SOLO | Make Money by Building Friendships in Your 30s

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Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.

Today we are answering the question,

why is it so difficult to make friends in your 30s?

It's basically every decade of life.

Anything past your teens, people are like,

how do you make friends in your 20s?

How do you make friends in your 30s?

And you get into 40s?

How do you make friends in your 40s?

How do you make friends in your 50s?

The answer is, it is more difficult.

And there are a few reasons why.

So let's dive into a couple of reasons why.

And then we'll talk about how do we combat this?

How do we actually go about making new friends as we get older?

First off, why it's so hard to make friends in your 30s in general?

Number one, increased self-awareness leads to a decrease in mutual interests.

This sort of just happens as you get older.

When you're younger, there's fewer threads,

or there's more threads of commonality to pull on,

meaning that when you are growing up in school,

you see these people all the time,

you have core commonalities,

meaning that you probably live in the same area.

You have the same teachers,

you're studying the same things,

you have a lot of the same similar shared life experience,

which is why when you meet some,

when you reconnect with somebody from growing up in your 30s,

it can be a little bit easier to hang out with those people

because you have a ton of shared mutual experiences from the past.

But as you get older,

one of the cool things about getting older

is that you have an increased level of self-awareness.

You understand like, okay, I don't vibe with this type of a person.

I don't like this type of a personality.

I don't really want to live my life in this sort of way.

I'd actually prefer to live my life in this sort of a way.

So the more self-awareness that you get,

the more difficult it is to find the commonality with other people

because they're also becoming more self-aware.

They're also becoming their own individual person,

their own unique person.

So as we all get older together,

when you connect with somebody,

it becomes more difficult to connect with them on a commonality level

because you both have different interests

and you've grown up enough to understand what your interests really are.

Whereas when you get roomed with somebody in college,

it's like, you don't really even know.

I mean, everybody's just trying to figure out who they are.

So it's a little bit easier to connect with everybody

because everybody's just open to connect with anybody

because they haven't experienced the pain of a bad friendship

or the experience the pain of a betrayal before.

And so you're just sort of green to all of those things

and open to way more connection than somebody who's a little bit older

who might be a tad jaded, who had a negative experience in the past.

So increased self-awareness leads to a decrease in mutual interest.

Time management is increasingly more difficult to older.

We have other priorities, something that we kind of talked about

on a previous episode.

We got work.

We got family, both immediate family,

meaning that if you're married, you have your spouse and your kids.

If you have kids, if you don't have those things,

then you still have your immediate family, your parents,

or your brothers and sisters.

There's work obligations, there's family obligations.

And then if you want to do any sort of personal work outside of that,

like go into the gym or reading a book or just managing your life,

like being on hold for three and a half hours

to talk to your insurance company, to change your policy,

your bank calls you.

There's just a bunch of adult life stuff that gets in the way.

So time management becomes increasingly more difficult

because there's just less time to be able to just go do random stuff

where you might have the chance encounter of meeting somebody

that actually becomes a friend.

Not to mention you throw in rest.

It's like at some point you got to sleep.

Sleep's pretty important.

So you just have way more demands in your time.

And then you add that to number one,

which is the self-awareness piece.

It's like, man, well, I went out the last three weekends

and all that ended up happening was I spent a bunch of money

and I met a bunch of douchebags, so I didn't enjoy.

And frankly, I would rather just be by myself

and drink some wine and watch a show that I know I enjoy

by myself in the comfort of my home for this evening

because I just want to relax.

And so you start choosing those things instead of going out

and seeking opportunities to meet more people.

And then the last thing that I wrote down on this is

that you don't have existing friend circles

that help you meet new people.

And this is especially true if you are in a new city

or you've just took a new job

or there's something new in your life,

is that you don't have, you know,

if you stayed in your hometown

and you hang out with all the same friends,

it might be easier to meet new people

because your buddy got a job at this place

and met a couple of people there

who are similar to your friend group.

And so when you go out to the bar this weekend,

you're invited out a couple of his new work friends.

And now you can meet those people

and potentially make friends there.

And you know that you have some sort of commonality

or else your friend wouldn't have connected with those people.

But if you move to a new city and you're in a new place

and all of a sudden all of that, that's all gone.

You don't have this existing network of people

who are bringing new people into your world.

So how do we combat this?

How do we combat all of these things?

First off, you got to be a master of your schedule.

So if you're in a position, especially if you're in a new city

and you're really trying to go out and meet new people

or make new friends, then do not allow for dead time

in your calendar.

So this does not mean that you don't get to rest.

This does not mean that you don't ever get to relax one

like by yourself with a bottle of wine and a good Netflix show.

It doesn't mean that you don't get those things.

It just means that that should also be scheduled.

Right? So schedule rest, schedule, schedule,

Netflix date with myself Friday night.

I am not going to cancel on that.

It's like the like the Grinch.

I can't cancel that again.

You just want to want to make sure

that you're putting these things in your calendar

because if you schedule the activity,

then you're more likely to go do that thing.

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And or an accountability partner or somebody

who's also trying to go do some of these things.

Maybe you meet somebody out in an effort to make new friendships.

And it's like, okay, well, what are you doing?

Oh, you're going to that thing next Thursday night?

Okay, well, I'm going to go do that thing with you.

Text me and make sure that I show up.

Just don't allow for dead space in your calendar

because that dead space will more than likely

be filled with the thing that's easiest for you to fill it with,

which means that you're probably just going to spend more time

by yourself at home scrolling TikTok

or watching the latest Netflix show,

which as we've discussed in previous episodes

is not social activity.

So schedule out your calendar completely.

Do not allow for any dead space in your calendar.

Put something on the calendar,

even if it is going to dinner by yourself.

So be a master of your of your schedule.

Do not let your schedule be a master of you.

Next, go out after dinner and work at coffee shops

if you work virtually.

Just get used to doing more things in public instead of being home.

So instead of, if you know you got a deadline coming up

and you just finished dinner

and you're just going to bust out some work on your laptop

and your kitchen, instead of doing it there,

go out to a bar, go out to a coffee shop,

go out somewhere else and do the same work

that you were going to do at home, but just do it there.

And again, if you don't have a lot of money to make,

you're trying to save money,

order the cheapest thing on the menu,

get a glass of water every other round

or do something that's going to not hurt your wallet when you do this.

Obviously, or else you can just end up spending an extra like

a thousand bucks a month on going out,

but it is vital that you just go out and be a part of society

when you're doing things that you could normally do

just by yourself at your home.

And then when you're out, try to meet somebody.

Just make it a goal.

Like, I'm going to work at this coffee shop

and my rule for myself while I go work at this place

is that I have to meet one person who I've never met before.

I have to shake hands with somebody.

I have to say something to somebody.

I have to comment on somebody's purse or bag or shoes

or hair or something that just initiates

some sort of a conversation with somebody

who I would not have had the pleasure of meeting otherwise.

Have open body language.

What are you sitting there?

If you're going to go sit at the bar

and get a little bit of work done,

which I've done on a number of occasions,

sit on the corner of the bar so that you can have this sort of openness

to see everybody in each direction

and pick your head up from your work every once in a while.

Make eye contact with people.

Have this open body language

and then make whatever unattached comments that you can.

If they reciprocate, introduce yourself.

I was at a bar one time in...

I think it was in Miami and I was sitting down

and just getting a little bit of work done.

There was a basketball game on TV

and I noticed the guy sitting next to me

kept looking up at the TV and watching the game.

I commented something about the game to the guy

and I said something about whatever.

I don't know some player.

The guy looks over me and goes like,

I don't really follow basketball

and then just turned back.

And I was like, well, that is a perfect example of me

trying to say something.

It was absolutely not reciprocated at all.

Maybe just didn't want to talk or maybe he just thought

I only wanted to talk about basketball.

Either case, I didn't push it.

I'm not going to bug the person who's trying to be by themselves.

But also, I'm going to make an effort

just to initiate some conversation around something

that I thought was a commonality

because he kept looking up at the TV.

Turns out he was probably just anxious socially

and was trying to just do something with his eyes

as he ate dinner by himself at the bar

because he didn't actually watch basketball

or follow basketball at all

and no idea what I was talking about.

It was a perfect example of, hey, made an effort

but look, nothing bad happened.

There's no negative social consequences here.

This is the cool thing about making friends

versus something like getting involved

in a romantic relationship,

asking somebody out is there's also virtually no consequences

to asking somebody out

except for that the rejection might just feel

a little bit more personal

and might hurt a little bit more.

But when you're making friends,

there's no reason to take any of that stuff personally

and I wasn't going to try to force this person into a conversation.

It was just like, hey, I thought you were watching the game.

I mentioned something about the game.

Apparently, you don't care about that

and you want to be by yourself cool in the worries.

But then later in the same evening,

a couple guys end up sitting a few chairs away from me

and I heard something about one of them

saying something about work or marketing or something

and I caught my attention.

And so I threw out a comment

about the marketing industry or something.

We ended up talking for 20, 30 minutes

and then connecting on social media afterwards

and nothing ever came from it.

We never ended up meeting up again

and frankly, I don't even remember their names

I don't remember if I even still follow them on Instagram anymore.

But it was a good example of both of those things happening,

I guess, in the same night.

I was what I'm trying to say is that

you just never know.

Just say something.

Train yourself to say one more thing.

That's one of the best pieces of practical advice

that I heard about this.

I think it was from Charlie, from Khrisman Command.

He basically just says that to people.

It's just like, try to say one more thing.

In your normal interactions with the Starbucks barista

or with the bartender or with the person

taking your order at the restaurant,

just get used to saying one more thing.

You'd usually just say, hey, I want a coffee

and then you order your drink and then that's it.

Say something else about the day, about the weather,

about, like I said, their hair.

If you don't know what to say,

compliments are always a really good thing.

Obviously, there can be some sort of a limit there,

especially if you're a dude and you're complimenting a woman.

Understand there are some social ramifications

if you start being a little bit creepy

or they might think that you're asking them out

when you're not.

So there's some, a little bit of danger zone here,

but most of the time, people like hearing things

that are positive about themselves.

So just don't be a creep and default to compliments

when you can because everybody likes hearing good stuff

about themselves.

And frankly, frankly, compliments from a stranger to me,

I feel like go a longer way than even compliments from friends.

You know what I mean?

So don't be, don't be frugal with your compliments.

Don't be cheap with your compliments.

Give them out freely because there's no,

there's no negative social consequences

to giving out compliments.

Everybody likes hearing good compliments.

And then engage if what you enjoy and find,

sorry, engage in what you enjoy,

little typo in my notes here.

Engage in what you enjoy in fine ways

to give people more compliments.

So maybe make people feel good about themselves.

People will never remember what you say,

but they'll always remember how you make them feel.

Don't be a creep.

And then just remember that it takes pressure off

of the first impression.

If somebody's first impression of you is a compliment to them,

then they're more likely to remember you in a positive light,

just in general.

So it'll also give you some additional things

to talk about potentially.

So don't be, don't be shy with your compliments.

Don't be shy by saying anything.

Just say something, people.

The future belongs to those who are most willing

to risk rejection constantly.

That's just the truth.

That's the facts.

If you are willing to risk rejection more often

than other people,

then you will probably gain access

to more opportunities than other people will gain.

So especially, especially, especially as technology

continues to improve,

AI continues to improve,

and people's soft skills continue to degrade.

You will be able to stand out in a sea of people

who don't know what to say and don't know how to talk to people.

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Somebody who has a strategic advantage

in that version of the world.

So start the conversation,

say something, first, you know,

the first thing you thought of,

something about the sports game,

something about what they're wearing,

or the jewelry that they have,

or their hair cut,

or, you know, something like that.

So just start, I guess,

is really the solution here.

Be a master of your schedule,

go out to places

when you're doing something

that you could normally do at home

by yourself, if you can do it out,

go do it out,

and then force yourself to engage

with the people who are around you.

Even if it's something small,

even if it doesn't go anywhere,

you will honestly feel better about yourself.

You'll feel more, like,

you contributed to something that day.

And even if you never talked to that person again,

I guarantee you,

when that person gets home,

and you offered them a compliment about something,

I guarantee you,

the first thing out of their mouth

is going to be like,

a coffee shop told me that my,

you know, shoes were really cool.

Or somebody at the coffee shop

said something about my hair,

and I really appreciated that.

Like, it's going to be something

that that person goes and talks about

to their friend group.

And you have the ability

to make that type of a positive impact,

and make somebody's day a little bit brighter,

don't pass on those things.

Just say it,

you never know what people are going through,

and what type of encouragement

people need to hear.

And you never know if that it might

lead to something really cool in your life.

But I guarantee you,

that just opting to be by yourself all the time

is not going to lead to any

potential opportunities in your life.

Although I do find that

hanging out with myself is really important,

and building a good relationship yourself

is vital and valuable.

If you only ever build a relationship with yourself,

there are still consequences

for doing that.

Like we talked about in a previous episode.

There's the difference between social isolation

and loneliness.

You know, loneliness is the

subjective internal feeling of not belonging,

and a social isolation

is the objective third party measurement

of how much time you spend with the people.

If you are somebody who does not feel feelings of loneliness,

but you are socially isolated,

there's just as many physical

and mental health consequences to that,

as there are to somebody who feels

internal subjective feelings of loneliness,

even though they're surrounded by people.

So don't delude yourself into thinking

that you just don't need people.

We all need people.

We're all hardwired biologically

to crave social connection and belonging,

so do not leave that part out of the equation.

So that's it for this episode of the show.

How to make better friends in your 30s.

Get out, talk to people.

The bad news here guys is that it's going to take work.

You're going to be uncomfortable.

You're going to have to engage with uncertainty.

But that is how literally everything in life is.

So stop demanding so much of life.

Stop demanding that life meet all of your expectations

without being willing to give life,

you know, meet life halfway.

It's like you demand all these things from God,

from life, from the universe, from whatever it is

that you believe, yet you just sit at home

and just hope that you can manifest it into existence.

It's just not how it works.

You got to get out and you got to do stuff

that makes you uncomfortable.

And this is definitely one of those activities

that's worthy of the discomfort

that you might feel when you engage in it.

So that's it for this episode of the show.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

Catch you guys in the next one.

Peace.