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 Steve Sanduski? He's an executive coach for RIA founders and CEOs, the founder of Belay Advisor, a host of Between Now and Success and Barron's Advisor, and a co-author of Tested in the Trenches.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Steve helped grow a coaching program from zero to nearly 1,000 advisors, walked away from it at 50 to start over on his own, and has logged nearly every workout, sailing trip, and year of his family’s net worth along the way.

I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: a lifelong habit of documenting the journey, paired with the willingness to leave the shore and try something new.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Epsilon Theory YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you'll hear about the Southern Cross, a very particular kind of left-handedness, and the song playing when he asked his future wife to dance.

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Steve Sanduski 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: When Steve left Carson, the platform he'd been standing on stayed behind. He built a small one of his own, and the podcast gave him a standing reason to ask people he didn't know yet for their time. The show was the vehicle, and the network was the point.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self:

I think this idea is at the core of every conversation I have with people around changing jobs, or after losing a job, or in a state of identity crisis (e.g. "I just feel like I could be doing so much more. I want to love what I'm doing not just like it. Help!").

How do you really assess what you currently have and if the grass is even there, let alone green or even greener on the other side? The ugly truth is that you can't. You will definitely find out, in hindsight, but in real time, you just aren't going to know how good (or bad) you have it.

So you jump. For Steve, that meant starting a podcast and reaching out to people he wanted to know. You try what Steve did and this becomes the second most important thing every time you're wondering about what to do next with your life. The most important thing is YOU. What you do, your habits, how you feel, what you're willing to try tomorrow, are still going to determine everything. If you change the setting around you, you'll still be you, and that becomes the part you really want to focus on, for any career journey changeup.

Work question for you: If your current platform disappeared tomorrow, what reason would you give yourself to start reaching out to the people you'd like to know?

Key Concept: Steve has logged his workouts since ninth grade, first in a binder and now in a spreadsheet. When a team reunion book asked for stories, that log gave him races he could recount in detail instead of reconstructing from memory. It was never written for an audience, and it paid off anyway when someone asked. The record keeps the facts so memory doesn't have to.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self:

There's memories, and then there's what you have a record of. Life might be experienced one moment at a time, but it's good to let some of it accumulate, especially the good bits, so you can really appreciate the whole experience. Steve gets this.

It's funny how most people don't do this. That means if you are wired this way - and maybe you log your workouts, or write a journal, or hey, have a PERSONAL ARCHIVE - you play an extra important role in creating a record to be shared with the others around you.

It shouldn't feel like an overwhelming responsibility, and if it does make sure you're friends with somebody who takes better notes, but if you enjoy the act of reflecting, know it has value. Maybe you won't get pulled into helping with a high school cross country book, but even if it's sharing old photos with friends who haven't seen them in a long time, we all need reminders of the journey life is.

Life Question For You: What's one thing you're living through right now that future you will be glad you wrote down?

Key Concept: Steve describes certain people as living threads back to history: a D-Day veteran next door, a queen, a Beatle. When one of them dies, the connection goes from something you can stand beside to something you can only remember. He sees being in their presence as a gift that exists only while they're here, which is why he once asked Eddie if he could simply touch his shoulder.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self:

History slowly exists in the pages of books and old pictures beyond our lifetime. It's natural for things that came before your time to feel old and a little strange. It's also natural, as you age, to realize that parts of your life and experience suddenly are old, or outdated, or likely to be forgotten in a generation or less.

These moments come down to stories. We all overlap others, in other generations a few steps removed from ours. We get to pick and choose which stories we continue to tell when the generation that owns them moves on. For the world wars, the stories of those battles will still be with us for a while, but in two generations, they'll be less common than they are today. It's worth thinking about this.

Because part of what we're doing is helping keep certain stories alive, and another part is being kind to the people, whose identities are at least in part based on those core experiences, to let them know that we saw it, before their understanding of life slowly recedes like a wave into the ocean of human existence.

Listening is so important. It signals this understanding. It's a part of why I do this series, and a part of why I'm obsessed with this Personal Archive project. We want to touch another person's shoulder, and we want our shoulder touched when it's time. It's the only part of legacy I know with certainty matters.

Legacy question for you: Who in your life is a living thread to a piece of history you'd hate to lose, and what would you want to say to them while they're still here?

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