The Aspirant Podcast
Hello, incredible entrepreneurs, and welcome to 'The Aspirant Podcast!' I’m your host, Natasha Clawson, a Digital Marketing Educator and Strategist, and I’m here to help you build a business that doesn’t just work but thrives—and feels good while doing it.
🌟 Every week, we explore actionable business wisdom designed to help you create a business that aligns with your values, generates the income you desire, and operates like a well-oiled machine with the right systems, processes, and automation in place.
Imagine a business where taking consistent action is purposeful and attracts the clients you actually want to work with. So doing the work you love is more than just a goal—it’s your everyday reality.
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The Aspirant Podcast
Helen Horyza - How to Make Smarter Business Decisions by Tapping Into Your Values
In this episode, Award-winning author and founder of Career Coach Entrepreneur Academy, Helen Horyza, joins to explore the pivotal role that values play in both personal and professional decision-making. Helen explains how defining and aligning with core values can guide smarter, more confident choices in business and life.
Listeners will discover the importance of having both corporate and personal values, and how these two sets can work together to create a strong foundation for navigating challenges. Whether running a business, leading a team, or charting a new career path, Helen's insights offer practical guidance for making decisions that feel authentic and aligned with what truly matters to you.
Perfect for entrepreneurs, service providers, and anyone looking to build a values-driven business or life, this episode will inspire listeners to take a closer look at the values that drive you forward.
Episode Resources:
Elevate Your Career Book
Elevations Career Assessment
Episode Guest:
Meet Helen Horyza: Award-winning author and founder of Career Coach Entrepreneur Academy, an ICF Level One accredited coaching school. With a Master's in Career Counseling and ICF PCC coaching credential, Helen has helped thousands of people make successful career transitions. Discover her wisdom in her 'Elevate Your Career' book and on her YouTube channel. Helen will elevate your perception of what is possible.
Connect with Helen
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Get In Touch:
Hello and welcome to He Helen has helped thousands of people make successful career transitions and she has a book. Elevate your Career. On a YouTube channel, Helen will elevate your perception of what is possible.
Natasha Clawson:Welcome to the podcast, Helen. Thank you Love being here. I'm so excited to learn from you today. I know that you have so much to offer. We've worked together for several years and been in the same circle and I just love the energy that you bring, and I know you've helped so many people in my circle and beyond. Today I would love to talk to you a little bit about values, because I know that this is really important and this is something that you help people center their business around. So can you tell me a little bit about that and how you help people with those values?
Helen Horyza :Sure, so let's just start out by what is a value or what are values, and simply put it's what you believe in, what you stand for. It's kind of your true north. And for me personally, I have a set of corporate values and I have a set of personal values and we can kind of talk about that, whether that's what other people might do. That's kind of how I look at it.
Natasha Clawson:Awesome. Yeah, where would you like to start? I'd love for you to just give some background. That would be most helpful to our audience, which is mainly service providers.
Helen Horyza :Yeah. So let's talk about corporate values and why. You know? Because I think all of us have had the experience of having a poster on the wall at a company that we worked at and it meant nothing and they didn't ever really live by them, and so it becomes kind of like I'm not sure I really even want to talk about this what your corporate values, what your small business values, what your service organization's values are. It helps direct your decision-making, your strategic moves, even your partnerships, tremendously in terms of your message and your communication, and if you have that and if you're consistently talking about them, demonstrating them, walking the talk and being consistent, I think you get some of the biggest bang for it. Things like trust, repeat customers, referrals.
Natasha Clawson:Can you give an example of what a value set might be and what that looks like for someone to actually use that to make a decision or, you know, write some messaging Sure?
Helen Horyza :So my corporate values the acronym is CARBS. So CARBS, the CARBS that are good CARBS, not bad CARBS. And so it's commitment, abundance, recognition, balance and support. And, like many corporate values, they sort of sat in the background until the day came and I'll.
Helen Horyza :I won't get into the details, but I was in my dream office in a Victorian in downtown Sacramento, california, and my landlord was not interested in reporting his rent for the building as income to the Internal Revenue Service, and I and my bookkeeper were insistent on such things because that's in fact what's legal. And he evicted me. And in evicting me he also oh boy, I had and I'm going to date myself. You know I had a room full of letterhead that had just been printed. I had my address everywhere. It was to a small business, devastating, and with our values. It was a small team of people. We sat down. We're not going to give up commitment. There's more. If this happened to us, there's more. And we just used it as a route, as a route for us as a team and for me personally, as a route to get the strength to say okay and move on the team to something to rely on.
Natasha Clawson:There's a confidence in that, the commitment right that you're going to get through it, but also a confidence in how to move forward even in a situation that could be otherwise somewhat devastating. So I know you also help companies and entrepreneurs choose their values, and you know how does that work.
Helen Horyza :How do people actually decide how many should there be? You know how does that work. How do people actually decide how many should there be? What does that look like? I think one of the ways to do that is to use an assessment that includes values, and the one that I've invented called elevations is a really easy way to do that. It includes values, skills, interests and temperament, and then, beyond the assessment, prioritization and explanation of that process, I think, just talking to a good chicken soup friend, you know, who really listens, who asks great questions, and if you don't happen to have one of those on the shelf, I think a really well-trained coach could brilliantly, in a relatively short period of time, help someone clarify their values.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and where can they? So you actually have a tool. Where can they find that tool? If they wanted to use that, it's elevateyourcareercom. Okay, yeah, I've taken that assessment and I'm the person who takes every kind of assessment I can get my hands on, but I loved it and I thought it was really spot on. So I definitely recommend that. You know, one of the other things that I'm interested in, too, is having a structure to post on social media, because I think the temptation can be that there's a lot of pressure online to follow a trend or maybe speak on a topic and sometimes staying true to yourself and you know, having a guide rail gets set to the side when you feel all those pressures. But I feel like these value systems and values could help guide what you post online. Do your values help you decide what you're posting online?
Helen Horyza :Absolutely, and how I feel about it and what I do and don't do. So here's where I'm going to maybe confuse some people. I actually have my corporate values, but then I have my personal values, and my personal values are meaningful work, helping others and having fun, and it has been my, my true north for, oh gosh, for the last 20 years or so. And when it comes to social media and I really honor and respect that everybody has different feelings about it for whatever reason I like to say I'm not mad at it, I'm just not, and I see it as another way for me to be communicating information that is meaningful, to be helpful to people and occasionally, hopefully, lighten things up a little bit. And so if my whole focus in being on social media is to be genuinely helpful, then it moderates the oversharing, undersharing, manipulation, overselling, whatever the problem is that you might have with someone who posts on social media.
Helen Horyza :I think the word that, although it's not one of my personal values, it has been in competition to be what I personally find most useful about values and social media is authenticity. And for me and this is not I'm telling other people to do it I do not stack my social posts because I don't know what's going to be meaningful that week. So I actually let what really matters to me actually guide my expression and I write my own posts and people and I don't make them short and that's something. Natasha, I'm a fan of breaking the rules. I'm a long form communicator, I like to write, and so my posts are not short and I've broken every social media rule pretty much there is. I post the same thing in multiple locations. I just do what I feel like doing and I just think people pick up on it. They pick up on the lack of manipulation or anxiety or you know whatever that looks like.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and I think that's beautiful because I think we can get into a space where things are too formulaic and going back to that authenticity piece where you're not showing up genuinely.
Natasha Clawson:Things are too formulaic and going back to that authenticity piece where you're not showing up genuinely.
Natasha Clawson:And I think the core piece of social and this is the mindset that I'm trying to incorporate with my audience, because a lot of people are stuck in the mindset that they hate social media and you have a beautiful mindset here which is like let's look at this differently and if it can feel fun, if it can feel in service, then you're more likely to show up.
Natasha Clawson:And for you, you've created a system where you only post what you want, so it's not ever going to feel that icky, gross and people aren't, you know, because they can pick up on that when it feels forced and desperate. So it looks like that system is working really well for you and I like this model and it's close to what I recommend. Also, although formulas can be good to get people started and to give us a structure to, you know, to get out there right, because it can be hard to put yourself out there. So you did mention corporate and personal values, and how they're two sets. How do you see those playing together and what's the purpose of having, you know, a corporate set and a personal set?
Helen Horyza :Sue, maybe I almost sort of see some stacking going on in my brain. Corporate values feel like the higher stack they are driving. Am I going to sell my business someday? Who am I going to sell that to? Who are my alliances and my partners? What am I willing to say yes to and say no to?
Helen Horyza :So, for example, in my area of expertise, one of the things that I do is team building, and these are all things I've learned over time. Believe me, I made my mistakes to get to my awarenesses, and I realized eventually that a lot of organizations would hire you for a couple of hours to fix a team, and that's where corporate values can really help you. For me, my commitment to making a difference in a significant way through my corporate values would say no to that, and so no, thank you very much. That might be a nice lunch entertainment, but it will not build a team. And so corporate values allow you to say yes to the right things, to say no to the right things, to build a strategy and look down the road with purpose, as opposed to reacting to what's coming up really quickly.
Helen Horyza :So high level Then personal level is how Helen shows up. So high level, then personal level is how Helen shows up. My top three values, my top personal three values, are my signature line in my emails and in my texts and they're there for me to remember. And so I think, if I could just make it simple, I think corporate values are very associated with strategy and I think that personal values are really how you personally show up.
Natasha Clawson:Okay, and the corporate values I'm assuming, too, would apply to a team versus the personal is more for you, right? If you had a team, right? I love putting it in your email signature to remind yourself, because things that are present are the things that we actually use and we can do this strategy, we can do all this value work and it sits in a brand guide or it sits in a document and we look at it once every three years and it's not very meaningful. So I see that you have, I think, three accounted. Is there a point where there's too many values, because sometimes I see lists of 10 or more. At what point do you think it becomes too confusing? Or is there a point that it does?
Helen Horyza :I think if you can't remember them, you're in trouble. There you go. Yeah, we had five corporate values. And the joke immediately when it you know, and this was 2021. No, no, excuse me, 2001, 2002, a few days ago, and when we came up with the acronym CARBS, I never forgot it again, right? And so if you're going to have more than three, I think you need to do something to remember it by, but I think three is a magic number.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and a lot of brands use the acronym to play into their branding too, so it's something to remember and it might relate to their branding, so that's a great memory tool there. So let's see, we already talked about how your values helped you get through a difficult situation. I'm trying to think has there ever been a time where you struggled to figure out how your values applied to the situation?
Helen Horyza :Oh sure, sure. I think I really loved listening to your thinking just then, because one of the awarenesses that I've come to I'll own this for myself, I'm not going to lay this on anybody else is that I don't think your values guide your decision making. In all situations you feel like you might be failing or you might be defensive, or all the bad things have happened in your world. We become protective, we become defensive, we become angry, we become reactive. That's normal. You know, the saber-toothed tiger is coming down the trail and we are trying to protect ourselves, and values are not what comes up At that time time.
Helen Horyza :Values are not where we're going, okay, so, um, so you asked me when did it really come home? Um, it really came home for me when I left my dog at a daycare center and when I went to pick him up, they all had this really weird look on their face and it turns out that they had accepted four new dogs into the doggy daycare center. They were playing and those four dogs pack attacked my dog that day and they then proceeded to take my dog, who was 14 months old. He was injured to the muscle level on both sides of his hips, and so they took him, they put him under, they stitched him up, and all of that happened without calling me, and if you're not appalled, you're all by yourself, I am appalled.
Helen Horyza :You're all by yourself because that's appalling and I, I, they, oh, you know you can keep them here for free. Here's your antibiotics and like whatever. And I had to decide, ultimately, how am I going to take care of this animal and what, what is going to be my decision? And that was a small business that made a very bad decision, several bad decisions that day. I don't know how they screened those four dogs, they did not call me, etc. Etc. Etc.
Helen Horyza :But I can tell you, natasha, that by focusing on doing what's right, meaningful work, helping others, having fun, even though those don't sound like they would relate to a pack attack, they did for me and what it did was it focused on take care of the dog, do what's right, don't take a small business out of business. If I could have which I couldn't have, but you know I wanted to sue them. You want to react, you want to attack, you want to defend, and I'm not saying we should stand up and let people just take advantage of us, but I would encourage you to believe that you can actually moderate the quality of your choices, your decisions, and do what's really most important to you and what's really best, if you are not in that reactive space and you are in a values-driven space.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and this also brings to mind for me, just like, maybe, the physical modalities. Do you do anything like breath work, like when you sense that coming on, is there anything you do to jog yourself out of seeing red? Because we all have these emotions, right, and they're not bad things and they can overwhelm us and our default programming, you know, comes in and then we're trying to use our new software, right, which is the values, the things that we've built, but like physically, like, how do you get back in that thinking brain?
Helen Horyza :I think part of it is practice. I mean, I'll add another Hellenism. Every morning, before my feet hit the floor, I recite my top three values to myself and that's it. That's no, no, no. But I'm nothing wrong with all these other things, but I don't meditate, I don't, I don't, but I, I reset my top three values and I think the only way that you're going to, you're going to override that instinct to attack or to defend or be hurt or give up or whatever that looks like, is to keep practicing, making those forward. They're visible, they're memorable.
Helen Horyza :My favorite place to practice far and away Costco. There will never be a visit to Costco that does not allow you to practice right. They're going to pull in in front of you, they're going to cram their cart up your you know your ankles, and I've just learned that it's so funny because, no matter what happens and I've just learned that it's so funny because, no matter what happens, I can find the humor in it because I'm so focused on how that's truly not just anything that's going to ruin my day, and it really feels empowering. Like you know, you could be miserable, but I don't have to be.
Natasha Clawson:I like it. I wonder how many different things we could process or practice at Costco Just a lot. I love that example. So I know you also have a book, Helen. I would love to hear a little bit about that. What's in it? How can it help our audience?
Helen Horyza :So the book is called Elevate your Career Live a Life You're Truly Proud of. And I've been a career coach for over 30 years and I've worked in the university setting and then the last 25 years as a self-employed private practitioner and most recently started a coaching school, and I share all of that to say I'm a pretty clear thesis in terms of this whole career thing. I really like it. Thesis in terms of this whole career thing. I really like it and I think it's incredibly important. And so I wanted to write a book that would take someone essentially from I don't really like what I'm doing or I'm not sure I'm living up to my potential, to how do I get to a place where I'm actually aligned with who I am and with a career that I could be truly proud of.
Helen Horyza :So easiest way to put it Helen career coach in a box. It includes the career assessment for free. It explains the elevate career cycle model, which is the process that you need to understand to make healthy career transitions. And then there's lots and lots and lots of stories of people who have navigated their career using those tools and resources. So you know, it's a really great graduation present Brilliant, but it's also for somebody who's in mid-career and they're stuck or they're ready to retire and they're not done yet. And what do I do now?
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, does your book apply at all to entrepreneurs?
Helen Horyza :Not directly, so I certainly didn't write it in that angle. What I would say and I'll say it from a personal perspective so I'm one of those people that has really extreme learning strengths and really extreme learning differences or deficits, if you will. And so running a business meant that I really had blind spots and I knew about it and I had some brilliance and I knew about that too. And I think, using the elevations, career assessment, with the intention of coming to really clear terms about what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you get energy from and what you do not get energy from, there is only one person that's going to either succeed or fail in your business and that's you, and your self-knowledge is super, super important. Am I passionate about this? I don't know, but I would say, from that perspective, it may or may not help you decide what kind of business you want to run, but how you run it and how you conduct yourself is also really important.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, knowing yourself and, like you said, you're the success and failure of your business. It's that mindset, it's knowing yourself, and it seems like you bring a lot of clarity to what you're passionate about and spending your energy wisely. I talked about that on a recent podcast. It is so essential to be successful in a business because you can do all of the wrong tasks and de-energize yourself and not show up for the 20% that matters and that can be a real drain. A real drain. What things about values have we not touched on today that might be helpful for the entrepreneurs in the audience?
Helen Horyza :You know, I think for anyone who's either working for someone else or working for themselves, the things that matter are going to be influenced by your values. So, for example, do you have the resilience to actually take the risks, to get to the real potential of what you're capable of? And that's just as complicated in an organizational setting where you're dealing with politics and you're dealing with competition and you're dealing with unpredictable economic factors, or you've got that in your own business. No matter what the situation is, your ability to be resilient and confident is going to be fueled by your values, and those are really big things to have. And then again, I'll just nod back to courage. Like to have the courage to take those scary steps. If you're doing it because somebody else told you, or that's what everyone else is doing, or that seems like the most obvious step, that just lacks fiber, it doesn't have guts. And if you're driving those choices, um, from a values perspective, uh, I think you're going to be able to aspire to a much higher level.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, so you're almost getting energy from it, and would you say it's fair to say that your values are really part of like you're driving? Why is that a fair correlation?
Helen Horyza :oh, absolutely yeah, what you stand for, why you're doing what you're doing, why you're not doing what you're doing.
Natasha Clawson:All of that, yeah, for sure yeah, well, I have loved learning about values. I think they're so important and they can shape how we show up in our business, show up for ourselves. It seems like this is so much more than just our business, right? It's how we interact with someone when our pet has a terrible situation, a grooming accident or a boarding care, and maybe how we're showing up with our spouse, our businesses all of these different things, and I love learning about that. As we wind today down, I would love to close by asking you what is your biggest piece of advice for your younger self?
Helen Horyza :It will take longer than you want it to. It will. And since I now have a perspective that is quite substantial I now have a perspective that is quite substantial. I know that that advice is true, like if I could take my blessed 26 year old lost self and say your education is going to take longer than you want it to. You're finding your career success and satisfaction. Your marriage won't occur until you're 50 years old. You won't write a book until later. I have so many turtles sitting close by at all times to remind me it's going to take longer than you want it to. And when you get it done, girlfriend, it's going to be perfect.
Natasha Clawson:That is beautiful. I love the visual reminders for you seem really important, these cues, and I think we can all learn from that, and I think especially for my audience. Another one of the messages is about social media showing up consistently, because it does take longer than you think, oh for sure, with social media. Well, we live in a world where we're kind of taught to see that these people skyrocket to success, or at least we think that's what's happening. We don't know how many hours they've put in, how many books they've written before they were a number one bestseller. We just see the big splash and it's so helpful to remind ourselves. So I think the advice for everyone is to go get some turtles for your social media and say it's going to take longer, but it is going to be great when you get there. Thank you so much, helen. It was a pleasure having you today.
Helen Horyza :I've loved it, thanks.
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