Social Lubricant.

The third greatest social lubricant is a dirty martini.

The second greatest is a sense of humor.

The greatest: a warm introduction.

(My mom has a great martini joke, I will save that for later)

In all of human history, there may be no force more powerful than the simple act of connecting two strangers who would mutually benefit by knowing eachother. Empires have been built. Legends have been made. Prosper has been shared, all because people knew other people worth introducing.

If you look back at all the noteworthy relationships you’ve ever had, I’d bet the vast majority have come because you both knew someone in common. Said differently, much more rarely do you meet a complete stranger — with zero mutual friends — and become great friends.

Most of them have come because someone said, “Hey, there’s this person I think you should meet”. Or less directly, “OMG, you know [this other person I know] too? That’s crazy what a small world” — which may not be conventionally considered a ‘warm’ intro, but I’d say it’s certainly not cold. The Kevin Bacon effect is a form of warm introduction.

All this to say: facilitating introductions is precious. It’s extremely valuable, for both the people being introduced, and the person doing the introducing. I believe the term for this is social capital.

I have learned this over the years, that the most successful, most admirable, most well-respected people I’ve known all have one thing in common — intelligence, whit, enthusiasm are not prerequisites, the key is they are masters of bringing people together. They are masters of giving more than they get. And the epitome of both these things is making warm intro.

So of course the extremely linear takeaway here is that to be successful, you must get good at making warm introductions.

You must embrace the idea. You should make note of what people are looking for and how others might help them to mutually benefit.

But you should not be frivolous in your introductions. Don’t just intro people to intro them. Make them count.

For example: I recently met a founder who was working on a dating app idea. The idea was good, he had great personal experience, but he was non-technical and needed someone to help build it. I met another founder who had years of senior dev experience, and who was actively looking for some additional work to supplement his income. So naturally I had to make an introduction.

Here is the proper way to make a warm intro (see example below):

• First, ask yourself if both parties could actually, realistically benefit from knowing eachother

• Second, confirm with both parties individually that they are willing (and ideally excited) to meet

• Third, create a group message, email, text, whatever. Your goal is to accomplish a few things: 1) provide any necessary context, 2) convey the potential value, and 3) pass the onus onto them to decide if it’s a good connection or not

I say this because there are many wrong ways to make an introduction between two parties.

I’ve had people add me into groupchats without any warning and next thing I know I’m on the hook for a 60min Zoom call to find out whether or not a complete stranger is worth a conversation. Don’t do that.

Ultimately the proper way to make an intro is to be respectful of everyone’s time and interests, and try to create mutual value.

Done correctly you will accumulate social capital.

And it will compound. You will begin to see people worth knowing eachother everywhere.

Anyways, that’s all — saving my mom’s martini joke for another time.

Peace,
Ramsey