What are my values?

So, it turns out that finding time to write every single day is difficult. It’s nice though. It feels like when you have done nothing but eat junk food and watch tv on the couch and then you spend a couple days doing jumping jacks. You aren’t significantly changed or improved, but it feels good. It feels like you’re going somewhere.

Speaking of going somewhere, I’ve been thinking a lot about values lately. I even wrote a completely shitty draft of a blog about values statements that I haven’t shared (you’re welcome).

Having values statements is good for marketing, because people really want to be able to express their values and they can latch onto you as a way to do that if you promote it. But it’s also good because it’s your true north. If you feel a little lost, you can always check in and ask, “Does this align with my values?”

Now, some people say their values are things like “integrity” and “diversity” but I don’t really think of those things as values. To me, values or values statements must start with “I/We believe…”. LA Kitchen has a really great set of values that exemplifies this.

That said, I’m leading towards, “Be curious” as my values statement.

I know what you’re thinking. “Bitch, you told me it had to start with I/We believe!” And I stand by that. Let me explain.

I was trying to work through what I believe and what I was trying to accomplish with this blog (although I think it’s very clear that it’s still a bit nebulous). The things I was coming up with were:

• I believe that learning and improving is fun, but also necessary if we’re going to clean up this mess of a world.
• I believe that everyone should be themselves and feel comfortable being themselves and that while it’s great to have mentors and heroes, that we should all feel confident in forging our own way.
• I believe that there is no excuse for being boring.

There were other statements, but they all basically boiled down to those things.

I could leave my values statements there. But who doesn’t love a catchy phrase?

I’ve been loving the word curious lately. I have a crush on KCRW’s “For the curious” ad campaign, and every time I see it I wish I had come up with it.

The idea that their station is for people who are interested in learning, in asking why, in knowing more, is just perfect. Maybe because I identify with it.

But curious has another definition, which is basically “weirdo”. I’m not weird in the sense that people try really hard not to talk to me at parties, but I am weird in that I once caught myself singing a song that I made up about my cat, to the tune of “Master of the House” from Les Miserables, in the voice of South Park’s Eric Cartman. I was singing this to my cat in an otherwise empty apartment. I feel comfortable sharing that here, because everyone has those moments when they stop and go, “Oh thank God I’m alone right now.”

And that’s really, really cool. We’re united in these moments of fun awkwardness that makes us uniquely human. And I think instead of hiding from those things, we should try to embrace it and use it as an asset and leadership skill.

A huge part of this blogging for 30 days in a row thing is that I want to find out how to be uniquely me. I’m in a weird space in my life right now, where I have to wear adult pants and not make un-PC jokes around fancy CEOs and philanthropists that barely acknowledge me because I’m too young for them to care about, while at the same time, attending events where everyone has blue hair and piercings and they run a tech company and are 10 years younger than me. Where is my space? Because I’m tired of trying to fit into these other boxes. I’ve spent my whole life not fitting into a box, I’m not about to start now.

Now, Be Curious doesn’t directly address the “there’s no excuse to boring” value. But “strange and unusual” is rarely boring.

Side note here: I think the #1 killer of entertaining is lack of planning. You might notice I talk about planning a lot, and it’s because if you take the time to think things through and travel down different possibility paths and back up, you can find really unique (dare I say curious???) ways to present your information to the world. #2 is probably the dreaded too many cooks in the kitchen.

Anyway – those are my thoughts for now. And because I haven’t followed my own advice about planning, this may not be the most entertaining post, but for this month, I’m trying to be ok with posting The Ugly First Draft in an effort to accelerate my learning and force my voice to make itself known. Let’s hope it works.

Enough about me. What are your values?