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... Eric Pachman!

Do you know Eric Pachman? I’ve introduced him before - the Chief Analytics Officer at Bancreek Capital Advisors who exposed healthcare fraud through data journalism. But this time, you're meeting a different Eric.

If you've already connected with him, let me reintroduce you. This is Eric the middle school cross country coach. Eric the elementary school friend who builds businesses with people who remember him getting ant bites on tubing trips. Eric who writes about reclaiming soulfulness because he learned the hard way that climbing ladders doesn't lead to contentment.

I wanted him to meet Rachael Goldfarb because they both discovered the same profound truth: that losing a parent can paradoxically teach you how to truly live.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you'll hear two strangers realize they've walked the same path through grief and come out the other side committed to planting seeds they'll never see grow.

THREE: That's The Magic Number of Lessons

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Eric 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: The Crystal Ball Is Actually A Mirror

Key Concept: Eric spent years looking for crystal balls - in data, in corporate success, in the next promotion. But he discovered that all the predictive power in the world means nothing if you're using it to avoid looking at yourself. The real insight comes from reflection, not prediction. Whether he's analyzing inflation data or coaching middle schoolers, Eric now understands that transformation starts with taking responsibility for your own conditioning and consciously choosing what energy you're putting into the world. The data can show you where things are heading, but only the mirror can show you who you're becoming.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: When you start working in finance, you start feeling pretty smart about the stuff you’re learning that others will tell you, “I can’t believe you know that.” And that’s a really dangerous idea in your head. To think you can use data and expertise to not just understand what’s happening around you, but maybe even know what’s going to happen next.

Because a job that is all about forward-looking advice isn’t really about the future. An advice job is all about the present. You just don’t understand that until you’ve done it for a while, which was certainly the case in my experience as an advisor.

Once I got my confidence up I really thought I could see the future and explain it clearly to clients. I wanted to be a great investor. I thought my outsider perspective was an edge. That illusion didn’t last.

I realized how hard prediction actually was. I realized how smart my peers were. And I realized my edge was never going to be in telling people what would happen next, but in helping them understand who they actually are right now. Not their fantasy investor self. Not who they think they should be. The person staring back in the mirror making this decision today.

The view in the mirror might be hard to accept when you want to see the view through your crystal ball - but it’s the only view that will get you to anything resembling actual peace of mind.

Work question for you: Are you using your expertise to predict the future or to avoid examining your present?

LIFE: Point Your Awareness Toward Beauty, Not Ugliness

Key Concept: Eric doesn't advocate ignoring the news or pretending problems don't exist. Instead, he's learned that consciously directing his awareness toward tangible beauty - watching squirrels in his yard, coaching kids, building something with childhood friends - gives him the strength to actually process the ugliness without drowning in it. It's not about toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing. It's about recognizing that doomscrolling Bloomberg terminal headlines first thing in the morning doesn't make you more prepared for the incoming apocalypse - it just makes you less present for the life you're actually living.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: My to-do lists - both professional and personal - pull the future into the present in such an essential but brain-clouding way. I get obsessed. I get stressed. And sometimes? I need a reminder like this to shush them.

Do it with me: “Shhhhhhh.” There. That’s better.

It’s not that I’m “bad” at this, it’s that I’m human. This is the daily tension everybody reading this feels too. There’s just so much to get done in every single day. And then you throw in political violence and “this could change everything” headlines, and - what’s a person to do about all of that?

Walk the dogs. Sit down to dinner with my wife. Choose to point my awareness to what’s actually in front of me instead of an extra email reply or “one more doomscroll” for the road. It’s a choice to appreciate a moment as just a moment - where we’re still here, alive, and happy - together.

Eric's solved some serious riddles in the world. He's pieced together incredible data to draw lines between dots nobody else was connecting. But this is by far the most powerful connection he's called out: that where you point your awareness determines whether you drown or stay afloat.

Life Question For You: Where are you pointing your awareness each day, and is that choice serving your capacity to show up for what actually matters?

LEGACY: The Most Selfish Way To Live Is For Others

Key Concept: After his mother's death, Eric tried to fix drug pricing. He tried to fix inflation data. He wanted to change the world on a macro level. But he discovered that real fulfillment comes from micro impact - seeing middle school kids put down their devices and move their bodies, building something meaningful with people who knew him before he had anything to prove. This isn't martyrdom or self-sacrifice. Eric is explicit that he's doing this because it feels better than chasing the next promotion ever did. He's planting seeds knowing he'll never see the full harvest, and that's exactly what makes it meaningful.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: Eric discovered the same truth Rachael did - that processing personal loss well gives you more capacity for meaningful work, not less. Rachael became a Chief of Staff both internally and externally. Eric became the systems-thinker who finally looked in the mirror instead of the data.

Eric took his grief and tried to channel it into solving drug pricing fraud. Then inflation data. Big, world-level problems where he could make his mark. And he did very important work - but it didn't bring him peace.

The breakthrough came when he realized that chasing macro impact without addressing his internal state was a recipe for burnout. He could expose healthcare fraud and still feel empty. He could publish brilliant data visualizations and still be miserable.

So he became a middle school cross country coach. He built a business with elementary school friends. He started writing about soulfulness. These aren't lesser ambitions - they're the result of finally understanding what actually matters to him.

I think about how I used to set an insanely high bar for myself. How I wanted to be the best at advice, master of work/life balance, and achieve, oh I don't know, approximately everything? Now I still do a version of that - but I also operate from a much simpler foundation: take care of the people in front of me, do work that feels meaningful today, build relationships that will outlast any achievement.

Eric found his version of this. Rachael found hers. The path looks different for everyone, but there's deep respect for those who make the journey.

Legacy question for you: What seeds are you planting that you'll never see fully grown, and why does that feel more meaningful than harvests you can control?

BEFORE YOU GO: Be sure to…

• Connect with Eric on LinkedIn and Twitter

• Check out his new writing project at reclaimingsoulfulness.com (or search "Reclaiming Soulfulness" on Beehiiv)

• Follow his professional writing on the blog at Bancreek Capital Advisors

• Track him down online if you want to talk about data, grief, or why coaching middle school cross country might be the most important work he's ever done

• And - definitely READ this post about what running 240 miles through the Moab desert (last week!) taught him, “The Second Arrow”

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.