Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 137 Transcript

Episode Preview:

In this episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast, Suzie Price is joined by Catherine Treadaway—brand strategist, creative director, and passionate “Hartmaniac”—to explore how Axiology, the science of human value, is reshaping the way we build brands, lead teams, and earn trust.

Together, they unpack what it means to design value on purpose, revealing how the three dimensions of value—Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Systemic—can be applied to branding, leadership, and communication. Catherine introduces a revolutionary new tool, the Axiological Net Promoter Score (aNPS), and explains how measuring emotional trust in your messaging can drive lasting loyalty and alignment.

Later in the episode, Douglas White returns with his Emotional Wellbeing 2.0 segment, offering grounded wisdom on navigating uncertainty and reconnecting with the present moment when emotions feel overwhelming.

If you’ve ever wondered how to build a brand that resonates, lead with more meaning, or tap into deeper human motivation—this conversation will show you how to use value as your compass.

Read the full transcript of Episode 137 below and discover how Axiology can transform the way you lead, brand, and connect.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Suzie : we're diving deep into something that affects every leader every team and every brand even if you don't realize it yet it's the invisible current underneath everything you say and do value and today we're talking about how to design value on purpose using a little known but incredibly powerful and growing in its use in business science called axiology it's a science that is included in the Trimetrix assessment for those of you who are our clients and who know about Trimetrix in this episode if you've ever wondered how to build a brand or a team that people actually trust if you've ever wondered how to communicate with more meaning and connection or if you're wanting to use deeper insight into human value to lead with integrity this conversation is for you you'll hear about something called the Axiological Net Promoter Score how to measure emotional trust in your messaging and how aligning your brand and your leadership with what truly matters can change everything so get ready to explore what it means to build a business in a life by design not default I loved having this discussion and I can't wait to share it with you Michael hit it

[00:01:09] intro : welcome to the wake up Eager Workforce podcast a show designed for leaders trainers and consultants who are responsible for employee selection and professional development each episode is packed full with insider tips best practices expert interviews and inspiration please welcome the host who is helping leaders trainers and consultants everywhere Susie Price

[00:01:37] Suzie : welcome to the wake up Eager Workforce podcast where we help leaders build a high commitment low drama wake up eager workforce and a life you can't wait to wake up to I'm happily your host Susie Price and this lovely episode is sponsored by my company Priceless Professional Development and here's a little commercial about what we do clients hire us for four main reasons 1 to help them make better hiring decisions 2 to become proficient and expert in using the Trimetrix assessment throughout the employee life cycle 3 to help leaders lead more effectively and 4 to help teams work better together I want to mention that we have a new page that describes what Trimetrix is you hear me talk about it a lot maybe you're using it maybe you're curious about using it maybe you want someone else to understand what it is you can go to a new page that we've put together that has a PDF and will have a video as well it's a what is trimetrix page a good overview very easy no jargon and you can find that at Priceless professional.com forward slash what is trimetrix all one word so that is our business that's mostly the tool that we use and I'm so glad you're here um if you in this episode today find value please be sure to follow us on LinkedIn we share a lot and then also follow and subscribe to the podcast episode wherever you get your podcast and and perhaps share this podcast with your team or with your marketing team or with leadership also comment on our post on social media all of that helps spread the word I love these episodes I feel like there's so much goodness in them and there's nuggets for people that can help people and so if you could help spread the word we put a lot of energy in this just because I love it so much and so and we have wonderful show notes and so much so anyway please spread the word as you are moved to do so alright we're at episode 1 37 and the title is Designing Value How Axiology Shapes Powerful Brands Teams and trust with a beautiful person in my life

[00:03:45] Suzie : Catherine Treadaway and I'll tell you more about her in a moment the link to go to the show notes and everything she's gonna talk about some different tools and um there'll be all kinds of things you can go follow up on as well as that what is trimetrix page is go to my website Priceless professional.com forward slash designing value priceless professional.comslashdesigning value and we always use the one word lowercase so let me tell you about the magnificent Katherine Treadaway she's a brilliant brand strategist she's my brand strategist so you know and I've been working with her since 2020 and so you know if you stay with someone that long they're they're delivering right she's a creative director and a fellow heart maniac I first got to know her on the Robert S Hartman board Hartman is the discoverer of axiology in regard to how it's presented today and how it's used in our assessment and how it's used in decision making and such so let me back to Katherine we met on the Hartman board she has her own business called Treadway Design she's designed and launched over 75 brands across 12 industries and then again as I said including priceless professional development in this podcast she did a talk at the Hartman Institute conference that was in Atlanta last fall titled value by design and she introduced a groundbreaking way to apply the science of value which is axiology to branding culture and communication and so this isn't about logos or taglines that's a piece of it cause that's what branding is it's all about understanding the emotional practical and logical value you're recreating in every interaction with your team your customers and yourself so if you're not thinking about branding or marketing know that you are going to get a lot from this so three key points um axiology isn't just for assessments it's a powerful it's a powerful branding tool uh she brilliantly explains how the three dimensions of value intrinsic extrinsic and systemic apply directly to how brands are built and perceived and that when brands are aligned across all three dimensions they become more trustworthy memorable and meaningful so if you've been through my Trimetrix deeper dive you understand the intrinsic the extrinsic and the systemic we'll talk about that today so you'll you'll get a a refresh on that and if you're new to it you'll understand it the intrinsic is the emotional the extrinsic is the practical and the systemic is the logic and the idea is that we make decisions using those three areas and so that we if we want to make good decisions we apply all three and we apply it in a certain order so we'll talk about that

[00:06:36] Suzie : No.2 we talk about intrinsic value is the secret to loyalty and connection so and Catherine has seen this and understood this most organizations undervalue the intrinsic dimension the emotional human element that creates deep brand affinity so Katherine makes a compelling case that this overlooked value is often what makes brands sticky and trustworthy so that'll give you something to think about and you are a brand as a leader in your community in your work and so you'll see how this applies to you personally as well as to businesses and then the third big thing there's so much we cover but the third big thing is axiological net promoter score that's a game changer so she introduced this concept and it's a simple yet profound way to measure whether your brand is fulfilling emotional practical and structural value promises so are you making good decisions around the emotional peace the doing peace and the ideas and the structure peace so it's a tool that leaders can use not just in branding but in team development hiring and performance feedback so I've already crowd about how wonderful Catherine is but let me give you a little bit more on her background she's so bright and so young she is leading the way to a bright future for this world and this country OK I'm not overstating that with her she's just wonderful Katherine Foster is the founder and creator of Treadway Design a fractional branding and design agency she works with executive teams and founders to develop brands architecture positioning messaging and design systems and brand operations across industries and there's a bunch of industries listed here she currently serves on the Westminster University's Board of trustees she's previously chaired the Honors College Advisory Board and served as a director at large for the Hartman Institute helping lead digital infrastructure and branding initiatives she changed the whole Hartman Institute's look so she's amazing and the she graduated from Westminster University with an undergrad and a graduate degree the quote she lives by is the supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play yes that is it exactly that's what wake up eager is you can see why Catherine and I are so aligned so let's go to the discussion now I know you're gonna enjoy it

[00:08:55] Suzie : so welcome Catherine it's so good to have you on the podcast again

[00:08:59] Catherine : I'm so excited to be here talking about another subject I absolutely love

[00:09:03] Suzie : yes axiology so you work with many many brands I think over 75 in your many industries you work with our brand of course our podcast and my business so I'm so thankful for working with you for more than five years and thankful for the work you're doing with axiology and with the Hartman Institute talk a little bit about how you're integrating axiology into branding and then when brands what you've noticed when brands are out of alignment with the dimensions of axiology

[00:09:33] Catherine : yeah yeah I mean I think we'll talk so much about it but I think axiology is one of those things where it really does apply to everything and anything so a couple years ago I was kind of searching I had been exposed enough to axiology but my industry was branding and normally axiology and formal axiology the Hartman Value Profile is applied to kind of employee development and organizational business but it's not really applied to marketing so I was just doing some googling and came across this article by uh these two researchers at some university I think in the Netherlands Jay Matson and S Barnes and I just want to give credit where credit is due but they were investigating marketing messages and axiological relationships and kind of how it all intertwined and I read it it went completely over my head and I stepped it away in a file for a couple years then I kind of pulled it back out and started really working with it and really kind of built an additional framework on top of what they had created to apply formal axiology to branding and overlay them onto the brand experience which is what I do professionally so it was kind of like a little exercise in how do I take the systemic the extrinsic the intrinsic these sort of like large ideas and then how do I map them onto areas of branding like we talk about like brand positioning or brand promise or brand affinity and sort of where this all melds together is sort of some extreme Venn diagram and it's been really fun to do it's still very early in its application and and how we're working with it but I think it's got a lot of promise for how we build brands that actually have good meaning in the world but when it comes to when a brand is like out of alignment with its core values or with with its axiological positioning it's not usually because like a product or a service is weak and it needs to be sort of redone but it's usually because of an under or overvaluation of one of those areas of axiology the intrinsic the extrinsic or the systemic and there's not that sort of balance within each of those three dimensions and axiology then of course just gives us the language to talk about those things and ask questions and implement new tactics that relate to those different dimensions and create kind of a more right structure or right order out of those three things and it creates that sort of measuring rod of meaning which is obviously what Hartman himself who developed it uh talked about with formal axiology and it can manifest in a lot of different ways I think from a brand perspective brand is so much internal and external it can manifest with employees being really disengaged from like a brand mission it can manifest with employer or with customers not really trusting the messaging that you're putting out as a brand it can also come from like leaders making decisions on behalf of their brand that are confusing or disjointed from an overall mission over an overall message but it's mostly just wasted resources and diluted impact is really what it comes down to

[00:12:19] Suzie : you're using axiology as a formula to make sure that for branding purposes and of course we're using it you know in other other areas as well like you mentioned but for branding purposes to make sure that it's balanced in the type of work you're doing in the dimensions of axiology the intrinsic the extrinsic and systemic talk a little bit about what those definitions are how do you explain them to everyone so that's in everyday language

[00:12:50] Catherine : yeah I mean we've been working together on some of this stuff for years so I love the language you use of people over tasks over ideas so I tend to to circle back to that but I think I also break it down into kind of larger cateagerries so for those who aren't necessarily in the science every day and thinking about this in the dimensions but kind of needing buckets if you will to put each dimension into I talk about the intrinsic of being just the value of people individual identity relationships the interpersonal component extrinsic being the value of like the tasks the performance the getting things done the the sort of tactical steps you take and then the systemic being sort of the overall structure and system that something lives within and that each of those have you know important value as you say you know they each have their place but putting them in the right order you know intrinsic over extrinsic over systemic really kind of creates that right alignment or that balance that we're looking for

[00:13:46] Suzie : so I think also you in branding you talk about it so if a company's looking at their brand it's the functional piece of their brand the practical piece piece of their brand and the emotional piece yep so it in just like that's the ideas or the structures in a business and it's the actions and then it's the people if you're talking about a team or whatever so I just thought it was brilliant the way you did your presentation the way you could start to it's like a formula to help people see that whether they're on track or not if they're making balanced decisions in their branding to capture I mean the whole point of branding is to capture audience and customers right

[00:14:27] Catherine : yep exactly and I think if we look back at you know that presentation in particular mapping it to those areas of brand where the systemic is the fulfillment of the brand promise or the brand position so it's like is your brand position within your market within your competitors within your customers the right way is it doing what it's supposed to do here and then extrinsically is it fulfilling its brand promise and that's the what statement have you put out and are you following through on that are you doing the task associated the function and the benefit associated with that and then the intrinsic this is this really hard one we'll talk maybe a little bit about that of like measurement but how do you fulfill brand affinity how do we say why we like certain brands I know you and I have talked about Johnny was it's like why do we love a brand why do we have this affinity towards it and then what are the tactics we can do with intrinsically that can sort of create that feeling more and more so yeah I think it it overlays nicely onto it which is always a a fun surprise of why this isn't more well known but we're gonna make it well known

[00:15:30] Suzie : yes yes and you know that thing we always talk about is it's like gravity you know you don't think about gravity but it just is and same thing with axiology I mean it's in everything sheet music you know sheet music and you have that's they function and then playing the instrument is the practical and then how someone feels when they're listening to their music is the emotional I mean the three dimensions intrinsic extrinsic systemic you know are in everything including branding it's a way to practically look at something and then you talked a little bit about the hierarchy you're kind of reference that a little bit and I think that you know we talk about all three dimensions matter you have to have each one of those in your branding for example or you don't have successful branding but the hierarchy is the emotional first I think the intrinsic the feeling how people feel about the brand is more important than the fun the practicality of the brand or the function of the brand even though all three matter say a little bit more about that

[00:16:30] Catherine : I mean they all feed each other to a certain degree and if you're doing it right your sort of functional and your benefit and all of these sort of systemic and extrinsic components of your brand feed into a very specific intrinsic sort of development that you're working on for your brand but I think in most cases the intrinsics the most overlooked yet sort of loosely talked about we put together mission statements and vision statements but then we don't really tie those into the extrinsic and systemic practices within a brand and I think it's most overlooked cause it's really difficult to measure I mean it's much easier to measure metrics efficiency systems so very difficult to measure sort of emotion and meaning that somebody might be taking from your brand those are things like we try to like reverse engineer like what makes a magic brand you know why is that brand so popular why is you know why is this trending so much and nine times out of 10 it's because they're hitting on something deeply intrinsic within either their customer base or something else that just kind of has this draw this magnetic draw and I think that's the magic of the intrinsic when it comes to branding is you're trying to capture and build that draw a little bit

[00:17:36] Suzie : well and you know so it's interesting because you know within so within the you've got systemic which is the idea the function and then you've got the practical well the function is in the practical or in the action so you have to have the structure to take the action and then when you're the intrinsic you have those that in there as well so I mean they're intrinsic hold the systemic and the extrinsic so that's always interesting one of the brands that you have talked about and I'm also a fan of this brand I love that you talked about Johnny was we can definitely talk about that because I love their clothes hahaha and I have a lot of them but for a second the Bronners Dr Bronner's soap yeah does a really good job of the intrinsic it touches on people's love for caring for the planet and using a practical tool that make them feel better and he's got all these odd messaging things that you would say never do that cause he's talk a little bit about Dr Bronner's and how it kind of fits into this thing it'll help folks who maybe may or may not be into branding but they're in brand everybody's into branding for themselves so I think they could have that perspective you know when you're thinking about your social media posts or the connections you want to make with people but also yeah I mean but anyway talk about Bronner

[00:18:47] Catherine : yeah brand is everything so everybody has one everybody engages with one everybody buys from one so brand isn't everything but Bronners is a fun one because I think even on its face when you talk about brand naming it's Doctor Bronners you're referring to an individual you're not referring to you know like the soap whatever the soap or something yeah yeah you're referring to a a somebody Doctor Bronner the way an individual somebody so so I mean inherently it's got this kind of intrinsic draw to it um but Doctor Bronner's from a marketing standpoint the reason I pulled them as an example is because they really do hit on every level very well in their brand if you've ever seen one of their bottles actually funny enough I just bought a new bottle of Doctor Bronner's and noticed they had changed their packaging and I was like I have to rethink my presentation why they've put icons on they've changed their whole dynamic it was very I was having a I was having a moment about it but yeah they they do it really well because they focus on Dr Bronner's story um as a brand they talk about who who he was and what his mission was they keep it very centralized to their employee experience and sharing that and it becomes sort of this draw of you know why you'd want to support them then they have this extrinsic focus with their actual product being that it fulfills all these things I mean you can use Doctor Bronner's to clean your vegetables do your laundry shave your legs very practical every single thing you want to do you can do Bronner's with and and so you kind of have this really practical approach

[00:20:13] Suzie : but then save the planet that's the little bit of the intrinsic it because it is so practical yeah

[00:20:18] Catherine : it really does feed because I would say systemically like they do have that sort of planet focus but it's planet as an idea to support the people who live on it the creatures who live on it so it's a deeply intrinsic focus even within the systemic dimension and that's why I think they nail it so well plus they're just kind of a fun brand if you ever read their packaging it's just goes on a little bit of a little bit of a trip with that one

[00:20:41] Suzie : yeah it's kind of like way out there you know but yeah and if you get the bottle like I gave my nephews cause they're kind of throwback hippies and in in this generation you know they like unusual things you know so they each got a big old bottle of Bronners for Christmas and you know they're stocking or whatever and they're like oh this is so cool they're reading the bottle and you know it's if if you haven't seen Bronners check them out because even their soap they have soap that you can buy that also has all kinds of writing on it

[00:21:09] Catherine : and it's they even have a chocolate now too they have a chocolate I don't know why but it's got the same kind of fun packaging and messaging within it yeah

[00:21:17] Suzie : and it would be like the exact opposite of what you think cause it's very busy and

[00:21:22] Catherine : yeah it's not your classic minimalist like branding it's very much they're trying to tell a story and they're capturing you as an individual with that story and that story has so many layers and components in it too it's really fun

[00:21:36] Suzie : and I think it's been around a long time

[00:21:38] Catherine : yeah I think like at least 60 years I wanna say that's what I was gonna say yeah yeah so

[00:21:44] Suzie : so there's a brand that is hitting on all three dimensions and highlighting just by its name and the story it tells that it's intrinsic it's individual it's emotional it taps the emotion what happens if a brand resist that or does too much of the systemic and you know the functional there's the function here let me tell you how many widgets this has and let me tell you how practical is what if they focus more there and they don't put as a priority the emotional what do you think can happen what would be the cost

[00:22:18] Catherine : the cost for this is again the entrance is difficult to measure but for me the way I would look at this if I was extrapolating this onto like an actual business metric that we're looking at I would look at customer churn you know if we're mapping again the each each dimension to each different area of branding you're mapping the intrinsic dimension to brand affinity so brand affinity being what keeps you buying from the same brand over and over and over again and when you aren't tapping into that intrinsic or that emotion and capturing the affinity what you're doing is you're becoming an option so as a brand they'll choose from any old option they you they have no reason to stay with you they have no reason to stick with you if you air in maybe product quality or one service or maybe your message goes out yeah they don't have any reason to stay with you they're just gonna go to the next best thing either the new shiny object the cheaper option anything like that they have no reason to to kind of stick around so that's the real customer churn would be what you would measure for that but there's a lot of intangible costs with not having an emotional brand is that you know you'd pivot all the time as a brand leader you know you you would be moving with the wind you would have nothing grounding you to overall sort of position of your brand and I think the more you do that the the less sticky your customers are the less staying power your brand has we use try not to use too much brand jargon but we we call this brand equity so the more you're sort of switching what you're doing because you have no sort of internal compass with the intrinsic or the emotional you you kind of lose your direction and you lose brand equity and you kind of lose your place in the market

[00:23:54] Suzie : yeah and you had some statements so you know when you complete the uh Hartman assessment for yourself you know we have these statements and you rank the statements and each statement represents an order and a mathematical formula to calculate it on how you score on the emotional the practical or the function and you had some while you're saying you can't measure it you had some statements around the emotional that was like I love this brand or I feel like this brand really cares about me it was things like that I don't remember what they were in the presentation that you did but do you have any of that handy or can you just mention some of that

[00:24:31] Catherine : I got a handy and also I wanna I wanna be clear too I did modify this from that Jay Matson and Barnes this 2008 study they did I mean it was yeah you know quite old in terms of marketing research but still relevant today so we adapted some of those statements for the presentation where we kind of first talked about this um and like you said every when you do the Hartman value profile every statement reflects both a dimension and then an additional dimension so an intrinsic to the intrinsic or an intrinsic to the extrinsic so you have a focus within that so our intrinsic statements of how we're measuring you know that brand affinity is things like I feel great pride identifying with this brand oh I yeah what this brand provides feels right for me you know it it fulfills that functional benefit but it's personal to me I feel I'm able to trust this brand completely oh there we go trust yeah that's it trust provision and pride I mean deeply these are deeply personal things if you think about this you're not throwing trust provision and pride out generally with your relationships unless it's really there and the same thing is true for brands

[00:25:36] Suzie : I feel what was it pride I feel what was the other

[00:25:40] Catherine : pride feels right for me and I feel like it's right to me

[00:25:44] Suzie : so and the only way you can create that in my of view is with you know I think about as my job as a consultant one of the things I started doing and I always felt like okay this probably seems dumb but when I send invoices I always put a personal message in there it takes a lot of time this one company that I've been working with for 10 years so 10 years I every invoice has a tip customize to them on something they're doing that that I hope helps them and it it takes a lot of work but while those were practical things it has felt like that's how I've been able to build connection with them

[00:26:21] Catherine : yeah absolutely I mean if you think about even for for the financial enthusiast in the in who are listening but like Dave Ramsey there's a long standing tale about Dave Ramsey as an employer that he personally signs with a note every single check to his employees so every payroll check he'll write a personal note with and I don't know how true that is now but it used to be in the early early 2 that he would do that so every employee knew just how valuable they were from this one intrinsic act that he was doing with a very functional thing getting paid it's very functional yeah

[00:26:53] Suzie : yeah so where could yeah so that's kind of the brand like so and from my case with that particular company they're moving really fast they continue to purchase assessments and purchase work and hire me to do training but there's not a lot of conversation sometimes and I thought okay how can I reach them a little bit more so it's a little more personal and over time I I get little tiny notes from them you know or they'll say I appreciate this very much you know cause I appreciate them they kind of give it back to me you know or something so we've been able to you know they were already convinced that the tool is great but how could I you know I wanted to a connection with them cause I know that in intrinsic or connection is greater than the product is greater than the structure that I'm giving them you know so anyway so there's little ways to do that and that's a little way a little big way to brand yourself

[00:27:44] Catherine : yeah I mean there there's tons of tactics within you know when we talked about this at the when we presented about this there are tons of tactics within each of these statements you can do to build them up and sort of begin to measure over time if you're improving in one cateagerry or not and even if you're not measuring it with customers you can still look at all these tactics and say wow we haven't even considered this in six months something like you know have you mapped your customer journey and the needs that they're gonna have at those different levels and you might not have done that in a year maybe two and so it's a good reminder to kind of go back and and take a look at that and map according to what needs they have so you fulfill that what this brand provides feels right for me and you actually can fulfill that statement kind of by just doing the exercise

[00:28:27] Suzie : so it's interesting axiology is indeed in everything it's funny how when you know axiology it just becomes a part of how you think yeah and so my assessment is for you I mean and me having worked with you for so long you just automatically use this with my business cause you'll point out things you'll say hey we we haven't talked about this in a while and I always feel like you're looking at each area function practical emotional systemic extrinsic intrinsic

[00:28:52] Catherine : yeah yeah definitely I mean I feel like axiology like you said it is everything because it can it can be applied to anything because it is within everything I mean it's it's a really functional practical concept it's not it feels abstract when you're first being sort of exposed to it I know I think it took me I want to say a couple years before I had that classic like Eureka aha moment that everybody has with axiology once they're in it but it is really within everything and and I think when it when you kind of understand it you begin to see and bucket all of your experiences into these dimensions the intrinsic the extrinsic and the systemic and kind of self check where you're overvaluing one or the other

[00:29:33] Suzie : yeah overvaluing are we talking too much about the function you know in the branding situation or with your with my customers so for example with my invoicing if I was just sending the invoice it's like you know where I would have been a deficit in the emotional you know yeah because I don't get to see them all that much you know they could thank goodness they're uh happy and they purchase a lot of things but you know at the end of the day they could switch on a dime if there's no connection

[00:30:00] Catherine : on the flip side too you can't go without the systemic and the brand either you can't go without it because you can you know I see this a lot with things that I've heard and conversations I've had with different founders and CEOs is we love that person but and it's sort of like okay well you have the intrinsic down with that person but there's not enough supporting it from the extrinsic and the systemic to make that partnership continue so so it really does kind of lead both ways like you do need all three like you always say you do need all three and you don't want to overvalue the intrinsic but I think leading with the intrinsic is always your strongest

[00:30:35] Suzie : we're making sure it's a part of it because we can get all business minded okay here's the structure here's the idea and here's the tactic you know where's the connection in that conversation basically so you talk about which I thought was very interesting in your presentation is the axiological net promoter score talk a little bit about what that is for you're using it with axiology some people might know what the Net Promoter Score is but what is it and how can it be used

[00:31:03] Catherine : this was again that sort of attempt to how do we put all of this mathematical I mean this complex math that exists within the Hartman value profile how do we simplify that math for brand owners and make this something you can actually apply really quickly to a business and you know an NPS score is a pretty standard business metric you sort of it determines basically this overall would you recommend us based off of a series of statements then you have that's been developed of course now for employees so E N P s is a really common measurement to measure employee engagement so I was like alright well this framework this connotation already exists what if we do the a N P s the axiological net promoter score and it basically asks across those kind of nine statements well we've been talking about three of them with the intrinsic so there's three for each dimension and then one overall statement but it really asks where are we aligned and what's going well how well is this brand doing axiologically within these nine dimensional statements and then this one overall statement so it kind of just ranks them I made a joke when I presented this I'm like I'm no statistician I can't really do I'm not a maths person but I did my best to sort of weight them according to you know Hartman's original intent which is the I over the e over the s and weight them within each cateagerry to create a measurement system and normalize that into a score and it's an interesting framework I would love to implement it with a couple clients and kind of see where it goes it's very early in its development I think I might be the only one who's ever called at this

[00:32:34] Suzie : well that's why you're the leading edge thinker that you are I think it's fascinating and I don't think it has to match even Hartman's we're using the framework of Hartman just to get people to think about help people think about their brand in a practical way yeah you know so do you happen to have the statements handy

[00:32:51] Catherine : I do yeah

[00:32:53] Suzie : can you read them cause I'm curious I think it's worth a worth doing because I think if you listen to these you can think about how you would use them in your own brand for yourself or for your company and then also how that applies to the people on your team and you know so anyway just use it for the branding purposes yeah absolutely and we'll put it in the show notes too

[00:33:12] Catherine : if that's okay with you we can do that little graph presentation that kind of breaks it in okay because that's what I'm referencing right here but you know in the intrinsic which is again we think about intrinsic as people relationships emotion and from a brand perspective that brand affinity the statements we have I feel great pride identifying with brand what brand provides feels right for me I feel I am able to trust brand completely then within the extrinsic which

[00:33:37] Suzie : let's use priceless in there too so yeah let's use priceless I feel like I can trust priceless or Susie what was the other one I can trust Susie

[00:33:45] Catherine : I feel like I'm able to trust Susie completely what Susie provides feels right for me I feel great pride identifying with Susie I mean I felt all those with you so hi

[00:33:54] Suzie : oh okay I like here those I it just it's gratifying to me but it makes it more real when you put a a name you can put my company in there too whatever you want to do okay so so that's that that's the motion emotion okay what's the next three

[00:34:06] Catherine : the extrinsic which is that fulfillment of your brand promise are you doing what you say you're gonna do yeah so that tasks that sort of fulfillment of benefit are you that promise so Susie does me good Susie is a satisfying purchase well maybe priceless is a satisfying yeah

[00:34:21] Suzie : let's do priceless is a satisfying what purchase

[00:34:25] Suzie : purchase okay priceless is a satisfied purchase okay

[00:34:28] Catherine : yep what I get from priceless is worth the cost and this is where again we're getting at that benefit not function right we obviously every brand has an exchange of sort of a transactional component but how do we sort of level beyond that yeah and then within the systemic and each of these I should sort of note here when we look at how these statements are crafted is each of these extrinsic statements that we just read correspond to each of the three dimensions that's why there's three questions per every three dimensions

[00:34:58] Suzie : yeah yeah which is more complicated than we need to explain really but there's you know there's a whole thing to it but but those three statements are powerful statements it's you know say them again

[00:35:09] Catherine : priceless does me good priceless is a satisfying purchase what I get from priceless is worth the cost

[00:35:16] Suzie : there's the practical and then there's the function absolutely yeah that's with the three statements match yeah yeah yeah within the that big bucket okay so now we're going to the third bucket which is the idea or the system or the function and you've got three statements there

[00:35:32] Catherine : yep and so for that's the systemic and for for our branding if there's any branding nerds listening that's our brand positioning that's our brand position so that would be the uniqueness of priceless stands out priceless is a symbol of quality information about priceless is always correct

[00:35:50] Suzie : oh wow those are good those are good measures I don't even think you need any fancy formula that's a survey conversation you can have a rich conversation like right now I'm thinking okay let's discuss that a little further about my business where am I do you think you know

[00:36:05] Catherine : well I mean absolutely cause you think about if a website's out of date or if contact information on a social media page is out of date I mean that kind of stuff it seems silly it's like oh well of course we need to have it updated but that I mean that really matters from a systemic component of your brand position of are you where you say you are and is it working you know yeah yeah

[00:36:24] Suzie : it's a good way to continually like annually if not more revisit am I how am I doing and that those are good conversations and then there's one big question and what was it

[00:36:35] Catherine : yeah the big question is kind of again goes back to overall axiology is measuring goodness right a right order a right value and so the question is pretty simple it's or the statement is pretty simple it says priceless is a good brand and so this idea of good just it's good is it good it's a fun framework and we'll have the in the show notes we'll have the the graph in here so you can put the graph in the show notes

[00:36:57] Suzie : and then just be thinking about that to our audience or listeners you know about your brand and then how simple that framework is and that's all from axiology those three dimensions that we talk about in our deeper dive training and such what else would you like to say about the axiological Net Promoter score

[00:37:17] Catherine : you know just try it you know I adapted this work off of Matson and Barnes it's not proprietary to me in any way you know take it apply it to your teams apply it to your customers do an internal survey do an external survey this is not proprietary to me and I would love to see this work this sort of axiological framework applied to every business we can see

[00:37:37] Suzie : yeah and that's the beauty of axiology too it just helps you make better decisions it helps you think about each aspect in a very practical and logical way so that you can make good decisions and you could use this for customer loyalty trust on teams probably oh um and you would just change the name I don't know why would you have to change the statements very much

[00:37:58] Catherine : yeah I mean I think for we could look at that intrinsic dimension for for because obviously that's gonna be the easiest one to to kind of capture with a team it's interpersonal but you know we have that statement that says I feel great pride identifying with priceless my team for an internal team we would just change that to be I feel great pride being part of my immediate team get this sense of affinity even within team and your team is a brand you know each department if you have a larger firm each department is its own miniature brand within the company so you can apply this very easily across for an internal survey for sure

[00:38:31] Suzie : interesting and then how about I guess Team Health is what we just talked about could it be used in performance reviews one on one with a with a an employee you get their vibe on working with in their job their satisfaction in their job I don't know I'm just emps exists quite well for that

[00:38:48] Catherine : um right now but but I think what you could easily do is probably adjust to things like the you know if you think about um manager and employee relationships you can really reframe some of these questions too with you know brand does me good or priceless does me good you can say my manager does me good you know my manager is a satisfying teacher rather than purchase or so you know you have you have these different sort of words you can begin to swap out to measure kind of the dynamics within within a relationship but I mean these value statements is a valuation not necessarily of self but of an external factor so any way that you're measuring that within your company whether it's an employee to a team or employee to a manager or employee to their customers or customers to the brand I think it can go in any kind of directional way

[00:39:35] Suzie : and the bottom line is you know you'd have to uh massage it to match the situation but if you don't have the right framework to ask a complete set of questions you're only maybe only getting the intrinsic or you're maybe only getting the action part or you're maybe you know you want all parts systemic extrinsic and intrinsic and we're we're mixing those words with the words function practical and emotional but there those are the three dimensions okay so talk a little bit about um you you've described yourself as a Hart maniac and that is someone who is it with and I'm one of those two big fan of Robert Hartman who I've talked about in many and I'll link to some of the episodes about him and people that were his students but heart Maniac means that you we love Hartman's work we love the Hartman Value Profile which is has axiology in it and is what the Trimetrix acumen is based on but and you've also talked to me about that the work that you do you give a lot lot of your time to for the books that are being published around this science and and the design and the Institute I mean you've been integral and and breathing life into all of that and it's talked about to me personally and I hope you don't mind me sharing it that this is part of your legacy like yeah you do this because this is captured your interest in your heart yeah um so talk about this I mean talk about how this is shaped how you lead how you create your relationships um personally and professionally what's the impact been why do you care about it any of that that you'd be willing to share all of it

[00:41:12] Catherine : I could probably talk like a true heart maniac I could probably talk about it for three weeks and not be done but I think it really it you know I remember when I first was introduced to the science through the assessment and thinking you know okay this is this is interesting this is these are some pretty wacky questions that we're asking here and you know but then really when I Learned through cliff who you'll probably link an episode with him yeah getting to know more of the work from cliff about the Hartman value profile and then moving that even broader into what is axiology and then moving that even broader into who developed this thing and learning about Robert Hartman and learning about his work his breadth of work I mean it is one of those things that has totally captured my mind body spirit like I just I feel so connected to to the work and really plan to spend probably all of my life continuing to apply this both personally and professionally I mean I I really do feel like the more we can apply axiological frameworks to our world the better our world is gonna be and I just feel that so strongly but I mean for me personally it's changed everything it changes the way I interact in my marriage it changes the way I interact with teammates who work with me it changes the way I interact with clients because when you have this like that focus on the intrinsic first that's it I mean you described it too with the invoices that you do for your one client it really changes when you know I'm in a workshop with a client or you know a kickoff and I know that they're probably feeling you know maybe some fear maybe some some trepidation maybe some uncertainty and if I can really tap into who they are as the person that they are when they walked into that room then we can tackle the extrinsic the the stuff we have to do or the systemic how we're gonna work together later on and the same thing goes with like even you know design and branding is a very so you know when I work with my team and you know they produce a design first thing I always look at is wow I really see and point out one specific thing that I know that they did really well here even if maybe they missed part of the brief or maybe they forgot to include something really avoiding that right from the get and focus on one thing that they uniquely do really well which you talk a lot about this too Susie with the intrinsic is like what is your unique strength what is that unique personhood that you're bringing and I think that's what Hartman was so clean at identifying and he just did it naturally that you know he just recognized each individual so cleanly and clearly and I think that practice and just trying to do that in every situation that's been my that's probably my biggest axiological to do every single day is just who is who is in the room

[00:43:44] Suzie : and how do I be with them how do I be with them I'll do the doing and I'll do the thinking but I also I'm gonna prioritize the being first or maybe it's not first but somewhere along the way there's gonna be a little bit more weight on the being part yeah

[00:43:58] Catherine : it feels really abstract I mean even talking about it I'm like gosh this feels so abstract but it really is just it's that practical though it is really that practical of just looking for the intrinsic the people the relationship the individual not necessarily first like you said but really looking for that and making that

[00:44:15] Suzie : balancing that out yeah yeah yeah especially when you're you know you and I both like I'm pretty focused even when I don't even need to be focused I can be intense yeah um and you're very focused on what you do you have a passion for it and so that could really take over here let me take your brand I can run with it cause you could cause you're excellent yeah but you don't let that run the ship I mean I always feel our connect we're getting stuff done and we we pack a lot in an hour when we're meeting but there's usually there we're touching base too personally yeah and I think it's just a good reminder to do that with everywhere that you engage to and with yourself I think too I think axiological axiological you can apply it to yourself really easily of especially you know high achievers or you know strong performers might be listening who kind of really focus on that extrinsic there how much have I done am I getting it right and then systemically am I doing it within the system am I following the rules am I am I building the structure and you know really reminding yourself as an individual intrinsically you're bringing something to this yeah who you are matters yes you know now one thing that always hits me is his students who are many of a handful of them are still alive and we've interviewed them some of them on the podcast how all these years later he died in 73 and all these years later they say he and he was brilliant I mean he were and MIT students followed him around all over the campus yeah and his archives which you have been the captain of visiting you know he has hundreds of thousands of pages of books and meaningful insight that have yet to be published that you're helping bring to light belong with Cliff Herst but what they say about him the people that knew him was he was the nicest and kindest person they know and ever know ever known these are people who went on to write their own books and have their own big history of touching lives and they still recognize the impact he had and I think that that's what that emotional does to a brand you know it's like I just love Bronners you know if I'm in a store I'm gonna stop and look at Bronners you know because I feel for it it's not that the soap I mean how how much kind of soap can you get you know exactly you know you know so how can you make that connection so I just love the way it's touched you and we were we are blessed um because of your good work you know the person you are that you would tap into this and you're you're part of that vibe it's really been

[00:46:36] Catherine : I think everybody I think you've said it before on the podcast but everybody who encounters this work is changed by it and I think that change for the better change for good yeah

[00:46:45] Suzie : and when have you seen branding you know we talked about Bronners you know about his you know how smart it is but have you seen branding become a force for good

[00:46:54] Catherine : yeah I mean I think even more so now yeah more so now than ever before I think with the even the rise of social media too but I think you see this a lot because brands are beginning to understand that they can take a stance a social stance of some kind and now whether or not you agree with that stance is kind of irrelevant but brands are realizing that they can become a beacon for meaning outside of just hey I sell this product or hey I sell this service and it's okay to talk about it yeah

[00:47:20] Suzie : absolutely I like the intrinsic yeah

[00:47:23] Catherine : the more we're tapping into the intrinsic as a brand as an individual you're becoming a you know a cultural force not just this commercial one so it it people I think brands are really picking up on this whether or not they're calling it the intrinsic is is yet to no yet to be seen but it is it is what it is whether they pay

[00:47:39] Suzie : they're everywhere anyway so we're just naming it

[00:47:44] Catherine : yeah I mean you saw this too I think two really big more sort of national and maybe even international campaigns where we see this really well played out is like Dove the another soap brand I don't love soap for the record yeah I can bring it up soap

[00:47:57] Suzie : but they did what did they do that was so intrinsic was it the women

[00:48:01] Catherine : the Real Beauty campaign it was way ahead of its time they did a series of print advertisements and video advertisements where they would really focus on you know different body types shapes colors sizes that was what all of these yep yep all these you know stretch marks you know skinny you know all these different things and they would really look at you know Dove is real beauty and then it's for everybody and then you see this in a kind of a different bend with Nike another sort of women's focused initiative but again women you know kind of an intrinsic tie into that female experience was the we own the night or own the night I forget what it was called specifically but this was basically women who it had been reported out I think for a variety of reasons that women were afraid to run alone at night female runners they didn't they didn't feel safe they didn't want to so Nike was like well why don't we do a we own the night or own the night campaign and I'm forgetting if that's the name but what they did was they brought out in major cities groups of women to run together at night so and they filmed it they had videos they had photos and it was this really nice cultural campaign of like this intrinsic feeling I don't feel safe running at night to I have this community around me now running with me at night and of course that was a short lived campaign I think and they've done many others since but those are kind of good examples of those yeah

[00:49:20] Suzie : OK I love that I love that so if someone is listening to this now and they are inspired by this idea of the three dimensions they're gonna go to the show notes and they'll be able to see examples and all the things that we've referenced in the Axiological Net Promoter Score but what is something that they they could do in the coming week to apply axiology to their life whether it's to their team to branding social media hiring what what would you recommend that someone think about doing

[00:49:49] Catherine : doing the X trans action

[00:49:51] Suzie : doing being the doing of the action what action could they take cause it is an action you know so yes like what's something they could do yeah I guess I say it's an action yeah what they do first I mean

[00:50:01] Catherine : I think that there's a couple things I think we've kind of touched on already but like focusing a little bit on have I acknowledged the people here as individuals and here can mean a lot of things it can mean you know here on social media as I'm posting something have I acknowledged who's gonna be reading it have I acknowledged myself in that it could be here as in the team it could be here between you and I on this podcast have I have I acknowledged how you've who you've come into this day as and you know kind of really taking a moment to acknowledge the intrinsic and that's sort of that internal step but tactically from a brand component of course I I love the extrinsic to get things done with a brand you know if you're doing an internal update of some kind replace the metrics with a story tell a story really tap into you know you could throw up some numbers and they're gonna be powerful and impressive and all those things but what story can you tell from that and that's a really good marketing tactic

[00:50:51] Suzie : people generally yeah touch people yeah that's the intrinsic yeah explaining the extrinsic right yeah

[00:50:58] Catherine : exactly yeah so it would be yeah the intrinsic using a story emotion people to sort of explain the metric being the extrinsic and then how that relates to what you're doing which is of course the systemic so really it really does all play but I love that swap a metric for a story that's a that's always like the good tidbit I love to give people especially when they're presenting anything

[00:51:17] Suzie : yeah I love that the low hanging fruit I think is what you just shared maybe trying the axiological Net Promoter score for conversations that's one thing you know using some of those or for your own self um reflection using that framework and then I always go back to appreciation and you you said it already but that appreciation is I would say it's a form of love it's supposed to gratitude I think appreciation is more and it's a way to just say hey thanks yeah thanks for doing that and and and saying what they did you know like very specific yeah thank you for doing this thing that you always do thank you for always showing up or thank you for being a client or especially for

[00:51:58] Catherine : if there are any sort of like team leads founders or CEOs or any managers sort of listening the anytime that you as somebody in a leadership position can take to a public arena appropriate like LinkedIn or with a team and give kudos that is a such a deeply intrinsic activity for both yourself and the person receiving it and it's also for the people who are reading it so anytime you can go and kind of give a public appreciation or a kudos it's always a beautiful thing

[00:52:25] Suzie : yeah and we're talking about connection connecting with people and making sure it's not all in our heads or all in the doing you know that you see them for the human that they are if they wanted to talk to you more about axiology and we'll do this at the end too but I before we jump off of it I just want we're gonna go to learn a little bit more about you and then we'll close out but to reach out to you you can have more conversations with folks if they're thinking about their branding and wanting to say hey let's go through this a little bit around around my brand have links to your business and anything you'd like to say about that

[00:52:56] Catherine : yeah of course connect with me on LinkedIn I talk a lot about I give out a lot of free information about marketing and branding and I have a monthly newsletter that's full of kind of stories and spotlights and all these little different strategies but if you're if you're exploring your brand or exploring how you can make it more axiological aligned yes shoot me a message it'll be all in the show notes and yeah we'd love to chat with you

[00:53:17] Suzie : and then before we leave this subject let's just tie it up with a nice bow what's the benefit of having an axiology aligned brand

[00:53:26] Catherine : at a very high level but if I were to tie it up with a bow I think it's that your brand has transcended transaction and moved into a space of legacy and sort of permanence that you're not sort of a a ship in the night of a brand you know you're not here one day gone the next that you're you have sort of this permanent legacy when you're doing this intrinsically focused and sort of trickle down effect to your extrinsic and your systemic I think you build better trust across your customers and your employees and I think trust is the foundation for for success in so many different arenas and I think you have just a legacy of goodness right axiology is all about creating good and the more you can create good as a brand I think that legacy will do everyone well including yourself

[00:54:11] Suzie : we'll be like Hartman you know yes 50 years later um people think about that was a really great manager or or as his students say we said most kindest person I ever have known in my entire life that's the power of the intrinsic it's it's not seen enough these days so we are promoting that along with all three dimensions yes appropriate balance appropriate balance we do want that cause that's how you make a good decision right okay so let's talk more about you and we're gonna go into the wake up eager strengths segment that we love to do and we have your assessment available and I asked you to go to the section of the assessment that ties together top drivers and motivators with your style strengths ideal environment and motivating and pick a couple of items from those pages so tell us what you picked and we do this so that people that are listening can learn more about the assessment and matching matching styles and matching matching motivators so what did you pick about your greatest strengths from the assessment

[00:55:21] Catherine : well it was still fun first of all to reread these cause I think they're as you grow and develop you always kind of look at your your styles and your motivators a little differently and I I it had been not too long since I last looked at this but long enough that I was rereading I was like oh wow that definitely is way more important to me now than it was you know say six months ago or whenever it was yep yep I think yeah the one that the one that really stood out to me uh that as sort of like the shift of wow I'm really doing that a lot more these days is from the the strengths page which it was being an optimistic leader cause I really feel like as like a sort of philosophy of the work that I'm doing cause it's not always fun sometimes it's you know sometimes it's really practical it's not you know just being optimistic and personal and especially as a manager too anytime giving feedback just really optimistic forward looking I find that to be more and more valuable with how I like to engage with the world and we talked about you know you want to have more wake up eager days and for me the more you're doing that optimism it just kind of feeds itself and you kind of feel more eager you feel more excited so that one stood out to me for sure on the strengths page the ideal environment and then the motivating pages and then funny enough I'm like okay so I was picking what's most important funny enough I pick the same basically the same thing from both those pages but it says it in different ways and it's the which were they yeah the being free from controls supervision

[00:56:39] Suzie : and I highlighted that one cause I know you so well yeah yeah yeah freedom from control supervision and details like you do the details you're all over the details but yeah you don't want anybody like putting their thumb on you yeah

[00:56:53] Catherine : yeah and I think it's because I just love autonomy I love total autonomy over my days over the the what I'm choosing to work on and I think you know working in a creative field too I say this all the time to people working in a creative field is you have to work on what you're excited to work on otherwise you won't produce good work so yeah that freedom to be able to choose and pick the things that I wanna do it's I feel like it's that high d but also high C kind of component here it's like I love the rules but I like the rules that I make

[00:57:23] Suzie : yeah yeah yeah yes yes yeah what did you say for keys to motivating

[00:57:29] Catherine : it's funny cause I think it when you look at this report you see all the different ways that can apply to you in different situations because you know being you know I own Treadway so I'm keys to motivating me or me motivating myself you know looking at that is when I am free from control and detail but when I look at myself in a different environment you know things like where I can research or move something forward I mean those are all straight from the drivers for me being high individualistic and high theoretical so yeah

[00:57:57] Suzie : yeah and you know what I forgot about so the drivers for Catherine are according to the assessment drivers means this is what puts gas in her tank is individualistic so that's why I want to lead and that a lot of times that's you see executives and entrepreneurs who kind of get to lead the way and then theoretical love to learn and I forgot that your third is traditional regulatory and it's pretty high above the mean and pretty close to your theoretical which is I love to learn and I wanna make sure that the processes and and procedures are enforced and so I could see how that helps with the work you're doing at the Hartman Institute like helping cliff with all of his knowledge and putting a framework around it yeah I could see that yeah

[00:58:35] Catherine : cause I you know I think that's where it really ties in for me where the traditional kind of pulls it all in it's like you can have all this information but how do we like put it into something and into a framework and I think our whole conversation today about the axiological Net Promoter score that's that same kind of thing here's all this information here's all these ideas how do we put it into something

[00:58:56] Suzie : how do we put it into something so we can make a decision to do something yes exactly yeah and and on the on the communication style how according to the assessment you like to drive around pretty high d so above the energy line d above the energy line I likes it below the energy line s very fast pace and then you adapt your style around the the compliance like the getting the the details analyzing things and then also what's I think is interesting is how strong your partment value profile scores are I mean you have a very strong decision making capabilities like I always tell people when you look at that graph and you see a lot of color you're seeing somebody who has a lot of capability hmm good way to put it doesn't it doesn't mean we don't need a lot of tool or we gotta go learn it or learn the structure or something but their ability to pick it up is stronger because they have a strong sense of when they look at things they see all the dimensions intrinsic extrinsic systemic in the world and they also see it very clearly for themselves so that makes you a very strong decision maker cause you're you're not hamstrung is now it's just about the technical or the exposure to it or the experience of it but if you decide to take it on you're probably gonna darn it figure it out

[01:00:09] Catherine : yeah that's that engine that's that under the hood that we talked about that's that engine

[01:00:13] Suzie : yeah exactly very very strong you know it's funny when I looked at some of these lists I picked a lot of what you picked but then I I picked also demonstrates a forward looking approach to old questions yeah cause this is you're taking Hartman's work which has been around a really long time and you're you're helping breathe new life into it you know and you're helping people with their brands everybody's thinking about their brand and they're all in it and you're bringing your life so I thought that was a cool one I picked the freedom control thing

[01:00:41] Catherine : yeah anybody who knows me well would pick that one

[01:00:45] Suzie : yeah and then again ability to be self starting so like I just saw how strong your your act your dimensional balance page graph was all the all the color on the graph ability to be self starting that's what that is when you have a strong self view that gives you know the self view I know who I am I know where I belong and I've got hope and excitement for the future that's a self starting personality you know and forward looking is you know you see all the all the dimensions and you have a passion for marketing you know look forward as it relates to challenging the status quo so you know you took axiology and applied it to branding nobody I mean very few people have done that you found one person that did it back in 2008 in the Netherlands so one person and two people now two people now yeah there we go so I mean I think it's a little applicable yeah uh uh new and then the motivating power and control over outcomes and goals to be seen as an expert and then new and difficult challenges that lead to prestige and status

[01:01:46] Catherine : yeah and that's cause I love to learn I love to share it and you know yeah that puts me on great places like being on your podcast

[01:01:53] Suzie : yeah I know you're amazing I am amazing you're amazing okay so a couple more questions and we'll be wrapping it up um it's more about you but it's be self revealing best based on this wonderful conversation we've had today what advice would you give your younger self I don't know if you're too much far beyond 25 so I don't know if we ought to use 25 year old self how old are you I mean yeah I'm 29 but I feel like it's oh yeah so you're not far beyond that oh yes from it you're so mature yeah

[01:02:18] Catherine : but you know what I think I do think about this question a lot because I'm lucky to be enough in enough situations where I've mentored a lot of younger women who are entering the creative field and so I think about this question a lot and I give out this advice a lot and I think really what it comes down to is just trust that the clarity over your path and what you'll be doing will come from you doing the work not waiting for the perfect plan or the right moment but one step will lead to the next will lead to the next will lead to the next and you know I said this in an email to a mentor recently that I kind of explained how life is like a series of dominos you know you do this one thing and you you don't know that that one thing will lead to this thing which will lead to that thing which will be the thing that changes your life and I kind of explained and I I wrote down all these dominos that that I had experienced through my interaction with this mentor and kind of explain that and it was a really powerful exercise so just trust that the clarity will come when you take the step do the work keep going yeah

[01:03:15] Suzie : yeah don't sit around and able gaze and look for something that feels right take a step see where that takes you you'll know more and take the next step that's beautiful advice yeah yeah it's amazing that you're only 29 you're so wise thank you and so good

[01:03:30] Catherine : it's a high theoretical I just like to learn a lot hahaha

[01:03:34] Suzie : well you never stop and it's a blessing um so if you could have one billboard to influence others you could put that anywhere what what message would you put on it

[01:03:44] Catherine : I mean I think about this question and I I was split between two concepts but it's probably because it's the message that I need to hear right now yeah and and the one that I kind of settled on was this idea of just like take a breath take a breath like be here now take a breath because I think about you know how many commuters are on a billboard and you know rushing to their next thing or thinking through their next thing and busy filling their filling their time and their brains and just take a breath take a breath like you're be here now yeah so that's what I'd say

[01:04:13] Suzie : I love that and you know what I put on my list so I always have a list every week and I go through the list and I update it and you know I plan it and all this stuff and at the top of it this week I decided I put and I've said to myself 100 times already and it's only what today Tuesday have fun be happy yeah have fun be happy you know I get so like OK what should I do next and I'm pretty good about staying in alignment but you know lately it's been a lot of stuff going on and personally and professionally and so it's like just have fun be happy

[01:04:43] Catherine : yeah it's a choice be happy is a choice

[01:04:45] Suzie : yeah and I have to kind of like past couple days I've had to keep going like oh yeah remember you said that was important

[01:04:51] Catherine : ha ha ha cause I wanna hang on you're thinking it through then think it yeah

[01:04:54] Suzie : when I was really aligned and feeling really good like you know move toward those things right now yeah exactly yeah I love it alright perfect I love that and if you could leave listeners with one piece of advice something they could apply right away on this topic or anything that's really top of mind for you what would it be

[01:05:12] Catherine : yeah read through those statements you know if we're gonna post those in the show notes read those statements look at them through the lens of your team yourself your business especially if you're running a business and and really you know don't you don't necessarily need to even apply them right away but read through them familiarize yourself with them and let them kind of plant the seed for how you're how you're trying to build those up more and more in your work I think the more we do that and especially those three with the intrinsic you know provision trust pride all those things how can we build those up more within our relationships and our business that would be that would be it for sure

[01:05:44] Suzie : great place to start thank you for being on the podcast appreciate you

[01:05:49] Catherine : yeah love being here always it's always so fun

[01:05:52] Suzie : all right I hope you enjoyed that discussion I'm going to dive into some of the the key takeaways some of the key quotes some summary points about the discussion with Katherine and things that you can use as a takeaway don't forget that the show notes are at Priceless professional.com forward slash designing value all one word priceless professional dot com forward slash designing value so you can get all that insight but I do want to bring up one little segment thing that we've been doing lately this year before we close with my closing comments is our emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellent segment with the insightful and soulful Douglas White you've gotten to know him over this year I've done a couple of episodes with him he's the CEO of Soul Integrated Athletics and a former Major League pitching coach with a 17 year career across some of the top Major League organizations he is a four time minor league champion and has been part of two World Series winning teams and today his focus is helping athletes and all of us integrate emotional well being with high performance you know emotions are things that we have all day every day so we need to know what they're telling us how we can use them to guide our performance and help us be all that we wanna be so he's been bringing us practical wisdom today we're talking about segment his 13th little segment just a couple minutes and he's talking about a core truth around well being and emotions let's go listen to Douglas now

[01:07:30] Douglas : welcome back it's emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellence I am your host Douglas White and what I want to do today for segment 13 yes lucky No. 13 is I wanted us to add some things to the list that I spoke about way back when on segment 4 segment 4 we talked about things that you just should probably just stop trying to resist or push against in life emotions duality and contrast like those are the things inside of this universe on Mother Earth that we're living on here that for sure they're always gonna be around well recently I've added two more things to that list I wanted to discuss today one of those things is the unknown another thing that we just may or may not know why things are happening for us in the way they're happening sometimes in life you just don't know the whys and maybe you don't know the whats and maybe you don't know the hows and the who's and the when's and that's part of life where there's uncertainty this unknown it's okay that is part of the deal and so what we wanna do when we get into those places of the unknown or the uncertainty is overwhelming us or scaring us making us fearful that's when you can take it to the most smallest thing get back into the present moment and do the best you can to know well where am I right now what is going on with me right now oh wow I'm projecting these thoughts into the far future and I just don't know I'm uncertain and so you pull yourself back from that ledge and you just go well where am I now what am I looking at now what do I wanna be dealing with now what do I wanna be putting my focus on now and you shift back to the present moment but the unknown is always gonna be around for us and the last to the list right now that I've added is separation this is the land of separation when you come in to planet earth you're birthed into this lifetime you're gonna feel separation what do I mean by that you're not gonna feel very good sometimes you're literally on the land of separation you're no longer let's say pure non physical you're not pure energy you're now a physical and non physical being and so because of that you are gonna have separation you're gonna feel separation in your body how do we know we are feeling separation well we don't feel very good in those moments it's a less than feeling it is a lower frequency and that's how it's interpreted in our body it doesn't feel very good so your emotions duality contrast the unknown feeling separation feeling your separation these are all things we cannot deny or argue with while here on earth these are the things you wanna have relationships with in a way where you you understand them you know they're here and you embody them you enjoy them hopefully because you know it's all part of this time on earth but they're also part of the way you get to decipher and inform yourself and interpret your life and then create your courses of action off of these things off of this information I hope that's helpful appreciate you guys so much hope you're having a great day bye

[01:11:56] Suzie : so Douglas is talking about this natural part of life you know the we don't know the why how or when and he's always encouraging us to pay attention to how we're feeling and not to push against our emotions not to push against contrast where these things are not the way we want them to be in duality and then he added in two new areas of of uh paying attention is unknown and feeling separation you know that we are going to not feel good at times and it's all part of this life and he talks about frequency you know so that that higher aligned you know I'm in the zone some people don't like that term but it's right that feeling of being in the zone or feeling like okay low energy I don't don't feel all those in the zone but all of it is information so these things help us focus and decide what we want so now that I know what I don't want I clearly now know what I do want let me turn my attention there by being easy and kind to myself so you can see links to the two episodes I've done with Douglas at Priceless professional.com forward slash well being plus all these segments that he has created for us on these different episodes this year now jump from that and go back to my Designing Value conversation with Katherine again the show notes are at priceless professional.comslashdesigning value all one word lower case and I thought it was such a powerful conversation I knew it would be I uh her presentation is really smart and I hope you're walking away from this conversation with Catherine inspired as I felt that we can design value on purpose not just in our brand but in our communication in our team culture in our leadership some things that really stood out for me today and it's something to really remember remember you are a brand how you go about in the world and your business is a brand and your teams a brand that brands are relationships and that when we forget the emotional intrinsic value we offer we become become replaceable so think about that so I Katherine does an amazing job at the work with me but I also feel close to her and I I find that my long term clients where we've been able to get this connection I've some clients of 10 years or longer and it's always because we've created a personal relationship in addition to me doing the right things and providing the right value and having some structure so that hierarchy of putting the personal the emotional as important and I think another top takeaway is the axiological Net Promoter Score that it can be a simple yet profound tool to measure whether we're delivering value at every level and then remembering that every touch point whether it's a team meeting or an invoice email which is something I've focused on with one of my key very big clients that it's hard to kind of get in touch with them because they're so busy but they continue to be great clients is you know to try to in every interaction um see that as a chance to express trust pride connection appreciation and not thinking of is oh I gotta hurry up and send that invoice out it's like OK let's not keep it being a task and a structure just that why don't we put some feeling or connection into it so here are a handful of quotes that I want to share with you and then we'll close it out when you lead with the intrinsic value trust pride connection when you focus on that you create a legacy not just profit

[01:15:36] Suzie : profit is good but what about your legacy what about the long term memory of how you showed up and how people connected with you every brand is a relationship if you skip the emotional connection you lose the reason people stay um I love Catherine's example of Doctor Bronner's I think about it every time cause I always go into all the you know Whole Foods and sprouts and anywhere they have healthy stuff and organic stuff so they always have Doctor Bronner's there and maybe they have it in Publix and regular places too but um Doctor Bronner's is that soap so check it out next time you're at a grocery or anywhere Dr Bronner succeeds because it tells a story it hits practical needs and connects emotionally you know so it's all three dimensions and another favorite statement that we talked about the question isn't is our brand working the question is are we fulfilling the promises we made emotionally practically and structurally can you see how that really does focus how you figure out whether you're being successful or not and that you can apply this framework to your team your leadership your hiring process even to your invoice messages kind of recap what we said earlier um swap a metric for a story when you lead with emotion the data becomes even more powerful so as you're talking about data put a story in front of it so it becomes real so don't just stay in your head go to your heart and find the story sometimes it takes a little extra work to create the story and I had Doug Stevenson on he's a wonderful storyteller and he helps people write business stories and so I'll make sure that link is in the show notes today but that's his take to Doug Stevenson who I I studied with in the story theater method

[01:17:22] Suzie : telling a story does create connection people remember that he he is famous for telling great stories and build a whole career on it so he's a great teacher of it so I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well you know if you think about Robert Hartman I think we talked about it during our conversation but Robert Hartman who was the bringing it all together with axiology founder in in the 1960s and 70s his brilliance is remembered not just for his work but he's remembered all these he died in 1973 unexpectedly and his students still that are still living who I know who are very accomplished have all said he was the kindest person they ever knew that was 1973 a long time ago so when people connect you just don't lose that connection and it's such a valuable thing to do that with people cause when you connect you see people you're with them you're present with them so remember every act interaction is branding every touch point can carry value in the right order people before action before ideas all three matter you need ideas you need the systemic you need the action you gotta do the do the extrinsic the practical the doing but put it in the right order the people part comes first and Hartman built such a legacy and is such a great example of that and so I've always say that appreciation is a form of love and are you appreciating what people are doing are you saying hey I really appreciate the way you did this I really appreciate that and you can also be very direct another form of love is telling people when something isn't going right but you find that balance so that you can connect with people and have those kind of conversations so appreciation and leadership

[01:19:08] Suzie : you know all of it goes together in branding and in how we go about our life and it's about fulfilling promises across all three dimensions of value emotional practical and logical and again just to make the point again before we close out today because we all can do more of this and I we I am recording this a couple of days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and there's a lot of lot of thought around things that he said was if you stop talking you stop seeing the person as a person or as a human and that's when violence happens so you know how much connection can you take today with your world with your people with your family you know when you lead with in the intrinsic value this trust this connection this pride this goodness you create a legacy not just profit so let's build brands teams and lives that matter I wanna thank Katherine for putting this together don't forget the show notes priceless professional.com forward slash design finding value for all the links and don't forget about our new page what is Trimetrix priceless professional.comslash what is trimetrix all lowercase one word that's a new overview for you I like how the page look and guess who created it Catherine so you can see her great work so remember how you lead matters lead with purpose reduce the drama and keep building your wake up bigger life one step at a time and one choice at a time if you found value today please be sure to follow like and share the wake up bigger workforce podcast with your team and with your community and on social media I look forward to connecting with you again on our next episode and and thank you for tuning in and appreciate you for being a part of our community all the best

[01:21:06] Outro : this episode of the wake up Eager Workforce podcast was brought to you by Priceless Professional Development thank you for tuning in if you enjoyed today's show head over to Priceless professional.com to gain access to more professional development resources