(Don’t) bring the house down
Written by: Brad Pedersen
Perhaps Jenga has been such a universal hit because, somehow, this simple game has tapped into the universal strategy of the architecture of life: Some blocks can never be moved, and others must be moved carefully. –Brad Pedersen, StartUp Santa
As founders, entrepreneurs and innovators, we’re constantly building. Whether it’s a brand, a system, a team, a new product, a strategy or an investment portfolio, our goal is to make it sturdy and scalable; we want it to be strong enough to keep building on top of it. But the truth is, we are building much more than any of these things. We are building a life. The sum total of our investments of time, money and energy is the life we end up living (and the legacy we end up leaving). As I pointed out in a previous issue, things don’t usually collapse in our lives as a result of growth, but as a result of (ill) health. Said another way, the foundational pieces of what we’re building need to be consciously identified and put in place, so that whatever else we do and build doesn’t collapse. So that we are proud of and thankful for the life we ended up building.
These foundational building blocks are often referred to as values. And there are two essential qualifiers needed in any discussion of values if we’re going to determine how these things actually become the foundation of what we’re building.
- All values are not created equal. Some are worth building your life on, they belong at the foundation; others are not and do not. Some are immovable, others are negotiable.
- You unconsciously live out your values every day. No one lives inconsistently with what they actually value. If we watched your life (or even the last month of your life) as a silent film, we could conclude pretty accurately what your values are. What you spend time, money, make sacrifices for, stress about and prioritize multiple times a week…this is what you value.
This begs the question: What are the immovable, foundational values?
Let’s be honest, neither a newsletter nor one person’s opinion is adequate to convince you to make anything a foundational value in your life. So consider the next few paragraphs as descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, I’m not prescribing these values as foundational for you; rather I will describe what a life that prioritizes these particular values might look like.
Faith
This is a surprising starting point for many people. In fact we might dismiss this idea under the heading “nice for you, not for me”. But stay with me. What does Faith offer as a value such that it might belong in the category of non-negotiable? Firstly, it gets at the core idea of Purpose, the “Why” of your life. Many of the other disciplines we might study (History, Science, Art, Literature) answer questions of when, how & what. But Faith wants to know “why”? Why am I on this earth? Why do I have the unique combination of skills, talents, experiences and personality that I do? Knowing that we have been created for a unique purpose continually pushes us to become the person we were meant to be. Secondly, Faith addresses the matter of meaning. If the beauty, functionality, creativity & relationships in this world are all there on purpose, by design, then what we do has inherent meaning; everything we create and everyone we love matters. Thirdly, many of the tools we need to navigate our public and private lives come from faith: peace, forgiveness, grace & self-control, just to name a few.
Faith is a value that touches every aspect of our lives, as opposed to being simply one take-it-or-leave-it aspect that some need and others don’t.
Family
One of the somber privileges I have as a leader in a faith community is to walk with those who are near the end of their lives, and with those who are grieving the loss of loved ones. Without fail or exception, the focus of every conversation, funeral, burial or celebration of life service is relationships. At the end of someone’s life, there is a clarity of values that comes - either with joy or with sorrow - indicating the level of investment in one’s spouse, children or grandchildren throughout a lifetime. No one wishes there was more time for business travel, brand-building or C-series financing…only more time for loved ones. Don’t get me wrong, almost all will say (and believe, with every fiber of their being) that their family was worth being a foundational value in their lives, but many will regret that they did not LIVE like it was. But for those who were willing to climb not quite as high, expand not quite as quickly or work not quite as late in order to invest in their family, there are never regrets. Empirically, in my day-to-day life, I feel this too. Work can be chaotic, stressful or at times a grind, but if things at home are good, I’m good. Conversely, work can be exhilarating & rewarding, but if relationships at home are stressed or conflicted, nothing feels good. It’s a subtle but significant reminder to me that Family is a value I can’t trade-off.
In Chapter 3 of StartUp Santa, Brad adds two more immovable values to the conversation. Take a read and see if those descriptions help you determine what your foundational pieces should be.
