Framework: what is it? How does it benefit your authentic business?

I've been working on a revamp of my online course called Create youe Framework. So I wanted to share with you what is a framework and why you might want to create one for your authentic business. So, first of all, what is a framework? Let me use other words that you probably are more familiar with. So other words for framework include a model of the world point of view. Thanks to my friend Tad Hargrave for that idea. Marketingforhippies.com Check him out. A system, as sometimes people call it a signature program, a methodology, a blueprint, a map, a curriculum, a theory of change, or a client transformational journey. So all of those are, you know, similar ideas, I would say, probably synonyms for what I simply call framework. So your framework is essentially a place to store all of your ideas, your methods of working with clients, the tools you use in your work with clients, and any other kind of facts and exercises and ideas that you use in your work, in your business. All of that put into one map of some kind, one diagram. And a framework, by the way, is expressed often as a diagram of some kind. I'm going to show you on screen shortly what some of those look like. But a framework can also be expressed, of course, as a single blog post, or it could be expressed as an entire book or a whole series of books. So before I show you the diagram of the frameworks, first I want to share how I sometimes say that truth is an accordion or knowledge is an accordion. Imagine an accordion, one of those musical instruments. They play it like this by stretching it out and collapsing it. Stretching out, collapsing it. I don't play accordion. I don't know what it's like. But when I say knowledge is like an accordion, I mean that an idea can either be encapsulated in a single quote, right? I mean, you've been inspired by many quotes in your life, and each quote is like the distillation of. Of an author's thinking on a particular topic in a very pithy, sometimes inspirational way. So a truth can be summarized in a quote, and yet truth or knowledge can also. That same quote can also be expanded out to volumes and volumes of books. Another way of thinking about truth and knowledge is that it's like a holograph. It's holographic. It's like a fractal. So if you've ever looked at a fractal, and at this point, I'm going to just share my screen with you here. Fractals. Okay, fractals. What does that look like? So a fractal is such that if you zoom into any one piece, the more you zoom in, the more you realize that wow, it is the picture of the whole. If you keep zooming in, it'll keep looking. I'm not a mathematician or a designer, so I don't know exactly how fractals work, but I know that the way that holograms work is that every small piece communicates the design of the whole. Some people say that somehow the cells, the smallest cells, or the smallest molecules and atoms are somehow holographic of the entire universe, how the universe works. So there's some high strangeness when it comes to truth and knowledge. So when it comes to your framework, that's the same thing. I can describe to you my framework in just a few words, authentic business. Or I can make a thousand videos and still not come to the end of talking about what authentic business really means. So now let me go ahead and show you a couple diagrams of frameworks that you might be familiar with. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. A lot of you are familiar with this. This is a pyramid shaped framework where we start with. We start with self actualization at the top and then go all the way down to physiological needs. So you might be familiar with this. Another recent update of Maslow's hierarchy of needs that I quite like is by Scott, Scott Kaufman, I think. Anyway, his update of the Maslow's hierarchy is something like this. So it's kind of interesting. Might want to check it out. It's a sailboat instead of a pyramid or instead of just a pyramid. So yes, if you like a framework you can make update. I mean a popular framework, something that's already out there in the world, you can borrow that and make an update to it, put some other ideas into it, rearrange some things and call it your own. Now of course you probably want to give credit to the original to say this is a modification, but sure, why not? Because you have your own thoughts about how transformation works. You have your own life experiences and so you can create a framework out of that. Internal family system parts is popular among some of you who are watching this. And I found that there's this kind of circle, this sort of carved into various segments. That's an IFS internal family systems framework. That's another way of describing it. You could look this up, internal family systems model and learn all about it. The work of Byron Katie is also a framework that some of you appreciate. It's a more linear framework. I don't think I can come up with an image here, but it's typically a series of questions, series of questions that people ask themselves. The five Love languages is another popular framework that I personally have benefited a lot from. And it is a, it's a matrix, It's a matrix type of framework, you know, so that's, that's interesting. Let's see here, the wheel of life. Those of you who are life coaches in particular might have seen this before. It's basically describing the various aspects of one's life. You know, health. And let's see here, maybe not maybe this one, this one here, fun and recreation, physical environment, finances, health, family and friends, romance, personal growth. And then as a coach, you would help your clients understand what their priorities are and how that's aligned with their current reality and what they might need to work on that kind of thing. So that's, that's a pie shaped framework. The Eisenhower matrix is another, or some of you may have heard of this as the, from Stephen Covey's Seven Habits or First Things First. It's the idea of urgent versus important as a way to structure how you think about your tasks and your priorities and your responsibilities. It's a very interesting, and it's a very simple but very useful way of thinking about time management that has helped me a lot for decades. I mean, I've learned about this as a teenager and it's stayed with me ever since. Ikigai has been quite popular in recent decades. And it's a series of overlapping circles. It's like a Venn diagram. It's a very complex Venn diagram which talks about the center of your passion, mission, vocation and profession is your ikigai, or the, I guess you could say purpose, the place where you are most alive and thriving in your career, particularly. So that's an interesting framework too. And then finally, I have my authentic business models or simple model for authentic businesses, which is a concentric circles type of framework that informs how I create my offers and how I coach my clients to create their offers as well. So those are some examples. And you know, feel free to comment below. If there's another framework that is really important in your life or in your work, I'd love to get more examples from you all. So let me explain why I think that every authentic business ought to have its own framework, right? So if you are a service provider particularly, or if you are a teacher, a writer, a content creator, you probably have lots and lots of ideas, you may have had various modalities you've learned over years, and you have your own experiences of transformation in your own life, you also have maybe experiences of helping others to make their lives better. All of those ideas, methods, modalities, schools of thought, tools, exercises, how do you put them together in a cohesive worldview? Is there some kind of a map where you can place all those tools and those ideas and those steps and those mini frameworks? Because every tool that you use of someone is essentially a mini framework, a small little map of how to solve this problem or how to experience this particular result. So all of the ideas and mini frameworks and tools and methods you have, how does it all fit in together into your way of thinking about how transformation happens in your. The work that you want to do, that you love doing with people, that's what I hope you'll put together. Because when you have that kind of a map or a unifying system of knowledge for all of your ideas and methodologies and methods and tools, then guess what? Tell you a couple benefits. One is that you will now have a system with which to place every idea that's important to you. So, for example, whenever I'm learning, my, my area of expertise is business and marketing and productivity. And whenever I'm learning any of those topics, if I'm learning something about, you know, right now I'm learning I'm getting better at LinkedIn ads. That's what I'm working on recently. It's like, okay, if I'm learning about this, now I know where to put it. It's within my business model of. I have a larger framework. The thing I showed you earlier with the Penn Centric circles, that's actually one of my mini frameworks. My larger framework is called the eight practices of authentic business and learn. For example, LinkedIn ads. I go, okay, yeah, that one is. That one fits into my, my fourth practice of content distribution. You see, like everything I'm learning, it all fits in to my whole system that I use with my clients so that my learning is much more focused. And when I, when I encounter an idea, it either fits into my framework or if it doesn't fit into my framework, I either discard the idea and say it's outside my scope that I really want to work on. Because I only have a limited number of time and energy, amount of time and energy, so I need to focus. I mean, my eight practices is quite a lot already to work on. I either discard an idea that doesn't fit into my framework, or if it's fast, if that idea is fascinating enough for me that I just keep feeling drawn back to it. Then, well, guess what? I extend my framework to somehow include that idea or area of knowledge as well. So again, having an organized framework allows you to make smarter choices about how you will invest your time and energy when it comes to reading, watching something, learning more about any particular piece of knowledge or any topic that you're interested in. So helps you fit everything together. And it also helps you, like I said, to prioritize, to say, I've been learning a lot about this area of my framework, but I haven't touched on this area for a long time. So let me go ahead and take a look to see what, what's interesting there these days. So that's benefit number one, is that a framework gives you a really well defined system of organizing your thoughts, your knowledge, your tools, your client exercises, and all those things that fits in so into, into a pathway or into a map. Okay, so that's, that's benefit number one. Benefit number two, of course, is that you will now bring your work to your clients in a much more organized way to say, ah, you know, this is this, you know. And by the way, clients may come to you for different reasons. Like I, like I said, I have my eight practices of authentic business. But a lot clients come to me because they need help with either content creation, my practice number three, or content distribution, practice number four, or my con, or they need help with gentle launches, my practice number seven. You know, actually gentle launches is either practice six or seven, depending on what, what stage you're at. But anyway, so I, clients come to me for certain areas within my framework, and that's okay because once they're, once they come to me and work with me on certain areas, I then help them understand why the other areas are important. And you probably have the same thing, because I'm willing to bet that most of you have been trained in more than one modality, more than one tool you have in your tool belt. And some clients probably come to you with a certain interest in one tool or they have a certain problem that you know is best used with this one tool. But then as they work with you, you can then introduce them to the other aspects of your framework so that they can see how you think about transformation holistically. And they probably will get interested in working with you in these other ways as well. So the second benefit of a framework is that it helps organize your work with clients. Okay. And I would say, I guess the third benefit related benefit, a third benefit is that your framework helps people understand what's possible for them. So it gives them hope about how they can transform into living an even more fulfilling and enjoyable life in whatever way you help people. Okay, so it gives people hope when you share your framework, and on the other hand, it also validates where they've been. Your framework helps people validate because your framework, like I said, it's kind of like a map, right? So when I. If I give you a map, I. The map is useless unless I tell you where you are. So that's what the framework is so helpful for. The framework gives people a sense of, oh, that's where I'm. I'm at. And I've already come this way. I've already. I've already, you know, dealt with all these challenges or, you know, understood these things, and now there's all this other way left for me to enjoy learning about and transforming into. All right, so that's a huge benefit. It's when you share your framework out there in the world, it gives people validation, and it gives people hope and optimism for what's possible for them. And finally, a framework, a major benefit is that it makes your work irreplaceable, because your framework is based on your life's experiences, which is unique. No one else has lived exactly the life that you lived. No one has had the same combination of challenges that you've had and solved those challenges in the way that you have. No one has thought about the world in exactly the way that you have. And what you're doing with your framework is basically bringing all that together into one piece of work. One diagram, perhaps, but certainly a structured way of thinking about the world. It's particularly focused on the kind of work you want to do with clients and customers and students. So your framework makes your work irreplaceable. You're not just another life coach. You're not just another healer. You're not just another mentor. You're not just another relationship counselor or whatever it is that you do. You're not just another business coach. You are someone with a unique way of thinking about it. Now, here's a common question. It's like, well, what if my framework somehow copies other people's stuff? Your framework, of course, is going to integrate the different modalities that you've learned. Whatever you end up publishing in your framework, whether it's a blog post or a diagram or a series of books or series of online courses, whatever you do, of course, you're always give credit to the schools of thought that you. That you borrow from. Like, for example, earlier in this video, I gave credit to My friend Tad Hargrave, marketing for Hippies Dot com. Check them out where I did. I mean, I think I was thinking of Framework separately, but his idea of point of view and point of view marketing definitely influenced my way of thinking about Framework. So I'm always trying to give credit where I, you know, where I can. But a lot of stuff, of course I, I kind of came up with my own, truthfully, of course. Nothing, nothing we come up with our own is completely our own. We've, we've always been influenced, whether consciously or subconsciously, by many, many, many people and lineages. And we just are. We just need to do our best. When we remember, when we remember where we got some idea, we do our best to credit. That's all we can do. Or if someone else says, hey, isn't that from so and so? We might go, we might go. Actually, I came up with that independently, but I'm glad someone else did too. Or we can say, you know, you're right. I write about that there. You're right. Thank you for reminding me. Right. So it's fine to just be gracious about crediting where we can and then where we can, you just do your best and someone will tell you, hey, did you get that from there? Oh, maybe I did, maybe I didn't. So I hope this is helpful to understand why a framework is, you know, it's so important. It calms me so much every time I create content, every time I create another course to know how it fits into my entire framework. It helps me to focus my, my energies into being the most transformational service provider that I can for my clients and for the audience. Thank you all for, for watching this, by the way. So I hope this is really helpful. If you have any questions, you can comment below. I, Like I said earlier, I'm in the, in the process right now of revamping my course about creating frameworks. If you, by the time you watch this, I may have already taught the course. Check out the link somewhere. Somewhere above or below this video, there will be more information about the course. If you're interested in learning more with me about creating your framework, check it out and maybe, maybe it'll be a good fit for you. So anyway, I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing you in another video. Thank you for joining me.