Transcript

Your Values are Either Destroying Profits or Building an Empire - Robert Glazer

From The Proven Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 59 min · 13,343 words · 167 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Your Values are Either Destroying Profits or Building an Empire - Robert Glazer", an episode of The Proven Podcast published January 21, 2026 (59 min, about 13,343 words). It mentions 8 people, works and ideas, including Robert Glazer, The Compass Within, Acceleration Partners, Attorney General, Entrepreneur.

What this episode is about

Robert Glazer emphasizes the critical role of core values in determining organizational success and personal fulfillment, arguing that aligning actions with well-defined values can either hinder profitability or foster a thriving empire. He shares insights from his experience leading a highly awarded company and discusses how a lack of clarity in values can lead to misguided team dynamics and decision-making.

Key takeaways

  • Core values: your non-negotiable guiding principles, not just buzzwords on a wall.
  • Many companies' supposed values are as reliable as a chocolate teapot—think Enron.
  • In a tribal world, a clear value compass helps avoid misguided loyalties.
  • Your true values often crystallize between ages 8-20, forming your life’s instruction manual.
  • Values are enduring frameworks; they evolve, but your compass mostly stays the same.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Robert Glazer, Attorney General, Acceleration Partners, Entrepreneur
  2. – 10:00: Attorney General
  3. – 15:00: Robert Glazer, The Compass Within
  4. – 25:00: Attorney General
  5. – 35:00: Attorney General
  6. – 40:00: Attorney General
  7. – 45:00: Attorney General
  8. – 50:00: Attorney General
  9. – 55:00: Attorney General
  10. – 58:41: Attorney General, The Compass Within

Notable quotes from "Your Values are Either Destroying Profits or Building an Empire - Robert Glazer"

  • What you can prove. On this episode, we talked to Robert Glazer, someone who has built a company that has won the award 30 times as the best place to work. From Fortune to Inc.…
    about Attorney General · at
  • I've started a few different businesses. The largest of which is a global partnership marketing firm called Acceleration Partners that I'm chairman of. however, as I was…
    about Robert Glazer · at
  • Leadership style from what you truly value and care about and you can communicate that to people. so in the book, in the compass within, there's a story there, there's a…
    about The Compass Within · at
  • It for yourself. The first thing everyone's I want to do this for my wife. I want to I, I've been an EO and YPO and the joke is like spouses and partners and companies hate…
    about EO · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Robert Glazer — Person · Main guest · 4 mentions · first at
    Primary interview subject explaining his framework for actionable personal core values and how values-driven leadership shaped his company culture and awards.

Books & papers

  • The Compass Within — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at
    Robert Glazer's book discussing core values and how they guide behavior and decisions.

Companies & orgs

  • Acceleration Partners — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Robert Glazer's global partnership marketing firm that has won over 30 best places to work awards.
    I've started a few different businesses. The largest of which is a global partnership marketing firm called Acceleration Partners that I'm chairman of. however, as I was building that firm, we tried to do some.
  • Attorney General — Company · Referenced work · 14 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as one of the magazines that awarded Acceleration Partners as a best place to work.
  • Entrepreneur — Company · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the magazines that awarded Acceleration Partners as a best place to work.
    Built a company that has won the award 30 times as the best place to work. From Fortune to Inc. to Entrepreneur magazine, they keep awarding it. So, what's the answer? Well, it…
  • Fortune — Company · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the magazines that awarded Acceleration Partners as a best place to work.
    Built a company that has won the award 30 times as the best place to work. From Fortune to Inc. to Entrepreneur magazine, they keep awarding it. So, what's the answer? Well, it…
  • EO — Company · Referenced work · 2 mentions
    Mentioned in the context of personal development events and homework.
  • YPO — Company · Referenced work · 2 mentions
    Mentioned in the context of personal development events and homework.
    It for yourself. The first thing everyone's I want to do this for my wife. I want to I, I've been an EO and YPO and the joke is like spouses and partners and companies hate…

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where we don't care what you think, only care what you can prove. On this episode, we talked to Robert Glazer, someone who has built a company that has won the award 30 times as the best place to work. From Fortune to Inc. to Entrepreneur magazine, they keep awarding it. So, what's the answer? Well, it comes down to values, something I never thought. He walks us through and he even challenges my own values on this episode. It's a ride. I recommend get hanging on tight and playing along. The show starts now.

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Robert, I'm excited to have you on here.

Charles, thanks for having me. So, for the four or five people on the planet who actually don't know who you are, let's explain a little bit who you are, what you're doing, and a little bit about your book.

Uh, sure. So, I've been uh I have that disease called serial entrepreneurship. Uh I've started a few different businesses. The largest of which is a global partnership marketing firm called Acceleration Partners that I'm chairman of. Um however, you know, as I was building that firm, we tried to do some things differently culturally and from a leadership standpoint. We won over 30 best places to work awards. And I kind of started writing a lot and talking about things that we were testing and and doing. And that that has sort of led to a second career uh as as an author and speaker and a lot of focus on on leadership and development. And I've I've really double clicked on this concept of of core values both both for organizations and and actually like more interestingly for individuals as a way of really understanding what is important to them. I I I think the world right now, you know, you'd agree, we we

are very tribal and I think we're people are joining teams and doing thing that doesn't make sense and virtue signaling and feel and and that's all from a a lack of grounding in values that would make you say no no no like I like that's not me like I I agree with that or I don't agree with that. And it's not about the teams, but it's about a consistent set of values that you can align to your decisions and the communities and things that you believe in. So when you talk about core values, a lot is a hot term right now. Everyone's talking about, you know, core values or

everyone rolls their eyes. Yeah, it's it's the same because we're used to those stupid pictures on the wall with the landscapies and like vision and you have all the the birds flying and all that.

As someone who's done this and has been a successor, how would you define core values?

So So I appreciate you saying that. I feel like I'm a little bit of self-deprecating lawyer because I say the same thing you like look 90% of that corporate core value stuff is BS. Enron's core values as they were going under were integrity and respect and whatever the other one was. And then the funny thing is is people go to individual core values they laugh at all the company stuff and roll their eyes. And then if you look up core value exercises, you will find tons of one-word lists. A and so that's equally as garbage. So I I'm with all of you and when I talk about them like look throw out all of your definitions. So here here's my definition of of actionable core values. And I think that's kind of the difference. And they can never be one word in my book because they just that doesn't work. And we can talk about the two most popular one-word ones which are family and integrity and why those

aren't core values. But core values are simply the non-negotiable principles that guide your behavior and decisions. Historically people have been willing to lose their life over their values. It's like it's your red lines um if you're honest about them. So, a couple qualities, they are intrinsic, not aspirational. They reflect who you are, not who you wish you were. A lot of people are trying to pick things that they want to be. No, this is like who are you? What's your operating system? They're consistent. They show up a core value should show up the same way in all areas of life, work, relationships, and personal decisions. And they're clarifying. They help you make better choices about who to spend time with, what work to do, where to live. It's kind of this instruction manual you weren't given at birth. And the reason for it is that they are fundamentally formed during those formative years,

probably like 8 to 20. And actually for most people, absent some dramatic change later in life or traumatic thing, you can you can derive all of those core values back to your childhood because that's when your moral intuition is forming even if your reasoning isn't sort of there yet.

So there's a lot to unpack there. Why is family integrity not considered values? And then also if these are formed at between 18 and 24,

probably eight and 20. Yeah, eight and 20. Yeah. Who I was between 8 and 20 is not the same person I am now at 48. I'm a fundamentally different human being.

So I've got two challenges there. Like okay, why are these not core? Which I agree with you, but also are these permanent now with these values that you're talking about? So

all right. So that is the number one question I get asked. So, so we'll we'll we'll we'll go into that. Um, sorry. So, I remember the second part. What was the first question?

The first part is why is family integrity? Probably answered by the second part.

Yeah. Yeah. So, let let let's start with the second part first. So, so what happens is yes, you have different priorities. You have different decisions, but you you you have the same compass whether you realize it or not. As I explained to someone, I have a find a better way and share it core value. That's why I'm on this podcast. what I thought was the better way at 20 isn't the same as what I think is the better way at almost 50. However, like that is my orienting philosophy. And when you look at people's core values and I've done this with thousands of people and we can play the opposite game and I can ask you and we can play this live is 99.9% are for or against. So it was either something that was really important to you and you were doubling down on or was something that did not sit well with you and was a point of pain that you might have turned into purpose and you determined I will

not be like that. I will not do that and I will do the I will do the opposite. So it is so clear that these driving forces come back to those times. Um so I think when people say no I'm not the same or it's changed there's usually a couple of things that have happened. One you didn't have the right core values in the first place. You're not clear on what they are to to see the consistency. Two, you might have the right core values, but you're not living it. So, you're feeling pretty shitty, right? Because you're out of alignment. Or three, it's actually been a change in priorities and not not a change in values. I think a lot of people aren't clear on what that value is to see the through theme. So, that's a integrity.

I've heard 10 different definitions of integrity. There's some for some people it's sell the truth. The others it's live up to your ability. What when I ask people and it's one word. I don't know how to judge myself on that. We'll talk about sort of the the the uh core validator which is the four test rubric for if it's a helpful core value. So when I say to people what does integrity mean to you? If I say like Charles like you know now I get down to this root really important thing. It means you do what you say and say what you do or it means you always tell the truth or it means you live up to your best and that's the thing that actually would carry across all aspects of their life.

Similarly with family I think family is a priority. It's not a value. It it maybe it wasn't at at 16. Also, I'm not sure how that helps you in work or how does family help you with your friends. When I do that same second level thing, Charles, you just told me family is a core value. Explain what family means to you. It's the second level thing where it means you've got your people's back. You always show up and you're there or it means commitment to a community. Those again are much more helpful answers to how you show up as a a leader and a friend and a family member and like that's the real thing. I got to tell you some people's definition of a family is you have your family's back no matter what. Like that's not mine. Like I'm not I don't excuse the drunk

the drunk uncle at the wedding who's doing really inappropriate things and just be like, "Oh, that's just Uncle Harry touching you know all the girls on their butts." like like you know like no I but that's honestly like that's what I'm saying that people have really different definitions of family. Some believe you defend family to the death no matter how horrible they are to you. Right. So it's important to understand what people mean by that.

Right. I think there are placeholders when you use core values is in the sense of single word things like family integrity. What you're saying is how do I treat family? How do I treat the people I love? How do I interact with those things? I think that's it sounds like that's

right. What is the thing about family that I actually value? What is my non-negotiable about family? Right. It's always showing up. It's always having people's back. It's all like and that is the same way that you show up as a leader. It's the same way you show up as a friend. And it can give you that rubric. I've used in one of my keynotes an example of, hey, if your definition of family gets to you should always show up. As a friend, your dad's father dies and you're really busy and you're not sure if you should go to the funeral, you should go cuz you're going to feel horrible about yourself. I had a guy come up to me after my speech with that hypothetical answer and say, "You know what? I actually think my core value is similar to that and I missed a funeral 10 years ago and I think about it like almost like every month, right?" Um, so because that if that's what you value and you go against that, you're going to

feel the one of the we can talk about the inverse test, but but the test of a core value is that when it's violated, you feel horrible, right? You feel you feel bad. Um, it's cuz it's the opposite of something you care about. That's fair. That so it's a different definition. It's a different filter point. So when you do this and you work with clients, what are the first steps that you do when you're walking through this? cuz again in order for you to win 30 awards on the best places to work there's obviously something that's actually worked and you're doing some very core things.

This actually started so once I figured this out and for myself which totally changed my life and we built this into our leadership development we started doing classes and teaching them how to understand their personal core values. They were confused at the offsite. They're like, "Wait, we're not doing the company core values?" Like, and like, "No, look, I think that you are going to show up as a if I'm trying to help build you into the best leader I can be. You are going to show up as the most authentic leader if you build your leadership style from what you truly value and care about and you can communicate that to people." Um, so in the book, in the compass within, there's a story there, there's a process. It actually starts with answering six questions. And if we don't get to all of them, if you just go to roberglazer.com6, they're all there with a little video.

But these six questions are designed are behavioral based questions designed to pull out highs and lows from your life and help you look at, you know, consistent themes. So I can give you a few examples.

Yeah. Yeah. Those six. Um, we'll do all six. All right. So in in what nonwork environments are you highly engaged? So, and don't say when I worked at Charles's place, like why? When I was given a team, when I was given independence, when I had clear rules, when I had ambiguity, like what is it that made it

so great for you? Um, so when you talk about engaged, so the first question is, you know, what were non-invaged? How would you define engaged? Like, you're excited to be there.

Yeah. Like it there's no clock, right? You know, the stuff that we all do like we don't care what time it is and like we just would do it even if someone didn't pay us. Like that's the flow is probably a good proxy.

Gotcha. Okay. And when when you've asked leaders about this and you've asked teams about this and you get this, what are the answers that you're like, "No, you completely missed the mark. That's not at all what I'm asking about, but this is actually what I'm asking."

Well, what it was, not why it was, right? So I it it again I because same thing, what professional roles? Next question. Did you do your best work when I worked at McDonald's is not helpful, right? When I when I But if you said, "Look, when I did my best work, when I was out in front of people and I was building relationships and I was greeting them and like that, you know, and I and when I was sitting behind a desk and just dealing with myself, not that starts to get to the types of environments and situations." Um, the third one, which I always love, is what advice and qualities do others come to you for? like what what do they come to you that you're uniquely good um at solving for them?

Deep one, uh what would you want said about you in your eulogy? And then and then this is the one that we can test a little bit. I can hijack the way to one of your core values, but but the negative opposite questions are super interesting. So, when were you disengaged in a personal or professional setting? And then here's the one we can role play a little bit. Uh and and it actually if people watch the video, they'll they'll see if I do this right, your facial expression, you know, when we nail this. But I also ask you this one. Ready, Charles? What qualities in other people like just drive you crazy or that you struggle with?

Complete lack of situational awareness. So, so right. And so he said, so Right. He said that dead pan. So no self-awareness, can't read the room, like have no sense of how they show up in the world. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're in line at Starbucks and you've been you and I have been in line for eight minutes and then you get there and you're like, "Huh, I wonder what I want." I should be able to pick you up and move you like now. You've had five minutes. Pay attention. Lock in. That drives me out of my mind.

All right. So, you're you're in the airport line now. Now, for those of you watching on videos, I want you to watch Charles's answer, and I want you to watch his face, which usually comes before So, you're in an airport line. It's like 20 minutes long. Everyone's there and waiting quietly. Some guy walks up like pretends to be looking the other way and just walks into the front of the line and starts a conversation with you. Like h how how is you how do you react to that?

If some random person completely he would have got me off target. I'm like what are you what are you doing?

He's he's playing dumb. He's playing dumb. He's walking right to the front of the line like he doesn't see the entire line behind you.

Yeah, that would normally get me to move him because I wouldn't like what he would do to the people behind me. I'm like, "All right, you get to move now. I will address this so everyone else can order." Is normally what I would do in that situation. I'm like, "All right, you're done." or you're at a cocktail party and someone is just like talking about stuff that's clearly offending everyone around them and they have zero sense of like what they're saying. What does what does that feel like to you?

So again, those of you don't have this you just proved my point. You don't have to say anything. Your face told me that like we are on the right track. It's a good thing and you probably have a core value that's something like and again awareness like that like that's weak but what about a core value like read the room right that that I know I have a bunch of people I know with that core value which sounds like that like you know how to say it you know when it's not being done you would see yourself you wouldn't be like dude awareness but you would be like to the guy in line dude read the room like we're all in line here like what makes you think you can walk up to the front of the line

yeah see what triggered for me was I was like you don't get to take advantage of other people. That's you don't get to do this. The world doesn't bend in you. Be in service to others.

Right. And you said triggered like the opposite of a value is is triggering. So that's a good example of if I had if you had started making that list, you would have had a bunch of things that maybe indicated the opposite of of of core values.

So it's it's interesting because people ask this all the time. It was this this isn't mine. I'm stealing from someone else. Yeah.

This guy goes, um, how do I become happy? I've tried my entire life. I want to be happy. This is a journey of happiness. And the guru guy looks at him and he goes, "Is there any happiness in that pursuit?" He's like, "No." He's like, "How about this? If you want to be happy, stop doing all the [ __ ] that makes you unhappy." And therefore, the only thing that will be left will be that. So, it sounds like that's the approach with the opposite of the values is going through and say, "Okay, this is the stuff that triggers me as nonvalues.

Oh, that if I remove all of those, I'm going to be left with what actually resonates with me."

Right? The opposite is is true, right? you have enjoyment in helping to bring awareness or bring group to people, right? It's what you do well is getting people to probably acknowledge the situation around them and bring them together and, you know, have awareness. So, the the problem with the opposite test is sometimes people can't articulate correctly what the inverse is. You know, they want to use it as a shortcut, which is why I like going through the full process because it helps when you have the mirrors where you're like, "Oh, this behavior is the opposite of this behavior. It goes together. And by the way, I'll try this with you too. Like my guess is you grew up in a household, you know, when someone who either stressed self-awareness and aware or or someone who was completely unaware of how their their their behavior impacted other people

close because I've done a lot of work and before we get into this people, therapy is the gift you give yourself. Please go to therapy. It's very helpful for you.

For me, mine comes down to effectiveness. I value effectiveness above all else. So for me, if someone's in line and they don't know what they need to order, you're being ineffective. If you're cutting in line in front of all these people, I'm like, you have now violated effectiveness. I adore effectiveness. And if we're going to go with, you know, Lily in here, it's because I was a latch key kid, right? I grew up and my my I was I was in a single parent home. I was raised by my dad. He wasn't around a lot. So I had to very much take care of myself. Okay, what is the most effective thing I could do to make sure that a I don't die and b I can play Nintendo as much as humanly possible.

So everything was about efficiency. So, one of the things I adore more than anything else is efficiency. So, it just I think that awareness comes from me adoring efficiency.

Yeah, it's efficiency and independence. And again, you just proved what I said. It tends to come from something. And we have a we have a hard time people when they're doing this work, they they I see them choke up and they say to me, I'm like, "So, where's the root of that? Do you know?" Because if you tie it to the root, then you know it's real. And they're kind of like, "But I loved my parent." And I'm like, "Look, you what I want you to change this sentence. You can say, "I love my parents and I was alone a lot as a kid and I needed to figure this out." And by the way, it's now my superpower and I'm good at it.

But being honest about where it came from is super helpful because look, as a leader, you're going to struggle with people that are ineffective and waste time and can't figure out what to do. And the more you can tell them that, the the the better.

Absolutely. So versus the vision, family, integrity, now we're locking into what actually moves and what drives you. So, if you've got someone, and we'll just keep ripping me apart because it's easy. If you've got someone who who values efficiency and values people who are creative and go, listen, I know there's a problem. I have no problem there's a problem. I love that, but you got to bring me two answers to whatever the problem is.

If not, you don't get to work your day, right? So, you probably that could be a different core value. You might have a core value of solve the problem or or I you know, be a problem solver. Yeah. So, you

might protect the time be efficient. Let's protect time. So, you would be you would want to communicate to your team, look team, you guys know that I'm about problem solving. So, I don't want you not coming to me to problems, and I'm happy to think with you, but like when you come to me, have done the work with a couple proposed solutions, and if I disagree with those, we'll talk about them, but don't come to me just to complain about things. Like, I'm not I'm not the leader for that.

So, and by the way, wouldn't that wouldn't that be empowering to you as a leader to say, look, like you're kind of just laying your rulebook out there for other people and being like, here are my red lines.

Yeah, I do this. I say, listen, you're not allowed to bring me a problem unless you bring me two solutions. If you do bring me a problem without two solutions, you get to find a new job. And I remember there was one problem. One of the companies I ran, they came in because I have the same addiction you do or disease, which is the, you know, serial entrepreneurship.

Yeah. And they came in, there was a there was a specific problem. And the two solutions they gave were wild. They're like, "Okay, well, we think we should take uh whatever peanut butter and put it on a flamingo." I'm like, "What?" And then they told me the problem. I was like, "Yeah, I got no idea. Let's brainstorm it out." But they knew they had done the work beforehand and we had that going. So, I've I've built those in and it's changed my org. I'm curious with the people you've worked with and not only in your organizations and also the organizations you've worked with.

What are some of the core things like that that move the ball game? And and let me give you another example. Whenever I have meetings, there are no tables. Sorry, there are no chairs. It's a non-negotiable. There are no chairs. Therefore, we're having standing meetings. You have already Yeah.

Yes. It's efficient. We've already put out a memo. We've already been fully debriefed. We're like, "Okay, everybody knows what's going on. We have already had our questions in advance. Now, let's hit the meeting. That's rock and roll because we create this efficient. It just speeds things up. It's something I stole from Jeff Bezos.

One pizza uh two pizza meetings or whatever it was. Yeah. I I I think and my guess is you know you have your personal values, you have your company values. The company values are very infused by the personal values. And I think look everyone to our early thing around a lot of the virtue signaling and not tied to values. People are spending way too much time trying to appeal to everyone. You should say the things kind of like someone once told me with my keynote speeches, if no one hates it, no one will love it. It can't be a warm it can't be a warm cup of tea. That's like sometimes when the guy who helps me draft it and I go feels warm cup of tea, he knows that's like the worst insult, right? And so what you're trying to do is signal to the world, hey 2% of the people that would love working here, to me it's like universities. Universities don't pretend to be something they're not. There's a real difference between a

rural small liberal arts school and a huge, you know, University of Florida campus school. They are not, they are both great schools for the right kids. I think too many leaders and too many organizations are trying to like signal a lot of common denominator stuff rather than saying here's what we're about. Here's what I'm about. If you love this and want to join that, great. This is my leadership style. If you're not someone who likes to look for improvement efficiency and you like to drag, you're not going to like working for me. Like that's a fair thing to say,

right? But also having I think having the importance of yes, I might have this efficiency. I'm driven by this. This is who I am.

I need to bring someone else in who people can go to or can get in my face because this isn't a dictatorship. Be able to get in my face and say, "Listen, I'm missing a couple things by doing this. Let's have some push back." And having you be able to say, "Listen, this is what values to me, but my ego doesn't run the orc."

The or yeah, values, they need to be in harmony. They don't need to be in unison. and they can't be in opposition. So if you have someone on your team who is the direct opposite of five of like if they're the opposite of efficiency, I call that a danger area. This is the same as a relationship. We can dance around that. We know Charles is going to come in with the efficiency play and I'm the slow guy play, but we it works. You know, it balances it out. But if we have four more of those, one is like Charles is like spend freely and this person is like save it like it it's going to be too much energy consumed. So we we are looking for things that can exist in harmony, but it's okay if an organization has a a a a few non-negotiables, right? And and any organization you're leading is probably going to have something around efficiency or problem solving. And if you're not a problem solver, if you're a

problem creator or problem solister, you're not going to survive. And the best thing I could do is tell you that and go direct you to another place where you will be happier. I I don't think there are absolutely good or bad cultures. I think it's very much like schools. I'm about to take another kid out to look at colleges. I'm trying to find the one that's the best fit. There's not an objectively good or bad. There are ones that his sister would have loved that he would hate and vice versa.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's interesting you say that because you brought up, you know, University of Florida or Florida State or FSU. I I played baseball growing up poorly. Uh, I had a 92 mph fast ball and I knew the strike zone was next to the guy kept hitting with the ball. [snorts] But these guys wanted me to go and I went up to FSU to check it out and I knew that if I went to FSU it wouldn't work for me cuz I would just eat and be drunk and do all that and I don't even drink but I would just party the whole time. Like that's not going to work. And luckily

luckily you know my father saw that you no you're going over here because you just don't have that discipline and control there. So knowing that there's there's imperfection in perfection and there's perfect things for different reasons. So, when you show up in these environments and you're trying to connect with people and you're trying to walk them through this value cord, you're trying to have them find their compass, where do they lose track? Where do they completely fall off? And where do they fail? Well, I um there's it's funny. I got similar question recently.

I I I think and and I have two answers to that. One, I will tell you I spent six months doing this work with no resources, arduous. I spent years perfecting the process. I've created a book. I've created a course. I've created things, whatever. And people just want the like one hour like solution right? So, so, so that's the failure. I think they fail macroy in looking to cheat sheet around like how do I find out my most important principles in life and not being willing to invest a little bit of time in this. The other major area of failure as I said in the definition is these are not aspirational. When I see people really struggling, they're trying to figure out like things that they think they want to be or should be and they're not willing to be honest about who they are. I'll give you a great example. My find a better way value like I have constant I'm restless constant neverending

improvement. I generally know that I need to be more patient and present. But actually impatience is sort of like a skill set of mine. it would be I can want to be more patient because I think any strength overused and any value overused is a weakness right so trying to fix anything at all time will will make improvement in nothing so I can say look it's a goal of mine to be a little more patient but patience isn't a value saying that I want patience as a value to counteract something that is a pro like that's not like that's not true I don't lead with I lead with impatience I lead with we should do something about this problem probably similar to to you.

So that that's that's where I see people really get into trouble where like they're things that they think they should be saying or they look good at marketing but they're not truly who they are.

I don't know what that word is. I think it's Sanskrit. So pay I don't know what that is p patient. I think that's Sanskrit. I haven't figured that word out yet. You and I are very similar. But have I think to your point having the honesty say guys patience isn't my gift. It it it's not like I tell people all the time, if you're expecting proper grammar and spelling to come out of me, nope. It's just it's just not. So I text people, they're like, "That's not even a word." I'm like, "Yes, but you knew what I was trying to say. That's not a gift I have."

But you probably picked a partner who was patient. You know, it's funny how the opposite thing comes into play.

Ironically, yes. People who spell very, very well partners because I think I don't know how to do that. I outsource my weaknesses. Intentionally, consciously, or subconsciously, that's it. Just plays the game. So when they actually invest the time, which no one does. Everyone wants to take the magic pill.

So perfect example, people want to lose weight. It's not complicated. Be racist. If it's white, don't stick it in your mouth. That's that. Secondly,

45 minutes of walking every day. That's it. Get your 10,000 steps in. You're going to lose weight.

And lower your caloric intake. Lower calorie deficit. Calorie deficit. Walk 10,000 steps a day. Do this and this. Do that for the next three months. You are going to purge. or regrettably you had some family stuff where someone couldn't eat for a week. That that works too. Not recommended. Very very bad. Very bad.

So when they go through this and they actually invest the time, what's the outcome they get from doing these tests? Because we hear this all the time. Take the Miles Briggs or which can be completely manipulated or take this.

This to me is just the ultimate personality test. So what they here's what they get. First, they want alignment. They're also rushing to alignment before clarity. When they really have clarity, someone sent me this list yesterday. He's like, "These are my values. is like, man, this is like so me and it's so clear and he had that epiphany. Okay, once you have the clarity, then it's super easy to look across those big three. My relationship, my partner, my community, my work, are these things aligned, people I'm spending time with, the people I'm doing it with. Am I in a dead-end relationship? You know, one of the things around like I'm not trying to get people to to break up, but when you think about dating sites these days, they are all, as we said before, interestingly, when you lean on on married people, they are they are opposite on a lot of these personality tests, right? Because there's some

harmony. Dating sites like the problem has been it's kind of like finding your clone or your best friend. Like, oh, we both like this music and we like to ski and we like whatever, but we don't share values, right? We don't look at the world the same way. We don't have the same operating system, right? So that's that's a really important look for people and I think it's been really clarifying. I we had a leader on our team who was doing the core values years ago. I was coaching her. She actually came back to me and was excited about them and and uh then she had this weird 5-second sort of look on her face and uh I was like what's wrong? Are they not right? And she's like no they're totally right. I just realized she was in the middle of going through a divorce that my ex is the opposite of three of these.

Right? And so my answer was like that's not surprising. like that's hard but it's not surprising

and it ter determines a lot of our relationships business or anywhere else. So when you're coaching someone and they they finally do the time, they put the effort in and they actually get the compass and they get the values and it locks in and they have these awarenesses, what is the implementation factor for there? Because again, you know me, I'm about to

implementation factor is is is really confident decisions big and small. Like I'm going to walk away on this. I'm if you looked at my life, I walked away from a lot of things and I started double downing on other doubling down on other things that were clearly aligned. When I talk about the big three, the the the partner, uh, vocation, and community, the one that people keeps coming up is like community. They're like, you know what? I really overlooked my community. Like, I'm a we should all get along and share perspectives person, and I live in a just political town where everyone has a red or a blue sign and like this just isn't me or I'm in groups that aren't aligned with me or I have friends who are bringing me down.

So I I think the community one is the one because environments it's really hard to to to display the opposite behavior that your environment's displaying right willpower is is is a is is a resource that's diminished easily. The best way you can maintain willpower if I don't want to drink then I don't want to live in Newcastle, England where everyone goes to the pubs at 2 o'clock every afternoon. I want to live in Park City, Utah or Boulder, Colorado where every there's a bike club at night and there's a hiking club and there's a whatever. So I I think the awareness of the environments that people have put themselves in has been one of the biggest outcomes of this work.

Have you seen people finish the values and go, "Oh, wow. I I'm violating community. I need to physically move." Like because the breakups happen all the time. When I work with people, they happen fast. It's it's really simple. It's like this this isn't my truth. Because for me, I'm used to these being your truths, but I like values as well where people literally go, "Yeah, I move." And

I had a I had a company I was coaching and and the leadership even I could see this woman on the right. I could see her epiphany that she needed to move.

But remember community means different things, right? So sometimes it is where you live and it's defined by that. But it could be what activities you're doing, where you're spending time, you know, your religious organizations or not. So it has a few different definitions. But I I uh I definitely saw this woman. She had the now I don't know if she moved but she had the I don't live in the right place epiphany kind of in this in this discovery process.

So I have found with the stuff that I've done that because I'm used to this being known as your truth. Once you know your truth congratulations you're going to get high or high but you're also going to get lower lows. Like I'm sorry it's just like I gave you awareness. This is

and let's not pretend the synonyms making decisions based on your values or truth they cost you something right? Like like in the short they cost you money they cost you friends. They cost you relationships like but these decisions you can you they feel good in the long run. You can justify them. You look better over time. The decisions that make people make that are based on appeasement or virtue signaling or what's easy in the short term, those just get worse and worse over time because we live in this 24 by7x Twitter world. And so it just seems easier to quell today's fire sometimes by doing something that we fundamentally don't believe in. And those are the decisions that age the poorest,

right? And and people do this all the time, right? They're like, "Hey, I'm gonna sacrifice my dreams for a temporary feeling right now." I'm like, "What what are you doing?" Like, "I want my dopamine hit." I'm like, "Grow up."

So, it's it's just it is what it is with food. Food's a great example. I love ice cream on levels I can't possibly tell you.

However, I don't want diabetes. You know that if you ate it five times a day, your future self would not be very happy with you.

I'd be dead, right? So, I have to be able to sacrifice the now for the future. And that's a hard thing for a lot of people to do. Once they have access to their values, does that become easier for them?

Uh I think it becomes a lot easier. I again I'm not the decision isn't easier but the clarity is easier. Right? If health and health and vitality is is a core value of yours like mine like it's easy to make that decision. I understand why I'm doing it. also really helps you know think about like we have some family values you know one's responsibility one's health and I always say like what my kids are older now but when I was talking to them younger and someone wanted to skip meals it was like that's not healthy and when someone wanted a fourth brownie it was like that's not healthy right and so

four brownies is not healthy okay this is a much more tell a 16-year-old boy that instead of saying rule what what doesn't work well with kids is arbitrary rules right that's a rule or we don't do that. I mean, doing it this way is the why. Like, it's not just arbitrary. It's like, but that's just not a healthy choice. Like, and we talk about this a lot.

Yeah. This is who you are as a human being. Are you a healthy person or you're not a healthy person? Is this aligned with who you are?

It's the joys of living in South Florida, which I'm not in at the moment, is Miami is very different than West Palm Beach.

Yeah. It just I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. That just knocked out Dade County for me. Really simply.

Exactly. You don't you don't want to put yourself in that environment. Like that's you're either going to do two things. You're one going to do the opposite of what everyone's doing. You're going to go to the bar and not drink and be like, "This isn't fun." Or you're going to go to the bar and drink because everyone's doing it and you're going to be like, "I really didn't want to do this." Right? It is willpower is consumable. And and so putting yourself in environments that go against what you actually want is not really helpful.

Absolutely. So when you come in and you talk about your family having values and you you're teaching kids these values, I think there's a lot of people who sit back and go, "Okay, how do I get my kids to do this? How do I get my kids who because again their their brains aren't even fully developed until they're 22, 23, they're still they're still raw dough at that point."

So another popular question. So, so if you're talking about the book and this full framework and the core validator and doing all these exercises, I really like that for kids that are graduating college sort of 22 plus if you're talk I if you I think getting kids on their individual values like when they're younger is harder. I think maybe you start with family values, right? and the collective identity. And I like doing those more simply, not not my whole test. Like uh like glazers are or glazers aren't like I I like when people like glazers tell the truth. Glazers show up. Glazers don't lie. Glazers don't whine. Right? These are these are these are kind of mantras that you know

8 to 18year-old kids can kind of remember and and understand pretty simply. Like blazers don't clearly wine. Clearly that is not part of my tribe because my tribe we have we have mastered we have mastered that part. So when you when you're doing that and you're going through it how do you hold people accountable to their values because we're talking about carrot versus stick. Yeah.

How do we get someone to say okay we know that in your situation the glazer is your family we don't lie but someone comes up and says does this dress make me look fat is the response no the dress is fine your ass makes you look fat. How do you handle those? How do you

I I I've given that example before and my my I joke that my answer is very different if it's a half an hour before we were due to leave the house versus five minutes after we were

But now you're lying. Right. So now you're yielding honesty for efficiency. I'm with you.

If it's it's What do you think of this outlet 5 minutes after we were supposed to be in the car? It's It looks great. Um I I think

Okay. So now it's lasers fly though. Well, I didn't necessarily say that was ours. Um,

all right. But in that, so in that situation, how do you do that, right? How do you handle the Okay, we need to

Someone once told me it takes 10 years to know if your kids were listening to you. And so you're going to repeat a lot of things at 8 n 10 11. What's going to be interesting for you is when your teenage kids do start calling you out on this stuff, right? And they say, "Dad, you know, you're doing this or dad, like you told us not to lie, and that seems like a lie." and and and it's going to at least form a discussion about values. But if you go, "Oh, no, no, that's for me, not you." Then you've lost all credibility, right? All credibility. But I think this is where like an intelligent discussion and you know, one of the things I have a mantra, there's a best version of the truth. And to me, that's different than lying. The difference of a white lie is that a white lie is often incompatible with the truth. The best version of the truth could be a cliffnote version of the truth that doesn't contain all of the

stuff that people don't need to know at the time. But if that all comes out, it's not inconsistent. So that could be like again a discussion point with my kids and they said, "Actually, you lied there." I said, "No, like here's the difference. I did not tell you all of it because first of all, it wasn't my thing to tell you and you knew some stuff was going on. So I told you the amount that I felt appropriate with, but it was not inconsistent with the truth." So it it it Yeah. Yeah. And you should admit where you screwed and be like, "You know what? I right. I screwed up. I actually did kind of tell a white lie there.

That's the best thing you could ever like. You're human. You're fallible. You don't get it wrong all the time." And you say, "Look, like I I you know, I told mom I liked it because we're always late and like I can't stand being late and I think it's rude to other people. So in that case, I I felt like it was more important to be on time than it was to like answer that question that way." And that might not be right and they may look at you as a hypocrite. But like being willing to even have that discussion and not be like the rules apply to me and not apply to you both in or so many things that parenting is just good leadership. The thing that's driving me nuts and that is the core of my next book is that we've we understand and mostly agree on really good leadership qualities. When you move them into the parenting sphere, we've completely abandoned them and almost do the opposite and and and don't

understand. We know micromanagement is horrible and debilitating in a workplace. It is the default parenting uh approach these days.

Also, parenting is not is is leadership not ownership. You don't own your kids. Your goal is to help guide them to be whatever they're going to be as long as they meet some, you know, don't don't hurt people, right? That's the that's one of the thing. Don't be mean to other people. But you don't own them. They don't belong to you. If your kid decides that it wants to be a five-headed astronaut penguin that dances on in this area, okay, that's nowhere close of what I wanted to do, but just be nice to people along the way. It's just it's what this expectation.

You're you're you're basically saying what I I was at a a leadership event where a worldclass child psychologist was speaking. They said, "Why did you have kids?" And everyone answered. They're like, "All of those reasons were about you." Yes.

Like, and what you wanted and what you hoped for. Like that is not what look your goal is to transmit or transmute your values to your kids. It doesn't always work. They your values may not align with things that they think or feel and it may go you know for for or against. But same in a company again it is so interesting the connections.

My as a great leader my job is to set people up to replace me. It's not to create permanent employment as their manager. There are parents who's figuring out how to manage their kids through their 30s at this point. Like it is it's debilitating,

right? We talk about this all the time and uh there's a there's a guy this guy named Mark Divine. Talked to Mark about this all the time. And I asked him I said, you know, where do because if you don't people don't know who Mark Divine is, SEAL commander. Um

Oh, Mark Divine. Yeah. I I I've known Mark forever. He's amazing. Yeah, I've worked with him.

Great human being. And if you ask Mark, you're like, "Okay, where do where do leaders lead from?"

He goes, "Leaders lead from a point where it's never from the front. They need to know that you can be led from the front, but you want your team to pull you off the line and say, "Listen, you're ineffective here. I need you to keep your eye doing all this other stuff because you have all this experience, all these other things going on." So, it's these pivots that we do. The reason I ask this, and I bring it up, Mark, is when we come into these situations and you have your values and you have someone else in your business's values that you need them to do something, right? You're like, "Hey, I've got this is you're in this division. I really need this division to execute on this, this, and this. However, this division is a pain in the ass. It's always HR.

It's always HR and HR is between ABC. I will die on that rock by the way. I HR. Oh god. So when you're in that situation and you got two different orgs that are above two different organizations in your or they have different values and they're conflicting, how do you as a leader say, "Okay, I know the value of Susie from HR and Billy from marketing, whatever it is. How do I lead now through this?" Because it's great that I have all these values. It's it's wonderful awareness, but how do I work through it?

So So sometime awareness points out to problems in danger areas and I give an example in one of my speeches of years ago where there were two people arguing over a budget. It wasn't about the budget. All right? So the person I'll say on the left for my sort of person on the left uh you know grew up not feeling heard and they had this orientation of people need to be heard, right? And and it's very important to them that include all perspectives was their core value. And the person on the right grew up dirt poor and was trained to like save every penny and not waste.

And so what was happening in this thing is that the the person on the left felt like this guy was not listening to her about, you know, the budget. And he felt like she's just asking for more and more and more and not willing to come. So, if they both knew this about themselves and they both knew this about the other person, it it's it's not going to fix the problem, but it's really going to help knowing that, "Oh, wow. This is a danger area for us, and I know this about her, and so I'm going to listen really carefully to what she says, and then I'm going to say, I hear you, but what I need from you to come back with is if you want more stuff, I need you to tell me the stuff that's not working and being willing to make some cuts." So like this I just think with awareness of ourselves and others we can navigate around some of these things. All of these personality tests and other where they are most helpful is in

interpersonal communication problems. There are just certain styles and things that are going to you know butt heads on an issue. And if you understand it doesn't make it go perfectly but it allows you to like with some self-awareness navigate that a little bit better. Yeah, it it it lets you a little bit more prepared to be in the fight. It's like, "Oh, hey, we're we're going to go ice skating." Oh, yeah. I probably should bring my ice skates then. Okay.

I'm not going to convince this person that not listening to them is okay, right? I'm just not like that that that. So, if I want to win this battle, I need to be like, I actually really heard you there and I understand that. However,

X, right? And it's in negotiations. We talk about this all the time. You want the other person to start. Here you go. Because they're not going to listen to anything you say because they've been practicing their spiel in their head for at least the time they've been in the room, but also probably a day or two beforehand. They're not going to listen to anything until they off gas their stuff. Their sponge is already full. You got to have them detox out their sponge. Okay, I heard you. This what we're saying. You're done. Take notes. And then then they're going to open to it.

My team is really clear about my better way orientation. They know I like to make things better otherwise. I actually gave them a tool to negotiate with me, which was when I give you something new to do, you are allowed to come back with me with the entire list of things that I gave you already and tell me which one do you want me to cut or rep prioritize, right? And and so I'm actually giving them a tool to manage that. I'm like telling them the whole thing because I I realize that that is a problem. That is a that is a downside of my my orientation there,

right? And we don't we don't label as good or bad. This is it. I love efficiency. That's that's who I am. If you come to me in an ineffective manner, my brain's going to pop. But if you say, "Hey, listen. Take a moment to to vomit this out for the next 20 minutes." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool. That's what we're doing." And I yield. It's it's a something I learned from a couple's council

where men will sit there and free one for you guys. Um they will ask, "Is this fix it time or is it listen time?" If you're a guy, 99.9999999% of the time it just shut the [ __ ] up and listen. And then if they want you to

You've seen the it's not about the nail video right? No. What was this one? Oh, watch it after this call. Just Google it's not about the nail. It is it is the ultimate parody of the conversation you're talking about.

Okay. Got it. That works. So when when we're talking about things that aren't this but are that

when you're in orgs and you come into orgs that are completely dysfunctional and they haven't understood their values,

how long does it take to pivot things and to implement some of these changes? So let's let's be clear. I'll flip in this. I'm now I'm talking about company values, not individual values, the values of the people because because you need both. Ideally the leaders understand their values. They're connected to values of the company, but then the company says, "Hey, look, generally these are all non-negotiables." Um one of the things that we do we tend to interview all the people um and and ask them similar questions in a different way but to kind of come at what do you value and what can't you stand in your colleagues right what is the what are the behaviors that this organization really values and what we always say is we're trying to solve the seed do gap the sorry the say do gap there are things that the organization is saying that it is completely not doing and so that's up to the leaders to

you know either change what they're saying or or or or or live that standard. But then there's all all these things that the organiz the people in the organization really value and actually like even though it's not said and we're like look you need to elevate this to a value because people clearly and and often times a lot of it is teamwork. They're like the best people here help each other and read across borders and do this stuff and the people that didn't work out and left were selfish and focused on themsel and otherwise. And we say okay well you need to take whatever version of that is and elevate it. I worked with a hospital and a teaching hospital and and and they had nothing about teaching and they realized actually the best people here teach and learn at the same time and so they elevated that to a value very clearly like you need to be someone who learns and teaches to stand out here.

So you've got a book coming out and it talks about the compass and it does this when people get this and they want to implement this because I'm as you already know I love efficiency. I love things that are proven. I love things that are exceptionally tactical.

When someone takes the book, is your book something that simply go, okay, clearly I need to know my values before I can push it out my company. If I want to level up things, if I want to be, you know, if I want to do this and they get the book, is this a sit down and read it all? What is the best way to implement your book? What is again?

So, so the book is a parable like Pat Lencion actually blur. So, you so and then it tells you at the end the framework that you've seen. You watch someone go through this process in their life. They're they're struggling with the big three. They get coached on their values. So people who like to watch versus be told. So hopefully it sparks that interest. You do the work. You do it for yourself. The first thing everyone's like, I want to do this for my wife. I want to I, you know, I've been an EO and YPO and the joke is like spouses and partners and companies hate when people go to events because they come home with all this homework. And my thing is like do it for yourself. Get comfortable with it. Have someone else see the changes you're making. And then if they're interested, pull pull them into it. Right. I really want you to repeat that because that's super important because I've been guilty of

this. Yeah. Yeah. So, we talking about go do it. Do it yourself. Let them see the changes and let you I had a client of mine. He's like, I want my son to read more. He's like, what do I do? I said, as soon as you get home, take whatever screen you have, leave it in the front part of your house and then start reading in front of him. And she's like, cool. When do I tell him to read? I'm like, you don't. I go, within a week and a half, trust me, that kid's going to come over and he's going to start reading. Yeah.

It it's see do type of thing. Exactly. I love that you brought up. They go to the events and then Hey honey, I learned

Oh, they hate they hate these they hate these personal development events. Yeah,

they hate. In fact, I started bringing my wife to them because you know then when if because they didn't see the speaker, they didn't see the motiv, right?

So, I'm just surprised you're still married since you drugged your spouse with you. Hey, I'm going to go do this. I'm surprised she still talks to you. I told her it was a fashion uh conference, you know.

Okay. So, so you have a comfy couch is what you're saying. You have a very comfortable couch to sleep on. It's what you're saying.

Exactly. So, all right. So, people go in and they start doing this and they start making the changes. How do you approach it? How do you do it? If you're let's, you know, if you're a founder and you're in this thing,

Yeah. how do you bring it to your team? Is it something like, "Listen, I found this guy, Robert. He was on the podcast. I think he's great. I read his book. I bumped into him during Hagadas." Whatever it is,

we're going to hire him. Bring him in. Yeah. So yeah, I I in a perfect scenario, someone would would do this work. They would communicate to their team, hey, I just actually did this work on my values. Here's what they are. I want to walk you through them. It sort of explains the things that I care about and that I get upset about. And actually, we're updating our company core values based on this clarity. And we're going to talk to you guys and get your feedback. And I I think that the best leader you will be in our company is an authentic leader. And if you're really interested in, you know, doing this work, I'd love to get you a copy of the book and you can buy the course if you want to, but I'd love to see you do this work. And and it it's it's not that it's selfless, but I like what we're trying to do is I think you becoming the best version of yourself is better for the company and it and it actually pays

dividends for you outside the company as well. I I write a lot my other book around this company uh this this concept of capacity building. my books elevate and that capacity building is this holistic benefit for an organization. If you help people get better overall,

the company gets the the work dividend of it and the people will thank you and remember that you help them become a better father, partner, sister or husband that you help them get better with patience and time management and prioritization and things that are you no one we're not different people at work. Tell show me anyone that like hits snooze 12 times in the morning and can't get out of bed and is really good with deadlines, you know, when they get to work. It just doesn't it just doesn't happen. So, to me, this is the ultimate thing that you could help your leaders do. And I'm, you know, I'm working with some I think some really amazing leaders and cultures where like I want every person in my 200 person company to figure out their own personal core values. I want this unlocked for them.

And those those people will be loyal to those leaders for for decades. I also think being open to that when you do bring these things and you do send people in your organization that if they come back and they're like, "Hey, you know what? This isn't home for me." Honor that as much as you possibly can. This is go. You have to expect that you're going to lose some people and that's okay too because in the long run it's going to be better for your or it's going to be better for everything that you're doing. I 100% agree with you and those probably weren't your higher perform highest performers. If they if they weren't aligned with your values and they were going against them, you were probably having problems. And the fact that they would opt out and go somewhere else in a positive way saves you a whole difficult discussion somewhere down the line. If someone opts out of your organization because they

are clear they're not very valued, that is the biggest win that you could ever get from an sorry to say HR an HR standpoint or just the whole the whole thing.

Yeah. And and I don't think people get that because finding good people that are talented that you've already got your systems around because as founders, as owners, and what we do, we're like, "Okay, I've got this fire and I've got to let go of it because I understand that I could brute force myself to seven, eight figures maybe, but now I need other people to come in and help me out with the scaling of that." And you're like, "Okay, this person does this, this person does this, but then now there's Susie and Susie discovered her core values and she doesn't want to be here anymore." Like, take the take the little hit. It it's worth it. Take the little hit. Have them do that. Can you walk through one of the

if there was something either for you or for a client that the discover their values just changed it would just shatter and it blew things up and they're like oh wow and on both on on the positive and the negative where they sit there and say I've discovered these core values that I actually you know I I don't like HR because no one does and no they discover this one

but so it's interesting I I think the reason why you don't HR like HR is probably buried in multiple core values. I think in one you probably don't think it's efficient.

It's not efficient. It's not efficient. And I am not politically correct in any way, shape, or form. I don't I I don't I don't care.

Right. So, you probably have a core value of say what you mean and you feel like everyone has to do all this window dressing and say stuff that they don't mean. Right. I mean, it's it's visceral. You know that you

I'm as a fart in an elevator. There's just no way around it. I don't care what you identify as. I don't care about your pronoun. It's it's irrelevant to me. I'm happy for you if you identify as a penguin. Masletoough to you and everyone. But can we just get back to getting the [ __ ] done because we got [ __ ] to do cuz I just don't care. So, as long as you're not affecting other human beings, whatever. Just let's go. I don't care what you do with your own cables and bits. Just let's rock and roll. We have we have stuff to do. It's just it's inefficient for me, which is why HR is like, "Okay, well, we need to have that." I'm like, "Just no. If someone's being wildly inappropriate and touching people, then they don't work here anymore because you don't get to abuse human beings." That's why my issue is with HR

right I could tell when you see that sort of frustration again it is typically connected to multiple value violation I call it uh uh the super villain like when there's three or four core valuations in an interaction either that interaction is a super villain or the person or the thing is a super villain so for me I actually when I figured this out um I came back and made major changes to my company I cut our core values in half um we we we kind of were growing and I was trying to be everything to everyone and I cut kind of relationships down. I said, "Look, this is who we're going to be." Uh, and if you want to be here for this, great. Um, one of the things where it impacted our we had a core value of accountability in the company. And what I was noticing as we grew was people were translating that to they are accountable for doing the inputs but not the output, which is totally not what we meant, right? They

were like, I I did what I needed to do but the thing didn't work out. So we ended up changing that core value to own it which is like look you own it you own the outcome you own the this is what we meant actually we didn't mean like you did the things that you could do like that there's a difference between you take no salesperson knows where they're going to sell all of their sales in a year they they they own a quota you know and they own that there's ambiguity with that so we made some of those changes and actually a lot of our early employees that were great moved on I think they identified that we were just I was just really clear there was another thing too. We had we had rewarded inadvertently um I think companies do this allstar utility players, right? They were because they were rewarded for jumping and they were they were they were firefighters and all-star util so they would jump around

from this to this and they would solve problems and I was like I need a gold glove third baseman, a gold glove second baseman, first baseman or woman and I need fire preventtors, right? So, so it was our fault because we had rewarded those behaviors. But at once the company hit 5 or 10 million in revenue, I didn't need a jack of all trades. I needed and so if someone was just avoiding that, it was like look, we we are not valuing that anymore. So like maybe you need to go back to a small company where that's that we were just very honest about what we were looking for.

Well, I think that's what you're talking about more than anything else. We or get clarity on our values and then we have the honest conversations and who you were when you're a

under $10 million company is not the same person you're going to be when you're over 10 million just like who you were before you made your first million.

The whole company fundamentally changes as you step up and you level up by because it just it's just the nature of the beast. Like I know with organizations that I run and they will listen to this. So I apologize. Uh they know that when it comes to HR stuff they won't talk to me. I'm like just just go do it. I will yield as long as you don't go. And one of my one of my partners, his name is Daryl. They come and they're like, "Okay, is this a Charles question or is this a a Daryl conversation?" Like, there's a Daryl conversation, right? Cool. And then he because he speaks Charles. I speak Daryl, he speaks Charles. So when we sit down, we can shortcut it and we know those and we have those clarities about each other.

There's a lot here that that it isn't just a simple, hey, I'm going to listen to a podcast and I'm going to go do this and oh, that that was enough for me.

There's a lot of work that goes into this. Uh yeah, and and it's not just the book, it's also the test. If people want to track you down, if people want to connect with you and actually do this work for because listen, I don't care if you don't own a business. I think this is far more valuable for you as a human being, for your partnerships, for your relationships, for your health, for your own relationship with yourself. I think this is a vastly unbelievably important thing to do. How do people track you down? How do people connect with you?

What is the best way to go forward with this? Yeah. So, look, if they want to pick up the book and and you can read it in 70 80 minutes and decide, oh yeah, like there's something in it for me. You can look up compass within wherever books are sold or compasswithin.com is is on the site. All of my other stuff, uh, roberglazer.com, glaz.com, that's where my newsletters are, the books, the courses, consulting if you want help with this individually or, uh, or for your organization. Um, but the book is meant to be a prompt and I think people either read it and they're like, "Yeah, I want to dive into this." Um, everything you need is in that book. If you need more scaffolding, you know, we're here to we're here to help.

Perfect. And then if they want to connect directly with you, is it LinkedIn? Is it Instagram?

Yeah, I'm I'm on LinkedIn. Again, go to roberlazer.com, contact it comes to my inbox. I tell I reply to everyone that emails to me either than some unsolicited sales pitch for something I don't need or use. Uh, so I have that promise and I usually write back within 24 hours. So, uh, reach out if you have any questions.

I I love that you do that. I I am not that person. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this stuff. I think people it'll help them pivot where they are in their lives and it'll fundamentally create a radical change, especially as we walk into the new year, unlocking what your values are. I I I can't imagine doing anything else more important than this.

Yeah. Thank you, Charles. And as you said, if you're setting up goals and stuff for the year, like aligning those to your values will make it so much more meaningful. So my my goal is to help a million people figure out their core values. I hope we can get a get a few from this audience, but thank you for having me.

Absolutely. That's a wrap on another episode of the Proven Podcast. Clarity beats chaos. Values beat vibes. Stop reacting. Start deciding. The leaders who win know who they are, what they stand for, and what they'll walk away from. Remember, if your decisions aren't anchored in real values, they're just noise pretending to be strategy.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Your Values are Either Destroying Profits or Building an Empire - Robert Glazer"?

Charles (Host), Robert Glazer (Guest).

What is "Your Values are Either Destroying Profits or Building an Empire - Robert Glazer" about?

Robert Glazer emphasizes the critical role of core values in determining organizational success and personal fulfillment, arguing that aligning actions with well-defined values can either hinder profitability or foster a thriving empire. He shares insights from his experience leading a highly awarded company and discusses how a lack of clarity in values can lead to misguided team dynamics and…

What is mentioned in this The Proven Podcast episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Robert Glazer, The Compass Within, Acceleration Partners, Attorney General, Entrepreneur, Fortune. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Your Values are Either Destroying Profits or Building an Empire - Robert Glazer"?

The episode runs 59 min; the transcript is about 13,343 words in 167 timestamped sections.

More from The Proven Podcast

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.