New Home 21

It’s 9am on a Sunday, and my wife and I are currently 2 hours and 177 miles behind schedule. We’re sitting in a tire shop, with a screw puncturing the side wall on our front, passenger tire, and wondering why they’re blasting old episodes of “Saved by the Bell” so loudly.

There’s a guy directly across from us busy on his phone. He won’t say anything to us for the entirety of our wait. But there’s another guy coming inside, who just finished a cigarette out front, and now that he’s ready to sip his coffee as he sits down at our immediate left and eyes us up.

“Phillies fans, eh” he says. We both have Phillies hats on. This is not an episode of Sherlock Holmes.

“We are!” my wife politely tells him. I can already tell there’s a story here we’re about to get. My wife can too, we both have that weird thing where people look at us and want to overshare, but she’s not exactly in the mood for that and tries to change the subject quickly with, “What about you – who’s your team.”

“I like the Mets.” “Uh-oh,” my wife adds, jokingly. “Yeah, I just couldn’t ever support a team from Philadelphia, nothing good ever happens to me in that city,” he responds.

“Here we go,” I say to myself. My wife taps my leg to echo my thought. Somewhere above us Zack Morris is sweet talking a character named Stacey, that I can’t quite picture but I’ll swear she’s wearing a leather jacket in this scene, and he’s talking her into participating in the 4th of July Miss Liberty pageant. I somehow remember there’s a voting scandal or something in this episode but… ADHD takes back over and I look at the Mets fan who’s about to tell us a story.

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Do you know Bob Seawright? He’s a brilliant financial writer, sports enthusiast, and cross-generational community builder who writes “The Better Letter” on Substack.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Bob is someone who sees the deep connections between sports, investment philosophy, and human behavior across generations. He’s been a Manchester United fan since before the Premier League existed and coaches his grandchildren while watching games with them every weekend. I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the ability to find profound wisdom in everyday shared experiences, whether that’s a soccer match or a family gathering.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you’ll hear us dive deep into sports as community assets, the psychology of fandom across generations, and why accountability matters more than talent in building lasting success.

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“When I was a kid” is usually the sign of an incoming bad argument. Well, maybe not bad, but definitely flawed. And the person saying it usually isn’t acknowledging the flaw which is part of the issue.

Bob Seawright isn’t the type to avoid a flaw though. With him, it’s all and always about exposing nuance. So you have to pay extra close attention when he says, but mostly observes, that the shift from three TV stations when he was a kid to infinite streaming options today means way more of life has changed than just what we watch.

Infinite options means less common ground for starters. Not that topics have become uncommon, but with so many topics to choose from, we’ve come a long way from 100 million+ final Mash viewers to me wondering where the water cooler in some obscure corner of twitter is for the 67 people who watched what I otherwise believe to be an incredibly thoughtful Just Press Record solo episode with Matt Reustle.

Bob isn’t opining the death of monocultural experiences. That’s not his style. He is pointing out the nuance of finding new micro-cultural experiences to keep some quality in human existence.

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I can’t shake these 2023 survey stats:

• 86% said arts and culture improved their community’s quality of life
• 79% attended an artistic or cultural event in the past year
• 48% said they actively create: painting, making music, writing, crafting

Despite this, creative people still struggle to earn a living from their work:

• 85% of artists earn less than $25,000 a year (source)
• 13% of artists earn a full-time living from their practice (source)

86% of Americans benefit, so first off, who are those 14% and tell me they’re not even on Netflix or something, but sure, AND 85% earning $0-$24,999 I see and feel your frustration with this creator-consumer gap.

It’s brutal. But here’s what it really means for creators.

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Larry McMurtry said, “Incompetents invariably make trouble for people other than themselves.”

The definition of incompetent is more generous than the word feels: “not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.”

But if you invert the quote and the definition,

“Competents invariably eliminate trouble for people other than themselves.”

And “having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully,” this is telling.

Because if you’re competent, you reduce frictions.

If you’re incompetent, you create frictions.

If you’re competent you reduce burdens.

If you’re incompetent, you increase burdens.

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