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... Tyrone Ross!

Do you know Tyrone Ross? He's an Olympic hopeful turned financial advisor who brings the discipline of elite athletics to the world of financial empowerment through his work at 401 Financial and Turnkey Labs.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Tyrone is one of those rare people who understands that heroic acts aren't exclusive to superheroes - they happen in coaching sessions, financial planning meetings, and every moment you choose to lift someone else up instead of leaving them behind.

I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the commitment to start where people actually are, not where you wish they were, and build forward from there with radical honesty and unwavering belief in their potential.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you'll hear how Olympic training, superhero origin stories, and financial coaching all connect through one central truth: belief in yourself is the first step, but taking action is what changes everything.

THREE: That's The Magic Number of Lessons

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Tyrone Ross 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: Hunger Is Your Unfair Advantage

Key Concept: Scarcity forges something that abundance can't manufacture - desperate resourcefulness. Tyrone's point isn't that poverty is good, but that the hunger it creates is a real asset. When everything else is equal, the person who learned to move with urgency because they had to will outpace the person who was never forced to.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: Life is a constraints game. Yes, an “abundance mindset” or, at least, not solely thinking in terms of survival is a great step towards figuring out how to flourish and thrive. But, without constraints, you don’t have any points of tension. Without tension there’s no contrast. And without tension, there’s no conflict, or way to overcome the resistance required for us to get stronger, in all the ways.

There’s a societal level here, and Tyrone and Neils went deep into that in our conversation, but even at the work layer, exclusively, the hungry lion attitude can apply to anyone, no matter what their circumstance. I’m thinking of one of Greg Larkin’s frameworks that I love, the obstructionist mindsets. These are the people in every company, organization, and even social circle you will have to understand how to work with if you ever want to find your advantage and advance your causes.

Living scarcity, knowing how it feels to want, and having the sensation somewhere in your psyche if not in your bones, is a superpower for every other time you will inevitably run into a “no.” A hungry lion approach doesn’t know “no.” This is about how scarcity becomes a source for strategy.

I will trade you all of your abundance literature for scarcity stories, any day of the week. Not to celebrate the injustices of obstructionists who put people in those places. But, because, I want to make sure everyone knows - these stories are all of our stories. If they can do it, you can do it too.

Work question for you: What have you been treating as a deficit that's actually been your greatest teacher?

LIFE: Meet People Where They Actually Are

Key Concept: Real help doesn't start with where you wish people were - it starts with where they actually are. Tyrone refuses the stigma that separates 'financial literacy' (for certain people) from 'financial planning' (for everyone). He insists on financial planning for everyone, regardless of zip code or circumstance.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: The greatest harm the behavioral psychology literature has unintentionally brought to humanity, has to be making so many professionals (especially in finance, but medicine and marketing you're in here too) think in terms of helping to fix people's biases.

Just the idea of fixing people because you can diagnose their biases - it's a little useful and a lot dangerous. But there's an extension of what Tyrone is saying that's useful without being dangerous.

You can't change what got people to today. You can observe the types of decisions they make and how to improve their potential outcomes. But it's what follows next - in any assumption that the forward decisions can be guided by facts or shaped by rationality, that gets me (and, apparently, Tyrone).

The word "financial education" is a good start. It says you are at least literate, you've spent a dollar before, maybe we can educate you on how to save a dollar now too. I love the humility in that. And it tees up the next part, about planning, where you start with where you're at, and then you have a coach, or a partner, or maybe even an advisor, to assist you on the path of what outcome you want to pursue next.

You don’t have to fix the world, you just have to help people out. The people who think they know how to fix the world turn into supervillains. The people who think they know how to help turn into superheroes, sometimes, but mostly, world-altering (super) servants.

Life Question For You: Where in your life are you giving advice to people instead of first understanding their actual reality?

LEGACY: Educate, Empower, and Endow

Key Concept: Legacy work isn't a one-time intervention - it's a commitment to return. The "endow" piece is what separates visiting speakers from lasting change. You show up, you lift people, and then you come back with more resources. That repetition and sustained investment is what transforms circumstances.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: Tyrone's quote comes fresh off of a Just Press Record with Eric Pachman, where Eric spoke about wanting to start more projects that will continue beyond his lifetime. Not to memorialize his ego, but because the size and the scale of those projects will ensure he is focused on bringing more people into the mission, to continue the project beyond his lifetime.

When Tyrone talks about legacy, I feel the same weight, I feel the same existential nuance. You can teach. You can lift people up. You can do those things for them. You will only succeed if you do those things with them. But the real move is to endow - and not just money or capital, but ideas.

Start a project, start a mission, get people on board, and set the sights, targets and goals way up in the sky and way far out into the future. If the goal of planting the tree is for your grandkids to have shade, you don't just have work to do today to make sure the roots and the space around it are properly cared for - you have an entire generation beneath you to convince to come on board with your mission too.

I believe we (as in me, and you, and everyone in conversation with this episode and post right now) are not the whole future. Sure, we're a part of it - but there's a lot of others in the future with us. If you truly want a better future, this is a conversation we need to make sure keeps happening up to and way after we're all gone.

Legacy question for you: What community or group of people do you need to commit to returning to, not just visiting?

BEFORE YOU GO: Be sure to...

• Connect with Tyrone Ross on Twitter/X at @TR401 and LinkedIn as Tyrone V Ross Jr.

• Follow him on Instagram at Tyrun401

• Check out his work at 401 Financial and Turnkey Labs

• Take a moment to reflect on your own origin story and the maps you're building

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.