Words Can Change Your Brain Read Online Free PDF Page B

positive—perhaps because it takes so little time to do. For example, here’s what happened when John, a construction worker from New Zealand, did the “inner values” exercise for ten days:
     
My initial reaction was, “Not another thing to do!” But then I realized that I hadn’t put much focus on values in the past, even though I’d read about it. Love, service, and family were my three top values, and I started to realize where love was really missing: at work. Normally, I feel a lot of animosity toward my boss, but by the third day of my values experiment, I started feeling kindness toward him. I began to let go of my anger because I saw that he was only doing his job. Then I started feeling gratitude, because he was the one who gave me my job.
    Cheri Frootko, a South African film director and script supervisor saw the inner values exercise on YouTube, in a clip from a TEDx talk in Thousand Oaks, California, that Mark gave in 2010 (you can see the TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhCLXEeSDQ). Cheri had just assembled a team to shoot a project in France and decided to show them the video. Each morning, before they began work, they practiced the inner values exercise:
     
We created a fun routine. We imitated Mark on the video: yawning, breathing deeply, stretching, rolling the shoulders, and shaking our hands. We closed our eyes and asked ourselves what our greatest value was, and then, in a spirit of lightheartedness, we shared our words with each other. The result? Ten people, who a week earlier were total strangers, created a bond of insight and intimacy. And it wouldn’t have happened without this three-minute catalyst. We would have worked well without the exercise—say, on a level of 6—but with our sharing of values, the energy and harmony of the group reached a level of 9. PS: Forgot to mention that when the pressure got intense, we used a specific buzz word on the set—“yawn”! It made everybody relax and lighten up.
    Exercises like this are slowly working their way into business and medical communities. At Missouri State University, psychologists found that when a personal values exercise was included in a treatment plan designed to help patients cope with chronic pain, their tolerance toward pain improved. 3 When we get in touch with what is most meaningful in our lives, we are less distracted by the problems that occur throughout the day.
    Are We Moving Toward a Values-Based Society?
    Inner values used to be a popular topic in the 1950s and 1960s, when books by Viktor Frankl ( Man’s Search for Meaning ) and Abraham Maslow ( Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences ) were best sellers. But during the past twenty years, values-based research mostly disappeared.
    Recently the picture has changed. With the meltdown of the financial institutions that occurred several years ago, magazines like Bloomberg Businessweek have been regularly calling for the implementation of corporate and leadership values. And the business world is responding.
    Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter—considered by many to be one of the most powerful women in the world—recently commented on the importance of directly addressing values in the boardroom: “ In organizations that I call ‘supercorps’—companies that are innovative, profitable, and responsible—widespread dialogue about the interpretation and application of values enhances accountability, collaboration, and initiative.” 4
    Our own research supports this. Even though everyone has a unique set of values—running the spectrum from highly idealistic principles like truth, integrity, and growth to highly interpersonal values like love, family, and friendship—when people openly share their values with each other, they come together and express mutual support.
    We once had a church auditorium filled with religious believers and disbelievers, liberals and conservatives, millionaires and welfare recipients, and when we guided them