be a good dad, I want to write a book on being a good dad, I have a client came to me. And I do understand the implications of us. Putting our family first, it's really so important. And it can make a difference in a child's life, especially if you're bringing up a young child. And that I think, again, for my listeners, if you're really concerned, and you do feel out of alignment, right, with what you're doing versus the priorities, what's taking importance over who you're being the way it's a being, this is the book for you, you should really really define these values. And you know, you discuss this thing called the change paradox model. Which explains why humans desire and resist change. Now, we're talking about ways to creep in with this book, and make small changes to time. How does the values clarity serve as a key to breaking free from the paradox, and create and for us to create a more fulfilling life? Because, honestly, what you're at, you're at your core here, yeah, you're getting people to change values. But like you just said five minutes ago, I really am discouraged when people don't, after I've spent all this time training them, get them to actually imbibe it. Right, like, just drink it and be it. That's the essence of my being. And that that is the tougher part, Robert, yes,

Robert MacPhee
that's where the rubber hits the road. That's where the real work happens. Yeah. And that change paradox model that you're talking about? It does focus on the fact that as human beings, we do both, like we want change, we want things to be better, we want to make more money, we want our relationships to be better, we want to be healthier. It's just natural. Like as human beings, we strive to improve and to get better. And yet at the same time, it's like a running joke. But as human beings, we also resist change. As soon as we start making change, we resist and something inside of us, it's worried about being unsafe in some crazy way, that's not even true anymore. And we go back to doing what we were doing before that wasn't really working. And the change paradox model II talked about that's at the start of the book to kind of set up the whole conversation about values, explains to people and helps them understand, like, why that happens. And starts the conversation about what we can do differently to break free of that paradox, and start creating our life more the way we really want it. And, and the model is really based on

Greg Voisen
the right you create awareness with that right? Yes, the first step here is just like anything am I going to do? Am I going to be mindful? Am I going to do meditation? Am I going to create awareness about my actions. I always tell people, you know, I went to USM. And they said, Well, if a camera watched you all day long, and you played the video back, would you like what you saw. And I think as a way to really cement that in your head, if you went to everybody and said, Hey, if a Campbell was following you today, and we're your actions and behaviors in alignment with your values, you'd probably find out that in some cases, your priorities were out of whack.

Robert MacPhee
Yes. And I think that's really true for most people who haven't done the values work, or did it in a way that they can't remember and really apply it. And so when situations come up, when distractions come up, when a crisis or an emergency of some sort comes up, they don't have that foundation of clarity of values in that moment. And that moment is a terrible time to try and figure out what your highest values are. So chances are your decisions and your thoughts and your actions are going to be driven by something other than your values. And the opposite is true as well, if you have done the work, if you do have the clarity, and like we're talking about, you have it in your phone, and you have it on your bathroom mirror, it's in your consciousness, like you're really aware of it, you're making a conscious effort, and none of us is perfect. I'm not here to tell anybody that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I live my life 100% In alignment with my highest values, because I don't. But when I get in one of those situations where there's an invitation to be distracted, or there is some sort of highly emotional or, or confrontational situation that I'm most of the time I make those important decisions based on my highest values. Because my highest values, especially now, I mean, after writing the book, like it's really in the foreground for me, and it's right there when I need it. But for most people, it's not because they haven't done the work ahead of time. So when those situations come up, right now, they're gonna go with

Greg Voisen
whatever, when I saw your LinkedIn, kind of post about your new book here, and then I reached out to you at the at the time, I was also kind of, oh, looking at Ray Dalio and the principles books, you know, in his whole app, and everything he's doing is about getting people to clarify values and their principles. Now, you know, you just said, Hey, look, you were just in Fiji, you were telling me working with a big company, and organizations not to switch gears here for a second because, you know, organizations have values and a mission and a vision and a purpose. Can you elaborate on how the principles outlined in your book apply to organizations and leaders who all for all those that are leaders that are listening right now? And how can leaders foster values driven culture within their teams or their companies? Because, you know, that's a that is a big one, because they post them on the wall, but that doesn't mean they always live them?

Robert MacPhee
Yes, so there you go, again, with the multiple questions. So I want to start with leadership. I want to start with leadership. Because I think that's in some ways, it's a very complex question. But it's also a very simple question. I think people really think about leadership. And think about the idea of values clarity, and is someone clear about their values and, and in most ways, living in alignment with their values, I would, I would propose that if someone is clear about their values, and they are, for the most part, living in alignment with their values, they are a leader. Like Period, end of sentence, by definition, they are a leader, because they're following their own values. They're not following someone else and someone else's values. So regardless of whether they're the receptionist at the company, or the CEO, that receptionist I think we've all had that experience, right. I had this company I was working with in Fiji, there was this amazing woman named Natasha. And she was the like executive assistant to one of the highfalutin executives. But this woman was a leader, like, like she was the receptionist at the desk when you first come in. So you might not think of her as the leader, like the executive she was working with you would think of as the leader, but she was a leader like she was making things happen, like she had like personal power. And so so it defines leadership. And then the other thing that I think is really important to be aware of is like everything that we're doing with the the approach in the book and the two categories. It applies just as much to an organization as it does to an individual. However, in an organization, you've got the individuals in the organization, you've got for for any organization that's a reasonable size, you've got teams and departments. within the organization, and you've got the organization as a whole. So I learned something really interesting around this work, which is, the awareness of the people in the organization of the organization's values is not what's most important. What's most important in terms of engagement and having a culture that really works. The most important thing is the awareness of the people in the organization and their own personal values to really create more engagement. Now, obviously, we would want all three, we would want to wake up in the morning, go to work, and know that our individual values are in alignment with the values of our team and the people we're working with. And also the organization as a whole, like my oldest daughter is in that situation right now. She's working for this amazing organization in Seattle, called the Fred Hutchinson Institute, and she's doing data science work that's related to AIDS vaccines. And she's working with these amazing people that she totally loves. So she goes to work every day knowing that the work she's doing is in alignment with her personal values, like making a contribution, making the world a better place doing something important. It's it's aligned with her team's values and the specific work they're doing within the organization. And it's in alignment with the the overarching, like overall values of the organization. So she she, and again, fairness to her, like, I'm sure it's not every day, but in general, she bounces out of bed in the morning, and she knows she's living her life and doing her work in alignment with her values. Well, I guess she was working with Microsoft, and I can't,

Greg Voisen
I can't be part of it. I can attach to the Fred Hutchinson organization. And oh, do you know that's amazing, right? Well, I know them because my oldest son who works at Adobe now who, at 21, got chronic myelogenous leukemia, and they were the first ones with a grant with leukemia society to actually come out with Gleevec. So I'm very familiar with what the work they're doing. And they are always, well, always, that's a overstatement, but they're on purpose. That's an organization which is truly hiring people that are really deeply driven by their values and the values of the organization around helping and serving others get better, period, you know, like, make the quality of life better. You know, so in part three of this book, is to focus on applications and implementation of values, clarity. So, can you provide some practical tips or exercises for listeners who want to start living more in alignment with their highest values? today? What would you tell them to do? If they actually go get this book, and they work through it? Right, and they get to the point of the values, that's only step one. It's like they're written on paper. Now, I've really got to do it. What am I going to do with this after I get it?

Robert MacPhee
Yes, yes. And it is a process. So so the process and we talked about this before the discovery, and then the clarification and then the application, and to me, the application is consistently going back, first of all, keeping those lists accessible, and you know, not sticking them in a drawer somewhere and thinking they're somehow going to change your life from there, because they're not, they've got to be in your phone, they've got to be on the desktop and your computer on a three by five card on your, again, your bedside table, your bathroom mirror, wherever, so that you remembered like you keep them in the foreground. And, and the reason we keep them in the foreground is so that we can continuously do a really simple process. This is what I'm doing. Like, literally every day, I'm I'm self assessing. I see those values, and I can't see them without self assessing and asking myself, How am I doing? How am I doing with those relationships with my kids? How am I doing with making a contribution in the world? How am I doing with my health and well being?

Greg Voisen
And what are you? How are your values? Robert, do you mind me asking?

Robert MacPhee
So so the enlisting them I'm giving you my my top priorities are my relationships with my kids, my contribution to the world, my health and well being my business and financial success, and my relationships. So I use relationships. And this is a little little tip and trick for people, like you're not quite sure, like whether you're networking or whether you're, you know, relationship with your spouse, as we just call it relationships. And for me, that really works. I look in that category and I go, how am I doing? How are the quality of my relationships?

Greg Voisen
Interesting. You you do that? Because, again, I'm going to interrupt because this always brings to mind. My meditation retreats on the work of silence led by Joel and Michelle leaving, and the term they use, which I just thought really clarified it for me is we were always into things with all my relations. All my relations. Yeah. Right. And what that did for me is it said, oh my goodness, that includes the guy in the grocery store. That includes the person that washes my car. That includes, you know, the guy who works in the yard that includes the CEO of XYZ company. So I really thought that that little thing, all my relations was really quite clever.

Robert MacPhee
No, I love that. And, and you talked about how, how values change over time, and we're talking about kind of the application, there's another, you kind of asked for, like tips and tricks, and here's one for people to keep in mind, and I'll give you a personal example is, one of the things I've learned is that we can borrow values. So we create these two lists, and we want to live our life, it's putting our time and attention on our highest priorities and showing up in the world in a way that really is authentic, like, it's how we really want to be. And one of the things I realized in that self assessment process at one point was, I really wanted to focus on my work and my career and generating more revenue. And, and I looked at my ways of being which are about being calm and peaceful and caring, and kind, and, and humble. Those are on my ways of being list. And, and that's really who I want to be. And sometimes when you're running a business and making things happen and trying to generate more revenue, those valleys don't work that great, right. So I learned like without being inauthentic, I can focus in situationally on my business and my career and my finances. And I can say, you know, what, I'm going to borrow a couple of values here, I'm going to borrow strength, and discipline, and focus and clarity, and, and courageousness, I actually bumped courageousness up onto my main list, because it was like, I realized how important it was for me to be willing to have difficult conversations and be willing to do things I was uncomfortable doing. And it meant being more courageous. So I borrowed those values in the context of, of that area I was working on called career in finance. And, and I didn't take away anything, I didn't have to be a different person, if you really think about it, none of those qualities and characteristics of strength and discipline and focus, really conflict. With being calm and peaceful and being humble. I can be all of that. But it helped me laser in and focus. And anyone can do that. You can say, this area of my life is not going the way I want it to go. What? What do you know? How do people who were doing really well in this area show up? Well, what qualities and characteristics are they exhibiting? And if they're exhibiting, like being a jerk, and not caring about anybody else? And being selfish? I say no, thanks. I don't want to be that.

Greg Voisen
But I think what you I think what you've done, Robert, is the priorities is so important. And m&e is a little example here, you know, I watch with my wife called to the midwives on PBS. And actually, last night, the father of one of the actors on the show, who basically was in the in the plot, he was driven by money and buildings and financing. And the son wasn't at all, you know, there was a misalignment in values. And he wasn't close in the sense with his father, because his father was like, Truly this driven by the priorities at Miss got messed up. And the father even admitted, so the father dies, leaves the estate to the Son. And the son becomes an advocate for homeless, the poor grading housing that would serve the poor, because his values alignment were completely different. And I think from generation to generation, we're actually seeing a shift in these values these days, when you look at Gen Z and Gen X and millennials and you know, all the all the things that boomers like you and I, I really am. I'm so happy to see the shift in values today amongst generational differences. And that is because there isn't enough for everybody. And we have to believe that right? We can't come from scarcity we have to come from there's enough and I can share it. I can be an advocate to share that and help make the world a better place. What I'd like to get from you because I think my listeners love takeaways, I always end my podcast with what are the takeaways, Robert, that if somebody gets the book Living a values based life, how do you believe or what are a few of the takeaways that you would hope the readers get? And our listeners and how do you envision the life this book making a difference in their life?

Robert MacPhee
Well, there's there's four words Come up, actually, I'll add one because of the conversation we had about leadership and for people who who want to be in that role of being a leader, whatever, whatever their actual role is, even if there's not people designated to follow them to truly go through life of being a leader, by by living in alignment with our values would be one thing to actually have the opportunity to really be a leader. And then the other words that have come up consistently around this whole conversation for me, number one is, is productivity. You know, we say we want to be more productive, we want to get more done. But values clarity allows us to really narrow that down and down and say, not just get more done, but get more done in the specific areas that are most important to us. So there's a very real connection to being more productive to at the end of the day, feeling like it was a day well spent, like a life well lived. And there's a real tragedy and that story, you were sharing from the from the TV show, about someone getting to the end of their life of spending their whole life thinking, you know, more money, more money, I need more money, I need them, and then they die. And like, they can't take it with them like, and I'm thrilled like the next generation I'm with you, I'm thrilled the next generation sees the value of what we can actually do with that money. But But productivity is one. Number two is satisfaction. Like you know that people are so like frustrated and chasing and wanting more, and they're never satisfied, it's never enough. But if we're really clear about our values, we have the ability to determine like when when is it enough like to feel satisfied with what we are accomplishing, and know that we really are focusing the precious resources of time and attention on the things that are most important to us. So again, feeling that sense of satisfaction. And then the other two words go together and use you've used one of them a couple of times, its meaning and purpose. I really believe that most people want to live a life of meaning and purpose, purpose, like making a difference. And to me purposes. Again, like like I said, with leadership, and you pointed out about the book, like I tried to simplify things, I like things that are simple. And to me, purpose is actually pretty simple. If we have a vision, if we're living our life with a vision, that's very clear. And in alignment with our values, a vision is great. But but one of the reasons I zeroed in on values is the values come first. Because if we have a really powerful vision, but it's not in alignment with our highest values, we're not going to get to that place where we feel productive and satisfied and happy or whatever words we use to describe our desired results and experiences. But when we have a compelling vision, and we know it's in alignment with our values, what's most important to us, to me, that's the definition of purpose. And so without clarity of values, I don't believe it's possible to do what most people want to do, which is live a life of meaning and purpose. And part of my meaning and purpose is helping people accomplish that by clarifying your values. Well,

Greg Voisen
I remember teaching a course I used to teach a course on purpose. And I came up with a couple of things myself, which you know, but productive harmony to me was always a value for me. In other words, is my productive production in harmony with my current lifestyle the way I live, versus no to produce just to produce? No, it's like, how is this helping and serving others? And how is it helping and serving me? Right, and probably

Robert MacPhee
a high value for you, right, like helping and serving other people. So it is yeah,

Greg Voisen
I mean, this show I'll 100% and supports compassionate Communication Foundation, which is my nonprofit, that service services, the homeless and Ukrainian refugees, but services, the homeless in all of Southern California, and the author's make donations to this and I take nothing, I virtually do these. I'm working on 1100 podcasts and literally out giving blankets out in the little sleepy things to the people and $100 gift cards because to me, I think there's a real problem there. And I think it needs to be addressed. But I want to say to my listeners, that the values based life.com website, there's a special offer for you there. So when you go to this website, you can get this book, there's also he's got a course that you can take as well. And he's giving everybody who listened to this podcast, a special offer for that, right. So we're gonna drive everybody to the values based live.com website and go get a copy of the book and also the course. And Robert it's been great connecting with you again. I always enjoy the conversations. You truly I know heart set was that's kind of defines you. And I'm just gonna say you're a man of not just a big heart, but somebody who really is passionate about so many things in life. and I love it. Because, you know, you are literally the epitome of somebody that lives this right? You live it. And to me that's important. So everybody go get a copy of this discover, clarify and live in alignment with your highest values. Marcy shim off has a note at the top of the book. I remember her for a happy for no reasons. A long time ago, she is sweet. But again, my listeners check out it, check it out, send Robert an email, you can do it through the website, if you want to use him for your corporate work. He has another website, which is excellent decisions, right?

Robert MacPhee
Yeah, there's actually a link if people are interested in this value this conversation around their organization. One of the things I do is free consultations to just get a sense of what's going on now and how this work could potentially fit in in those organizations, again on an individual team and organizational level.

Greg Voisen
Well, thanks for being on inside personal growth. Namaste to you.

Robert MacPhee
Great to connect with you, Greg. I love you and what you're up to and look forward to talking again without another 10 years going by.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, 11. All right.

Robert MacPhee
Take care.