PODCAST Episode 015
Published 24 December 2025

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro:

[00:00:00] People pleasing, hides the actual advantage you have. You are here to give something that people don't know they want until they experience it as a culture creator or change maker. Your recognition comes when you turn up the volume on your specific, unique point of view. Holding back from fully leading from that point of view means you waste so much energy and compromise the impact that your work could be having.

Validation as a strategy might have worked before or maybe never did, but where you are going. It's about having the guts to go to new unvalidated places on your terms and bringing people with you. This is not a normal [00:01:00] career ladder, but that's exactly why you wanted it, and valorize is the skill to blaze that trail.

I'm Louisa Shaeri. Join me every week when I'll be talking about how to make the uniquely transformative point of view at the core of your boldest work viable. Visible and valorized.

Main:

It just so happens that many of my flair house people shout out to you are going through a similar decision making process about the structure of what they offer, and I really want to do this episode for them and for you to really see how. Valorize, this kind of philosophy or discipline and attitude is not just an [00:02:00] attitude, but a logic for decision making in the actual structures of your work, your self-led work.

So in this particular episode, the structures that I want to speak to and apply this to are the structure of your offer or what you deliver, what you create. Basically what you invite people into. So if you have a creative practice, that might be something where you regularly put things on a wall in a gallery and invite people to that.

You can think of that as your. Offer your medium, your core invitation that people experience your work inside of. There may be more expanded ways of thinking about that. I'll leave that to you. And if you offer a service or you are facilitating, you are doing some kind of work with people, this would be your, your offer.

So the structure of what you invite people to do with you or to experience with your work, [00:03:00] how you then deliver on that? How much you charge for that, how you decide who you work with and who you don't work with. All of those decisions are structures that, for me, come under the design of the value system through which your work gets to exist.

And what I want to show you in this episode is how Valorize offers a logic by which to make those decisions. One that makes the decisions really simple, clear and easy. Okay. A lot of people get really confused about how to make these decisions because it seems like there are so many options. There are so many examples to mimic and model, and there are so many strategies and tactics that people offer as advice, and I want you to.

Be equipped [00:04:00] with a way of approaching these decisions that prioritizes integrity or congruence. Congruence with what you actually want. Ak, what you most value doing, creating offering. Contributing to and what that contribution is. Valorizing as the most important as something worthy of giving your resources to and other people giving their resources to, but also how you want to receive.

That could be income, it could also be recognition or people really understanding. The value of what you bring. Then also what you value in terms of the lifestyle you want to live and how you want to structure your time, how much you want to work, what your day looks like. So this is the valorize perspective on how do you make decisions about the structure of your work, your offer, yourself initiated invitation for how people experience your work.

And this matters when you don't have an [00:05:00] agent. When you don't have an intermediary, when you don't have someone who is responsible for the structure of your work. For example, if you are a writer and you write. Novels, you might have a bunch of people who assist you in the decisions about how the book is published, what it's printed on, uh, what the cover looks like, how it's distributed, how it's positioned in the marketplace.

And if you're a photographer, you might have an agent who speaks to all the people who might commission you to do photographs and who deals with the financial side and takes a cut, and so you can just do your photography. This might sound like a lack, but I actually, if you don't have those things, I think this is a really good thing.

Why? Because that side of things is at least 50% of the whole total sum of what you [00:06:00] need to be doing. And when you hand that over to someone, what you hand over is the opportunity to learn the skill. Now, there are certain. Types of work, certain industries where it actually makes sense to hand that over.

And once you are at a certain level of. Success and reputation and income. There may be parts of this that you end up employing people for handing over delegating, but even then, it's going to be beneficial for you to already have that skill before you delegate it so you know what you're delegating. And so you are never in a position where you are dependent on someone else's skillset to bring in.

Money for your work. This is something that doesn't get taught in art school. It doesn't get taught in a lot of places, and it really is a skillset that creates a lot of self-trust and certainty [00:07:00] that you are going to be okay no matter what changes around you in the economy, in the marketplace. In your industry, et cetera.

Because if you know how to bring people into your work and you know how to structure your work in a way that makes it or makes sense, then you know how to do that forever, and you know how to do that in a way that if you ever need to change it. Then you, you have the skill to do that. And so part of that skill is knowing how to structure your offer.

And if you do your own work, you want to know by what logic you're making those decisions. And the Valari perspective that I want to give you is where it might seem like these are lots of separate decisions. And when you see them as all separate decisions, it will have you relate to each of those micro decisions as its own discreet thing, that you've got to come up with a strategy for how [00:08:00] you do it, and there actually isn't ever really a correct way to do it.

We often look for what is the correct strategy? What is the, what is the best way to do this? How can I make sure this works? And what we're really saying is, how can I get people to do something I want? It might be pay you money. It might be attend your show, it might be read your article, right? How can I get something from people?

I'm going to try and get them to do things by. Using the tactics that I'm observing, people who it looks like they're succeeding, I'm going to, I'm going to use the same tactics. By tactic I mean something like, so for example, when I am offering Flare House, what I'm doing as part of the process of inviting people in is at the moment having a one-on-one [00:09:00] call in which I give them the environment in which they are most equipped to make that decision.

And I call that a consultation. Other people call it different things. And so a tactic would be thinking that that is a, uh, the correct way that by offering a call, that is how you get people into your program or your work or your course or whatever you are offering, right? So when we look for how is it going to work to get what I want.

We reduce our focus down to how does do other people do it? What is the, how that is the correct or the best way to get what I want? And what that means is that your own thinking and your own relationship to the benefit of your work for the other person or the impact that your work is here to have, doesn't.

That thinking, right? When you're thinking in terms of trying to find the strategy or the [00:10:00] tactics, okay, the how. How can I get people in? What your focus goes to is what you want and what you're trying to get, and that doesn't actually feel very good, right? Because number one, you are in a space of lack. I need something.

I need to get something. And so it puts you in a. More, slightly more activated state of I need something. And then secondly, it's not actually in your control. So then the thing you think you need depends on you trying to control something that you can't control, which is other people's decisions, other people's choice about whether they say yes or no to your work.

Because you can't control it and you're trying to control it. That again, increases the amount of stress and activation in your body. 'cause you're trying to control something that is outside of your control and then it will have you in a [00:11:00] space of trying to manipulate and coerce or get people to do what you want.

This can creep in very, very sneakily, especially if you are someone who has experienced resource lack, not having what you need or want for any amount of time in your life, and you know how that feels, and you don't want to feel that way. This is going to add on top of that, right? And so. When you're looking for how do I make these decisions?

And your logic is about, okay, how do I get, it's going to take you out of the actual logic that is going to provide the most benefit both. For the impact of your work and therefore for you, because the more you are impacting, the more people are experiencing the benefits of your work, the more you get to receive as just a natural consequence.[00:12:00]

And that doesn't mean teaching or education about different strategies or tactics is bad. I actually think it's a really helpful, useful thing to have different models, different examples. And for someone to teach you in how to structure something in that way. What I'm pointing out here is it matters why you are doing it.

There are plenty of people out there who teach tactics and strategy, and these I think also are the people who tend to. It's coming from someone who doesn't have the additional emotional and mindset and internal work to do to unlearn the ways in which they have been socialized to think that they don't get to how things work for them or people won't value what they have to offer.

If you have a high degree of privilege, that means that you have the entitlement that, oh, if I try a strategy, it's just gonna work for me. And you don't [00:13:00] have all of the imposter syndrome, self-doubt stuff, then just speaking to strategy or tactic can feel very cold and unac acknowledging of the additional barriers that you might have faced.

And so if your work brings something that is either a side to you that has been under-recognized or misunderstood, or bring something new to the table. Or something that might have been undervalued, or you've just learned somewhere along the line to not see the value that you bring, then tactics won't hold everything that you need in terms of the transformation that you'll undergo in offering that value, in being someone who can lead on that, who can bring people in, who can show people why this matters.

And so tactics doesn't consider and allow for. The fact that there are gonna be transformations that happen because, and through your work, [00:14:00] but also in you, for example, your identity. Now, I've mentioned identity before, and what I'm really talking about is the stories and the associations you have that explain yourself to yourself, who you are.

And this might be the way that you are read, this might be the different identities you have in terms of categories you might fall under of what type of human you are. But what I'm really talking about is what you make those mean and what you make those mean about what's possible for you and what's allowed, what's embraced, what's recognized, what you can bring, and what you have to leave behind or have to squash or suppress, or hide, right?

So there is a transformation that happens in your identity when what you are bringing is transformative of how you see yourself. This has been absolutely true [00:15:00] for me in my work, my offering of my work has required me to keep updating and updating and updating how I see myself. And specifically that I can be someone who can offer value that other people recognize and see as valuable, that they experience change, that I have that agency to help people in that way, and that I can base my lifestyle and my livelihood on that, and that what I'm doing and how I'm doing it have been things that historically I was told I'm not good at.

Like the amount of confusion and identity change that I've gone through and that I continually go through at every new level is a massive piece of how I need to approach doing my work that tactics and strategy just doesn't account for. And the other side of this is your inner sense of authority, which is another way of saying the self-trust that [00:16:00] you.

Enact enacted self-trust authority. I don't mean authority over other people. I don't mean appointed authority that comes from your job title or your position in society. I mean, the kind of inner knowing that you can act on, that you can reliably trust to move on. That if you feel an impulse, if you feel an instinct, an inner knowing that you are not doubting it.

And that you're not doubting that it will lead to something bad happening to you if you do enacted self-trust, the inner authority, and so. There is another transformation that happens with that because if you are leading yourself, what you are building and strengthening is that inner authority. It's you knowing that the decisions that you make about your work are, are decisions that you can trust yourself to make.

And when it comes to both in authority and identity, [00:17:00] these being unstable, these being things that have come under question. You have been confronted with experiences and circumstances that undermined your sense of self, undermined how you see and experience who you are. That gave you a different narrative and that undermined your inner authority.

Then you can carry that expectation of your inner knowing and inner sense of self that comes from the work you do and what that's calling you into being as something that is. Going to be subject to outside questioning or undermining and being unstable in that identity. Looking for outside proof. And this also just happens because it's new, right?

It's a new identity. There are sides to you that you are learning to embody and take up space in your body with, and. Sometimes we look for that proof in are people taking us up on that offer or in the [00:18:00] work that we are doing, are people paying attention to it? Are we getting positive feedback? And if not, instead of reading it as a skill, we read it as, oh, this means something about me.

The identity that I feel myself to be, or that I'm occupying with my work isn't true is I don't get to be that. Who do I think I am? Then what happens is you aren't making decisions from a place of that self-lead leadership. So you have your self-initiated work, you've started your own business or your own practice, your own creative work, and yet here you are in it as if it's a job.

That you are answering to someone else as if you don't have full authority, as if you can't just make decisions the way that you would want to. And so it's a super confronting thing to experience and try on the idea that you can [00:19:00] and that that will work. And not only that, but that this can be an approach that supersedes any tactic or strategy being the right one.

And instead it's like. You trusting yourself, being in that permissive identity and enacted self-trust of your own authority. What that will give you is integrity, congruence, and when you are not occupying that authority, when you're not in that self-trust, guess what happens in those decisions? You'll make decisions that never quite feel in integrity with what?

Your boldest work is actually for what it actually valorizes, the impact it has, the reason why you're doing it, the reason why you started it, and therefore you end up designing your offer, designing your [00:20:00] working day, designing the way that you work and how you work, and how you price, and how you deliver through handing over that authority to something or someone else.

Such as someone's strategy, someone's tactics, and this is why it feels cringe. It feels like selling out. It feels a bit icky. And so we hold back from that and we stay in a place of kind of like startup energy or beginner energy seeking permission seeking validation. So in this episode, what I'm really talking about is it matters.

How you make these these decisions. It matters where these decisions are coming from. It matters the motivation or the intention behind these decisions. And it matters who you are being, how you see yourself, and the degree of permission and authority that you give yourself to make them. And this is [00:21:00] really at the heart of what my work is about, right?

I want to help you be in that authority and lead yourself, and therefore lead other people. The feeling that you can't is coming from people, systems, ways of thinking, experiences you've had that don't belong in deciding about the work that you are here to do. And there is a degree of belonging to yourself that you are coming into when you are offering your work according to your vision, according to what you value, according to how you best work according to your self trust.

In the next episode, I wanna go deeper in different ways that this shows up, so I'll see you in part two next [00:22:00] week.