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... Michael Perry!

Do you know Michael Perry? He's a writer, first responder, farmer's son, and the person behind the SneezingCow.com - someone who grew up on a small dairy farm in northern Wisconsin, started in nursing, then accidentally became a country music writer, only to (deliberately) evolve into one of the most honest voices in American letters. He's authored multiple books including Population: 485, Truck: A Love Story, and 40 Acres Deep. His most recent book is Improbable Mentors & Happy Tangents, and I have a personal affinity for Montaigne in Barn Boots.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Mike is rare because he refuses to separate his blue-collar roots from his literary sophistication. He'll read you King James Bible cadence, talk about the beauty of a one-handed butcher (uh, the other hand’s a hook, in case you were wondering), teach you why the bus driver's story matters more than the celebrity country star’s, and then remind you that the person in the boat beside you is worth more than any ideology yelled at you from a distance.

I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the commitment to stay grounded in real relationships and real places, even as he's built a life in literature that most people from his background would never imagine possible.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Cultish Creative + Epsilon Theory YouTube channels. Listen and you'll hear how farm machinery becomes metaphor, how asking the right question changes everything, and why the most important lesson has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with paying attention to the people right in front of you.

THREE: That's The Magic Number of Lessons

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.

WORK: Ask About The Person At The Steering Wheel

Key Concept: Everyone wants access to the famous person. Everyone asks the rote questions. But the real story - the one that's actually interesting and hasn't been told a hundred times - is happening with the people everyone walks past. Michael discovered that asking about the bus driver instead of the celebrity wasn't just different, it was better. It was honest. The insight here applies everywhere: the answers you're looking for aren't where everyone's looking. They're where everyone stops looking. The person at the steering wheel, the person behind the scenes, the person doing the work while others take the stage - that's where the real wisdom lives.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I remember a moment, when I was a teenager and found myself back stage at a show with a bunch of musicians I looked up to, and I realized I was in the middle of them all talking to each other. They were talking about different towns and stops on tours they were on, the last places they ran in, the clubs that ripped you off and the one’s “you just have to do” on the next tour, and how in that moment something clicked in my head, that they’re just regular people too.

I’ll be honest, I already knew this intellectually from experience (playing in bands with older musicians all through high school). BUT, I wasn’t typically a fan of those people? Those were for gigs and getting money. The people I was in this room with - I put on their tapes and CDs to hang out with my friends. Bottom line was I was at high risk of fanboying or being awkward in that moment until I stopped and listened.

They’re all just regular people. They’re all, as performers, aware of the status imbalance they have to manage on stage and in settings like when somebody is asking them questions. It becomes an almost automatic behavior. And if you want to transcend it, you have to think like a regular person, like Mike did in his story where he asks about the bus drivers, or, if memory serves me correctly, what I did in my story which was talk about weird regional drinks you find while traveling (Mr. Pibb vs. Moxie vs. Cheerwine vs. Dr. Thunder vs. the regrettably named yet cough drop sweet, Cherokee Red).

I wanted to say, “I love this record but what’s up with the bridge on track 3 because that’s something else altogether” but I knew I couldn’t jump there. Instead, in sharing a moment of laughing about everybody’s weird sodas and stories, I started to actually be another musician backstage, and that felt way (way) cooler than getting a brush off for a nerd question.

Work question for you: Who is the "bus driver" in your world - the person everyone overlooks who actually knows what's really happening?

LIFE: Listen To The Person In The Boat Beside You

Key Concept: There's a siren call to ideology, to certainty, to the loud voices that promise answers. We can hear the man yelling from far away. But the person in the boat beside you - the one you actually know, actually trust, actually live next to - that's where real relationship happens. Michael's observation cuts across all the noise about politics and culture wars. You cannot have profound connection with someone if you're too busy listening to a stranger yelling into the void. Proximity matters. Presence matters. The person you can actually affect is the one right there with you, not the one yelling from the distance.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: Climbing the music scene status ladder is a funny thing. I probably should have brought the ideas into the rest of my life sooner, but it eventually caught up to me outside of music and I’m grateful for it, especially when it applies to all sorts of other social situations, like Mike is describing here. It helps understand not only who you listen to and why, but who you care to listen to and why. Given the level of noise in the world right now, knowing I’ve internalized this lesson feels like it makes all the difference to me.

There are the people on the stages and the people in the audience. The audience members might feel a parasocial relationship with those people on stage. They might think a song exactly matches something they’ve been through, and because that’s what makes great art great, they’re probably right. But, they don’t have an actual relationship with the person on the stage.

A weird thing I learned very quickly in my bands with friends growing up was how much it strengthened your friendships to not only spend so much time together, but work together towards a common goal. On a lineup with a bunch of other bands, even if you were fans of some of them or just kinda sorta friends with others, you always had your band.

And that group didn’t make you feel separated from the crowd or the other bands so much as it made you feel stronger with who you’d listen to, who you’d trust if anything went wrong, and most importantly - who you’d celebrate with if things went right. Mike’s point really had me thinking about this. How you have to know who your people are first, and then understand how that community fits in everywhere else, because so long as you have good people around you, the rest mostly takes care of itself.

Life question for you: Who is in the boat with you right now that you've stopped actually listening to because you're distracted by the noise?

LEGACY: You Got On The Right Bus

Key Concept: Legacy isn't about perfection or deserving your place. It's about showing up to the wrong bus and realizing partway through that you're grateful to be on it. Michael came from a place where writing careers didn't happen - not in his world, not in his family, not in his expectations. He never thought he'd be here. And that fundamental gratitude - that sense of being in a place he never thought possible - that becomes the legacy he carries forward. It's not about achieving more or being better than everyone in the room. It's about recognizing the gift of the journey itself, even when you never meant to take it. That perspective outlasts any award.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: I love that at one point in our conversation Mike is talking about getting through to the celebrity by asking about the bus driver, and then later he’s using this “I got on the wrong bus but it sure is a great bus metaphor.” The transportation industry should send him a medal.

But I also know what he’s feeling here, especially in the longer version of the quote and story, where some people are in that room and basically looking down on it. I can go back to that backstage experience in my mind, now, and understand a flip I had that rhymes with what Mike said here.

When you get to a spot where the next option is to be anxious and frozen because you don’t belong, check yourself. Look around. You are in the room, after all, and that says something. Next, don’t be too cool for the rest of the room. That’s the opposite of the anxious and frozen and it’s equally obnoxious. Just leave if you can’t keep that to yourself.

If you start comparing yourself to everyone else - their success, or status, or accomplishments - you’re sunk. When I remember the backstage story, I remember realizing I had to forget comparing myself and focus on being myself. Soda was my talk about the bus driver topic. Let curiosity take over. Life is so short. If you find yourself lucky enough to be in a place that you can’t believe you’d ever end up, have the good graces to play in it. Have more fun.

Legacy question for you: What "wrong bus" did you board that turned out to be exactly the right one - and how are you honoring that gift?

BEFORE YOU GO: Be sure to…

• Connect with Michael at SneezingCow.com

• Check out his books - there’s a whole page of them here

• Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn, and visit his website for essays and reflections, including “Baling in America” on Panoptica!

• Take a moment to notice who the "bus drivers" are in your own stories

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