10 years ago I was in my high school English class, sitting attentively while we read through books like The Things We Carried. But 10 years later, being a good student led to meeting Steph Smith.

Like many people, I'm obsessed with My First Million. Sam Parr has built and sold The Hustle and has written some of my favorite things on the internet. As I've done internet sleuthing, I came across some of the early writers at The Hustle. Everyone knows Steph Smith and Trung Phan, but few people know Zachary Crockett.

Zachary Crockett was one of the earliest writers at The Hustle and now runs a podcast, The Economics of Everyday Things. Curious, I looked him up on LinkedIn. We had 1 mutual connection - My high school English Teacher.

I reached out to him asking if he was related to my English Teacher. He responded in a few minutes saying that she was his mom. We connected through writing and sent him a few pieces and eventually ended up grabbing lunch together.

During the lunch, we hit it off. Exchanging ideas back and forth was electric, like players in a jazz band, riffing off each other. At the end of the lunch, he said, "You'd really like one of my old colleagues, Steph Smith".

Soon, I got connected with Steph and met her at an event, thinking to myself, this has been 10 years in the making...