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... Seth Lorinczi!
Do you know Seth Lorinczi? He's a journalist, copywriter, editor, ghostwriter, founder of Dispatches from the Fringe, and author of Death Trip - one of my favorite books from last year.
If not, allow me to introduce you. Seth is a DC punk scene veteran turned food writer turned memoirist whose work traces the line between underground culture, psychedelic experience, and the question of how we find our people. He writes with the precision of a reporter and the emotional range of someone who has been paying very close attention for a very long time.
I wanted to connect with Seth because he embodies something I value deeply: the belief that the weird, underground, outsider spaces in our culture aren't just valid - they're necessary, and worth documenting before they disappear.
Our conversation is LIVE now on the Cultish Creative YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you'll hear Seth and fellow guest Jim Ruland trade stories about DC punk, some old buddies you might know the names of, stumbling onto Devo in an empty warehouse, and why the things that made you weird as a kid might be the most important things you've got.
THREE: That's The Magic Number of Lessons
In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Seth Lorinczi 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: You Have To Follow Your Body Into The Room
"The music is kind of getting louder and becoming more clear. And then I swear to you, without being conscious at all, I'm suddenly fast walking, and then I'm running... I throw open the door, and it's this long brick building, and on the stage are five performers in yellow plastic suits and red pyramid-shaped hats. And it is Devo, and they're playing Gut Feeling, which is my single favorite Devo song. And it's a dress rehearsal. Except for the sound person, I'm the only person in this vast room. And I go up to the stage, and I watch them play the song, and it finishes, and I bowed to them, and I left. And that is one of those experiences that still stays with me - just the accident of that, of stumbling into that minute and having this personal experience with this song that means so much to me."
Key Concept: Seth didn't decide to walk into that building - his body made the decision before his brain caught up. That gap between instinct and awareness is where some of the best discoveries live. The accidents that stick aren't random; they're the ones you were already running toward without knowing it.
Personal Archive Note-To-Self: We want to find work that moves us internally and intuitively with that kind of power. Before this happens, Seth loves Devo. He'd listened to them for countless hours. He thought about songs like "Gut Feeling" for many multiples of the song's length.
And with all of that feeling stored up inside of himself, he didn't have to think when he heard them playing - before he even recognized who it was - he only had to trust his instinct, get in the door, and know when to bow and leave.
My theory is that the things that capture our attention, that inspire us to take some action, we should think of ways to turn them into work. Now clearly Seth can't turn surprise discoveries of Devo performances into a job - or, ok actually he could, I would totally pay him to accidentally stumble on Devo shows, that sounds amazing - but the compulsion is the signal. Follow it.
Work Question For You: When was the last time your instincts moved faster than your thinking - and what did you find on the other side?
LIFE: She Left A Piano In The Corner
"My mother died. She got sick and died very suddenly when I was four and a half. She got bitten by the wrong mosquito. She got encephalitis and died in the span of a week basically. And she was a pianist, and her piano is a couple rooms away over there in the corner of the house. And after she was gone, I started going down to the piano and just sort of hanging out with it. There was some charge there. I guess it was a way to find her. And the sound of those two instruments together - it's no longer just me playing the piano alone, but it's two people together - and that really sticks with me. I realized, 'Oh, this is maybe... This is my way into the world.' And as a matter of fact, it was."
Key Concept: Grief doesn't always announce itself as grief - sometimes it shows up as an unexplained pull toward a room, an object, a sound. Seth didn't go to his mother's piano because someone told him to. He went because something in him needed to. That instinct became a portal - first into feeling, then into connection, then into a life built around music and writing. The instrument didn't change. What it held did.
Personal Archive Note-To-Self: Just like Seth knew to bow and leave after the Devo song - he did not stick around and make it weird - sometimes life will abruptly end a moment, and there won't be any kindness in its lack of closure.
Seth losing his mom was the opposite of his Devo experience in that way. When there's a substantial shift in life and we lose access to a point we used to take for granted, the only thing to do is to establish a new point. It can help if there's a throughline. Not to replace what we've lost, but to honor some connection, and push us in the direction of growth.
I love to hear Seth tell the story about his mom's music. I love that he started learning the instrument and connecting with it, to help him not only heal but grow in a new direction. Life is a series of openings and endings - knowing how to deal with our cracked-open-ness is everything.
Life Question For You: What object, place, or habit in your life might be carrying more emotional weight than you've ever stopped to name?
LEGACY: There Are Other Ways To Organize A Life
"This world that we helped create was in many ways a good world. It took care of marginalized people, it took care of outcasts, it took care of runaways, it took care of really brilliant people who had no other way to slot into society... My point being, this world that we helped create was in many ways a good world, and part of my shadow mission in writing about it is to sort of demonstrate that. Like, yeah, we live in a world that is so intensely controlled feeling and surveilled... But it's not the only way. Not that long ago, people created this other way of organizing themselves, and they made really beautiful art, and they took care of each other."
Key Concept: Seth isn't writing about the DC punk scene out of nostalgia. He's writing about it as evidence - proof that people have organized themselves differently before, and made something worth keeping. The shadow mission underneath the memoir is an argument: the world you're living in isn't the only one that has ever existed, and the distance between here and something better might be shorter than it looks.
Personal Archive Note-To-Self: My own experience in music scenes, my own nostalgia for the bands and shows and feelings, is rooted in when the shared experience mattered more than anything else. Now, I know as a 40-something guy versus a 14-year-old kid some of that's standard, youthful naivete. But, BUT - I also can't forget that feeling and, like Seth, I think there's a balancing act.
Counter culture exists away from culture. Alternative is never mainstream. These are beeyooooteeful places to be. For some of us, they're even great places to be. We thrive when we're apart from the standard ways, and we all have our reasons for feeling that separation, and personal definition through the anti-stance we're called to take.
This is a part of society that matters. Helping people be off in the corner at an all ages show, without feeling lonely or isolated or like you're the only kid who cares about a Fugazi instrumental in the whole wide world - this is a great mission I can get behind right now. The weird kids always felt alone. Then they grew up and now, as weird adults, it's our job to help more people connect.
Legacy Question For You: What community or moment in your own past demonstrated a different way of living - and what would it mean to document it before it disappears?
BEFORE YOU GO: Be sure to…
Connect with Seth on LinkedIn
Read Death Trip and follow his writing at Dispatches from the Fringe
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.
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
