When institutional stories stop matching reality, the world changes overnight. Here are three techniques to help spot narrative shifts while they're building towards a shift. If there's one muscle you need to build in 2025, it's "why am I reading this now?"—because the bankruptcies, the whispers, and the hidden disconnects are already here.

Our Perscient narrative-tracking technology confirms Kyla Scanlon's work - "young Americans shut out" narratives consistently predict "degenerate economy" stories by several months.

We've compressed Frank Sinatra's "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere" into a TikTok-sized soundbite, and somehow lost the waterfront, the hope, and the weight of the times that made that sentiment mean something. Every American ideal – opportunity, courage, freedom – has been flattened into binary Twitter arguments that work great for algorithms but terribly for actual humans living actual lives. But compression isn't killing meaning, it's just distorting it, and music shows us the way back: small, live, communal experiences that can't be replicated without everyone spotting the fraud.

Aswath Damodaran, the "Dean of Valuation," reveals how he manages his own portfolio in this Excess Returns episode with Matt Zeigler and Justin Carbonneau — covering his philosophy on risk, position sizing, lifecycle diversification, and the hard lessons learned from decades of personal investing.

Nick Maggiulli's Wealth Ladder breaks down the six-level framework for understanding why some people break free from their current wealth level, and why most don't. In this Excess Returns episode, Matt Zeigler dives into the real barriers between wealth stages, from grocery freedom to travel freedom, and why your financial strategy needs to evolve as your net worth grows.

Grant Williams argues we're living through a once-in-a-century inflection point reshaping markets, institutions, and trust itself. In this Excess Returns episode, Matt Zeigler explores what's driving this pivot—from frozen Russian assets to central banks' gold buying—and why "buy the dip" may no longer work.

Think of Perscient storyboards as a way to track narratives in real-time so you can see reality before the story catches up.

For example, here are five insights on the housing market from Matt Zeigler's interview with Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, that come alive with new meaning through the narrative-tracking power of Perscient storyboards.

What does it mean to come of age during chaos—and how does that shape the generations who must lead us through it? We're flagging this thought-provoking episode of Rabbit Hole on Excess Returns, where Dave Nadig speaks with Neil Howe—author of The Fourth Turning Is Here—about the evolving role of Gen X in today's world, the generational dynamics underpinning societal shifts, and what history teaches us about crisis, community, and rebirth. This is not just a theory session—it’s a practical guide to understanding where we are in the cycle and what might come next.

What does a music producer have to teach a financial advisor? Everything. Matt Zeigler spent years chasing the Rick Rubin philosophy: listen deeply, reduce the noise, and trust what emerges. When a client asked "Can you make this sound more yellow?"—he realized he already understood the answer.