🔥Stop Creating. Start Curating. (Personal Brand Framework)

After I left my startup, I wanted to build a personal brand, but I didn't know how I can articulate and share my knowledge.

In conversations, I had a million topics and ideas to share, but the moment I was alone, I had no idea what to talk about. I was dependent on other people. I couldn't generate value, ideas, or knowledge on my own. I needed a sparring partner to "work well" and get into a flow of ideas.

This frustrated me for years.

For example, I started my photography/content "career" while travelling through Canada in 2018. I wanted to create content and make this my living. In addition to my beginner Canon camera, I purchased a GoPro to create travel lifestyle content. I uploaded my first 3 YouTube videos, gained a handful of views, then stopped creating videos for a while and focused exclusively on photography.

I had, and still have, a deep desire to share knowledge and help others. Since I was a little kid, I knew you needed credentials to earn people's trust and change the world for the better.

Throughout my lifetime, I have travelled to many countries (over 30), met many interesting individuals, and had many great conversations. In these conversations, I thought many times, "This is a great idea; this could be posted as content; this is paradoxical and would draw attention," but I always ran into the problem that I needed someone else to trigger it.

A year ago, I first developed a solution to this problem, and over time, I refined it into a robust, reliable daily system.

Since then:

• I wrote over 180 newsletters.
• Gained over 24.000 thread followers.
• And built an email audience of over 3400 subscribers.

This letter is about my second brain system for personal branding and for articulating and organizing your ideas, concepts, philosophies, and overall knowledge to create an impact in your personal life and on others.

Curation matters more than creation.

What is curation?

"Curation is the process of selecting, organizing, contextualizing, and presenting content or objects so they become meaningful, useful, or valuable to a specific audience."

It's not about creating content. Everyone can create content. Everyone can take photos or record videos with their phone.

→ It's about the arrangement of layers, angles and the framing.

1) Selection:

→ You want to choose what is included and excluded in your own "taste".

2) Organization:

→ You want to organize information, files or research, to quickly use and reference it.

3) Context:

→ You want to explain, frame or interpret information in a way that makes sense to you, and explain it in your own words.

4) Presentation:

→ You want to deliver the information intentionally and clearly.

A powerful brand and business is built on:

• Clear messaging
• Clear systems
• Clear offers

This clarity comes from curation, not creation.

Second Brain 3.0: The Brand-Universe

Please take a look at this image first:

The idea is operating within two different folder structures.

Folder 1:

Mastery🔴 → Input.

Folder 2:

Brand-Universe🟣 → Output.

Folder 1: Mastery🔴

• Research
• Books
• Articles
• Neuroscience
• Personal branding insights
• Educational content
• Other creators’ ideas

→ The goal of Mastery🔴 is to learn and understand the sub-categories to level up to master the higher categories.

Here is an example:

1. Business Mastery🔴
2. Branding Mastery🟠
3. Personal Brand🟡
4. You are the niche⚪️

4 → 3 → 2 → 1

You always start at the bottom, like in a video game on the lowest level and "work" yourself up towards mastery.

Think of a colourful pyramid you want to climb up.

⚪️ → 🟡 → 🟠 → 🔴

4-You collect information from other creators like Dan Koe, who talks about "you are the niche⚪️".

3-This information helps you better understand "personal branding🟡" and building your niche of one by putting your interests in the center, rather than being a brand like Nike.

2-By gathering more information or "puzzle pieces," you gain more and more clarity of the bigger picture and can "master branding🟠".

1-Branding is just another "puzzle piece" to master the highest category: "business🔴".

⚪️ → 🟡 → 🟠 → 🔴

→ You always want to reach the center, where everything resonates from. (Master the domain)

The 4-Domains of Mastery

A pyramid is not 2D; it is 3D, so we need to view it from the top to see the sides.

There is not only business🔴 you want to master. (some narrow minded people only want to master business….)

I categorize mastery in "4-Domains of Mastery".

1-Life🔴, 2-Business🔴, 3-Productivity🔴 and 4-Mind🔴.

All 4 domains follow the same hierarchy, just for different topics, items, and sub-categories.

Here is an example of potential categories, topics and items:

Additionally, there would be white, like I explained with the example of "you are the niche⚪️", but where and how people get their research and knowledge is extremely personalized, + It would result in a really full image.

Folder 2:Brand-Universe🟣

• Your philosophies
• Your ideas
• Your concepts
• Your frameworks
• Your processes
• Your mechanisms

→ The goal of your brand-universe🟣 is to have actionable frameworks, mechanisms and processes to create results for your customers and audience. (Ideally, all systematized and data-driven)

This folder is for your brand and business only.

Since I implemented this system, I gained much more clarity about my own brand.

Before that, I always lost clarity and overview of it.

I constantly wondered: when creators and brands talk about philosophies, ideas, concepts, and frameworks, how do they actually implement them and make them useful for their own brand? I constantly wondered, when is it a philosophy, when an idea, when a framework?

Here's the solution I came up with:

1. Philosophy🟣:
2. Idea & Concept🔵:
3. Framework, Mechanism, Process🟢:

Level 1: Philosophy🟣

The highest category is your brand's overall philosophy🟣.

• What you stand for
• Your values and integrity
• Your worldview

For example, my philosophy of a "Creatorpreneur", the combination of creator (Yin) and the entrepreneur (Yang), represents duality. Creativity and logic. Feminine and masculine.

Level 2: Idea & Concept🔵:

The subcategory is ideas and concepts 🔵, which supports the philosophy 🟣.

For example

• "Productizing The Mind🔵"
• "From Founder To Personal Brand🔵"
• "The Creatorpreneur Routine🔵"

These concepts help achieve the philosophy🟣.

Level 3: Framework, Mechanism, Process🟢

Under each concept, you create actionable frameworks, mechanisms, and processes🟢.

For example:

If the idea is “Productizing The Mind🔵”, the question becomes:

• How do I achieve this?
• How can others replicate this success?

Then you build actionable frameworks, mechanisms, and processes🟢.

Example:

• "Write In Public🟢"
• "Talk In Public🟢"
• "Problem-Focused Content🟢"
• "Earn To Learn🟢"

All these frameworks, mechanisms, and processes🟢 are repeatable to achieve “Productizing The Mind🔵”.

These are the solutions for your customers and audience.

Mastery = Brand-Universe: The Implementation into your notes system

You might wonder now, how can I implement it?

I call the note-taking system "Mastery Notes". If you ever stumbled across:

• Kore Notes (By Dan Koe)
• The Zettelkasten System (Niklas Luhmann)
• P.A.R.A. Method (by Tiago Forte)
• Notion Second Brain (by Thomas Frank)

This system was inspired by these people, but I think none of the four individuals have ADHD, so my non-linear brain couldn't fully use these systems effectively. I needed to heavily enhance and gamify it.

Overall, it took me 2 years to understand the science of productivity, creativity and flow and another 1 1/2 years to test and iterate this system so it works reliably.

Here is a practical example:

If you want to build a personal brand that stands out from the competition and is unique, you can't just copy information; you need to emulate, improve, or explain it in your own words.

Mastery → Inspiration, connections, references

Brand-Universe → Your creation, your ideas, your unique mechanisms

I took the example "Personal Brand🟡" and turned it into "The Creatorpreneur🟣".

Creator = Entrepreneur

This became one of my philosophies.

Thanks for reading.

I hope it was clear enough?

If not, please let me know.

Additionally, I will upload the video explanation on YouTube either today or tomorrow.

If you want to join the waitlist for Chaos To Clarity 3.0 to create clarity in your mind through organization, structure, and gamified learning systems with templates for Notion, Kortex, or Obsidian (your choice), to build a profitable creatorpreneur business.

Reply with:

👉 "YES"

And I will put you on the waitlist. :)

Additionally, I have free open spots again for 1:1 ADHD-Productivity coaching here: ADHD-Productivity Coaching​

Until Wednesday!

Jeff

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