Core Values Are Incredibly Important

As I mentioned in my previous post, Dan Koe is a popular content creator. I don’t know Dan personally, but I have watched over 90 of his videos, and if you’re as authentic as Dan is, then your core values are going to come out when you speak.

Core values, when communicated, make you authentic and make people with similar values, like you. And it makes you human to all people.

Core values are important because it gives your life meaning when you fulfill them or work to fulfill them.

Core values are also a critical part of your motivation. It taps into the part of the brain that gives you the dopamine to overcome short term desires.

For many, their core values remain in their subconscious, and they are unable to use them to their fullest potential. By learning about core values, one can use that information in their life planning and goal setting to achieve a more rewarding life.

What Are the Core Values?

In his book, Who am I?, Dr. Steven Riess used factor analysis to identify 16 core values (he refers to them as desires) that are common in everyone. They are:

• Power is the desire to influence others.
• Independence is the desire for self-reliance.
• Curiosity is the desire for knowledge.
• Acceptance is the desire for inclusion.
• Order is the desire for organization.
• Saving is the desire to collect things.
• Honor is the desire to be loyal to one’s parents and heritage.
• Idealism is the desire for social justice.
• Social Contact is the desire for companionship.
• Family is the desire to raise one’s own children.
• Status is the desire for social standing.
• Vengeance is the desire to get even.
• Romance is the desire for sex and beauty.
• Eating is the desire to consume food.
• Physical Activity is the desire for exercise of muscles.
• Tranquility is the desire for emotional calm.

Valued States of Being vs Valued States of Doing

One of the drawbacks of Dr. Riess’ consolidation of values, is that it sometimes combines States of Being with States of Doing.

For example, the core value of Order consolidates the state of being in order with the process (state of doing) of ordering things.

If you value the state of being in order, that doesn’t necessarily mean you enjoy ordering things.

In fact, if the state of order is at top of your core values, then having to order things may be very stressful for you, since you would initially have to deal with a state of disorder.

Many of Dr. Riess’ core values can be easily categorized into States of Being or States of Doing:

States of Being

• Independence
• Curiosity
• Acceptance
• Idealism
• Status
• Tranquility

States of Doing

• Social Contact
• Eating
• Physical Activity

We can come up with some more States of Doing, if we separate them out from Riess’ categories:

• Exploring
• Hunting
• Sex
• Observing
• Creating
• Competing
• Caretaking
• Organizing

As I will explain below, making the distinction between Valued States of Being and Valued States of Doing is very important because pursuing one can ignore the other, to the detriment of the person.

Core Value Gauges

It’s a mistake to think of yourself or anyone as having only one all-important core value.

Instead, think of all of the core values as a series of gauges on a dashboard. Each gauge (or core value) has a certain level that it needs to be at, when it drops below that level, then bells and whistles start going off and your motivation and energy will naturally gravitate towards getting that gauge back up to the level it needs to be at.

So, one gauge may need to be maintained at a high level, but if another gauge that only requires a low level can’t be maintained, then that gauge becomes more important than all the other gauges.

For me, the core value of Idealism requires a high level to maintain, and I devote a lot of energy to it. This blog post is devoted to doing just that: living the optimal life. But if the core value of Tranquility becomes too low, then all my efforts become focused on restoring it to a higher level.

In that way, core values can be very dynamic when life events cause someone not to be able to maintain the necessary levels for their core values.

This is important to realize because your focus, motivation and energy will be drawn to fulfill your most pressing core value. However, once that core value is fulfilled and maintained, your focus, motivation and energy will turn to fulfilling your next most pressing core value.

And if you have multiple values that can’t be maintained, life can become stressful and draining.

Leveraging Core Values

Core values are leveraged to fulfill other core values.

For example, one might use their core value of Physical Activity to help fulfill their core value of Social Contact by participating in a team sport.

I frequently use my core value of Curiosity to learn how to support my core values of Idealism and Tranquility.

Dan tells how he learned Photoshop by doing a project and advises others to do project based learning as well. This is good advice because it leverages your core value (assuming your project involves an important core value) in order to motivate you to learn.

Dan says your curiosity needs a purpose. That’s true, although not just a purpose, but a purpose with meaning, and that involves pursuing your core values.

“A clear goal is a tiny mission. As Deci and Ryan first discovered, if this tiny mission is properly aligned with core values, it gives you the motivational burst needed to get after it.”

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible (p. 62). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Dan Koe’s Core Values Profile

Independence

Questioning things, doing things his own way and being unique permeates everything Dan does. Here are a couple of quotes from his videos:

• “I always loved doing things my own way, drawing from multiple sources to create a unique way”
• “When someone tells me I can’t do something, then I’ll go and do it.”

Dan also talks about his past and how he wanted to be a “deep, free and original thinker” for the sake of other’s acceptance. That was a superficial persona at the time, but it shows how Dan was trying to leverage his core value of Independence to fulfill his core value of Acceptance.

If Dan were ever to lose his independence, then most, if not all, of his energy would be spent trying to gain it back.

Dan’s desire to avoid a 9-5 job, run his own business and run it his own way, are all reflective of how highly he values Independence.

Curiosity

The core value of Curiosity is a bit of a misnomer. It is actually the state of non-curiosity that is valued. Curiosity is the itch that you scratch so that it doesn’t itch anymore.

With this in mind, Dan is itchy quite a bit. He is constantly curious about things and most of his content comes from satisfying that curiosity.

Dan states: “When I first started my business journey, it was out of curiosity”

Order

Dan talks a lot about goals, systems, order of consciousness and entropy. This indicates that the core value of Order is fairly important to him.

Focus is also about order in that it filters out the chaos, and Dan talks quite a bit about focus.

Romance

Dr. Reiss lumps beauty and art in with the core value of Romance.

Before Dan became known for the content creation of writing, videos and social media, he was really into digital art. This indicates that the core value of Romance is fairly important to him.

Vengeance

There were two instances in Dan’s videos that may indicate that the core value of Vengeance is important to him.

Once was when he recounted how his girlfriend broke up with him and he hit the gym in order to improve his appearance in order to get back at her.

Another time was when he recounted how some scammers were trying to hack into his online meetings, he indicated that he would get them back if he ever found out who they were.

Social Contact

Dan doesn’t seem to value Social Contact all that much. He has mentioned that, when he was in college, he was content to stay in his room and play video games, without much need for social interaction.

He enjoys a small, close-knit group of friends, but beyond that, doesn’t show much interest in social contact, unless, of course, it’s in support of one of his other core values.

During his time of running a marketing agency, he did not seem to enjoy cold calling or talking with small business owners. Some of that may have been a difference in values with small business owners, but if Social Contact was an important core value to him, he would have enjoyed talking with those small business owners regardless of their values and interests.

Eating

Dan has expressed very little interest in the core value of Eating. When talking about his diet, he talks about it more as a tool to obtain his physique and health goals rather than to obtain pleasure from eating. A couple of quotes:

• “Everything I eat, sure, like, I try to make it taste good, but at the end of the day, it’s like, I don’t really fucking care.”
• “I could give a fuck how it tastes”

Creating

So far, I’ve mostly mentioned Dan’s core valued States of Being but he has some valued States of Doing as well, with Creating being one of them.

He is a content “Creator” after all, and his Twitter profile makes his view of the core value obvious.

Exploring/Hunting

Although Curiosity is a core value State of Being, it necessitates that there be a core value State of Doing to satisfy that Curiosity. Exploring and Hunting are two core value States of Doing that meet that requirement.

Dan is constantly hunting for the answers to the questions he is asking and exploring new paths, as he consumes large amounts of new information everyday.

Optimization of Core Values

If core values are so important, why wouldn’t everyone be living in a way that fulfills them?

People instinctively know their core values but may not be able to articulate them or identify how they could best be fulfilled.

Jobs and careers are often black boxes, and people are not able to judge accurately how well a particular job or career can fulfill their core values until they are actually working in that job or career.

Poverty makes fulfilling core values more difficult and many, such as Power, Status, Eating and Order may difficult to fulfill even at the lowest maintenance levels.

Also, some core values are more difficult to monetize than other. Core values such as Power and Status tend to drive people in highly lucrative careers. The core value of Family may cause one to be more motivated to spend time with their family instead of focusing on making money.

Low self esteem makes some people think their core values aren’t important, or they think they aren’t capable of fulfilling them.

Some people miscalculate what will achieve their core values. An example of this is when people think that Power and Status will achieve true Acceptance.

Some people will do States of Doing they don’t like in order to achieve a high value State of Being.

Dan experienced that when he started his marketing agency. He was cold calling small businesses (core value Social Contact) in order to achieve his high core value of Independence.

Sacrificing a core value for another core value can work in the short term, but long term, it will become draining and unfulfilling.

Some people are not willing to risk a decline in one core value in order to achieve an increase in another core value.

An example of this is the classic situation of someone working a job they hate in order to support their family.

Finally, those who have a strong core value of Honor may gravitate towards fulfilling the core values of their family or culture, instead of their own.

It’s also common that we follow the core values of others, such as our parents, when we are younger, but as we get older, we should establish and pursue our own core desires. These core values of others is the “programming” that Dan refers to and encourages us to escape.

To Recap:

Core values are essential to living an optimal life.

• Become familiar with the core values and what levels they need to be maintained at.
• Leverage your core values to fulfill your other core values.
• Optimize your core values by realizing what’s holding you back from achieving them.

Thanks for reading my stuff,

MJ

P.S. If you want learn more about how to optimize your life, subscribe to my posts.