Lately, I feel like I keep hearing about values everywhere. Podcasts, leadership books, interviews, even random conversations all seem to circle back to the same idea: your values determine how you live your life. At first, I treated it like one of those concepts that sounds important but stays abstract. But the more I heard it, the more it stuck with me. If values are supposed to guide our decisions, priorities, and relationships… then how often do we actually stop to define them?

As a parent, this idea started hitting differently. I began thinking about what values I’m actually teaching my kids. One thing is what we say matters, and another is what they consistently see us doing. So I sat down and started writing down the values that I believe are important for me and for our family. The exercise opened up more questions than answers. Some values sounded great on paper, but my behavior didn’t fully reflect them. Others felt obvious to me, but when I casually asked my kids what they thought our family values were, they didn’t really come up at all.

What also made me reflect was realizing how many values already surround us. My kids’ school has values. My workplace has values. Teams, communities, companies, and even friend groups all reinforce certain behaviors and principles. When you step back and look around, you realize you’re constantly absorbing values from the environments around you. One of the most interesting parts of this exercise was trying to separate: which values are truly mine, and which ones have simply been inherited from the systems around me?

Tip of the Week: Your values are reflected more clearly in your calendar, habits, reactions, and trade-offs than in the words you write down or say. Take time to reflect on what are the real values you practice.

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The Theory Behind

Values act as internal decision-making systems. Stephen Covey described this as “principle-centered living,” building our lives around stable principles rather than external pressure or short-term emotions. When we clearly define our values, decisions become easier because we create filters for what deserves our energy and attention. Without those filters, it becomes easy to drift toward whatever feels urgent, impressive, or socially rewarded in the moment.

Meaning often comes from alignment between our actions and beliefs. Viktor Frankl wrote extensively about meaning and purpose, especially in difficult circumstances. One of the ideas that resonates most with me is that fulfillment doesn’t simply come from achievement... it comes from living in alignment with what we genuinely believe matters. Misalignment creates friction. We feel it when our priorities don’t match our actions, or when success in one area comes at the expense of values we claim are important somewhere else.

Most of us inherit values accidentally instead of defining them intentionally. Brené Brown talks about the importance of naming our values clearly because vague aspirations don’t guide behavior. Many of our values are shaped by family, culture, social media, work environments, and the people around us. There’s actually nothing wrong with that - environments shape all of us. But periodically stepping back and asking, “What do I *actually* want to stand for?” can be incredibly clarifying. Especially because values become visible through repetition, not intention. They show up in how we spend time, how we treat people under stress, and the trade-offs we consistently make.

What I’ve Learned

People watch what we do far more than what we say. This applies at home, at work, and pretty much everywhere else. Kids notice consistency more than speeches. Teams do too. If we say family matters but we’re constantly distracted, people notice. If we say health matters but never prioritize sleep or recovery, that also becomes visible. I’ve realized that values are often taught indirectly through repeated behavior, especially during stressful moments when our default reactions appear.

Doing a values audit can be uncomfortable (but incredibly useful). Going through this exercise forced me to confront some gaps between what I admire and what I consistently practice. And honestly, I think that discomfort is part of the value of the exercise itself. Sometimes the way we act toward our children, coworkers, or even ourselves comes from patterns we’ve never paused to evaluate deeply. Auditing our values helps us decide whether those patterns are intentional or just inherited defaults. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also one of the clearest ways to realign how we live.

Make It Happen

1. List the values you believe are important. Don’t overthink it initially, just write them down.

2. Audit your actual behavior. Look at your calendar, habits, spending, conversations, and reactions under stress. They often reveal your real priorities more honestly than your intentions.

3. Ask people close to you what values they think you live by. Their answers may surprise you.

4. Reduce your list to 3–5 core values. Too many values become impossible to operationalize consistently.

5. Define behaviors tied to each value. For example, if “family” is a value, what behaviors demonstrate it weekly?

6. Use values as filters for decisions. Especially around opportunities, commitments, boundaries, and trade-offs. Remember it is easier to hold your values 100% of the time than 98% of the time.

7. Revisit your values periodically. Life stages change us. Values evolve too.

I’d genuinely love to hear where you landed. If you’ve ever done a values exercise (personally, professionally, or as a family) reply to this email and I´ll share mine... let’s exchange notes.

Valuably yours,

Jorge Luis Pando

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