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

This week was about recognizing what actually compounds. Not comparison, not performance, not the shortcuts everyone else is taking. It's obsession without apology. It's self-respect when the world wants you to chase someone else's metrics. It's showing up as yourself consistently enough that trust becomes the only currency that matters. It's being present to the room instead of optimizing for the efficient path.

The week started with curation and ended with community. In between, we watched three people refuse to choose between their identities, their values, and their ambition. That refusal - that's the throughline.

This is obsession made audible. A 90-minute mixtape where every song choice is a note to yourself about what keeps intruding on your mind - Allison Wolfe's riot grrrl energy, A$AP Rocky's nerdy style, Gary Numan's synths making you go bananas in the car. The playlist isn't just music; it's evidence of what you're paying attention to, the ideas and artists and sonic textures that won't leave you alone. And instead of fighting that obsession, you're building it into something others can hear.

Quote from the Personal Archive - when the songs choose you

"I said I'd get back on this in 2026 and I'm coming out the gate strong."

The distinction here is everything. Addiction has that despite - despite harmful consequences, despite adverse effects, you keep going. Obsession doesn't carry that weight. It's the thought that keeps preoccupying your mind, but it doesn't hurt you or break you. It just won't leave. And that's actually the sign you're onto something real - something you actually want to execute on, even if other people think it's weird. The world wants you to apologize for your obsessions. This post says: don't.

Quote from the Personal Archive - the permission you didn't know you needed

"A little human obsession is the sign that you're onto something you actually want to do and have the motivation to execute it on, beyond what others who might think it's weird, are capable of."

Self-respect is the foundation that holds everything else together. Not the respect of others - that's the trap. When you're content with yourself and you stop comparing, you build a boundary that people either respect or they don't. But here's what changes: you stop needing them to. The Tao knows it. Aretha knew it. Otis knew it. And the moment you stop measuring yourself against Beyoncé or anyone else at your age, you're finally free to build the thing that's actually yours.

Quote from the Personal Archive - the comparison game ends here

"Self respect first. That's it. That's the message."

Drew is the embodiment of refusing to choose. He was a filmmaker, screenwriter, director - making art, living with variable income, pitching projects that mostly didn't happen. Then he discovered he had a gift for helping people understand their money. Instead of abandoning one world for the other, he recognized that the entrepreneurial muscle he built in theater transfers perfectly to financial advising. Prospecting for clients is just pitching screenplays to a different audience. The skills don't change; only the domain does. He's living proof that you don't have to amputate parts of yourself to be successful in a new industry.

Quote from the Personal Archive - skills are more transferable than you think

"In many ways nothing has changed about my life...Right now I'm prospecting like crazy and reaching out to people who I think I can help. So it's really not that different."

The conversation with Drew is LIVE now:

Jason quit Merrill Private Wealth on Cinco de Mayo 2022 to build something genuinely useful: a way for people to actually find the right advisor instead of settling for whoever's in their network. Three years later, Advisor Finder is connecting people with advisors managing $2.3 trillion. But the real insight isn't about the business - it's about how he built it. Trust takes years to build and seconds to lose. He doesn't fake it. He shows up as himself, even when it would be easier and more "professional" to perform. That text to the PE CEO - casual, off-the-fly, genuine - is a permanent record of choosing authenticity over the buttoned-up version everyone expected. The people who matter most remember you not for how polished you were, but for how real you were.

Quote from the Personal Archive - authenticity as the only sustainable competitive advantage

"It takes years to build a reputation and seconds to lose...Being genuine has paid off really nicely."

Ted spent 32 years at Bloomberg building something extraordinary - and then 2022 happened. Instead of retreating, he did what most people won't: he started from scratch. The realization hit him immediately: he had a network concentrated in one place, which meant it evaporated the moment he left. Community is different. Community is built across time, across contexts, across generations. It's not extractive; it's cultivated. He learned early (at 18 in Norway, not speaking the language, figuring out what to do with an egg) that you can't learn certain things by imitation. Sometimes you have to power through without a safety net. The legacy insight is harder: efficiency isn't effective. Being in the room matters more than reading about it. Being present to unfamiliar environments matters more than staying comfortable with what you know. Most of us optimize for efficiency. The people who build something that lasts optimize for presence.

Quote from the Personal Archive - the room beats the desk

"Where are the environments or the places, and have you been in them? Do you know them? Can you get into them?... Are you in the room? With what people?"

This one flips the lens from personal authenticity to institutional credibility. When ICE operations in Minneapolis get reframed as a crisis response versus perpetrators of violence depending on the narrative moment, you’re watching real-time institutional erosion. The data tells a specific story: “police as public servants” stays flat and negative - not improving, but not collapsing either. “Police as violent” keeps rising. That’s a widening credibility gap. The insight isn’t about whether the operations are right or wrong; it’s about what happens when enforcement continues without the legitimacy that makes it sustainable. Institutions don’t fail because people disagree with them. They fail when people stop believing they’re authentic - when the gap between stated purpose and observed action becomes too wide to bridge. This week’s personal stories show what happens when you stay authentic. This piece shows what happens at scale when you don’t.

Quote from the Personal Archive - the credibility gap that changes everything

“You don’t want to see enforcement without legitimacy, policy without credibility, or more orders being executed by institutions nobody believes in.”

Kevin Muir (The Macro Tourist) came on Excess Returns to talk about macro narratives, contrarian positioning, and why the story you tell yourself about markets matters as much as the data.

We also launched a special Market Recap video on Excess Returns featuring the best ideas from January 2026 - think best of last month’s deep dives made short and relevant for now - plus brand new interview segments with Brent Kochuba (Spot Gamma), Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theory), and Kai Wu (Sparkline Capital). If nothing else, watch the absurd

What obsession have you been apologizing for that's actually pointing you toward something real?

ARE YOU MEASURING YOURSELF AGAINST SOMEONE ELSE'S TIMELINE, OR BUILDING YOUR OWN?

Who in your life has shown you that you don't have to choose between your identities to be successful?

what would it feel like to text someone the way you actually talk, instead of the way you think you should?

BUILD A NETWORK THAT SURVIVES LEAVING. WHO ARE YOU CONNECTING WITH ACROSS TIME AND CONTEXTS, NOT JUST IN ONE PLACE?

What room have you been thinking about entering for years but haven't actually walked into?

If you had to power through something without imitation or a safety net, what would you discover about yourself?

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