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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 1 year ago

Every human being, regardless of culture, age, or gender spectrum, lives by a set of values.

It may be helpful for you to imagine a ladder with many rungs on it. At the very top of the ladder is your highest value – your top priority and what is most important to you. As you go down the ladder, you have lower rungs that are less valuable, less of a priority, and less important to you.

This hierarchy of values or ascending value structure that you live by is unique. In fact, it's fingerprint-specific.

• Whatever is highest on your value hierarchy, you're spontaneously inspired to do from within;
   
• Whatever is lower on your value hierarchy, you tend to need extrinsic motivation or incentive to do.

Every perception, every decision, every action that underlies your behavior is an expression of your values.

Your set of values is unique to you, because they are a culmination of all the experiences you judged as not matching the way you imagined your life ‘should’ be.

For instance, if you believe that you were to be treated a certain way as a child - perhaps that you perceive that you didn’t receive the praise, affection, respect, support, or quality time from one or both parents – you may perceive that you missed out on something.

That judgment of having a certain set of behaviors missing is then a resultant void that you likely use to navigate your life by. You’ll be seeking to fulfill that void which is what then becomes a value for you. The more intense the void, the more intense the value and the more it defines your life. The more it influences your perceptions, decisions, and actions.

Whatever you perceive as “most missing” tends to become “most important”. Your voids drive your values.

This profoundly impacts human behavior because your hierarchy of values or set of priorities you live by dictate how you perceive, decide, and act.

• Anything you perceive that supports you in fulfilling what you value most, you tend to label as “good”. As such, you are likely to be attracted to it, open up to it, have an impulse to seek it like a prey and consume it, and allow it to come into your life.
   
• Anything you perceive as challenging your values, you tend to withdraw from it, have an instinct away from it, label it as “bad”, and avoid it as if it is like a predator.

No two people have the same hierarchy of values. Therefore, no two people have the same pathway in navigating through their life. They have a different vantage point and perspective on almost everything.

That's why ten people could see the same accident or event and describe it differently.

But, everyone is trying to fulfill what they value most.

How do values impact how we operate in the real world?

In School:

Students in school become more engaged in classes with teachers teaching subjects that are important and meaningful to them and they tend to pursue spontaneously whatever is most fulfilling to them.

If they can see how a particular subject or class will help them fulfill what they value most, they are more likely to be engaged.

So if you want to increase engagement in schools, identify the individuals unique hierarchy of values and link the curriculum to their top 3 highest values – so that they can see how by studying that set of subjects, they’re benefiting according to what’s most important to them. When they see that, their engagement increases and their learning becomes intrinsically driven instead of requiring outer motivation to get them to participate.

Their learning becomes autonomous because they’re engaged and enthused by what they’re learning.

In Business:

It’s the same in the business world. People tend not to go to work for the sake of the company but instead to fulfill their highest values.

If they feel that their job description and the mission and objective of the company is helping them fulfill what they value most, they are far more likely to be engaged in what they are doing.

Taking the time to link employees highest most intrinsic values with their job tasks and the mission of the company can transform a company culture and work ethic, raise productivity, increase enthusiasm, lower absenteeism and increase creativity and innovation in the workforce.

Those individuals who perceive that they’re doing what they love and love what they’re doing rise up in leadership, have greater autonomy, power and influence. They’re the A-players or as McGregor referred to as ‘Theory Y’ people in business.

In Relationships:

It may surprise you that it is the same in romantic relationships. People are unlikely to get into a relationship unless they perceive it's going to give them more advantage than disadvantage to what they value most.

Over the years, I've asked tens of thousands of people about what they’re looking for in a relationship, and their responses mostly center around physical looks, intelligence, ambition, financial well-being, social connectedness, and someone who is inspired by their life.

In other words, you tend to want the best package you can find to help you fulfill what you value most. So, even your relationships are driven by your highest values.

Your perception of someone supporting or challenging you’re higher values influences the quality of your conversations, your interactions whether you want to be around or away from someone, whether you like or dislike an individual, whether your intimacy opens up or closes down.

In Your Social Life:

It's the same in your social life and social interactions. You tend to have in-group and out-group biases based on what you believe will give you more advantage than disadvantage or disadvantage over advantage when it comes to the people you hang out with.

Physically:

Physically, whenever you're not living congruently with your highest values and living by priority, your body creates symptoms to let you know that you're not being authentic to help guide you back to your true identity, which revolves around and is an expression of your highest value.

Spiritually:

Again, your true ontological identity revolves around what you value most. Your unique purpose revolves around it. What you excel at revolves around it. Some people refer to it as your Telos – all that is the area of your life that’s highest on your value. So when you know yourself, you’ll know your mission and purpose.

If you look very carefully, your highest value is really one of the most important things you can learn on your journey to self-mastery.

I've been teaching a program called the Breakthrough Experience for almost four decades. Helping people identify their unique hierarchy of values is an important part of the 2-day program.

The majority of people who attend have very little idea about what is truly their highest values, and instead they tend to attempt to live their lives according to what they believe they "should," "must," or "ought to" be doing.

That oftentimes leads them into internally conflicted lives of unfulfillment and frustration. Especially if they’re injecting the values of other people they admire and trying to live congruently with those values, which is non-sustainable.

For example, if they admire a friend who spends large amounts of time working on their business, they may try to emulate that same behavior even though their own highest value may be mountain biking or technology.

As such, they will tend to hesitate, frustrate, and procrastinate when it comes to spending time working on their business because it's an injected value and not their true highest value.

It is instead wise to identify and live congruently with your own highest values – something your life will already demonstrate as being important to you.

If you haven’t already completed the Demartini Value Determination Process, then I would love for you to do it now. It will take around 20 minutes to answer 13 very specific questions that will help you narrow down and pinpoint your highest values,

What happens in the brain when you live congruently with your highest values?

When you live according to your highest values or top priorities, the blood, glucose, and oxygen go into your forebrain, which is the executive center of your brain.

So, anytime you fill your day with your HIGHEST priority actions and do what is most important, meaningful, and inspiring in your life, you wake up the part of your brain that is involved in inspired vision, strategic planning, objectivity, execution of plans, and self-governance.

You are also more likely to wake up your leadership capacities because you will tend to be more effective and efficient in your actions and have more resilience and stamina in life.

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On the other hand, when you fill your day with LOW priority actions, the blood glucose and oxygen go into your subcortical brain.

So, instead of waking up your executive center for inspired vision, you wake up the amygdala, which deals with conditioned reflexes and impulses for immediate gratification and the instinctive avoiding of pain.

As a result, you are most likely to avoid challenges and seek an easy, less-efficient path while also taking on the role of a follower.

Living congruently with your highest values also tends to calm the noise in your brain that distracts you from being present, poised, powerful, productive, prioritized, and purposeful in your life.

Anytime you infatuate with something or resent something, it occupies space and time in your mind and runs you or distracts you.

If you've spent time meditating, you may have experienced this noise in the brain. It also may be what keeps you awake at night.

The noise comprises all the infatuation and resentments that are stored in your subconscious mind that are trying to find an equal and opposite to balance it and liberate you from it.

I've spent the past 50 years studying human behavior, something that has resulted in me developing scientific tools and methods to help people dissolve emotional baggage that's running their mind, distracting them, creating impulses and instincts, and vying for attention. In other words, tools to help you dissolve the static, confusion, and baggage you carry in your life.

How your highest values can help you empower your life

Living congruently with your highest values can empower all areas of your life.

Your emotional quotient tends to go up as a result of your increased self-governance.

Your IQ also tends to go up because you're able to handle more abstract and integrated perceptions.

Your performance at work tends to become more efficient because you no longer exaggerate yourself and speak down to people or minimize yourself and let them walk all over you.

Instead, you are more likely to level the playing field and realize that your colleagues are important, your customers are important, your shareholders are important, and you're important.

This is most likely to result in a more sustainable fair exchange that's sustainable, more profits, and more people who want to continue to do business with you.

In finance, as Warren Buffett says, don't expect to manage money if you can't manage your emotions.

Whenever you're not living congruently with your highest value, not in your most authentic state, trying to be somebody you're not by puffing yourself up or beating yourself up, the resulting imbalance makes wisely and effectively managing your money less likely.

Instead, you may wear your narcissistic persona temporarily and want to get something for nothing, or wear your altruistic persona temporarily and want to give something for nothing, which undermines your effective fairly exchanged management of money. You may also tend to look for instant gratification and overspend on consumables that depreciate.

In relationships, people want to be loved for who they are. Who they are is an expression of what they value most.

Learning to communicate with others in terms of what they value most can transform the majority of relationships completely.

When you can see how their highest values, what they're dedicated to, and what they feel called to fulfill are helping you fulfill what you are dedicated to, and feel called to fulfill, and you can see how yours is fulfilling theirs, you are more likely to have a communicative dialogue, mutual respect and understanding, a stable relationship, and true love.

Socially and in business, you tend to be more of a leader when living congruently with your highest values. This is where you're spontaneously inspired to act and to do things without needing extrinsic motivation, incentives, or reminders. In fact, original ideas, creativity, and genius are mostly born when you pursue challenges that inspire you in your highest value, and when you're the most authentic.

Living congruently with your highest values also affects your physical health and wellbeing because you tend to physiologically bring yourself to homeostasis. Your autonomically induced epigenetics can then code your physiology for mastery and eustress (wellness-promoting) instead of distress (illness promoting).

Living congruently with your highest values is the key to mastering and scaling up business. It's the key to wealth building. It's the key to relationship building. It's the key to leadership, spiritual fulfillment, physical health and wellbeing.

Understanding your values and how it drives human behavior – both yours and others – can be an absolute game changer that impacts and helps you empower all seven areas of your life.

If you want to learn to master your life, it is wise to know what your highest values are and then link all aspects of your life to that.

That's where the power is.

To sum up

• Every human being consciously or unconsciously lives by a set of priorities or set of values or that which is most important to least important in their life.
   
• Your highest values determine what you perceive, what you decide to do, and how you act in life.
   
• You have a natural inclination to want to be authentic and to be loved and appreciated for who you are and so do others. Your identity revolves around and is an expression of your highest value and so too for others.
   
• Knowing what’s highest on your unique list of values and learning how to live by highest priority can completely transform your life.
   
• It is therefore wise to know what is truly most important, or what is truly highest on your list of values.
   
• Knowing how to identify another individual’s values and communicating with them in terms of what they value most, can completely transform that relationship.
   
• The way to take command of your life is to be yourself. The question is, who is that? Who you are centers around your highest value.
   
• If you haven’t yet done the online Demartini Value Determination Process on my website, I would encourage you to do that NOW.

Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?

If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team so we can take you through your mini power assessment session.

You’ll come away with a 3-step action plan and the foundation to empower your life.

 

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You’ll unlock your true potential and lay the groundwork to empower all 7 areas of your life.

Get ready to take your life to a whole new level of meaning and purpose.

Today is the day you step into your power and value yourself by investing in your inspired life when you sign up for Dr Demartini’s signature seminar the Breakthrough Experience:

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