- Using the friends versus friendly
framework for relationship building.
Maybe in your life you don't have the most supportive people
around you, helping you out in your business as you grow.
Maybe you feel like people don't understand you.
Maybe you're still spending time with people
that you got drunk with and partied with high school.
(upbeat music)
So what I wanna share with you today is really
a framework that I've had to learn personally
over my life and one that was recently shared
with me through a good friend named Garrett Gunderson.
So, the friends versus friendly frame work is very simple.
You know, as I was growing up, I got,
involved in a lot of challenging environments.
Pretty much all of my friends were drug addicts
or criminals because I was as well, you know?
And after spending eleven months in rehab
and discovering computers and deciding
that I wanted to take, you know, a new journey
in the entrepreneurial world.
I had to, over a period of three or four years,
really change my group of friends, my network, my peers.
And it was tough, I still remember, you know,
I had to move schools and I started this new school
and those other people would still be around.
And they would always ask me like, "Oh, man, I haven't
"seen you forever, what's going on?"
And, you know, I'd wanna be polite, I didn't wanna be rude.
But at the same time I knew that they were not people
that I was gonna continue building relationship with.
And it was tough and at some points it felt lonely
and other times I felt like, you know, I wasn't
gonna be able to find other people.
I mean, it takes a while to build great relationships
in your life, so I understand if you've ever been there.
But, you know, a few weeks ago I was talking
to my friend Garrett, and we were at his house
and he was sharing with me a really neat framework
as we talked about people that support us in our lives
and inspire us and push us to grow.
And he calls it the friends versus friendly
approach to relationship building.
Here's a simple concept, you know, I recently wrote
a blog post called "How To Do A Friendventory"
and I'm gonna link that up below.
But Garrett's approach is really simple.
It's you've got friends in your life
and you've got people you're friendly with.
And friendlies are folks that you see
at your family gatherings, or people you might run
into at the mall, or whatever.
I mean, they could be people you went
to high school with today or back in the day,
but today you wouldn't be friends with them.
So, you say hello, you ask them how their kids are growing,
but what you don't do, and this is what's really cool,
is you don't say, "Hey, we should get together sometime".
You don't accept the invite to one
of the kids' birthday parties, you don't,
you don't look for opportunities to get together.
Like you really just are friendly and anytime
they ask you to do something, you apologize
and say you're already committed and you move on.
And over time, you're gonna free up your ability.
Because a lot of people don't even
have time to kind of find time to find new,
more positive and supporting people.
So using this concept of friendly, and say, "Hey, you know,
"I don't wanna be rude to this person, I don't wanna
"necessarily ignore them or pretend like I don't know them."
Like, don't be that guy, but there's a difference
between friends versus friendly.
So that's the friendly model.
The friends is people that you maybe know a little bit
or you want to get to know and you reach out to them.
And you ask them what they're doing.
And if they're speaking at an event,
you go there and you support them.
Or if they ask you to go out for dinner,
you clear your schedule to spend time with them.
The real goal is to say, "Look, these people
"are now people I'm friendly with.
"These people I wanna be more friends with."
And what I wanna do is figure out how I can spend more
of my time, and maybe you're building a business
and you don't have all the time in the world, I get it.
But how can I spend a higher percentage of my total
free time, whatever free means, you know?
I've got two little boys, so there is no free time,
but I will make time for the friends.
And figure out, is it me inviting
them to something, I'm organizing it?
Is it going and supporting a product that they're launching?
Whatever it is, that's the friends concept
And you want people in this bucket that are incredible,
that are inspiring, that are on that shared journey.
That share your values in life for personal growth,
for building a business, for creating your own future.
And it's really the difference between fixed mindset,
those are the people that you're friendly with,
versus growth mindset, which are, in my case,
my friends and I'm pretty sure it's the same case for you.
So that's the framework and I wanna thank
Garrett again for sharing that with me.
The friends versus friendly framework
for building your relationship.
As per usual, I wanna invite you
to subscribe to my newsletter,
to get exclusive content and special invites to events.
And per usual, I wanna challenge you
to live a bigger life and a bigger business.
And I'll see you next Monday.