We are spending five weeks exploring Fabric’s five core values. These aren’t the core values we would like, but what has been at work all along when we were at our best. This one is “Choose Connection.”

January 16 - At the Core: Choose Connection “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” Really? “If you want to travel fast, go alone.” Hmm… People may slow you down and gum up the works of what you want, but if there is any truth about existence it is that we are all connected. While you are an unique individual, your fulfillment and purpose are found in what you are part of. That is why choosing connection is at Fabric’s core. What about yours?

We will be spending these five weeks exploring five core values of Fabric. These aren’t made up of what we would like our core values to be, but an articulation of what has been and is at work among us when we are at our best. They shouldn’t be surprising to you if you’ve been around for a while. Rather, they should resonate with what you have sensed is behind what we do and why.

A couple of things to know about Core Values.

  • You already have them, whether you know it or not, and whether you’ve chosen them or not.

    Everything you do is for a reason. It stems from some deeply held value that you may or may not want if you consciously considered it.

  • Chosen Core Values are better than adopted Core Values.

    Adopted Core Values are ones you’ve picked up unconsciously through peer or societal pressure, life experience, how you were raised, media influence, etc. That doesn’t make them bad values, but the point is that you haven’t chosen them to guide your life.

  • What doesn’t come from your deeply held, consciously chosen values is a problem.

If it isn’t aligned with what you want your life to be about, it is taking you somewhere you don’t want to go. Making you someone you don’t want to be.

  • Core Values are an ecology, not a competition.

No one value alone can guide your life. They are all essential but rely on working together, taking turns leading, supplementing, rounding out, balancing each other to serve you well. 

Your Core Values will change and evolve over time. And rest assured, no one does this perfectly!

Fabric’s 5 Core Values – Choose Connection, Brave Uncertainty, Think Big, Whimsify, and Share Warmth

This week: Choose Connection

Connection – 

Choose – 

Connection is counter cultural in an individualistic, self-sufficiency, independence-oriented society.

Make a list of the reasons why people are too much 
trouble to bother with and it’s easier to do things yourself.

The Paradox of our connectedness.

You are a distinct individual with your own existence and identity.
You are also unable to exist without everyone and everything else.

You are meant to be PART OF all things, not APART FROM all things.

Make a list of all the things you cannot do alone, 
or are so much better done with others?

Choose Connection. It is a counter cultural choice, but it is the path of being woven into the fabric of all things, not of contributing towards its fraying.

HERE’S AN EXERCISE to help you change your default choice from being individualistic to connection. For this next week pause towards the end of each day and note 2 things:

  • What was one Connection you chose to make?

  • What was one Connection you might have made?

Thanks to my conversation and connection experiment partners, Dan, Erin and Martha.

Thanks to Chris Tripolino and the Fabric musicians for their song, Awe and Wonder. 

Thanks to Dipankar Mukherjee for reading John Donne’s poem, No Man is an Island.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 
MEDITATIONS XVII – John Donne, 1623.

Thanks to these and many others, without whom this podcast wouldn’t be possible.

Mentioned in the podcast: Care IQ