Cultish Creative Weekly Recap (8/24/2024)

I know Eben Burr said he never talks about this stuff, but I had no idea, and I get why. This isn’t bait, but it is worth just saying, as emblematic of where these conversations go - his sister’s tragic murder was an inciting incident to drive him overseas, and that led to the reinvention of his life, and reimagining of just what paths could be open to him. I’m welled up just thinking about it again.

Life ain’t a straight line. It’s full of hard and beautiful things. You probably don’t know Eben Burr. By the end of this, you will. Listen to Eben’s interview on The Intentional Investor, on the Epsilon Theory YouTube Channel:

I spent some time with Bogumil Baranowski talking about a bunch of Cultish Creative posts, doing my best live-action demonstration of how maintaining a Personal Archive ties into a more fulfilling life + work, and just telling stories about old (music) tapes and (little kid) photos. This is up there in my favorite ”if for some reason you want to better get to know me” appearances. Check me out on Talking Billions:

And if that’s not enough Matt for you, “It’s raining down in…” Pennsyltucky? I recorded this interview for The Essence of Investing with Jonathan Rechtman and it just went live too. You get to hear me talk about why I hate “white glove service” as a metaphor:

I did a review of Terri Cole’s book, “Boundary Boss” that you can read here or watch here. If you need help with managing boundaries, she got through to me.

Plus, Jack and I did our thing too (you know, these are all recorded at different times, but hallelujah it’s raining me this week):

Do you share things I do? Do I know about it? Let me highlight THREE people I have crazy respect for that all have shared my stuff with their audience on a totally unsolicited basis in the past week alone:

Tadas Viskanta at Abnormal Returns (I’m a loooooong term subscriber and benefactor to his link-fest style emails, so seeing my name amongst the crowd here, it’s just so cool),

Eric Markowitz at BIG THINK / The Nightcrawler (speaking of seeing my name next to people I wouldn’t normally expect to see my name next to, Eric’s curation is incredible, and his breadth - it’s enviable), and

Josh Spector at For The Interested. Fun detail on Josh - before I started Just Press Record, I heard him say YouTube/podcasters shouldn’t even bother with intros (mostly because people just skip them and they’re all the same/boring, so no hook = no value for potential audience members who stumble across the show in search mode and only hear 8 seconds of your show). Assuming I still needed to do something for my channel, I decided to make my quirky introductions the way I do. Josh didn’t know this story, so seeing him call it out made my day.

Posts you might have missed!

I’m still listening to a ton of mid-80s alt-rock, including Meat Puppets II. Oh me.

You want to outsource obvious execution, but insource your ingenious intuitions. It’s a little tactic I call Gut Versus Guy.

So you started late, do you have any clue how late Greg Ginn started with music before launching his lifelong career? I never knew this story - it’s so cool.

Steve Albini’s trust drummer (aka his drum machine).

Cain and Abel kept showing up in my life, so I had to write this post. First it was Jeff C. sending me this KA album (which is pretty cool, very moody, properly hood, quiet storming hip hop), then it was reading Swamp Thing, and then Steve W. bringing up old stories like theirs. Life is pretty wild sometimes.