Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we take the pursuit of happiness from the abstract to the concrete.

This week we'll talk about why you should make introductions and explore the question of how to create more effective accountability for obligers.

I'm Gretchen Rubin, writer of his studies, happiness, good habits, human nature and the foretendencies. I'm Ganyory Fitty and with me is my sister, Elizabeth Kraft, who has so often graciously served as my experimental happiness guinea pig.

That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer living in LA and yeah, Gretchen sometimes I'm kicking and screaming, but I do try to be rough at guinea pig.

Now, Elizabeth, quick update. We got a fun email from our listener Susan about our discussion in episode 189 about being tempted by the snacks in hotel minibars.

She sent an article from the Times UK where British journalist and author, Satnam Sengarro, wrote, and he's so very British in his choice of words I thought in this piece about how he finds accountability.

Yes, he said, how on earth does one resist hitting these in-room corner shops? I have so little discipline that this week I considered calling hotels an advance to remove the food.

Fearing this might mark me out as peculiar, I settled instead on bringing along my own healthy snacks as a distraction only to eat all the fruit in addition to the five pound tube of sprinkles in the room.

So it's time for a new strategy. When I'm next in a hotel, I'm going to have the bill sent to my mum's address. The fear of her outrage, if she sees that I spent seven pounds on a crunchy chocolate bar, will surely be enough.

Yes, seven pounds is nine dollars.

Oh, yeah. I love this account.

So your mum is your accountability partner. That's it. She's always a good one. That's right. I love that. I love that suggestion.

And, Alyssa, this week I tried this at a home tip is to make an introduction. This is a wonderful good deed, a manageable good deed that we can do for other people.

Yes, the world runs on introductions. Gretchen, I am proud to tell you that I introduce two people to their spouses.

On, like, actual, like, blind date setup type things. No, in both cases, it was unintentional. I must admit, but two people who I was very good friends with broke up, Bob and Nancy.

And then I introduced each of them, again, unintentionally, to their spouses. Wow. And so they credit me with that. And it always makes me feel so good.

And I think, oh, you guys are together because I introduced you. This child exists in the world because I introduced you.

Yeah. It's a good feeling. It's powerful. Well, you know what? I've a side note. I've often thought that there should be a wedding tradition of somehow marking out the person at the wedding, if that that person's there, who introduced two people.

Like, they should get like a little crown or like a little, I don't know, some kind of token. That's fun. Yeah, I think that would be fun.

Now, this making introduction is a great example of some very well known research about weak ties, which is that often when we make really excellent introductions, or it comes from people who are weak ties to us, not the strongest ties.

And the theory is because people have strong ties to you. They know everything you know, they know all the same people you know.

But if it's weak ties, then they're introducing you to people that or ideas or opportunities that are really kind of outside your natural reach.

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