Modern WisdomDiscover Your Core Values & Operating Principles | Taylor Pearson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 199
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 2:03
Values vs. principles: the abstraction ladder (and why integrity is a weak value)
Taylor explains that everyone already operates with implicit rules—even if they can’t articulate them. He distinguishes core values as abstract ideals (like courage) and operating principles as practical heuristics ("if this, then that").
- •Implicit workplace norms reveal hidden principles (e.g., “Amy’s Excel format”)
- •Core values are high-level and broadly applicable but ambiguous in action
- •Operating principles are concrete, situational rules of thumb
- •“Integrity/honesty” are often entry-level expectations, not differentiating values
- 2:03 – 3:35
Why write them down: externalizing your decision ‘algorithms’
Chris asks whether people still have values/principles if they haven’t documented them. Taylor argues we all use internal decision algorithms, and writing them down enables reflection, consistency, and spotting hypocrisy across life domains.
- •Daily life is full of decisions, guided by implicit weighting systems
- •Externalizing makes beliefs inspectable and revisable
- •Helps apply lessons from one domain to another
- •Reveals inconsistencies (treating work vs. relationships differently)
- 3:35 – 6:06
Operating principles as mistake-prevention: ‘don’t multiply by zero’
Taylor shares how principles began as a way to stop repeating the same mistakes. He reviews his list during weekly planning to catch predictable errors before they recur.
- •Principles often originate from painful lessons and repeated errors
- •Weekly review creates a feedback loop and improves deliberateness
- •Bias toward avoiding catastrophic mistakes over chasing clever wins
- •“Many ways to get rich, few ways to go broke” framing
- 6:06 – 9:30
Alignment and the navigation system metaphor (geneticists vs. journalists)
Taylor uses a study comparing geneticists and journalists to show how alignment between incentives and meaning drives satisfaction. Principles and values act like a navigation system that continually corrects course and forces deliberate choices.
- •Geneticists’ incentives aligned with doing good science and outcomes
- •Journalists faced misaligned incentives (truth vs. clickbait)
- •Misalignment creates dissatisfaction and drift
- •Values/principles provide ongoing “error correction” toward chosen aims
- 9:30 – 12:35
Defining core values clearly: from company slogans to personal heuristics
Taylor returns to the business-origin of the framework and clarifies the difference between corporate “values” posters and real operating behavior. Chris adds an “ingredients vs meals” analogy to separate values from principles.
- •Business context: many corporate values are vague and meaningless
- •Implicit norms often matter more than stated values
- •Values are ingredients; operating principles are the meals you can make
- •Good values should guide behavior, not merely signal virtue
- 12:35 – 15:46
Taylor’s five core values: agency, learning, courage, soul-in-the-game, reciprocity
Taylor lists his core values and explains what they mean in practice. Several are discovered by noticing what bothers him, what consistently improves his life, and what resonates from other thinkers.
- •Agency: choosing how to live; intolerance for situations that reduce autonomy
- •Self-development/learning: reading as a mood and performance regulator
- •Courage: choosing the harder path that pays off in retrospect
- •Soul in the game: taking on risk/burden for others beyond symmetry
- •Reciprocity: create more value than you capture
- 15:46 – 21:41
Courage as a North Star: the hero’s journey and crossing the threshold
Taylor explains how courage isn’t just a trait but a directional value—one that helps him choose better when facing uncertainty. He uses Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey to describe the moment of refusing or accepting the call to adventure.
- •Values can be aspirational, not only descriptive of current personality
- •Campbell’s “refusal of the call” and “crossing the threshold” as life pattern
- •Courage shows up at major turning points, even in ‘small’ changes
- •Retrospective happiness often correlates with the courageous choice
- 21:41 – 27:19
Chris’s values exercise results: using acronyms to remember and balance values
Chris shares his own core values (CASES) and how the exercise shaped his daily decision-making. They discuss how values function like a checklist and a third-person lens for self-correction across situations.
- •CASES: Curiosity, Adventure, Selfless development, Excellence, Self-care
- •Acronyms help recall; limiting to five forces trade-offs and balance
- •Values guide small daily choices (sleep, walks, phone use, etc.)
- •Externalizing enables “responsible for helping” perspective
- 27:19 – 30:06
Building operating principles: the Vietnam/Thailand beach dilemma and weekly reviews
Taylor describes the moment he realized he was wasting too much time on minor decisions and needed better rules. He started with a short list and grew it over time by capturing repeated patterns and learnings in an ongoing system.
- •Agonizing over a low-stakes choice revealed decision friction
- •Single decisions rarely matter; compounding patterns do
- •Started with ~6–10 principles, expanded gradually (3–5 new per year)
- •Uses weekly review/planning to notice patterns and update the list
- 30:06 – 36:48
Fighting ‘the resistance’ and finishing work: Terminator mode at 85%
Taylor draws from The War of Art to explain the inner resistance that blocks meaningful work and hard conversations. He and Chris discuss why finishing is psychologically harder than starting, and the “85% rule” as an anti-self-sabotage principle.
- •Resistance appears whenever you attempt meaningful change or creation
- •Weekly question: where am I avoiding resistance?
- •At ~85% done, the mind invents reasons to quit or pivot
- •“Finish the turkey” metaphor: 80% complete is effectively useless
- 36:48 – 42:35
10x thinking and predictable failure: power laws, risk aversion, and social lions
Taylor introduces power-law framing as a forcing function to escape incremental grinding. They explore why people prefer predictable failure over uncertain experimentation, linking it to evolutionary fear of the unknown and social rejection.
- •Power-law question: what would make this 10x better?
- •10x often requires changing the system, not doing more of the same
- •People avoid approaches that could fail spectacularly
- •Fear of social judgment mirrors tribal survival instincts; internet enables choosing your tribe
- 42:35 – 46:44
How to start your own principles library: borrow, review, and iterate
Chris asks for a practical starting method. Taylor recommends reading others’ lists to borrow what resonates, then establishing a cadence (weekly/monthly) to review and add new principles as life reveals them.
- •Start by borrowing principles that clearly improve your behavior
- •Create a recurring reminder to reread your list
- •Add principles slowly as recurring patterns emerge
- •Keep a personal/internal longer list; publish a smaller curated one
- 46:44 – 1:01:49
Working smarter, not harder: energy-based scheduling, learning loops, tools, and courage
They walk through Taylor’s “work smarter” framework: match tasks to energy, deliberately build skills, use productivity hacks, automate/outsource, and cultivate courage. Taylor argues courage often beats hacks because it removes the root bottleneck (avoidance).
- •Prioritize tasks by energy, not time (protect peak creative hours)
- •Learn skills with tight feedback loops: read + practice simultaneously
- •Use tools like Focusmate for accountability and deep-work blocks
- •Automate with text expanders, Calendly; outsource via services like Fancy Hands
- •Courage resolves avoided conversations/decisions faster than any hack
- 1:01:49 – 1:05:39
Books and closing: Boyd, War of Art, and Finite vs. Infinite Games
Taylor recommends a few influential books and explains the key idea from Finite and Infinite Games: some games are meant to be won, others to be continued. They close with where to find Taylor’s writing and newsletter.
- •The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (John Boyd biography)
- •The War of Art: naming and confronting resistance
- •Finite and Infinite Games: known rules to win vs. reinvent rules to keep playing
- •Taylor plugs blog/newsletter; conversation wraps
