Inspired by Core Values

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I know what you are thinking when you see this photo... no, this post is not about politics. Seeing as I am an Alumni now, I get the Brigham Young University magazine in the mail a few times a year. I normally don't take the time to look through it because it just isn't my first choice. However, someone I think very strongly of was on the cover of the most recent issue. His name is Mitt Romney. You may remember this post where I told you how I am related to this fine gentlemen. No, we have never met. Yes, I was a little disappointed when he lost the election. Yes, I still believe he is an incredible man.

Obviously, when I saw this man on the front cover I had to look in the magazine to see what the article was all about. It was titled 'Forty Years On.' Mitt Romney graduated from BYU with his bachelor's degree in 1971. The article is actually from a speech he gave to students at the University a few years ago. It talks a lot about how he got to be so successful and about his life journey.

He talks about a time where the firm he had founded seemed to be coming apart. Everyone wanted to go in different directions and he was struggling to find a balance between his goals of faith and the money he was making. His team met with a consultant-psychologist who shared with him something very profound. This is where I am going to quote the article for you...

     'He said that if we lived our lives in conflict with our core values, we would experience stress, ill health, and deep regret. How, we asked, could we know what our core values were? He proceeded to ask us to think of the five or six people we most admired and respected, people currently living or who had ever lived. . . Then he asked us to write down next to each of those names the five or six attributes we thought of when we thought of that person. The attributes that we had then listed most frequently, he explained, represented our core values.' 

The five people Mitt chose were the Savior, Joseph Smith, his father, mother and his wife. The five attributes that were listed most frequently were all similar: love, family, service and devotion. This is what he says next about living with these core values in his life...

      'Now, some twenty years later, I have discovered something else about these core values, about living with integrity, about these fundamental measures of successful living; with these at our center, chance does not come into play in determining our success or failure. The ability to live with integrity with the core of our values of love, family, service, and devotion is entirely up to us. Fundamentally, this is the business of successful living.'

These words really hit me. If I want to be successful, all I need to do is stay focused on my core values. Normally I wouldn't quote an article with this much depth on my blog but I truly found this inspiring. I hope this is something that you will take time to think about... 

What are your core values?

If you want to read the full article, click here.