Session 6 · Guide and forms

Homework Part Two: Values Inventory

REWIRE RETIREMENT · ASSIGNED AT SESSION 6 · DUE AT SESSION 7

The WhyzMen Values Inventory

Session 6 Homework · Part Two · Who Am I at My Best?

What this is for. Session 7 will take you from a working list of candidates to two core values — the ones you will not compromise in your second half, and the ones your Harvest Charter (§1.2) is built on. That final compression happens best in the room, with other men, through story and trade-offs. But the room cannot do its job if you arrive empty-handed.

Two handouts this week, in this order. Part One is the Compass Worksheet — your Workview and Lifeview essays, the Compass, and your Life Theme, written into Charter §1.2. Do it first. Part Two is this inventory. It works from the outside in — a curated list — and it uses your essays and your §1.1 story as the filter. The two should point to the same man.

Arrive with three to five candidates, not two final answers. Coming in with your mind made up prevents the discovery the session is designed to produce.

The work, and what is optional

STEP	WHAT	TIME	WHEN
Part One	The Compass Worksheet — Workview, Lifeview, Compass, Life Theme → §1.2	~105 min	First. Sittings 1 and 2, and the theme in sitting 3
1	Circle the inventory, then choose your 3–5 candidates	~20 min	Sitting 3, while the essays are still fresh
2	Optional · Going Deeper: the Domain Grid	30–40 min	Only if it calls to you
3	Optional · Going Deeper: Synthesis — count and star	15 min	Only if it calls to you

The required part of this inventory is about twenty minutes: circle freely, then choose three to five. The Domain Grid and the Synthesis are optional, a second check for the man who wants one. Session 7 starts from your three to five.

The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do — to find the idea for which I can live and die.

— Søren Kierkegaard

1	Circle the inventory 20–30 MINUTES · WHILE THE ESSAYS ARE STILL FRESH

This is not Brené Brown’s list, though it draws on it. It has been curated for men engaging retirement: trimmed of workplace-era values, augmented with second-half vocabulary, and organized to surface what you actually live by rather than what you aspire to. Read all three tiers. Circle freely — every value that resonates with who you actually are, not who you hope to be. No limit on this pass.

TIER 1 · CORE VALUES

Works cleanly in a second-half, purpose-oriented framework. Circle any that resonate.

Accountability	Adaptability	Adventure	Altruism
Authenticity	Balance	Beauty	Belonging
Caring	Collaboration	Commitment	Community
Compassion	Competence	Confidence	Connection
Contentment	Contribution	Cooperation	Courage
Creativity	Curiosity	Dignity	Diversity
Environment	Equality	Ethics	Excellence
Fairness	Faith	Family	Financial Stability
Forgiveness	Freedom	Friendship	Fun
Future Generations	Generosity	Giving Back	Grace
Gratitude	Growth	Harmony	Health
Home	Honesty	Hope	Humility
Humor	Inclusion	Independence	Initiative
Integrity	Intuition	Joy	Justice
Kindness	Knowledge	Leadership	Learning
Legacy	Leisure	Love	Loyalty
Making a Difference	Nature	Openness	Optimism
Order	Parenting	Patience	Peace
Perseverance	Personal Fulfillment	Reliability	Respect
Responsibility	Risk-Taking	Safety	Self-Discipline
Self-Expression	Self-Respect	Serenity	Service
Simplicity	Spirituality	Stewardship	Teamwork
Thrift	Tradition	Travel	Trust
Truth	Understanding	Uniqueness	Usefulness
Vision	Vulnerability	Well-Being	Wisdom
Wholeheartedness	Patriotism	Sportsmanship

TIER 2 · WORTH INTERROGATING

Not wrong — but these often describe where you have been rather than where you are going. Ask the question before claiming. If one still holds, look for the value beneath it.

Achievement	Achieving what — and for whose benefit? Interrogate the direction, not the drive.
Ambition	Whose agenda does this ambition serve? First-half ambition often needs redirection, not abandonment.
Being the Best	Compared to whom? The second half calls men from competition toward contribution.
Career	If career resonates, find the value beneath the value — the impact, the craft, the identity it provided.
Efficiency	In retirement, the tyranny of efficiency can become a way of avoiding presence. What are you trying to optimize?
Job Security	Security is a legitimate need, but rarely a load-bearing value for the second half. What does it protect that you truly value?
Power	The second half typically calls men from positional power toward earned influence and quiet stewardship.
Pride	There is legitimate pride in craft and character. But pride as a core value often means measuring oneself against others. What is driving this?
Recognition	The hunger for external validation is often what men are being invited to outgrow. What would you do if no one ever knew?
Success	Buford’s central argument: success and significance are not opposites, but success alone is never enough. What does success serve?
Wealth	Wealth as means is wisdom; wealth as core value is a different matter. What would wealth make possible that you truly value?
Patriotism	Legitimate and deep — but ask whether it functions as identity replacement after career. What specific obligations does it call you to?

TIER 3 · WHYZMEN ADDITIONS

Values absent from Brown’s workplace list — and the second half specifically calls for these. Circle any that resonate.

Purpose	The organizing orientation of the second half — why you get up. Distinct from personal fulfillment, which is about satisfaction. Purpose points outward.
Meaning	The interpretation of experience — finding significance in suffering, transition, and loss. Frankl’s central contribution.
Calling	The theological conviction that God assigns specific work to specific people. Distinct from faith (belief) and vocation (occupation).
Faithfulness	Sustained commitment over time — to a spouse, a promise, a God. The Hebrew chesed. Different from faith as belief.
Generativity	Erikson’s term for the task of later life: investing in and guiding the next generation. The antidote to stagnation.
Mentorship	Relational transmission of wisdom — distinct from giving back (transactional) and legacy (documentary). Ongoing and personal.
Hospitality	The biblical virtue of philoxenia — love of the stranger. For men whose homes become gathering places, no small calling.
Presence	The commitment to be fully here — with grandchildren, spouse, friends, God. Countercultural for men who spent decades mentally elsewhere.
Wonder	The capacity to be undone by beauty or mystery. Distinct from curiosity (intellectual). The Psalms are saturated with it.
Sabbath / Rest	The structured discipline of non-productivity as a spiritual practice — not idleness, but restoration and surrender of control.
Enough	The posture of sufficiency — the settled conviction that what you have is adequate. Countercultural in a culture of accumulation.
Covenant	The binding quality of deep commitment — in marriage, friendship, faith. Stronger than loyalty; mutual obligation before God or others.
Accompaniment	The calling to walk alongside rather than lead, fix, or advise. The posture of Job’s friends before they opened their mouths.
Delight	The capacity to enjoy good things without guilt or compulsion toward productivity. Chesterton: the inability to delight is a spiritual deficiency.
Transformation	The ongoing work of becoming — not just doing. Willard: sustained growth in Christlikeness across all domains of life.

Now narrow to three to five. From everything you circled, choose the three to five that are most truly you, and write them in the candidates box at the end of this inventory. Use Part One as the filter: if a value on this list matches something you wrote in your Workview or Lifeview — or something that showed up in your §1.1 story — weight it higher. Your essays arrived at it from the inside out; the list confirms it from the outside in.

Values I circled that also appeared in my essays or my story:

2	The Domain Grid OPTIONAL · GOING DEEPER · 30–40 MINUTES

Optional. If you want a second check, work from your circles, not from the blank list. For each of the ten domains of life, fill in the values that feel most essential to who you are in that area — as many as feel true, from any tier, and if your own word is better than the list’s, use yours. If a value also surfaced in your Workview, your Lifeview, or your §1.1 story, tick the matching box. That overlap is signal.

A value that keeps appearing across faith, marriage, friendship, and purpose isn’t a preference. It’s a conviction. That is the difference between a value on a list and a value you will actually live by.

DOMAIN OF LIFE

VALUES ESSENTIAL TO ME HERE — from your circles

ALSO APPEARED IN

Faith & Spiritual Life

Relationship with God, prayer, Scripture, worship, calling

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Marriage & Family

Spouse, children, grandchildren — daily love and commitment

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Friendships & Community

Deep friendships, brotherhood, neighborhood, belonging

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Health & Wellbeing

Physical, emotional, and mental stewardship

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Identity & Purpose

Who you are when work no longer answers the question

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Service & Contribution

What you give — locally, globally, relationally

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Growth & Learning

Intellectual, spiritual, and experiential growth

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Recreation, Adventure & Joy

Play, exploration, rest, recovery of delight

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Finances & Stewardship

Financial health, generosity, provision, the posture of Enough

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Practical Readiness

Estate, legacy documents, end-of-life preparation

☐ Workview

☐ Lifeview

☐ My Story (§1.1)

★ most load-bearing: ______

Key step, before you leave this page. Go back through each domain and star the one value you would not compromise there under any circumstances. Ten stars, one per domain. Then look at the stars as a set: some names will repeat. Those repeats are the first sighting of your load-bearing two.

3	Synthesis OPTIONAL · GOING DEEPER · 15 MINUTES

Which values showed up in the most domains? List each candidate below, count the domains it appeared in, and tick whether it also surfaced in an essay or your story. A value crossing three or more domains — especially one your essays reached independently — is a high-confidence candidate.

VALUE	# DOMAINS	ALSO IN…	WHICH DOMAINS?
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1
		☐ W ☐ L ☐ §1.1

W = Workview · L = Lifeview · §1.1 = My Story (Charter Part One)

My 3–5 candidates for Session 7 (required)

From step 1, and from the Grid and Synthesis if you did them. Favor values your essays or your story reached on their own. Three to five names. Not two.

1. ______________________________

2. ______________________________

3. ______________________________

4. ______________________________

5. ______________________________

I will bring these to Session 7. The room does the compression to two.

Stop here. Do not apply the three filters — does this define me · is this who I am at my best · would I make a hard decision with it — and do not pick your two. That is Session 7’s work, done with other men’s eyes on your story. If you find yourself pre-deciding, pause. The session exists precisely to test those instincts.

Carry this, don’t write it

What value, if taken away, would make me unrecognizable to myself?

Bring an honest answer. You will be asked.

What to bring to Session 7

☐	Part One — the Compass Worksheet Workview and Lifeview written, the Compass page done, and your Life Theme, all in Charter §1.2.
☐	Part Two — this inventory, marked up All three tiers read and circled, Tier 2 interrogated, 3–5 candidates in the box.
☐	Optional: the Domain Grid Values written in, essay and story matches ticked, one star per domain.
☐	Optional: the Synthesis The count table filled in.
☐	Your Charter, §1.1 and §1.2 In your notebook — Session 7 reads the values against the story.

A note on VIA and CliftonStrengths. You took VIA after Session 5: bring your top 5 to Session 7, where it is used in the Narrowing. CliftonStrengths is assigned at the close of Session 7 and used in Session 8.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Proverbs 4:23 · NIV®

Wise men still seek, knowing their why’s.