Opening
Founders and leaders spend years building businesses and neglect the relationships that carry them through. When a hard season hits, they discover their network is wide and shallow, and that the people who could actually support them have drifted out of reach.
What I brought to the conversation
I brought a framework for where you are and where to aim. Loneliness, Social Wellbeing and Social Wealth sit on a single continuum. Loneliness is the gap between your social needs and your reality. Social Wellbeing is feeling connected and supported. Social Wealth is the deep end, where trust and ease and reciprocity live.
Here is the insight I shared. If you strive for social wealth and then take your foot off the accelerator, you fall back to Social Wellbeing, not to loneliness. Aim low and every dip is a cliff. Aim high and every dip has a safety net.
I explained the two kinds of social capital Robert Putnam named. Bridging social capital is the weaker ties who help you get ahead, stepping stones to opportunity. Bonding social capital is the people who help you get by, the ones you can share everything with without self-editing. Business owners over-index on bridging and quietly starve the bonding side.
I also mapped people onto Robin Dunbar's research. Our brains hold about 150 people, but the 12 to 15 key players deserve around 60 percent of your social time. During the conversation I described my Melbourne reunion, five of eight exchange friends at a first gathering after months of hesitation, and how AI and scheduling tools can get you to the room so that humans can be human once you are in it.
"If we really push ourselves to social wealth then rather than going between maybe loneliness and social well-being ... if we take our foot off the accelerator we're only going to fall back to social well-being we're not going to fall back to loneliness..."
The question that opened it up
Chris asked what would happen if an AI digital twin could maintain some of your relationships for you. My answer was that relationships need to be human to human. Technology should do the facilitation, scheduling, reminders, getting us in the room, and then let people do the connecting.
What that conversation confirmed for me
It confirmed something I see with every client. The barrier is rarely knowledge, it is the vulnerability of the invitation. Once the first invitation is sent, the rest of the path unfolds.
Three things to try this week
- Check your phone's screen time statistics. Most people spend between two and a half and three and a half hours a day on social media.
- Pick one person from your 12 to 15 key players and send them a message today, audio if you can.
- Book one gathering with a group you have drifted from. Sending the invitation is the hard part.
Listen and go deeper
https://thinkfuture.substack.com/ and Shelley's site https://www.thecommuniverse.com
A closing question for Chris's listeners: if AI handled every reminder, would you actually reach out more? If you are ready to design your own social ecosystem, you will find the Social Wealth Activation path at https://www.thecommuniverse.com/social-wealth-activation Who would be your first key player to invite back in?