Know Your Values, Change Your Life

This is the keynote I wrote about in I Gave a Talk About Values and Realized I Wasn’t Living Mine. At the time, I believed every word. But I wasn't fully living by them yet.

In 2019, I was pregnant with twins.

I was so excited. These babies were deeply wished for. And I was ready for the new challenge of motherhood, ready for life to change.

Or so I thought.

At 29 weeks, I walked into my local hospital with stomach pains. They took one look and sent me away — it was early labor, and I’d need a hospital specialized in premature babies.

I hailed a taxi — and with that ride, the rollercoaster began.

I was admitted to the hospital, terrified, put on complete bed rest. Not allowed to get up for anything. Not allowed to open my laptop.

And I felt completely disoriented.

You see, for most of my adult life, work (and the laptop!) was front and center.

Work was and is one of my most important personal values.

This isn’t the same thing as being a workaholic — though at times I certainly was. Work-centrism is the core belief that work should shape your identity, your purpose, your legacy. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt this to be true.

From 2012 to 2019, I put 95% of my energy into this one value. I was building Devour Tours, a food tour company I started in Madrid. I worked long hours, seven days a week. And I loved it. I felt truly alive.

So fast forward again. I’m suddenly confined to a hospital bed — with zero control over my body and my destiny — and it was like slamming on the brakes at full speed — the momentum was still there inside me, but I literally couldn’t move.

My mind raced and raced, but my body managed to stay still for 3 weeks until the medication stopped working and the twins came — 8 weeks premature but, luckily, healthy.

And though I could move again — I stumbled, suddenly clumsy in a life that had changed indefinitely.

One day, it was all about work — and the next, it was all about family.

And swinging from one extreme to the other, I didn’t feel like myself. My identity was shaken to its core.

I suffered from postpartum anxiety. I felt alone. I felt confused. I felt guilty.

I didn’t yet have the self-awareness — or the language of values — to guide me through it.

6 months in, it was time to go back to work.

I pushed past the enormous weight of mom guilt, lined up childcare, and felt a mix of excitement, relief, and angst at my decision.

But I was ready. Ready to take back a part of my core identity: business owner, entrepreneur, boss, colleague.

I walked back into my office on March 10th, 2020.

By March 14th, Spain was in lockdown.

By March 30th, we had let go 20 of our 26 staff members. And there was no work for the tour guides who depended on us.

The pandemic hit Spain hard. It was one of the strictest lockdowns in the world.

I didn’t step outside for 98 days.

And all the while, I was haunted by the fact that the business I had poured my heart into was evaporating before my eyes.

And then… I got a lifeline.

But it was a mixed one.

I had the chance to sell the business. On one hand — wow. It was an incredible opportunity. To partner with a like-minded brand. To secure a future for Devour. To actually get something back for ten years of hard work.

But there was another side to it.

I wasn’t ready to sell. We had big plans. An ambitious five-year growth plan: a PowerPoint with charts, milestones, forecasts! And with this decision, that dream was gone.

I don’t regret selling. I’m still at the business today, and in many ways it’s been one of the best opportunities of my life. But in another world, things might have gone differently. And I grieved that loss for a long time.

That grief, on top of postpartum anxiety, the fear of the ongoing pandemic, the premie appointments, the layoffs — it just felt like everything I thought I knew about myself had dissolved.

I hit rock bottom.

It was the hardest season of my life.

But, it was also the turning point.

Because it forced me to ask: What do I really value?

Not what I valued before kids. Not before COVID. Not before selling the business.

But what does purpose — and success — look like to me now?

And in asking those questions, I began a new journey. A journey of self-awareness, of deep investigation.

A journey to intentionally build a values-centered life.

Have you ever had your own version of this? A moment when the life you built no longer fit? When your values evolved? Changed?

What I want to convince you of today is this:

When you take the time and effort to know your values, you don’t just feel better. You live better. You lead better.

You unlock clarity, purpose, momentum.

And you unlock impact — in your life, in your work, but also in the lives of everyone you touch.

And in our industry — that’s powerful. We touch a lot of lives.

When I first moved to Spain, I was 22 years old.

I didn’t know my values.

I took a job teaching English. And I was miserable.

I felt like a square peg crammed into a round hole. I even developed an eye twitch.

My body was telling me what my brain wouldn’t: something was off. Something was out of alignment with my values.

And I am not a quitter — but somehow I mustered the courage to quit.

And I started experimenting. I wrote. I blogged. I bought dozens of domain names! I hosted cooking classes in my tiny apartment.

And then… I started offering food tours in the center of Madrid.

And that last experiment? That became Devour Tours.

From the very first tours I guided myself — sharing food, history, and the people who make Madrid so special — I felt it in my bones: this is a good thing.

I was in flow 90% of the time.

You know that feeling when time disappears because you’re so fully in it? That’s flow.

And for a long stretch, work was my number-one value. I poured almost everything into it.

And it worked.

Until it didn’t.

None of us can survive on just one value.

And the cost of ignoring the others? It’s high.

In 2017, I got my first big warning.

Devour was growing fast, and suddenly I was dealing with challenges I wasn’t prepared for.

I was working constantly. I kept getting sick. I had this unbearable sciatica — and I couldn’t sleep at night. I developed chronic pain that sent me from neurologist to neurologist, scan to scan — but nothing ever showed up.

If you’d asked me back then if I was stressed, I would’ve said no. But looking back, it’s obvious: that’s exactly what it was.

Because this is what stress does to our bodies.

And I was stressed because I was out of alignment with my values.

One of my most important values is health and well-being. And back then, I wasn’t living it at all.

And the cost was huge. I honestly thought I would live with chronic pain for the rest of my life.

The good news is, I didn’t. With a great chiropractor, exercise, meditation — it took a few years, but I turned up the volume on health and well-being, and I turned it around. And, for the most part, today I’m pain-free.

But I’ll never forget the lesson: when you abandon your values, your body has a way of reminding you.

Now — some of you might be thinking: Lauren, isn’t this all just work–life balance?

Ugh! The idea of work–life balance drives me crazy.

Because life isn’t neatly divided into compartments.

It doesn’t fit into boxes labeled work, family, ambition, self-care.

Life is the whole thing.

And work doesn’t sit in opposition to it. It lives inside it.

For some people, work is a small circle within life.

For others, like me, it’s a big one. And that’s okay. There’s no right size.

What matters isn’t the size of the circle.

What matters is alignment — within the greater map of your unique life.

Alignment isn’t perfection. And it isn’t static. It changes. It evolves.

But you know it when you feel it. It’s when what you do on the outside matches what you believe deep down on the inside.

One of my own deep down beliefs is the importance of agency: independence and control over my time, my energy, my decisions — it’s always been one of my top values.

But back then, I couldn’t have named it. I didn’t have the language or the awareness to recognize it.

Still, it was one of the reasons I disliked teaching, and ended up starting my own business in the first place.

But as Devour grew, suddenly there was an office. HR policies. Vacation days. Working hours. And I started to feel… trapped.

I remember sitting at my desk thinking: I built this. And yet I feel stuck in it.

A show of hands if you’re not built to sit at a desk from 9-5. Me either. I can do it — and sometimes I still do — but the agency I need to thrive means using my time as I see fit.

What I didn’t realize then was that my core value — agency — was under threat. And because I couldn’t name it, I couldn’t defend it.

So instead, I let insecurity take over. I worried: what would my employees think if I worked different hours? Would it look like I was doing less? Or getting special privileges?

Of course, the irony was I gave the business my all. But without the awareness, I stayed stuck in that fear.

Fast forward to today: I’m an employee now, ever since Devour was acquired. But the difference is, I know my values. I can name them. I can defend them. And knowing that agency is non-negotiable gives me the clarity to design a schedule that works for me — in a workplace that supports it.

Your values are always there. But if you don’t know them, you’ll feel stuck.

And when you do know them, you can shape your life and your work around them — instead of letting someone else’s idea of success shape you.

And if you’re running a business, this is critical. Because when your values are clear, the choices you make for your company become clear too. Growth stops being just about more tours or more bookings. It becomes about building something that actually supports the life you want.

Working in tourism, we have the pleasure of meeting many purpose-led, values-aligned individuals. I know there are many of you here in this room.

In my life, one of those people was Juanjo. He’d been selling olives in the market since he was sixteen. His hospitality was never forced. When our groups approached, he’d light up. He’d lean in, ask guests questions, listen — often while I translated — like he had all the time in the world.

One day, he told me his dream was to travel the world once he retired.

Meeting our guests, he said, had only made him more curious, more excited about his own future adventures.

He said to me, “Thank you for bringing the world to me.”

Juanjo knew his values — and he made his tiny corner of one of Madrid’s 67 markets into a melting pot of world cultures.

Juanjo retired in 2020. And apart from the COVID lockdown, he’s been hopping around the globe ever since.

This is the power of values in our industry.

Tourism isn’t just about places. It’s about people. It’s about belonging. It’s about connection.

And no one knows this better than us. We’re the storytellers, the ones who turn a trip into a memory.

When we’re aligned with our values, our stories carry more than facts, our businesses more than bookings — they carry purpose. And people feel it.

This industry, at its best, isn’t transactional. It’s transformational. It’s built on values.

And in a time when this world feels increasingly divided, that matters more now than ever.

So… how do you actually know your values?

Quick reality check: discovering your values isn’t instant. It takes reflection — and sometimes trial and error. For me, it was a mix of therapy, coaching, personality tests, and really getting honest about what energizes me… and what drains me.

To jump-start this work, I want you to consider my 3 C’s:

Commitment. Your values are complicated, tangled, deeply personal. Oftentimes, we even hide them from ourselves. You have to commit to the process and carve out the time to reflect.

Curiosity. Get curious! About yourself. About others. About your reactions and beliefs. Be a scientist of your own life. Observe. Reflect. Hypothesize.

Change. Because what’s the point if it doesn’t shift something? We’re not the same person today that we’ll be ten years from now. So give yourself the permission — and the space — to change.

Commitment, curiosity, change.

Now, I know you’re all itching to get out there, to discover your own values.

So let’s take a moment and start together. I invite you to close your eyes, if comfortable, and take a breath. Listen to my questions, and notice what comes to mind.

What are you doing when time seems to melt away, and you feel in a state of flow?

What drains you — takes your energy and enthusiasm away?

Whose life do you admire, and why?

Marinate on these this week.

Connecting with your values will support the best version of you.

The one that will create the most impact.

In our industry, impact is important. It’s needed.

It has the power to unite people and cultures, and to contribute to a more open and tolerant world.

I stand here today because I believe in the power of values.

Knowing them — and living by them — changed my life.

And I know it can change yours, too.

Thank you for listening.