So, in this deep dive, we're going to talk about friendships.
Friendships is the second category of Experiences, and it's one of those things that just brings
us so much happiness in our lives when we do it right.
So, we're first going to look at some of the "brules" of the culture scape around friendship,
then we're going to have you actually do a deep dive in designing your vision for your
end goals on friendship, and then I'm going to share a couple of additional learning resources,
and ideas, and books that you can explore if you really, really want to go deep into
the area of cultivating the most amazing friendships possible for your life.
So, first off, friendships are important.
Jim Rohn, the famous speaker, is credited with this quote, "You are the sum of the five
people closest to you."
I love that because I found it generally to be true.
We take on so many beliefs and ideas from our closest friends that our friends help
create us.
Studies are even showing that, for teenagers, their friends at school have a greater impact
on who they turn out to be than their parents, which, for me, is frankly, kind of, scary,
but it is amazing how much friends influence us, so you want to make sure that your friendships
are healthy, that your friendships are with people who are helping you grow.
So, what are your beliefs about friendships?
Remember, in "The Code of the Extraordinary Mind," I talk about how we tend to take on,
through our past experiences and programming, beliefs about the world, and our beliefs become
true for us.
So, as you do this exercise, you also want to pay attention to the beliefs you might
have about friendships.
For example, beliefs such as, are friendships a lot of hard work?
Do friends inevitably screw you over?
Do friends require equal give and take?
Are your friends holding you back?
You might have these beliefs.
You want to be aware of them.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to help you hone those beliefs.
It is merely the idea to remind you that your beliefs of friendships are going to influence
how you do this exercise.
Now, I would like to share with you two beliefs on friendship that shifted for me.
These beliefs helped me overcome "brules"on friendships that I realized were holding me
back.
The first "brule"on friendship is that you need to always stick with the same friends,
that you need to be friendly and stay friends with people who may be holding you back in
life, but you need to stay with them because, well, you were friends since elementary school,
or since high school, or since college.
My new belief is that your friends need to grow with you, and if you're growing ahead
of your friends, and your friends aren't growing, then maybe it's time to respectfully start
spending less time with them and start spending time with friends who are helping you grow,
because one of the worst things you can do for yourself is to stick around with people
who are pulling you down, stick around with people who don't have the same big visions
or the same ideas of how they want to make a dent on the universe with you, because these
friends inevitably hold us back.
Now, it doesn't mean that you abandon old friends, but it means that you up-level.
I, consistently, for example, move networking groups.
So, when I was starting out as an entrepreneur, I joined a start-up networking group, and
I remember when I joined this group, a lot of entrepreneurs there had businesses that
were, say, making around a million dollars in revenue a year.
I was just starting out.
I wasn't at that level.
Far from it, it was intimidating, but this group gave me a new circle of friends that
inspired me.
It was fascinating being friendly with people who could pull me up.
They saw me as a young upstart, but they helped me grow.
And, you know what?
Eventually my business hit a million dollars in revenue, and I left that group.
I joined another group where the average revenue for the entrepreneurs was $5 million.
Now, again, I was nowhere near there, but by being part of this group, I got to learn,
I got to grow.
I got to develop myself and learn from this whole new group of people.
Again, remember, you are the sum of the people closest to you.
Now, when I hit $5 million in revenue, I joined yet another group, and I've been respectfully
jumping networking groups, in other words, respectfully jumping up to higher and higher
levels of people whom I call my friends because I realize just how important your closest
friends are in terms of helping you grow.
Today, I get to hang out with some of the most incredible people in the world, and they
are doing often way more than what I'm doing, people, for example, like Peter Diamandis.
Yet, because of their vision, because of their guidance, because of their friendship, they
light a fire under my ass to up-level my life, too.
So, remember, you don't have to stick by your friends if they're holding you back.
You can respectfully up-level, get new friends, but you owe it to yourself to always stick
by and hang out with people who are helping you grow.
That, to me, is healthy friendship.
Now, the second rule on friendship that I managed to discard is the idea that you cannot
be friends with people at work.
I built my entire company, Mindvalley, based on the idea that I only want to work with
people I truly enjoy.
I mean, we spend so much of our working days at work.
Why shouldn't it be some of the most fun times of our lives?
And friends bring fun into it.
But, there's also a science behind it.
According to a Gallup study, people who answer yes to the following question, "I have a close
friend at work,"are seven times more engaged at their jobs.
So, I found that cultivating friendships at work is actually healthy.
It's not something that you want to draw a line at.
It's healthy, as long as you also are experienced and mature enough where you know that friendships
at work don't mean that a manager cannot reprimand someone who, say, isn't doing well because
they are friends, or it doesn't mean that you cannot tell someone that they need to
do better at a particular task.
So, when you have a healthy level of self-identity, when you have healthy work practices, a healthy
company culture, friendships at work are an incredible thing to pursue.
Now, with those ideas, we have looked at some of the beliefs of the culture scape on friendship.
I've shared with you some of my new models that have helped me improve my ideas of friendship.
Let's go on to your vision.
Once again, I'm going to set a timer for three minutes, and I'm going to ask you to think
about your vision for your friends.
So, take out your notebook, or a piece of paper, and let's get started.
We begin.
Think about what types of friends do you want to have in your life?
Who are these people?
What do they look like?
Some of them may be people who you've never met yet.
Some may be current friends whom you want to take on your journey with you.
How much time do you spend with your friends?
What do you do?
Do you have a weekly touch point with your friends, maybe bowling or dinner on a particular
day of the week because it brings you together and you have that much fun?
Are there activities that you do with your friends where you're learning, and growing,
and up-leveling together?
How do you treat your friends?
What are the ideal practices that you bring into your friendship?
Is it complete transparency?
Is it mutual support and self-respect?
How much time do you spend with your friends?
Do you take vacations together, adventures together?
What would a perfect weekend with your friends look like?
As you're doing this, think about the future friends you want to have.
Who are the people in the world whom you truly admire, whom you would like to associate with?
Who are the people whom you'd like to have as friends whom you could call up any time
when you need business advice, or life advice, and you know you can trust them?
What are the characteristics of friendship that you want to cultivate in yourself?
Is it generosity?
Is it the idea of never forgetting a birthday and being able to make sure your friends are
always feeling taken care of?
♪ [music] ♪What type of habits, practices do you do to make sure that your friendships
stay solid, healthy, and stay with you as you grow through life?
And, don't think about defining friends in any traditional way.
Maybe your friend is your lover.
Maybe your friend are your children.
I always tell my son who's seven years old that he's one of my closest friends in the
world, because we have so much fun together.
Who are the five people closest to you that you know you want to have in your life because
they make you grow, and they push you to do better?
What type of ethical or moral qualities do you want your friends to have?
Loyalty, honesty, transparency, being there for you when you need them?
And keep in mind that this has to be both ways.
♪
[music] ♪So, time is up.
You've made your list.
And, congratulations, you've now dived deep into designing your vision for friendships,
and how you want friends to come into your life, play with you, work with you, and help
you grow.
Now, as a couple of tips on additional resources that you can explore to help you see how you
can really design your life of friendships well, here's what I want to recommend.
Firstly, in terms of a book, this is, by far, the greatest book on friendships I've ever
read, and it's called "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
That book was written almost 80 years ago by Dale Carnegie, and I read that book seven
times before my 18th birthday.
See, when I was in high school I was a bit of an introvert.
I had difficulty making friends, and so this book showed me how to network, how to connect
with people.
I learned so much from it.
I remember, after years, and years, and years of being an awkward teenager with low self-esteem,
not many friends.
By the time I was 19, I had learned so much from this single book that I was selected
student council president, and soon I was one of the most popular guys in school, but
a lot of it came from the knowledge in this book.
Like I said, I read it seven times before I turned 19.
So, I strongly recommend that book.
Now, if you're member of Consciousness Engineering, my online program, listen to the talk on "Connecting
with Influential People" by Larry Benet.
Larry Benet is an amazing guy, and his talk is about how to connect and network with people
whom you can give value to, and at the same time, trust that they are going to be incredible
mentors and guides to help you grow in life.
So, watch that talk on Consciousness Engineering.
And, finally, in the next chapter of this program, read about Love Week.
So, I love what I call culture hacking.
Culture hacking is how you can go into a group, and you can shift the culture to make it more
positive and more supportive of everyone.
Love Week is one of my favorite culture hacks which I invented and I brought into organizations.
Thousands of companies now do it.
But, watch the video.
It's about a simple hack that you can bring into your workplace to create closer friendships
amongst the people you work with.
Companies, I've brought this into government institutions, into various organizations,
schools, nonprofits.
It's a beautiful way to create friendship amongst people who work together.
It's out there.
It's kind of bizarre, but it so works.
So, check it out, and I'll see you on the next deep dive session as part of this program.