Not a usual essay but overtime I've discovered this topic to be really important. People connections, personal and professional(although I wouldn't want to keep them separate) contribute a significant amount to your life in the long-term. I'm going to be expanding on a few key ideas here around network, relationships and outreach which I believe will evolve over time but are a good foundation.
I recently came across this concept of being micro-famous. And although I've been following the idea for quite some time, I think this description was pretty accurate. I've seen much more (negative) discomfort when macro fame is an integral component of making you who you are. Media dynamics cannot be summarized into an objective framework for us to follow and based on past events, media personalities have had the steepest bell curves in terms of their career. Although, some have had a chance to recover, most are not left with an option. If media makes you, it can(and mostly will) break atleast some parts of you. I'm not blaming anybody here, this is how the industry works. Chasing fame as a direct goal almost always leads to misery.
There's a positive aspect to the people's game on the internet. When you control some part of an audience's attention, you have a massive tailwind in all your initiatives. People you're connected to will shower opportunities on you. But, there's a very fine line between liquidating your image and getting all these benefits. Here's where I think this idea of being micro-famous steps in.
The idea is to be known among the right set of people for the right reasons. Often, a good group is people in your extended family, friends, friends of friends, closely known founders, investors.etc This group is often sufficient to connect you to most other places you may need to be known. There's a common notion that anybody you may want to reach out to is not more than 7 people away(I don't agree with this as much) but I agree to the fact that if you have a set of smart people in your close network, they're usually connected to other smart people and the cycle continues.
You need to make sure this tight group knows you for the authentic work you do. Filtering yourself in front of these people will corrupt one of the greatest leverages you possibly have. There is more trust, they will not refuse a meeting even if you're not as smart because of this. Filters would corrupt this mechanism.
These people are also a great audience for your work, much more engaged and attached. From my observations, the best performers with people matters often have a very strong connect with this core group. General social media fame may or may not exist, their influence in this core group brings them what they need.
An interesting idea I've been thinking about is around forming relationships. I did a lot of personal experiments and read through a couple of specific psychology pieces to try to demystify this. But, I don't think this has a definitive (or even close to definitive) answer. I think we can have a few principles for building great relationships like trust, loyalty and co-operation, but can't get deeper. In my view, a lot of the invisible factors responsible for building great relationships are not rationally divisible. It's a subjective situation every time.
Although, there's one key distinction I've observed. I think these factors align themselves together when people value people based on their bonds with them rather than a transactive approach. A lot of us work towards building 'connections' with people who we can get something from. You may feel you have made these connections strong enough to do you favors in the future but in reality they're just as weak as asking a favor from a stranger. Connecting with people requires a constant effort from both ends and is often driven by something irrational. Transactive approaches are too weak to get any compounding return from a relationship.
Often, this really only means to value people based on the bond you share with them. Not on their status, money or power but the feeling they share with you. This really works everywhere. Apple has been using this as a framework to build one of the greatest tech cults in history.
This is why the previous idea of being micro-famous among the right set of people works. Usually , these people share a deeper bond than the surface level transactive value(friends, colleagues, close connections) Ofcourse, there needs to be constant effort to make the relationship synergistic or atleast not damaging to one party(that's exploitation), that is what brings about the tangible benefits of a relation, but that's not a direct goal while building these relations.
Outreach has become a buzzword these days. Startups, professionals, spammers are all 'outreaching'. But most if it is seemingly ineffective. At the core of outreach is the principle that you have something to exchange with the other person which he isn't aware of yet. As simple as this sounds, I don't think it is one bit as easy to follow. Substance comes first. Internalize this. Outreach is for effectively sharing with the world something it really should know. People are short on time, and there needs to be a really strong reason why they should give their attention to you as compared to anything else. Whenever I'm talking to someone about reaching out and sharing, they usually engage in an endless debate around the mediums. "How many cold-emails should I send ?" They don't get the outcome they wanted, and end-up liquidating their image as another substance-less spammer. This has an under-rated effect in the long-term. Most people spread themselves too thin.
A simple and important fundamental in all people matters is to think of it as a supply-demand game. Anything in excess will mess it up. Your network is not the magical process to give you perks over the others, it is a supporting hand for the worthy. Worthy here means people who can build synergy in a network. They can match supply-demand well for the long-term. In any relationship, if demand exceeds supply or vice versa, the relationship looses track.
Almost always, the right way to reach out is to do so when you have built up the substance i.e the product. And, I like to follow the networking principle we discussed early-on here too. Reaching out to a small group of people in-person who really care about your work is much more effective than running social ads for the masses. Your close-knit network adds to this brilliantly. The supply-demand issue is taken care of because you've got an irrational(partially) bond with these people. You can share stuff with them and expect genuine feedback before aiming for the masses. The best part being, you don't have to worry about your reputation and brand because of the bond you share with them. You definitely need to make sure you're building something worthwhile for them to invest their time and brains, but there's some luxury you can have here.
Although, most of us deal with people matters in a very passive manner without too much strategy, I think some fundamentals are important to understand. Overtime, I've summed up my beliefs around people matters in a few pointers listed above. These are still constantly evolving because I'm just getting started. The core idea here is that, you've really gotta invest in building a core network for all the compounding returns it has in your life. But, ensure you're doing it the right way.
I'm sure these ideas may not apply to every context and situation and I increasingly feel, each has his/her own approach which is really effective for them. There's surely no-one right way of doing things, and this uncertainty is what makes the exploration fun. If you've got ideas around this that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them / link them here.