Cultish Creative Weekly Recap (2/8/2025)

What is it about checking in with your gut before you make a big decision? Why is intuition (massively) valuable, yet frequently criticized (“unscientific!”) and underused (“you sure about that”)? How does a person pull the future self you want to become into alignment with your present, very much not-there-yet self, even when your gut is making you want to pull your hair out?

All these questions were in my mind when I invited Justin Castelli back onto Just Press Record for a special “oh snap, guess what I saw” solo episode. Not only did he answer my questions, the story he shared about what had gone down since last time he was on the show… you have to hear it. Almost business deals, signs from the universe, finding your path even when you can’t see it - press play already:

Life is not linear, and those crazy stories from your childhood—like trying to walk across the GW bridge in high school, or the time you told (then unknown) Lady Gaga she wasn’t the winner of the battle of the bands, or even when you grew up a little, got the big magazine cover story of your dreams but were left wondering what next—none of it moves in a straight line.

Nobody knows this like Eric Markowitz. I won’t see my network the same way again. His story about the brain abscess that almost killed him, and how his wife and friends got him through, I have chills even writing this.

Just for kicks, a conversation with a few professional finance friends turned into a special episode/new show for Excess Returns we’re calling Click Beta. The idea is, we take the headlines we all have to read so we can not sound like morons to our clients, and stumble through them together to figure out what’s actually interesting and actionable. In our first go, we covered the trade war, the role of tariffs, crypto/coin logic, and do much for.

And, most importantly, I had so much fun doing this. If we were going to do it anyway, why not press record and share it, right?

Personal Archive entries you might have missed:

We’re all loving this new Benjamin Booker / Kenny Segal collaboration project right??? h/t to Jeff C. and all of you who send me new music on the regular (keep it coming).

I think I learned all the wrong (re: no profitable in the business sense, but highly useful in the life sense) lessons from Market Wizards. After my talk with Jack Schwager, I don’t feel so bad about it anymore. Here’s a riff on a beloved Bruce Kovner quote.

Michael Caine interviews might be a new favorite medium of mine. Even better than seeing him in a movie. I’m not kidding. Did you see this one, about the time Jaws IV bought his mom a house? Amazing. h/t Frazer Rice (and CT Reese) for being my movie trivia magnates.