The Secret to Creating Value (And Staying Relevant in the Age of AI)
What a forgotten Russian Easter egg reveals about your career—and the future you’re building.
In This Issue
Opportunities: June 25 Live Deep Dive — Build a Brand That Moves People
In My Headspace: Sinners, Rick Rubin, and the creative act
Pulse Check: Would a 3-day Passion to Profit Challenge be useful to you?
Deep Dive: How Value Is Created (And How to Multiply Yours)
Case Study: How Matt Fischer turned his edge into global reach
Opportunities to Explore
Live Deep Dive – $299 | Free for Xponential Edge Subscribers
Build a Brand That Moves People
Wed, Jun 25
The essentials of personal branding for leaders who want to be known for something that matters.
Uncover what makes you unforgettable — and turn it into magnetic authority and real momentum.
Claim your spot here
In My Headspace
Watched the movie Sinners again — still in awe.
It’s messy. Bloody. Lots of vampires. Some friends didn’t like it.
In my book? A masterpiece.
One of the secrets of a happy life is to master the creative act.
That’s why I keep going back to Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
One chapter at a time. Slow, sacred, brilliant.
Here’s the book
Pulse Check
I’m thinking of launching a 3-day Passion to Profit Challenge:
One hour of group coaching per day, small cohort, lots of personal attention.
Designed to help you start building a personal brand that actually pays.
Would that be useful to you?
✅ Yes, I’d love that
🤔 Maybe, need more details
😅 Nah, I don’t want amazing small group coaching
Hit reply with the word INTERESTED if you want to join the waitlist.
Deep Dive: How Value Is Created (And How to Multiply Yours)
This is a very famous Easter egg.
Not the chocolate kind. A Fabergé.
More precisely: the Third Imperial Egg.
Commissioned by Russian Emperor Alexander III as a gift for his wife,
it was crafted by the House of Fabergé—the official jeweler to the crown.
It disappeared for nearly 90 years… only to resurface in a U.S. flea market in 2004.
Yes, really. That’s where our story starts—and no, I’m not just indulging my love of Russian history.
Because hidden in this egg is a blueprint for how value is created in the modern world.
And if you’re wondering why your work feels underpaid or underappreciated… this might explain everything.
Two goldsmiths can work the same hours with the same tools—
One becomes an icon.
The other, a footnote.
In the early 1800s, Gustav Fabergé was a skilled goldsmith like his father before him.
He ran a modest jewelry shop in Saint Petersburg. No fame. No fortune.
Just good, honest craft passed down through generations.
Then his son, Peter Carl Fabergé, made a decision.
He didn’t just want to make good jewelry—he wanted to create something extraordinary.
So he took that same level of craftsmanship and applied it to something unconventional:
ornate, one-of-a-kind Easter eggs.
These weren’t just decorative trinkets.
They were miniature marvels—each hiding a surprise, each designed to spark joy, admiration, and awe.
And that creative leap?
It changed everything.
The Third Imperial Egg, created in 1887, was made of gold, sapphires, and diamonds.
Its material value was around $46,700 in today’s dollars.
It sold to the Tsar for $54,100. That extra $7,400? Brand value.
But the real magic wasn’t in that one egg—
It was what the eggs did for the brand.
They were the Fabergé value ladder’s crown jewel.
Most of the company’s revenue came from other jewelry sold in shops across Europe.
But the eggs? They gave the brand mystique. Prestige. Legacy.
And because they were few in number—just 50 Imperial Eggs ever made—
their perceived value grew exponentially.
Today, those 50 eggs are collectively worth between $800 million and $1 billion.
The Third Imperial Egg nearly got melted down by a guy who bought it for scrap value at a flea market.
Until someone noticed the mark. Ran the test. And told him what he was really holding.
He wasn’t just holding an egg.
He was holding a story.
It sold for an estimated $33 million.
So What Does This Have to Do With You?
For most of human history, value was static.
You were born into a role—farmer, soldier, artisan—and stayed there.
Then came the Industrial Revolution:
Skill, trade, and education could lift a family in 1–2 generations.
Then came the Information Revolution:
The leap got shorter—maybe just a few years.
Now, in the AI Revolution:
The leap can happen in months—
or you can get left behind just as fast.
Because AI is eating process-driven work.
Anything that can be standardized or replicated is being commodified.
And that includes a lot of white-collar work.
Which makes distinct, creative, problem-solving human value more essential than ever.
Here’s How Value Works:
Commodity = Raw material — wood, metal, time
Craftsman Product = Add labor, make it useful
Commodified Service = Repeatable, replaceable
Value Brand = Add story, scarcity, transformation — and value multiplies
If AI can replicate your inputs, your price drops.
But if you become a category of one—with a voice, process, and transformation no one else offers—
your perceived value skyrockets.
You Don’t Need a Crown to Crown Your Work
You only need a decision:
To take your insights, experience, and story… and turn them into something uncommon.
From:
Employee → Intrapreneur
Support role → Essential voice
Following a script → Owning a result
You already have the gold.
You just need to design the egg.
And here’s the good news:
In the 19th century, maybe a dozen people could build global brands.
In the 20th? Hundreds.
In the 21st? Millions.
Not because of exclusivity.
But because of accessibility—your ability to offer something the world perceives as rare, valuable, and distinctly yours.
You can offer it to anyone, anywhere, anytime—for almost no cost.
Want to See It in Action?
My friend Matt Fischer lived this transition.
A few years ago, he was between jobs, struggling to find traction.
Now? He’s known as Mr. Shortgame—a dominant voice in golf instruction with millions of views, brand deals, and the freedom to live and work anywhere.
And then ask yourself:
What’s holding you back from owning your most valuable gifts and creating a high value offering that will serve more people in more places?