Title: How to Harness Your 3 Core Values to Navigate Life's Many Roles

Episode Number: 91

Introduction: In this episode, Steven Webb discusses the complexities of modern life and how identifying and living by three core values can help us navigate the many roles we play. He also shares his perspective on the spiritual journey as a process of opening one's heart and becoming more compassionate, understanding, and loving.

Call to Action: Support the show or download Steven's "5 Simple Practices for Inner Peace" at thankyousteven.com. Also, please leave a review. Your feedback is deeply appreciated and helps us improve the show.

Timestamps:

• [00:00:00] Introduction
• [00:01:32] Discussion on the complexities of modern life
• [00:06:31] The importance of identifying and living by three core values
• [00:08:30] Understanding the spiritual journey
• [00:14:35] Reflection on how living by core values can change our lives

Key Points:

• The complexities of modern life often involve juggling multiple roles on a daily basis.
• Identifying and living by three core values can help us navigate these complexities and maintain our sense of identity.
• The spiritual journey is about opening one's heart, becoming more tolerant, compassionate, understanding, loving, and ultimately, suffering less.

Quotes:

• "Imagine if everybody had like a t-shirt on and they were showing up as those three words, their core values. How much would people change? I don't think people would change at all. I just think we would embrace our true selves." - Steven Webb
• "The spiritual journey is how do I show up as a friend or a part of the community, or just a visitor to a town with an open heart and the compassion and the understanding." - Steven Webb

Core Values Mentioned: Authenticity, Compassion, Respect, Integrity, Love, Responsibility, Empathy, Courage, Humility, Gratitude, Patience, Generosity, Perseverance, Self-discipline, Optimism, Fairness, Kindness, Growth, Balance, Peace.

Contact Information: Visit stevenwebb.com to get in touch.

Credits: Hosted by Steven Webb

Additional Podcast: Check out Steven's other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations, at InnerPeaceMeditations.com.

Have you noticed how life's just becoming more and more complicated?

Some days I feel like I'm just about keeping my head above water.

Just some days I'm like, can the world just stop?

I need to get off for just five minutes, please.

That would be so nice.

Wouldn't it just.

Yeah, imagine having that superpower that literally you could click your

fingers and the whole world pauses, and we couldn't use it all the

time, but nobody else knows that.

Pause.

I knew someone might have this superpower we wouldn't know, would we?

I might be, you might all have this superpower and I'm the

only one that hasn't got it.

But imagine the superpower where literally you can click your

fingers and the whole world stops.

And you can just collect your thoughts.

Now, you can only use it say once a month for 20 minutes, but you could

just, you get to that work or you get to that point in the day when the kids are

just on top of you, works on top of you.

You just have the phone call.

You've just got all these things happening, and suddenly before you

know it, you're just so overwhelmed.

It's like, click.

I've just got half an hour to collect my thoughts and sit down.

God, wouldn't that be an amazing superpower?

On today's podcast, I want to talk about all the different roles we play and how

complicated it has become in our lives, and comparing that to a hundred years

ago to now, and what we can do about it.

I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in The Storms, the podcast that gives you

a little inner piece when you need it most and probably have at least helping

you to think a little bit different.

And I wanna say thank you first of all to people that have

donated the coffee this week.

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I, he's just put up that it's anonymous, but I'm okay saying Jack,

there's a few jacks in the world, so I'm sure I'm okay saying that.

I'm wondering if I'm gonna be in trouble now.

Thank you Jack.

Anyway I dunno anything more about you than that, apart from you

support it and you're awesome.

Thank you.

But also thank you to Virginia and Ashley and Catherine and another anonymous.

And Laurel, our new member on buy a Coffee, you can join as a member, $6 a

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A slight confession.

I didn't realize they weren't available.

So I've just realized this week that I've gotta put them more available.

And that's my work that I'm doing this week.

My back catalog of all my meditations, plus all the inner

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So yeah, I've got, we got seven members now.

How cool is that?

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And you, Nicole, just 47 minutes ago donated a coffee, And everybody

that leaves a like a review.

The reviews make a huge, huge difference as well.

Oh, where can you go?

Yeah, thankyousteven.com and then you got a link to my main website.

You can download the five symbol practices for inner peace and you

can donate a coffee if you want.

Thank you guys.

Anyway, let's get on with today's podcast.

So we're going to unravel some of the complexities of all the

many roles we play in life.

And I put together a list of roles because boy, there's so many of them, and I don't

think we realize how many different roles we play in a day and what it requires from

us and the attention it requires from us.

And just switching between them is just absolutely exhausting.

But what do I mean by roles?

If I give you a few examples of the kind of roles we play on a daily basis,

and there, there's so many of them.

When I started listing, after a couple of minutes, I got to like one or two, and

then suddenly it just started flowing.

How many different roles we play.

So let's just look at family roles.

You know, I'm a parent, so my daughter phones, I'm a parent.

Suddenly my mom phones, I'm a son, you know, another family

member or someone like that.

Phones an uncle or someone like that.

Phones, and I'm suddenly a nephew.

But you might have a cousin, you might have all, you might be a

grandparent, or you might be a granddaughter or something, you know,

all these different roles require us to be something slightly different.

And then you have the social roles.

You a friend, a mentor, you know, a neighbor, you a community

member, or you're a volunteer.

All those roles are, are part of social and then professional roles.

You, you're an employee, you're a colleague, you're a manager,

a leader, you're a mentor, you're a doctor, you're a nurse.

You know, there's so many different things.

You're a bus driver.

And then a phone call happens and you suddenly, your son again,

you, you know, you get the point.

You got your civic roles.

You, you are a voter, you're an activist, you're a jury member, you're a student

teacher, you know, a school board member.

You're a trustee, you're a patient caregiver, you're a partner, you're

an ex-partner, you're a fiance, a spouse, and the list goes on.

Just reading through the list is exhausting.

So on a daily basis, just think about it for a moment.

How many roles have you already paid?

Played today?

Yeah, that simple phone call, that simple to-do.

List that simple.

You may get the kids ready or you may be off out today, or you may have

had to make a couple of phone calls.

You've gotta play all these different roles and flip in between them.

Showing up as your best self into all them is absolutely so demanding, so complex.

It's so, and we almost simultaneously do it, and we don't bat anite it.

But here's the difference.

The more on your spiritual journey you go, the more aware you become, the more

conscious, the more you open up your heart, the more you realize, the more

you see what's going on around you.

The more you want to show up as the best version of yourself in that role.

But how do we do it?

You know, it's easy to say all the roles and all the problems with it.

I dunno about you, but, you know, I, I struggle.

I'm a city counselor.

I was a mayor for two years.

I haven't, I'm not mayor anymore, three or four weeks ago now.

And I'm loving the fact that I'm not in that role anymore.

But I love the fact I was in that role.

But as a mayor, I was the civic mayor.

I was the council mayor.

I was the council chair.

I was a colleague and friend.

Like I said, I'm a dad, I'm a son.

My mum phoned up early on, he's got no broadband, so I've

been trying to sort it out.

Thank you, Skye, for trying to sort it out on Twitter, but I've gotta go up

there shortly after I finish this podcast.

You know, we play all these different roles and to be quite

honest, who are you in it?

Is it, you know, do you often feel that your sense of identity is lost?

Who are you where?

How do you show up?

How do you keep a sense of who you are in all of these different roles?

You know, where's Stevie in all these roles?

You know, Stevie's, that seven year old, where's Steven?

That adult.

I didn't change my name, I just, I felt Stevie as an adult.

I felt like I needed to mature.

Plus, Stevie Webb was already taken.com, so stephen webb.com

wasn't so I could use that.

So how we, how we mold into the world rather than get the world more to us.

It's really funny.

Yeah.

So that's my main website, stephen web.com.

Set a v.

Yeah, well, how many people change their name by depot just

because they found a domain name.

Anyway, I'm going off topic now, but isn't it funny, Al we do play all these

different roles and when we become more aware of it and the spiritual journey

to me, let me define that cause I've just mentioned it to me, the spiritual

journey is, is your heart opening?

Are you able to tolerate more?

Are you being more compassionate?

Are you understanding and being more loving?

And ultimately, are you suffering less?

That's the spiritual journey.

It's not about contacting aliens.

It's not about being able to go on your magic carpet and go, um, all day long.

It's not about sitting in the bathroom, quietly on the floor,

meditating in the morning.

It's about can you show up in a negative environment and raise the

energy, raise the vibration, and just bring your best version of yourself.

That's what the true spiritual journey is about.

I'll tell you who defined it best, was Mother Teresa.

When she said to a small audience of about three, she looked up

and said, do you know what?

It's all well and good.

You are being home and peaceful.

When you're here with me.

You gotta go home and be calm and peaceful in front of your family.

That's where the work is.

It's easier to do it in a monastery or.

On retreat.

What do you do when you go home?

That's where the work is.

That's where you've gotta remain calm.

It's not about eliminating all negative people and get rid

of all people you don't like.

You're gonna go into town, you're gonna encounter the person

that's having a difficult day.

The spiritual journey is how do I show up as a friend or a part of

the community, or just a visitor to a town with the open heart and the

compassion and the understanding.

How do we do that?

And one thing that I try to work on is our core values.

And if you pick three core values and show up as those core values, no matter what.

So before you shake someone's hand, just say those core values in your head.

When you walk through a door into an event or when you walk through a door into the

day nursery or into your work, or when you're visiting a barbecue friends or

whatever, just before you go in there like, okay, I am this, this, and this.

What does that look like?

And feel it throughout your whole body, and then you can bring those core values

to all the different roles in life.

And you are showing up as yourself rather than having those roles define you.

Does that make sense?

I should have.

My phone keeps going off, so I apologize, but I'm on a roll so I don't wanna stop.

So my mom's probably gonna phone in a minute.

Stevie the broadband's still not on.

Okay, I'm coming up there soon.

Anyway, right.

I, I digress.

But we play these different roles in our head switching and all that.

So how do we show up?

Well, first of all, I'd written down a list of core principles, and again,

with them, I didn't realize how many there were, and you are probably

all of these at different times, but which ones really resonate with you?

So I got to a list of 20 and I'll list them in the show notes.

And authenticity.

Compassion, respect, integrity, love, responsibility, empathy,

courage, humility, gratitude, patience, generosity, perseverance.

Self-discipline, optimism, fairness, kindness, growth, balance, and peace.

Then if you think about that, so if you have a room full of.

Nine people and each of those nine brought three of those things to the room.

How awesome would that be?

So respect, valuing others, treating them with dignity and fairness,

acknowledging their rights, values, and beliefs, self-discipline, exercising

control over one's actions and impulses.

Maintaining focus on long-term goals.

Growth, pursuing self-improvement, seeking personal and professional

development, learning from experiences.

So what do all these look like in a group setting and showing up compassion, showing

understanding and kindness to others.

Experiencing a genuine desire to help those in need.

So if we just pick three main ones, three things that resonate with us,

then we just remember them in our head.

We go sleep, and we think about those three things and what it's

like to show up at that person.

What does that look like?

What's it look like to be a kind optimist and a generous friend?

What does it look like to be a.

Have, be a dad with integrity, love, and balance.

So all of these things have such good qualities that I, I, I

just think it's a simple way of simplifying our complicated lives.

A hundred years ago, you spent eight hours on the field or just doing one thing.

You come home and you might read a book or you have something to eat

and you would sit down with family.

You didn't have the internet, you didn't have all the tv, you didn't

have all these complicated things.

We barely had electricity in most areas.

Go back 200 years ago, you probably only had two or three roles in your life.

Whereas now literally we have.

10, 20, 30 rolls on a daily basis sometimes, and it is

really, really difficult.

I really struggle with it on a daily basis, and I think what you can do.

Maybe I'll do a couple of meditations and all that to help you find which

one of these really resonate with you.

But the problem is we cannot go through every single one of them because

they'll all kind of resonate with you.

And I hope they all do because they're all brilliant core values.

I, I'd be quite guided if one of those core values weren't

present at all in my life.

There's not one of them that I could read through that I would like to

chop out, but there's a lot there that I could work on, I could improve.

And there's a few there that just really resonate with me.

You know, compassion authenticity and kindness.

Those three really resonate with me.

And patience.

You know, maybe when I'm coaching or when I'm helping someone that finds

meditation difficult to get over at some difficult times, I can just sit down and

I can show up as kind and patient and compassionate when that, that be amazing.

Imagine if everybody, imagine if we had like a t-shirt on and we were

showing up as those three words.

And you could have on the t-shirt, these are my three words, my

core values, pointing them out.

If I'm not living by them, how awesome would that be?

How much would people change?

I don't think people would change at all.

I just think we would embrace our true selves because I essentially, I think

everybody, these core values are.

Innate to everybody.

I, I don't think people don't have them.

I think people end up stuck in roles that they may be delusional or that

they may make mistakes or their actions are not matching their core values.

And then it's difficult to get out of.

You know, we get stuck in these loops that are.

You know, difficult.

But anyway, I'll list some of the roles and I'll list the core

values in the show notes for you.

Just on a reflective question, if you had three core values and you

literally lived up to them every day, how much would that change?

What?

How much would it change each role you play?

You know, I said compassion because that really resonates with me.

What does a compassionate son look like?

Well, it's one that takes a bit of time.

The one that tries to help.

What, what is a compassionate friend or a compassionate mayor or a

compassionate chair for a council meeting?

It's one that gives everyone a chance.

It's the one that's fair.

It's one that understands.

Some people in the room may find it difficult.

So, you know, these are not difficult, but it's just difficult to remember

that they're there all the time.

So we have to come from that point of creation.

And when I say point of creation, I don't mean 15.7 billion years

ago or the day you were born.

I mean the creation of every single moment right now, this moment has been created

or happening, it's just happening to us.

I wouldn't say created is probably the wrong word.

But I'm sure you know what I mean.

Every moment is arising.

That's probably a better way of doing it.

Ah, God.

It's quite warm in the UK at the moment.

I'm seeing here.

I can hear the birds.

I'm getting into my afternoon nap.

You can tell my, my voice has slowed down.

It's like, right, okay.

My afternoon nap.

And do I fight it here for the next three hours or do I just

go another sleep for 20 minutes?

I think I'll go another sleep for 20 minutes.

But look guys, thank you so much for leaving reviews sharing the podcast.

Think about what three words go through the list in the show notes.

Think about what three words that.

Really resonate with you.

Say the words, feel 'em deeply, see whether they resonate with you, and then

every time you encounter someone or every time you have a different role to play,

really take notice of what would this role look like from those perspective of those

three words, those three core values, I think it, it, it's a game changer.

It really is a game changer.

Because we can only ever change ourselves.

We can only ever, we can only ever be in control of what we bring to the table.

We're not in control of what other people bring to the table.

Hence why every barbecue, someone brings up some food and

you go, why did you bring that?

It's the same as our actions, you know?

Take care guys, and thank you and.

If you can, um, support the podcast or you want to download the five

symbol practice for enter Paste, head over to thankyousteven.com.

Otherwise, leave a review.

That'd be amazing.

Otherwise, I love you and take care and have a wonderful week.