Chief Change Officer - #392 Robert MacPhee: From Parking Cars to Coaching Clarity—Lessons from a Chicken Soup Insider — Part Two

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Robert MacPhee didn’t start out teaching values—he started out parking cars. But somewhere between the valet stand and becoming Jack Canfield’s right-hand man (yes, that Chicken Soup guy), Robert found his lane. Now the author of Living a Values-Based Life, he’s guiding people to stop driving in circles and finally align their actions with what truly matters.In this second half of the series, Robert breaks down how to live out your values in everyday life—not just name them. We dig into why values change with life stages, what to do after you’ve identified your top five, and how to keep them visible and active as your world evolves. If you’ve ever felt stuck, misaligned, or unsure what to prioritize, this episode gives you the clarity compass you didn’t know you needed.Key Highlights of Our Interviews:Why It’s So Hard to Define Our Own Values“Most people’s initial list of values often reflects what they think others want to hear.”We’re conditioned to impress, not reflect—until we learn how to tune out the noise and tune into what really matters.How a Values-Based Life Can Improve Work“Clarity about values doesn’t just make personal life better—it’s transformative for work too.”Whether it’s contribution, integrity, or service, values-aligned action makes work more purposeful and less draining.Do Values Change Over Time? The Short Answer: Yes.“What mattered in high school may be worlds apart from your sixties or seventies.”Life events—from caregiving to career pivots—reshape our internal compass. Values aren’t static; they evolve with us.Keeping Values Visible“Have them on your phone, your mirror, your nightstand—whatever it takes.”Don’t just declare your values. Revisit them, reflect on them, and let them guide your daily decisions.Borrowing Values When You Need Them“Discipline and strength may not be on your list—but sometimes, you’ll need to call them in.”Complementary values can be summoned in certain seasons—without betraying your core.The 4 A’s: A Framework for Application“Assess, pick an Area, choose Actions, and create Accountability.”Robert’s system helps you go from intention to implementation—because without action, it’s just a nice conversation.____________________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Robert MacPhee  --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<

Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Oshul is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. A few years ago, I joined a growing venture as the chief people officer. It lasted just six weeks. To that CEO, I may have seemed incompetent, but I knew exactly why I had to leave so quickly. had to leave so quickly. It was a major clash of values. I believe in being true and ethical in both words and deeds, while he thrived on a man-made façade of showmanship and hypocrisy. Knowing my values made the decision clear.

This experience ties directly to today's guest, Robert Merci. He's the author of Living in Values-Based Lives, and the creator of the leadership model called Excellent Decisions. In this two-part series, we'll dive into what values really mean, why they matter for leading fulfilling careers and lives, and why figuring out our values can be challenging.

We'll also explore how to make our values visible and sustainable in a world that's constantly changing. If you feel stuck in your current workplace, it's not necessarily your fault. Often, it's just a misalignment of values. Don't bend your values to fit in. Instead, find a place and a tribe whose values resonate with yours. That's where true happiness and success lie.

Let's dive in. My follow-up question is about what happens after we identify our values. Even if we genuinely figure out and believe in them, whatever those values are, like honesty, humanity. The next step is the hardest, practicing them consistently. How do you advise your clients to implement the values in daily life? For businesses, this could be challenging, but equally difficult for individuals. Even with the best intentions, staying mindful and consistent isn't easy. How do you suggest we monitor and sustain our actions to align with our values. Talk is cheap. I believe talk and talk and walk the walk

matters when it comes to implementation of values. If I were your client asking, we've identified my values, what do I do next? How would you guide me? I'm so glad you brought that up because without that approach, without saying how do we apply this, how do we put this into action, how do we implement it,

it's all really just an interesting conversation. And you brought up a really good point. Sometimes people can get caught up in the words that really sound good and will make a good impression on someone else. When people are first doing this work, we live in a world where we're trying to impress other people and make other people happy so much of the time.

Sometimes it's a really big stretch for people to really be honest with themselves and say, what really is, aside from what anyone else might think, what is really most important to me? And for most people, that takes a period of time. Their first list might reflect what sounds good to other people. That's just normal.

That's just the world we live in. But where the rubber really hits the road, where this really makes a difference in people's lives, is when we start to apply it. And this is one of the beautiful things, this is one of the reasons why I think our values-based life approach, where we are taking values and dividing them into these two categories, why it's so useful is because it's actually pretty easy to apply. Once we have these two lists, we can literally look at those lists,

and in any moment, we can self-assess how we're doing in the areas or the qualities and characteristics that are on that list. For instance, again, myself, I can look at my list of priorities and say, okay, I have declared that my relationship with my children is number one on my list. How am I doing? How are my relationships with my children? How much, how is the communication? How much time am I spending with them? Do they know, do they really know that I love them unconditionally? Do they know

that I'm here to support them in any way I possibly can. And I'm really blessed because I can ask those questions, and we'd have to double check with them to be 100% sure. But I'm very confident that the quality of those relationships that I have with my children is really good. I put the time and attention into that because I know it's always on the top of that list when I look at it. And I'll go right down the list and I'll say,

contribution is second on my list, how is that going? And honestly, that's an area I'm putting more time and attention in, because this values work, I feel like can be such a huge contribution to individuals, to organizations, to the world. Just imagine if more people, what if everyone was really clear about what their highest values were? Imagine how that would change just like the political discourse for starters.

Like what a difference that would make if people were coming from a place and acting from a place of real clarity about their highest values. So again, we can look at like our priorities and say, how do I want to shift my time and attention to create more of the results and more of the experiences that I want? And the same thing with the ways of being. I can look at my list and I can say, I've said that it's my intention to be really humble.

How am I doing with that? Am I being Mr. Know-it-all? I have all the answers and telling everyone else what they should do? That doesn't sound very humble. Or am I really showing up in my relationships with other people and listening and asking questions and being curious and genuinely wanting to support,

then I'm doing pretty good. I can literally look at all the items on my list of highest values and I can self-assess. And we actually, we use a process in our work called the four A's as an implementation process. And it starts with this assessment. And the second A is area. It's assessing or choosing an area to focus on.

Like I told you with my priorities, I might choose contribution as an area to focus on. I say, I want to make a bigger contribution. What actions can I take? There's that third A. That's the next thing we're going to look at and say, what is an action I can take? What are multiple actions that I can take

that will allow me to make an even bigger contribution? Because making a contribution is really important to me. And then the fourth A is accountability. Because it's one thing if I say that I'm going to take an action to make an even bigger contribution, but if I declare that action to you and I know you're going to check back with me and say, hey, remember you told me that you were going to get on five podcasts a week to really get your message out there. How's that going?

That level of accountability is gonna create the opportunity for me to be even more likely to complete those actions that I'm saying I'm committed to take. Do values change over time with new experiences and perspectives? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think the simplest way for anyone

who's listening to this conversation and thinking about their own values and what they might be, you can think back to an earlier time in your life. I'm in my 60s. I can think all the way back to college or high school. And what was important to me at that time in my life has changed.

So it's just situational to some degree. And I think as my life progresses and I get into my 70s or my 80s and I'm retiring, the things that are most important to me, some might change and some might not, but they're definitely not fixed. I had a fascinating conversation with someone this week who I had just talked to about this whole values conversation about two months previous. And I was catching up with her and she was telling me

a story about how her mother is not well. Her mother had a fall and was requiring quite a bit of attention and care and help. And so this had become a big priority for her. So literally just a couple of months ago, it wouldn't have even been part of the conversation about what her highest values were, but all of a sudden, that got changed.

Like the world situations, the circumstances, the events that were happening in her world forced her to alter her values, to alter where it was most important for her to put time and attention. So her family and her relationships were probably already on her list, but that specific relationship and caring for her mother and making sure her mother had the care that she needed had been bumped right up to the top of the list because of the specific situation

and circumstances that were happening for her. So just in terms of navigating through our life from one stage to another, when we're single, our values might be different than when we get married. When we're in school, our values might be different than when we get a job and we start our career. If we have a job and then we decide we want to be an entrepreneur, our values might change. So that's a long answer. I probably could have just said, yes, values change.

But those are some examples of all the situations and circumstances and just stages of life that would lead to values changing and explains why this is an ongoing conversation. I would love to say that someone could read my book and declare their values, and those will be their values for the rest of their life. But it's really a case of,

one of the things I spend the most time doing is encouraging people to keep their list of values in front of them, keep them visible. Have it on your phone, have it on your bedside table, have it on the bathroom mirror, whatever it is, but have it somewhere so you keep revisiting that list. I actually have mine in my phone, and I have a daily alarm that goes off reminding me

to just take five minutes, take a breath, relax, go in, revisit those values, re-anchor into them, remember them, and in some cases say, you know what, for this week or this month or this stage of my life, I'm going to make an adjustment here. I'm going to make a little change. There's something going on in my life that feels like it's calling me to alter my list. And we can do that at any time if we keep revisiting and clarifying what our highest values are. As you were sharing, I couldn't help but think it's not just about the different stages of our lives or the roles we play. For example, I transitioned from corporate life to entrepreneurship, moving from a world of abundant resources

to one where I'm spending my own money testing ideas and navigating uncertainties. Big changes like these influence our values. Now one could argue that, if I value honesty, it should stay constant regardless of my circumstances. True, but even the interpretation or perception of honesty evolves over time. I play new roles and build up different experiences, I found that how I uphold honesty adapts. For example, with certain people or situations, I might feel the need to stand firm in my values, but with others, especially those who don't operate, honestly, I might decide it's not

worth engaging or holding them to the same standard. It's not about abandoning my value, but recognizing when and how to apply it. This evolution, I think, speaks to how our brains collect data and adjust over time. Sometimes it's a conscious recalibration. Other times it's our minds engaging in what I call self-justification, helping us rationalize our actions in ways that align with what we want to believe. So when values may shift,

the interpretation and application of those values change as we grow and learn. Yeah. I think this is a really good example that you've brought up a couple of times about honesty because it points out a few things. One is just because honesty is not on my list of my top five most important ways of being,

doesn't mean that honesty isn't important to me. And for some people, like this process of narrowing down their list, we generally go through a process where we do brainstorming and we tap into a deep heart energy to get beyond just our mental capacity and really tap into what's really most important to us. And we gather all these words that describe our ways of being and how we want to show up in the world. And we have honesty and integrity and commitment and kindness and care and love.

And there's all these wonderful amazing words. And then I feel like I'm torturing people because I say, okay, now pick your top five. And sometimes it's really hard for people and understandably because how it feels like you're saying no to some of these amazing qualities and characteristics. But we're really not. A couple things we can be aware of and something that we can do.

One thing to be aware of is we can do what's called borrowing values. Again, I'll use example from my own list. I told you I have values on my list like calm and peaceful and caring and kind and humility. These are the words that come up over and over for me. And I'm also an entrepreneur. I run a business like this work with values. I'm coaching people and I'm doing consulting with organizations and I'm getting this work out there and trying to make this big difference. And you know what the truth is sometimes, being kind and caring and calm and peaceful is not the most important quality and characteristic.

Sometimes it's things like discipline and strength and focus and things like that. Like those are the qualities that I need to bring if I really wanna make a bigger difference, if I wanna make a bigger contribution, if I wanna build a successful organization which is also on my priorities list, I can borrow those values situationally. I can bring them in. It doesn't mean I'm no longer going to be humble. It doesn't mean I'm no longer going to be kind and caring. It doesn't mean I'm no longer going to be calm and

peaceful because I feel like those are actually very valuable qualities and characteristics in running a business. But I'm also going to be strong and I'm going to be disciplined and I'm going to be focused because those are also like really important for this area that I'm focusing on and creating the results and the outcomes that I really want to create. So we can borrow values. We want to make sure they compliment each other. We want to, we don't want to say I can build this really successful business and make a lot of money by lying and cheating and stealing.

That's never going to come out of the type of values work that we do. But in my experience, being strong, being disciplined, being focused, does not conflict with being kind and caring and with being calm and peaceful and with being humble. It's almost bringing in extra team members to get more done, like that strength and discipline and focus is gonna help me create the results that I want in that area called contribution or building a successful organization. Robert, we've got a lot of good stuff today in our interview.

Any final message you'd like to share with the audience? I think the message that I would want to finish with would be actually an invitation. And what I find when I have these conversations about values, they're usually very interesting and intriguing to people. Most people understand the importance of values, and we've talked about some real specifics around values here, and I think probably gotten people to understand even better how important values are. And hopefully this approach of dividing values into two categories and getting really clear

about what our highest priorities are and what our most important ways of being are. Hopefully people can see how valuable that would really be. So the invitation that I would want to leave people with is to do two things, to begin to explore what your own highest priorities are and what your own most important ways of being are. And you can do that by first asking yourself a question.

To begin to explore what your highest priorities are, you can begin by setting a timer for three to five minutes and taking a blank sheet of paper and asking yourself the question, what is important to me, over and over again. Just ask yourself, what is important to me, over and over again. Just ask yourself, what is important to me? And write down whatever answer comes to mind. Don't question it, don't judge it, try and put them in order, don't wonder where it came from. Just ask yourself the question,

let your brilliant mind do the work to capture as many answers as you can in three to five minutes to that question, what is important to me? And from that, you can in three to five minutes to that question, what is important to me? And from that, you can then start pursuing this conversation about maybe that top five list and what are the most important. But the first step is to capture the answers

to that question, what is important to me? And then the second part of the invitation would be on the ways of being side. And the first step I invite people to take is to finish a sentence. And the sentence is, it is important to me to be blank. And you can do the same thing three to five minutes with a blank sheet of paper and just fill in the blank at the end of that sentence over and over again. If it was me, I would be saying,

it is important to me to be kind and caring. It is important to me to be humble. It is important to me to be peaceful and calm. And I might borrow those values I was talking about. It's important to me to be strong and disciplined and focused. But take those three to five minutes and answer that question and fill in the blank at the end of that sentence. And then you've taken the first step on this journey to being able to clearly articulate what your own highest values are. And from there, you'll be able to start thinking from that place of knowing what your highest values are, making decisions based on those values, most importantly saying no to the things that are not on your list, and then taking action. Again, like you said, and I'm so glad you did, implementation, application, putting

it into action is where we really make a difference. And without that, it's really just an interesting conversation. I like your quote. Without implementation is just a nice conversation. Thank you so much, Robert. Thank you for having me. When I first saw Chief Change Officer, I knew that you and I needed to have this conversation

because values are such an important part of making the changes that we want in our life. So I'm thrilled we had the chance to do this. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.