Escaping the Drift - The Weekly Drop: The Art of Building Genuine Friendships
15:38 Share

From the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be, escaping the drift, this is The Weekly Drop with Jon Gafford. No matter what platform you're watching or listening to us on, make sure you like, subscribe, and comment. And now, The Drop. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of The Weekly Drop, man, my little private podcast where it's just me here in the studio talking to you about things that I find interesting or things that I think will help you. And this week, man, I got to be honest with you, it's more about me than it is about you.

And what I mean by that is I wanted to do a podcast about something that's been troubling me, man, kind of lately and kind of how I am. And so I figured me being a problem solver and what I do is I do research and try to figure out how to get better when things aren't going the way that I want it to go. And the topic of what's been kind of bugging me lately is I've realized as I've gotten older, I have a shit ton of acquaintances who

and very few friends. And I know there's little memes everywhere that says it's better to have two good friends than 500 acquaintances, but I'm not somebody that really believes that. And as you get older, people change, things happen. People come into your life, they go out of your life. But the older you get, the harder it really becomes to make good friends.

And what started me thinking down this line was my good friend, Travis Chapel. Check out his podcast, which is Travis Makes Friends. Just did his little solo drop on this deal. And I listened to it. I thought, man, that was pretty profound. Because one of the things about living in Vegas, right, and living here in this town is because there's so much going on here from conventions to events and this and that,

You really kind of get, it's a great litmus test for who's really your friend and who is really just an acquaintance. And that line to me has become, you know, when people come to town, if I'm on my stories, Instagram, and I see them in Vegas and they didn't call me, that's okay. That's an acquaintance.

Because friends kind of call each other when they go to town. Like I couldn't imagine going to certain places in the United States where I have friends that live there and not calling them. Like I just can't even get my head around that. And, you know, it's a little troubling because sometimes when you move people from that friend category to that acquaintance category, it's kind of like, damn, it kind of sucks, man. It's a little brutal. And the older you get as your circle gets smaller, right?

And the harder it gets to meet people or become really good friends with people, you know, you start to feel, I don't care who you are, you feel a little lonely. And I think when you're looking for friends, and I think you're looking for that friend group, when you're little, dude, it's easy. You like the monkey bars? I like the monkey bars. Let's be friends. Did we just become best friends? Yep, we sure did. But as you get older, you value people for different things. And I think people...

Look for different value out of folks and when I say older, I mean even like you look in high school, right? You know the popular kids take an interest in you you want to hang out with the popular kids because they raise your social status As you get a little older, maybe you start networking on a business side So you look for people that are in the same business as you or can help you with your business but the older and older you get and

the less and less and less that kind of works. And it gets difficult because you get your own life, you get kids, you get, you know, you get, if you're successful in business, you get somewhat separated from everybody else. And time goes on. People start to think too, if you're someone that has like, like, like me, that has a relatively large public persona here in town, anyway, people just assume that like, I'm always busy or something going on. So you don't get invited to a lot of stuff.

And it's weird. And when you do get invited to things and you can't go for whatever reason, it's just like, man, I can't go, but please invite me again. So I'm not going to give you stories today of great success of what I've done to do this. I'm going to give you some books that I found this week and some tips that they give you

on how hopefully I can get better. Because one of the things that stuck out to me from Travis's podcast was if you want more friends, be a better friend. And you start questioning, okay, cool. Am I doing everything I can to be a better friend to others to be more attractive and get in their circle?

So the first thing I would talk about is getting beyond small talk with people, which can be really hard, especially when you're dealing with, you know, people that are grown with families and careers and jobs. And especially when you're the new person breaking into that space.

new click. Like for example, I just joined a new country club not too long ago and I've met a bunch of great people there, but I don't know that I have a bunch of people up there that I would call friends yet. I have a lot of acquaintances because I haven't quite gotten over that hump yet with a lot of those people beyond relatively small talk. And in the book, Platonic, How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends by Marissa Franco, which I found this week,

Marissa explains that building a deeper connection often starts with vulnerability and genuine curiosity, helping us to create bonds based on mutual understanding instead of convenience. Now for me, dude, I don't know if this is you too, but for me, hard thing about this is like,

When do you ask a really personal question? Like when you don't want to be like a creep, like you're prying if you're not like on that level. So for me, it's probably more superficial just out of fear of overstepping my bounds with somebody because I, you know, it's like, bro, is that an inner circle question or is it not? But according to this person, you have to kind of just get over that and

and cross that threshold. And hopefully people don't look at you like you're a crazy person. Hopefully they look at you like, you know, yeah, man, the answer, like you would genuine concern. Now, one of the things I took away from this this week was,

was I don't do enough of when people have things going on in their life, and I know they have things going on, I have not been good enough about just reaching out for no reason to say, hey, just checking in to see how it's going. And I've made a concerted effort this week to do that with several people that I am acquaintances, and some people I would consider my friends, just because I know they have some stuff going on, reaching out to make sure they're okay. I think

I think you got to get out of your own way with your own busy life and really do that. Get to the deeper issues. And I've got some folks that have some major life stuff going on and just checking on them just to see how they're doing without any agenda for getting anything back for it at all. The second thing, again, kind of goes with the same thing of initiating that deeper type of conversation and transforming somebody from an acquaintance to a friend and

is by sharing something personal, not asking something personal, but sharing something. So Laura Tremaine's book, share your stuff. I'll go first encourages breaking through barriers by sharing personal stories and asking intentional questions. Like what's something like, what's something, has something like that ever changed you? These deeper questions will create a deeper foundation for friendships based on trust and emotional investment. Well,

Again, maybe getting out of my own way, sharing those personal deep stories. I guess this is a good first start. You know, I'm sending this out to what I mean, a hundred thousand people that, you know, get my podcast and I'm sending this out saying I don't have enough friends. So I guess that's step one, I guess. But, um, but yeah, I guess it's getting over that hump of getting out of your own way and losing your ego to a point where it's okay to share things about yourself and getting that done.

Next point, invest time and attention. Discuss the power and consistency of checking in regularly. I kind of hit this a minute ago, but again, in the book Together, the healing and power of human connection in a sometimes lonely world, advocate scheduled time with friends to combat loneliness and build connection, especially in today's busy world. So,

Checking in with folks, like I said before, this is more of I don't schedule this like I don't think about it until I think about it. And I think that's most people like like we don't you don't think about drinking a glass of water in most cases unless you're thirsty. You don't think about food unless you're hungry.

You don't think about, I don't have enough friends unless you're like, I don't really have anybody to go to the hockey game with tonight. Like shit. Like I've called my three people that normally go and now I'm kind of strapped. You know what I'm saying? You don't think about it till then. And I think this is a great, I think this is a good metaphor for anything in life. Thinking about things before it's a problem is a great recipe and a great solution for success. So I think...

systematically putting in my calendar. I think this is something I need to do. And I'm probably gonna do right when we get done with this is just put in my calendar, little reminders throughout the week to check in and reach out to three or four people and just see how they're doing. Just check in, just to check in. But by scheduling it, hopefully those relationships, those acquaintances that I have will manifest into deeper friendships going forward. Hopefully that'll work. I thought this was really, really interesting. In the book, Find Your People by Jenny Allen,

She was talking about how conflict can be good. Now I'm not saying I'm gonna go out and pick a fight with people, but she says conflict is seen as a growing, as a growth point, helping friends move beyond superficial connections. She discusses how handling conflict with openness and compassion can strengthen bonds rather than break them. And I thought about this dude. And I was like, does this make any sense? Like I don't pick fights with people, but I think so many times, you know, as an adult, um,

when you have conflict with somebody or your acquaintance with or friends with or whatever it is sometimes it's easier just to be like man this is too much trouble you know i'm just going to move on i'm just going to get past it and i'll tell you there was a moment not too long ago this is maybe like a year ago maybe a year and a half ago and i i won't name the name but something that's a very very good friend of mine

I got in a dispute with them, we'll just say, over something where I wasn't being completely forthright with some financial ramifications of a situation that were forcing me to act a certain way or make a certain decision a certain way.

that decision also affected them financially and they didn't understand why I was making the decision and it caused a huge problem and it was my fault because I think had I just been completely honest with the situation then there wouldn't have been a big blow up but it was bad dude it was a bad bad fight and I ended up coming down off my little high horse and I

Really saying, hey, man, in a very vulnerable way, explaining the dire straits of that particular situation and what had happened. And I think and immediately this person, because they're a wonderful person, acquiesced and understood what was going on. I was like, dude, you should have fucking told me that in the first place. And everything was kind of OK after that.

But I genuinely feel that that is probably the biggest argument I've had with somebody I would consider a friend. And I can't even remember another instance where there was a situation where somebody I would consider a close friend I was in that big of a tiff with. And I got to tell you, I think we were better friends after it. There's something to this.

So I guess the message here, and I guess, and I told a story not a couple of weeks ago on a podcast where a kid that works here and his buddy, you know, go back and listen to that one where I was talking about communication, whereas his buddy, they had a big fight. And I think they're closer now after the end of that. So I guess the, the moral of that story is if you have a problem with somebody you're close to, don't just walk away from it. Like understand that on the other side of that problem, there's probably going to be a better relationship. Yeah.

There probably is. So something to do that again. And then the last thing is making this a priority. Talk about prioritizing friendships in your life by setting aside time for social activities and meaningful conversations, especially when life gets busy in the art of showing up by Rachel, Rachel Wilkerson Miller, which is another book I found the importance of intentional friendship building is emphasized. Miller highlights the need to actively make time for friends, which deepens relationships by reinforcing them.

Because it means that they matter to us. Now, so much, so much time we want, we want things to happen organically. And it's so funny. You know, I think if you're a married person and I think we all have this, I have a very dear friend of mine and he's, he's the single guy in our group. He is the longterm bachelor, if you will.

he's probably the most loved guy among all of the married guys. And the reason probably part of that is, is because he can just go with the flow, right? Like when any of us get like that, Oh my God, I have five seconds to do this. You call him. He's like, I'm down. Let's go. Right. But when you have other responsibility in there and God bless him for that. But when you have other responsibilities in life, you,

You got to understand everybody else has other responsibilities too. So you have to plan some of this stuff out. I'm not a good planner. I've been very bad about that. I want to, I, you know, I'm still trying to live like I'm 32 years old trying to figure out what bar I'm going to in South Tampa. You know, it's like,

Friday night, 5.30, what are we doing? And everybody's like, oh, dude, I got kids. I got this, I got that, I got this, I got that. I've had plans for three weeks with this other person. And I think to myself, how do these people have all these plans? Yeah, because they're responsible adults and they made these plans weeks ago. Which is what they did. I'm so busy trying to fit in my social life around kids and work.

It just doesn't exist. I got to do a better job. You know, just same thing like with your marriage. If you want a good marriage, you have to schedule time with your spouse. You should schedule a date night. You need to do that for your friends too. I saw something the other day. It was talking about how men need like four adventures a year with their, their, their guys, whether that's a golf trip or, you know, playing Indiana Jones in Egypt, you need four trips like that a year.

To keep yourself maintained, to keep yourself like that edge to yourself, to be a good father, husband, all that stuff. I've neglected that completely and totally neglected that. So I'll do a follow-up. I'm going to give this all a whirl. I'm going to get dedicated to this for the next six months. I'm going to see where I'm at at six months from now, and I'll do a follow-up. But if you're somebody that is much like me, million acquaintances, very few friends, and that bothers you, maybe give this a whirl.

We'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.