I want you to meet the cool people I get to meet. That’s why I write the Grow Your Network posts. And, it’s a big part of why I do the different interview types I do, but I also know that’s a lot of fly-on-the-wall time for the average person, so it’s occurred to me I should do more of these clip shows a bit more often.

Plus, the Work/Life/Legacy structure lends itself just as well to video, too, right?

The Intentional Investor is off to quite the start this year. I’ve gotten more stories I never saw coming than I can begin to cover, but I wanted to pull three of the best lessons into a short episode in case you wanted to go deeper. Here’s a teaser of each.

Roger Mitchell, after the best podcast opener Meatloaf story ever (“Mr. Loaf, Mr. Loaf!” IYKYK), gets to a story about Gianni Infantino, the current FIFA chief. A friend explains his rise and we get Roger’s reaction, then unpacking of the lessons from it. And he reflects on his own career arc, what he might tell his young adult children, and more. This is WORK.

Gary Mishuris, with the best 80s Russian soda machine coin hacks you’ve ever heard (IYKYK, again) goes deep on a matchbox hustling scheme that almost pays off too well. In a moment of truth, he finds his own integrity and you can feel how it sticks with him going forward. From eventually arriving in the US, to a prestigious education and an early career at Fidelity, he can’t shake the integrity bug. He leaves to start his own firm and the rest is history. This is LIFE.

Ted Merz, who did more at/for Bloomberg than possibly everyone except Michael Bloomberg (IYKYK, ahem, again) tells this story about being let go after 30 years of service. How he thought he knew people. How he thought he had a network. But - did he? As it turns out, he did not, and it took a colleague pointing out: If you don’t tell your story, no one else will. His networking adventures began there and he hasn’t slowed down since. This is about communities, growing a network, and learning to be visible in the least conventional and traditional ways. This is LEGACY.

The thread I see here is integrity. It’s a genuine sense of self, that all three possess, that pushes them beyond any external system’s boundaries. They can see those systems, and their rules (Roger with Gianni’s success, Gary with both the street hustle tricks and Fidelity politics stories, Ted with the Bloomberg buildout experience), and when they’re aligned compared to when they’re not.

Those games, those companies - they want to make you smaller than you are. But you’re exactly the size you want to be. Those intentions, hence the name of the show they’re drawn from, are everything.

These are just a sampling of the stories in The Intentional Investor. If any of these people or ideas resonate, reach out to them. Tell them where you saw the clip. You never know what might happen next. That’s part of the fun.