In today’s special episode, I’m sharing something different—something raw, real, and unedited.

This is the audio from last week, recorded during open enrollment for my Furniture Flipping Blueprint. It’s called “This Is Me + Bet Me.”

If you’ve ever wondered who I really am, why I care so deeply about helping beginners become confident furniture flippers, or how faith has shaped every step of my business… this is the episode to listen to.

Inside, I open up about:

• My early beginnings and the moment God planted a calling in me
• How doubt, discouragement, and the online “noise” nearly shut me down
• The turning point that made me say, “Bet me—I’m not done yet.”
• Why I believe furniture flipping is more than a hobby—it’s a bridge to confidence, purpose, and transformation
• And how YOU fit into this story

This isn’t a tutorial.

This isn’t a pitch.

This is the real me—the heart behind everything I teach inside the Furniture Flipping Blueprint.

If you’ve been flipping alone… scrolling, searching, and just hoping someone would finally tell the truth… this is your invitation to stop wandering and start building.

🔗 Want to watch the full Flip Forward Series when it becomes available again?

Join the waitlist here: ValFrania.com/FlipForward

This is Who I Am + Bet Me Audio Only

Val Frania:

Hello. I want to tell you something up front before I start. This is not a usual furniture flipping video. It's not a tutorial. It's definitely not a sales pitch. This is different. Today I felt very strongly that, you know, the kind of nudge you don't ignore to sit down and look at you in your eyes and tell you who I am, where I come from, and why I care so much about helping you. Because we live in an online world full of noise, full of hype, broken trust, and people promising overnight success. And I get it. You don't know me yet. Not really. So today I want to change that. I want you to see the real me. Not the edited version, not the highlight reel. Just me.

Honestly, I nearly melted down right along with my teleprompter today. The thing that kept blinking in and out. I spent about eight hours trying to figure out the hardware or software problem. I finally just decided to do this the old fashioned way. I'm going to read it because I don't want to miss anything. I have a lot to tell you today.

God has a way of using even these small, irritating moments to steady us and to teach us something, so we keep going. A little amused, a little stretched, but trusting him through it all. If you stay with me through the story, you'll understand exactly why I do what I do and why I believe God brought me right here to speak to you.

Let me take you back. Way back to when I was eight years old. I was at Camp CoBeAc. It's in northern Michigan, and I was listening to a preacher talk about Pentecost. And he said something simple, if you want to serve God with your life, raise your hand. I raised mine. No hesitation, no fear. Just a little girl saying to something she didn't quite understand. Yes.

Then at twelve, I don't really remember the baptismal service itself, but I do remember walking from the church building out to the teen barn. And I remember telling God, I want to serve you full time. I want a husband who will serve with me. I want my life to make a difference, a real difference. I didn't know it then, but that prayer shaped every chapter of my life. God honored it.

Fast forward a few years. I was seventeen and in Junior Achievement, my dear husband stood up to introduce himself. We'd never met before, and I leaned over to my friend and whispered, I'm gonna marry him. I just knew he wasn't on the same spiritual path that I was at the time, but I knew. I just knew God was pointing him out to me. That was the first time I felt the Holy Spirit say, "Pay attention." This is your path of life.

It was we married, we started a family, and when our first child turned two, we committed ourselves to full time ministry. He gave us a mission. We became adoptive parents. We fostered. We opened our home again and again and again. And before long, we are a family of seventeen. Two homemade, thirteen adopted, different races, different trauma stories and histories, different needs. I call them my "interesting children." I say that with love.

Some followed us into the ministry. Some reconciled their past. Some are still wrestling with it. Most of them love us and some don't. And you know what? That's real life. When you raise kids with deep wounds, you either become bitter yourself, or you become someone who refuses to let anyone walk through hard times alone, like we did. We became the others. The ones who stay. The ones who keep showing up. The ones that don't quit. And through all those years. The heartbreak, the victories, the late night prayer, the laughter, the trauma, the chaos, our love for God didn't break. It deepened. We kept serving. We kept believing. We kept trusting. And somewhere along the way, we became people who know how to advocate, how to teach, how to support, how to stand up against the traditional systems that we run into, how to fight for the broken, the unseen, how to walk with people through fire without letting them burn alone.

People talk a lot about kids having PTSD, but I'll tell you something. Most people never say adoptive parents can have PTSD. Too many lose their health. Many lose their families. Many lose themselves. There were years that I struggled under the emotional weight of the trauma. Trauma I didn't cause, but trauma I carried because I loved my kids. And through it all, God preserved us, protected us, strengthened us. I still don't know how we made it through, except for his hand. I feel for people that don't have the Lord to guide them and protect them. It's the only way we made it through.

So why am I telling you all this? Because every single thing that I shared is exactly how I mentor furniture flippers today. I believe in transparency. I believe in showing up as the real you. Not a filtered persona, not a fake hype, not empty promises. Those years taught me to teach how to communicate clearly, how to support people, and how to help them grow without pretending to be something that I'm not. How to break things down simply.

I remember those years when I was teaching in the Christian school. One of our sons, Daniel, didn't get long Division, and I remember teaching him that day after day after day, he'd forget it the next day. That's how I learned to break things down simply, and how to stick with a person that's struggling. I stand next to somebody until they get it, and how to see potential where others see hopelessness and frustration.

My flipping journey didn't start as a business. It started with a green ceiling fan. You may have heard the story. God uses the funniest things, doesn't he? We were visiting our former youth pastor. He showed us around his kitchen and there it was, a grass green ceiling fan. He said he had spray paint it to match the wallpaper, and a light bulb turned on and it never turned off.

A few years later, we retired from full time ministry and moved to Wisconsin. I painted my first real piece, a baby dresser that we had in our nursery for years. It sat down in the basement It and gathering dust. And I walked by one day and said, I'm going to paint that.

And then I joined a flipping group online. I got overwhelmed with all the information I was hearing, and I asked for help. The admin told me she couldn't share her flipping notebook. When people asked if she had something, something tangible that we all could use. So then I shared my idea to make one and put it online. And you know what she told me? She said I could never do it. Something inside me said, I didn't say it out loud, "Bet me." Over the next two and a half years, while nannying full time, I built the first version of Furniture Flipping Blueprint. Every lesson, every video, every module, every resource. Piece by piece. Because when someone tells me I can't help somebody, I do it anyway. I figure it out a way. And God blessed us with enough resources to let me mentor full time.

At that point, the Blueprint started thriving. Members were growing. It began to pay for itself. We even started dreaming that DH would retire and then join me with the Blueprint. He's pretty amazing with repairs and woodworking and oh, together the things we could do. And then almost overnight, everything changed. Not long ago, when the world went into chaos, people pulled back.

They lost their trust in online teachers. They lost energy. They lost hope. They stopped dreaming. They stopped investing in themselves. It was pretty devastating for them and us. Our membership dipped. Expenses mounted and mentorship, real mentorship is not cheap. The software, the tools, the programs, the hosting, the coaching, the education for me to move forward and be better. People don't see that side. But my loyal members, the ones who stayed, they carried me through. Without them, I don't know that the Blueprint would still be around today.

So I kept learning, kept training, kept adapting, kept asking God, "How do I reach people who have changed? The world has changed the people in it. How do I keep mentoring a world that scrolls so fast?" I even asked my pastor how to blend my faith with my business. He wasn't exactly sure how to direct me on that part, but I knew he would pray that God would show me.

Then one day in January of twenty twenty four. I stopped asking for methods and I started asking for transformation. "Lord, change me," was my prayer. "Make me who you need to be. Order my steps." I still pray that today. Show me how to reach the women that you've called me to serve. And no, men. I'm not leaving you out. You are welcome as anyone. But new seasons require new paths, new visions, new courage.

God started opening doors for me. New platforms, new strategies. A podcast, a brand new podcast. Workshops. Mentors for me. Ideas. Opportunity. Clarity. I didn't force my faith into my business. God showed me how to weave it together. And that brings me to this moment. I'm here today because I want you to know I'm not just a flipper. I'm not just a mentor. And I'm not someone who will ever disappear on you. I'm someone who lived a life preserved by God through valleys and victories, through heartbreak and healing, through ministry and motherhood, through trauma and restoration and everything I've learned in ministry, in teaching, in adoption, in raising all my kids. That big family with DH, in flipping, in business, in faith has prepared me to walk alongside you, not above you, with you.

So if you've watched to this point, thank you. You've gotten a glimpse of who I really am. There's a whole lot more to that story. What shaped me, why I care so much, and why helping you matters to me so much. not just as a business, but honestly as a calling. I want to help you dream again, create again, maybe even begin again. Pick up that brush again. I want to help you see what I see in you. The beginnings of an artist, a maker, a creator, a doer. Someone with something beautiful inside them that deserves to come out. This.

This is why I'm here. Thank you for letting me share my story. And thank you for being part of this journey with me. Before I go, I'll say this. I shared all of this today because I want you to know me, the real me. If any part of my story resonated, I'm glad and grateful that you are here to hear it. Thanks for taking the time to listen and God bless.