SOLO | Make Money by Becoming a Better Friend, part 2

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What's going everybody welcome back to the show

This episode we are picking up where we left off on the last episode

Which is talking about how to be a better friend if you've been following along in the last couple of days

We've been talking about the loneliness epidemic. We're talking about the

Terrible terrible consequences that come from being loaned the increase in all cosmortality

Less likelihood of living a long and happy and fulfilled life

There's so many bad things that come from this loneliness epidemic that we didn't even expect when we started diving deep into the

Research here, but now that we're into it

It's also like you know what once you see it you can't unsee it

So well, how do we go build better friends?

Well, one of the best ways to do that is to first of all become a better friend yourself

So that is what we're talking about on this episode

We started off last episode talking about facilitating experiences that are right for memories so that you can build

Build experiences build memories together with other people

Which is something that enriches those friendships and those relationships

But how can we be a better friend as we continue this conversation and real quick on the facilitating experiences thing

People tend to just have a lot of stuff going on in their lives

So if you're friend if you find that your friend group like most of the time what I've found

Personally is that it's not a matter of people just don't want to spend time together

It's just a matter that it's a matter that nobody puts anything together

So there's no like excuses to go hang out or go do anything

So if you happen to meet a friend group where that tends to be the case then somebody needs to take charge of the friend group and just say

Hey, we're planning this thing for this time and we're going here and here's what we're doing

And what I found most of the time is like whenever I've done that everybody in my life is like thankful that I'm actually putting it together

Because they're like this sounds awesome

We're looking forward to doing this

It's just that nobody else was going to take the time to figure out all the other details

So if it's something that's important to me

I may as well be the one to do that

So be the one in your friend group that builds the experiences

Because everybody's hoping somebody's going to do it, you know what I mean be the person who's willing to just say

You know what why don't we go here and do this and then everybody goes all right? Let's do it

You know don't don't feel like there has to be an occasion to celebrate that doesn't have to be a party

There a birthday or a Christmas or holiday. It doesn't have to be any of those things

They could just be hey next summer and look even if you got to plan it out three years in advance

I understand that I might be in a little bit of a different boat because a lot of my friends do similar things to what I do

We have somewhat flexible schedules. We're entrepreneurs. We have control over our calendar

We can sort of pick up and leave more frequently

But if you're in a friend group where all of you have jobs and it's a little bit more difficult

You got kids in school then it's okay in two summers from now

We're going to plan this epic trip to go do all this stuff together and it might sound ridiculous because you go like well

It's two summers from now. What if you know all these other things might change doesn't matter

Doesn't matter because two summers from now it's going to come and go and if you don't actually put these things in your calendar and

And set up or facilitate these experiences then it's just not going to happen and you're missing out on the enriching experiences

The life has to offer so facilitate experiences right memories next prioritize friendships

Like work or family. We're often encouraged to

Sacrifice time with friends for the sake of work or for the sake of our kids

But we rarely will cancel something for work when we have time scheduled for friendship

Isn't that interesting?

It sort of just tells your friends the number that they are on your priority list and look

I get it life happens and you have to

You you you got to be responsible. You got to be an adult

You got to protect your family provide for your family take care of your family

I understand all of that and work is required in order to do those things and then time with your families

Also required to spend to for the same reasons that it's required for your friendships

So it's not like the problem is is that the problem is that this gets further and further

Down on the priority list

Which is why it just doesn't you just never get any time to be able to do any of those things

And I struggled big time with this one because if you if you have a lot of ambition if you have a big vision for your life if you're on a mission

then it feels

Like we get used to sacrifice

If you have a lot of ambition and big goals and dreams for your life

You just get used to sacrificing in order in order to achieve some of those things

But you will not sacrifice for

Maintaining or growing friendships and that I think is I think it's going to be a mistake

I think it's one of those things that we're going to look back on

Even if you achieve everything that you set out to achieve

I think that you'll look back on that with some some feeling of regret because

You can't get the time back you can't get

You can't get the

You know when your friends went to this

Cruise for four days and they invited you but you said no because you wanted to stay back and work

And then you made a habit of doing that over two decades and then

You're catching up with some friends and a couple decades from now after you've achieved everything that you wanted to achieve

And then your friends are talking about all these different memories and experiences and all these other things that they spent

Together and you start realizing that you sacrificed

All of the best and closest from meaningful relationships in your life for the sake of achieving something

And my

Challenge to you is just to question whether or not that is going to be a worthy decision

If your future self will thank you for making that decision or if your future self will not thank you for that decision

Because I think probably the I think probably the majority population potentially struggles with the opposite end where they

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I want to say no to anything and they get this epic fear of missing out and then all of a sudden they're just out

They don't do anything like cooler interesting or different or unique

They just go to the same bar and drink with the same friends

Four nights a week and spend all their excess money and time drinking and and doing nothing

That to me is is different

Okay

But I'm talking to the people who listen to this show who are typically the ambitious folks who want more out of life

And while sacrifice is required in order to be able to get more out of life

You also should be purposefully scheduling time in your calendar to make sure

That you are not sacrificing your deepest friendships along the way and especially if you're a dude

For men this I think is especially true

Because women women just have higher emotional intelligence than men do

And tend to stay connected to their friends more often than men's taking it to their friends

That's honestly what this gonna sound crazy

But the one thing that I've done for my friendships with a couple of my high school buddies

That we just don't get up the opportunity to hang out a lot

This sounds so silly, but we play Whartle

We play Whartle like every day the New York Times game Whartle

And we just have a continue it's like it's just a thing that it it

prompts conversation on a daily basis with us

Sometimes sometimes we forget for a few days, but you know it's sort of

Every other day sometimes or maybe one person doesn't do it for a week or something

But most of the time we all do the Whartle every day

And we send it into the group chat and we make fun of the person who

guest it in the

Most amount of guesses and then we crown King the person

Who guessed it in the least amount of guesses

And it just prompts some sort of continued connection

With those people in my life because

I feel like guys just aren't the same way

You know, it's like you send funny memes or something like that

But that's not the same thing as some you know level of camaraderie

And I think women are a lot better at this in general

My my wife and her best friend talk constantly and it was funny because recently my wife was

surprising her best friend because she's getting married and she's doing a bachelor trip

And so she was figuring out a bunch different surprises to surprise her with because she came out to Vegas for that

and

Because my wife is not the best at keeping secrets especially from me or from her best friend

She leading up to her coming out for this trip

She stopped talking to her as much. She was just like not on her phone as much

She wasn't texting her that much because she was afraid that she was gonna give away the surprises that she had worked hard to build

And I think it was my my daughter

My daughter or my son

Literally asked her like mommy. How come you haven't been texting

Anti for for three days or whatever. It's just funny because it's just a part of what she does

They're always talking about everything. They're catching up on all the most you know

uh

Honest details of each other's lives and you know women are just better at this than men are in general

So I think that's probably why men are experiencing this loneliness epidemic to us more significant degree than women are because it's just more of a natural thing for women

To prioritize relationships and more of a natural thing for men to prioritize achievements

So if you are in this boat if you are a man who is sacrificing friendships for the sake of achieving

Just ask yourself the question if you're if you know, is this something I'm gonna be happy doing long-term

Is this something that I'm going to regret in the future because there's plenty of statistics to suggest

That male adult male friendships for men are really really important for your long-term happiness and overall well-being

And that's comes from somebody who's really really close with my spouse right my wife is probably my best friend for all intents and purposes in terms of

We do everything together and we make decisions together and we watch shows together and we raise our kids together

And she is the most important person in my life and then my kids are are you know two in our number two on that list

but also

I have to get times with the boys

You gotta go get times with the boys and if you're a woman you gotta go get times with the girls

You have to have all of these things in order to be able to live a well-balanced

Happy long fulfilled life. So start prioritizing your friendships

It was a realization for me and I'm not gonna beat this

Point into the ground too much, but I I got cancer a couple years ago and for those who follow the show you know that

And I this was sort of one of those eye-opening moments for me because it was right in the middle of a time

That was really difficult for me in my business really difficult for me in my podcast

I felt disconnected from a lot of people

I was struggling internally in a lot of ways

And we booked a trip to Nashville and it was just me and the boys and I realized

When I booked that trip that I had not

Taken just like a trip like that

in

I mean

I don't even really know how long six seven eight years maybe leading up to that

Meaning that I wasn't I wasn't prioritizing my friendships like anytime

That we would do a trip like that it was more for

Business purposes or or family vacation or memories and just going and hanging out with the boys

It's not something that I had done in a really long time and it I realized it because we're in Nashville

I was coming off of cancer surgery my other friend recently divorced

and I

Realized how important it was to have that time because there was no agenda

There's no business being done

I didn't schedule other work meetings or any podcast interviews while I was there

Which is atypical for me there was no there was no schedule of things that we were doing

It was just me and a few of my friends hanging out

Drinking doing dumb stuff we brought of gaming system and played a bunch of super smash brothers and

Cooked up some stakes and just spent time hanging out and I came back feeling better than any event

That I used to go to in order to like close deals do business just because it was just a bunch of

grown-ass men hanging out and having a good time

And it it

The level of refreshment that I got when I came back home from that was just like

Man, this was this was um not necessarily life changing but also

I guess kind of life changing because it made me realize that I needed to prioritize this

This is something that was actually meaningful and and that mattered a lot to me

That a continue working on those types of relationships those types of friendships

Especially as we get older, you know that you life life gets away from you

Hang out all the time when you're younger and then the older you get

Them the less you hang out and you and a lot in a lot of ways for good reasons, you know

I mean like that what family and businesses and careers and

Kids and all that stuff I like a lot of it are they're they're they're totally reasonable

Quote-unquote excuses to not prioritize those friendships

But at the end of the day your life will just be a collection of the decisions that you make along the way and

One of the decisions that I am intentionally making for myself is to make sure that I don't leave those friendships

Behind in pursuit of the things that I really want to accomplish in my life

so yeah be the person

That organizes the events the experiences if nobody else in your friend group is

Try to prioritize your friendships in a similar way that you do with your work in your family

And then lastly ask for help

We don't build trust by offering help

We build trust by asking for help. It's actually a deeper psychological driver of trust is to ask for help

Then it is just even to offer help which brings me back to the apology that I offered at the very beginning of this episode

Which was to say hey guys? I'm sorry because I did a really crappy job of letting you guys know

That I needed some help that I needed some that I needed some support

You know during this particularly tough time of my life and I just felt like I'm you know, I'm

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Supposed to be the rock and supposed to be the person who people can come to

Not the person who's burdening other people with my own thoughts and feelings

You know how dare how dare I have thoughts and feelings and burden the people in my life with them

But the people in your life want to help you just like you want to help them

And you are robbing them of their blessing from being there for you if you're not willing to share the things that are going negatively

In your life as well. So now

I want to get into a couple of questions that were that were asked here if we have some time

This was this was asked by one of one of some somebody on Instagram at Dave Berlin who's a friend of mine

Um, he said what are your favorite questions to ask to get the real to get to the real route of connection

First of all, I think one mistake I made early on was trying to skip small talk and go straight into deep questions

Because I thought it was a waste and you hear this all the time the sort of the rhetoric online

Yeah, I hate small talk. I just wanted. I just want to get I just want to get into it

You know, I want to have a deep dive into a conversation

But small talk is like social lubricant. It's like you got to you got to loosen up the gears before you just put it into

Sixth gear and and put the pedal to the metal you got to you got to go through

You got to go from neutral to first gear and then the second gear than third gear

And small talk allows you to do that and it helps to build the foundation of a trusting relationship is just these areas of small talk

So don't feel like it's a waste of time. You just you got to do it

It might feel or it might feel difficult sometimes

Especially if you're in a conference setting or something like that

You've just talked of 50 people that you don't know it can feel difficult to to go through this like the small talk

Beginning stages work. Don't skip that part. It is very necessary

Now assuming you're hanging out with somebody who you've already built some sort of a foundational friendship with and you've already done some small talk

Small talk with

Here's a couple of questions that I think are are good to ask number one

When was the last time you changed your mind about something important?

Number two when was the last time you got something that you wanted

Number three, what is one of your core values?

Number four, if you could spend time with someone from the past present and future who would they be?

If you could trade lives with anyone for a month who would you choose?

What's something that you've done on your bucket list and what something you want to do still?

How would those closest to you describe you things like that?

These are just open-ended questions that allow for further discussion

That's really all the that's all the point is

And again, this assumes that you've already built some sort of a foundational relationship

And I'll give you a perfect example

This is a friend of mine at a friend of mine his name is Ed

And we initially connected at a business event

And we were sort of both kind of fish out of water in this particular context

And we were drawn to each other because it was brought up that he was in that he had done a bunch of stuff in sales

And I had a bunch of done a bunch of stuff in sales

And so we started connecting on that and this is what I would refer to as small talk

And it's just sort of like the oh you're interested in this thing

Well tell me about your sales war story and then he was like tell me about your sales war story

And we exchanged a few things

We got to know each other over some period of time

But the last few times we've hung out it's been much more conversations around the questions that I just asked

In fact, I'm pretty sure I asked him the exact question

When was the last time he changed your mind about something?

He was like did I tell you that question because I asked that question a lot too

And then you know we talk about core values

We talk about things that are actually meaningful and important to us

And it has turned into an actual core friendship of mine

But it didn't start by just going directly into deep questions

I just frankly don't think that works

Like unless you just have that alchemistic vibe with somebody

That allows you to go there while both parties feel comfortable

Going there but it's one of my pet peeves now

Where you know you're in some sort of a conference setting

And you're doing you know the whole networking rounds

And talking to people that you never talked to before

And then you talk to somebody and they are somebody who likes skipping small talk

And then they go directly into deep questions

And I'm like I don't I don't know who you are

Like I'm not going to open up the vault of my consciousness

To somebody I just met

Just because you feel awkward doing small talk

It's like I don't I just don't know you that

Well, I don't feel comfortable going into all these other areas of my life

Without having some base layer of trust here

So don't feel like you have to skip that initial stage

Spend some time there until you've built some sort of level

Some layer of foundational trust there

And then you can move into some of these

Some of these other other questions that will allow for a deeper discussion later on

So that's it for this episode of the show

Thanks so much for tuning in

As always at TravShap on Instagram

Shoot me DM let me know what we should talk about on the show next

And we'll keep going along this topic of friendships

And loneliness until we've covered everything I want to cover

I got a lot to say about this

And maybe eventually we'll turn it into a book or something

Because this is something that I think

Not enough people are talking about

So thanks for tuning in

Catch you guys in the next episode

Peace

And pushing your way to greatness

So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens

Or that daunting beef Wellington recipe card

And leave the laundry to us

Rinse it's time to be great