Hey, Reader —
Could your next big break start with a stranger?
That’s exactly how things unfolded for a then-unknown chef named Anthony Bourdain.
Back in 1999, Bourdain thought he was writing for a handful of cooks when he penned his behind-the-scenes article about restaurant operations. Maybe his fry cook would laugh, he thought. Maybe he’d make a hundred bucks. He sent his essay, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” to a small New York City alt-weekly that ended up killing it at the last minute.
But it wasn’t dead. His mother, an editor at the New York Times, passed it to a colleague. That colleague mentioned it to her husband, David Remnick, who had just become the editor at The New Yorker. Remnick was impressed, and two days after his work appeared in the magazine, Bourdain’s life changed forever.
That article led to his best-seller, Kitchen Confidential, as well as a long career of televised food programs and travel documentaries.
Now, Bourdain didn’t plan any of this. He couldn’t have predicted it. But he had been writing consistently, kept submitting work, and the right person saw it.
We like to think there’s a direct line between effort and outcome. Post enough. Launch enough. But most breakthroughs don’t work that way.
They arrive through a human connection of weak ties, the second-degree connections who notice, share, or quietly open a door.
Sociologist Mark Granovetter called this “the strength of weak ties.” His research revealed that new opportunities often come not from our closest circles, but from acquaintances. They’re the people who live at the edge of our networks and carry our ideas into places we can’t reach on our own.
That’s what happened to Bourdain. His essay traveled through one conversation, then another, until it reached someone who could amplify it. Not because he engineered it. But because he created something worth sharing.
If you’re building a solo business, this is worth remembering. You never know which piece will hit.
The next email, post, framework, or story could be the one that finds its way to someone who changes everything for you.
Your job is to keep creating the work only you can make, with the same care as if your fry cook were the only one reading it. The rest happens in ways you can’t predict.
You can’t plan a two-day transformation. But you can keep writing, sharing, and creating work worth finding.
Your weak-tie challenge this week: Reach out to one person just outside your usual circle. Share something you’ve made that they might enjoy, with no agenda attached. Then let me know what happened. 🙂
Weak ties and 6 degrees
Ever wonder where the idea that opportunities travel through acquaintances, not close friends, began? In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter published a now-classic paper showing that people a few degrees distant (rather than our closest friends) are often the key to new ideas, jobs, and opportunities.
It’s the foundation for “six degrees of separation,” the belief that everyone on earth is connected by six or fewer relationships. Decades later, it became a party game, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” The premise was simple: you could link any actor to Kevin Bacon through six or fewer film connections. (Yes, someone even built a website for it. Still running.)
Here’s Granovetter’s original research (one of the most influential articles in social science), if you’d like to see where it all began, more than 50 years ago: The Strength of Weak Ties (Granovetter, 1973).
Help NASA do science
Think space science is just for PhDs? Not so! NASA’s Citizen Science program invites anyone (yes, you!) to join real research, from your phone or laptop. You can help track asteroids, map lunar flows, measure land and water changes, and more.
It’s not just goodwill science. A vast network of curious individual contributors helps improve life on Earth and in space. Check out the projects at NASA Citizen Science. (Hat tip to Claudia Dawson/Recomendo for the find.)
That’s it for this week’s Solo Field Notes. Thanks for joining me!
Until next week: Stay small. Play big.
Terri
P.S. When you’re ready for more, here are a few resources from the Solo Business School:
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Authority By Design is a registered trademark, and Content Velocity and Working Solo are trademarks, of Make International LLC. Issue #088.