Memo 041: Minimum Contacts

On purposely availing yourself of your dream jurisdiction

Opening Statement

In law, “minimum contacts” refers to the amount of connection a person or entity must have with a place before they can reasonably be subject to its jurisdiction.

In other words: You cannot benefit from, or be bound to, a world you never meaningfully entered. You must purposefully avail yourself of the privileges and protections of that place.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how much this applies to life.

So many people want a bigger, more expansive, more interesting future while never making minimum contacts with the very environments, people, and behaviors that future requires.

If you’re life feels entirely stagnant, maybe reflect on your minimum contacts to your glossed self. How can you expect to enter the jurisdiction of your dream life if you never establish minimum contact to it?

Exhibits

Gloss Docket

Grabbing: A coconut water and a blanket for the park

Listening: Crescent City on Audio Book (I’ve been trying to get through this series for like 6 months but I’m committed)

Obsessing: fruity matcha, an NYC rooftop spritz

Styling: A perfect golden hour matching set; heeled sandals.

Stepping into: a network that takes me closer to my glossed self.

Testimony

One of the biggest mistakes ambitious people make is believing they can think their way into a bigger life instead of socially expanding into one.

We love to frame success as internal. Innate intelligence, discipline, even manifestation. While there certainly is a time and place for grinding alone, I submit that collaborating and investing in relationships takes you closer to success.

In fact, it’s my belief that very little enters your life in isolation. Yet, so many people approach adulthood without minimum contacts to the life they actually want. They have the same handful of people they interact with weekly, the same routines, the same 3-4 spaces, the same conversations, then wonder why life feels boring and nothing new is happening.

Opportunities move socially. When your social world becomes too small, your life often does too. You have to purposefully avail yourself of your dream life.

The luckiest people have more points of connection to opportunity. Knowing more people, entering more rooms, remaining socially active long enough for life to continuously happen to them. Meanwhile, other people isolate themselves with the same friends, partners, and connections they’ve had for 30 years while expecting expansion.

Of course I’m never preaching to abandon long term relationships or become hyper-networky. But I am saying that genuine curiosity, participation and repeated proximity has changed my life.

Your network determines what feels possible, what opportunities reach you, what information you receive, and ultimately, what you are capable of.

If your life feels stagnant, audit your minimum contacts.

Ask yourself: When was the last time I met someone new? Have I entered any new spaces recently? Do I admire the five people I spend the most time around Does my current network reflect the life I want next or the life I’ve already outgrown?

The more contacts you establish with the life you want, the less foreign of a jurisdiction it becomes.

Closing Argument

Here is the ruling: You cannot claim a life you refuse to meaningfully interact with.

Your future requires contact with ambitious people, creative people, connected people, interesting people. Most importantly, people already living parts of the life you want.

If you want to enter the jurisdiction of your Glossed self, you must purposefully avail yourself of the life you say you want.

Briefing adjourned.

Xo,

Alyssa