welcome to lesson 3 of the BeeFriend course in our previous lesson we learned
about the formula of friendship which are the four factors that determine how
deep our relationships with others go however if all you do is employ these
four factors you are not guaranteed to befriend others this is because there is
one rule that you have to stick to in order to make sure that you are
developing friendships and not making enemies instead it's called the golden
rule of friendship now a couple of years ago I hung out with this girl let's call
her Stacey who told me that she struggled with making long-lasting
relationships Stacey didn't have any childhood friends
she didn't have any high-school buddies and even her co-workers rarely asked her
to hang out she always felt like the people she befriended did not stay loyal
to her and at the time I didn't know what she was doing wrong but after years
of learning about social skills and thinking back to the way Stacey
interacted around others I started to realize that it was because she always
broke the golden rule of friendship the golden rule of friendship states that if
you want people to like you you have to make them feel good if you make people
feel good they will want to be around you more but if you make them feel bad
they will avoid you it sounds pretty simple but there are many many ways that
people accidentally break this rule in fact Stacey broke this rule in three
different ways see the thing is Stacey had what we new
yorkers call a resting bitchface it's a combination of a subtle frown combined
with glazed over eyes plastered on your face 24/7 it kind of looks something
along the lines of this this was the first way that Stacy broke the golden
rule of friendship by having bad body language see the body language she
portrayed made it seem like she wasn't interested in you what you were saying
and that she was unhappy when you interacted with her when you speak to
someone and they look unhappy and uninterested you think to yourself oh is
what I'm saying boring is she even listening to me should I just leave and
if this happens over and over again you will instinctively try to avoid them in
the future nobody wants to talk to someone who seems uninterested in
whatever they're saying now you're probably wondering improvement bill what
sort of body language should we be using to prevent something like this what are
some examples of good body language what are some examples of bad ones well don't
worry because we're gonna dive deep into that with multiple videos in the next
portion of the befriend course but for now let's talk about the second way
Stacy broke the golden rule of friendship
so I remember a specific interaction that I had with Stacy I was telling her
story of how I did poorly in high school how I didn't have a good
social life but also how I was able to make changes and get out of rock bottom
now this is a pretty personal story that I hold dear to my heart it's a story
that I'm very proud of and it's a story that I seldom tell people but at around
the halfway point before I could finish my story
Stacey butted in and she started telling me a story about her struggles in high
school how she had a harder time than me making friends and how her rock bottom
was way worse than mine the second way that Stacy broke the golden rule of
friendship was by making everything about herself see the thing is the
majority of people enjoy talking about themselves it feels good to tell a story
and have people listen to you but when someone cuts you off and proceeds to
tell their own story they're doing two things number one they're telling you
that they don't care about you or your story which is a terrible feeling and
number two they're telling you that they want you to listen to them to make them
feel good and not the other way around if you constantly redirect the
conversation back to yourself you're essentially asking everyone else to give
you something without getting anything back in return I think this was actually
the biggest reason as to why Stacy didn't have any long-lasting
relationships because she made everything about herself now before we
get into the third and final way Stacy screwed up I do want to mention
something really really fast we all know going through a course like the friend
course or the team course is effective but it's nowhere nearly as powerful as
committing to a hands-on coaching program if you are interested in this
and you're willing to invest money in yourself please sign up for my mailing
list using the link in the description box below to receive future updates now
there are thousands of different things you can talk about when you hang out
with someone else and the sort of topics you choose to discuss can have a huge
impact on the overall interaction Stacy like to talk about her past how she used
to be skinnier how she used to have nicer hair when we ate together she
liked to complain about the food and how the service that this one wasn't so
great she was super critical of everything the
third and final way Stacy broke the golden rule of friendship was by talking
too much about negative things think about this when you talk about something
negative what sort of emotion are you bringing to the table while depending on
what you're talking about it could be a wide variety of things such as anger
disgust jealousy sadness etc but all of these emotions have one thing in common
they don't feel good when you talk about negative things you're not only sharing
the words and stories but also the emotions that go along with them so if
you tell a story about how your dog died people will feel
your sadness if you tell a story about how your girlfriend cheated on you
people will feel some of your anger there's a time and place for stories
like this but you have to be very careful about these types of things
especially if you've just started to get to know someone because they make people
feel bad and if you do this too often they will start to associate you with
all of those negative emotions and avoid you if you look at the formula of
friendship Stacey was doing all of the right things she would go partying with
people quite often so she had good proximity good frequency good duration
and good intensity however she did not employ the golden rule of friendship in
fact she broke the rule over and over again which meant that she eventually
made more enemies than friends people started hating her because she stuck to
the formula friendship but made them feel bad at the same time think of the
golden rule of friendship as a plus or negative sign in front of our equation
so far if you stick to it your friendships will grow but if you break
it people will start to hate you it's a simple simple rule that you must keep in
mind during all of your future interactions now before we start talking
about body language there is one more foundational concept that I must teach
you it's something so powerful that it can potentially two times three times
heck even five times the speed of which you can befriend others and deepen your
relationships with them it's the importance of value make sure you
subscribe and hit the bell icon because we're gonna cover that in our next
lesson and I don't want you to miss it besides that guys stay tuned