Playing With Networking (Weekly Recap 5/31/2025)

Author

Matt Zeigler
May 31, 2025

Let's connect some dots from this week's notes...

But first: Did you know you can now sign up for this weekly email ONLY? That's right. If my dailies are clogging your inbox, I've got you. Open this email in your browser, then click > the profile icon in the top right > manage subscriptions > preferences (on the menu on the left) > select daily or weekly > and it will auto save! Click reply with any questions.

On to the recap…

This post uses Elizabeth Banks' commencement speech to challenge the scarcity mindset that dominates competitive environments. Banks shares a college story about choosing family over grades, illustrating how her professor treated her as an adult with agency rather than someone entitled to exceptions. The core message dismantles "The Myth of the Pie" - the zero-sum belief that success is finite. Instead of competing for fixed slices, Banks advocates creating your own opportunities through producing, writing, directing, and entrepreneurship. The post connects this to personal experience with corporate ladder-climbing versus pie-growing, concluding that we're entitled to nothing but capable of everything when we focus on expanding opportunities rather than fighting over them.

Quote from the (Personal) Archive: "Stop competing and start beating the pie lie." Amen Banks. This is water, and that was the pie lie.

This post explores Christina Garnett's "breadcrumb" metaphor for business building - creating social content that connects to positive memories rather than direct sales pitches. The author brings back Eric Markowitz, who's writing about endurance and longevity, to examine how breadcrumbs compound over time. Key insights emerge: focus on current customers rather than chasing new ones, build genuine value-driven content, and develop real relationships that span generations. Using examples like 400-year-old Lock & Co. Hatters, the piece argues that sustainable growth comes from deepening relationships rather than scaling to the moon. The breadcrumb strategy becomes both daily nourishment and a trail back to meaningful connections, emphasizing survival and compound growth through culture and generosity rather than extraction.

Quote from the (Personal) Archive: "How do we survive long enough to compound? Like, what are the fundamental ideas that we need to embody so that we're here tomorrow and we're here the next day, the next week, the next month, the next decade?"

This networking feature profiles Eric Markowitz, author of the upcoming book "Outlast" about businesses that survive centuries rather than quarters. The post extracts three key lessons from their conversation: First, shifting from growth obsession to customer obsession by spending 80% of time listening to existing customers rather than chasing new ones. Second, dropping breadcrumbs instead of building walls by sharing work-in-progress to build community rather than waiting for perfection. Third, recognizing that innovation flows up from front-line workers, not down from leadership, creating resilient organizations that adapt beyond any single person's vision. Each lesson includes personal reflections on corporate limitations and opportunities for growth, emphasizing sustainable relationship-building over short-term metrics.

Quote from the (Personal) Archive: (Eric’s quote!) "Innovation doesn't come from the top, it comes from the bottom. It comes from the worker who is actually working on the product or on the service, and those ideas filter up to the top. And the only reason it works is because the top is open to the idea of what the line worker actually is suggesting."

This post celebrates the magical career arc of Jamie Vardy, who went from factory worker and semi-professional player at 25 to Premier League legend. The piece highlights the poetic perfection of his journey: signed by Leicester City for £1 million on May 18, 2012, and retiring exactly 13 years later on May 18, 2025, with his 200th goal and 500th appearance. The author reflects on how Vardy's story embodies why sports are magical - defying 5000-1 odds when Leicester won the Premier League, and even greater odds for his personal transformation. Rather than seeking statistical explanations, the post embraces the wonder of impossible dreams realized through relentless tenacity, using Vardy's journey as inspiration for approaching life with full aliveness and refusing to accept limitations.

Quote from the (Personal) Archive: "I want to hold onto a fraction of that tenacity in my approach to life, in my approach to living, in my approach to knowing I'm acting fully alive, every day."

This networking feature profiles Andrew Cohen, former Goldman Sachs trader turned Old Dominion University professor who survived the Bernie Madoff scandal. The post extracts three transformative lessons: First, focusing on learning over grades, recognizing that true professional growth comes from absorbing knowledge rather than chasing perfect scores. Second, finding silver linings in random setbacks, illustrated by how a poppy seed bagel drug test failure led to his teaching career via Madoff. Third, discovering that helping others beats making money, as his shift from Wall Street extraction to academic contribution brought deeper fulfillment. Each lesson includes personal reflections on the randomness of life and the importance of measuring success by what we give rather than what we take.

Quote from the (Personal) Archive: (Andrew’s quote!) "I tell you, being in academia has been wonderful. I've loved teaching there... it's so much better being in a place where you're helping people, like teaching, rather than when I was on Wall Street just trying to suck money out of it, you know?"

This reflective piece on love, community, and belonging triggered by George Wendt's passing and revisiting the final scene of Cheers. The post explores Norm's wisdom about love being total acceptance "without judgment" and how you can "never be unfaithful to your one true love" - you always come back. The author connects this to his own experience in the late 90s NEPA music scene, where strangers became community through shared experiences and songs, creating lasting memories and bonds that transcend individual relationships. The piece argues that love exists in our state of being rather than our stated identity, and that we often complicate what should be simple presence and enjoyment.

Quote from the (Personal) Archive: (Cheers quotes abound in this one, but come on!)"You can never be unfaithful to your one true love. You always come back to her... Think about it Sam."

Where Else I Showed Up This Week

Jason Buck, Dave Nadig and I are back with a brand new Click Beta (these are just so much fun, and I’m extra happy we’re recording them, because it might as well be a regular call we’d do anyway). And, TO THE PEOPLE WHO WANTED ME TO TALK ABOUT WAGATHA CHRISTIE - I HEARD YOU, DON’T MISS THIS ONE:

If you want to learn some finance topics like you’re 5, check out this series we’re doing on excess returns (so far Mat Cashman has taught me about a famous volatility math shortcut anybody can use, and Kris Abdelmessih explained why puts and calls are the same thing AND not all that scary with a spreadsheet his 6th grader made).

Jack Forehand and I also pulled a bunch of our favorite Mike Green clips together for a fun perspective on his investing ideas,

Personal Archive Prompts (for you):

What "pie" are you currently competing for that might actually be a scarcity myth you could transcend by creating your own opportunities?

HOW ARE YOU LEAVING BREADCRUMBS IN YOUR DAILY WORK THAT CONNECT TO POSITIVE MEMORIES RATHER THAN DIRECT SALES PITCHES?

Where in your career are you focusing on grades and external validation instead of genuine learning and skill development?

WHAT SILVER LINING HAVE YOU DISCOVERED IN A RECENT SETBACK THAT INITIALLY SEEMED PURELY NEGATIVE?

How are you measuring success - by what you extract from others or what you contribute to their growth?

What impossible dream are you refusing to accept limitations on, and where can you channel Vardy-like relentless tenacity?

WHAT COMMUNITIES OR RELATIONSHIPS DO YOU KEEP RETURNING TO BECAUSE THEY REPRESENT YOUR "ONE TRUE LOVE" OF BELONGING AND SHARED EXPERIENCE?

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)