The Blueprint Layer — I Drew This in 2011. I Finally Know What It Means.
What If the Product You Just Built Was Actually a Letter to Your Younger Self?
In 2011 I drew a cartoon onion on a Post-it note.
Sunglasses on. Arms behind his head. Feet crossed. Completely unbothered.
I was working in the family business. Showing up every day to something that felt like someone else's life. And what came out of me — without thinking — was that image. A version of myself that didn't exist yet. Relaxed. Settled. Free.
I didn't know it was a brand. I didn't know it was a philosophy. I didn't know it was the beginning of 44 weeks of the most honest writing I've ever done.
I just knew that onion was who I was trying to become.
The Shrek Moment
You know where the onion metaphor comes from. Shrek. An ogre explaining himself to a donkey by the side of a road.
Ogres are like onions. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers (Clip here).
I've told that story before. But I recently rewatched the clip and caught something I missed every time before.
The donkey's response:
"You know Shrek — not everyone likes onions."
I sat with that for a while.
Not everyone is going to like your unpeeling. Not everyone wants to watch someone go layer by layer into their own mess, their own contradictions, their own rebuilding in real time. And that's not their fault. It's not their journey. It's yours.
The Rebel Onion was never for everyone. It was always for the person who recognized themselves in it. And somewhere out there is my tribe — the ones who peel, who question, who go deep. Iron sharpens iron. I'm still finding them. Maybe you're one of them.
What It Cost to Build
Two weeks ago I finished something I've been building for 44 weeks without knowing it.
The Becoming Blueprint.
Thirty pages. Forty-four named transformation layers — each one pulled from real life, not theory. Six featured layers with full personal stories, copy-paste AI prompts, reflection questions, and a 12-week arc for turning your layer into content.
Some of those layers hit me while I was writing them. A few of them hit me hard enough that I had to stop. Not because they were difficult to write — because they were difficult to feel. The prompts I built for you are the same ones I used on myself. I know they work because they worked on me first.
My favorite is still The Interdependence Layer. Because we all walk around believing we're self-made. That we built this alone. That the grind is ours and the credit is ours and the cape is ours.
Martin Casado
But look closer. Who's actually holding you up?
The family that believed in you before you believed in yourself. The partner who stood beside you through every pivot. The client who trusted you before the strategy was clean. The friends who showed up when the vision made no sense to anyone else. That's the ecosystem. That's what's actually holding you up.
You're not flying. You're being held. And the sooner you name that layer — the sooner you stop exhausting yourself pretending otherwise.
That's what the Blueprint does. It gives you the language for where you actually are. Not where you're supposed to be. Not where the data says you should be. Where you ARE.
Who This Is For
Coaches, creators, and rebuilders with a real transformation story and no system for turning it into content that builds trust.
And if you have no interest in publishing — that's fine too. A lot of these prompts and questions will move you privately. Many of them moved me. Some still do.
This is not therapy. I'm not a therapist and this isn't designed to replace one. But I've found that naming the layer you're in — giving it language, sitting with the question it asks — does something that no strategy session ever did for me.
It makes you feel less alone in your own story.
This is where it starts. There's more coming for those who want to go further — but that's a conversation for another layer.
Not Everyone Likes Onions
The donkey was right.
Not everyone is going to want to go here. Some people want the highlight reel. The clean arc. The before and after with the transformation already finished.
This isn't that.
This is the messy middle. Named. Documented. Published — or kept entirely to yourself.
The Rebel Onion started as a Post-it note drawn by a guy who was working in his dad's company and quietly dreaming of something else. That guy had no idea what the onion would become. He just drew what he wished he was.
Fourteen years later — The Becoming Blueprint is live.
If you're in a layer right now, and you don't have the language for it yet — this is where you start.
$27. Thirty pages. One layer at a time.
Still here. Still peeling. Still unbothered.
Let go. Let God. Not everyone likes onions — and that's exactly the point.
Next week we go back to the layers. The Seasonal Layer: Honoring Your Natural Cycles.
Bookshelf Peeled - This Week's Read Is Mine
The Becoming Blueprint
Forty-four weeks of layers. Two weeks of building. Thirty pages.
The Becoming Blueprint is the framework I wish I had when I started peeling. Forty-four named transformation layers, six deep-dive stories, copy-paste AI prompts, and a 12-week arc for turning your layer into content — published or not.
It's $27. It's live. And it works because I tested every prompt on myself first.
The Becoming Blueprint: Find your layer. Write it. Guided by AI prompts.
Design Rebel: The Becoming Blueprint
The Inspiration: This week is the culmination of 44 weeks of work condensed into a 30-page system. To introduce this first-tier product and my custom prompts, I leaned into an exaggerated 90s infomercial aesthetic—complete with the black-and-white struggle turning into the color solution. It was a lot of fun using that "problem/solution" trope to launch this labor of love. The Tech: Visuals created with Sora, Leonardo.ai, and Veo 3.1. Edited with Wondershare Filmora. Voice by ElevenLabs. Story and script by Martin Casado, refined by Gemini.
Tired of being invisible? 📺 The Becoming Blueprint (The Infomercial)
Weekly Inspired Insights I liked or found useful this week:
If you missed the Shrek and Donkey clip — watch it here. It's the moment that birthed The Rebel Onion. And the line I only recently caught: not everyone likes onions. That's life.
P.S. If this resonates with you, share it with someone. I'm dedicated to helping fellow explorers—or anyone who found this page—uncover their authentic self with humor and insight. We're all in this together, finding the courage to truly live from our core essence (or as close as we can get!).
The Seasonal Layer: Honoring Your Natural Cycles (Back to layers)
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