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Die Power von Werten – Die Kraft, die dich antreibt und Teams und Kulturen verbindet –
Richard Barrett im Gespräch mit Veit Lindau – Folge 111
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Podcast: Seelengevögelt für die Rebellen des Geistes
Veit Lindau: Ich wünsche dir einen wunderschönen Tag. Hier ist Veit mit einer weiteren
Episode in meinem Podcast, Seelengevögelt für die Rebellen des Geistes. Was ist einer der
wichtigsten Unterschiede zwischen den meisten anderen Säugetieren und den Menschen?
Ganz sicher nicht unsere Anzüge und Kleider, die Maschinen, die wir entwickelt haben oder
Autos. Es ist unsere Fähigkeit, bewusst Werte aufzustellen und uns danach zu richten. Ich bin
überzeugt davon, dass diese Fähigkeit in den kommenden Jahren intensiv in den meisten von
uns Menschen reifen muss, damit wir unser Überleben auf diesem Planeten sichern und
gleichzeitig das wahre Potenzial des Menschen entfalten können.
Deswegen freue ich mich ganz, ganz doll, dir in diesem Podcast einen der weltweit führenden
Experten für Werte und Bewusstseinsentwicklung vorstellen zu können, Dr. Richard Barrett.
Freue dich auf einen sehr inspirierenden Talk, der den Geist dehnt.
Ein kleiner Hinweis für all diejenigen unter euch, die vielleicht nicht so sicher im Englischen sind.
Wir haben euch auf meinem YouTube-Kanal das Video mit deutschen Untertiteln zur Verfügung
gestellt.
Und jetzt wünsche ich dir viel Freude und spannende Erkenntnisse. Dear Mr. Barrett, I’m very,
very happy to meet you and thank you that I have the opportunity to speak with you about one
of my most favorite topics, values.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Well, I’m happy to talk about that too, because it’s one of my favorite
topics. So let’s start at the roots. What is a value? I mean, everybody is speaking about values,
but obviously you have a kind of value problem in humankind.
Veit Lindau: So what is a value?
Dr. Richard Barrett: Let me tackle it from two directions, you know. One direction is to say
whatever you need is what you value. So what do you need right now in your life? Space and
time. So you value space and time. So whatever we need is what we value. And that’s at a very
practical level, but then you talk about deeper health values such as honesty, commitment, etc.
These are guideposts for helping us to make decisions. When you make decisions based on
your values, you feel in alignment with whatever it is that you’re doing. So if you operate out of
alignment, that is to say, you are not operating in alignment with your values, then you will feel
uncomfortable. At some deep level, they guide us in our decision-making and if we’re very
perceptive, we can feel that difference when we make a decision which goes against our values,
we’ll feel a little bit uncomfortable, but we may say, yeah, I may have to apologize, that didn’t
feel right. So it’s really, they are really a deep energetic guide to living in alignment with who we
really are. And that opens up another whole box of, well, who are we really? Let’s stop there for
the moment.
Veit Lindau: Is this a question to me?
Dr. Richard Barrett: No, I was a general question. Yeah, but we can go there if you wish.
Then we will need a week or just one second.
Veit Lindau: Well, it depends, you know, who am I is a question that many people have been
striving to answer most of their lives. So obviously, values have a very, very powerful impact on
our life. So how and when is a value created in my system?
Dr. Richard Barrett: Wow, when is the value created? I think, let me go back to that first
point. It links to needs, you know, what does a teenager need if they’re going to grow and
develop? They need to be recognized. They need respect, etc. So what they need is what they
value and so that’s, I think, the source of our values is whatever it is that we need in our lives.
And often people ask, well, what are your top three values? And they’ll say making a difference,
honesty, and commitment. And then I can ask another person and then they’ll have maybe one
of the same and several two different ones. And then I say to them, well, simply this
commitment, this honesty, and whatever it is that you said, that’s what you need in your life.
Now, why does one person need the three values that they mentioned and why does another
person have something slightly different? Well, it’s based on their history, it’s based on what was
missing for them earlier in their lives or it might also be what they found works for them in their
lives, you know. Honesty is a very interesting one. Young people, I’ve looked at the values of
different age groups and I’m talking specifically about the United Kingdom right now, is that
young people don’t value honesty as much when they are in their 20s. But when they get to their
50s and 60s, more of them value honesty and so honesty goes up in importance to them. So,
you know, I know that because what we’ve done is we’ve asked people of different age groups,
what are your top 10 values? And we see that there are shifts by age and so I come to the
conclusion that during their lives, these people have found that honesty is the best policy, that it
actually works for them and so they now value it.
Veit Lindau: That’s very interesting, but what about values which we have got, for example,
by education or by church? So let’s say a church has taught me too much passion is not good.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, and actually, you know, during that period when we’re growing up
up to the age of about 20, we are very influenced by our parents and our teachers and so we
accept, because we don’t know anything different, we accept their beliefs and their values. And
then we come to what I call the individuation stage of development. It begins around 24 and
goes on until late 30s and during that period we are looking for freedom to explore who we really
are at that stage of psychological development. And so we then begin to question this
conditioning that we’ve received during our early age. Now, not everybody goes through that
individuating stage. Some people never get to that stage, but I’m sure that you have, and I’m
sure that many other people have too. And so they begin to say, ah, who am I? Well, actually,
this value that I’ve learned when I was young, which was fed to me by the church, actually
doesn’t mean anything to me. It doesn’t resonate with me. And yet, so they’ve accepted that in
order to get their needs met in their community because all the community accepts those values
and so they accept them because that’s how they can get on in that community. But if you go
through the individuation stage, you can separate yourself from your upbringing, separate
yourself from your community and say, well, actually, that doesn’t mean anything to me. What
means more important to me is creativity or some other value. And that’s a very important stage
of life from mid-20s through to late 30s, where we begin to really ask the question, who am I? As
I said, not everybody gets to do that. And why? Because they are poor and very focused on
surviving, feeling safe and feeling secure, or they live in a very totalitarian or authoritarian
regime where asking questions like who am I and exploring the values gets them locked up. And
when the former USSR was just like that, if you were an intellectual and asking questions and
looking to individuate to actually formulate your own values, you disappear. And so that’s a really
important phase. As I said, not everybody goes through it, but if you do, it actually sets you up
for the rest of your life because you become, this is what’s important to me, not that. And it may
be that you find it difficult to be around your parents in the future, or you may change your
religion, or you may not have a religion. But that phase of life causes you to question the values
that were put to you in the early stages of your life.
Veit Lindau: It’s very interesting what you mentioned about the USSR. You know, I’m
originally from East Germany, and I really can still remember the times in my school, you know.
There was obviously no invitation to find out my own values, you know. No. If I look now into the
political situation in East Germany, I really can see that the older generations are kind of, you
know, they are holding on to old values, but don’t think about it. You know, it’s like, don’t take this
from me.
Dr. Richard Barrett: No, because it’s their identity. You know, we have these values and they
become part of our identity and how we operate in the world, and it can be very destabilizing to
challenge somebody’s identity in that way.
Veit Lindau: Yeah, so I researched your website and I mean, I’m very impressed about your
work about values and I’m very happy that I found your work because you know, I don’t know if
you have the same experience, but when I teach values in my seminars, I almost always have
the feeling, you know, the brains of the listeners, they have trouble to think deeply about values.
It’s kind of, you know, it’s at first it’s a kind of excitement, but then when the work starts, you
know, it’s kind of, you know, for me, I have always the feeling like the brain is not really
interested to find out clear values.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Okay, so let me, you said some interesting things there and I want to
pick up on one or two of them. The last one was the brain and I don’t often talk much about the
brain because actually I talk about the mind. The brain is like the body, you know
, it receives information and it will operate based on that information. And so the mind is actually
controlling the brain. So I like to talk about the mind and you know that talking about values, I
don’t know how you do that and I, but I want to share with you what I do and what I see
happening. I ask people to pick three values that are important to them and they’ll say, well, I’m
not sure what that means and I say, well, you know, what do you need in your life? And they say,
oh, I get it. Yeah, yeah, so they pick three values and then I say, well, what are the beliefs
around those values and what are the behaviors that go with those values? And they write that
down and then I say to them, I want you to share that with somebody else. So the two people
now start talking about their values. But what happens, what I notice happens, is that the
volume in the room goes up and people get excited. And then afterwards I say, well, okay, let’s
talk about that. I don’t want to know what values, but what was going on when you were talking
about this? And they said, well, I felt that I had a link to this person. It felt like a very scary
conversation, but it felt like an important conversation. And I said, and so their experience of
talking about values helps them to understand that they are so important in their lives. And so
that’s what I often do. And it seems to get people engaged and then thinking about, aha, this is
important. And then, there’s a website that people can go to where they can pick out their top 10
values and you get a report back. It’s called valuescenter.com/pva and it takes four or five
minutes and you get a report back with your top 10 values and a description of who you are
based on that. And then people do that and they go, oh my god, yeah, that’s exactly me. All we
did was actually, we had some algorithms that said, if you pick this value and that value, then
you know, we can add a phrase here that means this. And if you pick this value but not that
value, then there’s a different out and there’s a whole set of algorithms that go behind the
values. And the people get the report and go, wow, that’s me. And they begin to get a deeper
understanding of what’s important to them because actually, it’s not something we often discuss,
you know. I mean, when you go to a dinner party, you know, answer me this question. When you
go to a dinner party, do you ever ask people or do you ever get into a conversation about, well,
what are your values?
Veit Lindau: Actually, you know, because it’s my passion, I do this very often.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Oh good, good. Well, what do you find out?
Veit Lindau: I mean, it’s always getting hotter, yeah. And of course, there’s immediately
coming up another question and for me, this is the hottest question. Okay, now I know my value,
but am I willing to live my value?
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, living in alignment. That’s why we ask the question. Well, pick out
your values and then what are your beliefs about that and what are the behaviors? Because I
can look at you and you can tell me your values, but if I really want to know what your values
are, I have to observe your behaviors.
Veit Lindau: Yeah, so why is it so difficult for species, which is, I mean, in a way quite
intelligent, to live their own values? You know, why we have very often this kind of mind-
behavior gap?
Dr. Richard Barrett: Okay, so we think, I mean, this is controversial, but we think we have
needs. Okay, we have certain needs and in order to get those needs met, we have to behave in
a particular way. Now, that’s because we live inside a worldview and the worldview we live
inside and we have to be in alignment with that if we want to get our needs met. But you may
have a slightly different worldview and so you behave in the way that of the worldview in which
you live and the majority of people in order to get your needs met, but actually it’s not who you
are and you simply do it in order to get your needs met. But you’re holding on to a different
worldview and you have to compromise that if you want to get what you want inside the
framework, your framework of existence. So yeah, this topic of values leads you straight into the
topic of worldviews because worldviews are values plus beliefs. And I’m just finishing a new
book called Worldview Dynamics and the Well-Being of Nations and I’m just polishing the book
right now. And it’s clear to me that there are five, there have been up to this point, sorry, six
different worldviews in this world. And there are four that are very active right now. And the
worldview, and this will hit home to you, I think, the worldview of East Germany or how it was is
very different from the worldview of West Germany and coming together, there had to be a
realignment of values which is still taking place, as you said, because the older people haven’t
quite got there yet. So I’ve forgotten what the question was now. I’m sorry. I got so involved in
my talk about worldviews.
Veit Lindau: Yeah, yeah, I’m coming back to this because actually there’s one of my
questions. But first, it’s a mind-behavior gap. So I would like to bring in a concrete example. I
think a lot of people are right now, especially because the Amazon forest is burning, aware,
okay, we have to do something. We have to do something. So then somebody is coming to you
and say, oh, great, your values, you want to save the earth, that’s great. So please stop eating
meat, or at least eat less meat. And now we have a problem.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, yeah, because this person likes meat.
Veit Lindau: Yeah. So what is happening inside of us? I mean, it’s obvious that I guess most
of the people in this world have, for example, the value of peace or respecting the environment.
So why is it so difficult for us to live it?
Dr. Richard Barrett: I think it’s difficult to live it because we’re not truly in alignment. We say
this, but it will be inconvenient to live it like recycling. Recycling is very inconvenient, you know,
because you have to sort out all your trash and then put them in different boxes. Not eating
meat is, gets people, that’s actually just asking the question, makes them reflect. I know for
myself, I haven’t stopped eating meat, but I rarely eat meat these days. And so it takes a while, I
think, for people to change their behavior and it takes a while for them to get what it is and why
they have to do it. And my belief is that, and it’s only a belief, is that you have to feel the pain
before you change, you know. So sadly, the world has to feel the pain of the impact of the fires
in the Amazon before they’re really going to get upset. So when I feel the pain of my actions,
then I will do something about it. If I’m not feeling the pain, then I won’t do. However, there are
people who get it right away and I would call these higher consciousness people. They have a
larger sense of identity which says, oh, you know, I’m not from Germany, I’m a member of the
human race and I live on this planet and it’s really important for humanity and they have a
transnational identity. I’m finding more and more people like that with this transnational identity
and these are the people who are showing up and saying, we have to act. We have to do
something. However, they are in many ways constrained by the fact that they feel they live in a
particular nation. And so how can they act as an individual if they live in a nation like America
which is saying there is no climate problem, you know? So they have to do something
themselves or they have to join up with other people around the world. And I think we’re about to
see a new, because of this climate crisis, we’re about to see a new level, a new worldview
image. I call it humanity awareness, which goes beyond our national awareness or our identity
with our nation and it says, look, I’m much more than this and I identify with humanity and this is
what’s important for humanity. So again, it’s a shift in consciousness. It’s a shift which people
find hard to do if you have not been through what I would call, you remember I talked about that
individuating process where we find the freedom to look at the values that we’ve been
programmed to accept and we begin to find who we are. So in order to get to this high state of
consciousness, we have to individuate, we have to go through that. And so the question is, you
know, there are over a hundred nations in the world which are authoritarian or where people are
actually not allowed to individuate because, you know, the leader calls all the shots. The leader
says, this is how it is in this country and if you don’t behave this way, you’ll be locked up.
Particularly, this particular affects the lesbian and gay community because, you know, they
cannot be open with their being in those nations because if they are, their life may, they may be
locked up or they may even lose their life. So it’s a consciousness problem and we have to
elevate the consciousness. And there are people living in Germany and people living in Sweden
and Norway and some of the more advanced consciousness nations who are quite happy to
say, yeah, I’m stepping up to humanity awareness and yes, you know
, I’m not prepared to see these forest fires go on. I want to do something about it. And so I was
just watching the news, a couple of the European countries have stood up to the South
American countries and said, look, you know, we’re not going to sign this trade agreement
unless you do something about these fires. And that’s showing, I think, that higher level of
conscious awareness. And I actually admire Angela Merkel very much because, you know, with
this, this immigrant problem, I mean, she was like, look, these are people, they need a home,
let’s give them a home because we’ve got so much. I mean, that’s the type of consciousness
that we need more of in our world. And there are, and that’s a particular worldview. And then
there are people in lower consciousness and lower worldviews that say, no, no, no. You’d be
interested to know, I’m about to publish a report about the European Union. I know it’s changing
topic, but it’s not really. There are four different worldviews among the nations of the European
Union. And my conclusion is that it’s almost impossible now for them to manage the European
Union because of the different value differences. And I actually can see a split coming, I’m not
just talking Brexit because I hope that doesn’t happen, but I’m talking there, it’s actually, I’ve
measured the consciousness of the nations of the world and I’ve measured the consciousness
of the nations of the European Union. And when you, when I look at the numbers, there’s an
absolute gap between one set of nations and another set of nations and I think that gap could
actually develop and result in a breaking apart of the European Union because of values.
Anyhow, I’ve been rambling on, I’m sorry about that, I take to ramble, I’m sorry, but anyhow, let
me come back to you.
Veit Lindau: That’s very fascinating and it opens up a new question for me. You know, I
agree with you, I see that we have a kind of, you know, really kind of value wars in our society
right now. So what can one do, you know, for example, I see people like, you know, tending to
live in a kind of value bubble, only speaking with people who are vegans too, only speaking with
people who are against refugees or pro-refugees. So if I start to understand this kind of means,
you know, what can I do to, in a positive way, to seduce people into a kind of open value
discussion?
Dr. Richard Barrett: So this is a question I think about all the time. Engaging people in this
discussion, you know, the question is, are you trying to persuade them to, you know, to accept
your worldview, or are you actually willing to have an open conversation? Because immediately,
people will be on the defensive if they think that you’re trying to change their worldview and their
values, they’ll be on the defensive. So the first point is to be open about discussion and to have
an inquiring mind and a curious mind which asks questions, why is that important, why do you
do this and why do you do that? So the inquiring mind is important but it’s by asking questions
you want to get the people down to, well, you know, why is it important to them, whatever it is
that they… And so come to your point about people gathering together around these memes and
the question I like to ask is, are you looking at the world through your worldview? Or are you
willing to put your worldview on one side and look at it rather than through it? Now, that’s a big
difference to look at your worldview rather than through your worldview. Looking through your
worldview is you’re going to defend whatever’s going on. If you look at it and you look at other
worldviews, so then you can say, well, okay, you have this worldview and I have this worldview
and our friend John over there, he has this worldview. Why don’t we just stand back and look at
these three different worldviews or these three different value systems and then evaluate them?
See, then you’re into that curious dialogue, that asking of questions. And so for me, I think that’s
what I try to do. I try to engage people, you know, meet them where they are but engage them in
a conversation which entices them to look at their values and look at mine and look at theirs and
say, oh, okay. I don’t want them on the defensive because you’ll never win if you’re on the
defensive. Now, you said the word meme and I don’t know whether you’re familiar with spiral
dynamics.
Veit Lindau: Okay.
Dr. Richard Barrett: So my new book, Worldview Dynamics, actually takes spiral dynamics to
a new level and it explains how a person will develop a particular worldview. Let’s say you went
to school with Alice or Fred and you lived in the same town and yet when you grew up, you had
different worldviews. Why? Spiral dynamics doesn’t explain that. And so what I’ve done is I’ve
attempted to explain why people have different worldviews and when, and it all goes back to
basically the first 20 years of their lives and their personal experiences. There are three belief
systems that make up a worldview. A meme is part of dynamic. One is what I call the cosmology.
So every meme, every worldview has a cosmology. That means, well, what’s a cosmology? It’s
our understanding of how the world was created, how it works, whether there’s a divine creator,
provider, how do we get our needs met in this life, in the next, etc. So every meme, every
worldview has its own cosmology. Secondly, every worldview has a cultural element to it. So and
the third element is what I call my personal values. Now, what happens is that one of those will
be dominant. So my personal values will be dominant, or my cultural values will be dominant, or
my cosmology will be dominant in terms of my worldview. Let’s take Donald Trump, okay?
Veit Lindau: My favorite training example.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, exactly. I have a beautiful thing about that too. So Donald Trump,
he went through the first three stages, surviving, this is my model of seven of the stages of
development, surviving, conforming and differentiating. That’s up to two years old when the
reptilian mind-brain is forming from two to seven when the limbic mind-brain is dominant, the
emotional mind, and then from about eight to 24 while the rational mind is growing and
developing. We don’t have a fully functioning brain until we are in our early twenties. So
because we’re into emergent learning throughout that period, our mind is like a sponge. The
experiences that we have in the first 20 years of our lives are very, very important to us. So
Donald Trump never got his survival needs met, never got his emotional needs met, and never
got his self-esteem needs met. These were the things that were missing in his life. And when
you don’t get those needs met, you spend your leisure of your life trying to meet those needs.
And so he’s never going to individuate. He’s never going to get to the point of saying, who am I?
Because he’s totally preoccupied with getting the needs met from his childhood which he never
got. And I came to that conclusion by reading his book on leadership in 2010. I wrote a book
called The New Leadership Paradigm and I thought, okay, let me look at some leaders, what
their values are. So I looked at Jack Welch, etc., and I thought, oh, okay, I have to look at
Donald Trump. All right, he’s written a book on leadership. So I read his book on leadership and
there’s a whole chapter on revenge and believe me, there’s a whole chapter on revenge. I
couldn’t believe it. And so I picked out Donald Trump’s values, top 10 values from his book and I
found that most of them were in the first three levels of consciousness and they were limiting.
He had revenge, he had status or something. I can’t remember exactly what he had. I could look
it up. But I then began to realize that these were unmet needs from his childhood which he’s still
trying to satisfy. Now, that happens to a lot of people and it prevents them, coming back to the
same point, it prevents them from individuating and self-actualizing. This was the issue in the
Arab Spring. If you had some young people from the principally North Africa who’ve been
abroad, they got an education, they came back, they were employed by a private sector and
they had good paying jobs, they could actually meet their survival safety and security needs and
now they wanted to individuate. They were in their late 20s, early 30s and that means finding the
freedom to be who you really are. And of course, up against the regime, they didn’t want that
and so they were blocked. And that’s what was the former USSR and that’s really what it was all
about. So to understand what’s going on in the world, we need to understand the stages of
psychological development as well as worldviews, as well as the spiral dynamics piece as well
because these two things fit together and that’s what I’ve done in my new book. I’ve linked the
stages of psychological development to the worldviews and what we see is that actually the
dominant stage of psychological development in a nation is actually reflected in the worldview
and so these two things are linked. So as people grow and develop, as they move through the
stages of development, they actually precipitate a new worldview, a new meme. Let me give you
the example of, since you know spiral dynamics, the green worldview, I call it people awareness
and there are nine nations in this world that operate from people awareness, mostly
Scandinavia but also including New Zealand and one or two others. Now what precipitated that
worldview and we can go back and we can look at various events but for me
at least the key trigger was when women got the vote about a century ago and then began to
come into government circles and began to have a voice and I think that changed, significantly
changed the worldview from orange to green, I call it wealth awareness to people awareness
and so the countries that are most advanced in gender equality are the ones that are living from
highest consciousness and from the green and moving to yellow which is what I call humanity
awareness. So anyhow, again, I’m rambling, I’m apologizing here. Once you get me talking, I
can’t stop, I’m sorry.
Veit Lindau: I love this kind of discussions, but I already know that I will invite you for more
talks.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Okay, well, that’s nice.
Veit Lindau: Because you know, I mean, we all have to know this, you know, we all need to
know this.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, yeah.
Veit Lindau: So if somebody is starting to understand this, or maybe… Another question. You
have mentioned several times the levels of consciousness, so maybe you could tell them all.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, so I can talk about that. So over 20 years ago, I took Maslow’s
model and I said, you know, this is really interesting. However, you know, Maslow talks about
self-actualization, like in one block, and I thought, you know, I know Vedic philosophy and there
are multiple levels of self-actualization. So I have brought Vedic philosophy together with
Maslow to create what I call the seven levels of consciousness model. And then what I realized
was, this is in 1996-97, that actually if you tell me your values, I can tell you which of the seven
levels you’re operating from. So if you say compassion, I know that’s level seven. If you say
what’s important to me is recognition, I would say that’s level three consciousness. So I
allocated hundreds of thousands, several thousand values, or words to the seven levels model,
and I used it for measuring the consciousness of organizations by mapping values. So very
simple survey, you go online, you pick 10 values that represent who you are, 10 values that you
see in your organization and 10 values that you’d like to see and I map the top 10 values to
these seven levels and I can see clearly right away what’s working and not working. And I
include in those values what I call limiting values. So for example, if I’m picking out the values of
my company and I see, aha, yeah, let me say blame or internal competition or hierarchy, I can
pick those but those values are what I call limiting values. Because they are fed from fear
basically. And so I add up the proportion of votes in the survey for those limiting values and I
come up with a number which is what percentage of the votes went to these limiting values. And
I call that cultural entropy. It’s the degree of dysfunction in the system. So I embarked on that in
1997, 1998, and built up the Barrett Values Center. And we’ve trained over 7,000 people all over
the world to use these tools. We operate in 90 countries, etc. And so it’s become a very popular
way of mapping value, measuring consciousness in organizations. Now I’m doing something
new. I’ve actually developed a way of measuring the consciousness of nations, which is different
but builds on the same model. So we operate from levels of consciousness. We grow in stages
of development and we live inside a worldview. So the seven stages of development link to the
levels of consciousness. Normally, if I’m at the individuating stage, that’s usually in the 20s and
30s, that’s the fourth stage of development. I’m operating from the transformation level of
consciousness, which is the fourth level. So normally, whatever stage of development you’re at,
you will be operating at that level of consciousness. But now let’s see something happened. You
lose your job or you get divorced and you don’t have any money left. You’re still at the fourth
stage of development, but your consciousness goes down to the survival level. So stages of
development and levels of consciousness are different. Now, let’s say you’re living in China. Or
you live in Germany as you do and you move to China and you set up home in China, you’re
going to find a very, very different worldview in China and you’re going to find it very hard
because you’ve got used to living at this higher level of consciousness in a worldview of a higher
level. And you have to go over here and it’s like, gosh, your freedom suddenly disappears. So
levels, stages and worldviews all kind of mingle together. So the seven levels of consciousness
are survival, safety, security. These are basically Maslow’s first three levels. I’m just in slightly
different words. Transformation, which is what I talked about when you begin to ask the
question, who am I? It’s the individuating stage of development. After transformation, the fourth
comes the fifth, which is internal cohesion. Then comes the sixth, which is making a difference
and level seven, which is service. So these map to the stages of development, which are
surviving, conforming during those age two to six, then differentiating from about eight to early
20s, which is about finding respect and recognition in your peer group or with your parents. And
then you move to the transformation level of consciousness, which is the individuating stage of
development. After the individuating stage, you move to the self-actualizing stage, which is the
internal cohesion level of consciousness. And from the self-actualizing stage, you move to the
integrating stage, which is the making difference level of consciousness. I know, I’m sorry. There
are different names, but I invented these at different times and afterwards I couldn’t go back and
change it. But they all fit together. And now what I’ve done is I’ve actually linked all of these to
the worldviews which are spiral dynamics. So it’s so fascinating to make the individuating stage
of development the fourth level of consciousness corresponds to the green meme because in
the green meme you begin to explore who you are, you have a sense of people awareness. And
so they’re all kind of fits together. So now I can see that the seven stages of development also
translate into our collective worldviews. And that’s what my new book is about.
Veit Lindau: When is it coming out?
Dr. Richard Barrett: Well, it was the end of this year when I stopped doing interviews like this
and I spent most of my days writing. So I write a book every year. I’ve written a book every year
for the last 11 years, so it takes me about a year to get a book out. Anyhow, it’ll be out by the
end of the year. I’m just polishing it right now and then it’s going to the editor and then it’s going
out to the galley for endorsements in September and then we should get it printed by December.
Veit Lindau: Cool, and I want to use this opportunity to mention that there’s coming out a
book in German from you.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yes, I was just going to mention that. Everything I’ve learned about
values.
Veit Lindau: Yeah, so we will put this for sure into the links.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, so this is, I wrote this book two years ago and I decided that a
friend of mine said, you know what, Richard, you just know so much, you have to write it down
and make it simple. And the foreword is written by the friend who told me. He said, you’ve got to
do this. I said, all right. So anyhow, it’s basically in three parts. So we know what I learned about
personal values, what I’ve learned about organizational values and what I’ve learned about
societal values and how they all fit together. And it’s a short book. It’s not a long book because,
again, I get feedback. Stop writing 300 page books. Let’s have some sharp ones.
Veit Lindau: I guess we have the same disease.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah.
Veit Lindau: And I also want to mention that you have on your website, you have a great
book for free to download. It’s called Get Connected.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Yeah, on the Barrett Values Center website. Yeah, that’s a book that was
actually written by a Swedish friend of mine and Tor Eneroth. And it’s a great book, you know, for
practical examples and things that you can do inside an organization, not just an organization, in
any community, to get a sense of connection.
Veit Lindau: I want to close for today for our first but not last discussion with this question.
You know, if a person is listening to this podcast and really gets it and I hope a lot of people are
getting it, how powerful and fascinating this material is. So how can somebody push their own
value evolution?
Dr. Richard Barrett: So the real question, you say push the values evolution. Actually, the
real question is how do I move through the stages of psychological development? That’s the real
question because your values will change as you move through the stages of development.
Well, the first thing to do is to understand what the stages are and where you are at. So I wrote
a book called Evolutionary Coaching, which is not a book about coaching, but it’s a book about
understanding these stages of development and how to figure out where you are and what’s
blocking you from moving forward. And so Evolutionary Coaching is a great book to answer that
question. What we also do every year, and it’s coming up in about three weeks, for people who
want to go a bit deeper, we’ve got a four-day workshop that we do in Tuscany, just around the
corner from where I live, called Living Your Soul’s Destiny, and we spend four days with people
helping them to understand
what stage they’re at, but not only that, who they are. Because I often ask people the question,
do you have a soul, or are you a soul? And most people get very confused with that question.
And so from my perspective, and from all my research, I say, actually, you are the soul. And
when you realize that, it changes everything in your life because you’ve got to help. You’ve got
somebody, you’ve got somebody out there who you can rely on to have synchronistic
experiences, to put things. See, my books, you know, you think I write my books, but I don’t. I
just receive these downloads from my soul and I wake up in the morning and I’ve made a bunch
of notes and, you know, that’s what I do next. And then I get the title of the book. And if I let my
intellect get in the way, I go off on the wrong course. If I can keep my intellect out of it, then, you
know, I get all of this information and I think, wow, that’s so interesting. And that builds on, etc.,
etc. Again, I’m rambling, but I just wanted to say that if people want to make progress on this,
the first thing is to understand the stages of development. And that comes with a big aha,
because in another book that I wrote, if you fail to meet a particular stage of development, it will
result in mental and physical illness. So in a book called A New Psychology of Human Well-
Being, I actually link the stages of development to the chakra system and to the leading causes
of death. So, for example, prostate cancer, obviously in men, it comes about towards the late
fifties. And that’s really a failure to master the integrating stage of development, which means
connecting with other people so you can make a difference. And why does it affect men so
much? Because at the second stage of development, when we’re young kids, boys are told, be
strong. Don’t show your feelings. So we learn not to show our feelings. So when we get to our
fifties, we have not got a clue how to connect with people to make a difference. And the result is
prostate cancer. Anyhow, that’s a different book. We can maybe explore that some other time.
Veit Lindau: So, let us close with one practical suggestion for everybody who is listening to
this.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Okay, all right, a really practical, easy, free thing to do. I’ll go back to the
valuescenter.com/pva personal values assessment. Just go online, do this very short survey
and get the results and look at where your consciousness is in the seven levels and get a
feedback report. And at the same website, you can do a 30-minute e-learning course based on
the PVA assessment and it tells you how to read it, how to look at it. That’s one simple thing that
people can do and it begins them to, it throws them into the values journey basically. This is an
opening, let me start with that and I can see what comes out of it and I can begin to see how
important it is.
Veit Lindau: Thank you very much, Richard. I hope a lot of people are right now falling in love
with the topic of values.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Me too.
Veit Lindau: And I’m very sure that it’s not our last meeting. Thank you for your time and
please go back and finish your book.
Dr. Richard Barrett: I didn’t want to feel guilty.
Veit Lindau: No, no, no. Cool. I enjoyed it very much.
Dr. Richard Barrett: Okay, bye.
Veit Lindau: Bye.
