Why the people you once admired — and those you no longer do — can map your evolving values
Do you struggle to put into words what is most important to you?
I did. But I just learned the solution: Look at the people you admire.
I engage in a lot of workshops. Workshops to help me improve my teaching, get my small business off the ground, become a better writer, or even just a better version of myself. Invariably, the question arises, “What do you value?” It’s a question I’ve always struggled with putting into words.
In a workshop this week, an exercise required me to identify three people whom I admire most. Coming up with a list of “admirees” was easy. I could rattle them off almost by rote: Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, my second-grade teacher, John Denver, Jane Goodall, Chrissy, Gaby, Mom, Dad, my siblings, a colleague, a college professor, a supervisor…
Admirees reveal your values
I’ve never had trouble identifying people I admire, but ask me to list my “values” and my mind goes blank. So I was surprised when it suddenly clicked that my list of admirees were my values in disguise. Not only that, I could see how my values developed by looking at when each person entered my list.
As a child, I apparently admired a person based on success, like President Lincoln for his Emancipation Proclamation or Helen Keller for her successful life despite her blindness and deafness.
Later, I admired people because of their belief systems, like John Denver’s environmentalism, Albert Schweitzer’s Reverence for Life, and Jane Goodall’s love of chimpanzees.
Still later, I admired people for their traits, like the creativity of famous scientists to develop interesting research programs or their ability to plan and carry through on a project.
Admirees falling from grace also reveal your values
Thinking about my list of admirees revealed something else: I don’t admire some of those folks anymore. In fact, I realized that I admire very few people. Instead, I admire parts of people.
People are multifaceted, complicated messes full of errors and misjudgments. But people can be judged separately from their accomplishments or traits.
I once admired Tiger Woods. Though I still respect his incredible golf skills, I no longer admire him after he cheated on his wife. That told me something important: fidelity belongs on my list of values.
When admiration changes because you change
Sometimes the shift isn’t because they’ve changed—it’s because I have. As a kid, I admired big names and big achievements. That made sense at the time; I was learning to see what success looked like. But as I grew older, success by itself wasn’t enough. I stopped admiring people simply because they were powerful or famous. My values had evolved, and my admirees no longer fit.
And sometimes, it’s both. They grow in one direction, I grow in another. Where we once overlapped, we no longer do. That’s not failure; it’s evidence of growth on both sides.
Outgrowing admirees is part of the process
Admiration isn’t a lifetime contract. Outgrowing an admiree doesn’t mean you were wrong to admire them before—it means they served their purpose. They showed you something you needed at that stage of life. When the overlap ends, that, too, reveals your values.
Holy cow. It all seems so simple now.
Though I obviously have them, I’ve always struggled to put words to my beliefs, values, emotions, and the like. Though designed for another purpose, the workshop exercise surprised me by helping me gain some clarity in this area.
So now I’m curious: Who do you admire? And what might that list be trying to tell you about the values you hold—today, and the ones you’ve outgrown?
(P.S. Admire wisely. It might be your values talking.)