I found myself hesitating before hitting record on this one. You know that familiar tug-of-war—wanting every piece of content to provide “value” in just the right way, polished and perfect. But what happens when “giving value” gets tangled up with feeling valuable yourself? In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on my own journey, sharing the real, unfiltered process of aligning my work with who I truly am, rather than with what I feel I “should” deliver.
We’ll chat about redefining what “value” means in business and creativity, and how the pressure to meet external expectations can shape, even limit, the ways we show up. I’ll open up about embracing imperfection, listening to myself, and some self-coaching practices that made all the difference. Plus, I have an invitation for you: a gentle prompt to explore what you might allow yourself to try next.
Ready for a dose of honesty and alignment? Press play and let’s start a conversation. You, me, and maybe a comfy sofa. I can’t wait to hear what comes up for you.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Everywhere else
🌿 Links & Invitations
I’d love to keep this conversation going!
You can share your reflections, stories, or questions with me:
- email me at hello@caretoimpact.com,
- or send me a voice note on Speakpipe.
If you feel called to dive deeper into what this episode brought up for you, book a free Clarity Session.
And if you’d like gentle reminders and news from the Care to Impact community in your inbox, you can also subscribe to Inner Impact Letters.
Transcript
Giada Centofanti [00:00:02]
Hi there. I am Giada, your host and coach. Welcome to Inner Impact. This podcast is for socially conscious business owners, creatives and leaders like you who want to bring their impactful work to life with care, joy and alignment. This is a space to reconnect with yourself, realign your work with what matters, and nurture the impact you want to create in the world.
Giada Centofanti [00:00:29]
Hi there. Welcome or welcome back.
Giada Centofanti [00:00:36]
My mind was going like, it’s so good to see you again. Actually, I’m not seeing you, but in my mind’s eyes I probably am. I’m picturing you, at least some of you, listening to this episode. And it feels like we are gathered around a— A table, or probably more like sitting on some comfy sofas and couches, and we are just talking and chatting and, you know, having a conversation.
Giada Centofanti [00:01:13]
So for today’s conversation between me and you and you and yourself, I’m. I want to explore a topic which is about giving value. You know, anyone who creates quote, unquote content for the Internet has been told that they need to give value through the content they create.
Giada Centofanti [00:01:45]
And I mean, it is. I don’t believe it is wrong per se, but I also think that sometimes can become tricky to understand what value actually means. And what I mean is, what are we talking about here?
Giada Centofanti [00:02:09]
So also what’s coming up for me is that when I hear value, sometimes I. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I sense some kind of capitalistic way to interpret value or some kind of transactional way to interpret it. You know, I am giving you value, so in turn you will give me your validation or you’ll buy something from me.
Giada Centofanti [00:02:54]
And what I’ve been noticing in my latest conversations with some of my clients and also with my own self, is that sometimes value, you know, that giving value becomes intertwined or intertwinis it with being or feeling you are valuable. So it feels like you map that value onto yourself and your own worth, as it always happens. Or it tends to happen mostly to solopreneurs, business owners, or people who really gain a lot of meaning from their work.
Giada Centofanti [00:03:38]
Sometimes our identities, our own value, our own worth becomes truly intertwined with our businesses or work’s worth. So I feel like this is happening here too. So the fact that we want to give value becomes I need to feel I am valuable. How does that sit with you? How does it land with you? Does it resonate?
Giada Centofanti [00:04:14]
Because when I’m telling this, when I’m saying this out loud, I can sense that in my body I am feeling tightness in my upper stomach and my breath is becoming a bit shorter. So I can see. I can really, you know, my body is telling me this resonates a lot with me.
Giada Centofanti [00:04:40]
And this resonates a lot with me because this was also the reason that I was torn about recording it, recording this episode. You know, when I started this podcast, I had a purpose that I still have and I want to honor, which is to offer you a space where you can start having a conversation with yourself, because that’s the way that you can gain awareness and start to, you know, foster, nurture, some kind of shift and take aligned action so you can thrive, first of all, you can feel good and thrive, and then you can go in the world and make a difference, because I know you care about this.
Giada Centofanti [00:05:34]
But when I started my podcast, while my purpose was clear, the format wasn’t. Or I’d rather say that I knew deep down myself what I wanted, but I didn’t allow myself to have it, to create it. And so I went down another path which was good and was valuable. And I know that because some of you told me you found some of my episodes very helpful. But still, it wasn’t the thing that I wanted to create, and I didn’t allow myself because my mind was telling me that I needed to give you value, but also that the value was very— had a very specific structure, needed to be polished, almost perfect. And so I did.
Giada Centofanti [00:06:41]
But now that I’m recording this, I’m trying to learn that I can give you value even though it isn’t polished, it isn’t perfect, and it feels more like a voice note that I’m sending to a friend or a conversation that I’m having with a friend or a group of friends gathered in the same room.
Giada Centofanti [00:07:11]
It took me almost a year to get to the point where I was ready to face this fear. And I am ready to face this fear because I took the time to have a conversation or, well, many conversations with myself through self coaching and also therapy to understand that this was the issue and this was the obstacle that wasn’t allowing myself to move forward and create episodes in a way that felt truly aligned with my core self.
Giada Centofanti [00:08:08]
What’s coming up for you while you listen to my reflections? What’s coming up for me is that I needed to pause the recording and take a few breaths and, you know, cuddle myself a little. Tell. You know, tell myself. Well, show myself, actually, because show, don’t tell, right? Show myself that I’m safe.
Giada Centofanti [00:08:34]
Well, as much breathless as I feel I also feel kind of proud about myself about at least giving me the opportunity to experiment with it. And I think that’s it, right? I think that is probably just, you know, quote unquote, just many quotes around just allowing ourselves to try.
Giada Centofanti [00:09:03]
So a prompt that is coming up for me right now is what would you like to allow yourself to try? Is there anything that you’ve been telling yourself you shouldn’t do it or you couldn’t do it that you would like to experiment with? And right now I don’t want you to think about— I mean, what I want doesn’t actually matter. What you want matters. But what I meant is I want to invite you not to think what may happen after. So think, try and think about something that has been on your mind for a while and you’ve been wanting to do for a while and you just didn’t do for one reason or another.
Giada Centofanti [00:10:11]
What is it? And would you be open to allowing yourself to do it or maybe to do the first little step toward it this week or next week, but soon? Okay. I’d really love to hear if this episode resonated with you and above all, if you’re, you know, willing to try to do something and also to have fun with it.
Giada Centofanti [00:10:49]
So if you like, you can email me or you can send me a voice note. I will set up some, I think speakpipe does that. I can set it up for you to send me a voice note. I truly love to hear from you and well, I hope I— oh you see, I was about to say I have been valuable actually. I hope that my words today gave you some kind of value, a non transactional value. I hope that my words and my question opened some windows or doors or portals in your mind that you can use to start having a conversation with yourself and move forward in a more aligned, joyful way.
Giada Centofanti [00:11:47]
Talk soon. Thanks for being with me today.