"Six Degrees of Separation" meets
"Pay it Forward"

... and how you can play a starring role!

 

"Six Degrees of Separation" is a fascinating premise which proposes that while you do not know everyone in the world (over 6 billion people at last count), you are only 6 people away from knowing everyone.

How does that work?

Think about this for a moment. If you are reading this, it may be because I sent it to you, or a friend of mine sent it to you, or a friend of a friend ... you get the idea. Who knows, perhaps you arrived here because your friend sent you a link from their "blog" (or web log for the non-technical crowd). By reading this, you have some form of contact with me (or, more importantly, know how to contact me).

Now consider that over the course of my life I have travelled to most of the major continents and have met or come in contact with hundreds of thousands of people. People I grew up with, people I worked with, people I met on a train in Europe, people I met on a trip to Hong Kong, or in a restaurant in Singapore or Australia.

And what about you? Unless you have lived as a hermit since birth, you have also met people at the company picnic, on a plane trip, at the Hawaiian luau on your honeymoon with your first spouse, or on the beach in Cancun last month. If nothing else, at least your birth mother knows you, and she probably has at least one other acquaintance (yep, your biological father). And guess what ... they both had parents too.

Now, each one of those people have also met people in their travels of life. The idea behind the "Six Degrees" is that if you had a HUGE sheet of paper (I mean really, really big) and alot of different colored crayons, you could map out all the people you know, and the people they know, and the people they know, and when you are all finished, every person in the world would have at least one link that could be followed to every other person in the world within six moves or less. Your "circle of acquaintances" just got far bigger than you could imagine!

Did you know that just by reading this and coming into my acquaintance you are only two degrees away from President Bush, former President Clinton, and three degrees away from Margaret Thatcher and the Pope! You are travelling in good company my friend.

So now lets think about the concept of "Pay it Forward"

In the book "Pay it Forward", a stranger does someone a favor and all they ask in return is that the recipient perform some act of kindness towards three other people. Then those three people each help out three for a total of nine. Those nine each help three, and ... well I think you get the picture without me taking you through a lesson in exponential mathmatics.

Anyway, a young school child hears about this and creates awareness through a class project and the results are truly amazing. The child learns that when you give of yourself without asking for anything in return, only that the recipient perform an act of kindness for another stranger, many good deeds can be accomplished.

So how do these two ideas tie in together?

Glad you asked.

Think about all those people you know and then think about all the people they know. Now consider if you did one act of kindness for someone and they in turn did an act of kindness for three other people.

WOW!! What a huge effect that could have on the world.

But what if you could get six instead of three! Look out world!

So how do you get someone to do six acts of kindness for others when the going rate is only three? It is quite simple really.

Click here to find out ...