Issue #9 · July 17, 2026
Nothing worth having gets built fast, and almost nothing gets built alone. Pedro takes apart the old advice to never work with friends and family and hands you Ramie's 3-bucket framework for putting every relationship in its right context. Holli sits in front of a forest full of oaks and pines and comes back with a word for anyone convinced they are running late. Ramie walks through a market that climbed a wall of bad news with fear at a six-month low. Three angles, one through-line: you are further along than it feels, and the slow work is the work.
In business there’s a saying, “Never work with friends and family…don’t ever hire friends and family.” This conversation recently came up inside of my high-level Master’s Mind group…a group of business owners and corporate leaders. Most of them agreed, working with friends and family isn’t a good idea. But I don’t agree.
I want to write to you the way I would talk to you if we were sitting on my mom's deck, having an amazing cup of coffee (or tea) together and looking out over more trees than you could ever count. I was up at her place last week, worn out and quiet, and I found myself doing something a little silly. I was looking at the forest and debating with God about which tree I liked more, the oak or the pine
Last week the market did something that surprised a lot of people. It went up. That may not sound like a big deal, but think about everything it had to walk through to get there. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran flared back up. Oil prices jumped. And through all of it, the market kept its footing and pushed higher. Here is the simple version of what happened, and why The Fortress Financial team is watching it so closely.