Values
Improving wellness, not just health, is a very personal and, at times, daunting undertaking. In the United States alone, the health and wellness industry is valued at over $1.2 trillion annually (as of 2022). There are so many people, companies, and sites focused on health and wellness that it’s incredibly difficult to find good information you can trust. It was for me, and as I continually plowed through research papers, textbooks, and articles, and even became a Certified Nutrition Coach and Certified Personal Trainer, I kept wishing for a site that had it all in one place and that I could trust to improve the quality of my life. I found a lot of bad information, bad services with dangerous health implications (subscriptions to sites, etc.), and a bunch of people selling stuff that was too good to be true (and wasn’t true). I couldn’t trust them based on what I knew, their false or overly brazen claims, or what I thought their motivations were (i.e., make money no matter how).
That’s the main reason this site was created- a single place to sift through all the information and data, verify it, structure and organize it, and make if available for general consumption. Hence, this site is different. The main motivation is NOT to make money- in fact, making money isn’t even a priority. Rather, this site is constructed and intended to address the wish I had when I started really working to improve my wellness- a comprehensive and trustworthy site with information founded on science that would inform me about how to increase the quality and quantity of life; to increase my wellness and longevity.
That goal isn’t possible without establishing core values upon which to guide and steer the site content, our actions, and motivations. Additionally, if we just wrote the core values down and hung them on a wall in our office, it wouldn’t convey to you the importance we place on maintaining the highest standards and trustworthiness. You may have already seen our values in action by the way we disclosed our policies, and our associations, affiliations and advertisers.
What Our Values Aim to Achieve
Our ultimate goal is to inspire you and, hopefully, assist you in becoming the best version of yourself by encouraging positive action. Our values help steer us in the best direction to make sure the information and opinions provided on this site are as accurate, relevant, and applicable as possible while simultaneously being transparent and open about the process. The values you will read below also help ensure that we are equitable and inclusionary for all people without regard to your particular progress, background, and beliefs.
You will find a great deal of knowledge and learning on this site. I may share exhilarating adventures with you and share thoughts from a new favorite book, while on other days, you might find posts about nuanced exercise or health routines. All these things contribute to shaping the opinions on this site and strengthening these core values.
Through blogs and tutorials, this site aims to provide you with insights on how you can learn from successes and failures and apply them to your own life. Our core values make sure we do that in the best way possible.
Before delving deep, let’s briefly define what core values are…
What Are ‘Values’?
Values are fundamental concepts that drive us in the right direction; they are the principles in which we invest time and energy in order to get the most from life.
We are driven by religious, spiritual, ethnic, cultural, and environmental factors and develop our individual ethics based on childhood experiences and lessons. When it comes to values, there are no right or wrong answers about what’s more important. Our values and the associated priorities have consequences that differ from person to person. For instance, if we value personal relationships and invest time in them, we may miss out on career growth because time was invested in personal relationships instead. Therefore, good practices ensure that we bring a healthy balance in our lives so we can have excellent health, longevity, and wellness based on specific values.
The core values discussed below are truly the principles that this site, and the content it contains, puts the greatest priority and importance upon; we value these principles the most.
ToddShrub.com Core Values
Embrace All People
Hands down, the most important core value of this site is respecting and accepting people from all walks of life without regard to race, religion, culture, creed, body type, education level, socioeconomic factors, or other characteristics. I love embracing life and am an explorer of the human experience- my human experience. While the path to overall wellness is somewhat known, all of us are unique, and the nuances of your path will be different than mine. The information on this site is presented in a manner that best embraces differences and never excludes or discriminates against anyone’s path to better health and wellness!
Be Trustworthy & Transparent
We are here to help you find your path to optimal wellness by using information backed by science. In order to do that we need to ensure that we maintain the highest levels of trust that the content on this site is rock solid and as accurate as we can possibly present it. We’ll make sure to maintain open and transparent communication to make sure that you can trust the information here. There won’t be any gimmicks or gotchas- just the information we think is best to help inform you about how to build a better life, increase your wellness, and overall longevity.
Motivate Intentions With Information
Let’s face it: pursuing maximal wellness is hard- really hard. There is so much information available today that it’s hard to figure out where to start and what to do. Some of the information available on the internet even contradicts other information. This site values information backed by science that enables increases in health and wellness and presents that information using a single integrated and comprehensive model. There’s going to be a lot of information, but that information is structured and presented to enable you to efficiently understand what you may need to do to increase your wellness.
Inspire Action
Serving others and inspiring them is at the core of my values- it’s why the site was created. By sharing my progress and what I learn, I aim to make a positive impact in the world and increase everyone’s wellness by encouraging you to embrace wellness yourself.
Facilitate Increasing Wellness
Your wellness should always increase, at least in a perfect world. I continually challenge myself to grow and increase my overall health and wellness on a daily basis- it’s a constant behavior. I adopt meaningful and positive wellness values to stay on a path to progress. I want to facilitate your evolving into a better version of yourself, with greater comprehensive wellness, physically and mentally, socially, environmentally, and spiritually as well.
Engage And Learn From Readers
We spend a lot of time researching and identifying information and creating content. While we think we’re pretty good at it, we don’t know it all and don’t always focus time on things that matter to us. As a result, our final value involves engaging with you and learning about your experiences, questions, and information needs. This is where the social media aspect of the site comes into play- we welcome discussion and comments under our posts. Our policy page details our expectations for these interactions, but we want to encourage you to participate and share with us and other readers on this site. Without you and your participation, the site can’t be successful! We need to learn from you and hear your input.