[00:00:00] Valorise is the name I'm giving to a methodology that enables visionaries, artists, change-makers, and culture workers to realize the unprecedented. Hi, I'm Louisa, and I know too well the inner conflict of knowing you have something, but not being sure that people will recognize the value of it, and the ways it has you mixing agendas in your work, splitting your energy, your integrity, and your impact.

My intention with this podcast is to codify this Valorise approach so you can use it in your self-led business or practice to get tuned back into your own wisdom and vision, show up boldly, and have your unique point of view tangibly recognized, sought after, and highly valued, AKA valorised.[00:01:00]

If you want to do work on your terms, if you want it to feel like you are centered in the work that you're doing, and therefore the work you most value doing in the world is also the work that is being valued in the world, if you want to do your work on your terms and have that be valued highly, it means you have to value it first.

And in this series, which I'm calling Stocktake, I want to invite you to think about six different arenas where building the value of what you bring, when what you bring, the ideas you have, the vision you have, the insights you have, the creativity that you have, when something about the work you're doing is unprecedented in some way, either for you personally, it's requiring you to be and do and imagine and act on things for which you [00:02:00] have less of a model, less examples, or unprecedented in your world, in your industry, in your field, or in the world.

When you're building the value of that, there are a different set of skills involved that are about you tuning into that value, the value of it, and attuning the way that you go about creating that value in the world in alignment with what actually helps you to make it real, what works for you as the main driver, the main generator of that impact.

And so in this series, I'm calling you in because I want to invite you to take stock of the ways that you might not be seeing or honoring or being in alignment with the value of what you bring to the table, or the fresh new table that you bring to the world, or the upsetting of the table that your work represents.

And so I'm calling this series Stocktake. I like this idea that you've got the goods, you've got the [00:03:00] stock in the back room, but babe, it's dusty while you are out front trying to window dress for the wrong people. Okay? So you know you've got the stuff. You know you've got something. You wouldn't have begun this or dreamt this up if you didn't on some level believe that.

You might already be working on it. You might have already created a business based on it, created your own financial structures where people are paying you for it, or you might be at the point where you're getting ready to make that happen. We've got to get you in the stockroom and seeing where you might be operating with what I'm calling false economies.

So there are six stocktakes we're gonna do, and this is to look at six false economies. A false economy is the actions you take believing that it's saving you money, but it's actually costing you long term. For example, buying clothes from Shein that fall apart in a week, [00:04:00] that extracted from who knows where to create fabrics with highly toxic wastes, created by workers who maybe don't work in the best working conditions, that, no judgment, when you're on a budget, you do what you have to do.

But this is an example of a false economy. But what I want to get into is not just money. It's you building your work. It's all the resources you have at your disposal to do that, right? Including the internal ones, time, energy, focus, dreaming, thinking, offering, collaborating, and making visible. And so over the next few episodes, we're gonna do different stocktakes.

We're gonna look at where do you have agency and power that you aren't actually taking up to build the value, reveal the value, communicate the value that you bring? And why do we need to do this? You might already have high conviction in what you do, but if you also have [00:05:00] low trust that other people are going to see it, honor it, believe in it, recognize and value you doing it on your terms, you are going to hold it back.

You're gonna keep it in the back room. You're gonna hold that stock and hold back the value, and this has you operating with false economies, splitting yourself across agendas that in splitting, you're also diluting your energy, your focus, your impact. In the last episode, I spoke to the opportunity that we have right now.

There has never been a better time to create work that is culturally driven, that connects people, that changes systems, that transforms the way that we do things. The appetite for this is huge. The availability of tools and information and knowledge is huge, so the time is now. But if me saying that felt like pressure to trust yourself where you aren't sure that you can, that you aren't [00:06:00] sure that you can do it, then listen up, 'cause in this Stocktake series, I want to take you through these false economies so you can see why, where you are holding yourself back and get really specific in your problem-solving.

If your work isn't quite working, if burnout is a daily threat, if you still feel like a beginner but your peers are leaping ahead, if you are confused about why it's not working, this is going to help you really pinpoint why. And if it is working but you want it to work better, you want to bring it into more attunement, alignment with what you actually dream of, actually want to be doing, the way that you want to show up to it, the way that you want to be visible, the way that you want to do your work in a way that is different from the norm and you're not, we want to look at why.

Running your own thing, being a self-starter is hard enough without you also getting in the [00:07:00] way. So I want you to be able to dream it, trust yourself big, but then also follow through on that in a way that builds the value of it out in the world. It is only potential value unless other people have the chance to value it.

And in this first episode, what we're taking stock of is your actions, the doing bit, the executing the dream. This has been a challenge for me as someone who has several neuro divergencies, if you wanna call it that, and lives in dream, lives in visioning, can always see possibility beyond what is, and in fact, trusts that often more than what is.

But actually trying to carve my way of doing things, my vision, my insights into a livelihood has come with [00:08:00] specific challenges around executing. And so I'm really wanting to take you through the types of false economies that we Allow and we get used to and we think of as normal, identify with, and we think it's a problem that we have because of who we are, because of how we think, because of how we perceive, and forgetting that we live in a world right now where you can start a business, create a body of work, do your own thing, and invite other people to value it in a way that actually allows you to do it on your terms, to do it your way.

And that's really confusing when you've been through systems, you've lived through relationships where that hasn't felt like a choice. It's confusing to be confronted with that choice. And so where do we go? We go to the [00:09:00] familiar feeling of not having that choice and of the familiar identity of I don't get to.

And so these false economies are really about bringing you into awareness of where you aren't taking up your power. So think about a goal, a dream, a vision you hold dear, something that you would be like over the moon, ecstatic, wildly satisfied if you created it. And I wanna invite you to imagine, so hold that dream, hold that thing that you're wanting, and then imagine that if someone came into your life and they had access to all of it, where you spent your time, your energy, your focus, and you told them what you want, would they believe you?

Based on your actions, based on what you're doing, your calendar, the structure of every day, would they see someone [00:10:00] who is taking action in integrity with what they say they want? There have been so many times in my life when I would get into looping habits of instead of taking the actions I wanted to take on the thing I really wanted, I would instead replay the emotional groove, the internal music soundtrack of disappointment in myself that I'm not taking action.

I'd be like, "I'm supposed to be. I should be. Why aren't I?" And then feeling the disappointment in myself. I remember once realizing as I was loading clothes into the washing machine, "Ah, this is a nice, comfortable, familiar habit of seeing myself as, oh, I'm not quite ready yet. I'm not quite ready to leap, to launch, to do the thing And so there I was, seeing myself unhappily putting myself [00:11:00] back in the kitchen, her at home, agreeing with my own actions that I didn't have the time or space.

I wasn't ready yet. There were all these reasons why I couldn't really go after what I want, and there was this reassuring familiarity of the disappointment, the disappointment in myself. And so I'm saying that, I'm sharing that because not taking action on your dreams, not taking action on the thing you are being called to do, to lead on, to offer up to people, to contribute, when you're not taking action on it but you're aware of it, can build up as an identity that is made up of being out of integrity with that dream.

You start to see yourself as someone who doesn't, as someone who can't. And you might be someone who is also rewarded for the things you can do, for the things you have done, [00:12:00] and so it's very tempting then to go back to the job that pays, go back to the career that you've known as that source of reassurance, of confirmation of who you are.

But then living with that dissonance of, "Yeah, but there is something else I want that I don't believe, I'm not sure will have the same rewards. I don't know if it will work the same way if I do it on my terms." And so you wait. You wait for someone else to open that door, to kickstart the engine, and willingly choose the lie, "I don't have a choice but to do this other thing instead."

It's like having the day job and the passion project on the side keeps the passion project a side thing. That moment I had with the washing machine, it was beginning of pandemic. I was tasked [00:13:00] with homeschooling my five-year-old while also looking after my two-year-old, while also supposedly emerging out of maternity leave, while also having decided to start a business that I had no qualifications, no training, no experience for, while supporting my partner to work.

I was doing the cleaning, cooking, domestic stuff, while also at the time getting up at 3:00 AM so I could be on calls with my coach, who lived on the other side of the world, while also carrying the guilt of not wanting to spend all this time with my kids, while also watching the art world I'd just left fall apart during the pandemic, while also having no income, no furlough, no nothing, and I had every excuse not to act on what I wanted.

I didn't have enough sleep. I didn't have enough time. I didn't have any space I didn't have any proof, I didn't have any belief, I didn't have any confidence, and I had built up an identity comprised of all the things I was supposed to be and all the things I was failing [00:14:00] to do that were secret dreams I was holding inside.

And that identity meant what I wanted felt unavailable to me because of who I was in that moment, the role I was supposed to play. So I, in seeing that, had to learn to choose, to keep choosing to take action from a different place, from tiny belief, from finding reasons why I might do it, reasons why this might still be worth it.

And I learned that those actions were my first evidence, my first source of belief, my first tiny shifts in identity, the first building blocks of all the skills I needed, my first taste of the emotions I would need to learn to welcome in, to reposition as a sign I'm on track. And so when you name a dream, when you're aware of the things you [00:15:00] want that you don't yet have, you are purposely creating a gap.

You are purposely deciding to be unsatisfied with your circumstances. You are purposely creating a gap between who you are now, the belief system you are now, the capacity you have now f- to feel all the hard things, the skill set you have now, and the version of you who's, who's done it. The identity of the person who's done it, the belief system of the version of you that's done it, the willingness to feel everything it took to get there that the person who's done it can feel, the skills you had to learn on the way that the person, the version of you that's done it, had to pick up.

So your actions are the first source of... They create belief in the beginning, which you need when you don't have any evidence that, for example, a new level of income, a new type of work, a new level of [00:16:00] visibility is possible for you. You don't have belief. You have to create it. You don't yet have the identity.

You have to create it. I am this person. I can be this person. This is available to me. So the false economy that I wanna invite you to take stock of when it comes to your actions are one of these three false economies. Number one, you're taking action, but across too many projects, too many directions, or the wrong ones.

When you're taking action on the wrong things, the things you don't believe in, the things that you don't actually care about, your actions are going to affirm those wrong things And take away belief from the place you're trying to go to. And when your actions are split across too many things, too many different agendas, you're effectively diluting your [00:17:00] belief, but also your energy, your focus, and then also your impact, and therefore what's coming back to you to affirm that this is the thing that you get to do.

I call it too many broths spoil the cook, which is a play on the saying, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." I think too many broths spoil the cook. You need focus, you need constraint, because you need to limit your exposure to how many learning curves and belief gaps you're in so that you can close them, ideally one at a time, and therefore faster.

You also have to limit the number of things you're cooking up. You have to choose between many things that you'd quite like and let go of many of them for the thing that you are choosing as the most important one. It can feel very affirming and exciting when you are constantly busy, constantly doing all of the things, until you get to a point where you are [00:18:00] outlaying so much energy but not getting much back.

Receiving is part of the giving, so in order to receive, you've got to have focus on what you're giving to. The second one is seeking certainty before you do anything, and this looks like needing to know how. The clothing designer Rick Owens talks about his work like there is airport fashion and then there is what I do.

And I love that framing because it's such an easy way to key into what he's not for and frame what he is for. There are people who don't want airport fashion. He had the skill of clothes making, tailoring, cutting, but I doubt he had the structures and the supply chains and the ready-made factory set up to do small run, giant shoulder pads and translucent platform heels, right?

So he probably had to start from scratch, go against the grain of mass production and ready-mades in order to create that vision. [00:19:00] He had to figure it out. So this idea of "I don't know how" is a cop-out. It's a false economy. You can't know how. You're doing something different. The whole point is it's deviating.

So you can model, you can borrow how other people have done new things. You can find mentors. You can find people who value what you do. You can ask and look for and figure out a way, but that means taking action on it before you know how The third false economy I want to speak to around action is waiting for permission or belief.

I know you know this, but let me say it a different way. There is a lag time in your own identity after you create change in your life. It takes time for your own mental wiring to catch up to where you are after you've done a big thing. I see this so often with my valorized people. They will make a [00:20:00] big leap and have a freak-out after, right?

Of it's all gonna go wrong. It was just a fluke. And so there is work to do to catch yourself up to who you've already become, who you're becoming along the way, and there's a lot of different habits and work that we do to smooth and strengthen that process. But it takes even longer, there is an even longer lag time for people who knew you as you were to now catch up to who you are when you are on a path of change.

Hence, they often resist you changing or discourage it because it feels like a challenge to the working assumptions they have about you. It's unsettling. So you waiting for their belief, their permission, is a false economy because the waiting decreases your own belief, therefore decreases your own actions, therefore decreases the evidence you've created that would help anyone [00:21:00] else believe.

And your belief might be small, and that's okay. You have to start with tiny belief. Waiting is the issue. Waiting reinforces the fear that other people won't see what you have, value what you have, believe in you. But how can they if your own actions don't? If your own actions are aligned with an affirming self-doubt, or it won't work this way, or I'm foolish.

So a lot of this comes down to starting before you're ready, but I wanna give you a different take. The whole point of you taking charge of the value of your work is that your work gets to exist, and that you get to exist doing that work and having that feel as good as it could feel. The impact of your work existing, you receiving the recognition, receiving the income, receiving the choices in how you operate, who you work with, the [00:22:00] quality of the relationships that you create in that work, the type of spaces, platforms you then get access to.

You get and receive from all that you're pouring out. In order for that to happen, you will need to know how to move people, how to lead, how to show another way and make it sexy, make it attractive, make it desirable. How to deviate and do it with conviction that has other people go, "Huh, I didn't know that was an option, but now I see you do it, I want it."

So the internal skill to support that is knowing how to move yourself. To move other people, you need to be able to move yourself. To move yourself, your focus has to be consciously directed. Like a film director and a camera operator, you are pointing that focus not at the immediate cost of you taking the action, which might be, "I've got to put energy, time into this thing ahead of getting anything back for a [00:23:00] while.

I've got to risk feeling bad, rejection, disappointment, failure. I've got to act while being scared," AKA courage, and the vulnerability of, "I've never done this," or confusing people or looking weird, right? And to direct your focus not to all of those costs and why those feel hard, but instead to why is it still worth it.

Our amazing brains make sense of modernity, I think, with two questions that I see come up again and again. Will it be worth it? Like, will all this effort actually work? And what could go wrong? So without realizing it, when we're thinking about what's required and the next actions we might take on the dream, what you're unconsciously asking is, "Will it be worth it?"

Like, if I'm gonna put energy [00:24:00] into this, am I gonna get what I want? And if you're not sure, your body will often conserve energy, right? So you have to show yourself why will it be worth it. Why am I willing to do what it takes? Why am I in this for the long haul? And you will also be unconsciously asking what could go wrong, right?

To protect yourself. But if you realize that these are also the questions that your people, your clients, your audience, they will also be asking this of your work. They will be asking, "Will it be worth it?" And, "What could go wrong?" And so if you aren't prepared to take the risk, if you aren't choosing to believe it will be worth it, if you don't know exactly why this is worth it, if you aren't focused on the long-term big-picture gain, then why should they?

If you're not willing to carry the risk, why should they? [00:25:00] So you move first, then they'll move with you. That's the deal. So start before you're ready. No, be the starter. Be the leader. Show the way. Act on that tiny bit of belief that has you Obsessed with this project, excited about this idea, holding conviction that you have something.

And then the deal is you keep at it, and then your belief grows and your identity evolves into, "Yep, this is just who I am. This is just what I do." Your skill grows, and your capacity to keep choosing that risk, to keep taking on the challenging emotions grows. You build the muscle, and so you then also grow your agency to bend and mold your work and your world, your life to your own liking.[00:26:00]

You grow your agency to charge well for your work, your visibility, AKA your integrity, people being able to actually see you and see what you're about because you're being it also grows. And guess what's deeply attractive to people? That you are willing to do all of that for the impact of your work on them.

This is grit. This is not the hustle of pushing past your own boundaries and trying to force things to happen. This is the grit to say, "I am doing this, and I'm doing it by staying with me and staying with my dreams, deciding I am worthy of going after it, and the going after it is worth it." So I wanna invite you to take a look, take stock.

Where are you playing yourself? Where are you in a false economy? Where are you spreading too thin, got too many projects, too many broths? Where are you holding back, waiting for certainty or permission or [00:27:00] belief? And to know that you leaping is the source of belief. The leap is the confirmation of that new identity.

The leap precipitates the skill. The leap is you feeling the aliveness, but you only feel that expansive, "I'm doing the thing. I'm learning. I'm growing," you only feel that when you're midair, not when you're about to leap, not when you're waiting. The waiting is a false economy. The splitting focus, hedging your bets, trying to please everyone is a false economy of avoiding your own power to choose to act on the one thing that you most care about.

Cutting off other options, like blinkers on, "I'm doing this. I'm giving my all to this one thing." The over-dreaming, the talking about but not doing, the over-planning are false economies that increase disbelief, that trick you with an ideal and the feeling of a [00:28:00] finished result, but that helps you avoid the messy, icky, vulnerable part of actually doing when you don't know how, when you're scared, when you've never done it before, and you don't really believe.

So you could be a doer. You might be someone who is very effective, productive, go-getting, get stuff done, and you might have been rewarded for being that in a system or a role that now isn't fully in integrity and doesn't really light you up or has lost meaning for you. And so I'm not just talking to people who don't know how to take action.

It's the fact that the actions for a dream that challenges a system or challenges a past identity or challenges a familiar place of reward is hard. Being a good worker versus being your own self-starter, being in cultural leadership are not the same. Being brilliant at ideas [00:29:00] and visions and imagining possibility, this is not the same as actually taking one thing seriously and taking it all the way to making it real.

There is a level of commitment. There is a level of keeping choosing it through the hard that you have to generate and you generate it with what you're focused on. I'm focused on the bigger picture. I'm focused on why will it be worth it to go through this next shitty thing, take this next scary action, call that person, email and ask the question, post the post.

And when you do, you will start to see momentum. You will start to see yourself do things that you're like, "Oh shit, I didn't know. Okay, I did it. Oh my God, I did it. Now what? Now I'm learning something. Now I know what to do next." And things start moving because you're moving. You've lit the match. And then the work becomes about managing that journey, staying on track, increasing belief.

So we're going to [00:30:00] get into the staying on track. But before that, we need to talk about knowing what you want. And that's what we're going to get into in the next episode. So I'll leave that with you. Let me know how this landed. Send me an email. What is your next action that you are committing to taking?

And then email me again when you've done it. This is the first of a stock take series. So take stock. Where is your energy going? What is your time spent doing? How much of that is increasing your belief and how much of it is decreasing? And you want to increase the increasing belief actions and decrease the stuff that takes you away.