Line in the Sand Core Values
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Bloom rejects the standard core values exercise, where you sit down and try to write ten values from a blank page, because he finds it daunting and produces nothing he believes. His alternative is retrospective: wait until you make a real decision that draws a line in the sand, then extract the value it revealed and write it down on paper. Turning down money for something that felt off is the raw material. Over time the list builds and compounds into a genuine operating filter, and because each entry is backed by a decision you actually made, you trust it. He applies the same anti-structure principle to habits generally, arguing that imposing structure on gratitude or journalling is what stops most people doing them at all.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Wait for the decision that feels off
Do not start from a blank page. Notice the moment where an option is objectively attractive, good money or good hourly rate, and something about it still feels wrong.
- 2
Make the call and draw the line
Act on the discomfort. Decline the deal, cancel the client, choose the more expensive city. The decision, not the deliberation, is what generates the value.
Pro tip In law, once you have precedent you tend to keep following it. Ali notes the first refusal makes every subsequent one easier.
- 3
Name the value the decision implies
Translate the choice into a sentence about how you operate. For example: I will not promote anything I do not genuinely use and benefit from.
- 4
Write it on paper
Physically record it under a core values heading. Bloom argues the act of writing it down is what cements a mental line into something that governs how you do business with people.
- 5
Let the list compound
Maybe it is five values, maybe ten, maybe twenty eventually. Each addition is earned, so the list is a real filter rather than an aspirational poster.
Watch out Do not backfill the list with values you have never had to pay for. Untested entries dilute the ones that mean something.
- 6
Keep the structure light enough to actually do
Apply the same principle to supporting habits. Bloom's gratitude practice is three things at the end of the day, written or just said in his head in the shower. Removing the requirement to sit down and journal is what made it stick.
Watch out Too much structure or too high a bar is what stops people from doing the simple daily habits that would improve their lives.
In the wild
Ali was about to record a sponsor read for a YouTube video paying fifteen thousand pounds for a product he does not use. Downloading it and reading the script would have taken five minutes, an extraordinary hourly rate. Something about it felt off, so he messaged the agency and cancelled, offering to revisit if he ends up genuinely using the product. He describes an immediate weight off his shoulders and, in his own framing, a precedent: from now on he only takes sponsorships for things he actually uses. Bloom's response is to write that down as a core value while the decision is fresh.
→ A concrete, tested core value on authenticity over cash, plus a precedent that makes future refusals automatic.
Ali had run about five different core values exercises and every one landed on freedom, which he found true but theoretical. Then his accountants suggested moving to Dubai to avoid roughly a million a year in UK tax, which would have capped him at somewhere between ninety and a hundred and eighty days a year in the UK where his friends and family live. He declined, and the decision converted an abstract value into a demonstrated one: he genuinely values the freedom to come and go over the money. Bloom made the same trade staying in New York rather than Florida or Texas.
→ A theoretical value became evidence-backed through a real, expensive decision.
Common mistakes
Starting from a blank values page
Being asked to write ten core values cold is daunting and produces generic answers you do not actually believe. Bloom says he would not know what the hell to write.
Making the decision but never recording it
The insight evaporates. Writing it down is what turns a one-off mental line into something cemented into how you operate and do business.
Wrapping the habit in too much structure
Requiring a journal, a format and a fixed time turns a two-minute practice into a chore you skip. Bloom's fix was to allow the practice to happen in the shower or in bed.
From the transcript
“write that down on a piece of paper under you know core values or something like that”
“i'm not gonna promote anything that i don't genuinely use and benefit from i'm gonna write that down on a piece of paper”
“having too much structure or making something too challenging is holding back so many people from these like simple daily habits”
From the episode
How I Grew from 0 to 500k Followers In Under 2 Years - Sahil Bloom
Sahil Bloom