influence = value ÷ distance²

how much influence do I have on you?

it’s not a trick question. 

there’s actually a way to calculate it.

you only need two things:

1. vow much value you assign to me, and
2. where I sit in your social network.

that’s it.

in my upcoming book Anthroponautics: Mathematical Principles of the Anthropic Domain, i define value as:

“A contextual measure granted to a person or information by other people as they interact, especially regarding their actual or perceived utility and abundance.”

in plain terms, value is not intrinsic. it’s assigned based on how useful or rare something (or someone) seems in context.

as Orion Taraban puts it:

“People feel relatively disinterested until they perceive that someone has something they want: either to acquire or to avoid.”

so to assign me value:

• decide how helpful (utility), and
• how replaceable (abundance) i am.

the more useful and rare i am to you, the more value you will assign to me.

now, distance. not in the physical sense, but relational.

how close am i in terms of trust, attention, and access? am i part of your inner circle? a friend? or just someone that you used to know?

now here’s the key idea:

influence = my value ÷ the distance²

the higher my value and the closer our relationship, the more influence i have on you.

this mirrors Newton’s law of gravitation: force increases with mass and decreases with distance squared. 

if you’ve read this far, chances are you see value in me and i’m not a complete stranger. 

so again, how much influence do I have on you?

it depends.

how valuable am I to you?

how close are we?

now do this same exercise for someone else in your network. how much influence do they have on you?

more importantly, how much influence do you have on them? 

if you want to be heard, trusted, followed, you have to be valuable. and you have to shorten the distance between you and them.

that’s what anthroponautics is for.

that’s what I teach.

Colin

p.s. if this resonated with you, i’d love to keep the conversation going. reply “i’m in” to schedule one, two, or three hours with me this week.