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!

Do you know Michael Perry? He's the Wisconsin-born author, essayist, humorist, volunteer firefighter, and emergency medical responder who grew up on a dairy farm in northern Wisconsin, became a registered nurse, left nursing to write for less than minimum wage, and somehow built a meaningful career spanning books, one-man shows, voiceover work, corporate speaking, and music - all while refusing to compromise his integrity or abandon his roots.

Did you see that list of jobs? I don’t think I scratched the surface. Wild, right?

So if not, allow me to introduce you. Michael is someone who has figured out something most of us spend our entire lives searching for: how to do work that matters on your own terms, without needing permission from the publishing establishment or anyone else to define what success looks like. His books include Coop, Population 485, Off Main Street, Montaigne and Barn Boots, and - most recently, Improbable Mentors.

I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the willingness to recognize your ceiling, acknowledge it clearly, and then build something meaningful within those constraints anyway.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Epsilon Theory + Cultish Creative YouTube channels (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you'll hear stories about track meets in Wisconsin where he was always third, the moment a small-town librarian told him you could get paid for writing, why he left nursing to make $6.25 an hour as a proofreader, and how firefighting, farming, and fatherhood have all informed his understanding of what it means to show up and do the work.

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Michael Perry 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: Perry had just left nursing to take a $6.25/hour proofreading job - a dramatic pay cut that made no sense on paper. But instead of manufacturing a convincing corporate answer about his "five-year plan," he chose honesty. This quote captures the moment he decided that integrity matters more than saying what people want to hear. He didn't promise loyalty he couldn't give. He promised clarity about what he could actually offer - and somehow, they hired him anyway.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: One of the greatest lyrics Paul Westerberg ever wrote was in an unreleased Replacements demo of a atypically sloppy and immature blues type song called, “Bad Worker.” The line, which is from the chorus goes, “‘Cause I’m a bad worker / my father would be ashamed / I’m a bad, bad worker / I’ll give you minimum effort for minimum wage.” Mike’s 2-week notice feels somehow related. More mature, certainly, but on the same track.

There’s so many stories of artists taking on relatively mindless tasks to be afforded the headspace to work on writing outside of working on surviving. We don’t celebrate it. Probably because we don’t want to encourage mediocrity or worse, have to talk to mediocre people about mediocre offerings when we have our own problems (we’ve all been there, I get it).

What I’m trying to say is I care more about a person who has artistic boundaries and can communicate them in a professional setting than I do about the doctor who doctors to play golf. I don’t mind the passion for golf, I just find it dreadfully boring, and I’d like to see more people with the guts like Mike had to say, “Yeah, I’m only doing this for that,” much like I see all sorts of other professionals take on less artistic tasks.

There’s the reality of jobs, and clearing our heads, and there’s also the reality of finding ways to flourish. Do what you mean and mean what you say, and never let a job be your sole identity (OK, you know I’m obligated to say it - “don’t sell yourself to fall in love with things you do”).

Work question for you: When was the last time you chose to be honest instead of impressive in a professional situation? What happened?

Key Concept: Perry is describing how his nursing education gave him tools he never expected to need as a writer. The specificity of that nursing scenario - vulnerable patients, intimate questions, professional boundaries - taught him something that transfers directly to interviewing strangers as a freelancer. But notice the voice here: he doesn't glorify vulnerability as some noble artist's suffering. He treats it practically, even with humor. This is how you borrow skills from one life to build another, without pretending you've left the first one behind.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I think all of the time and somehow not often enough about the corn kernels of truth you keep picking out of the crap life throws at you that beg to remind you, “remember how you ate that?”

When Mike brings up this lesson from nursing I think about wanting, trying, and ultimately failing at becoming a music producer. I might have stuck with it if a host of reasons happened, but I didn’t, despite overinvesting in trying to figure out the skillset.

So why would it be any surprise that all that time and energy spent listening to artists and trying to bring their vision into a viable finished product wouldn’t show up in a million other places in life? It makes you realize you can’t always get what you want and you always figure out what you need, as the song goes. It makes you appreciate the twists and the turns and the foundational nutrients you’re chasing, whether it’s obvious or not.

And, most of all, the more aware you can become of this, with age, the more confidence it can give you. I love Mike for sharing this story because it helps hold up that mirror for me. I want all of the reminders of this I can get.

Life Question For You: What skills from a previous chapter of your life have you dismissed as "not relevant" to where you're heading now?

Key Concept: This is Perry's actual definition of success - not a bestseller or a Netflix deal, but the simple fact of still being there, still creating, a decade later. The "too dumb to know when to quit" line is self-deprecating on the surface, but underneath it's profound: he's choosing persistence over talent, and praising showing up over waiting for validation. Everything else he does (speaking, music, voiceover, firefighting, “stuff”) circles back to the writing - that's not distraction, that's integrity in motion. You don't need permission or recognition to keep doing the work that matters.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: How much of success is next-level stubbornness? And does practice actually make perfect? Sorry for getting rhetorical, but this is what Mr. Montaigne in Barn Boots does to me. Maybe practice just makes imperfection so that stubbornness can keep people like us obsessively trying to straighten out the frames of reference that are off just so.

Maybe success is never running out of interesting imperfections. Success is always having work to work on. That’s not a statement about the inevitability fallibility of the world and humanity, for the record. I can see how that could end badly if you defined it too broadly. But I can also see how it goes on beautifully. The trick is having the right kinds of interesting imperfections to chase.

Healthy curiosity goes a long way towards this - you start to see the good-for-you muses and not just every muse jostling for your attention. It’s part of creativity as a habit (and the creator flywheel). The muse not only kicks off your process, but the habit reminds you to find the right muse to pick what you’ll do next.

Legacy question for you: What would you keep doing even if nobody was watching, even if it never made you famous?

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: Did AI Do That: Personal Rules