As in any company, it is important that core values are vertically integrated throughout every facet of You Inc. This could include every aspect of your life including health, wealth, education, relationships, spirituality, leisure, and so on. To keep it simple, we take a look at relationships to find how you currently integrate your core values horizontally across your relationships:

a. Input: Choosing your friends for You Inc. could be synonymous with choosing the senior managers and employees in a company. List five of your closest friends below (choose code names if this could fall in the wrong hands). From what you know of them, do your friends share the same core values as you? Do any of your close friends have or display values that oppose your core values?

b. Throughput: In your relationships with your friends, do you take actions, whether consciously or unconsciously, that actively support or validate your core values with them? Do your core values clearly resonate in how you relate to them, or anyone else for that matter, on a daily basis? What could you do daily with your friends, coworkers, or classmates to proactively live and validate your core values each day, even if it is unpopular to some? Explain.

c. Output: If your close friends violated any of these core values, would you terminate your relationship with any of them (or demote them to non-best-friend status)? Do any of your close friends regularly violate your core values, without any repercussions from your end? What would someone have to do in order for you to “terminate” them from a close-friend status? Have you ever done this?
Explain.