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- Playing With Networking Weekly Recap (12/27/2025)
Playing With Networking Weekly Recap (12/27/2025)
A year of intentional listening, a framework for doing less, and why depth matters more than ever
Matt Zeigler
December 27, 2025
Let's connect some dots from this week's notes...
But first - happy anniversary, Valle! Another “good” year (re: s’wonderful, beeyooteeful, and further proof the best things happen while you’re dancing).
photo credit: my sister in law, Kelly, who caught us being cute on Christmas day)
If you're getting these as daily posts and thinking you'd prefer the weekly recaps instead, head to the website, look for settings in the top right, and switch your preference. Same posts, different cadence.
Fifty-two posts. One song per week. A full year of listening mapped out with all the thinking behind it - not a "Spotify Wrapped" thing, but a map of what moved you and why. The habit of paying attention to music is really just the habit of staying intentional in a world designed to move you too fast to notice. LISTEN to the list on Spotify or Apple!
Quote from the Personal Archive - on why this habit keeps you alive
"Take this as a discipline disguised as joy. Take this as a way I've learned, in my 30s and into my 40s that I make sure I still listen to music carefully, wonder out loud about what it's trying to tell me, and look for the patterns across the rest of my life."
Here's the frame that cuts through heading into 2026: Why are you doing it? What does it do? Who's it for? What transformation is at its core? Is it enterprise or boutique? The real power sits in that last question - because misframing your offer is the fastest way to feel like you're failing when you're actually working exactly right.
Quote from the Personal Archive - on why everything depends on the last answer
"If you frame something as enterprise but run it like a boutique, you'll constantly feel like you're behind and never able to keep up with quality at scale. If you frame something as boutique but judge it by enterprise metrics, you'll feel like a failure even if it's actually working."
Once you know what you're building, here's where you actually fit: Enterprise B2B (repeatable playbooks), Enterprise B2C (narrative and performance channels), Boutique B2B (one reference call opens three more), or Boutique B2C (the experience becomes the sales mechanism). Salesforce, Netflix, Louis Vuitton, and your neighborhood handyman - all different, all right in their boxes.
Quote from the Personal Archive - on what shouldn't scale
"Marketing is sales at scale. Not everything that matters should be scaled. That's slowly becoming the theme of my life. How did so many of us forget this?"
Here's the paradox: a year-end clip show to argue against clip shows. If all you do is consume TikTokified shorts, you're working with puzzle pieces and never seeing the picture. These highlights are invitations back into the full conversations - trailers, not movies. Because listening is where you really feel alive.
Quote from the Personal Archive - on why depth matters
"Real friendship is helping someone move the couch. These aren't 'scrolling on the couch' clips; they're help move the couch conversations."
The quiet on Christmas Eve hits different - after the festivities, before the chaos. Joe Pass solo, guitar becoming a piano becoming an orchestra, six strings doing things that shouldn't be possible. The layers of "White Christmas" drift without needing the lyrics to land.
Quote from the Personal Archive - on peace in craft
"Joe Pass doesn't even need the words to tell it. It almost sounds like a dream. It floats in the air. Just like snow."
"Santa Claus and His Old Lady" is to Christmas what "Alice's Restaurant" is to Thanksgiving - the weird tradition that somehow becomes essential. A story about hippies and communes that made you laugh, think, and feel hopeful all at once. These songs that barely fit the holidays remind you why you need them.
Quote from the Personal Archive - on what traditions actually do
"When you encounter the feeling somebody else gets from their traditions, it's ok to take a little from it, or borrow from it. They're all about the feeling."
Where Else I Showed Up This Week
Click Beta is back on Excess Returns this week, with me, Dave Nadig and Cameron Dawson - it’s a wide-ranging year-end conversation on what worked, failed, and what markets revealed about diversification, concentration risk, and real assets. We moved between efficient frontiers and innovation struggles, then talked Christmas movies, traditions, and some seriously weird pet-gift stories that, you have to hear it to believe it.
Personal Archive Prompts
What's the discipline you most want to keep alive in 2026, and why does it matter enough to protect?
WHO DO YOU NEED TO INTRODUCE TO EACH OTHER IN THE YEAR AHEAD?
What does "intentional" actually mean in your day-to-day, and where are you faking it?
How many times this year did you skip something that moved you because you thought you didn't have time?
What tradition have you borrowed from someone else that became unexpectedly essential?
DO YOU SPEND MORE TIME SCROLLING THE CLIPS OR SITTING WITH THE FULL CONVERSATION?
When was the last time you felt quiet the way Joe Pass sounds?
As always, I did my part, now it's your turn to write some reflections in your own Personal Archive.
(then, be sure to let me know where you're keeping it, I'm in search of the others too)
ps. Claude helped me organize and synthesize these thoughts from the week's posts. If you are curious how I use AI, read this post: Did AI Do That: Personal Rules