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.

Find my Personal Archive on CultishCreative.com, watch me build a better Personal Network on the Cultish Creative YouTube channel, and follow me on social media (LinkedIn and X).

This approach has helped dozens of clients strengthen their networks and unlock new opportunities. You can:

• Steal these ideas directly

• Hire me to implement them with you

• Create your own combination that works for you

I can't promise you'll learn from me, but you'll definitely learn something with me. Let's go. Count it off: 1-2-3-4…

Do you know Matt Reustle? He's the host of Business Breakdowns podcast, the not so secret weapon at the media entity Colossus, the collector and purchaser of finely aged and aging wares, and someone who, above all, believes in the power of wide-range thinking over narrow focus?

If not, allow me to introduce you. Matt creates investment research through conversational podcasts that help investment managers get up to speed on companies in an entertaining and digestible way. I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the belief that slow compounding through wide-range exploration often beats extreme outcomes through narrow specialization.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel. Listen and you'll hear us explore the balance between entertainment and transformation in content creation, plus some deep cuts on game shows, Disney's infotainment legacy, and why treating your audience with respect means not dumbing things down.

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Matt Reustle 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 Magic of Bridging Entertainment and Information

Key Concept: The most powerful content doesn't force you to choose between being entertained or being informed - it delivers both simultaneously. This bridges the gap between pure entertainment (which engages but may not stick) and pure information (which informs but may not resonate). When you can make someone laugh while teaching them something actionable, you create the kind of memorable experience that transforms how they think and act. This approach requires understanding your audience well enough to know what will both delight and serve them.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: A colleague once made an off the cuff comment to me that my version of a presentation was “more Hollywood” than how he would have presented it. Of course, I’ll never let him live that down and will forever reference it because I think it’s hysterical, but also, what a lesson.

The thing he was presenting was originally very academic. It was good, but it wasn’t going to land as hard as we’d want, because the audience would have to be down with getting the academic lecture version of the idea. My instinct was that most people wouldn’t trade their time for the extra effort of understanding what he was saying.

My attempt, what he called making it more Hollywood, was an attempt to get a feeling across, within the otherwise academic idea. I wanted to create a vessel to make the idea stick in their head. When I delivered a test version to our team, we all agreed, in that case, that curating the setting to create the feeling was the better way. If we embrace this responsibility, of the experience our message is housed in, we can be much (much) better communicators.

Work question for you: How could you add an element of genuine entertainment to your most serious professional content without compromising its value?

LIFE: Create for an Audience of One (Who Isn't You)

Key Concept: Instead of trying to appeal to everyone or just creating for yourself, identify one specific person whose opinion you respect and create something specifically for them. This approach forces you to be concrete rather than abstract, thoughtful rather than generic. The magic is that when you create something genuinely valuable for one person, it often resonates with many others who share similar interests or challenges. This is the difference between casting a wide net and fishing with the perfect bait.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: When Kenny Beats wanted to get the attention of some of his favorite music industry people, he didn’t go the email, message, cold call route. Instead, he tracked down names and best addresses, and thought hard about how to make the most curiosity inducing trap to make these people notice him.

He ended up sending people (including Rick Rubin) a tape deck, with a cassette in it, and headphones. Nothing else. No notes, no labels, no explanation - just, you opened the box, addressed to you, and there was a tape player with a cassette in it and a pair of headphones. What music industry person is not going to press play to find out what was on that tape?!

We spend so much time worrying about getting enough ears and eyes on our stuff to convert a teeny tiny portion into fans or clients or whatever we’re chasing. But, the lessons like this, the over the top appeal to an audience of one, it’s so underutilized. It’s that first idea all over again - create the experience that best curates your message.

It’s always going to be hard to do that at scale. But, if you’re willing to be inefficient instead of efficient, and really dig in to tapping individualistic curiosities, you just might be on your way to opening doors to ideas that later will scale. If life is all about our experiences with others, why not spend more time creating magical moments like this?

Life Question For You: Who is one person you admire whose attention you'd love to earn, and what could you create specifically for them that demonstrates deep understanding of something they care about?

LEGACY: Respect Your Audience's Intelligence

Key Concept: The choice between dumbing things down versus trusting your audience to rise to your level is actually a choice about what kind of community you want to build. When you consistently respect your audience's intelligence - using industry terms without excessive explanation, sharing nuanced perspectives without forcing conclusions - you attract people who appreciate depth over simplicity. This creates a foundation for relationships built on mutual respect rather than condescension, and it compounds over time as your audience becomes more sophisticated alongside your content.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: If you want your message to be spread, you can’t intentionally weigh it down. Jargon is one of the most common ways to sandbag a message. Yes, it helps inside of an industry, we get that your alphabet soup of acronyms makes it easier to talk to certain people, but it’s a dangerous habit to speak in slang without practicing how you define it.

This balance - of speaking with some slang or jargon, while knowing how to define it in a non-insulting way, is not only genius, but maybe one of the best cross-community communication hacks you can apply anywhere in life.

I love to refer to this as the Harvilla Doctrine (named after Rob Harvilla) who pointed out how TLC both use and define scrub within the first 4 lines of the song “No Scrubs.” This is the gold standard people. You give people a term, your respect their intelligence to latch on and stick with you, and then you’ve invited them in and included them in an idea they can go out and spread too.

Seriously - look at this and think about why the Harvilla Doctrine belongs in your life: “A scrub is a guy that think he's fly / And is also known as a busta / Always talkin' about what he wants / And just sits on his broke ass.” Everything you need to know, right there, and now we can all be better off for knowing the term. Insanely useful reminder.

Legacy question for you: What terminology, concepts, or ideas are you over-explaining because you're afraid your audience won't understand, and how might embracing that complexity actually strengthen your community?

BEFORE YOU GO: Be sure to…

• Connect with Matt Reustle on Twitter @RustleMatt and LinkedIn

• Check out Business Breakdowns podcast and join colossus.com for transcripts

• Visit mattreustle.com for his writing (sign up too!)

• Take a moment to reflect on all these ideas!

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.

Last thing: Don't forget to click reply/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.