Constitution — Talbot Stevens Cross-Business Operating Charter

Single Source of Truth for cross-business mission, values, and operating principles. All businesses (MBR, SDC, FSS, future Personal) inherit from this document. Per-business strategy lives in <Biz>\Strategy\.

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Cancer50Pledge — Mission Anchor

Deeply grateful for surviving stage 4 cancer, at least 50% of all $MART DEBT Coach profits are pledged to advance cancer research. The goal is to not only save lives, but to champion a win-win-win business model that accelerates both financial and societal benefits.

Cancer50Pledge spans all current and future businesses. It is a mission anchor, not a department — it informs every business’s profit allocation, brand narrative, and marketing.

See Cancer50Pledge for full mission framing.

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Operating Principles

1. Mission drives Energy, Growth. Massive Transformitive Purpose: Make it easy to be aware of, act on, and share untaught financial strategies. Cancer50Pledge, $10M Donation.
2. Think BIGGER! 100X Benefits. 100X Distribution.
3. Focus: BIG Rocks ONLY. BIGGEST First.
4. Win-win-win. Client-first. ALWAYS.
5. SSOT (Single Source of Truth) — One home, zero duplicates. No exceptions.
6. Simplification first — “Genius is removing down to the simplest core.” Minimum viable; activate on first real need.
7. Borrow > Build — Adopt patterns from proven systems (Paperclip atomic checkout, approval gates); skip full frameworks unless needed.

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Business Map

Business	Folder	Purpose	Status
myBetterRates (mBR)	MBR\	Fintech — rate-scanner + financial product offerings	Phase 1 active
Smart Debt Coach (SDC)	SDC\	Personal-finance education on $MART DEBT thesis	Activated per-task; pivot-frozen for now
Talbot Stevens (FSS)	FSS\	Holding / talbotstevens.com / speaking / consulting	Activated per-task
Personal	(future) Personal\	Life-OS slot	Reserved

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Decision-Rights Model

• CEO = Talbot (one human per business; lives in <Biz>\Strategy\Staff\CEO.md)
• Staff = AI agents + future human hires
• Autonomy levels (Phase 1):
  • A0 — Advisory: suggests, does not act
  • A1 — Drafts → Approve: drafts artifacts; CEO approves before publish
• A2/A3/A4 (autonomous within budget / autonomous within scope / autonomous within mission) → Core\UPGRADES.md for later activation.

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Hard Rules (non-negotiable)

1. No PII in the vault. CRM lives external. KB holds only schema, queries, anonymized samples. Fintech CRITICAL.
2. No commits without CEO confirmation during major restructures.
3. No duplicated SSOT. Memory, config, secrets, foundational text — exactly one home.
4. No workarounds when blocked. Find the root cause.
5. Never guess. Leave blank or ask.

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Cross-References

• Capture-time routing protocol → Core\Processes\Capture-Routing.md (when authored)
• Approvals queue → Core\Approvals.md (Bases view of requires_approval: true)
• Vault entry point → Core\DASHBOARD.md
• Upgrades inventory → Core\UPGRADES.md