Values First: How Knowing Your Core Beliefs Can Get You the Life and Career You Want

by Laura Eigel

Between the constant pressures of job performance and demands on your time, it’s easy to lose sight of your values, letting them shift out of alignment. Those simple misalignments are keeping you from feeling joyful and fulfilled.

The Values First Framework , developed by Laura Eigel, PhD , can help you change that picture by recentering your life around what truly matters to you. Learn through the personal stories and experiences of the many leaders Laura has worked with to use your values to guide your decisions. Discover a step-by-step process to identify your values, audit your time, and set the boundaries you need to live your values for the long haul.

With proven reflections and exercises to help you zero in on your own core values and discover what authentic leadership means for you, Values First will help you shift out of the struggle and into the flow of the joyful career and life you are meant to live.

190 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2022

Reviews

[Jill Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers, especially females, will instantly connect with author Dr. Laura Eigel’s goals for this book, “to bring more diversity and authenticity to the workplace” (p. xix). Through her Values First Framework she challenges readers into self-reflection and action as she walks us through the six parts of her framework (1) Values First, (2) Audit Time, (3) Life Boundaries, (4) Uplifting Others, (5) Experiencing Conflict and finally, (6) Sustaining Values.

After more than a decade in corporate America I have been through my fair share of annual performance reviews, quarterly one-on-one meetings, coaching, team bonding, etc. In my experience, these can often be awkward, disjointed and more standardized than personal. But, through the framework that Dr. Eigel provides in her book “Values First” we are given something both personal and important to managers and organizations as we get to know ourselves and understand the best way to align our work with our values. Dr. Eigel asks us hard questions surrounding what we value, how we prioritize our week around these values, and how our actions align, etc. Her framework, in 200 pages, does more for me as an employee than decades of performance reviews and trying to find what makes me happy, fulfilled and driven in my work and home life.

I immediately felt connected to this author as she states her desires to advance women in their careers. Often, when we think business book for women, we think “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg. I’ve read “Lean In” many times, and while it is mostly applicable for women, much of the criticism for it has surrounded the questions of “why women have to be the ones leaning in?” “Values First” takes a different approach, applicable to both men and women, but especially women struggling to put their values first in the often masculine dominated world of business, will find this extraordinarily helpful in their quest to better align personal and professional values to ensure the right things are driving us in BOTH of these facets. Filled with examples, demonstrations and instructional supplemental tools, Dr. Eigel gives us tangible insights and techniques to impact readers for the long term.

With decades of experience coaching and developing others, including examples from herself, her career and those she’s worked with, “Values First” is more relatable, helpful, and understandable than some of the most mainstream business and self-guides.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful book. Laura Eigel gave practical and ,much needed advice. The worksheets are a tremendous help.

[Pria Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for work. But I still liked it a lot. Kind of giving “girlboss” but I like the action steps she gives

[lucky daffodil · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! read this for work, so still trying to get in the groove of business non-fiction.