Values Driven AND Values Limited (BeFirst Course 131)

Right off the bat. I'm Dr. David King, husband, flower. All right, everybody, welcome. Welcome back. We're going to move on and start talking about values driven and values limited and how values provide purpose. But let's go back to the board real quick and talk through where we're at. OK, so a couple of things for you to think about. We've just talked about intentional shaping and how accidental creation is rare and doesn't happen. At least it doesn't happen enough that we should rely on it or wait for it to, you know, a bag of money to fall from the sky. So we're done with intentional creation now or intentional shaping. We're going to move on now to value driven and value limited in our discussion. So if you look on my screen here, I've got notes, of course, and you can see all of the lectures that we've talked about so far. We've talked about purposeful creation, discovery of individual purpose and equals choosing, reliance on values, which we're going to dig into here in this next section, the moral compass, drawing on eternal principles, unchanging, unyielding principles, and creationariness, intentionality rather than reactionariness. Then in the last section, we talked about having a vision of creation is like planting a seed, requires some work, some effort, as well as recognizing that seed's genetic potential and possibilities so that we don't necessarily think when we plant an apple seed, we're going to end up with a watermelon, even though I love both. Watermelons are better. Having just a vision by itself is not enough. It's just not enough. Having just a vision is not enough. There are a lot of ways to say that, and they all have slightly different meanings, but basically, if we see what we want to see in the future, if we can see that vision, just seeing it isn't enough. We have to do more. Accidental creative accomplishment happens, but rarely. And scripted, purposeful, goal-accomplishment-centered targets. So, let's move on now to talk about values and providing purpose. Purpose in our end outcomes is essential, so I want you to focus on that word as we're talking today, purpose. Now, I think this word gets used, this concept might get used or overused. I don't want it to become a throwaway word. I want it to have meaning to you, and meaning from the standpoint of this is something that has eternal or long, unchanging, never-ending impact on our lives, what our purpose is. Now, it's possible that our purpose may adjust and change over time. We may discover as we learn about some particular aspect of the field that we work in or something else that our purpose might adjust and change a little bit, and that's fine, but purpose is really what guides us. Purpose in our end outcome is essential, but purpose in every action leading up to our goals and mission is quintessential. That's kind of fun, right? Quintessential. Quintessential is one level up from essential. Super quintessential is above that. Just kidding. I don't know. So, purpose in every action leading up to our goals and missions. Let's pull back that guy just a little bit. Let's see if I can get my eraser to work. There we go. And we'll draw some arrows. Purpose in every action leading up to our goals and mission is quintessential. Purpose is easy to see in grand goals, in the great gestures, in the overarching outcomes, right? But not as easy to see in the small steps, the tiny tasks, and the individual increments. So, we talked about in a previous lecture about baby steps, about line upon line, about one step at a time, about improving incrementally, 1% per day, something like that, as opposed to making this big giant leap forward, which we sometimes do. But if we focus on that, we'll almost never have it happen. We need to focus on incremental change. Individual increments and these teeny tiny tasks that can really define who we are. As we infuse each step of our process with meaning and purpose, meaning and purpose, our progress can become much more rewarding and much more effective. But where does this purpose come from? How do we create and instill and infuse purpose into our actions? Purpose, deep and meaningful purpose, comes from the foundational principles and foundational core values. Comes from foundational principles and foundational core values. So, this is an important word as well, foundational. And we've talked about already that a foundation is absolutely critical. If we don't have our foundation established on those things that are unyielding and unchanging, then at any point, our foundation could stumble and fall, right? I don't recall who I was having a conversation with, but we were talking about architecture and big tall buildings, you know, giant buildings, and how in most cases, these buildings, the footings go all the way down to bedrock, all the way down. No matter how far that is, you know, 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet, these footings go all the way down so that they're established on bedrock as opposed to just dirt, soil. And that gives them a more solid foundation. These core principles and values are inherent to our unique individual identity, but also ubiquitous and universal to everyone. So, they're inherent and ubiquitous. Okay. Let's talk about that for just a minute. Inherent and ubiquitous. So, inherent means it's built in. We're born with it, right? Ubiquitous means it's everywhere. So, value and purpose is everywhere around us. It's an interesting juxtaposition to consider, a comparison of two things that might seem to be opposing. My unique identity is tied into core principles and values that are universal to everyone, but unique to each individual. So, core principles and values are universal, but unique to everyone and each individual. Isn't that an interesting comparison? I think there's a lot of power in that particular idea. My unique identity is tied into core principles and values that are universal to everyone, but unique to each of us individually. We can dig a little bit deeper into the meaning of core values and principles. One core principle that we all share in our lives have meaning and purpose. Is that our lives? Sorry, I can't read. One core principle that we all share is that our lives have meaning and purpose, both to ourselves and to others. We can improve ourselves. We can better ourselves through active effort and through our actions. We can uplift and improve and support the lives of other people. There are several names that we can use to describe this core value. Selfishness. Sorry, I really can't read today. Service, selflessness, charity, Christ-like love. You know, there are a bunch of ways to describe it. Several names we could use to describe this core value. Service, selflessness, charity, etc. We each have a unique blend of the universal core foundation principles from which we can draw to develop our own individual mission and purpose. So we each have our own unique blend. Right? Love that. Unique blend. I don't drink coffee. I don't. I don't drink tea. But it's interesting to hear the ladies that I work with here at the dental office. Once in a while, I'll hear a complaint. Yeah, they didn't make my coffee right. I wanted this and this and this and this and this in it. It's like, oh, okay, that's great. Each of us has our own unique blend that we ascribe to from the standpoint of tastes, you know, what we like to eat or drink in the morning, particular with the caffeine, etc, etc. But also, each of us has our own unique blend of these particular core foundational values from which we can draw and develop our individual purpose and mission. So it's a spectrum. And I'm not saying that none of us are equivalent or roughly the same. But it's really interesting. The billions of people that have lived on the earth. If you look at the DNA, I think it's similar if we compare our uniqueness to our DNA because they're, they're tied, they're linked. Even identical twins are different in ways, right? They might have identical DNA. But they're different. Isn't that interesting? They're different. They have unique characteristics about them. Sometimes they're exceptionally similar. But they're still different. They're unique. Just like all of us, we may have the same foundational principles, the same ideas that support who we are. But we're individuals, we're unique, we are each a version of ourselves. None of us is exactly the same. Although we all have the potential to be uniquely individual, and to bless the lives of others. Finding purpose is not only the large, in not only the large and visible outcomes and goals, but also in the seemingly invisible and mundane granular creative choices. This purpose will infuse our efforts with energy and continue to evaluate our unique, elevate our unique endeavors. This purpose will infuse our efforts with energy and continue to elevate our unique endeavors. So we each have our own unique purpose, our unique goals, our unique drives. I mean, you can just look at the people around you. It's pretty amazing how unique we are. And this informs and infuses our efforts with energy and continues to elevate our unique endeavors. So as we're finishing up this little lecture, let's review. Purpose and end outcomes is essential. Purpose in the actions that lead up to those outcomes really determines the outcomes, right? So we can have a goal, but if we don't have the steps it takes to get to the goal, we won't get the goal. We won't accomplish the goal. The purpose that we have to get the goal should be guided and guiding rather all of the actions leading up to it. All those tiny tasks right here and the individual increments of change and choices that we make. So where does our purpose come from? We're inherently born with it. We all have the similar purposes built into us, but we all have a unique blend of those purposes. As we focus on our core values, this purpose will be infused with energy and we'll be able to develop and continue to develop our unique endeavors as we seek not only to become a better version of ourselves, but help others along the way. Okay, thanks for tuning into this lecture. I will see you in the next one.