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.

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Do you know Elie Jacobs? He's the founder of Purposeful Advisors, a strategic communications and public affairs firm specializing in crisis management, reputational risk, and organizational alignment. He's also a columnist for Strategic (a UK trade publication) and works closely with senior government executives providing geopolitical and strategic risk consulting.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Elie doesn't offer communications guidance - he offers something deeper: he's become that trusted aid-de-camp for corporate leaders navigating chaos, helping them see what's actually broken before it becomes irreversible. In a world drowning in information, Elie is the person who helps executives understand what they're not seeing.

I wanted to connect with Elie because he embodies something I value deeply: the willingness to tell hard truths to people in power - and the skill to make them listen without getting defensive.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel. Listen and you'll hear Elie unpacking how communications advisors have to fundamentally shift from problem-solvers to problem-finders - and what that means when AI is reshaping every industry at once.

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Elie 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.

Key Concept: Good communications advisors have shifted from telling leaders what to do, to identifying problems leaders don't see. This is what Elie calls the "Type Three Error" - focusing on the symptom instead of the actual disease. The house isn't really on fire because of what you got called about. It's on fire because of what you've been ignoring. Your job, if you work in advisory, is to be the truth-teller brave enough to point to the real problem.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I am increasingly of the view that you need people in an organization, and in communication with your organization, who can tell it like it is with a productive bend. That last “with” part matters a lot. And, to borrow from Elie’s example of the house burning, it’s the difference between shouting, “You idiot, did you seriously pick up the cheapest wine glasses first” and “Hold off on the wine glasses until we get the kids and pets out, but valid mention we should grab those too.”

Truth-telling gets tricky in this way. You can say something truthful without being productive, and - Gen X in political positions hasn’t helped the situation. There’s saying what you think, and then there’s saying what you think needs to be heard to help the situation out.

When Elie talks about telling hard truths to power or the need to have people who will tell them to you, just keep the plan part attached to the truth bit. Good communication at work always relies on maintaining a productive bend, and productivity starts (and ends) with having the right people in the conversation. Once the wrong people start yelling, the house is on fire and you’re not going to salvage anything good - if you’ve seen or lived through that, you know.

Work question for you: What are the things your team or organization is actively ignoring right now? What would it cost you to pay attention to them?

Key Concept: During the Apollo 11 landing, a 1202 alarm kept going off - a problem the computer couldn't solve. Neil Armstrong looked at his years of experience and training, took manual control, and landed the spacecraft. That's what people need from their advisors: not someone who executes a predetermined plan, but someone who has enough depth and judgment to know when to override the system. Background, instinct, and hard-won experience - those become the differentiators in moments of real complexity.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: With great love and respect and admiration for all of the quant friends I have, and with the complete awareness of the behavioral psychology informed decision making theories they (and I) have studied, humanity will never get away from the idea of wanting a person to be able to “take the stick” and I think that’s more of a feature than a bug for the fate of our kind.

If you’re in leadership, or if you’re in a position where you one day hope to take the lead, this gravitational pull on people can’t be forgotten. Sometimes the system won’t work, or the chatbot won’t respond, or you just have to make an old fashioned judgement call. That never feels great, but it also feels worth putting in the hands of someone who you think will get you through whatever outcome follows.

I think it relates directly to the truth telling bit before, too. You want a leader to take the stick in a time of extreme uncertainty, and you want them to do it with a productive plan, for not just what to do if it works, but how they’ll proceed and communicate if it doesn’t. Stayin human is what keeps the humanity in everything we do.

Life question for you: Who in your circle has enough experience and judgment that you'd trust them to "take the stick" when things go wrong? Are you that person for anyone?

Key Concept: The thing that separates leadership from delusion in an AI-driven world is intellectual humility. Everyone wants to project confidence, especially to boards and markets. But the leaders who'll endure are the ones willing to admit: we don't know what this does yet. We are creating problems alongside solutions. We might need guardrails. That's not weakness - that's the only honest framework left. The people worth following are the ones brave enough to say "I don't have the answers" instead of pretending they do.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: There’s a lesson I’ve borrowed from investor/philosopher Vitaliy Katsenelson that Elie’s echoing here - about how you need to retain humility in not knowing the future, but a core set of values within your actions so that even when you are inevitably wrong, you won’t be ashamed of the decision itself.

This takes shape over time. We live and learn and grow. It’s not to say anyone has ever been flawless (and while I’m definitely saying this for my own sake, I’m sure you can relate), but it is to say you have to generate the moral fortitude to stand by your actions and decisions in the moment to know you’re “good.”

If you can do this over time, if you can pass those values down and model how you live them, I genuinely believe the world’s a slightly better place. And, as for the leaders who figure out how to do that, it’s absolutely a function of who they surround themselves with. Our own goodness is a function of our communities, and to see this all as anything less than connected, is really the only mistake here. Elie brings it all together so well.

Legacy question for you: What are you confidently claiming certainty about when you should probably be admitting the limits of your knowledge?

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.

ps. AI helped me pull and organize quotes from the transcript, structure the three lessons, and sharpen the Key Concepts. If you're curious about how I use AI while keeping editorial control and my own voice intact, I wrote about my personal rules here