Cultish Creative Weekly (4/27/2024)

I’ve been having a moment. Or a series of moments, perhaps, where I’m realizing all of my obsessions with how things are put together are behind almost all of my curiosity. ADHD + OCD-lite superpowers. Undiagnosed but my cup-is-half-fully harnessing it.

Buckle up honeys.

Thanks to all who have subscribed to my brand new YouTube channel so far. If you haven’t, get onboard (or at least go on over to your podcast player of choice and click follow/subscribe, I’m on there too, search “Just Press Record”).

Paul Millerd and Ben Hunt joined me this week to talk about “Finding Community In A World of Raccoons.” Paul and Ben are both obsessed with stories. They’re also both obsessed on how we can change them to better serve ourselves. If you know someone who is on a path and feels lost, please share this. If you are that person, all three of us have been there before, I am so excited to be doing this work.

Over on Breaking News we discussed the NPR headlines, the tactics of a phony war (and how they often lead to very real wars), Tesla’s Cyber Truck sales numbers, NATO expansion, and - because this is a show about narrative - Conan’s Hot Ones appearance.

We also re-aired the demo episode of The Intentional Investor (now an official Epsilon Theory joint!) with the inimitable Justin Castelli. If you are entrepreneurial, if you have a family, if you are just trying to find and maintain alignment in your life - nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, does it like Justin.

And last but not least for YouTube/podcasts, finance friends - we did a dive into the double-edged sword of trend following, what it is, and how to use it over on 2 Quants and a Financial Planner:

CHARITY CALL (ESPECIALLY TO MY FINANCE FRIENDS): In a joint collaboration between Excess Returns and SpotGamma, join us on Tuesday, April 30th from 8am-8pm (and/or all points in between) for P and L for a Purpose Charity Day. From the news release:

PNL For a Purpose will bring together some of the biggest names in finance for a one-day livestream to help raise money to fight cancer. Excess Returns and SpotGamma will team up for 12 straight hours of live interviews on April 30th, 2024 from 8AM to 8PM ET with guests from across the investing world to raise money to help fight cancer. We will speak to experts in a wide range of disciplines ranging from macroeconomics to options to value investing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6LB0AqFeT8 

From the official Personal Archive entries this week:

There are great ideas around us (all of us). It’s OK if you miss one. It’s OK if somebody else beats you to an idea. But what isn’t OK is not following your curiosity to the ideas that are calling out to you. Remember, it ain’t who says it, it’s who spots it, so open up them eyes of yours!

Whether you work for a business or own your own, one of the simplest ideas to keep you focused is to understand bundling and unbundling. This applies extra (hey Brian Portnoy, it applies to entering crowded markets and building from scratch too).

Do you want to be more boring? I have you covered. Three easy steps to making boring content - is that click baity enough for you?

You know when the thing happens - the serendipity, the Deja vu, heck - the vu ja de? Let’s look at the etymology of synchronicity.