Episode 327: Internal Value Alignment
In this episode, Fiona talks about the importance of internal value alignment for achieving business success. She goes into various topics including brand values, freedom, curiosity, kindness, and education. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Importance of values and alignment in business success
External and internal alignment with brand values
The significance of internal value alignment for fulfilment and purpose
Balancing financial goals with value alignment
Examples of internal alignment with values
Challenging oneself to stay aligned internally
Nurturing kindness towards oneself
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 327 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today it is a tip episode and I have to say that this particular tip, is one that I work through with every single person who coaches with me, whether it is one-on-one coaching or Group Coaching. Speaking of Group Coaching, if you're keen, please get onto mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching as we are talking to people right now about being in the group. And you can join the group from anywhere in the world as long as you've got good internet access. We often have people in Europe or America or Asia joining us that don't feel like it's for Australians only. A lot of the people there will be Australians like myself, but we quite often have people from overseas join us as well. If you're keen to get into the next round of Group Coaching, which kicks off next month, you'll find all the information and how to apply over at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching.
The other thing I wanted to mention is to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this land on which I record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
I truly believe that values underpin how successful a business is, in particular alignment with those values. Not just alignment externally as a brand, but internally inside that culture. Whatever you're creating, if you have a team, but also just with yourself as well, we can all put forward these brand values and be like, I'm all about X, Y, Z, but if we are not aligning to them, we feel like a fraud. We also feel potential resentment and overwhelm and stress. I feel like when I work with clients, a huge part of what we work on initially and ongoing, but is to get a good understanding of their financials. I do think that a lot of people go into business in order to make either more money or the same amount of money, but a better lifestyle, more freedom, and more time back.
We look at money, but I think that just as important as money is your value alignment because you can make all the money in the world. If you don't feel like you are fulfilled, if you don't feel this internal sense of what I'm doing has a meaning that it doesn't matter how much money you make, because I have seen it, I have seen so many clients that have had their best years, they're making their five-year projection, they're making their first 12 months, and they're like, "whoa". But if that values alignment isn't there, it can be stressful. It can feel very non-meaningful. What is the point of this? What is my purpose? All of those things. Today I wanted to talk about particularly internal value alignment. I know I've talked about this a bit in different episodes, and if you've worked with me, this is a huge part of what we work on together, but understanding what are my brand values and how I show up internally in alignment with those?
For example, one of my brand values is freedom. I help people a lot with understanding their time management, getting freedom back, feeling like they've got freedom of choice, of who they stock and how they stock and how they run their business, and what clients or customers they take on or what brand partnerships they go for. All sorts of things come into that. It's very not easy necessarily, but it's clear to see how that aligns externally. Outside my business to clients and customers or even partnerships or collaborators, what isn't always clear to other people and quite often isn't clear to yourself is the way you're in alignment internally with your values. For me, freedom means that I have enough money as a buffer in the business.
I have enough profit sitting there and I have enough to pay my bills. I know what my expenses are, and that there's always a bit left over. I'm never feeling like, I've got to take this client on just so I can pay X, Y, Z. There's that freedom. There's also the freedom of time and of choosing how I spend my time. I recently went overseas and I did that partly to do a bit of work on this next book and research and interviews and other such things, but also to see family members that I may not have the opportunity to see again, or I may who knows. That freedom is about carving it out and being like, I get to choose how I spend my year and where I dedicate time and, and money to other things outside of the business.
Also, it means I've talked about this as well, like taking time off in January. I worked in a lot of retail head offices or online e-commerce, in which case quite often you are not allowed to take holidays or an extended period of time over January period because of Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year's and all the New Year's sales and all of that. I dedicated myself to gifting myself that five or six-week period off at the end of the year, the Australian summer, time off with my kids, all of that. I also have the freedom to pick up my children from school and drop them to school and to make my business suit my lifestyle, not the other way around. That is one way of internally aligning with the value of freedom.
But there are lots of values that we have and we want to be internally aligned to. Sometimes we fall off track. Let's say, for example, curiosity is also one of my values. I ask my clients all the time, what would happen if this did work? Or could you imagine what would the scenarios be? If you're pitching somebody, what are you going to offer? Get curious about how, and what's in it for them. What's the win-win situation? All these things, or even with money, how are we going to create another revenue stream? How are we going to develop that? All day long, it's getting curious, finding the problems, and solving those problems through curiosity. Sometimes in my own life though, I can stop being curious and I've had to work sometimes on, instead of just going into trash TV or the latest blockbuster show to watch on Netflix, I'll be like, let's watch some documentaries. Let's get curious about the world or read.
I have gotten into a very middle-aged stereotype of reading crime novels. And quite often you read them and you're like, I've read this exact book like three months ago. It's exactly the same plot. Sometimes it feels like the same with TV shows, but it's like, you've got all these other amazing books that are nonfiction that are talking about this or that, or whatever. Get curious, read something like that. I know that sometimes you're just not in that head space and you just want whatever, where your brain doesn't have to think. But I think sometimes curiosity, while it's an innate part of who I am, I'm not putting the effort in sometimes to be aligned to that in my business, to be internally curious. Even recently, we moved from Asana to Milanote, and that was exciting and it was like, I'm super curious about how this could work, how it could solve some of our challenges internally better.
There's that alignment and sometimes you have to work at that. It's easier sometimes to be in alignment with your clients and customers and an external brand value alignment than internal. I guess today's episode is about revisiting your brand values. If you haven't looked at them for a while if you've never looked at them, we have a free values checklist, you can download at mydailybusiness.com/freestuff. You could go through that again, you could also find that in my book, Passion Purpose Profit, or just Google values, brand values checklist or activity and you can go through that. But if your brand values, I would urge you to think about how am I showing up to those internally. How well are they aligned internally right now? Because it may well be that you've let certain things slide.
It could be that you put in the effort at the start and you're not doing that anymore. Or it could be that the systems or structure are not there to support the internal alignment of those values. That is it for today, to think about the internal alignment of your values and go through them and really figure out at least three to five ways that they are being aligned internally in your business or brand. For me, another one is kindness. I have to show that I have, I want to show that to my clients and customers, but I also need to show it to myself. And there's definitely been a few moments this year with moving house, dressing, and travelling feeling quite selfish. I think most parents would feel some guilt.
I definitely felt a bit of mum guilt leaving my kids to go on this trip for two weeks. That's the longest I've ever left them. My son is 10 years old. I had to be kinder to myself. I think that can be a hard thing to grapple with sometimes, it's easy to be kind. It's not easy necessarily, but it maybe is innate in you to be a kind person. Sometimes we need to give that kindness back to ourselves and not beat ourselves up about X, Y, Z. Think about the way that you are showing up internally for your brand and for the values that you are saying that you're aligned to consider how am I aligned to those? If you're not feeling aligned, are there things that you could set up to feel more aligned?
A good friend recently reminded me that I used to spend Wednesday nights when my husband goes surfing, I used to spend that on educational stuff only once I got the kids to bed, it was either upskilling myself in a course that I'd bought reading a book, or watching YouTube or watching a documentary or what is it, edX or any of those courses, to upskill myself. She said I haven't heard you talk about that recently. And I was like, “I've let that slide. I haven't done that for a while.” I need to get back into that. And that also goes to one of my alignments, which is my value of education. That has to be not just educating other people through my business, but also my own education and the people that work in my business. What are they doing? What are we doing together to educate each other? That is it for today's episode. If you want to check out the values checklist or want to look at this in text format, you can find it at my daily business.com/podcast/327. And just a reminder, if you're keen to get into Group Coaching, please go and check it out and apply over at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. Thanks for reading.
