Your Core Values Matter
Hey guys! Welcome back to another Adrian Agency video. I’m Adrian Boysel, the CEO and founder of this company.
Many of you have been with me for quite some time, now – watching me along my journey, as I’ve grown to become a better presenter and mentor to all of you guys. That’s why I wanted to make a video today that is a little more personal, meaningful to me, and true to who I am.
Here’s why you need core values as an entrepreneur!
Have Faith, Have A Mission
For me, it’s very important that the people that I work with – clients, my partners, my employees, my team – it’s important to me that we all have very similar core values.
Having faith:
One of my core values is my faith. I believe that why I was put here on Earth, what I’m doing for a living, and the way I treat people, is all for a higher purpose.
That’s why I always say: “keep looking up.” You may have wondered where I came up with that – it’s because my eyes are always fixed on glorifying Him and bringing the attention to Him. This whole thing is not about me. This is about bringing attention to him.
My ministry is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship saved my life, kept me off the streets, kept me from crime, and kept me from doing a lot of bad things. And I have made plenty of mistakes in my life, but entrepreneurship is a path that I’ve been following for almost 14 years, now, and it has been a life-changing thing.
So, mentors have changed my life, but the core values that I have developed over time have become very important to me, and I hold onto those.
Having a mission:
I have a specific type of personality: when I get focused on something, I’m obsessed. That’s one of the secrets to success in business and entrepreneurship. If you look at Elon Musk and other famous, successful billionaires and millionaires of the world, you’ll see that they were obsessed with their mission, just like I’m obsessed with my mission.
That is one thing I want to encourage you to do today: be obsessed with your mission. But along with that, you want to find other people who will come with you; who will partner with you and support you in that mission. Because again, that mission is bigger than yourself.
And if you truly believe that, people will see that you’re authentic about what your mission is. If you share that with all of your heart and soul, people will be impacted. Jaws will drop. People will cry. It will move people. If you’re truly living out your life’s purpose, I really believe you will have an impact.
Define Your Core Values
So, what are your core values? It’s so important to have core values, for your personal life, and for your business. They’re interconnected – you can actually apply your personal core values to your business life.
One thing I do to help remind me of my core values is look at the leaders in my life who have inspired me. What are the things they value? What kinds of things are good for them, and fit their personality? A lot of those things are inspiring to me.
Punctuality:
Punctuality is a big one. A lot of people in my life know this simple rule: early is on time, and on time is late. I always want to show that I respect other people’s time, as well as my own.
So, when people are not on time for me, it kind of bothers me – but I let it go because I understand that things happen. You do have to give people grace. But, special circumstances aside, it’s really important to show up on time or even early to meetings (even if it’s on Zoom). It shows that you respect your time, and others’ time.
Paying people what they’re worth:
Second, I believe that people should be paid what they’re worth. You shouldn’t underpay people. You shouldn’t overcharge people. You shouldn’t price-gouge people. You should be selling your value, not your time – that’s another one of my core values, and something that you should take into consideration.
Set Values For Yourself
Now, let’s talk about the values that you set for yourself. What rules do you have for yourself? For example: being on time, being honest, never lying to a customer, having integrity, telling it like it is, making sure that your expectations are upfront and clear – and so on.
Find your rules:
From the beginning, there are tons of different rules that you have set for yourself and for your life. A lot of those rules have probably come from mistakes you’ve made, or things that you have seen other people do – whether that’s people who inspire you, or people you want to be different from.
Maybe your parents. A lot of the things I do in my life come from the way I was brought up. My dad was a person who habitually showed up late everywhere he want, and that’s just not the person I wanted to be. So I’ve made it a point to make sure that I show up on time for people.
Voids to values:
They say that the voids in your life also become your values. So, one of my big missions, as you know, is youth mentorship. As a kid, I was on the streets, homeless, and didn’t have anybody there for me, until I met my friend, Larry. Larry absolutely changed my life, just by being a friend and a mentor. So that void in my life – being a homeless kid on the streets, feeling lost and hopeless – is now a value. I’m going to help other people go down the right path.
I want to bring that value into other people’s lives by helping them, and I do that by giving them my time for free. I charge a lot of money for my hours, but when it comes to the people who I’m starting to help, I’m not charging them anything.
I do charge the people who can afford to pay for it. But the people who can’t – those are the people I want to help. So, when you support me as a client, you’re also supporting the other people who need an opportunity. You’re contributing to my ministry by being a client. And in that sense, you’re part of my family.
Treat clients like family:
That is one of my other core values: I treat my clients like my family. Not every client treats me like that, unfortunately. That’s just the way the world works – you’ve got to be a realistic. But the reality is, is that shouldn’t change who you are.
Regardless of the challenges, the problems, and the things I’ve dealt with throughout my life, I don’t let that change who I am as a person.
Establish Boundaries
The third thing I want to talk about is your boundaries. What will you not tolerate from other people? You need to have boundaries,, and you need to respect those boundaries for others, too.
People are going to belittle you, talk down to you, make you feel small, tell you that you aren’t worth it, lie to you, give you the run-around, ghost you on phone calls… these are all things that digital marketers, graphic designers, and agency owners deal with. Don’t treat people like that.
Respect others’ boundaries:
I can say, honestly, that I’ve had issues with this in the past, because I’ve been spread so thin. I often didn’t answer phone calls, not because I didn’t want to or chose not to, but simply because I had so many calls to take and I was so overwhelmed. I wasn’t able to give my clients the time and attention they deserved. So, they left.
I had to learn from those experiences and grow, and that has been part of my journey as an agency owner. Because there are so many moving parts and so much going, I’ve had to implement processes into my business that now allow me to give my clients the time and attention that they actually deserve. That’s a big deal, and another core value of mine.
Value Your Success
Lastly, what accomplishments have you had in your life?
Being featured on local news shows and TV and radio interviews, winning awards, being recognized, donating money, helping people – there are so many different things. Writing books, speaking on stages, graduating summa cum laude, and things like that. Those are all big accomplishments.
Those accomplishments should be part of your core values, and part of what is important to you.
They say that success leaves clues. That’s a saying that I think about all the time. That success that you have was created because you believe in going out there and taking action.
Share Your Values
Maybe one of your core values is your work ethic. Maybe it’s honesty, or leadership. Maybe it’s intelligence. Everybody is going to have their own unique core values.
Values build relationships!
It’s important that you write your core values down. Remind yourself of those values, and communicate them to your clients. Your core values should be wrapped into your content on your website, your blogs, or your podcast. You should share those things with people, because that’s going to help you build a real relationship.
Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. I love you all. And as always, keep looking up!