When is the time to take someone out of your network?
A rolodex is valuable not just for the quantity of contacts on it but also for the quality of those contacts. My criteria is very simple: As long as a contact is reliable it stays in. A contact doesn’t need to be likable, doesn’t need to be approved by others, doesn’t need to be a friend, doesn’t need to be in constant connection.
All I really care is that you do what you say and say what you do. Only a reliable contact has high value.
Social hubs tend to become power brokers.
Connections are a very powerful and desirable currency. Connections open doors that you can’t open with just money or hard work. Having the right connections can speed up projects, provide solutions for nearly impossible problems. Connections are one of the most elusive and volatile of all things to keep, but also one of the most valuable, if you have the right ones.
When people know that you are a great source of contacts, specially influential ones. You socialize and meet with influential people frequently. By virtue of the number and quality of your own social network you can act as a powerful problem solver, and those that know you recognize that.
One example:
I know several social hubs, but one I like to use as an example is a friend who used to be a State Representative and knows an incredible number of people of importance involved in politics and big business in the state, plus he has an equally impressive number of well placed contacts in Washington DC and New York City. He is a man that can make incredible things happen with a few phone calls, or a nice conversation over dinner, or at the golf club.
You need to set up the field to practice.
If you want to learn how to approach or interact with women for example you must set up situations, or go to places, or join clubs where you will be interacting with women. Ideally do so in a way that you can interact without an obvious agenda, so speed dating and other dating situations are out. I don’t like clubs for that either.
Training is a great environment:
If you live at or near the beach join some massage classes. Those are usually months-long courses full of interesting women that you will be interacting with, and massaging, for extended periods of time. If not that find some other courses populated mostly by women in your city.
Be the recruiter:
Find something you need help for. Or perhaps a friend is looking for someone to hire. Maybe you are about to hire a new secretary, or you would like to find an event organizer to put together your next birthday party, or you want to hire someone to take care of your pets while you travel. Find something real and congruent with your real life. Because if a really good candidate comes in you want to give her a real job! Then post hiring ads and you do the interviews. You will be talking to dozens, or hundreds or women and every time you post a new ad you will be learning to narrow down the selection process more efficiently, and the interaction is really great.
Get a hobby:
Get yourself a hobby that attracts the type of women you want to have around. I like very attractive women that are sexually liberated and a bit (sometimes more than a bit) on the kinky side. So I became a photographer. For less than it would cost me a dozen of expensive dinners in blind dates, I got professional photography equipment including lights, professional camera, books on how to do it, and props. Sometimes I advertise (for free) looking for models and in doing so I have found a few pretty interesting women that I dated or had fun with. But the most interesting is that it created another way to interact with women that I have met for any other reason. I have photographed my friends and their friends, and learned a lot about how to interact, direct, and entertain women using photography as the context. The results are magic!