Last month, my good friend Michael Simmons sent out an email to eight of what he called "Super Friends" in order to connect us with each other, with a description and bio of each person. Each of the eight people had a quality that Michael noted that made them unique. Michael, very nicely, described me with the following passage:

Ryan Allis - Execution - allisr[at]broadwick.com - Ryan is 22 years old and has taken three companies to over $2 million in revenue. I first met him at a restaurant with Cal a few years ago, before the companies had taken off. He stated with absolute confidence that he would take his company to $1 million in revenue by his 21st birthday. He missed the mark by a few days. Ryan has an ability to set an extremely clear vision, know with 100% confidence that he will achieve it, and make any necessary changes to himself to make it happen.

The descriptive traits listed for the other seven individuals were: Sincerity, Intrepidness, Discipline, Integrity, Sharing, All Around, and Passion.

From this introduction, I came to know Devi Sridhar (who happened to be the youngest Rhodes Scholar in American history) who connected me with a 2001 UNC alumnus by the name of Rye Barcott. Rye was a Morehead Scholar at UNC, started an amazing program called Carolina for Kibera, just got out of a four year tour of duty as a Marine Officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now is starting this fall at Harvard doing a joint MPP/MBA degree at the Kennedy School of Government and HBS. Rye proceeded to connect me with Kim Chapman, the Co-Chair of Carolina for Kibera here at UNC, who I had lunch with at the local entrepreneurial hangout Doce two weeks ago. Kim has an amazing story herself, and is working on her Masters in Public Health degree at UNC. Since, I've found myself on a Steering Committee for a Ugandan Internship program with Kim.

Long story short, the amount of good that came from Michael taking the time to send the one Super Friends email was tremendous. Perhaps there are a few friends or associates you know working in various fields that are remarkable or outstanding in some way that may not all know each other. Well, if so, send out an email connecting them and see what happens!