Insights from Invaluable: How to Find Your Unique Values to a Purposeful and Aligned Life?

Peyman Kor
10 min readDec 26, 2023

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A summary of my thoughts on “Invaluable” book by Somik Raha, on how both individuals and organizations can discover their core values.

Invaluable Book — Image Source: Author

Intro :

I have been studying the field of “Decision Analysis” now for almost 5 years. The “Decision Analysis” is all about how to make good decisions in life. Whether it is good or bad, our decisions are the only way by which we can control our lives.

In simple terms, making a good decision is based on three elements: 1) What are the options in hand, 2) what are the uncertainties, and 3) What we want to achieve.

Let me give one example. Picture this: You are thinking about your 2024 summer vacation and trying to decide where to go. How would you make that choice?

Let’s explore three elements that we discussed for this decision:

  1. What are the options: Spain, Japan, Italy (for example)
  2. What are uncertainties: Weather ( how the weather will be during your vacation)
  3. What you want to achieve: Maximize exposure to good weather and enjoy the sun (for example)

Given this frame and the three elements of the decision, a rational decision can be made.

During my work on making good decisions, I found that many individuals and organizations really struggle with the last part, which is:

What (Truely) you want to achieve?

That essentially boils down to identifying your “Values”. Because fundamentally, you want to achieve something that truly matters to you.

When I first heard about the. “Invaluable” book, I felt that Somik Raha really touched the main bottleneck. I do believe he did an excellent job of addressing how to find values.

Somik also comes from a Decision Analysis background, and I am happy that a fellow from the society (Decision Analysis) has addressed this topic so well.

Why We Need to “Clarify” Our Values in Life?

As the the subtitle of the book indicates, “Achieving Clarity on Value” is in fact highly related to the question of “What to Do in Our Life?”.

Because let's be honest, being human is a complex thing. You wake up every morning, and there are 100s of directions that you can go. Which direction in life to go, is a recurring question in the minds of individuals and even organizations.

As Somik points out, the direction you need to go in life is the direction that is truly aligned with your values.

You need to locate to focus of your life and energy on your values

However, “Values” are not something that in place, and can be easily recognized and to be known.

It is a “Process” you need to go to understand your true value, which is that your value, can be very different from any other individual.

A wonderful book by Somik Raha, and here’s a brief summary and my take on it in a shorter version. I hope you catch the essence of it.

Need to Bring Human Value to Technology:

Technology has evolved with tremendous peace in previous decades. Just look at Artificial intelligence (AI) and all the discussion about the ChatGPT and large language models.

Technology almost outpaced the evolution of the human spirit. A lot of discussion on how to make AI even more efficient, but technology like AI is just a tool.

What we are missing is a human touch, on how to bring human values to the center of discussion in the realm of technology.

But then you may say in business or technology, there is no rule for spirituality or philosophical discussion. For businessman, who cares about spirituality and human values?

Well in fact, as Somik (Author) explains, it is an intersection of business and philosophy, where business and work become meaningful and alive.

What is the Purpose of Business?

Let's go back to business and the purpose of business:

The purpose of business is to be a canvas for our unique service.

Two words are critical here:

First is service, which is the act of serving others, and in more depth, serving in a way that makes other people's lives better.

Another is Unique, which means that there is a unique condition in us that goes beyond us and only “You” can do that service.

What is Wrong with Profit as Business Value?

But it might seem odd because, in the business domain, profit is king. How do we maximize profit? CEOs worldwide often ask themselves, ‘How can we make the most profit?’”

It turns out that optimizing for profit metric suffers from a fundamental issue, the profit metric does not create profit, only how to measure it.

Ok, now we see that Profit is not a practical metric because it does not create profit.

What Could be a More Meaningful Substitute for Business Value other than just Profit?

So, how do you discover values that serve business as a guide for decision-making, how can you be sure that these are the right values?

What we should value is: That protect and preserves life

Honestly, I am somehow shocked to hear this from Somik. Life??

It is really about how to bring philosophy and spirituality into business, which is what makes business alive and meaningful.

What to Do With Your Life?

I would say the same philosophy applies to individuals, too. What is the deep intrinsic value of life? The one that protects and preserves life.

Let me elaborate on it more. The deep intrinsic purpose of life is how to improve the well-being of yourself and others. When you’re involved in activities that contribute to the well-being of others, you’re tapping into life’s intrinsic purpose, which is Giving Life!

Let me give some examples.

Have you ever asked why you brush your teeth twice a day? Brushing your teeth twice a day is an input metric that drives action (you are taking action). But Why? Why do we brush our teeth? We brush our teeth because it leads to dental health. But why does dental health matter? It matters because it leads to our well-being. Your well-being matters because it leads to life, and life matters, because life is the deep, intrinsic value of life.

Both systemic and extrinsic value ends in Intrinsic value of life — Image Source: Author

Another example is imagine a fitness trainer. The fitness trainer will assign the rules, like eating X grams of protein every day, X number of steps to walk per day, or …. These are just rules that drive action (Systemic Value). What does this rule lead to? It leads to the health of the person. What does health mean? it means preserving and protecting the life of the person (well-being of the person), which is a deep, intrinsic value.

But you are a UNIQUE individual

So, I wrote that the well-being of yourself and others is the deep intrinsic value of life.

But, deep satisfaction for the individual comes from their uniqueness.

It means that they are conditioned so uniquely that ONLY you can discover your core values that are aligned with life's purpose.

Nobody can be You! Your genetics, background, and life experience all make you a unique person.

So, being unique, you need to find your “Unique” value that makes “space” for you to deliver life value.

Your values in your life that must be targeted consist of three parts:

  • Your Heart Value
  • Your Habit Value
  • Your Head Value

You need to find your Heart, Habit, and Head Value.

You may need to put focus on your work life on the path that is blend of your Heart, Habit and Head Value.

So far easy, at least to say it. But, how to find them? how to find my heart value, head, and habit value? well…I agree it is a process…it is a bloody process… Sometimes it can take decades.

But once you arrive at your deep value, then every moment of life becomes such joy that you want to go to sleep, looking forward to start tomorrow and living a life in alignment.

Three parts of the “core value “— Image Source: Author

How to Find Your Heart Value:

To find your heart value, you really need to listen to your emotions and feelings. Your heart value should be something you and others can be inspired.

Two useful questions to find your heart value can be : (use your feelings and emotions to answer these two questions)

- Reflect on times you got a thrill of joy through your work. What was the thrill about?

- Reflect on the times you have felt “proud about your work”. What made you proud?

Your heart value is very important. It is something that when you work toward it, you feel a sense of “creative joy”.

How to Find Your Habit Value:

Habit value is an interesting thing because when it gets discovered, it will be your superpower. It is deep inside habit when you show up, that habit shows up too.

Two useful questions to find your habit value can be:

- What is a habit pattern people have noticed you since you were a child?

- What is something you have not been able to stop, even when people have asked you?

Your habit value is not decision, it is a repeated pattern in you. It is not a thoughtful habit you have, it is a pattern that just comes out of you naturally.

How to Find Your Head Value

Your head value is the place you are going to create through your hard work and time.

Two useful questions to find your head value can be:

  • In what profession or area, are you an expert?
  • What is something (subject/topic) you are drawn to it?

Here what I mean by drawn is not what your background is. For example, you may have an education in computer science, but you are drawn into understanding human and computer interaction.

The word drawn here means what is topic/area the more you read, the more you become interested.

Blend Your Heart + Habit + Head Value. You arrive at your True Value!

Your true value in your life is a blend of your Heart, Head, and Habit value. In simpler and easier terms your value in life is a combination of your motivation (heart value) + skill (habit value) + knowledge (head value)

Note that only you know when you arrived at your values, and it’s your values and can be very different from another person's values. This is important to note because people make different life choices simply because values are different.

Story of Mary:

Mary’s Value Mapping — Image Source: Author

An interesting story in the book is about Mary, a lady who had a career in Mergers and Acquisitions in a corporate structure. While successful in her corporate ladder, she was considering doing something else that would be aligned more with her values.

The same process (value-mapping) that I explained on finding heart, head, and habit values was done. After talking the author (Somik) with the Mary, the following found the values of Mary:

Mary’s Heart Value is:

  • Mary’s creative joy was around helping people on their healing journey. So her Heart Value was noted as: “Helping people on their healing journeys.”

Mary’s Habit Value:

At the same time, Mary found it in herself easy to get detached from other people. So her Habit Value was noted as: “Avoiding attachment.”

Given these two values, it was suggested that maybe a therapist line career is something Mary can consider as her career. She decided on that. After some years of conversation, Mary’s life was in a very different direction. Mary’s work was a space for “creative joy”. Later, Mary refined her career further and went to “Love Coach”.
This is an example of how following heart and habit values puts you in the direction that you can further refine and find your head value. Mary was able to create a “Love Coach” distinction for her head value.

Summary

  • Being human is complex. Each morning, you wake up with countless directions to choose from, thinking about a recurring question: “Which direction should I take in life?”
  • The direction you need to go is the one aligned with your values. Then, what is your true value in your life? - In the big picture, the deep, intrinsic, moral value in life is how to bring well-being to yourself and, more importantly, other humans.
  • In simpler terms, the intrinsic value of life is life! Life of you and others.
  • Human individuals need to find a blend of their heart, head, and habit values.
  • Your heart value is what brings you “creative joy” out of doing, your habit value is what is something that “shows in you naturally,” and your head value is the “source of your knowledge”.
  • You need to mix your heart value (motivation), habit value (skills), and head value (knowledge) to find the center of your emotional energy in your life.
  • In the end, all I wrote was easy to say but hard to do :) . Finding your true value in life is a process, sometimes a bloody process. It can take decades…Though like every thing else in life, the path becomes more clear when you START!

Link to Buy Invaluable Book:

https://www.amazon.com/Invaluable-Achieving-Clarity-Somik-Raha/dp/B0C9SLCPWT

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