For years, I've been connecting with interesting people and documenting insights that might help my clients and myself. What was once private is now (mostly) public.

People often ask: "How do you know all these people?" and "How do you connect these (re: random) ideas?" The answer is simple: consistent relationship cultivation and thoughtful note taking. My north star is trusting my instincts, my maps are the constellations in these reflections.

This approach to multidisciplinary networking has helped dozens of clients, colleagues, and friends strengthen their networks and unlock new opportunities. Feel free to steal these ideas directly - that's what they're for! I can't promise you'll learn FROM me, but I guarantee you can learn something WITH me. Let's go. Count it off: 1-2-3-4!

Introducing... Adam Butler!

Do you know Adam Butler? He's the CIO of Resolve Asset Management, a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast, one time thespian, and a guy who got his start by literally sitting in a CEO's office until he could grab a coffee conversation.

Adam is someone who has spent decades thinking deeply about how the tech bubble, the global financial crisis, and life itself challenges our idealized visions of the world.

I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the courage to ask big questions, test conventional wisdom, and build a life where investing, creativity, and genuine human connection all intersect.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Epsilon Theory YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you'll hear a conversation about what life teaches us when our best-laid plans get smashed by reality - and how that shapes not just our investment philosophy, but our approach to raising kids, building teams, and taking meaningful risks.

THREE: That's The Magic Number of Lessons

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Adam Butler to share with you (and drop into my Personal Archive).

Read on and you'll find a quote with a lesson and a reflection you can Take to work with you, Bring home with you, and Leave behind with your legacy.

WORK: Surface Area Is Your Unfair Advantage

Key Concept: Adam's career breakthroughs didn't come from perfectly polished resumes or waiting for permission. They came from understanding that opportunity is a numbers game - the more genuine connections you make, the more moments arise where something unexpected clicks. He walked into an internet company's office unannounced to pitch the CEO. He stood outside waiting to catch him for coffee. That "overdeveloped sense of confidence" isn't arrogance; it's the willingness to increase your surface area of contact with possibility. In a world where most people wait for invitations, Adam creates his own.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I’ve always simultaneously hated and respected the expression “You make your own luck.” Maybe it’s because sometimes you definitely make your own unlucky too. But, at the core of my nuanced agitations, is the reality that you have to figure out a way to put yourself out there.

This is where it stops for most people. They don’t want to feel too self-promotional. Or too exposed. These are all normal, frequently healthy feelings. We’re evolutionarily wired to avoid standing out.

Who wants to get on stage, or on a YouTube video, and talk about which teachers you trolled versus which ones were nice to you? Daily life is embarrassing enough as it is. Why increase the odds of a public face plant, let alone putting your foot in your mouth?

And yet, precisely because most people are terrified of exactly that - that’s where the opportunity lives. Not in merit, in magic. We want to think it’s all hard work but - the easy risks, no matter how stupid they sound or can make us feel in the moment, are what moves the needle.

It’s hard to get your CFA, and it’s (relatively!) easy to ask somebody out for coffee. The real opportunities are obviously hard to see for a reason.

Work question for you: What's one "strangest way" you could put yourself out there this week that would dramatically increase your surface area of opportunity?

LIFE: The Best Teachers Aren't Always The Most Comfortable Ones

Key Concept: There's a gap between comfort and growth. The teachers students love most often feel effortless - they make learning smooth, engaging, immediate. But the research from West Point that David Epstein explores shows these aren't always the teachers who prepare students for mastery in that domain later on. Adam took this insight and applied it to his own parenting philosophy: real learning requires approaching ideas from multiple angles, across different contexts, sometimes even through discomfort. He's now exploring AI-powered learning systems that scaffold lessons around a child's existing interests - learning statistics through baseball, not in a vacuum. The takeaway? The most transformative growth often comes from teachers, mentors, and experiences that challenge us in unexpected ways.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I can think of two elementary school teachers who taught me different versions of the same lesson. The lesson, which - spoiler - was, “In my classroom, I get to make the rules.”

The first teacher did it the mean way. There was a kid with an extra messy desk that she strongly disapproved of. So she made him stand up, dump it out in the middle of the room, and stand over it, while she explained if he didn’t fix his ways, he’d grow up to be a garbage man. This was 3rd grade. I don’t know what the kid grew up to be. All I remember was that it terrified me, because my desk was kind of messy inside too.

The second teacher did it in the real life lesson way. I had studied for a (5th grade) US states and their capitals verbal quiz, but was banking on my Z-based last name to put me at the end of the line. This particular teacher had established liking to do things in alphabetical order. With 32 kids getting 3 state capital questions at a clip, I figured that by the time it was my turn, I’d have it pretty easy. I’ll never forget the feeling of that day when he announced, “reverse alphabetical order!” and winked at me before starting in.

Teaching is all about constant, gentle pressure. From the teacher and from the student. The classroom itself, along with the social and academic stresses, make for a wonderful testing ground. And not just for how you find the right answers.

In elementary school I’d already learned how teachers could be evil, or make you feel like a million bucks when they challenged you, and you stepped up in the moment. My 5th grade teacher made me uncomfortable by flipping the order, but I also knew when he winked at me he was saying, “Come on kid, you’ve got this.” That’s a world different than the psychological damage my 3rd grade teacher was delivering.

The angles are presented to us in all sorts of ways. So are the contexts. So are the discomforts. Growth is an option. The best teachers nudge us towards growth.

Life Question For You: Who or what in your life has challenged you in ways that felt uncomfortable at first but led to genuine growth - and how can you seek out more of that?

LEGACY: Build Your Crew And Pull The Oars Together

Key Concept: Adam still plays Dungeons & Dragons with the same tight-knit crew he's known for decades - including his business partner and other collaborators who've become both friends and creative partners. This isn't nostalgia; it's wisdom. Adam knows his brain is wired in certain ways that give him advantages (fearlessness, surface area creation) and disadvantages (that same fearlessness can become blindness, leading to poor decisions). His answer? Surround yourself with people who see your blind spots and complement your gifts. The people around you don't fix you - they help you direct your unique wiring toward progress. That's the definition of a crew worth pulling oars with. That's legacy.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I’m increasingly convinced everyone needs at least a few deep metaphors to draw from and apply across their life. They don’t have to make sense. They don’t even have to be cool. They can be as basic as knitting skills, or as nerdy as D&D, or… as obscure as strange music.

The point is, you have to love something deeply, respect all of its quirky details, so that you can be aware of everything else in life having a similar amount of profundity to it. If my music tastes have 18,000 variables, when Adam starts explaining D&D to me, which I somehow completely missed as a kid, I appreciate all of the variables that I don’t understand - and his passion for them.

Now, not to mistake Adam’s business acumen for mine (he lives on the Cayman Islands, I live down the road from the home of The Office), but I know we both bring these metaphors to work with us even if we aren’t talking about them out loud. He sees DM’s and monsters and quests in solving a business problem. I see musical charts, band lineups, and tour schedules. We both get stuff done.

Because once you know the weird little ways you see the world, you can start to cover your blind spots. There are certain things we want someone who speaks our language to work with us on. But, there are other places where we want somebody with a totally unique set of experiences - that we can appreciate existing - to handle those bits.

The compliance officer doesn’t need to do marketing, for example. But, in those shared values and complimentary skills, a magical combination can happen. This mix of metaphorical model building depth and complimentary skills alignment makes the world go round.

Legacy question for you: Who are the people in your "crew" that help you navigate your own advantages and disadvantages? What would it take to deepen those relationships or expand your circle?

BEFORE YOU GO: Be sure to…

• Connect with Adam Butler on Twitter at @GestaltU (though he's currently on hiatus) and LinkedIn

• Check out his work at Invest Resolve (including their podcasts!)

• Explore his investment philosophy and contributions across the web

• Take a moment to reflect on your own surface area and crew!

You have a Personal Network and a Personal Archive just waiting for you to build them up stronger. Look at your work, look at your life, and look at your legacy - and then, start small in each category. Today it's one person and one reflection. Tomorrow? Who knows what connections you'll create.

Don't forget to click reply/click here and tell me who you're adding to your network and why! Plus, if you already have your own Personal Archive too, let me know, I'm creating a database.

Want more? Find my Personal Archive on CultishCreative.com, watch me build a better Personal Network on the Cultish Creative YouTube channel, and listen to Just Press Record on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and follow me on social media (LinkedIn and X) - now distributed by Epsilon Theory.

You can also check out my work as Managing Director at Sunpointe, as a host on top investment YouTube channel Excess Returns, and as Senior Editor at Perscient.