Core Values need to be uncovered not found. We live our lives with our core values. Most people do it unconsciously, so this episode is all about uncovering your core values and starting with the end in mind.   Do you feel like you have struggles or challenges in these areas? This episode will help you understand and fill in the gaps and create the life and practice of your dreams. 

Key Points:

·      Core Values why are these important

·      Do you know your Personal Core Values

·      Uncover your Core Values

Have you been wondering how to move forward in the chiropractic profession and both grow your business and your practices? Dr. Cliff is here to show you how to find your path in this profession. 

Get into a conversation with two leaders in the chiropractic profession with eyes on dozens of clinics and become the best doctor, best leader and best human. Join host, Dr. Cliff and co-host, Dr. Joseph Esposito as Align Your Practice helps you understand how to uncover your core values. This is the first episode of four on core values. We take a high-level view of core values what do they mean and why are they important. Learn how to maximize your life’s work by getting clarity on your core values, your core values for your relationships and core values for your business.

About the Host:

Dr Clifford J Fisher

Dr Cliff Fisher – Owns several offices all over the US and has a coaching business Dream Leadership Institute to help people find the greatest version of themselves. He will help you get to a foundational understanding to create the business and life that align with your being.  

Dr. Joseph Esposito, CEO

Dr. Joseph Esposito, D.C., C.C.N. C.N.S., C.C.S.P., D.A.B.C.N., F.A.A.I.M. C.T.N., is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AlignLife. As such, he is responsible for the direction of AlignLife as it expands further across a dynamic and rapidly changing health care landscape. Dr. Esposito has more than 20 years of experience in a broad range of businesses, including chiropractic, nutrition, technology and internet marketing.

Dr. Esposito has extensive post-graduate academic accomplishments, as well as 15 years of experience managing successful chiropractic clinics in multiple states. He also is founder and CEO of Aceva LLC, a service-based nutritional company providing products and services to the AlignLife clinics. As the former CFO of an internet publishing company, Dr. Esposito understands the power of leveraging the internet to impact the lives of millions of Americans. 

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Align Your Practice podcast with Dr. Cliff Fisher where your best practice and life awaits you. Are you tired of running a practice on your own? We want to come alongside you with experts to help you create your dream practice in your dream life. Here is your host

alright tribe welcome Dr. Cliff Fisher and Dr. Joseph Esposito. With align your practice brought to you by align life. I'm super excited about this one. I have been just chomping at the bit this one, Joe? And I know you have to so we're gonna dive into core values. And so what's your thoughts on that? Joe?

I'm excited. I think this is a topic that is pretty prevalent in our, our industry, our culture in the chiropractic world, because we have to have such conviction in our purpose, because we're the underdog and healthcare in a way and climbing to the top of health care. And I think on that journey, we have to have conviction about ourselves. And I've seen such grounded powerful people in the chiropractic industry because of I think this that understanding their own value is vitally important, especially when you're fighting a mission of honesty and truth in health care that we fight every day in our colleagues. So

yeah, for me, like core values is I work inside and outside of chiropractic. Like I just see it like it's actually the driving force, not just in chiropractic, but in life, in business, and relationships. And, you know, honestly, everything. And so we talked about breaking this up into four sessions. So I just like this session, I just like to stay kind of high level with this. And the next session, I'd like to go into, like, how does it affect your life, like your personal life, your relationships, your kids life, and then from there, dive into business, because I know a line life, like we spent a ton of time, I know, you spent countless hours, you know, coming up with the core values, and then creating that statement. And then at the end, we want to wrap it all together to show you how the how that value will just fast forward you and change your whole trajectory in life.

I think I was telling you before we got on the call the podcast today about my journey. And I remember about probably 16 years ago, having John Demartini at a seminar bring up the core value, I never heard of the concept. I've heard of a value that I haven't heard of this core value concept. And he brought up explaining it in detail. And we can go through that a little bit. But I got a taste of it. I'm like that makes sense to honor what you believe that makes sense to me. And then I read a book on core values. And it made more sense to me. I was at Dr. Francis a retreat he did. And we did the whole weekend on core values. I was like, wow, it's even becoming more innately ingrained in me. And then with you and I relationship inside of align life, it's now in a daily mindset. And we're teaching the team members, the corporate team members. And now I'm actually thinking throughout my day, around my core values without having to think about them, if that makes sense. They're, they're just present in my self awareness. And if we can help people get to the point where you're self aware about your values, it will remove a lot of friction and resistance and confusion and contradictions not only in business, but actually in your life journey. And I think that's after four of the sessions, we hope that you can get to the point where your consciousness, your self awareness, is really keen and sensitive to your own core values. That would be the outcome I'd love to see for people that are listening. Yeah,

when you were talking that really brought me back to the Patrick Contempo statement of you can only grow to the level of contradiction in your life.

Yeah, so the kind of the first contradiction in your values. So you're minded, and you're selling health in your business and you smoke, and it's like, you go to a point like, Okay, that's a gap right there. It's not that you can't have a business, but you're going to grow up to that consciousness, and then you're going to stop there. Very interesting. So when you know your core values, then you can unveil your contradictions, if you don't know what they are you living in contradictions, and you stagnate in the growth of your consciousness. So I think that self awareness is huge.

And I had a similar journey to you, like I've heard about core values for a long time, I've talked about them, you know, and I'll be honest, I had the, you know, the ones up that I want that we're outward facing, versus these are actually core values are an inward facing document, you know, your mission statements outward facing to your patients, but core values, that's a space to be selfish, and most people don't know that. They're like, oh, I want to be, you know, you know, whatever it is, like, because I know when I landed on mine, it was painful. I was like, holy cow, but that's true. And our core values are also not what we aspire to be. It's like Who are we like, who are we as a person who is a company

and Demartini said Some great thoughts how simple the concept is. He said, it's what you don't have to motivate yourself to do. So if you love working out, you don't have to be motivated motivation is external energy inspirations internal energy seems to be motivated to go to the gym, that's not a core value. If you're the guy that wakes up, I want to work out in time, that's, that's your core value. It's what you spend, if we take your credit card statement and say, What are you spending on, if you're spending on going to South America, and then going, you know, down the Amazon River, and then going to Paris and then going, then we know your core values, culture and travel, because we see what you spend your money on. So it's what you don't have to be motivated. Do what inspires you that you have more energy after you do it, what you spend your money on? I mean, those are the three simple ways I love what you said, it's what is important to you now, not what you hope is going to be important to you, I wish what's important to you. Your values are your values, don't judge them, don't deny them, don't, you know, feel feel bad about them, own them and honor them. Because not only your business partner needs to know your patients, your staff, your spouse, your kids, that you shouldn't know, what are your values, because it makes your journey in life simply more enjoyable. And with a higher consciousness from my point of view.

Yeah, and it also makes it more congruent. You know, I think so many people try to be things that they aren't. And so they end up going down paths that they really shouldn't be going down, because they're like, oh, yeah, you know, because, like, for me, what core values is really helped me do is rein in where do I say yes? At versus where do I say no? So if there's an immediate this doesn't line up, it's an immediate No. So then that saves me a ton of time, energy, money and focus. And so yeah, so no, that's it's such a powerful thing. And I think it's one of those things they're easy to do, which also makes it easy not to do you know, or not sit down with them.

Yeah, and refine them, because it's not the core values don't really change, but they get refined based on your understanding of yourself. So well, because sometimes people change their core values, so well, you're just understanding who you are better. You did an exercise with a loved one of mine. And it was like, Yeah, I got 36 core values. And after three hours with you, the grueling part of this, as long as well as anything we try to make simple in life, is it's a lot easier to make things complex. And you want to get it down to five, or in fact, as low as three values that you are, you know, are core to your being. And that was very meaningful. Because if you have three that are very similar, and you bring it to one, your consciousness resonates around those three to five, and you can think decisions through those five you can't think decision through 32 different concepts or memorize that right. I mean, that was your point, I think was very important for listeners to understand. To make it simple.

Yeah, less is definitely more. And Brene Browns book, she even talks about having one core value. And hers was really interesting, because she was like, she was all about being a mom family. And that was not her number one core value when she broke it all out. And she said that was really hard. And when I saw my wife's first core value, I was like, shocked. I was shocked, but not shocked. I thought family like all day, she's like, wants to be a mom wants to be a mom wants to be a mom. And she kills being a mom. But her number one core value is adventure. Really? Yeah. And so I was just like, oh, so then that helps me relate with her better, you know, which I really appreciate. Because I missed it. I was like, oh, it's all about family. It's all about family. And she's like, she loves adventure with herself with our kids with me, with our whole family. So just really understanding. So I was getting your gifts versus like, now every gift I give her is all about some sort of experience or some sort of family adventure.

Yeah, it's interesting when you say like family, like, don't worry about being judged on orders and things like that. Because if you need to feel who you are, you need to make impact. And you can't even enjoy your family for not making an impact in the world. If impact is first. It doesn't mean you don't love your family. It just means that's innately who you are. And then you're able to better enjoy the family. So the order is just what is the matrix of makes your innate infrastructure tick, in an order that I can't be myself if I'm gonna make an impact on the world. And family, I'm just giving you ideas like we seem to like judge this, like, it's not perfect, it is what it is of who you are. And you have to honor that because then you could be a better dad a better businessman or better, a better being for the world, right? I mean, I think we look at it, what should it be is what we ask and you can't think that way.

And I think one of the things that really helped me with my personal core values, and I'll dive into this more but it was the core four. So you know, just in the core formula Learn from Dr. Frandsen was on faith family fun and fitness. So then it kind of pulls out all those things. And then now you can just Okay, who am I? Because I would argue almost everybody has that on their list. Yeah. That's great. So it was a cool way to kind of pull it off the table, not worry about the order. And so yeah, and I'm with you. So I'm always one to three, up to five, if somebody you know, can't get it down to that. But like, even I've noticed, the more I've refined it, the more I've refined it, like I now have a main one core value. And my two and three are a distant second, like a distant second, like it's interesting.

Excellent, interesting. Yeah, I have five core values. No, I think first getting it down. And going through the exercise, there are books, there's a book called core values, that is a good guide. For those of you on this podcast, there are simple forms, you can download online, where it's a list of the top 100. And you can like walk through those, but don't feel like it's in stone forever, it's just a start. So that you first write them down, and then think through them. I'd look at it once a week and just you know, let's say on a Saturday or Sunday having your phone and just review the values that you state, and are you honoring them. And then you may say, You know what, this isn't really a value and you start refining them until within a number of years, you're rock solid and walking the walk honoring your values. And as we move through this podcast, sessions, we're going to unpack this to the point that we hope that it becomes an innate journey through business and your personal life.

Ya know, for me, like my core values, like before I get out of bed, I start with, I have like a morning routine I before I get out of bed, I read through my prayer list, and I hit my core values and my mission, my purpose, so then I'm like, I get out of bed, my feet hit the ground, I'm ready to serve God. And forward. So I think even in that space, and it's just reading it and I still will change and tweak words, even how many times I've done it and reworked it. And I've been I've been working on these for similar to you like over 20 years since like, and harder, probably more like the last several years than I was before. They didn't realize the real impact and power. And so, yeah, so

when you start, when you start having this list of values, and then you you cut down, let's say you cut it to the top five, there are things you're doing in your life, that are farther down the list that are taking more time. And once you have the list, you can you can literally spend some time and just reflect on that and be like, let's say, you know, I use the workout example, or health is a component of yours, but you're so busy with the family, you're so busy with business, you're now you're gaining weight, now you're tired, now you can't sleep as well, you're eating a lot of sugar, and you're one of your values is health that you could sit back and say, You know what, I just have to add more tension to this one, then you got to decide the trade off, I like the book trade off, it's like you can't do it all. So you may not be able to spend from when you get out of work at five o'clock till, till 10. With with your family that you love so much, you may have to take 30 minutes and do something for yourself to honor one of your values. And that's that's the that's the self awareness piece that I love is I can look at it and cognitively review, how am I focused my attention, because I'm using the kids as example, I love my kids, I want to spend so much time, but then I may not be managing my finances, I may not be going keeping my body in shape, I may not be doing this. So it's not a reflection of love or your desire your fun. It's a reflection of the value. And if you start losing your value, you'll notice your attitude change, you become more irritable, you start using other things to cover up that joy that you have from that value. Because if you honor your value, you have happiness. If you don't, then you have to fill the gap. You can fill with sugar, alcohol, cocaine, cheating, or any other things to fill the gap of that lack of happiness. So I think when we have clarity on the core values we live in such a higher we resonate at a higher level of happiness as a beam. And it cleans up a lot of the ancillary waste of energy, time, money and focus in our lives. Does that make sense? I don't know if, like the addictions or other things that people bring in to fill a void. And you'll find some of those voids are your values that you're really looking for. And the Beauty for me is if you don't know that and you find it and you clarity, have clarity, you can clean up some of the ancillary things you're doing in order to try to find the feeling of happiness.

Yeah, I was just writing my notes down on that like because happiness is so often just like health, we're looking on the outside versus the inside. And so our happiness is on the inside, but if we don't know what it is we're just falling down a hole grabbing it whatever saying Oh, yeah, I'll trust me that surely that makes me happy for a minute but that is that gonna lead me to where I ultimately want to go? Because people honestly aren't thinking out that far. They're thinking one day, two days, four hours like that. You know, a couple of weeks, couple months.

So true. I read this book by a Harvard professor, one of the hardest classes to get into Harvard, and it was on happiness. And he talks, it's the ultimate currency of the world of the universe is happiness is just the way he talks about a level of currency and how to collect that currency was just a beautifully written book and intertwines, you know, what we're talking about understanding your core values. But I liked that connection, because we want to be happy. And then we get into we go from school, you know, we start school, five years old. And when we work, kindergarten, we work hard to get into first grade, we're going to first grade we put the crayons away, and we start using a pencil, and then we work through that, then we got to get into high school, you got to you got to do good, because you got to learn this math, and you got to be able to write and she can is gonna get done with a high school. And then you got to get into college, you got to apply for college, and you go to graduate school. So this academic journey, you figure out who you are, you're 24 years old, let's say the chiropractors that are on this. And then some of them go right from there, like I got to open the business, I did all this now I got a degree now I got to, and now you're in business, and you were working 18 hours a day to get this clinic off the ground. Five years later, you're making a lot of money, you're like, wow, and then you're just money and more money. And you're like trying to find this happiness, you got money, you got a career. And some people are just lost in the lack of happiness. And they're chasing dollars, or they're chasing the reputation or chasing these things with a true emptiness inside, because they don't know their value. So I love taking a new doctor. And this is what I do when people go through the line life discovery process. We used to I used to tell new doctors, what success look like, like I thought I knew, I thought I had the answer. Because I know the screenplay. I know what success looks like in chiropractic. I know the beginning. I know the pain, I know how it ends, and I know how to create success. But that is not happiness. So we're migrating to and the Align like discovery with new doctors that are looking at the opportunities that we have to offer is defining happiness for them through success. But the success is in their own eyes. And you really don't want to belabor this point. But you've really, really helped me with your journey. Your your other company DLA and how you serve humanity. Because now I'm really sitting with an individual and seeing how they're wired, how they tick, how they think what they want. Verse, This is what success looks like. And I'll tell you it's built more authentic conversations. And it's helped I know, people that aren't right, the opportunity, and it's totally fine. And those that are. So I think that I don't know that really, that was a really big change for me.

That's awesome. And I think it's such a critical thing for people to because, you know, to be authentically listened to and understood. And like the one thing that I love in the shift is that we're like, Yeah, this is the right space for you. Oh, no, this is the right space for you. So we're all we're able to give different opportunities, rather than trying to cram a round peg into a square hole. We're serving at a higher level. And um, you know, I think, yeah,

it's the same conversation, I think when we talk about chiropractors that, you know, we, when we follow this path, like I was saying, and the reason I went through that concept of the academics is, we never really stopped to see who we are, because we're chasing this academic journey that we're chasing the career, and very few people do, what you do or I do is sit someone down, let them take a deep breath and just have a seat and say, who are you? What do you want? Well, I want a business done. No. What do you I want to be wealthy? Yeah, no, I mean, who are you? What makes you happy? I want to I want to vote no, what who are you? And having them think about themselves for a moment, right? Because Bernie I explained is like, Go Go, go, go, go, go, go go. And then you write into business and then you're 20 years into business. You're like, what happened? So yeah, I wish I had that as a student like you and I provide these younger doctors. The moment to take the breath, or in Steven Franzen's words slow down for a moment to speed up. Yeah.

Yeah. So the next three sessions, we're gonna dive deep into this. The one question, I'll leave you, do you want to be happy? I'll, I'll answer that on the next next week. But do you want to be happy? And then I'll give you the follow up questions to really bring that home. And then the other thing is, and I think this is why we're doing this is be careful how you define success, because you'll chase it the rest of your life. And, you know, I've heard that from France, and I heard it from his pastor. And so but it's so true. Like, what we want to do is we want to figure out you are here like is the first step and then we go to X, Y, and Z, but we got to know where we're starting. And that's really where core values leans into it.

That exactly sums up the whole session here. What you just said is, be careful how you define success. because you've spent your whole life, that's a whole thing I was saying with academics in the career, that sentence sums that up is just be careful. And let's spend these four sessions when you leave, define success, which defines your happiness, then you can take the journey and go in the right direction with more speed and clarity and less friction, right? Yeah. 100%.

So there's just one last thing, there's nothing worse than running as fast as you can in the wrong direction. It's so true. Saying that that's like, take this time, like you're saying, like, that's why we spend all this time on the front end, we spend a lot of time to make sure are you headed in the right direction? Because that's what matters to us.

Yeah. So you know, there's students probably on this, this podcast and young doctors, you guys, open your ears, listen, well here, because in our careers, some of the moves we make their five year moves their 10 year moves, you're signing five year leases in the wrong town, because your values wants to beach and you say, well, there's a good opportunity in the mountains. I don't like the mountains. You know, things like that decisions you're going to make in the early stages, with partnerships and business and things. They're not two week deals. These are like moving your life in certain directions. So this conversation is crucial for you guys that are launching your career. That's why we spend so much time with the with the younger doc in this discussion.

Awesome. All right. So we'll see you next time. Don't forget the question, do you want to be happy? And then we'll talk about the follow up on that. Have a great week and keep saving lives. And then the last section on this is, we just know we can't lose another chiropractor. That's why we're so committed to making sure chiropractors get on the right path because we need more successful chiropractors. We could not handle the tipping point if all the patients said yep, I want chiropractic care right now. So we know we need to step up. So I will see you guys next week. Thanks, Joe. I loved the thoughts.