List of Values
November 29th, 2004 by Steve Pavlina
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I posted a list of values in the articles section today. This list will be referenced by a future article on how to discover your values and live congruently with them, but I thought I’d go ahead and post the list now instead of waiting until the complete article is ready.
In a couple hours I’ll be attending a workshop on Toastmaster’s Accredited Speaker Program. Although Toastmasters has over 200,000 members and over 10,000 individual clubs worldwide, only 56 speakers in the world have qualified as accredited speakers. And of those 56, two happen to live in Las Vegas, and both of them belong to the club which is hosting tonight’s workshop. This particular club, called Powerhouse Pros, is a unique Toastmasters club with a special purpose. They’re essentially a mastermind group of about 20 people who are committed to becoming professional speakers. I know at least two members of this club already, and from what I’ve heard, it sounds like it would be an excellent fit for me. I need to give four more speeches before I’ll be qualified to join, but I’ve already been invited to attend meetings as a guest in the meantime.
Now I’m not even remotely qualified yet to apply for the Accredited Speaker Program, and accreditation isn’t one of my current goals anyway. But I’m going to this workshop because I’ll undoubtedly learn something and meet many people whose goals run parallel to my own, including some who are already speaking professionally. Since “growth” is my highest personal value, signing up to attend was a no-brainer for me. While earning the badge of accreditation isn’t important to me right now, I’m excited to to learn more about how to develop the skills needed to qualify for this distinction and especially to meet other people who share my passion for public speaking. I always find it easier to accomplish big goals when I surround myself with people who are on a similar path. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “See yourself as being surrounded by the conditions you want to create in your life.”
Personally I don’t buy into the competitive mindset that says you must claw your way to your goals on the backs of other people. While that may be the environment created by some corporate cultures (and even venerated by the TV show The Apprentice), I reject that paradigm for the more cooperative approach of finding other people with similar goals and encouraging the heck out of each other. I think it’s a lot more fulfilling to pursue a goal together with a group of allies than to treat everyone as a competitor. Plus it’s nice to achieve a goal and have people cheering you on because they’ve contributed to your success instead of booing you because your success means their failure. And it’s even more wonderful to see others succeed whom you’ve helped in some way.
November 29th, 2004 at 6:24 pm
steve, i wonder why you picked public speaking among many other activities for personal growth.
November 30th, 2004 at 6:59 am
Thanks for the list of values. A few posts ago I realized that I wasn’t reading as quickly as I could. I had two books that took me almost a month to get through. So I started reading much more. I took out some books by Brian Tracy and Robert Spector from the library. Focal Point by Tracy has a list of values that I’ve been looking at for the past couple of days. I’ve also been adding values that I’ve found on your About page and Dexterity’s mission statement page, as well as values as I think of them.
Reading books like these and articles like yours makes the whole process of sorting out my values much easier. Seriously, it feels like some of your posts are targeted towards me sometimes. B-)
I’ve been taking notes on the books I read, which also helps me sort out what I’m learning.
November 30th, 2004 at 11:22 am
Steve,
Your articles/blog are great. You’re already fulfilling one of the major goals - helping people. Each lift in spirit your article gives someone should be very satisfying for you.
I’d love to see a post about the best / most inspiring personal growth books, in your opinion.
November 30th, 2004 at 11:52 am
Thanks for all these wonderful articles. Even your About page was quite inspirational.
Everything written on the About page was helpful. The words above seemed to be very inspirational and have not read it anywhere before.
My personal problem is that, I do so many good things, but no one seems to notice it. There
are people who act and take the credit, On the other hand I cannot even take credit for good things I do. I would like you address this topic someday. I am sure many people may be having this problem.
Thanks and Regards,
Jayen,
Bombay, India.