The world seems bottlenecked on people knowing and trusting each other. If you’re a trustworthy person who wants good things for the world, one of the best ways to demonstrate your trustworthiness is by interacting with people a lot, so that they can see how you behave in a variety of situations and they can establish how reasonable, smart, and capable you are. You can produce a lot of value for everyone involved by just interacting with people more.
I’m an introvert. My social skills aren’t amazing, and my social stamina is even less so. Yet I drag myself to parties and happy hours and one-on-one chats because they pay off.
It’s fairly common for me to go to a party and get someone to put hundreds of thousands of dollars towards causes I think are impactful, or to pivot their career, or to tell me a very useful, relevant piece of information I can act on. I think each of those things individually happens more than 15% of the time that I go to a party.
(Though this is only because I know of unusually good cause areas and career opportunities. I don’t think I could get people to put money or time towards random opportunities. This is a positive-sum interaction where I’m sharing information!)
Even if talking to someone isn’t valuable in the moment, knowing lots of people comes in really handy. Being able to directly communicate with lots of people in a high-bandwidth way lets you quickly orient to situations and get things done.
I try to go to every party I’m invited to that’s liable to have new people, and I very rarely turn down an opportunity to chat with a new person. I give my calendar link out like candy. Consider doing the same!
Talking to people is hits-based
Often, people go to an event and try to talk to people but it isn’t very useful, and they give up on the activity forever. Most of the time you go to an event it will not be that useful. But when it is useful, it’s extremely useful. With a little bit of skill, you can start to guess what kinds of conversations and events will be most useful (it is often not the ones that are most flashy and high-status).
Building up trust takes time
Often when I get good results from talking to people, it’s because I’ve already talked to them a few times at parties and I’ve established myself as a trustworthy person that they know.
Talking to people isn’t zero-sum
When I meet new people, I try to find ways I can be useful to them. (Knowing lots of people makes it easier to help other folks because often you can produce value by connecting people to each other.) And when I help the people I’m talking to, I’m also helping myself because I am on the same team as them. I want things that are good for the world, and so do most other people. I’m not sure the strategy is in this short form would work at all if I was trying to trick investors into overvaluing my startup or convincing people to work for me when that wasn’t in their best interest.
I think this is the main way that “talking to people”, as I’m using the term here, differs from “networking”.
Be genuine
When I talk to people, I try to be very blunt and earnest. I happen to like hanging out with people who are talented and capable, so I typically just try to find good conversations I enjoy. I build up friendships and genuine trust with people (by being a genuinely trustworthy person doing good things, not by trying to signal trust in complicated ways). I think I have good suggestions for things people should do with their money and time, and people are often very happy to hear these things.
Sometimes I do seek out specific people for specific reasons. If I’m only talking to someone because they have information/resources that are of interest to me, I try to directly (though tactfully) acknowledge that. Part of my vibe is that I’m weirdly goal-oriented/mission-driven, and I just wear that on my sleeve because I think the mission I drive towards is a good one.
I also try to talk to all kinds of folks and often purposefully avoid “high-status” people. In my experience, chasing them is usually a distraction anyway and the people in the interesting conversations are more worth talking to.
You can ask to be invited to more social events
When I encourage people to go to more social events, often they tell me that they’re not invited to more. In my experience, messaging the person you know who is most into going to social events and asking if they can invite you to stuff works pretty well most of the time. Once you’re attending a critical mass of social events, you’ll find yourself invited to more and more until your calendar explodes.
The world seems bottlenecked on people knowing and trusting each other. If you’re a trustworthy person who wants good things for the world, one of the best ways to demonstrate your trustworthiness is by interacting with people a lot, so that they can see how you behave in a variety of situations and they can establish how reasonable, smart, and capable you are. You can produce a lot of value for everyone involved by just interacting with people more.
I’m an introvert. My social skills aren’t amazing, and my social stamina is even less so. Yet I drag myself to parties and happy hours and one-on-one chats because they pay off.
It’s fairly common for me to go to a party and get someone to put hundreds of thousands of dollars towards causes I think are impactful, or to pivot their career, or to tell me a very useful, relevant piece of information I can act on. I think each of those things individually happens more than 15% of the time that I go to a party.
(Though this is only because I know of unusually good cause areas and career opportunities. I don’t think I could get people to put money or time towards random opportunities. This is a positive-sum interaction where I’m sharing information!)
Even if talking to someone isn’t valuable in the moment, knowing lots of people comes in really handy. Being able to directly communicate with lots of people in a high-bandwidth way lets you quickly orient to situations and get things done.
I try to go to every party I’m invited to that’s liable to have new people, and I very rarely turn down an opportunity to chat with a new person. I give my calendar link out like candy. Consider doing the same!
Talking to people is hits-based
Often, people go to an event and try to talk to people but it isn’t very useful, and they give up on the activity forever. Most of the time you go to an event it will not be that useful. But when it is useful, it’s extremely useful. With a little bit of skill, you can start to guess what kinds of conversations and events will be most useful (it is often not the ones that are most flashy and high-status).
Building up trust takes time
Often when I get good results from talking to people, it’s because I’ve already talked to them a few times at parties and I’ve established myself as a trustworthy person that they know.
Talking to people isn’t zero-sum
When I meet new people, I try to find ways I can be useful to them. (Knowing lots of people makes it easier to help other folks because often you can produce value by connecting people to each other.) And when I help the people I’m talking to, I’m also helping myself because I am on the same team as them. I want things that are good for the world, and so do most other people. I’m not sure the strategy is in this short form would work at all if I was trying to trick investors into overvaluing my startup or convincing people to work for me when that wasn’t in their best interest.
I think this is the main way that “talking to people”, as I’m using the term here, differs from “networking”.
Be genuine
When I talk to people, I try to be very blunt and earnest. I happen to like hanging out with people who are talented and capable, so I typically just try to find good conversations I enjoy. I build up friendships and genuine trust with people (by being a genuinely trustworthy person doing good things, not by trying to signal trust in complicated ways). I think I have good suggestions for things people should do with their money and time, and people are often very happy to hear these things.
Sometimes I do seek out specific people for specific reasons. If I’m only talking to someone because they have information/resources that are of interest to me, I try to directly (though tactfully) acknowledge that. Part of my vibe is that I’m weirdly goal-oriented/mission-driven, and I just wear that on my sleeve because I think the mission I drive towards is a good one.
I also try to talk to all kinds of folks and often purposefully avoid “high-status” people. In my experience, chasing them is usually a distraction anyway and the people in the interesting conversations are more worth talking to.
You can ask to be invited to more social events
When I encourage people to go to more social events, often they tell me that they’re not invited to more. In my experience, messaging the person you know who is most into going to social events and asking if they can invite you to stuff works pretty well most of the time. Once you’re attending a critical mass of social events, you’ll find yourself invited to more and more until your calendar explodes.