93. About My Values

What you do or don’t do isn’t as important as who you are. As a missionary, it is easy to base your values on expectations from many different sources. However, when you hone in on your values, the values at the core of you, it can be the biggest confidence boost that you need.

Listen in to Learn:

  • How to prioritize your wants
  • Why you should tap into your internal compass
  • What your true core values really are

List of Values by Brene Brown

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0:00 Hey, what’s up everyone? It’s Jennie Dildine, the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number 93. About my values. Hey, I’m Jennie, the LDS mission coach. And whether you’re preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a returned missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things? Then let’s go. I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next. Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome to the podcast. I’m actually so excited to be with you. Today, I carded a whole bunch of podcasts all at one time, so that I could go to the Taylor Swift concert and to go on spring break with my kids. And so I haven’t actually hopped on this microphone for a little while to talk to all of you. But I am super excited to be here today. Guess what it is my birthday week. And this week, the day after this podcast comes out will be my birthday, which is April 1. And yes, I am. An April Fool’s baby is not a joke. No joking here. But I was born on April Fool’s Day. So that’ll be fun. So today, I want to share a little bit with you about like my journey as a coach, how I got to be where I am. I also want to share with you a few little interesting things about me. And also I’m going to talk all about a fun little exercise that you can do to figure out what your values are. And I’m going to share my values with you as well, and kind of see why it’s important to kind of figure out those values. But before I jump in, I definitely need to tell you about a couple things. Number one, I’ve got some big stuff coming down the pipeline this summer in my business. So if you are a coach, or if you’re a returned missionary, and you would like to work with me in this business. To get more help out to more missionaries. I want you to send me an email Jennie at Jennie dildine.com. And you can get on the list of coaches and return missionaries that I’m going to pull from when I am ready to hire which is coming up very soon. If you know someone else that might be interested in this, please pass the word along because there is some fun things that I’m going to be doing towards the end of the summer and into the fall. And so I want to have all of the best coaches, all of the RMS that are most passionate about this ready to go. So send me an email and say, hey, I’m interested, I want to work with you. That is something that you can go do right now. The other thing, because it’s my birthday month. I love April. And I just decided this is really crazy, you guys. I’ve decided that I want to give away one whole coaching program for the month of April, as a giveaway. Now I keep asking my assistant shout out to Kayla, who is my assistant who helps me with all kinds of things. I was like, Am I crazy for one whole free session, one whole free program. And I might be crazy. But that’s what I want to do. And it’s 10 sessions, it is completely life changing and mission changing. So it doesn’t matter if you’re preparing missionary, or currently serving missionary or return missionary, maybe you’re just a missionary mom, and you’re like I’d really love to get these tools and talk one on one with Jenny. You need to enter this giveaway. I’ll be announcing it the first week in May. I should totally check what the dates are for sure. But um, all you have to do is if you’re a religious listener, why not? Go go to Apple podcasts and subscribe to the podcast rate and review the podcast. Okay, every week, actually, every Friday starting next Friday. I’m going to also draw names from people who rate and review and follow the podcast, I’m going to draw those names out. And every Friday, I’m going to give you a $50, Amazon gift card to who whichever name I drop. And then at the end of the four weeks at the end of the month to celebrate what an awesome birthday month it’s been. I’m going to take all of the names of people who have submitted reviews, and ratings, and I am going to give away a whole program. It’s going to be awesome. So if you’re one of those people that’s like, Oh, I just really would love to work with Jennie. But it’s sort of out of my price range, or I don’t know if I can afford it or whatever. This is your moment, go to Apple podcasts, and rate and review the podcast, make sure you’re following it. And we are going to get someone some amazing free help, along with some awesome amazon gift cards along the way. Okay, does that sound fun? Next week, I’ll have it a little more dialed in, when I’m going to make that announcement, it’ll probably be the first week of May. So anyway, I’m super excited about that. That’s gonna be amazing. Um, okay, let’s enough about me. Well, actually, let’s talk a little bit more about me, since it’s my birthday week, um, enough about business, shall we say, we’ve got all those logistics out of the way. Want to share a couple things about me that you may or may not know. And I feel like you guys get to know me pretty well on this podcast, actually, because I’m always kind of talking about me and about my family and what I’m into, and all that kind of fun stuff. So I’ve got a few things that I want to share with you about that. And then I also want to jump into values, what a core value is, I want to give you a fun exercise to figure out maybe what your core values are. Okay. So I think it goes without saying that I’m a huge Taylor Swift Fan. You guys, if if you didn’t go to the concert, or if you’re not planning on it, you might want to consider it. Because it was absolutely, like life changing. During the concert, I had so many sort of flashbacks to like those videos you saw of Taylor, when she was like 10 years old, or 11 years old, or 12 years old, just like writing music on her floor with her guitar. And I was just like, wow, look at where she is. Now. She had a vision. And she just went after it. Made a bunch of mistakes along the way. And kept at it. And now look how many people she gets to impact and influence. So I love that. I’m an Amazon junkie. So if at all possible, I never like to actually go to the store. It’s such a hassle to go to the store when you can click a couple buttons and then Amazon will deliver what you need toilet paper, actually the little sequined jacket I wore to the Taylor Swift concert from Amazon, anything that you need from Amazon. So I’m a huge fan. I do love music of all kinds. I actually sing in a choir called millennial choirs and orchestras. We just found out recently that they’re going on tour next summer to Boston in New England area, which we are super excited about. I love music. I love old buildings and history. In fact, one of my favorite old buildings is in San Diego, and on Coronado Island, and it’s called the Hotel Del, I just, I just sometimes wonder if I was born in the wrong era. I don’t know maybe it’s just the romanticize part of me that thinks it would have been awesome to be born, when that hotel was built and be able to go visit there and stuff like that. But I love old pictures, black and white pictures, all the history that’s there. I love imagining what those old buildings were like in their prime. And so, in conjunction with that, I’m also obsessed right now with watching fixer upper shows where they take old buildings that were built in the early 1900s or some of them even I recently was watching one called farmhouse fixer.

9:40 And they take buildings in New England area from like even the 16 and 1700s where they restore them and I’m just obsessed with it. So that is one of my very favorite things to do lately. I love flowers. I love For the spring, I’d love to be warm, which has not happened yet this spring. So I’m definitely looking forward to that. I love the ocean. I love really water in general. But if I had to pick between like a lake or river or an ocean, I think I’d pick an ocean. I don’t actually love swimming in an ocean kind of freaks me out a little bit. But I love being by the ocean. Um, I wanted to share also, some of the most important work that I have done over the last several years after becoming a life coach is learning to love who I am. And not just what I do or don’t do. So I want you to maybe consider this for yourself is what you do or don’t do. Doesn’t matter as much as just who you are. And so I have done so much work through like coaches and like reflecting and I don’t know emotional processing and stuff like that, to really start to love, just who I am without connecting my worth to what I’m doing or not doing. And that’s been really fun. Once you kind of learn how to do that. It sets you free. As far as my background goes, I do have a degree in recreation management and youth leadership from BYU, I don’t even think that’s a degree anymore. I think it’s called something else. But um, my final project in that major was to do a family camp for the Boy Scouts of America, which is super cheesy now that I think about it. But it was the first family camp they’d done. And we had a lot of fun. We had like a family dance and all kinds of things. Then, within the last four or five years, I became certified as a life coach through the Life Coach School. I’ve also received some faith based coaching tools, certification, through Jodie Moore, and also some trauma informed certification through Lindsey Pullman. And I just love the work that I’m doing. So the story about how I got into doing what I’m doing here with missionaries is when my son went on his mission, my oldest son, I really, it was the same time as my youngest daughter went to kindergarten. And I really kind of felt like my world had fallen apart, like I had just been at home with my kids. And I felt like I was on this emotional roller coaster with my kids starting to leave the house. And kind of on an emotional roller coaster, every time we’d get to. We’d get to FaceTime or message with my son. Now back when my oldest son went, we only got to talk twice a year, which was kind of crazy. If you think about that. Now, only Mother’s Day and Christmas. And I remember just having like such a nosedive after we would talk to him, because I just missed him so much. But then I started noticing how my son when he was getting ready to come home, he was starting to kind of dread coming home and not really know what he was going to do with his life or what was going to be next. And so I was like, You know what, what happens is we work our whole lives to send our kids on missions, and then they don’t know really what to do or how to transition home effectively. So about that same time, I was getting help for myself, through coaching and through God more and through the Life Coach School. And I just decided to start focusing on return missionaries and how I could help in that area. Because I saw how these coaching tools that I have really align super well with those. And so I’m like, I think I can make a difference here. So I started working with returned missionaries. And then as they worked with return missionaries, I started having all kinds of mums reach out to me about kids that there are missionaries who are out struggling already on the mission. They were out on the mission. And so it kind of branched down a little bit into the preparing our into The currently serving missionary space. And then I just started thinking like, man, if we could get these tools to missionaries before they leave, how powerful could that be? So I’ve got some fun stuff coming up some trainings for mission presidents and things like that as well. Which I am so excited about because think about I’ve just seen it over and over with these tools. How when the missionaries that I’ve worked with have the tools before they leave, they actually don’t need me much when they get home, actually, I’ve had moms be like, okay, my daughter’s coming home, you’re going to, we’re going to make sure she gets some sessions with you. And I’m like, Okay, we’ll just see. And most of the time, they don’t need it. Because these tools apply in all stages of the mission. And then throughout your life, it’s super fun. Some of my clients now are getting married and having babies. And it is just such rewarding work to do. So there’s this concept in this book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. And she talks about how ideas kind of, or creativity kind of comes around and it has kind of a life of its own, and then a little tap someone on the shoulder and be like, Hey, you should do this, this is something that would be useful that people need in the world. And if you don’t, like turn around, and like, take that opportunity, and look at that, that idea, like straight in the face, and then have it come along for the ride, that that idea will come and tap someone else on the shoulder. And that is what happened with me with missionaries, I was like, the more I’ve done it, the more I’m like, This is what I meant to do, I’m not going to stop doing it. I feel so passionate about getting more mental and emotional tools out to more missionaries, because it changes everything. It changes everything. And so that’s been super fun to do. I’ll talk to people who are like, well, this is pretty awesome. And, or maybe I had a setback or something like that. And I’m like, Well, I’m not stopping, I’m gonna keep going, I’m gonna keep going until every missionary feels like they have the tools that they need to feel successful, mentally and emotionally. Because that’s really the most important part, honestly. Because if you don’t have that piece, the rest is just really, really tough. So anyway, you guys, I hope you can get a sense with how much I love this work. And I’m so glad you’re here listening and being a part of it as well. Okay, let’s dive into some of this value stuff. The reason I started thinking about values is because I went to a workshop, that my current coach, her name is Karen Gillan, I went to a workshop that she did, and it was a values workshop. And I’ve had a few different coaches also a shout out to my coach, Amber Smith, who has been on this journey with me, all along the way. So I love both of them. So I went to this values workshop that my coach Karen Gillan did. And let’s just talk about why values are important. And I think that a lot of us feel like just like as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and in our faith tradition, we have some prescribed values that all of us should just hold dear. And maybe even as

18:14 you know, a member of your community or a member of your nation, or a member of your country, maybe you just have some like prescribed unsaid values that you just have. And so those are all super important. But I’m what I’m talking about more today is your like internal sort of Compass, or value system. Besides the ones that you have, from your faith tradition, or from your community, what values do you tend to operate from? What is important to you. And I want us to think about this, because I like to think of our values, our core values as kind of the guard rails along the path that we’re going down. So if we’re in a car, and we’re going down this path towards something that we’re working towards in our lines, these can be kind of the guardrails to help us make sure that we stay on track with where we’re trying to get to. Also, I really do think about values as a good decision making filter. So values can help us sort of prioritize what we want to do and what we don’t want to do, which things should take precedent and which things shouldn’t take precedent as a decision making filter, and also as a way to prioritize. So I am going to share with you a few of the values and you can just kind of check in with yourself. I’m not going to share the whole list because there have quite a few. This is Brene Browns list of kind of core values that she has. And so just listen and see which ones kind of resonate with you. And I will add a link about where to share, like find these values, I want to share that with you, so that you can go back and kind of read them and maybe circle some of these values for yourself. But what I want you to kind of pay attention to is less like your head, like your thoughts that are like, Yes, that makes a lot of sense, I am that thing because I do this. And more like when I say the word, or the value, if it like resonates to you or sort of speaks to you. Okay, so let me read you a few of these. And the idea if you want to do this exercise is that you? First you’re going to end up with like 10 or 15. And then hopefully by the end, you end up with just two or three values. And I’m going to teach you kind of how to do that. But let me just read you a couple of these. So there’s accountability, adventure, ambition, balance, belonging, commitment, competence, courage, diversity, fairness, financial stability. There’s humor, integrity, joy, legacy. That’s a fun one. Openness, patriotism, self discipline, risk taking, teamwork, success, truth, wealth wholeheartedness. And then, on this list that you actually can download yourself on Brene Browns website. She also has a place to like write your own travel is on here. And so what we did in this workshop is I just kind of wrote down a bunch that kind of just came to me. And then I also kind of picked and choose from this list that we were provided with now, let me share with you kind of some of the values that I have. These were the ones that kind of stuck out to me, my first like eight or 10 or 15 values. And not ones that like logically made sense. But things that like really spoke to me and felt like they were an intrinsic like internal value system. Okay, so I had time, space, success, contribution, recognition, compassion, home, family, inclusion, ease, leisure, efficiency, vision, fairness, and acceptance. So that’s just a few creativity time. Those were a few of the words that came to my mind. Now what you can do after you have this huge list is then you can go ahead. And you can what car in, my coach said as you start to nest them under one category. So what you’ll find is when you have all of these values together, is that some of them start to kind of clumped together that have similar they’re kind of like a similar vibe. So like for me. A few of them kind of came together like creativity, time, space, ease, leisure. Those all felt kind of similar success, contribution, leadership, recognition efficiency, those ones kind of grouped together. And it was just kind of on my paper like this one goes here. Oh, yeah, that one kind of matches with this one. And then the last kind of grouping I had was home compassion, fairness, acceptance, family, openness and inclusion. And so after I kind of nested all of those, then you start to notice that you have three sort of groupings, or maybe you have four sort of groupings. And then what you can do is you can decide is there one of those values? That feels like the most important one that feels like it’s at the head of the list? And the other ones kind of all kind of are cousins to it or fall by If it. And so let me share you share with you what I came up with is ease, vision and openness. Now what we might find, and this might happen to you is, as you kind of put down these values, some of them, you might want to judge a little bit. Like when I wrote down ease, I was sort of like, that’s kind of lame, because I really often would rather just like, do the easiest thing rather than work really hard. And I think the reason I kind of judged that a little bit is because of the way kind of our society is were, we were rewarded for working super hard, especially right on the mission. And so and everyone tells us, you have to work really hard, you have to work really hard. And so when I saw that ease, kind of resonated with me, I was like, oh, but instead of judging it just, you can just be curious, like, oh, that’s super interesting. How, how is that true for me? How can this be a guardrail or a decision making filter, and help me prioritize the things that I have in my life. So what’s super fun, is, let’s say, you are talking to your companion. And you guys have a couple options of like what you could do on your PD,

26:33 right, what you can do is you can run those options, or that decision through the filter, you can run it through your value system. So let’s say one of the, like, one of you were like, well, we could do our grocery shopping, we could go to the park and just, you know, relax a little bit. Or we could go visit these, like these people, or something like that, or, and of course, maybe you’re gonna FaceTime your family. Now, there’s a lot of ideas, probably about what you think would be the right thing to do, or the quote unquote, wrong thing to do. But instead of going there and using your brain to try to figure out what’s right and wrong, you can run it through your values. So for me, I would just be like, Okay, what feels the most easy, what feels full of ease, what contributes to my value of vision, which of these options, and which feels like, the most open thing to do? So again, to like, let’s take it to after the mission, let’s say you have, I was talking to one client, and she was like, I can either go home for the weekend, or I can stay here and go to this one concert with this boy, that I’m not really sure if I even want to go to and I’m not really sure about him. And when you know what your three core values are, instead of like trying to go back and forth, and like, should I shouldn’t I shouldn’t I? Should I? What’s the best? What’s the worst, all of that you just, like layer these values over the top of the decision? What would you do? That feels the most easy? The most simple? What would you do that has the most like vision for your future, like what you want to create in the future, which one of these things align the most with that? What feels the most open? Like what feels the most open and fun and creative? Okay, so see how this works. It’s actually super fun. And it’s been a super fun thing for me to start to apply in this business that I’m the work that I’m doing with missionaries. So let me dive a little bit deeper on my values. And why these are important to me. And these of course, go hand in hand with a lot of other like values with my faith tradition and things like that. But these feel these three feel like me, like from the inside. Okay, so let’s talk about ease. Here’s the funny thing. Like if my husband was like, let’s go out to dinner with some friends. My thing is like, Well, does it feel easy? Is it simple? What I would usually most like to do is just get takeout and then sit at home and eat dinner at home and watch Netflix, or a movie. Maybe one of those like fixer upper shows that I was talking about. And that’s just me, it feels easy. I want things to be Simple, I want things to make sense. And so I think this applies, like in my business and with my clients because I want them to feel like they have ease in their day to day life. Like, I think this value allows me to help my clients see that it can be easier than it is. So many missionaries, like put so much pressure on themselves. And so many return, missionaries put so much pressure on themselves. And there is an easier way, it’s actually something, I feel like I’m really good at seeing kind of the big picture. And seeing how it can be easier for them. And ways to be, like have ease in the way that you treat yourself, ease in the way that you treat other people. And so yes, I love ease. And it feels like a value to me. No vision, this one, I kind of have felt it inside for a long time. And it’s taken me a minute to really step into it and own it. But I have a big vision of what I want, like would love to see for my family. Like, I want to take all of them to Europe next summer. If you’re listening family, that’ll be fun, right? I have a vision for what I want to do with this business. And helping missionaries like I was sort of taught one way is that you coach one on one, and then you do that this way. And then you have a small group. And I’m like, No, this needs to be big, there’s so many missionaries that need help. And so I have a vision of how to to make that happen. I also with my clients, like I even like even on the first session, or in a strategy session. If they can’t see it, I do if they can’t see how they can come out of it or feel better, or create something different, I really have the vision to see that for them and hold that space for them and believe in them. Even when they can’t believe in themselves. It’s super important for me, because I don’t use my vision to hate on myself to be like I can’t believe I’m not there. And that’s not what I want for my clients either. I love vision as a way to support and to give us something to move towards my clients, me my family. That feels really true and fun and exciting to me. And the last one is openness. Now this one, I don’t know, it’s been a part of me for a long time, I’ve always been able to be one to see both sides of a story, or both sides of an argument or understand something from two ways from two sides. And so this is really useful with the work I’m doing, because I think it gives me like so much compassion, to see it from someone’s perspective. And then also, to see it maybe from another person’s perspective. And this includes like, being inclusive, I’ve always been really good at, like meeting people exactly where they are without any judgement. And just being open to including everyone in my circle, like everyone is welcome. There is no person that is not invited to be part of what I’m creating of who I am. And that is a really a really just expansive place to be. So, um, I don’t know when all of this is felt kind of personal, but I hope it gives you a little bit of an insight. The last I have. The last couple of things I’ll say is that sometimes what you find is when you kind of hone in on your three, two or three kind of core values and what those are, you will start to go to your past. And notice how when those values weren’t aligned, why it affected you so much. So like I have one example is when I my husband worked in Beverly Hills for a little while building houses right after we graduated from BYU, and we didn’t live in bear Everly hills, but he built multi mega mansions there. And then there was a few other people who worked there that were also from BYU. So we all kind of got along really well. And there was, I think the priesthood session, I don’t think they call it that anymore. Um, yeah, so also found that general conferences coming up this weekend. But there was the priest in session. And so back in the day, girls would get together, while their husbands would go over to the church to watch the priesthood session of General Conference. Well, I had my kids and I was super into Fisher Price little people. And so one of my favorite things to do was, I don’t know, I’m just obsessed with them, I still have all of them so that I can, my grandkids can use them. But, um, anyway, so I was going to sort of treat myself and we were gonna go get, I don’t know, the fire station or something for my kids, my two boys who are tiny at the time. And there was this like shopping mall. And so I went to the Toys R Us. And as I was going into the Toys R Us to get the fire station that I’ve sort of been searching on and looking at.

36:19 I saw this group of other women who worked with me or work their husbands worked with my husbands. And I just was like, really hurt. Because I thought, well, they could like they weren’t having like yogurt together, frozen yogurt together. And like had obviously planned this thing. And I obviously wasn’t even invited. So it’s one of those like, super awkward things. But when I did this exercise, with ease vision and openness I was I realized, like, oh, that’s because openness or fairness, or compassion, and inclusion is one of my core values. That’s why that was so painful. Because for me, I’m like, of course, you would just invite everybody from the office that you know, all of the spouses from the office anyway. So that’s just something to kind of play with is if you’re having a hard time figuring out what your core values are. Sometimes you can go back and be like, Oh, that thing was super hard, I felt super hurt. I wonder what that was about, maybe that has to do with one of my values. So the other thing with your values is, the three that you pick should feel good and expansive. It should feel like motivation, to move towards something to keep going to bring some sort of like, joy or excitement. And feel like those values are expanding you into more of the person that you want to be so more of the missionary that you want to be more of the human that you want to be more of the return missionary that you want to be. So think about applying these values or these guardrails, or these decision making filters to all the aspects of your life, and maybe you can just do it for this next week, like all of your decisions and your priorities. Maybe if you have a test you’re studying for, or if you’re asked out on a date, or if you are trying to figure out like, who’s going to teach the lesson if you’re a missionary. Or what you want to say in your interview with your mission president whatever. See if you can run it through your values, these three values and hopefully, that will make it super fun, super expansive, and and really just help you feel like you’re living aligned with the kind of person that you are and the kind of person that you want to be. So thanks for hanging out with me today. Thanks for listening to me. And I just wanted to be able to share a little bit about me about my values about what I love. And I hope it encourages you to think about what you love to and learn to love who you are, and not just find your worth and what you do or don’t do. All right, you guys have the most amazing week, and we will talk to you next time. Serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can present a unique set of challenges, and many of those challenges you might not even see coming. So you’re gonna want a unique set of solutions. It’s easier than you think to overcome worry and anxiety serve the successful mission you’ve always dreamed of a and navigate your post submission experience with confidence. That is why I created some amazing free goodies that I’m sharing in my show notes. Maybe you want to grab the free training for preparing missionaries, my video course for RMS or maybe you and I should hop on a free strategy call. If you’re ready to take your preparedness to serve or your preparedness to come home to the next level. Then go grab one of those freebies. And in the meantime, no matter which part of the mission experience you are involved in, just know that Jenny, the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day

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Hey! I'm Jennie - The LDS Mission Coach.

Preparing for, serving and coming home from an LDS Mission can present countless changes and transitions. I’ve seen these changes put missionaries at the mercy of their emotions and questioning their abilities. With the tools I teach, young adults empower themselves to navigate every moment of the mission experience with epic, unwavering confidence.

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