Curation Isn't a Content Strategy. It's How People Come to Trust You.

“How do you always find/know the coolest and most interesting things?”

“Which café would you recommend for an important coffee chat?”

“I’m looking to meet a certain kind of people (insert criteria)—do you happen to know anyone?”

“Michelle, how come you have all kinds of information??”

My friends and peers often wonder how I manage to build genuine yet deep relationships with new people so quickly. And how a certain level of trust tends to form between us much faster than it usually does for others.

For a long time I attributed it to two things:

1. I genuinely love making new friends, both in real life and virtually, across all different walks of life and around the world.

2. And I love talking about a wide range of things which comes partly from knowing so many different kinds of people, absorbing a breadth of perspectives, and my own insatiable curiosity that sends me down research rabbit holes just for the pleasure of it.

But since last year, after some deeper introspection, I realized those two things weren’t the full answer. They were the building blocks feeding and developing something more fundamental underneath over the years: taste and curation.

Curation came from the art world. Originally, curators were caretakers of artistic works, but their role has evolved. They now decide what to add, what to keep, and what to remove for the exhibitions and experiences they’re creating. Every choice serves a specific message, feeling, or theme. And embedded in every choice is an expression of their unique taste.

But the underlying skill that makes both curation and taste possible is discernment.

Discernment is a certain set of standards that the the curator upholds and yet it’s fluid enough to evolve as they do and as the world shifts. The core essence doesn’t change instead the expression of it deepens.

People I’ve just met trust me quickly because the information I naturally share in conversation radiates a certain discernment. It’s curated without being calculated and people instinctively feel that I actually understand them.

The curation I’m talking about is different from what might come to mind first. I want to draw a clear line between this and what most people mean when they say “personal brand” or “curating your image” because they are not the same thing.

Personal branding, as it’s typically taught, is outward-facing from the start. It asks the person to focus on “what do I want people to think of me?”

Curation grounded in discernment starts from the inside: what do I actually love, trust, and return to?

The former is constructed for an audience. While the latter is an honest reflection that an audience happens to witness.

You can feel the difference immediately when you encounter it. A curated feed built for perception has a certain tightness to it. Everything is optimized and there’s a lack of soul and lived-in feeling.

A genuine curation has texture. It’s a little specific, a little unexpected. It makes you feel like you’re getting to know a real person rather than a polished version of one.

In this era of AI, this matters more than ever. Robots can’t quite replicate genuine taste because the underlying factor is something that resists frameworks and formulas. It’s the felt sense and real-life lived experiences that us humans have. It’s the energetic knowing of whether something belongs or doesn’t. You either feel the resonance or you don’t.

So beyond what tech bros and mainstream media have been hyping about taste and curation, this is something deeper.

It’s about reflecting who you actually are: what you care about, what your standards are, what your frequency is, what your aesthetic sensibility communicates. It’s an act of radiating yourself precisely enough that the right people feel it and recognize it.

That’s how we differentiate ourselves in this new era. And it’s how trust forms quickly and naturally between people.

When I was building my new website in March, I knew I wanted a dedicated Curations page since I planned to put my Toronto Café Guide on there as well. When I got the web page to a good state, I showed it to a new friend and her reaction was priceless:

“I’ve never seen someone create a Curations page on their website before. Wow!!!”

I always loved thinking outside of the box and creating things that other people haven’t thought of just yet. And my Curations page is the culmination of everything I just described earlier brought into concrete form.

It’s my curated exhibition of the cafés I love, the music I live in, the people I learn from, and the conversations I’ve been part of. And that’s just the beginning.

So many of my most meaningful exchanges happen in private over FaceTime, coffee, DMs, and in quiet virtual corners. This page is a precise yet curated glimpse into who I am, my philosophies, and what I hold to a high standard. Not content for content’s sake.

Every item on it evokes a feeling, and the main one I’m going for is resonance. The sense that the right person going through it will think: this is my kind of person.

It’s like having a conversation with me but at your own pace and on your own time.

The design and copy of my new website are intentional too. How it looks and feels is itself a reflection of my taste and the level of detail I bring to everything.

When my friends saw the whole site, they unanimously told me: this is so you.

That’s the point. The whole site is a curated exhibition of who I am and I mean that in the best possible sense, not the performative persona-building kind.

I genuinely believe the AI era is accelerating something beautiful. The invitation to know ourselves more deeply, reflect outward who we truly are, and co-create with others from that place while using the gifts that are uniquely ours.

In the posts ahead, I'll go deeper into how to actually find and develop your taste, how to build your own Curations page, and more.

I’m excited to see what you create because not only will it better reflect who you are, it also becomes a virtuous cycle of genuinely sharing and supporting the people and things you love.

A win-win-win.

Subscribe to catch the next content pieces in this curation and taste series.

Each one curated with the intention that you gain the clarity you need to move forward with confidence:

👩🏻‍💻 The Connection (1:1 session)
→ You share what you’re navigating, where you are, what feels stuck. Through thoughtful curation, I connect you to exactly the right person, resource, or support.

☕ The Toronto Café Guide (public guide)
→ A curated guide for builders, creators, and solopreneurs who love working and thinking in aesthetic, cozy spaces.

🧭 The Recalibration (1:1 session)
→ For when you want clarity on your business strategy and your natural way of building so showing up and doing work actually feels good.