🌱 The BEST ROI I’ve spent on personal development

Here’s your 3 insights in 3 minutes. 

⭐ Art of Accomplishment

This was the highest-ROI personal development investment I’ve ever made. 

I took Joe Hudson's Connection Course in October and can't recommend it enough.

(I’ve spent 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 on personal development over the years and my threshold for recommending something is extremely high.)

And here’s the funny part:

If you've talked to me the last few months I've brought this up (either in person or on this newsletter).

So now friends send me texts like these with updates, insights and breakthroughs from Joe’s content. Which brings us closer together with shared interest in emotional clarity, self awareness, and communication patterns.

For anyone who doesn’t know Joe: he’s the executive coach Sam Altman along with a handful of other top execs/ operators.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 is a 3-week training that teaches core interpersonal skills most people never learn: 

• emotional awareness

• clear communication

• conflict without escalation

• building genuine trust through honest communication

It’s a mix of guided lessons, partner exercises, and small-group sessions that give you real reps in the conversations that matter.

Here’s what I personally got from it:

• Clearer thinking → I can separate emotion from story & actually see what’s true

• Better conversations → more presence, less judgment, more clarity

• Stronger relationships → showing up differently with my partner, friends, and colleagues

• Higher self-awareness → I can spot (and shift) my old patterns (like “shoulding” myself) instead of replaying them

If curious to learn more I always recommend checking out their YouTube channel: Art of Accomplishment (it's awesome).

Or check out on LinkedIn here.

🧲 Perfection vs Connection

I used to think perfectionism meant I had high standards.

Now I see it more as fear dressed up in a disguise.

Fear of looking dumb, being rejected, or even worse, wasting an opportunity. (gasp)

Ironically, that fear led me to waste more opportunities by waiting for things to be “perfect.”

But through much experimentation, therapy, studying psychology, and courses like the Connection Course, I found a better aim.

Instead of aiming at perfection, I started aiming at connection. 

Here’s exactly what that means. 

1. Connection inward to yourself

   • Notice what you actually feel and want.

   • Less “I should” and more “I actually care about.”
     

2. Connection outward to what’s in front of you

   • One conversation. One email. One small project. One decision.

   • Full connection creates full completion…NOT a dozen half-finished loops waiting for “later.”
     

3. Connection across time (dots)

   • Small experiments and relationships become dots you can connect later.

   • Big opportunities are just clusters of well-connected dots.

The magic is how these layers COMPOUND.

Connection inward becomes a magnet for aligned people and projects.

Connection outward creates meaningful signals from the things you actually finish.

Connection across time reveals the patterns you couldn’t see before.

Notice how none of this requires “perfect conditions.”

It just requires showing up to what’s real.

Perfectionism tries to protect you, but really it just slows you down.

So next time you feel yourself stalling, that’s not a cue to wait… it’s an opportunity to start. 

Or in other words: 

Connect, don't perfect.

✨ Quote of the Week

Salud,
Mitchell 

Ps. This is my plant