In our house, we don’t talk about values.

We talk about rules.

Values are important.

Rules are easier to remember.

Especially when we’re small,

or feeling small,

when emotions are big.

We’ve got three.

Always in the same order.

1. Family First.

It’s not about our little unit.

It’s about putting theboss’ family first.

It’s about how we think.

How many people are in this room?

How many people are in this town?

What is the largest number of people I can hold in my head?

What’s the right thing to do based on that?

We don’t make plans to exclude each other.

We don’t get so wrapped up in our own details that we forget:

We are all in this together.

It’s a design constraint.

2. Always Do Your Best.

It’s not about perfection.

It’s about how we decide.

We check in with ourselves:

What would the best version of me do?

What would the person I want to become do?

What does my best look like right now?

It’s not a scoreboard.

It’s a mirror.

3. No Quitting.

It’s not about pushing at all costs.

It’s about how we act.

We can change our mind.

We can stop with intention.

We don’t quit without finishing.

Stopping is allowed.

Quitting is unplanned.

It’s a checklist.

These are the rules we run on.

When we are in our home.

When we are out in the world.

In the systems we build together.

They’re simple.

Turns out they scale too.

They shape how we show up.

I am not suggesting you use our rules.

I am asking you to consider having your own.

Make them fit your family.

Or your team, or your group.

Or whatever we call more than one of us nowadays.

Make them repeatable.

Make them livable.

The point isn’t to get the right rules.

The point is to have rules for when things get to be too much.

Name what matters to you.

Call them your rules.

Rules help me come back to us.

From there, I move forward as we.