099 TIME TO START UNDERSTANDING YOUR VALUES | Best Self-Improvement Podcasts

The podcast is back, woohoo! In this first episode of the new season of The Unlocked Podcast , I explain the importance of understanding and living according to our values. I share my personal journey of rediscovering my values and the impact it had on my mental and physical health. In the episode I emphasize the importance of prioritizing self-care and not neglecting your well-being and I also reflect on the fun and enjoyment that derives from podcasting and how it aligns with my values. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to identify their own values and start living a life in line with them.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Apology

01:40 Understanding Values

08:02 Prioritizing Mental and Physical Health

09:28 Rediscovering the Fun in Podcasting

12:26 Living Life According to Your Values

14:20 Taking Action and Conclusion

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Transcript

Ricky Locke (00:14.254)

Hello, strangers.

Ricky Locke (00:27.694)

Welcome to the Unlocked Podcast. We are back. If you are listening to this on your favourite podcast platform, you may not be aware, but we're also live now on YouTube so you can now watch every single episode of the Unlocked Podcast. But first, I need to say a massive thank you to all the loyal fans and all the patrons of this podcast for continuing to support the podcast in what seems to have been an eternity since the last episode. I know, I know, hands up. I have.

been away for 15 months. The last episode of this podcast came out in December, 2022. I'm so, so sorry. I have not been there. I know that people have been emailing me, messaging me. Uh, when's the next episode going to come out? Obviously the last episode of release was happy holidays in 2022, where people were having the Christmas episode. So we're back and I'm going to explain why I have not been here, but also the most important lesson and why this episode is all about is about

why we need to start understanding our values so that we can start doing everything that our heart desires. Go with me on this. Firstly, patrons, loyal fans, I appreciate your support. Thank you so much for sticking around. It really means the world. I have not been here because of this question. You may recall this question from last season, whenever that was, 2022, and it was this

Is this action going to produce the outcome that I'm looking for? Now, that was a phrase really about the podcast of is the podcast going to produce the outcome that I'm looking for? And I went, no. Now, hold on. Don't cut off there. Don't switch off. I'm going to explain why this podcast is so important to me. I absolutely love it. The people that I get to speak to, it's just incredible. This platform is such a wonderful thing. It's opened massive doors for me in my life and my career as a speaker.

and also a magician as well. And it's a really important thing to me. Now, the reason that I neglected it for a while was because of a couple of things. For those who've been following, you know that I have a daughter. Well, she is now two years old and three months. Yay! If you are watching this on YouTube, you may see that I've got these bloodshot eyes, which are just constantly bloodshot now as being a parent, as tiredness. But I can't say that. I could do a bit more energy. I can't say I'm tired, because we know that's what we can focus on. More on that on another episode. However,

Ricky Locke (02:54.602)

What we need to start thinking about is why I haven't been here. Well, I had a bit of a break because it's quite exhausting. It's quite tiring looking after a child. Now, where I live in my house and where I record all these episodes, it's just across down the hallway from my from my daughter. And I speak so loud that trying to get the space and time to do it in the evenings was really, really difficult. And because of life becoming back to normal, hosting weddings, running the Confident Club, presenting and speaking.

I just didn't get the time to do it. And I was really important to me that my daughter has to grow up and I really got support as best I can, so I thought, you know what, I'm going to pause this for a while. Another thing which leads exactly to why we're going to start talking about values was that in January of 2023, I was rushed to hospital. Yeah. So I developed this massive headache, really, really bad headache that happened for like three or four days and the kind of headaches were like parasympathetic just doesn't shift it really, really bad.

And it got to a point where we rang 111. If you're listening in America or another country, 111 is the phone service that we use in the UK that will point you to a specialist in the hospital. And they will then also point you to where you need to go. I was rushed to A&E, really severe headache. And they diagnosed me with suicide headaches. Now, suicide headaches are the worst medical pain that you can ever experience. My wife disagrees with me. She says that childbirth is much worse than that.

We'll let her have that, because I think that's important. However, it was so bad, I developed cluster headache, what they're really known as, and this whole side of my face developed Bell's palsy. Now I was very lucky, the face didn't droop, but the whole face went numb. It was a big, big wake-up call, huge wake-up call. I was like, this feels like I was gonna have a stroke. It was so bad, I felt genuinely, you know, my life's gonna end here, I don't know what's gonna happen, I've never felt this pain in my life, I just thought my whole face, you know, it was kind of symptoms of a stroke.

It was a massive wake up call for me to go and he started doing something about my health. So which leads, I guess, into why I've not been here. Now, for people who follow me on Instagram or social media, you'll know that I've been doing some personal training. Yay. With Henry Godfrey, who might come on to this podcast as well. And it's been really important to me to start looking after my doors, because if I need to unlock the best version of myself, then I need to be the best version of myself to do that. Now, here's where.

Ricky Locke (05:20.214)

This is kind of threading into why we need to start talking about our values. During last year, I had some real mental health challenges. My fitness was going really well, but mentally I wasn't really looking after myself. And I sat down with my wonderful friend, Vanda Vaga, who runs a wonderful company. She's an NLP master trainer. And we sat down for like a personal growth session. I was having a bit of a hard time in my life.

Mentally quite challenging, lots of things going on personally. And she said, Ricky, have you ever sat down and worked out your own values? I was like, well, you know what? I perform for everybody else. I serve other people. I'm coaching other people. Don't really get a big chance to focus on myself. So I went, no, I haven't. She went, well, let's do it. So she said, Ricky, just start writing down all your values. What's important here. Okay.

I started writing down on my list, like, fun. Yeah, that's really important to me. Uh, fulfillment. Yeah. I love that freedom. Yeah, definitely autonomy, family, family's got to be in there as well. Um, money, you know, and so forth and all these things started to go on their free time, traveling, um, going to see bands and stuff. So music creativity was a real big thing to me. And I started going down the list and I got to about 18 and I was like, um, mental health.

19 physical health. And then Vanda went, Ricky, just stop there. She went, let's just backtrack. Tell me what your first five were. I was like, hmm, fun. Yeah. Family, fulfillment, freedom, autonomy, that kind of thing. Let's just stop Ricky. What did you say it was 18 and 19? I went, um, well, it was a mental health and physical health. She went, oh, let's just stop there. She went, you do know Ricky that you cannot do any of those top five.

If you do not prioritize your mental health and physical health. And I was like, Oh, and then the penny dropped. I was like, you're right. I thought, Oh my God, why haven't I been serving myself? And I started realizing that I spend so much time, which is important. You know, we've got families, we've got friends, we've got colleagues, we've got people that we serve in our business. But I wasn't serving myself and I had to start realizing I need to do something about this.

Ricky Locke (07:42.678)

and I'd forgotten what was important to me. I had it kind of as disillusioned of like, yeah, family fun, full freedom, but was I really living to my values? No. What was the outcome that was going on in my life? I wasn't very happy. Mental health was really high. My physical health had started to drop again, even though I'd been working on it really well. I started to go down into bad habits, sugary drinks, bad diets, that kind of thing, late nights, lack of sleep. And I'd forgotten about what's important to me.

And it was only until when Vanda sat down with me and I went, I got it. Yeah. I need to start prioritizing. What's important to me. As soon as I started to have that, I started to focus on my fitness, start to focus on my mental health. So checking in, asking questions, being more honest with people and really living out my values, what was the outcome? I'm much happier and positive Ricky. During this process, the podcast fell into these values.

And the podcast falls under fun. I have neglected for so long of why I do this podcast. 2022 for those following me, you might remember I did a massive campaign soon. This podcast is going to get into the top 10 of the UK's self improvement podcast charts for Apple. Yay. And I know this massive thing about emailing people, WhatsApp and people saying, please, please subscribe, please subscribe. When the episode comes out, you have to download it. I need you to do this.

And it was that vanity metric, which it wasn't the purpose of doing it. It was genuine because I genuinely believe this podcast has massive value and can just be shared to more people around the world. People need to hear it. But I've neglected that. And I kind of fell into the trap of vanity metrics and all the other things. And for those who run a podcast, you might know this or even if you don't run a podcast, you might not know this. It's a lot of work. You don't get paid big bucks for the podcast. I have a wonderful patient community where the members help to support

which pays for web hosting. It pays for a little bit of technology, but you don't get paid for this. And on top of being a parent, on top of running a business, on top of all these things, you start going, well, this is a huge, overwhelming project. YouTube channel, SEO, keyword research, editing the audio. There wasn't this big return on the investment. I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to pause it. It was only when Vanda did that session with me that I realized,

Ricky Locke (10:08.138)

why I'm not doing the podcast. I'd forgotten that it's fun. Yes, it doesn't pay big bucks. Yes, it doesn't like bring me in business. Well, it may do. Who knows? Right. But it was fun. I get to speak to amazing people from all over the world, my favorite authors. And yet I've forgotten that it was just because I enjoyed it. It is a massive project. It's huge. It's overwhelming. You know, I've even just created this bloody YouTube channel. You know, please subscribe as well. So, you know, when every episode is coming out.

But I'm doing it now because it's fun. I'm learning as a go. These are great stories. These are stories I get to share on stage as a professional speaker. And even when we run the Confident Club in our presentation, Mastery Workshop, these are wonderful stories that I can help my delegates to improve their confidence about beliefs, mental health, resilience mindset, and all these amazing things. And yes, it's going to be quite challenging going forward, because now I've decided to run a YouTube channel as well as creating the audio, but that's okay. Because

If we bring it back to why, why am I doing it? It's fun. It's a great thing. So the podcast is back. Yay. And I'm gonna continue to do it for as long as I can. And yes, there may be days where it's gonna be really difficult to get episodes. I've been batching loads of episodes. So I've got a nice like six or seven weeks, like in front of me, which I can edit and reschedule and reorganize. I'm just gonna keep on doing these individual podcasts, but it's all gonna be because I enjoy it and it's fun. It's gonna be quite difficult.

But I'm now starting to learn. I'm going to outsource. I get a lot of people now to help me with my videos, the editing so that I can now becomes like a collective team. But here's the penny thing or the light bulb moment that we need to think about for anyone listening to this is do not fall into the trap about me being disillusioned of why you do something. I'd completely forgot why I do this podcast. So what you need to start doing for anyone, if you're, if you're in the same trap as me overwhelmed with lots of projects going on, stop pause.

and just simply get a piece of paper out. Start writing down all the things that's important to you. What are your values? Family, fulfillment, freedom. In hindsight, I probably should have said family is number one, because I've got a daughter now. But anyway, mental health and fitness, right? Very, very important. Start writing down all the things that are important to you, whether it's your mental health, physical health, family, fulfillment. If it's money, if it's traveling, whatever that could be, start asking yourself, are you living your life to your values? Because if you're like me,

Ricky Locke (12:35.01)

who wasn't living their life to their values, then what happens is you start getting overwhelmed, you start losing sight of what's important and that goal that you're actually trying to achieve. Just take a moment to pause, get off autopilot mode, take a breath, breathe, and just actually focus on what is important to you, what should your life look like according to your values, because yes, we have to serve so many people.

We run businesses, we have jobs, we have families, but it's still important not to neglect us because I realised if I don't look after my mental health or my physical health, how can I look after my daughter? And that's the thing we need to start thinking about. So take a piece of paper, take a breath, write down all the things that's important to you and then start questioning, is everything you are doing living life to your values, even in business?

fun things. I've started to turn down events, which I would have done years ago, because I'm now going, that doesn't sound very fun to me. I don't want to do it. It's a very important task. But the question is, is to think about what if you were to start now taking the time to understanding your values? What could that do to your future? What if you were to start questioning?

everything you do, is it in sync or in line with your values? What could be the possibilities of maybe your career or your business? What if you were to do this right now today? What could be the possibility for tomorrow? So give it a go. It is your choice. You get to decide it's not what everyone else thinks. Your values are important to you. Take the time to go right out today and then hopefully let me know, put a comment in this YouTube video or tell us.

on Facebook or Instagram. What's important to you? What are you now doing about living life to your values? So thank you for listening to this episode. We're back. Yay. Do not forget to hit that subscribe button so you know when every episode is going to be released. Patrons massive thank you to you. I've put your names in the description of this as well. So Sherry, Chloe, Anthony Howe and Steve, thank you so much for continuing to support this. If you want to be a patron member as well, you can join for a cup of coffee, three pounds, free British pounds.

Ricky Locke (14:58.346)

And you can learn all some extra exclusive access and get every episode before it's released. My cat is now scratching the door because he wants some food. So I'm going to say thank you so much for listening to this first episode. Thanks for being patient for 15 months. We're back, baby. And we're going to have some fun. Enjoy the ride and good luck unlocking the best version of yourself today. And I'll see you on another episode of unlocked. Goodbye.