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🎬 Sean Platt
Founder of Sterling & Stone | Co-Founder Invisible Ink Media (Ghostwriter for authors, thought leaders, and brands at Invisible Ink, seller of IP from our massive publishing library to TV and Film at S&S)
Sean Platt is a prolific author, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur based in Austin, Texas. He is the founder of Sterling & Stone, an intellectual property incubator that has produced over 400 titles, including 80+ bestsellers, and the co-founder of Invisible Ink Media, a ghostwriting company specializing in high-impact storytelling for elite clients such as entrepreneurs, celebrities, and thought leaders.12
Over the past decade, Sean has authored or co-authored hundreds of books across various genres, including the influential indie publishing guide Write. Publish. Repeat. and bestselling series like Yesterday's Gone. His work extends beyond books to screenplays and intellectual properties that have been adapted for film and TV.13
Sean emphasizes collaboration in storytelling, leveraging a curated team of 40+ writers to create impactful narratives. His companies are known for their innovative approaches to publishing and ghostwriting, focusing on creating legacy works rather than standard projects.12
Highlights
How to Turn Distraction into Direction
I was born with a scattered brain, but have been actively building fences to corral my behavior for twenty-two years now, ever since I knew that becoming a father would require more out of me as a person. Bringing a life into this world meant more command over my active presence in life was no longer a luxury.
Maybe you’re like me, and you have a difficult time focusing. Maybe you like to check Slack or email or do just about anything else other than the work that’s right in front of you when it gets hard. I’m most likely to check Slack, not when someone messages me, but when I hope that someone has messaged me, after I get snagged on what I should write next.
I’m better at meditation than ever, but still have a hummingbird brain more often than not. A few years back, I finally figured out that I could never still my brain entirely. So instead of trying to quiet those thoughts, I now work to redirect them.
I started this year with a promise that whenever I found my mind wandering, I would ask myself one of the three following questions, depending on the task at hand:
- Am I doing the thing that I’m doing?
- Is this something I can prototype?
- Does this behavior align with my goals for this year?
That first one is the most important. I need to always be “doing the thing I’m doing.” It’s a more specific way of saying, “stay present.” If I’m writing, I need to stay off Slack. Same for if I’m in a meeting. If I’m in a conversation with someone, I need to stay in that conversation without thinking about anything else. If I’m watching a movie or TV show, then my phone should not even be within reach.
Figuring out ways to automate my decision-making to foster action is always worth the investment for me.
Any time I feel like my mental energy is weaker than it should be, I ask myself if there’s something about the situation itself that can be improved by building a system around it. Anything from what kinds of work I schedule for different times of day, to every part of the writing process.
That last question requires the most honesty, especially considering how easy it is to convince myself that I thrive on spontaneity and impulse. When I catch myself drifting from task to task or diving down yet another unproductive rabbit hole, asking myself if my current behavior aligns with my goals can be a serious buzzkill, but it’s also a compass to steer me back on course every time.
Consistently asking myself these questions turns kaleidoscope thoughts into clear vision, focusing my energies on building the life I want instead of the one that is happening to me.
Your questions are probably different from mine, but I bet coming up with three and being willing to ask them at the right (and perhaps uncomfortable) times will make your flow easier to find.
Today is a Day Out of Time
February 29th is and always will be a special day for me.
"But Sean, don’t you have like 47 days like that every year, because you’re absurdly sentimental?"
Well, yes, though 47 sounds like a slight exaggeration. Still, leap years have more magic than those other days because they stand as the calendar’s gift to us all. A bonus track in the album of our lives.
Ancient Greeks paused Olympic training to celebrate the gift of an extra day. A timekeeper's nod to cosmic balance, correcting our human-made calendars to the Earth's celestial rhythms, offering us an extra 24 hours to catch up with the sun, while also catching our breath.
As days blend into weeks, and weeks into months, how can an extra day not feel magical? I greet leap years as an invitation to pause, reflect, and embrace the inherent possibility in that additional 24 hours. At least I'm supposed to.
How did I spend the last day when Earth corrected her calendar? I’m embarrassed to admit that I remember no specifics, but there is zero doubt I was working.
In 2000, I got off work early, then me and Cindy went to see Wonder Boys, followed by dinner at Cafe Piccolo, the restaurant where I would propose the following year.
In 2004, our daughter was two years old and Cindy was five-months pregnant with our son, so we were already on a long hiatus from the movies. But we ordered from Piccolo, got our food to go, and had a carpet picnic on our living room floor.
In 2008, we had our preschool and were committed to our wee ones from sunup to sundown. We explained the magic of leap year, made art to celebrate, then said good night with a double feature of Ratatouille and Meet the Robinsons before an extra late bedtime.
In 2012, Sterling & Stone was in its infancy. Besides worrying about the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar, I clocked out early and we greeted the children with a special dinner and desserts when they got home from school. (We were not really worried about the apocalypse.)
In 2016, I can’t for the life of me tell you what I did other than work. Sterling & Stone was eating my face. Our daughter was fourteen and our son was eleven, both in a stage where they gave less of a shit about magic and Dad failed to remind them. For the first time in my adult life, leap year was just another day.
In 2020, Sterling & Stone was moving even faster, our children were even older, and we were all clueless as to what the rest of that brutal year had in store. For the second leap year in a row, I let the magic slip through my fingers.
I WILL NEVER MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN
Today, I'm fucking off to spend my day with Cindy. It's dark outside and I still have a few stories to tell before she wakes up, including saying hello here. We plan on watching lots of Sopranos (it's 25th anniversary and our second time through).
Treat leap year like just another day, or use it to alchemize a memory.
I’ve done both and there’s no comparison.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.