Connect

Lois Weisberg was the type of person who seemed to know everybody.

In the mid-1950s, on a whim, she travelled from Chicago to New York to attend the World Science Fiction Convention, where she met Arthur C. Clarke. The next time he was in Chicago, he called her and asked if there was anyone he should meet. She called one of the writers for her alternative weekly newspaper, learned that Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein were in town, and invited the three writers to meet in her study.

William Friedkin, who would go on to direct The Exorcist, was a regular attendee at meetings for that paper. Burgess Meredith would write letters and send in doodles, having once approached her to talk to his acting class about George Bernard Shaw. She would later help him raise money for a play he was doing called Kicks and Company; the star of that play, Nichelle Nichols, lived with her for a time.

These may seem like impossible coincidences, but these coincidences form a pattern.

Her son Jacob became friends with Malcolm Gladwell, who published the essay "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg", an examination of her unique ability to connect, in the January 11th, 1999 edition of The New Yorker.

In his essay, Gladwell stated his belief that she had "an innate and spontaneous and entirely involuntary affinity for people." On one occasion in 1975, employees of the Chicago Park District were removing a statue of Carl von Linné. She happened to be driving by and, seeing the throng of onlookers, burst out of her car and began interrogating one of them: “Who are you? What’s going on here? Why do you care?”

She convinced reporters from the Chicago Tribune to interview that onlooker, a young mother new to the city named Cindy Mitchell, about the statue. She then recruited Mitchell to join Friends of the Parks, a non-profit watchdog group and environmental advocate that she had just founded. Upon learning that Mitchell didn’t really know anyone, she introduced her to Helen Doria, who worked for someone on the city council, and told her that they would be best friends.

They did become best friends, and Mitchell went on to serve as President of Friends of the Parks for a decade.

All from a single chance encounter.

In a modern context, when we think of “connections”, it’s easy to think of them as social media metrics: following/followers.

We’ve become conditioned to want large followings because psychologically, everyone enjoys seeing the number go up.

But if that’s all we focus on, it’s the same scenario as every other time we optimize for growth: we might know names, but not people.

Weisberg did know a lot of people, but no one can argue that she didn’t genuinely know them.

She was curious about them. She cared about their problems. She put in the effort to help them as best as she could, even if that just meant connecting them with someone else.

I think that’s an example worth aspiring to.