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

0:00You're listening to the Travis makes money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30-day trial of the best all-in-one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com slash traps 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

1:01We 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

2:03So 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

3:07And 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

4:08Which 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

5:09You'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 This episode of the show is brought to you by Mars men. So look guys I don't know if everybody listening knows this but a couple years ago. I was diagnosed with cancer and around that time I also noticed that my testosterone levels were dropping like crazy And I know that some of it was due to the fact that my body was sort of in disarray But then I also learned through this experience that most men start losing testosterone levels around the age of 30

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9:23That 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

10:27Every 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

11:28She 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

12:33That 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

13:37That 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

14:41Which 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

15:41Them 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

16:45Which 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 This episode is brought to you by indeed Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate Instead use indeed sponsor jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate see According to indeed data sponsor jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs So go build your dream team today with indeed get a $75 sponsor job credit at indeed.com slash podcast Terms and conditions apply America leads the world in medicine development. It matters We get new medicines first nearly three years faster Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home and not relying on other countries keeps us safe But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead?

17:46When America leads America cures Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead learn how at America cures.com paid for by pharma 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

18:47Yeah, 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

19:48When 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

20:52And 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

21:54To 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

23:03And 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