Hey guys. Welcome to the podcast. I am solo today, and I'm gonna talk about core values, the foundation for success and fulfillment. I think you guys are gonna like this. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. Check us out on YouTube by searching MSL Talk. We put all our videos on there. And also check us out for our MSL Talk live discussions, which are typically the first Tuesday of every month at 1:30 PM EST, and that's on LinkedIn live.
And you can also go in and search and find our past meetings as well. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSL and all things field medical. Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for joining me on this very special solo episode, and I want to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. This is something that I really believe in. I think that if you can just stick with me, listen to this all the way through.
This is information that can absolutely change your life. And we're going to talk about core values, what they are, why they're important, and how to use them, and how it can make a huge impact on your life, on your success, and on your fulfillment in life. I specifically use that word fulfillment because people can find success. They can even find wealth. They can make money. But is everyone really fulfilled?
There's a lot of millionaires and billionaires that are out there walking around miserable. And why is that? And maybe it's because they're doing something that's not in line with their core values. So I'm going to jump right into it. I'm going to start with somewhat of a definition of what it what core values mean and exactly what they are. But essentially, core values are your deeply held beliefs, priorities, and basically what's most valuable to you. They're the driving force in your life.
So your core values, number 1, you should know what they are. You should identify them. You should have a list of 5 or 6 or maybe ten core values. I probably would stick to about 5. And let those be the driving force in your life, your motivation. Core values are very different from goals. Let's not make a mistake in thinking that it's the same thing.
Your goals, and you've heard me talk about this on this podcast before, specifically the episode that I did on intention and how to have a daily intention strategy and how that can help you achieve your goals. Talk a lot about goals there. You know, goals are very specific outcomes that you're looking to achieve. It's a list of both personal and professional goals, and it's very specific. Core values are your priorities and what you consider most valuable to you. And those are motivators.
And what I think is most important is and if you want to know, well, Tom, why do I need core values? Why do I need to identify these things? You said 5 or 6 or whatever. What's the purpose? The purpose is that your core values will inform and guide your thoughts, decisions, and actions to help you align your life path and your career to what's important with you.
You know, a lot of times people are in a career where they're doing something that's just not in line with their core values or they're interviewing for a job and the culture and the company and the people in that environment are not in line with their core values. We're gonna talk more and give more examples of how that all comes together. But just understand that each of us values something. Each of us has things that are really, really super important to them.
And once we identify and know deep down what those motivators are, what those those values are, we should let that be the driving force and guiding light to help us, guide us, make decisions, put us in the right direction. If you want to get an idea of maybe what a list of these look like, go to Google and type in James Clear 100 core values. So James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits. A lot of people, I'm sure you've read the book or at least heard of it.
He puts together a really good comprehensive list of core values. But to be more specific, like I tend to do on this program, I am gonna get very personal and I'm gonna give you my list of core values and why they are my core values, why I chose them, how it motivates me, examples of how it plays a big factor in my life and how I make decisions, how I treat people, and how I'm guided by these values. So I'm gonna jump right into it, and I'm gonna go in order. Mine are in a specific order.
A lot of times people choose core values, and there are no specific order. That's strictly up to you. Mine are in order of priority. And I start with 3 F's, and then I go from there. So it's faith, family, fitness are my top 3. Prosperity, excellence, and peace are my my last 3. So I have 6 core values. I started with 5. I added the 6th one, and I'll explain to you why I did that. But so basically, my first core value is faith.
And the reason is for those of you who know me know that I'm a very spiritual person. And my faith is the foundation for everything for me. I'm a devout Christian. I was raised a Catholic, went to Catholic school when I was a kid, had those, you know, the cath Catholic doctrine behind me. Not gonna take anything away from that. I think it was a tremendous foundation for me. As I got older, started to realize that my beliefs were more in line with a Bible based Christian philosophy.
And and that's what I've migrated to. That's what my family believes in. And that is the number one value for me is that I lead a Christian life. I treat people in a Christian way. I follow Christian values. And that guides me. And I and let me just stop for a second and say that not everybody is religious. Not everybody has faith or religion as a core value. This doesn't have to be something that you include into this. Just as there's something that is important to me.
I recognize all religions, all faiths, and I recognize people that have no faith and no religion. And and I'm totally I'm one of these people that I just I try to find, the good in everyone. I don't judge. There's, you know, there's nothing but love for all you guys out there. So, this just happens to be what's important to me. My second core value is family.
And not that my family is any less important than anything else in my life, that my family is the most important single most important thing to me. You know, but I'm guided by my faith and my faith is such that, I, I put it first in my life to make me a better person and more suitable to be a better father, a better husband, a better son, a better brother, so I can actually be better for my family. So, but you know, how so again, it's it's funny.
It's like, so, Tom, why are these things important? You identify them. And how do you use your core value to guide your, you know, how you go about your life, make decisions. And again, how does it guide you? Well, because of the fact that I know what's important to me, it's a reminder that when you come home from work and you're exhausted and you've put everything you had into your career and into your day, and you may not have the energy to be present for your wife or for your kids.
Well, there's an imbalance there because if your family is most important and if you should be investing in your family as much as you're investing in your career and as much as you're putting time into your career, well, that should force you to be there, be more present, and put more of an investment in your family than you would in your career. And I struggle with this. I mentioned this specifically because this is an area of struggle with me.
I look back on my life and I just there are so many do overs that I wish I could have had where I put more emphasis on work, on career, on the time and energy that I spent, you know, chasing my career. Not that that's the right word chasing, but dedicating and investing time in my career that a lot of times when I came home, maybe I wasn't fully present for my kids or my family. Maybe I didn't provide the enough attention or the right attention.
So if I had to have a do over and this isn't about regret. This is about moving forward. I'm giving you examples of how you can use this to become better in every aspect of your life and your career, by the way, we're going to get into that as well. But this is just one example of how your core values will keep you in line and remind you of what's most important. Number 3, fitness. Fitness and health are really, really important to me. I think they should be important to everyone.
I think that everybody should make this, a part or some part of your life. Now, not everybody works out. Not everybody wants to be in the gym. So I'm not saying or suggesting that, but to me, this is in my top third for a reason. I feel like without our health, it makes us more vulnerable or less, could make us less, effective or available or present or all these other things that we need to be successful in all the other aspects of our life, including our personal lives, our careers.
So I don't take health for granted. I'm pretty obsessed with I'm like a fitness addict. I work out at least 6 days a week, sometimes 7, probably overdo it a little bit. But you know, it's funny. People say, you know, Tom, it's not good to work out every day. It's not good to smoke cigarettes. It's not good to excessively drink. It's not good. There's a lot of things that aren't good. I'm not saying it's probably the greatest thing. I think you do need to give yourself a break.
But there's no doctor out there that'll say, hey. Exercise isn't good for you. And I I truly think you shouldn't overdo it. But I think that this is just a really important piece of it. And here's how it works for me. The way it works for me is I make it a priority. It's obviously one of my top three core values. And I basically set a plan, have a plan in place where this is a mandatory part of my life. And what I mean by that is I basically have a set of parameters that I try to follow.
So, for example, for me, when it comes to fitness and it comes to health, I focus on certain factors sleep, hydration, meditation and prayer, which I incorporate into faith. Nutrition. I follow very strict intermittent fasting schedule, which really works for me, so I stick to it. Exercise. Like I said, I exercise 6 to 7 days a week. And I have a balance. There are days when I'm on absolutely killing it. There's days I do half workouts. I do take days off here and there.
But it's a really important part of every day. Stretching, breathing. These are just things that I incorporate because when you set an important core value, you also create habits and behaviors that are going to be consistent to maintain that value. So again, if core values are what's most valuable to you, what's most important to you, you should be developing behaviors and you should be dealt with developing habits that cater towards those. My 4th one is prosperity.
And I specifically use the word prosperity for a reason. I want to prosper in everything that I do. And this kind of has a dual meaning for me. It's I want to be successful in my career. I wanna do well. I wanna make a lot of money. I wanna have, I wanna be a provider for my family. Again, this goes back to another port of value. I wanna provide. I wanna be there, to, to provide everything I need to for my kids, my wife. So that's one piece.
It's, it's the success factor in my career and in my, in my professional life. But the other factor is I want to prosper. I want to overcome challenges. Everybody's going to go through challenges in life. We all do. How do you face them? How do you handle them? I know. And getting back to my faith, I know that I'm going to prosper. I'm going to overcome. I'm going to handle the challenges that come to me. My favorite Bible, my favorite, scripture passage is Jeremiah verse, 29 verse 11.
And that's I have plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans for hope and a future. That if actually, if you're watching this on YouTube, if you look behind me, there's a picture on my office wall, which is actually a picture. It's a photo of my son's graduating class, United States Naval Academy. So there's all of the midshipmen are assembled in a 2021. And written on the picture is that bible verse, Jeremiah 29 verse 11. And I came across that picture on a Facebook page.
And when I saw it, it just blew me away. First of all, I say that scripture every single day. There's not a day that goes by that I don't recite that just to remind myself that I know that no matter what happens in that day, everything's gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be great. We'll get through anything. But I also know I'm gonna prosper in my career and everything else. It's just a reminder. So prosperity is a huge, huge core value for me, and it's part of my belief system.
It's part of my faith, and it governs a lot of what I do. 5th core value for me is excellence. I just believe that it's so important to strive for excellence in every single thing I do. And I feel like this is personal. It's professional. It seeps into every single thing. And again, it goes back to the reason that faith is number 1 for me is I believe that we should live a life of excellence the way we treat others. I believe that we should strive to be excellent in work.
And when we go in, show up early. Stay late. Go above and beyond. Be a good team player. Show other people that you care and that you're gonna be helpful and you're gonna help them in whatever way that you can. So excellence is and one of the one of the things that I've heard recently through one of the groups that I'm in, excellence to to make it very simple is how you do one thing is how you do everything.
So So I don't care if you're, if you're mowing the lawn or if you're, if you have a huge presentation at work that's going to make or break the rest of your your year. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And if you take that approach into everything you do, you'll be successful in everything, no matter what, because you're bringing forth a level of excellence and people are going to notice it.
People are going to appreciate it and you're going to be the one that gets that promotion. And my 6th one is peace. And I added this. This was an addition that I added because I one of the things that I struggle with is just slowing down. I have a very energetic type A personality. I'm an overachiever. I'm a driver. And I'm sometimes not present.
Not present, meaning I'm always chasing the next thing that I feel like I need to be doing, setting new goals, achieving goals, setting goals, achieving goals, setting goals. What happens is when you do that, you don't find peace. And I think it's really important to just take some time to remind this is actually a core value that I'm almost incorporate into the other 5 as a reminder that I need to do better at this. And it's okay to do that.
If you want to set up a list of core values and, and some of them, are not ones that you necessarily practice, but it's important to you, then that's why you should do it. It makes it that much more important to recognize that so that you can focus on that and you can make that a part of your really everyday focus and believe. And guys, this isn't something that I just sit there and dwell on all day. This is something that goes on in the background.
This is something that I reflect on, something that helps motivate me, something that I think about, something that I remind myself. It's like it's almost like remember when you were a kid, at least I'm I'm dating myself, but when I was a kid, I used to watch, like, Saturday morning cartoons or, you know, growing up, there was always there was, like, in the cartoons or even in movies, there'd be, like, the devil on one shoulder.
And the devil on the the devil on your shoulder would be telling you all these bad things that you should be doing. Oh, you should just do this, eat that piece of cake. And then there'd be the angel on the other shoulder would be like, no, don't eat the piece of cake. You're going to regret it. Or don't do this, do the right thing. Well, you know, this is the angel on your shoulder. This is the Jiminy Cricket. This is the Tinker Bell.
This is the, you know, this is the conscience that's playing over in your mind to guide you. Maybe it's even once you did find these core values, it might just be subliminal after a while. You might just develop this such a strong belief system that it guides you whether or not you're necessarily focused on it or not. And keep in mind, guys, I I want to share that these are personal to you.
You don't have to select any specific core value because you think you should or because somebody else does. 1 of my coaches, some of you guys may know that I have coaches and one of them who's a great guy, his core values are totally different than mine. We talk about it all the time. He one of his core values is freedom. I mean, he he basically left his business to start a coaching business because he wanted freedom. Guy drives a motorcycle. He loves to just go away on excursions.
So adventure and freedom are 2 of his core values. And I just I think that's awesome because that's important to him, and that's what he strives for. That's what he looks to do. Another one of his core values is love. And it's funny when he told me that, I'm like, man, jeez, am I a jerk? I don't love is not one of my core values. I have 6 core values. Love is not one of them. Like, shouldn't we all love one another? Shouldn't that be something that we strive for?
Shouldn't we all wanna be loved and love other people? But it dawned on me that love is really a part of my faith. You know, faith is number 1 for me and part the one of the foundations of our faith is to love one another, love others the way you would wanna, you know, be treated yourself and, do unto others. So it's like it's really incorporated into another one of my core values that I kinda feel like it goes without saying, but that's just me. Like, that's just my impression of that.
I think that it's really important for everyone to kind of follow your heart and what your core values are. Another one that I'm going to mention is, service. You know, for all of our military and for for people that, have made a career serving others, policemen, firemen, teachers, you know, educators. And my son, for a lot of you guys know, my son is in the Marine Corps and he was led and is led to serve. And it's a huge sacrifice. It's also very dangerous. We need people like that.
We need people that have those those values of service because without that, we we would be in a lot of trouble. So I I just wanna say right now, if there's anybody listening to this podcast that has service as your value, I appreciate you. I really do. And I wish I did a better job in serving others. I certainly am trying, especially as I'm getting older. But I wish I did a better job with that. You know, gratitude is another core value that I think is really important.
It's it's something that I practice every day. It's something that's very, very important to me. I incorporate it into my faith as well because that's part of of something that I I recognize in my meditation and and and prayer each day. But it is important. A lot of people have that as a core value. There's another coach of mine who his core values are, again, totally separate. He he has, purpose and humility are 2 of his core values.
This guy's incredibly wealthy, accomplished, established in his career and his businesses. So he has a different purpose. And he forces himself and reminds himself of how important it is to, to be humble and to show humility to others. So I think that this is a very personal thing. I think that it should guide you. I think it should lead you.
I think that in your career, once you establish this, when you're looking for a job and you're interviewing at a company, find out what their core values are and talk to them about that. I used to tell people early in my career, I used to say, hey, you want a secret when you interview?
Go on the company's website and find out what their core values are and then bring it up in the interview and say, I think I'm a great fit for this position because my core values are in line with your core values. You know, and I have to go back and say, I don't think that's the best advice. I think that it's really important to make sure that you talk about it, but you want to make sure that you're honest about it.
So number 1, let's just say for argument's sake, your core values are not in line with the core values of the company. You should probably reconsider whether or not you wanna work there.
Because how many times, again, I talked about this before, how many times do you hear about people that are working in a culture that isn't in line with their values and it's not a fit and they and they're miserable and they don't wanna be there and they don't wanna work for their the people that they report to and whatever else. So again, this could be a guiding light. This could be something that helps you make your decision once you understand that.
Or let's just say you identify that 3 of the 5 core values that you have are aligned with 3 of the 5 core values that they have. Well, that that's significant. That's something you should you can talk about and say, here are my core values and they line up with yours. So I think that this is something that is a good fit and I'd love to talk about it. I'd love to learn more about how you incorporate your core values into, you know, into your business.
I think for companies, core values shouldn't be just words on your website. It shouldn't be a plaque in the conference room. It's something that you should incorporate into every day. It's something that you should live by. You should hire by. When you're recruiting candidates, you want to assess what type of person is it, what are their core values, how is it in line with the culture in the organization? That's what this is all about.
And if you pay attention to it in your own life, if you apply it in every aspect of your personal and your professional life, it should guide you, help you make help you make decisions and help you find fulfillment. Again, there's a lot of people out there that make a lot of money, and they may be very successful in their career.
But if you're not fulfilled, if you're not living a life where you're satisfied and you're happy and you wake up every day and and you're excited about what you do when you can't wait to get after it and you can't wait to grow and build and and, you know, and and do great things, then you're gonna be lacking. And that's what this is all about. This is this is about trying to find a more well balanced, fulfilling life. I hope you guys like this. This was something that happened.
I came up with this idea last minute because I had somebody that needed to postpone on me, which is fine. And I hope I hope you got a lot out of this. If you did, please share it. I think this is something that I could apply to anybody. It can apply to your kids, to your coworkers. It doesn't matter how old you are. This is something I think we all need to maybe recognize, do a little bit of better job on and, and work at it.
So if this is something you got value out of, if you if this is something that resonates with you, shoot me a note on LinkedIn, make a comment. I'm gonna be posting some, some content about this. But I hope it was helpful. And, thank you guys. Love you guys. Appreciate you all listening and, enjoy the rest of your summer. Thank you so much for listening to the show.
And if you enjoyed it, please subscribe so that you don't miss an episode in the future, and feel free to leave a rating or a review or a comment. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you soon.