Being deeply known by five people beats being vaguely known by five thousand.

Attention comes in two grades that do completely different work. The wide kind is easy to acquire and almost weightless, since nobody at that distance knows what you are like on a bad week. The deep kind takes years and very few people, and it is what holds you up. The numbers point in the opposite direction from the value.

Invest in depth where it is cheap: one more real conversation, remembering what somebody is worried about, turning up when it is inconvenient. Pick two or three people and be slightly better at it this month. Five is already quite a lot to maintain.