About three years ago — coincidentally around the same time we launched the Right as Rain column here on Chapelboro.com — I was reading Brené Brown’s book “Dare to Lead.”

If you are a reader of the Right as Rain column, you know how much I admire Brené’s work.

I’ve read most of her books, but this one was specifically applying her vulnerability, shame, and empathy research work to the world of business and leadership. And I had just launched a new business, so it seemed like a no-brainer to read it. 

There were several exercises throughout the book, but one of them had me stuck for months.

You’ve probably heard the term “core values” before. We all have. And we’ve all probably misused them, or glossed over them. Maybe you talked about them at your job and you might’ve even written them down alongside your mission statement.

But most of us — personally or professionally — struggle to really live within them. That’s because it’s very easy to identify with many core values. This was my problem.

Of course “family” is a value of mine. So is “achievement,” so is “love,” and so is “wealth.” 

I even thought about if I should choose what my core values were currently, or what I wanted them to be. “Empathy” sounded good, because that was a cornerstone of storytelling, my new career path. But that seemed forced, so I wasn’t sure if I should include it.

What made the process so hard is that I had to whittle it down to just two core values. Out of hundreds of possibilities! But as any branding expert will tell you, if you have too long of a list of things that are important to you, or priorities for your business, none of them will actually be a driver of the work you do in the world.

In order to find that, you need just two. And those are the pillars upon which your brand is built.

I had a long list, some of them scratched out and some of them starred. But this was hard. I finished the book without finishing the exercise, but I kept it in the back of my mind. 

It took months for these core values to surface in my mind and they both happened (at different times, several weeks apart), while I was doing physical activity. 

Once when I was riding the stationary bike at home, the first one popped into my head.

Communication. 

My whole life, I’ve cared about communication — how we talk and share ideas. 

I was great with words as a kid, I won spelling bees, and I wrote many short stories. As I became a teenager, I was enthralled with how we could manipulate situations with our words, using mine to talk myself out of yellow cards on the soccer field as well as figure out effective ways of flirting. I even studied Communication Media in college, learning how to use video, television, and digital media to tell my stories.

But as an adult, being a father, husband, and business owner, I am convinced that understanding how to communicate effectively is the best way to make our meaningful relationships function well enough to deepen our impact and achieve our goals. 

It’s about communication for me. And it always has been.

Then, a month or two later, I was practicing soccer by myself at Old Chapel Hill Rd Park — my little secret getaway for exercise and self-therapy.

I was juggling the ball and thinking about how excited I was that I was starting to really understand my business (and business in general) and how things worked. The angles were becoming clearer to me and I was learning how to connect the dots.

Then it hit me. Connection.

Everything that I had built, any successes I had had at that point, any plans that I had laid out and achieved by following the step-by-step path that I created came back to that one thing: connection.

That meant connecting with people. Since I had opened myself up to networking and establishing organic, real-life human relationships with like-minded individuals, things had opened up for my life and business in completely new ways. 

That also meant connecting with my audience, my followers, my customers and clients. Once I was on the same wavelength as them, I could fully understand the struggles they were experiencing and therefore the ways in which I could help them the most.

But maybe most importantly, it meant connecting with myself — spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. 

It’s perhaps no surprise that both of these little epiphanies happened while I was doing physical exercise. All of those aspects of self are tied together. The more we are connected with our bodies, the more we are connected with our minds. And the more we are connected with our minds, the more we are connected with our souls.

It’s all tied together. It’s all connected.

The world is connected. People are connected. You and I are connected right now. Thoughts, ideas, emotions, and energy are all connected.

And that’s important to me, because it’s how I’ve made my life fulfilling. If you build your life upon the two pillars that are your core values, you can too.

But just remember that you can’t choose your core values, because they are already inside of you. You just have to find them.


Rain Bennett is a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker, writer, and competitive storyteller with over a decade of experience producing documentary films that focus on health and wellness. His mission is simple: to make the world happier and healthier by sharing stories of change.

You can read the rest of “Right as Rain” here, and check back every Wednesday on Chapelboro for a new column! 


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