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- Playing With Networking Weekly Recap - 12/6/2025
Playing With Networking Weekly Recap - 12/6/2025
The Art of Curation (in a Faster Story World)
Matt Zeigler
December 06, 2025
Let's connect some dots from this week's notes...
There's a thread running through everything this week: intention. How we choose what to pay attention to, how we build what matters at the smallest scale first, how we listen instead of performing, and how the fastest story doesn't always win but spreads anyway. From music discovery to brand building to the people we're becoming, this week was about recognizing that depth lives in the details, and real connection happens when we slow down enough to actually hear each other.
A quick note on preferences: If you're reading this and thinking "I'd rather get these daily" - view this email online and then head to your profile settings in the top right, and switch to daily delivery. Or, if you're the opposite and want only the weekly recap, make sure daily is toggled off. You control the cadence here.
A college floormate handed me a CD in 2000 with a Madlib track that led me down a decades-long rabbit hole of samples, stories, and connections across generations. I traced that sample to John Phillips and a 1970 film I'd never heard of, understanding for the first time how curation works - it's a golden thread connecting eras. But Spotify just bought WhoSampled, the tool that made discovery possible, and suddenly I'm terrified. When the platform that stores infinite music also owns the enforcement mechanism, what happens to the artists who built careers on clearing samples?
Quote from the Personal Archive - the stakes of what we lose
"I don't want to lose this music. I don't want to lose this discovery. I don't want to lose that connection between what can be discovered and what makes it interesting."
Before you scale to a million people, you have to understand how to help one person - really help them, not just your brother or a college friend. Danny Meyer spent ten years perfecting one restaurant, refusing to open a second. His daughter built Caffe Panna by collaborating with fans on the menu. The unsexy truth is that small things are where real magic happens. You prove your idea works at the smallest scale, make sure you actually love it, then figure out how to put more of that love into the world. That deepening comes before the spread.
Quote from the Personal Archive - the unsexy first step
"If you can nail something, and I mean really nail it, on the smallest scale possible, you might not change the world, but you'll change some people's experience with the world as you've reset it, ever so slightly."
Jordi Hays and John Coogan built TBPN into something the New York Times called "SportsCenter for LinkedIn," but that's not what makes it work. They tapped into a feeling they both loved: live news energy. They focused on making it for the 200,000 people they imagine in tech, harnessing an internal feeling at scale. Brand is what people feel when they experience what you do. The infectious fun they're having is the brand.
Quote from the Personal Archive - feeling over positioning
"A great brand is the culmination of what you made a group of people feel over time."
Brad Fisher starts every consulting engagement with "Tell me your story." Chris Grimes starts by offering "a good listening to." Both have built entire careers around the rarest thing in the attention economy: genuine attention at the one-to-one level. They don't impose narrative, they don't fix anything - they help the story come out. And when it does, ideas emerge. Clarity emerges. Change emerges.
Quote from the Personal Archive - what listening actually does
"They listen. They don't impose narrative. They don't fix anything. They just help the story come out."
Chris embodies something I've been chasing: the ability to listen generously and extract human truth from every conversation. His work - The Good Listening Show, Legacy: Life Reflections, Second Curve UK - is all built on one principle: when you prioritize listening, people forget about the intimidating parts. The through-line of everything Chris does is finding what's already right in front of people and helping them see it more clearly. He's deepening what he's always been doing, refining it, putting it out into the world with intention.
Quote from the Personal Archive - as Chris pointed out about finding your next curve
"Sometimes, what you do next has been right in front of you all along."
Brad's son once called him "an insultant" - and it stuck because it captures something real about how he works. He doesn't have all the answers. He asks one good question and then shuts up and listens. Brad has also spent years helping people define their Island B, not what society expects but what they actually want. The gap between Island A and Island B is where real transformation happens. He doesn't create stories. He helps people discern their own.
Quote from the Personal Archive - the hardest leadership skill
"When you're listening to someone's story, the natural human tendency is to try to connect the dots and create a narrative of your own. When there's another person involved, you don't create the story. You try to listen. You try to discern what the story is."
Where Else I Showed Up This Week
I did back-to-back Excess Returns episodes that work beautifully as a pair - one on China policy, one on US policy. The framing across both is so sharp on how geopolitical strategy is reshaping everything from markets to culture.
It was also an honor to sit down with Jim Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer - a financial media legend I've respected for years. He's the real deal, and the conversation reflected that. Plus, he is so funny.
Personal Archive Prompts
WHAT DISCOVERIES ARE YOU PROTECTING? Make a list of the artists, ideas, or perspectives you'd hate to lose if the gatekeepers changed the rules.
WHO IS YOUR ISLAND B? Not what you think you should want - what do you actually want?
SCALE DOWN, NOT UP. What's one thing you're trying to scale that would actually be better if you just did it smaller, better, and more intentionally?
THE LISTENING TEST. When was the last time you asked a question and then gave someone real space to think before answering?
WHAT THREAD RUNS THROUGH YOUR WORK? Not your next pivot - your deepening. What keeps showing up?
BRAND AS FEELING. What do people actually feel when they interact with what you're building?
THE FASTER STORY. Where are you choosing the easier narrative over the harder truth? Where are you seeing others do it?
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