How we make sense of things & the World Builder method

Human beings love to create intricate systems of rules and stories to make sense of their existence.

That's what I'm doing with "World Building". I'm trying to make sense of why some people are able to create businesses that everyone loves AND manage to stay in integrity with themselves creatively, emotionally and spiritually...

While others – often just as talented – end up creating businesses that they lose themselves in, have to rely on persuasion, hard selling sales tactics, and shouting really loud to be noticed… or never get noticed at all.

I wanted to know what the ingredients were to build that first type of business, because I know it exists. There just doesn't seem to be a map to help you get there. So I started to make my own.

I created an intricate system of rules and stories. At first just for myself… but now I’m sharing it because it’s really working for people. 

It’s a system for people who want to build businesses that feel like worlds… places people genuinely want to buy from, return to, and belong in. And the business gets to feel like an extension of you.

Of the hundreds of World Builders I’ve studied and worked with, they all share five things in common. Whether consciously or not, these five elements show up in and it's what I believe creates that gravitational pull that I've been so keen to create

This became The World Builder method at the highest level:

1. Character – They become someone worth following, they back their world before anyone fully “gets” what they’re doing and are respected because they are building from something real and honest. People can sense it.
2. Citizens – They create for citizens, not consumers. Consumers passively consume what is put in front of them. Citizens participate, want to belong and to be treated like smart, capable, intelligent humans. They don’t want to feel like they are being “sold” to.
3. Core – They know how to create an invisible structure for their world... Invisible systems that hold values, beliefs and stories. It’s this substance that gives the world emotional weight.
4. Landscape – They create enough surface area that makes them findable and familiar. They do it in their own way, just enough for people see and touch enough times to build trust.
5. Residencies – Their products, services, and offers feel like places. Designed not just to convert, but for people to actually see parts of themselves mirrored back to them. 

As I was building this map, I felt like most of the advice would fall into one of these two camps:

1. The logical: Business economics, logic and growth - Growth that means more revenue, more output, more visibility, more people… but often feels creatively, emotionally and spiritually thin.
   or
2. The emotional/creative camp that puts meaning, purpose, creativity, integrity first: creativity, depth, integrity – but can often struggle to work economically (enter the starving artist narrative)….

World Builders prove there’s a third way that doesn’t ask you to choose between business revenue and creative integrity, and the more I write about it the more clear it becomes, so this newsletter will be a home for my infrequent contemplations on world building, creativity, communications and any other stuff that catches my attention.

P.s. if you’re in the paid World Builder Studio membership, we have our last World Builder live show of 2025 with Sharmadean Reid at 7:30pm where you're creating your offer ready to launch by Jan 4th. See you on the line!