🧙Value Architecture

How To Make More Money + Purpose With Niching Up ⬆️

In 1756, Prussian King Frederick the Great introduced potatoes to his people.

Potatoes, a recent import from South America, provided a second source of carbs to reduce famine risk.

Potatoes offered a cheap, easy-to-grow food source for families.

Resistance to Change

However, they were unpopular; 18th-century Prussians didn’t eat many vegetables and potatoes were considered unattractive.

Frederick made eating potatoes compulsory, but his people still refused.

He even resorted to threats of death to force compliance.

Change in Strategy

Eventually, Frederick conceded and brainstormed with his advisors.

They devised a new strategy: declaring the potato a Royal vegetable, reserved exclusively for Royalty and Dignitaries.

He planted potatoes in royal gardens and had soldiers guard them with secret instructions not to guard them too well.

Naturally, if something is worth guarding, it’s worth stealing, and some peasants did just that.

Soon, a thriving potato black market emerged, with potatoes secretly grown nationwide.

Frederick was delighted, lifted the royal ban, and Germany embraced potatoes.

Key Insight: Value Architecture

Frederick the Great made potatoes worth stealing by reframing their value to make them desirable.

Multipotentiality — Thinking Differently

As multipotentialites, we must reframe our talents to create unique value that makes our products or services desirable.

To get more clients and stand out in saturated markets, we package our creativity and problem-solving skills into tangible solutions that address a BIG problem for our clients.

We then use storytelling to communicate our unique value to our ideal clients.

Master this, and you'll make a lot of money.

Do it for your younger self, and you'll make a lot of money with purpose and meaning

One of my favourite examples is Dr. Seuss because everybody knows who he is.

Dr. Seuss's Job Hopping

For the first 30+ years of his career, Dr. Seuss niched down and followed the traditional path.

He was a multipotentialite trying to fit into a specialist society. Dr. Seuss was suffocating his creative and financial potential as a result.

Like most multipotentialites he had a diverse career with many different jobs, he was :

👉 Editor of his college magazine

👉 Freelance cartoonist for newspapers and magazines

👉 Advertising illustrator

👉 Creator of training and propaganda films during the war

👉 Political cartoonist

👉 Copywriter for an ad agency

👉 Producer of post-war military training and industrial films

He always wrote books on the side, some were published, and many were not, achieving minor success at the time.

Dr Seuss’ Niching Up

In 1957, he stacked his skills:

👉 Poetry

👉 Illustration

👉 Storytelling

👉 Copywriting

👉 Creative direction

The Breakthrough: "The Cat in the Hat"

Using just 236 words, he wrote "The Cat in the Hat."

It was an instant hit.

Dr. Seuss was 53 years old.

He reframed his value by niching up his multiple skills and became the most famous and best-selling children’s author in history, selling over 600 million books.

This is the value of niching up.

Leveraging Your Multipotentiality

You are a multipotentialite.

You have multiple talents, interests, and experiences.

You have a philosophy and a worldview.

In isolation, any one of your skills may not produce much value.

You’re a generalist and not a specialist.

When you focus on one thing you get bored and experience FOMO on your other skills.

However, you will create unique value once you learn to niche up your skills to solve a specific problem.

People Pay to Have Their Problems Solved

This is the value of niching up multiple skills to create unique value.

Some might question what problem Dr. Seuss was solving when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat."

The Department of Education hired Dr. Seuss to create a book aimed at inspiring first graders to read more, as the existing books at the time were dull and boring.

There were 236 words on the first grader’s vocabulary list, which were the words given to Dr. Seuss to write, edit and illustrate "The Cat in the Hat."

Conclusion

The Problem:

We try and niche down to one of our talents which suffocates our true potential. We try to follow the traditional path but we’re not designed for regular jobs.

We limit our impact by niching down and focusing on one thing.

We dim our lights, stay in our lane, and feel lost.

We’re unconventional people so conventional wisdom, societal rules and regulations restrict our true creative and financial potential.

Unlock Your Financial Potential

The problem with repackaging our value and niching up our skills is that we’re too close to it.

We can’t see the wood for the trees.

We can’t read the label when we’re stuck in the jar.

I have the same problem — this is why I’ve hired a coach to help me see beyond my blind spots.

You have blind spots.

One key feature of MaxiMouse (Niche Creator AI) is our niching up section.

You input all your skills and interests, and MaxiMouse uses my frameworks to niche up and create your unique value.

You can create as many niches or personal brands as you like.

We’ve had some phenomenal testimonials from members of the pilot cohort who have got unstuck and got “crystal clarity” on their ideal clients and Niche “after being stuck for years”

This is phase 2 of MaxiMouse, our Niche Creator AI.

Michael is upgrading and adding features.

We’re turning MaxiMouse into a dynamic online course, unlike anything else on the market.

As far as we know, this is the first dynamic AI-guided interactive online course.

It’s designed to get you unstuck, by helping you niche up your skills to create unique value.

It will get you more clients by stacking your diverse skills into a purposeful niche and creating authentic content that stands out in under 90 minutes.

In the meantime, if you want to create your unique value and monetise your multiple skills, you can book a 1-1 session here:

P.S. I was invited to the ever-popular Self Hype Podcast.

You can listen to my interview on the importance of Being Weird, And following our curiosity to create purpose and financial opportunities.

You can listen on: