When You are Out of Alignment, How this Core Values Exercise Can Help

I want to share a resource that one of the members of my women' s leadership platform once shared with me. When we, as women, are trying to reach across the table and communicate, but aren't being heard, I often bring up this exercise as a tool.

S is part of a family-owned business. She took a hard look at why some family-owned businesses flourish --and others fail. Communication was the swing factor. So she fashioned a retreat for her family, twice a year, where the sole mission statement of the weekend is to uncover and share each person's values.

She had a few ground rules: The retreat had to be offsite. Not at the house. Not at the office. All distractions had to be minimized. The kids were included, not because they were part of the family business, but they are impacted by the dynamics of it. And everyone had a role in handling the logistics of the retreat (food, location, lodging, etc).

The retreat was not an event - but the?beginning of a process?that helped her family to grow and prosper. At the last retreat, S was very surprised to learn that her kids had different values than she and her husband did, even though they lived under the same roof. So, now she had tools to understand how to reach across that table the next time they were at loggerheads.

I did this exercise at a Mastermind retreat, because I often feel 'out of alignment' with my work. Wasn't becoming an entrepreneur the dream? The vision? After doing the exercise, I realized that when I strip away work, my top two values are 'adventure' and 'beauty.' Now, any time I feel out of alignment with my work, I reverse engineer and figure out how these two elements can be reconfigured into my day.

• If you would like to do the core values exercise, here is a list of 50 values. Pick 5 that resonate for you. Then narrow it down to the top 2. When you come together in a circle, whether its a family, a mastermind, a team at work, share the top 2 core values that resonate with you and, share why its important to you.
• Next week, I am speaking at Ellevate Network at the Entrepreneurs Roundtable. It's a virtual retreat exploring some of what I talked about above. Uncovering your values. Do you stop to do this? Sign up here.
• Liz Bentley, a former speaker at my women's leadership platform, offers this DIY course?Feminine Force Video Series.

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My name is?Joya?Dass. I made my living as a television news anchor for 20 years. Very specifically, I covered the financial markets from the floor of the?New?York Stock Exchange. It was what I wanted to?do?since I was 4 years old. But I forged that career on my own, and had to build the network to get here. Nobody teaches this stuff in school. So I created a leadership platform to teach best practices around self leadership and networking. I drive programming by interviewing CEO's and thought leaders for the community I have built.

In fact, here are the blog posts and audio from my interview with Debbie Millman, Founder of the popular podcast "Design Matters"

• Blog
• Audio

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• Last week, I had two events. I interviewed actor Kal Penn on stage at Greenwich High School and hosted an International Women's Day Dinner in Hartford with 10 power women.

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