Friendship Fuels Achievement | Matt Ritter

25:11You want to come join? And thankfully, I'm an entrepreneur. So I'm like, yeah, actually, I can make that work. But it was all because I was persistent and inviting. I didn't take it personally when they were too busy. They couldn't do it. It didn't work. So all of these things that are perceived as selfless that I do, that you do are also selfish. Yeah. Right. I mean, I, I'm, my wife and I are super hosts. I invite people to things all the time. And on the one hand, I love doing it and I am generous by nature. But on the other hand, I am setting myself up to be invited to things that, you know, So the host, that's why I always come back to hosting.

25:46The host never has a bad social life. No. The person in your neighborhood who hosts things, I guarantee you they're getting invited to a lot of things. And for our clients who want to start hosting, so we talk about, we call it the social sales funnel. So marketing sales funnel, you have to find a bunch of people who might be interested. You have to qualify the people who are interested and then you want to sell them your services if you have a business. Same thing with friendship. You build a social sales funnel by going out and meeting a bunch of people that could be your friend. Then you qualify them by hosting an event, something that you love doing.

26:17So when I first moved to LA, we signed up for NFL Sunday Ticket. And every Sunday, my apartment building had a pool and we would just say, hey, going out on the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, what are you guys doing? We're watching the game. And with Sunday Ticket, you know, you could watch any NFL game. All the people who are transplants are like, yeah, I want to watch my hometown team and hop in the pool. And over time, building that little qualifying step of hosting the pool party with NFL on Sunday. We're going to do it anyways. We built a vibrant social circle where we're getting invited to concerts, events, things all because we had that one event happening.

26:51Now, when we hear that, a lot of our clients will say, but most people said no. And for me, the shift is actually just appreciate the people who showed up. Stop focusing so much on the no's and celebrate the people who are there and invite them to the next thing. And you're going to build the momentum to friendship because those one off hangs are what actually starts a real friendship. Can I just tell you about our group called the Dilfs of Larchmont? Yeah. I met one of my now best friends walking my stroller almost three years ago. He was walking a stroller and I could have said nothing, but I was like, this guy's around my age.

27:28Seems like I've seen him around the neighborhood. I said I liked his stroller. I was like, you know, the souped up McLaren, you know, and we got to talking that night. I was hosting an event and I invited him and he showed up. and I was like wow that's really cool he showed up by himself to this thing fast forward we now share an office together he's you know I'm doing entertainment stuff he's a tutor we overhear some weird convos we share an office and we were like oh you know there's a lot of young dads in this neighborhood we should do something about that so we just called ourselves the DILFs of Larchmont my wife goes self-proclaimed and we got hats and we just started kind of auditioning and inviting guys and I I hosted a poker night at my house.

28:09We started a basketball league the first week. Just me and him showed up. Second week, three guys. By the sixth week, we had enough for a half court. Now it's a year later and we have like 25 people. And when we host things, some people show up. Some people don't show up. Sometimes it's a couple people. Sometimes it's not. But it's already there. The infrastructure is built and it has led to such an increase in the overall social health of my life. The other part that I want to talk about with your audience is this notion that it's all or nothing with friendship. I think a lot of people are searching for this like best friend, soulmate person, you know, or nothing.

28:48I think there's a value in having a concert buddy who may not be your deepest friend. I think there's a value in having somebody who shows up for the basketball and maybe doesn't want to hang out afterwards. I think all of these levels increase your overall social health, which is also super important. and people are changing and evolving. So just because right now that's the concert buddy, you know, he has his first son and all of a sudden you have way more to relate on and now you have that deeper friendship. So I'm not saying discount acquaintances, but I think we have to start to realize that it's on us to turn those acquaintances into friends.

29:23We have to give them the opportunity to be our friend, not wait for the acquaintances to make us their friend. We called it a level up moments in our audio. a lot of people are looking for those like how do i take this person it's like well how do we get to know each other better i i find one of the biggest uh overlooked one is going on vacations with somebody obviously levels them up right yeah but how do you go on vacation you could just go to the san antonio winery downtown out of your rhythm of your daily day and that feels like the same kind of road trip with a friend that will level up a friendship when your parents are in town if you introduce that person, they will immediately feel that you've leveled up their friendship.

30:01There's all these little micro ways to do it where it's like, OK, you're trying to get to this best friend thing, but there are all these little intermediate things that you can be doing that don't really require that much effort. Going back to our social sales funnel model, you're hosting the event, you're having a great time, people are starting to show up. And the people who really light up the event that you just enjoy their energy, you invite them to the lunch, you invite them to the one on one hang. And you're going to find that that creates that level up moment where They were just an acquaintance who showed up at a party, showed up to watch the football game with a bunch of other people they didn't know.

30:32And now you're going to lunch and now it's your sushi buddy every week. You're checking out a new sushi restaurant. That's what's able to happen there. What the hack for us on the event is, and we talked about this with meetup.com. They wanted us to help their hosts get higher RSVPs and actual people showing up to the events. Because to get a meetup off the ground, you need people showing up. It's not just what you put on the website, but how do you get people show up? and as humans, we're afraid of the unknown. We don't know who's going to be there. We don't know what the location is in LA. What's the parking situation like?

31:04And we have no idea ultimately, are we going to jive with the people that are there? So we're walking into the unknown and what we share is give a plus one. Like allow that person to bring a buddy and if they can bring a buddy to the poker night, they can bring a buddy to watch the game. They're going to be more likely to show up and you just expanded your reach because if they're buddies, there's a high likelihood that there's some overlap that you're going to like that person too. So if you're thinking, man, I'm time starved here. I'm struggling to find the time I busy schedule. The plus one on the hosting is absolutely killer.

31:41We've done it with every party that we've ever thrown, both through the pod and our live shows. And probably the most obvious and overlooked source of friends is friends of friends. It's insane how overlooked friends of friends are. It's mind boggling that you could be friends with somebody for decades and then you could move to Austin and one of their best friends from college lives in Austin and you don't feel, what, you have the permission structure to do that? That's probably your best friend in waiting. Will be, absolutely. Absolutely. All you have to do is get over whatever weirdness you feel.

32:22You feel there's a lot of invisible boundaries that we've created for ourselves. Yeah. Like, oh, I'm poaching a friend. No. If you have a real authentic friendship with that friend, the connector friend, they're going to want you to be friends with that person. You know, it drains your energy faster than a bad networking event. An overpriced phone bill. The big wireless companies love taking your money. They count on you not switching. Right now, Mint Mobile is running their best deal of the year. 50 % off all unlimited plans. That's$15 a month for unlimited. $15. That's less than most people spend on coffee in a week.

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34:05I'll never touch a spreadsheet again. Forbes named it best app for couples. CNBC put it in their top fintech companies in the world. There's a Reddit community with 34 ,000 users who shape how the product gets built. If you're not on top of your money, you're missing chances to save more, invest smarter, and hit your goals faster. Don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use code charm at monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code charm. So let's talk about the hidden forces that you think are keeping us from having these great friendships as adults, because I have a few ideas I wanted to run by you and get your thoughts on.

34:44But I know for a lot of people, they're not even aware. They're just kind of going through their life and they're obviously searching for career achievement. And that's really important right now is everyone's concerned about the economy and what's going on with their jobs. And we hear it all the time, especially from our clients in tech, like, you know, I don't really have much time allotted. I have a partner. I'm trying to find a partner. So that also takes up time. Self-care takes up time. What are those other hidden forces that we might not be realizing are keeping us from building great friendships?

35:12Well, so can we just back up on the time of it all and the energy of it all? Because this hidden force is the world telling you that friendship drains you instead of energizing you. In fact, a good friendship should be one you look forward to. And when you're done, you're like, that was awesome. And you tell your wife, you go, man, I got to hang out with this guy again. So what are you talking about? Like energy? You know what I mean? To me, I go, let's reframe and go, I need more energy self this is self-care right my wife is always like you got to go to this actually because she knows now she understands you have to go to this thing with your friends you have to go to that steak dinner with your friends because that is self-care also that just makes you crush at work harder to me yeah i find i have an ambitious group of friends but to me it's like they want to celebrate my wins they also know what i'm going for and they're holding me accountable to it so i'm like next time i see them i gotta be crushing this thing and they also have the hidden opportunities in their own relationships to help you in your career that you don't realize.

36:15And circling back to the wife, the partner, I mean, right now, I think that hidden force is a lot of us try to make our partner our best friend. And there's a reason why your partner, your spouse is pushing you out to go to the game, to go see your friends, go hit the golf course. I need you to unload on your friends, to talk about everything with your friends. I can't be your partner. I can't be your therapist. I can't be your best friend. But we're forcing the women in our lives into that role. And we don't even realize it. A very, very, very spicy Instagram video that I did, too, where I had my wife act in it.

36:51And it just said, your wife can't be your best friend. And it was just me waking up in the morning and I go, I've got a great business idea. And then it was like, hey, babe, do you want to go eat some hot wings together? And it was like, do you want to watch a Van Damme marathon? It's like, no, of course she doesn't want to do these things, you know. But but I look, I agree. Your wife can be, let's just separate this. A lot of guys, because I get this question all the time, I get this email and they were like, screw you, my wife's my best friend. I go, okay, fine. Your wife can be your best friend.

37:17She cannot be your only friend. There's a distinction there. You want her to be your best friend. My wife's my number one. Fine. She cannot be your only friend for a lot of reasons. Like what you talked about, it's too much weight on her. Also, like, let's be honest, ask her, does she really want that? Of course not. It's not healthy for your relationship. But it's I do also think you're just overlooking the role that a friend should be playing in your life. Like your friend should be that person that you're, you know, not putting all that burden on. Like there's other places to get some of that venting out.

37:47Right. Your your wife has heard of your business idea a hundred times. Yeah. By the way. Or or mirroring your positive energy. Like sometimes your wife is drained. Maybe she's dealing with the kids. Maybe she's having her own career frustrations. And like you're on 11 because something great happened to you. I'm on 11 at 6 a.m. My wife cannot be there for me. No, it doesn't matter how many cups of coffee. I don't blame her for that. It's like, hey, that's a perfect opportunity to go, hey, I need a 6 a.m. call friend. And I live on the West Coast, so a lot of my friends are up. That's actually the best time for me to go, I got a great idea for you.

38:21Oh, yeah, 9 a.m. New York, perfect. Absolutely. So yes, the notion that your wife is your only friend, I mean, to me, it's just not a healthy way to live the same way that being a lone wolf isn't a healthy way to live. It's not better for your career. It's not better for your physical and mental health. And so, but we're talking about invisible boundaries. You know, the other thing that you just mentioned that struck me is a lot of people are afraid of rejection. That's really, I mean, that's really what a lot of it comes down to. And we joke on the pod, you're not trying to meet the one. You're trying to meet a one.

38:53Like rejection on a friendship scale. Yes, of course, all rejections things. But at the end of the day, like there are many, many other fish in the sea when it comes to friendship. But when I see these invisible boundaries, you know, it occurred to me that everywhere we go, we have set up these invisible boundaries. Like I do school drop off. There's an invisible boundary that says you kind of just say hi and bye and you can't engage in conversation there. There's an invisible boundary that when you go to yoga afterwards, you just kind of linger for a minute and then you have to go home. Who says you can't invite the dad that you're waiting in school after to pick up to get a coffee across the street?

39:30Who says you can't go to the smoothie shop and go, hey, let's get a smoothie after the yoga class? Once you start crossing those invisible boundaries, you realize there was no reason for them to exist at all. They were just in your mind. And we're talking small things here, right? We're not talking pull out a calendar, plan the coffee two weeks from now. We're saying, hey, can you grab 15 minutes after the workout or after the drop off? These are easy yeses for a lot of people. Easy yeses is super important too because a lot of people have it built up in their head. Like, okay, I'm going to invite these people and if they say no, I just shot my load.

40:05I just, that's it. I'm rejected. I'm embarrassed. It's like, so let's go in with a strategy to get a yes. What's something that you're pretty sure somebody that you're asking is going to say yes to? It's like, hey, you have five minutes. I'm grabbing a coffee. And maybe they won't say yes that time. There probably is going to be a time where they say yes. And if they don't say yes, they're not that person for you. No big deal. That's fine. We can move on. Right. We talked about work and the time that we spend there worried about it. And I think what has shifted, at least in my career of doing the show, the show started in dating.

40:37And I think the selective pressure in dating now has increased in such a manner that so much of our single client's life now is focused on career and finding that partner. and they leave friendship to the wayside. And then what naturally ends up happening is you find that partner and their partner's like, well, where are your friends? What's your social life? Like, I can't be with you 24 seven. Like, I need you to have some things going on. And that's kind of the light bulb moment. But, you know, we've seen just in the 20 years we've been doing the show, you know, online dating. And now all this optionality and everyone searching has led to people feeling like, well, they have to be the better version of themselves.

41:17They have to be spending all of their waking time leveling up their career or leveling up their self-care or they're not going to find that partner. And then the thought of like, well, hanging out on a poker night or doing some things with buddies. And for a lot now, we're also seeing, you know, people are choosing not to drink. We're opting out of those environments where in the past we would have made friends. We would have classically made the buddies. So I'm a huge proponent of low key hangs. I'm a huge proponent of just saying, hey, just come over. Let's just take a walk. or come to the house because I have little kids now, it takes the pressure off of, hey, we have to have an event.

41:53It also says to that person like, hey, you're enough. We can just hang out. But when it comes to this notion of being your best self in dating and being your best self in work, friendship is kind of a nice pressure release where when you already have friends, you can just be yourself. You don't have to be the better version. In fact, you can be the awful version of yourself with your true friends. You know, and so when we're spending so much time with, you know, this best self curated, whatever, I mean, you have to perform it on a date. You have to perform while you're working, especially as you're climbing ladder or you're I had a whole bit in stand up about how I catfished my wife.

42:34And like she didn't know until three years in that I never did any charity work and I'd never read books and all this stuff. Anyway, it was kind of joke. But the point is, is you don't need any of that pretense with your friends. with a true friend, you can just hang out. You don't have to be anybody. You don't have to really try that hard. I mean, when you're with them, you don't really have, the idea is a good friend. You don't have to be performing for it. Hopefully not. Yeah. It's a missed opportunity if you're don't, if you don't have that release valve for all these other things that we're chasing.

43:01Let's talk about the acquaintances in our life that we feel like could be friends, but we haven't really got them to level up in that relationship. We talked about a few things we can do. But what other strategies can the guys and the gals listening to the show look at those acquaintances and say, you know what, I should do something. There's something I can do here to make them my friend. Again, we go back to be the friend, right? So it's like, I want this person to like me. Be the friend. What is it on offer that you have? Like what we talked about, are you listening? Have you taken any cues?

43:35What is this person into? What are they passionate? Do you share and interest. I mean, you know, interest-based friendship is a lot easier to make in your, you know, adult life. And again, it's like invite them into your world, right? Inviting somebody who's an acquaintance into your world is a validating sign for them. Like, hey, do you want to come to my house? You want to, you know, come have lunch or like me and my wife are having lunch. Come say hi. There's little things that aren't even commitments. Again, things you can say yes to you. I want you to meet my wife. Like, come say hi. Like a two minute of popping over while somebody is with their significant other.

44:11It's like, oh, who is that? Oh, is that your friend? Is that the guy from where? Oh, you guys. Oh, you should. And my wife's going to go. You should actually you should hang out with that. I like that guy. And then it's like, oh, OK, now we've decided that we've we're making a commitment to this person. Right. It's like these little micro interactions between, hey, I'm an acquaintance and I'm signaling to you, I want it to be more. Right. And it's like, you know, you were talking about, Hey, give me a recommendation of something you have taken a friend to. It's like, why not when there's an opportunity that feels organic?

44:42Like, Hey, there's a new restaurant that just opened in my neighborhood. There's a guy in my office that I like. We're definitely acquaintances, but I said to him, I said, Hey man, you like, you know, you like Rubens, right? Like you're a guy. You like Rubens. I heard they've got an amazing Ruben. Let's just go over there. And I just, honestly, people forget you could just treat somebody like they're your friend. Yeah. If you treat an acquaintance like they're your friend now, that will resoundingly make them feel like a positive and, oh, I should say yes to this thing. It's like a friend asking me to go get lunch as opposed to going, oh, you know, I know we're not friends.

45:21And like, is this weird? It's like, no, we should go get lunch. We should go do this thing. So I think there's a certain level of confidence of acting like somebody's already your friend. That's really helpful. Yeah, we do favors for our friends. Yeah. Like that's what we do for the people in our life that we care about. We might not do that for acquaintances, but if you want to move an acquaintance to a friend, do something that takes you five minutes. Yeah. You know, and a lot of us right now, we're seeing everything on social media and we're tapping back, we're liking, maybe we're leaving a comment if we're feeling really spicy.

45:49But if you want to move that acquaintance to a friend, text them, give them a phone call, hit them up and celebrate them. Give them the emotional support of saying, dude, I saw you posted that trip. That looked incredible. Oh, man, you were at the game last night. What was it like to see that that finish? Like, all you have to do is move beyond the social media that you're interacting in and move the conversation into a more personal manner. And you're going to find that that acquaintance now feels valued by you and is going to recognize that, hey, this is an opportunity to create friendship. You know, we talked about I said it's important to feel known.

46:23We talked about in the audio, celebrate everything. And I've heard you guys talk about adding celebrate. I celebrate if somebody got laid off. I celebrate if they got promoted. Any reason to go, hey, man, that's awesome that you did that thing. Like my office mate, he had a freelance article published. And I was like, let's go celebrate, man. He's like, no, that's awesome. Yeah. You know, and so if you bring that energy to somebody, because on some level, they do want that. Absolutely. We all want that. That's why we're posting. Right. But nobody does it. It's so rare just doing things that are just slightly above the ordinary goes miles in new friendships.

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47:45For the optimists. Pessimists. For long-distance love. For introverts and extroverts. the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new coca-cola for everyone pick up some coca-cola at a store near you when we first moved to new york city uh this was right when facebook was taking off and everyone was trying to add friends on facebook and facebook had the birthday yeah right and it was like you'd get notified of all these birthdays and it's so easy to just like it or leave a message. But anytime someone on Facebook that I knew when I was in New York City trying to build relationships had a birthday and I had their number, I got off Facebook and immediately sent them a quick message and just recognize them on their birthday.

48:34And you'd be amazed how many people who, again, are lacking for friends or feeling really isolated aren't even getting happy birthdays on the most important day of their life. Look, we're in a place because of COVID, because of what we were talking about, this sort of idea that men were raised to feel content by all this stuff, that we just don't get any recognition. I joke with my wife, men need credit. We do. We need to feel valued for the contributions that we make. We all need to feel like we matter in some way. So just giving people these signals that you see them and that you know them, they matter.

49:11I know all my friends' coffee orders. You want to make a friend out of an acquaintance bring them their coffee the way they like it they're gonna be like holy cow this guy's amazing you know i like my latte with that like right with almond milk what well that really it seems to me is is the genesis of the man of the year right it's that recognition tied to that trophy and the physicality of it you know it's not just that digital thing it's a trophy you bring home to your house and you have it for the year as recognition from a group of guys that you care about. Physicality is very important. I just talked about this last week.

49:49We sent out our first holiday card. I'd never done that before, but we have kids now, so it felt more natural. And I posted, send the holiday card because it gives a physical presence. You go, okay, this is offline. They went the extra mile. This is not the Facebook happy birthday. This is, I'm telling you, you matter to me. And I think you care about my family and you're interested. and I wanted you to know that you matter to me. Right. And the trophy, again, it's like this tangible thing. And we called it in the audio, ritualize your rituals. Right. Name your name, your group texts with your buddies.

50:24Yeah. Make them stickier. Right. If your group text with their buddies has a funny name, it's kind of stickier. Right. If your annual trip has a name, it's going to be harder to miss. Like, hey, our Super Bowl. Right. Right. So I think it's really important for us, you know, in this to remember, like, yes, we exist in this digital world. But in IRL, when there's a tangible thing, it means something to people. Let's talk about rituals, because I feel so many of us feel like we're in this slog and it's just day in and day out. And then if you don't have those rituals, you don't have those things to look forward to, then it actually makes it a lot harder to make the relationship sticky.

51:06It makes it a lot more challenging then to get people to commit to it. But if you can start to ritualize things earlier and just commit to it, you know, part of what we are saying with our social sales funnel is, you know, commit to hosting that event, whether it's yearly or monthly or if it's crazy, weekly, but commit to doing it for an extended amount of time to actually turn it into that ritual that people look forward to, that people recognize like, hey, it's the end of the month. We're going to be doing that poker night. And it's not just a ritual, make it part of their identity, right? Or with our dad's group, the DILFs of Larchmont.

51:39If you're a DILF of Larchmont, you're supposed to be coming to the DILFs of Larchmont poker night. That's part of who you are. That's part. So a lot of people think friendship just runs on motivation too. It runs on obligation and duty. You want to make your friendship sticky, make it feel like you have an obligation as a person and as part of this community that you've created. And it becomes sticky and you're less likely to miss it. And with respect to calendar, I would submit that the very important thing for men is to have things to look forward to. We just talked about that. I know so many guys that when they have something to look forward to, it's literally all they text about.

52:16Yeah. Right. It could be months in advance. Absolutely. That is top of mind. It's such a great feeling. So why would you not want to have more of those on the calendar? More things where you go, oh, man, I can't wait to get to that thing. I can't wait to go to Vegas with the boys or whatever. It doesn't have to be, again, it doesn't have to be a giant thing. But I also suggest that when you're with somebody, get your next, you know, big event on the calendar. Make sure you guys know when it is. And the reason you ritualize it is you're taking the guesswork out of friendship. This goes back to, you know, the reason I love being here is you guys understand you can't just be in your 40s or 50s or 30, whatever, a grown adult and just winging super important aspects of your life.

52:59And this is the most important aspect. I do want to harp on that again, because I think none of people touch on that. Like it makes you a better partner. It makes you a better father. It makes you better at your job. It gives you more opportunities in life. When you have a rich social life, you have a rich life. We can't separate the two. And unfortunately, we think we're going to get all of those accomplishments and then we're going to find the friends. It's way easier to get those accomplishments if you find and work towards finding the friends along of the way. And I'll add to that. I've never met anybody really that has a thriving social social circle that isn't killing it in business and relationships.

53:37And so I actually think they have it upside down. I think if you have a healthy social circle, you're going to have all of those other things. It's just a fact because you will have already instituted all the infrastructure that you need to succeed in every aspect of your life. So the group trip and I've coached a few of my clients on this who want to have the group trip and then they start the motion to planning and the coordinating and it feels like they're a secretary and it's a lot of work and then it either falls apart or they don't get enough people opting in and then it doesn't continue for the annual thing and the one thing that I highly recommend is put in the effort like actually put in the effort it's worth it it's always worth it to take the reins not wait for someone else Just put in the effort.

54:24You're going to find that you enjoy the event because you actually work to get everyone together and it becomes stickier. And then when you put in the effort, make it real, like move it beyond the Google Doc, move it beyond a text chain back and forth, like actually celebrate the fact that you're getting everyone together and make it something that people can really look forward to. not an obligation of did you check the google spreadsheet did you put in your dates did you figure out is that going to work because if you're not championing it it's not going to happen we talk about friendship roles a lot too you know who doesn't have any problems socially the planner so you should look at it reframe it as it's a blessing that you're the planner that people trust you to do this look i understand it feels like an obligation sometimes but i think if you Treat it more like this is a awesome responsibility that you've been given.

55:15Everybody in the friend group knows. But there are ways to outsource things. You know, if it's like, oh, everybody's putting it on me. It's like, you know, pull them aside one on one. Go, hey, I want you. You're the foodie. Right. This is your chance to shine. Right. Or like, oh, you're the sports guy. Like, find us some cool F1 event. Like, you know, again, it's like part of that thing. Like once you say, hey, I know you. I know what you're into. I know what you like. And I appreciate what you like. and now I'm tasking you with this, then you won't find that 100 % of the obligation falls on you to be the planner.

55:46But I do think just every friend group has to accept like certain people are going to fulfill certain roles and you're never just going to get equal buy-in or equal commitment and that's okay. As the planner, you know, when you start to slot those people into those roles and delegate, they're more likely to show up. 100%. Whereas if you just try to do everything soup to nuts, plan everything on your own, they're actually less likely to show up because they haven't really bought it. They haven't searched out the cigar lounge. They haven't figured out the best golf course. They haven't figured out where you guys are going to go after dinner.

56:19So they're less likely to show up and commit. That's why I say friendship cannot run on motivation, has to run on duty and obligation. You know, sometimes I just like jokingly, I watched I watched The Crown, you know, I'm like, oh, you know, Queen Anne, she did all this stuff. And it's like, you know, that's crazy. She just showed up at these things. She wasn't even like, you know, it was just like sometimes I'll be with my friends and I'm like, oh, you know, why am I doing this or whatever? And it's like, no, I'm just a royal visiting one of my colonies. You know, it's my duty to do this thing or I'm hosting.

56:49It's like I'm hosting dignitaries. I just sort of reframe it in my brain. I'm like, no, this is this is my duty. This is my obligation. And it's very sticky when you do that. So if you give people these tasks and they feel obligated and they feel needed and it's also something they're passionate about, like you said, there's no way they're not going to be invested in this thing. I always joke with my wife. I have like the introvert in me and the self-doubt as the event approaches the thing that I've planned. I'm like, do I really need to do? Can I just vibe code all night? Can I do something else?

57:16Oh, maybe I'll catch up with this other friend. And then the whole drive there, I'm like thinking about it. And then I always, when I'm checking in with her after, have her remind me like, so wasn't it worth it? Like, you know, because you have to remember that it's very easy to psych yourself out, see it on your calendar and just be like, I'm going to flake. I'm going to come up with an excuse. There's always something more important that you could or should be doing than the acquaintance hang that could move to friendship. But you really need that reminder after of like, that was awesome. Like, I need more of that in my life.

57:47So, first of all, the wife buying is huge. If I don't know if your listeners on these trips are married or single, but the married ones getting your wife or partner to buy in is massive because they are actually going to be sometimes the person who give you that reminder afterwards when you're going. I don't know I got the work I got this I got that the kids whatever I almost missed the night we're on our 22nd year of our dinner now I almost missed the 19th it was during COVID I was like I don't want to do that whatever yeah my wife's like you're getting on that plane she's like are you crazy this is who you are you know and I was like oh yeah of course also I love it.

58:30We interviewed John Legend for a recent pod. We were talking about he wanted to go out and plan a date with a friend. Christy was like, what's my role in this? I said, your role is when he gets home to remind him how fun it was. And then he needs to do it again. yeah that's a great feeling what like what are we even talking about hey we did this awesome trip it was amazing i'm feeling really high what only thing that's happening is you're forgetting how awesome it was and you're letting all those other negative thoughts creep in objectively you should going every year because it recharges you yeah and to to the other point of it letting everyone know after how much fun you had because they're also feeling that same way and i'd love to touch on this communication piece because I feel like it's very easy to forget to stay connected.

59:20As many ways as we have to be connected, it's very easy to be too busy to actually reply to the text, phone the friend, do the thing that we know we should do to keep the relationship alive. And then when it goes too long, we're kind of dreading like, who's the first one to make the move? How do we reconnect? So what is your perspective on communication and what we should be doing to create meaningful friendships now in the digital age? So I want to acknowledge something. Not only does it get harder by the day, it gets exponentially harder the longer you go. So just knowing that, like that should give you motivation to go, hey, I got to keep this text chain going or whatever.

1:00:00But I would submit the amazing thing about friendship is how resilient it is. So if you check out of your job for six months and you just show up, nobody's going to welcome you back. No. Right. If you bail on your marriage and your responsibilities as a father for two years, you're divorced. It's over. You could not talk to a friend. And if you've ever had this happen and just text them, hey, miss you, buddy. Let's get drinks. They're going to say yes. I mean, that's the crazy part. Like we built up all this stuff. Unless you've had a falling out, we like to say the guys don't have falling outs, they have falling offs.

1:00:35It's just that we were just not doing this thing. So I know it's like, oh, you get into that game of like, well, they didn't text me i didn't text them it's like what is the goal i always go what is the goal is the goal to stand on ceremony and stand on principle okay then you'll be lonely but if the goal is to keep the friendship going and keep it thriving who cares who texted last yeah it's never going to be it's never going to be 50 50 it doesn't have to be 50 50 if you enjoy it and you get something out of that friendship and it is rewarding to you and you don't feel you're taking you're getting taken advantage of then who care what are we even talking about right for us we recommend all of our for us we recommend all of our clients just take a minute go through your camera roll and find that moment that you two or three or the group were just at an all-time high enjoying and send that photo to the group send that photo to the person it's going to make you feel good just seeing the image remembering that it's going to make them feel good no matter what's going on in their life, if they're drowning in diapers or they're slammed with work or they've just been laid off to get that photo, that video of that moment that you had together, even if it was in college.

1:01:48And then, man, we got to hang out. That is going to fire up that relationship again in a way that I think many of us don't realize. We have the photos. Oh, yeah. And Facebook does a great job of reminding us, hey, these are these memories where you should be engaging. Use that to your advantage. I call my phone a museum of friendship. It is. It's like, I mean, but, but the good, the difference between that and a museum is you can reanimate. Right. Any of those woolly mammoths that are in your phone, they're all in there. The photos that you're talking about, I do something very similar where if I pass a place where we had a memory.

1:02:21Oh yeah. Always. I'm always like, Oh my God, I just passed this. Wow. We were blackout. Like that's a while. That was a wild night. You know, it is, it's so easy to reignite when you have good feelings about somebody and nothing got in the way other than just inertia and life, right? People always just say, ah, I don't have any friends because life got in the way. Okay. Well, if you're now feeling that way, today is just as good a day to reignite that friendship. As I said, unlike work or dating, friends are very forgiving of that stuff and you don't even have to rehash. That's the other thing I'll say.

1:02:58Even if there was a conflict, sometimes there's time for conflict resolution. Sometimes there's time for going, you know what? They just accepted the invite. Just move on and act like you guys are buddies again. Yeah. I think holding on to those grudges or the conflict and letting pride or ego get in the way, sacrifice is a lot of great friendship. You are going to have conflict. It's natural. We have conflict in our family. We have a conflict with people that we care about. You're not going to agree and align on everything, but sometimes it takes you being the bigger person to be like, you know what?

1:03:31We don't need to rehash that. We don't need to prove who is right or wrong. I'm sending the invite. Yeah. And again, I go back to this. Being the bigger person is also selfish because you want the friendship, right? If that's the thing you want, then don't let your ego get in the way of the thing you actually want. Right. And the other thing about friendship is your friends are not mind readers. Half the time we think of friends mad at us, they're not. or the other half we don't think they're mad at us and they are yeah so communicate you know again it's like don't assume that things are going on and everybody look we all know everybody has things going on in their life don't assume because your friend hasn't reached out it's because they don't want to hang out with you it's like maybe they had just a crap month at work or you know things are going on at home or whatever it is um so i'm always just a big fan of just the constant you know, the periodic check-in, you know, we came up with a rubric on the pod, TCS, text call C, text once a week, call once a month, C IRL quarterly.

1:04:36And these are just broad guidelines. But if you have some version of that in your life just set up again, this is all about creating structure to take the guesswork out. So if you just went with TCS, you would never not be in touch with any of your friends. For us, we recommend just creating a weekly habit for reconnection where it's on your calendar. It's space that you'd probably just be scrolling your phone anyways or doing something mindless that you know probably isn't as helpful. For me, it's Wednesdays. My Wednesdays tend to be in between recording and coaching. So I have time on Wednesday afternoon and I just buzz through my phone.

1:05:13I do a few swipes. Whoever I talk to in a while is just drop down the text messages. I'll hop on LinkedIn okay what's going on with people that I professionally want to stay connected with and socially and then yeah after 15 minutes of reconnecting then I pick up the phone and call someone and all of a sudden I've done the heavy lifting of 15 minutes a week to nurture the relationships that could easily be languishing if I just you know made an excuse to do something else the other amazing thing is you can revive a dormant years dormant friendship with two or three of those. Absolutely. You know, within a couple of weeks, you could be back in your old rhythms with a friend that, you know, could be just one of your best friends that you just happened to, quote unquote, let life get in the way.

1:05:58What's wonderful is it's a muscle, but it's not nearly as hard to build as a physical muscle. Like as dads to hit the gym and get back to our like 20 something bodies. Like we know that that is a lot of discipline, hard work to to build the muscle of friendship and to maintain friendship. It's not a lot of work. It shouldn't be seen as daunting. I also noticed there are these studies recently. I saw a couple of studies that said you need 200 hours to make a close friend. I believe that's accurate for people in their teens and 20s, maybe even 30s. When you're older, you could cut that timeline down.

1:06:35You know yourself. You don't have to, like you said, you can cut through the small talk. You and get to the things that matter with people a lot quicker. I submit that you could make a really close friend in two months. Absolutely. Yeah. So this notion that it's like, you know, when people hear that it's 200 hours, like, well, who's got 200 hours to make a new? It's like you could make a new really close friend in like four hangs. I think the 200 hours, like scientifically speaking, is what it takes on average to just get to depth in a relationship and the amount of time you need to spend together.

1:07:09But I think there are shortcuts and hacks. Yeah. And when you block some time and do something physical together, do something in a new location outside of your norm, outside of what you'd be doing anyways, you can create fast friendship very easily. And if you start to create a quarterly time for that in your life, you're going to find that all of a sudden it doesn't feel daunting at all. And you have a great, rich social circle. And for a lot of our clients who join the coaching program, one of the big reasons they join is because they move to a new city. and you move to a new town and it's a great opportunity to start fresh, you can basically go out and live into this new identity.

1:07:50You can create a new identity for yourself and start over. But it's also very daunting because maybe you don't have that college buddy who knows someone in your town and you really are starting fresh. So what's your advice for those who move to a new city and now listen to us talk about the importance of friendship to actually start from zero building that social circle? Yeah. And in the chapter of our book, we called this total effing strangers because it is hard. It is hard. I'm not going to pretend that that's as easy as just calling an old buddy's buddy. If you're starting fresh, you know, people talk about third places all the time.

1:08:23It is super important to find your third place. Right. And could that be a regular coffee shop? Could that be a gym? I find the gym to be a really easy one. Could that be a run club? Could that be a church, a mosque, a temple. Again, it goes back to what are you into? Where are you going to shine? Go somewhere regularly and consistently. I mean, that's really the key to it. Right. That's what a third place is for those who aren't following. You know, obviously you have your home, which you're going to be at consistently. You have your work, which you're going to be at either virtually Zoom. You're going to be spending a lot of your time.

1:08:56And this third place is like, where do you socialize? What is that place where you are going to commit to spending time. Is it a racket club? Is it a country club? Is it a gym? Is it a run club that you know that you will show up consistently and you will use propinquity, which is we naturally like familiarity. That's why you had that crush in middle school because she sat next to you all semester. We like people that we see again and again. And in your neighborhood, the DILFs, like you see each other again and again, you naturally will like each other. So use propinquity to your advantage. commit to some one or two things and you move to that new city that you know you're going to do, that you enjoy doing, that you're going to show up as your best self and then commit to doing it.

1:09:38Show up week in and week out. So I find two things that happen. One is people don't really commit and they're not consistent. And we get all these emails. I moved to this new city. I've been going to this place, going to that place, going to this place. Well, hold on. Why are you going to seven different places? We just said commit to one third place. I tried this. I tried that. Okay. So you're The guy that kind of shows up here kind of shows up there. Those people don't know if they could be friends with you or if you're going to stick around. Right. Right. So be the person that commits. The other thing is have a little bit of patience.

1:10:10Right. Don't give up so easily like, oh, I tried it. It doesn't work. OK, what? It's been a month, two months. It does take time. And again, you have to be using some of the hacks. If you're just showing up and you're just doing the small talk over and over again. And once you've established that third place and you've established kind of these acquaintances, I think you just hit on it. Take it outside of that place. Take it to what we call fourth place, actually, because you do have to change its pattern interruption. Right. It's like because otherwise you are both accepting that you are only friends in this little box here in this run club.

1:10:45And that's all it is. And that's all it'll ever be. it could be as simple as picking the brunch spot after the Saturday morning run club which is what I literally did I I was talking to a bunch of clients they're like oh run club everyone just like runs and then they go and they scatter I was like let me let me go I'll do this myself like let me show you guys how easy it is when you find a healthy spot that's going to have options for runners who care about their health and you do a little bit of planning you book the table for six and then your sole goal after run club is to get five other people to show up it's far easier than you think but naturally you've observed the last three run clubs you've been at well yeah everyone just glumps together they have their little clicks and they run off you got to put in just a little bit of effort to create the opportunity to build the friendship it's not just showing up it's funny it's a couple of things that you hit on that are amazing one is that people see it and they go that's how it is that's how it has to be right our brain goes oh i guess That's how it is.

1:11:44You show up, you leave. That's it. What I'm talking about. Invisible boundaries. We've created these. They're not real. They're not real. You could just step over it and go, hey, we're doing brunch. Another one is this is a bit of a hack because it is hard. So use the actual calendar of the third place to your advantage. By that, I mean, there's generally usually a natural cycle of these things. So for me, it's like our basketball. It ends because it's at the school. So every quarter it kind of ends. So that's a natural point to go, hey, end of season basketball. I rented the table at the sports bar.

1:12:21Let's go watch a game. Same thing with the run club, right? Like presumably there's cycles. Use the actual natural calendar year for moments to go, okay, I now have an excuse because sometimes it does feel a little awkward. So you can play into the calendar going, oh, you know, before we all disappear for summer, let's do this. And the thing that's great about it is it's self-selecting. The people who actually are seeking out friendship from the run club will show up for that brunch. Yeah. We know this. And you can use seasonality of sports. It doesn't even have to be a third place. If you have a third place where, you know, naturally there is no seasonality, but you've had some conversations with people or overheard some conversations about them enjoying F1, well, if you invited them to watch the race, the replay yesterday, man, you would have had a full house.

1:13:10Yeah. So the point being when you observe and then you put a little bit of effort in. And then the last thing that I'll add is be honest. I just moved here. Do you know how many people love showing new people their favorite places and giving you a leg up? But this is limiting belief that people don't want to be friends with me. I suck. I don't have anything to offer. Blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like if you go, hey, I'm a pretty cool guy. I just need a little direction here. You know, if you go in with that mindset, people are like, oh, I want to show this guy. I want to show this guy my city.

1:13:41Yeah. I want to show this guy my city. Everybody loves showing this guy your city. You know, the other thing I was going to say about the calendar, I actually use the calendar in my everyday life to just as a, hey, you know, oh, it's this time of year. I can use this. Towards the end of the year, sometimes before the holidays, I'll go, hey, just checking in before things get crazy. Right. Because everybody less couple of weeks, people are distant. They're traveling, whatever. And then in the new year, it's like if I haven't spoken to you by the end of January, I just go before the year gets away.

1:14:11Let's get something on the books now because I want to stay in that consistent pattern. Yeah. All of these built in ways to do it. If you really if you really want to seek them out. I love that. I think it's a great way to wrap. Yeah. Thank you for sharing all these hacks and tips and strategies. And hopefully expanding our audience's mind around how easy friendship really can be. Look, it's so easy. I want to say that we are so focused on purpose in relationships and work. I want to remind you that we want to have purpose in our friendships to loneliness isn't just about I don't have somebody to hang out with.

1:14:46It's I don't know if I feel needed or valued by somebody. And the best way to cut through that is to make somebody else feel needed or valued. Know their coffee order. Show up, celebrate their promotion at work. Show up when it's not easy and, you know, you're tired. show up because you feel they would need you there. And it's a duty. As a father of two little kids, I'll leave you with this. I think we all need to feel loved, but we also need to feel that we matter. Absolutely. Could not agree more. Thank you for joining us. Where can our audience find out about the book and the show? So the audio book is audible.com slash the buddy system.

1:15:24The podcast is man of the year. And my handle is Matt Ritter one. I have links to everything there. Thank you so much. This was one of the most enjoyable pods I had, just feeling like somebody who shares my mindset. I agree. Thank you for coming.

1:15:45Thank you for listening. And now is the part of the show where we showcase one of our X Factor Accelerator members. Take it away, Ron. Hi, this is Ron Palermo, and I'm a corporate lawyer. Taking the X Factor Accelerator is one of the best decisions I have ever made. If you want to consistently show up as a high value person, someone who makes a great first impression, effortlessly makes new friends and connections, and enjoys deep and authentic relationships, X Factor Accelerator will get you there. The AOC team is passionate about what they do and are totally committed to your success. And most importantly, they know how to get the results you want.

1:16:25My only regret is not taking the program sooner. If you are serious about showing up as the best version of yourself, I urge you to sign up for the X-Factor Accelerator. You will be so glad you did. And thank you, Ron. It was a pleasure working with you. And good luck to all your future endeavors. Yeah, I remember you. You were the bad boy. You threw your love away. Like you were just a toy. And you sold the world, you sold the tragedy Cause you had your taste of black on the yesterday Yeah, but I remember you, oh yeah, I remember you

1:17:41The Limu Emu Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.