For more than 25 years, I have taught at the Securities Industry Institute at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. SII is considered the premier executive development program in the securities and financial-services industry. Years ago, over dinner with several members of the program’s Board of Trustees, I told them about a workshop called Strategies for Life Success that I had been teaching for other clients. They were intrigued and asked me to create a 90-minute version for SII. I wasn’t sure how a workshop about planning your life would fit into a program for senior financial executives, but I agreed to give it a try.
The workshop quickly became one of the most popular classes in the program. I now teach it twice each year, and both classes always fill to capacity. I’m amazed when participants tell me it was the longest period of time they had ever spent seriously reflecting on their lives. Many have also told me that the experience changed their lives.
These are successful executives who spend countless hours developing business strategies, setting goals, and deciding how to allocate resources for their organizations. They would never suggest that a company should leave its future to chance. Yet few have approached their own lives with the same level of intention. If having a strategy is essential for building a successful organization, shouldn’t we give the same level of thought to building a successful life?
I begin every session with the same question: How many of you currently have a written list of your personal core values that you use to live your life by on a daily basis and to make all the major decisions in your life?
Usually, only one or two people raise their hands. I tell the group that getting clear about their values will be our starting point because those values should provide a foundation for how they live their lives.
Try the exercise yourself. You may have many values that are important to you, but narrow the list to the five you consider most important. Don’t write what you think should be important or what someone else expects you to value. Identify the principles you genuinely believe should guide how you live. This can be harder than it sounds. I have watched people struggle for quite some time to decide what belongs on that list.
Once you have your five, score yourself from 0 to 10 on how well you are actually living each one. A 10 means that the value is clearly reflected in the way you live. Someone who knew you well would have no trouble seeing that it is important to you. A low score means there is a gap between what you say you value and how you are living. That gap can tell you something important.
The purpose of the score is not to judge yourself. It is to see whether the way you are living matches what you say is important to you. A low number deserves your attention. If something is one of your most deeply held values, but your behavior rarely reflects it, that disconnect can become a source of stress and unhappiness. More importantly, recognizing the gap gives you a chance to do something about it.
I saw this happen years ago with a woman in one of my classes.
She had written God and family as her two most important values. When she rated herself on how well she was living them, she began to cry. She told me she hadn’t been to church in three years and barely saw her children. Then she said, “Now I understand why I’m so unhappy, why I have so much stress and frustration in my life. I tell myself these things are very important, yet I’m not doing them.”
About six months later, she contacted me and told me how much her life had changed. She was going to church every weekend with her family, and they had set aside two nights each week as family nights. They put away their electronics, ate dinner together, and spent time talking. She told me they had grown much closer. I don’t see a transformation that dramatic in every class, but I regularly watch people recognize places where the life they are living does not match the values they say matter most.
Clear values can also become a practical tool for making difficult choices.
I often tell people, “When values are clear, decisions are easy.” That doesn’t mean every decision becomes painless. It means you have a filter. When you face an important choice, ask yourself: Does this align with my values? Will this move me toward the life I want to create? If the answer is clearly no, it becomes much easier to say no.
Another question I ask is: What is your purpose? In one short sentence, what is your life about? Why are you here, and what are you trying to accomplish with your life?
This question often takes people some time. Most of us are busy dealing with everything that needs our attention today. We don’t often stop to consider what we want our lives to mean.
I have asked this question of thousands of people over many years, and I have noticed a consistent pattern in their answers. Almost everyone describes some form of helping or serving other people. They talk about being a good parent, raising great kids, mentoring others, contributing to their community, living their faith, or making a positive difference in the lives of the people around them.
I find that fascinating. When people have a chance to think seriously about what gives their lives meaning, they rarely talk about money, status, or possessions. Those things may be important, but they are seldom at the center of the answer. Instead, people tend to define their purpose by the positive impact they hope to have on others.
Having a clear sense of purpose gives you another way to evaluate how you are living.
Look at where your time and energy are going today. How much of it supports what you say your life is about? If there is a significant gap, you may not be able to change everything immediately. But you can begin making choices that bring the way you live closer to the purpose you have defined.
Purpose leads naturally to another question: What does success mean to you?
We use the word success constantly, yet many people have never taken the time to define it for themselves. Without a personal definition, it is easy to adopt someone else’s version based on money, status, career achievement, or what the people around you seem to value.
I ask participants to write their own definition of success in detail. What would have to be true for you to look at your life and feel that you had lived it well? Your answer might include your relationships, your work, your health, your finances, or the contribution you make to others. The important point is that the definition belongs to you.
Once you have written it down, compare that definition with the life you are living today. Are your actions and choices consistent with the success you just described? Where are you doing well? Where do you see a meaningful gap? This is another place where honest reflection can reveal something that is easy to miss when you are busy moving from one responsibility to the next.
It is possible to achieve a great deal and still discover that you have been pursuing the wrong definition of success.
Achievement is valuable when it contributes to the life you actually want. Defining success for yourself gives you a standard against which you can evaluate where you are now and what may need to change.
Values, purpose, and your definition of success are just three of the handful of areas we explore at SII because I only have 90 minutes. When I teach the full program, I usually have a half day or a full day to work through these exercises and several more in greater depth. Yet even the short time we spend together at SII has a significant impact on the participants. I hope that encourages you to set aside a little time to do the exercises in this article. Becoming clear about your values and purpose can help you make more thoughtful choices about how you live.
We spend an enormous amount of time and energy meeting deadlines, solving problems, taking care of other people, and handling everything life puts in front of us. It’s easy to stay busy for years without stopping long enough to ask whether the life we are building is the life we actually want. Don’t let that be you.
This is the first in a series of four articles based on the classes I’ll be teaching at Wharton in 2027. I’ve reimagined my programs around a progression that begins with Strategies for Life Success, the class I’ve shared with you in this article, then moves to building an outstanding career, becoming a better leader, and developing constructive candor and the ability to influence without authority. The next article will focus on building an outstanding career.
If you want to bring the Strategies for Life Success workshop to your organization, send me a note.
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