Values Coaching with the Clarity Method by Tim Brownson

Tobi

So you're saying I'm motivated in two different ways. On the one hand I want to have more of a value in my life, so I'm motivated

Tim Brownson

Yes.

Tobi

towards a value. But often even more important, I'm also motivated by getting away from a certain thing, and these are anti values.

Tim Brownson

Correct. So coaches are almost programmed to focus on the positive and to look towards the good. I think it's a mistake. Nobody would want a million dollars or a million euros or pounds if they couldn't do anything with it. Why? It's just going to fill up space. So it can't be the money, it's got to be the thing the money gives you. That's the real value.

Tobi

And how would I work with this?

Tobi

What's going on if we deeply disagree with how another person is doing something? Or if we, or our clients, are torn between two different options and really can't decide? My guest today would say these are both external or internal value conflicts. I'm talking to Tim Brownson, a coach nowadays known as The Fully Booked Coach, and who you encounter as a very vocal voice on many coaching subreddits. This is where I originally met him. And he has also been working with values since the mid two thousands. He turned his values coaching approach into a practical framework, which he calls the Clarity Method. Today we'll unpack the Clarity Method step by step, from identifying a client's values to using Tim's ranking mechanism to get to a values hierarchy, and then using that in order to spot and resolve value

Tobi

You've written a book, which is called The Clarity Method, in 2019. And I guess the work behind the book goes even much further back. And yet this is sort of now a reappearing theme. I'm wondering, how did you originally get to write a book about values?

Tim Brownson

Right. So I became a life coach, I did my training back in 2005, and moved to the US in February 2006, and started my life coaching practice, which is still there, at daringadventure.com. It is still there, so people can see, I was blogging from 2006. And when I did my training we talked about values, and the method I was taught with values is good, but I didn't feel it was quite good enough. Which, I don't mean to seem arrogant with that, I thought it could be tweaked and improved on. So I did that, and developed a method of my own, and incorporated anti values, which I feel sure you're going to come on to. And then I wrote the book. I actually wrote the book, The Clarity Method, in 2012, but it wasn't called The Clarity Method, it was called Aligning With Your Core Values, which kind of sucks. And it was really just for clients. So it was a self-development book.

Tim Brownson

I sort of thought, you know what, why have I stopped doing values with clients? I just thought, well, they don't really need values. And then I started thinking, actually, values are a crucial part of your messaging, and to a certain extent your positioning as well. I thought, this is ridiculous. So I started reintroducing values. And then along came AI and they became even more important, because they're fundamentally what separates us from AI.

Tobi

So if I'm trying to paraphrase a bit, what I hear is that you found values a great instrument, also for coaches, to understand who they are and how they want to position themselves.

Tim Brownson

Initially it was for my clients as a life coach, to help my clients. So I would do the process with my clients when I was life coaching people, and it would give me just an insane amount of breakthroughs. The values gave me more breakthroughs than everything else. And I've done lots of training, I've done 40 days of NLP, I've done hypnotherapy, all sorts of workshops. You can put those all together, and they didn't give me the amount of breakthroughs that I got using values. To the point where occasionally it would cut the coaching short, because we'd satisfied the need of the client.

Tobi

Can you describe a bit more the sort of breakthroughs you got there?

Tim Brownson

Yeah. So the values thing is really weird.

Tim Brownson

Most people don't know what their own values are. We tend to think, or people in the coaching arena tend to think, that people know this stuff, but they really don't. I mean, I learned about values for the first time when I was 42, on that training. Actually, that's not true, I'd had a little bit of an introduction in a corporate setting very shortly before I left my job. So I'll use myself as an example. I worked in sales, and when I went up the ladder into more corporate sales and bigger deals, I always felt uncomfortable. I moved from job to job and earned a lot of money, but something just didn't feel right. I just didn't like it. Then, when I first did my own values, or it was done on me in the training, integrity came out in the top three. And then it was like, holy crap, yeah, that's why I was uncomfortable in sales. The sales industry has had an integrity bypass operation at some point, especially with bigger organizations. I'm sure there are ethical sales businesses, but I never worked for one after about 1990, I don't think. So it was like, wow, I never knew that. What would I have done with that information when I was in sales? Probably got out sooner, or made a concerted effort to find a company that I felt aligned with my values. So that's the kind of thing that I have when clients are like, wow, that's why I'm not happy

Tobi

Yeah, so I guess understanding your own behavior, looking backwards, and then also, of course, giving you clarity for what that means moving forward.

Tim Brownson

Right, exactly. So again, it doesn't have to be for career choices, but that's the most obvious way to use them, and it can give the greatest benefit. I've been hired by people just for that. I'm not quite sure how they knew we could use it for that, they probably told me at the time, but I'm going back over 10 years now. But it can have a massive effect with that.

Tobi

Then I'd love to get a bit into the weeds. To get started, can you walk us through the Clarity Method on a high level?

Tim Brownson

Yeah, I can. It's really a three stage process. The first stage is thinking about our values, because a lot of people just don't think about them, because they're just there. It's like we don't think about gravity, it's kind of just there. So, thinking about what's really important to you, what are the things that are non-negotiable? For example, for me it is integrity. I get really frustrated with ChatGPT for making crap up, making stories up. It'll start doing me a post and it'll say, I was working with a client last week who said this. I'm like, no, the client didn't say that and that didn't happen. If I say I've got two places left on a mastermind, it's because I've got two places. So, think about what's non-negotiable for you, that's the first part. The second part is forming that hierarchy. So I work with eight. I know some people who do values work with fewer. I think anything less than five, you're just rolling the dice, because those values lower down are still super important and they can conflict with higher ones, you just may not notice problems. And then the third part is understanding value conflicts. So that's external and internal. External are kind of what we spoke about with a job, with people. There are lots of societal value conflicts kicking off at the moment. And just giving that understanding. And then internal value conflicts, for the most part, are when we have a value but we don't practise it. And we just feel that sense of, this doesn't feel right. And that can often come as a gut feeling

Tobi

So that is where the rubber really hits the road, the practical part.

Tobi

Before we get to value conflicts: you said step number one is thinking about what's important to you, and then secondly listing those down as actual value words, right?

Tobi

So I also did the Clarity Method for myself, in a sort of self-coaching process with the book. And maybe we can use my example to recap what I experienced here. We have this nice tool, a metaFox online coaching platform, where I was able to work with our own values cards. So my thinking process started a bit like this, where I would have a bunch of value words, I think in total we have 80 here,

Tim Brownson

If I can just dive in there a second, please. So, I said there are three stages, and there are, but what I will do with every client before I move from stage one, which they've largely done on their own before the call, into stage two of ordering the hierarchy, is have them explain to me what that word means to them. So I can see a word like freedom, and to me that means what I've got at the moment, which is seeing clients when I want, taking the dogs out when I want, being relatively financially independent. So doing, I wouldn't say what I want when I want, because I think that's probably largely impossible for all but the super rich. So we have to understand, as coaches, what that word means to the client. Otherwise we put our definition on it and we could be way off base. Somebody else may mean freedom of financial freedom, or they meant freedom from other people, never wanting to get married, or that kind of thing. So we're locked into our own reasoning, and we think we know what other people mean. It's like, you know, we see the color red, we think everybody else is seeing the same color as us, but we've actually literally no way of knowing that, because they've always called that what they

Tobi

We can get a bit more abstract on that, but maybe let's say we are in this coaching conversation and I am a client coming to you now. Look, Tim, I did my homework, these are my values that I came up with. How would the conversation go? Where would you dig in now?

Tim Brownson

I'd say, let's take friendship, because it's going to be the easiest one to do, not because you can't do the same process with the others. I'd say, what does friendship mean to you?

Tobi

I think I define it here for myself in a much more encompassing way. It's not only about friends, I think I would even put belonging to my family there.

Tim Brownson

Right. And when you go so far down that people are struggling to explain it with other words, you know you are at a core value then. So I would say, whether I'd say this to a client I'm not sure, it would depend on the client, I would say that the real value there is connection, and not friendship, because friendship's just a part of connection. Because you mentioned family and stuff like that, where you wouldn't typically think of that as friendship. Of course you can, my wife's my best friend as well. So I think connection is the thing, because you can feel connected to other people without necessarily being friends with them. I feel connected to other supporters of my club, or LA Rams supporters. I feel connected to people who were born in 63, you know, well, maybe not. So we can feel connected to people without even knowing them. So I think connection is the value there.

Tobi

Yeah. This reminds me of another example you've given in your book, right?

Tobi

Where you say, when people come to you and say money is a value, then you would also dig in: is it really money? What can you do with it, what does money give you? And then you would dig in there.

Tim Brownson

Yeah. Because money's never a value, because it's always the thing that people gain from money. That's the real value. So that could be security, which is a dubious value because it's out of our control to a large part. It could be the freedom that we talked about, financial freedom. It could be any number of things. So what I would say is, what does money give you?

Tobi

And that is not even about money and what it represents, it is about, we have not dug deep enough yet. There is something behind the person saying money. That's what you're saying.

Tim Brownson

Yeah. I think nobody would want a million dollars or a million euros or pounds if they couldn't do anything with it. You can't spend it, you can't invest it, you can't give it away. Why do you want it? It's just going to fill up space. So it can't be the money, it's got to be the thing the money gives you. That's the real value.

Tobi

And I was wondering the same thing when I looked at the value making a difference. We have it in the card set. But I was also thinking, is that really already the core, or is there something more behind it? What would you say if you see that, making a difference? Because obviously that is not on the list of values in your book.

Tim Brownson

No, it's not, and it's something I see quite often, because a lot of coaches get into it, contrary to popular opinion, very few coaches get into it to make a lot of money, that's just not the norm. So with making a difference, I would say, well, how do you feel if you make a difference?

Tobi

I feel like I'm giving back. And, just looking at my board here with values, I'm wondering if it kind of goes back to the connection already. Because making a difference and giving back already makes me again feel connected to the area, to the person, to the people I'm making a difference for. So I'm wondering if that is even connected. I'm putting it here also together with stewardship, because I think it's also related to taking care, taking care of what I've been given responsibility for. And in a way I think you could also interpret that relatively abstractly: having a good education, having enough money, comes with a responsibility of taking care of broader society, the environment, et cetera.

Tim Brownson

Well, I might do. I might also ask for examples. But you gave me a couple there, with the environment, and, because you've got a young family, making sure they get a good education, et cetera. So I think I would roll with that. You know what you mean by it, I now know what you mean by it. There may come a time where I could ask you, as your coach, what is that, making a difference? I'm trying to think, are there any instances where, say, responsibility and making a difference conflict? Maybe there's something that's responsible for your family, but it doesn't make a difference, or it stops you from making a difference. And you've got to have that conversation then. But I think those things, for the most part, would sit together nicely. And I wouldn't have a problem with it. I just think, okay, well, stewardship's important as well, responsibility. Sometimes I do get some clients who will send me the list back and each one's got about four in it, and it makes the process really long. And it almost feels like people are scared of pushing a value away, which they're not. Quite frequently clients say, I can't believe that's at the bottom of our list. Well, it isn't. We're looking at the top eight, and this is like looking at the top four in the Premier League and saying the fourth team is bottom. Well, no, it isn't, it's the top four. So it's not a question of pushing anything away, it's a question of figuring out which is the most important. And, by the way, something else I would explain to clients before, or after, I've done the process: there is no one set hierarchy.

Tim Brownson

I'm talking about the hierarchy, but values fluctuate, they will move around. The older we get, the less they tend to move, is my experience. But they will move, they will change with life situations. I frequently don't see health on a client's list, and nothing even related to health, but I can guarantee you, if they got a serious medical diagnosis, health would suddenly be maybe at number one. So they will move. World events at the moment will be causing some people's values to fluctuate. They'll suddenly realize, actually, this is more important to me, this is higher up. And under normal circumstances maybe they wouldn't have considered that. So we are looking to get a rough idea, not to say, okay, this is nailed on, this is your top value, you can never do anything that misaligns you with that value. There

Tobi

Yeah, this really resonates. Maybe with a slightly similar example: I look back at the last year, and what I realized in becoming a father, that's what happened in my personal life in broad strokes in the last year, is that all of a sudden I became much more interested in the amounts of money we make month on month at metaFox. And then I would look there. So this value, I think in our cards we have the value of financial stability. And Max, my co-founder, also said, hey, Tobi, you seem to be much more interested in this now, while usually I would lean on him to have a good grip on the numbers in the business. And I think that is a bit similar to the example that you're giving.

Tim Brownson

Yeah. And if something went wrong with the business, it will become even more important, especially when you've got other people to care for as well. So we just have to be aware of that. I always encourage clients: look at the list, maybe print it off, throw it in a drawer, forget about it. But if something suddenly pops into your head, go back to it and think, okay, does that need to be in the list now? And then I ask them just to update me. And sometimes people will make changes the day after, because they've had a chance to step away from it and think, you know what, that is really important. One of the things I'll always do, Tobi, with a lot of people, if they don't have family on the list, at the end of it I'll go back and say, what's more important to you? Let's suppose at number eight is creativity. So, what's more important to you, family or creativity? And they'll always say, well, obviously it's

Tobi

Okay. To make some progress now: I think you already gave some teasers, you were mentioning the list and the ranking a bunch of times, and that is what would be next in this process, right? I did some brainstorming, we dug into what these different words actually mean to me as a client, and now you came up with a ranking system that seems relatively wild at first glance, sort of an algorithm. But I think it's actually really surprisingly intuitive and easy once you get the grasp. And you provide this template here, right? We have this table, which I filled now with my values. And you could see here, okay, I put personal growth first in the list. Then creativity, then impact, contribution, that's what I made out of the making-a-difference value, then responsibility. I sort of created a new word

Tim Brownson

Correct.

Tobi

Responsibility has also four circles, so it also gets a score of four, and so on and so forth. And that's how I end up with a hierarchy here, where I have responsibility at my top. And then second place is shared by creativity and connection. Then we have personal growth, then contribution, curiosity, authenticity, and efficiency at the bottom.

Tim Brownson

Right. So, a couple of things. First of all, let me go back to why I do it like this and why I just don't say to a client, okay, order them yourself. When I go through a list and say, okay, Tobi, what's one point two, personal growth or creativity, I want you to give me an immediate response. I don't want you to think about it, I don't want you to rationalize. Because again, you end up with a list of things that you think you should have. Now, at the opposite end of the scale from woo woo, I am very science driven, but values are a little bit woo woo, because you can't pin them down. Philosophers have been debating values and what they mean and their importance since the dawn of time. But I want to ask people, when I go through the process, what's more important to you, and get that instant response. Because we all have gut responses. Now, you can look at a gut response as being, ah, you know what, it's just a feeling, I don't even know what it is, because the unconscious mind doesn't communicate in language like the conscious mind does. So everybody watching this will have had some occurrence in their life where afterwards they said, ah, I knew I shouldn't have done that, or, I knew I should do that. Because they've had

Tim Brownson

So I would rank that a little bit higher. Now, does it really matter? We are dealing in tiny, tiny amounts here, and it could fluctuate, as I spoke about before, it possibly doesn't matter. But I will do that. Now, you can get three the same, you could actually get four the same, it doesn't happen very often. Once I get three, I'm not going to separate them, because you just get into the circle that A is more important than B, B is more important than C, but C is more important than A.

Tobi

So I could basically change the order of my ranking, and I'm just doing that actually here. You said, okay, I compared number seven, curiosity, versus number eight, authenticity. So now I would put curiosity first, authenticity next, and then finally you have efficiency. And now this would become my actual final ranking,

Tim Brownson

Right. And how does that feel to you?

Tobi

Pretty cool. Especially the top, it's great fun to look at.

Tim Brownson

And the thing is with values, well, everybody thinks their values are great, because if they didn't, they're not your values. Because they're super important to us and they're personal to us, so we think, yeah, we've got good values.

Tobi

To finish that up: we went through step one, that was, I collected my values. We debated a bit how we actually define those different words, what does friendship, or making a difference, actually mean to me. And now we used your ranking algorithm to come up with a ranked values list.

Tobi

And now I think another element, and also, I would say, an innovation you have contributed here, is anti values. You provide a list of anti values. So I have a list here that says aggression, anger, anxiety, apathy, arrogance, conflict, contempt, cynicism, deceit, dishonesty, disgust, et cetera. Words that make it much more easy to say, no, I don't want this in my life,

Tim Brownson

For the most part, we are just as driven by the things we don't want and want to avoid as by the things that we do want. So coaches are almost programmed to focus on the positive and to look towards the good. I think it's a mistake. We need to be aware. For me, when I was a salesperson, I was much more driven by not being near the bottom of a sales league than by a desire to be near the top. Now, the net result is the same, if I'm nowhere near the bottom then I'm near the top. But it was that fear of missing goals that really motivated me. So as coaches we need to know what's going to motivate people, and these can be

Tobi

Yeah. So you're saying I'm motivated in two different ways. On the one hand I want to have more of a value in my life, so I'm motivated towards a value. But often even more important, I'm also motivated by getting away from a certain thing, and these are anti values.

Tim Brownson

Correct. So, for me, stress is important. When I was in sales I was stressed to death most of the time, it was just a very intense industry, in corporate sales. And that was a big driving force in me becoming a coach, because I wanted to have that freedom. So, stress: now I almost never get stressed, so I've eradicated that from my life, but I'm aware of it. I will do what I can to avoid that.

Tobi

So we have this set of anti values, and we want to understand what we are motivated to get away from. What would that look like in the values coaching process? Would I just do the same process? So I would make my list and apply the ranking mechanism to understand these are my top anti values. Would you actually do that?

Tim Brownson

Correct. It's exactly the same. But I would ask the question, which is worse for you? Not, which do you prefer? So then at the end I'd have a list, like you had with your core values, with the one that scored the highest being the most important thing that we need to avoid.

Tobi

You know, when I originally did my values list, authenticity for example wasn't on there. It didn't come up when I was looking at the values. But then, when I looked at your list of anti values, I found it there. I was like, arrogance, yeah, I want to put that on my list of anti values. But what does that actually mean if I look at the other side of the coin? And then I realized, huh, maybe I should have authenticity on my list of values. So by going through the anti values I was also realizing, ah, not wanting arrogance or hypocrisy, or these things, that brought me then to actually putting authenticity on the list of values.

Tim Brownson

Yeah, that's interesting. I'm not sure, I don't remember anybody saying that before, but it's an interesting way to look at it.

Tobi

If we go back to our values coaching process: earlier, when we started this conversation, you gave me this three step process. You said we start by thinking about values, clarifying personal definitions. Secondly, we would go through this listing and ranking process, so I come up with my hierarchy of eight top values. And as a third step you said you would clarify internal and external value conflicts. Can you talk a bit about that? How does that look? What is an internal and an external value conflict?

Tim Brownson

Yeah. I mean, we've touched on it to a certain extent. It is client specific as well. Certainly, as a life coach, it depends why a client came to me. If they came to me because they wanted to move jobs, for example, they're unhappy in their role, then I would do the explanation based on that. So an external value conflict can be anything at an individual level, right the way up to a societal level. So if anybody thinks about people they dislike, there's certainly a value conflict. I find it really difficult to like people who lack integrity. It's just instant, yeah, I'm not interested if you are doing that. And that's why I will call people out. It's not necessarily smart to do that, but it's just the way I feel. And obviously, in the workplace, it can be with the business, it can just be the business where you've got a value conflict. So, by putting your values on your website and directing applicants to them, you are trying to avoid a value conflict further down the road.

Tobi

Yeah. In a way, what I hear is that value conflicts are also where the rubber hits the road, in the sense that this is where this connects with the actual client issue. Because maybe a client says, I'm really unhappy at my company, I'm considering leaving, I don't really know, I don't have the clarity. That's where you bring up values as a theme, and then there's an external value conflict between his values and the company values, or those of colleagues, the boss, et cetera. Or vice versa: maybe there's a very tough decision that I need to make about pursuing an ambitious role, which would mean I have to move countries, and I really want to do it but I also don't want to do it because of my family, et cetera. So that points towards an internal value conflict,

Tim Brownson

Yeah. And there can be, like a Venn diagram, where they sort of tend to overlap, and it just gets a bit of a gray area, where it feels wrong, and it is wrong when you look externally as well. But yeah, that's exactly it.

Tobi

So in a way, clarifying the conflict could also be at the beginning of this whole process, but it's more of a suspicion of yours, and then you pull out the values method from your toolbox to make this conflict more explicit, more understandable.

Tim Brownson

Yeah. And I will always do this, I will almost always do values in the second session with a client. So the first session is like onboarding, getting a full understanding and background of the different elements of their life. Because we are very poor, as human beings, at compartmentalizing. So if you are having problems at work, that's often going to leak into your home life and your social life, et cetera. So I will do that first session, and in the second session I will do values. I want the values to be the basis of what we do moving forward, and I will still do that with coaching clients now. Because not only do I get to understand that client better, but they get to understand themselves better, which can be just as important. And then those values are going to feed into their marketing, because often that's something that coaches don't implement, or just don't understand a lot of the time, don't realize.

Tobi

Okay, great. Maybe a few closing questions on the philosophy of values here. You said values are the most transformational, the most breakthrough-prone tool. I had a similar experience with using strengths, they also help,

Tobi

in a way, to give that clarity, understanding who I am. How would you differentiate values, maybe, versus strengths versus needs? With some of the value words we looked at, I also thought, is this connection, is this a value of mine, or is this a need? Do you make a difference there, or is that all just mental construction that's not really helpful? How do you look at these different definitions, at working with these terms?

Tim Brownson

Well, values and needs, I'm going to use the Venn diagram again, it is almost an eclipse. So I think they're almost the same thing. And I'll be honest with you, Tobi, I've never sat down to think about where the differences are. Maybe there are some, but intuitively I think they're probably the same thing. Strengths is a different animal altogether. And I know some coaches use StrengthsFinder and they specialize in that, and that's fine. But we can have strengths that are not, you know, I could be a fantastic liar, that's a strength, well, that impacts on my integrity. I could be a very good writer of prose that doesn't use humor, but yeah, if I think of something stupid to throw in there, I want to do that. But that could be a strength. So strengths are useful to know, and obviously the sweet part is when the strength overlaps entirely with a value. So I personally never did any strengths work with clients, but I think it can be a useful thing. But I think it's a problem when you only do strengths, and you push on using those strengths and thinking this is what a client should be doing, when it contradicts their values. Because we can be good at loads of things that aren't necessarily value aligned. So that would be my concern. If you marry the two together, fantastic.

Tobi

Yeah, I think so. And I think also modern interpretations of strengths psychology take that into account by asking, what are you naturally drawn to, what gives you energy? And I would say, if you ask these questions, and for example we also came up with a strengths discovery tool that asks exactly these questions,

Tim Brownson

Right. I fully agree. But, for me, I have to keep going back to integrity because it's the easiest one for me to explain. I don't know if I'm drawn to integrity. So, is it a strength of mine? I don't know if I would think about that as a strength. So I think there are things, you know, family: if you want to have closer relationships with your family, but actually the reality of it is you are working too much, and so is your wife, and she's not spending the time with your baby that you would like. So it may be that it's actually not a strength of yours, but you would like to make it a strength. So whether that's being drawn to it or not, I don't know. But I think it's easy still to miss some important values, and to do this process takes an hour, and I think it's worth doing it along with strengths. I would do it before, so you don't prime people. But I think it's useful. And to be honest with you, you are probably more knowledgeable about strengths and how it's going in psychology than I am at this point. I tend not to read about that kind of stuff anymore, because there's so

Tobi

In order to close off this part: what would you tell somebody, a coach listening to this show who is now curious, intrigued by the Clarity Method, by working with values? How would you recommend to get started with all of this?

Tim Brownson

My book is 9.99 on Amazon. That would be the starting point, I would say, just dive in there. There's a lot of information out there on values, some of it's good, some of it's bad. If anybody likes what we've talked about today, well, it's all there. We've not talked about anything that isn't in the book. Maybe I went a little bit deeper on the anti values, but it's all there. If anybody watching this genuinely can't afford 9.99, well, I would expect that they can't afford to be a coach if they haven't got 9.99, because that's a cost of running their business. But if they genuinely can't, and they want to email Tim at The Fully Booked Coach, I'll send a free copy.

Tobi

Awesome. Okay. And I can fully agree, I read the book, it's amazing. Your value of humor definitely shines through, so it's not only an educational read but also a really entertaining read. I really enjoyed the process, so that, I guess, is a great starting point.

Tim Brownson

Thank you.

Tobi

This is how I close my conversation about values with Tim Brownson. I had read Tim's book, The Clarity Method, during my Christmas break, during the change of years, and it really got me hooked to look into my own values and to work with them this coming year, for my own sake, but also to use them in coaching conversations I have with clients, and also to expand the metaFox coaching tool suite in this direction. So if Tim and I got you curious to also look into values,