The Problem With Your Relationships

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. If you love this podcast, please do me a massive favor. Give us a rating and review on whatever platform you listen to us on. The reason why is because the more positive ratings and reviews that we get on those platforms, the more that those platforms show this podcast to people who have never listened to it before, which allows us to organically grow and also impact more people's lives. So if you would do that, I would greatly appreciate it.

0:37Today, we're going to be diving into the problem with your relationships. We're going to talk about your friendships. We're going to talk about the problem that you probably didn't even know existed. So before we dive into it, I started creating this podcast episode. I started thinking to myself, what is a friendship? Because the way that I see friendship, I think, is different than the way a lot of other people see friendship. And I've had some conversations with some people that I know very closely and been like, hey, if you're a good friend of that person, I would have said something right there.

1:10And so when we think of friendship, we might think, oh, it's people who have the same hobbies as us. They like to do the same things. It's people who make you laugh. We have the same, you know, we have the same humor or people who show up for you no matter what or people who are loyal. And all of those are true. There's nothing wrong with those. I think that all of those are an aspect of a friendship. But I think there's one aspect that people don't really talk about. and this being a podcast for high achievers and you're listening to this because you want to grow and you want to improve, I think the one thing that you should really look for in most of your friendships should be friends that challenge you to grow.

1:53People that don't take your BS, people that don't like when you decide to stay inside of your comfort zone and people who challenge you to be better. Your friends should challenge your mediocrity. They should get you out of your comfort zone. They should not belittle you or humiliate you while trying to get you out of your comfort zone, but to help each other grow and to evolve into a better version of you and to help them grow and evolve into a better version of themselves. And so I want you to think about this for a second before we go any further. I want you to think about your three closest friends or the three people that you spend the most time with.

2:31Do these people challenge you to be better or do they help you stay in your comfort zone? Think about that for a second. I'm really curious what your answers might be. Now, you start to think about this and you realize you've probably heard the phrase before, you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. If your friends are not growing and pushing themselves and they're not trying to become better, there's a pretty good chance they're not going to help you grow and push yourself and become better as well. Your friends should be part of the reason why you're growing. They should actually challenge you to be better.

3:11Verbally, they should challenge you. Energetically, they should challenge you. And when I say energetically and verbally, what I mean by that is not just by saying, hey, you should be better. But when you're around them, they should also inspire you to be better with their own actions. And you should also challenge them. This isn't a competition. It's not me saying, hey, you need to make sure that you run a faster mile, then your friend runs a faster mile. But it's saying, hey, do you have a friend that, number one, will either go running with you so that you guys can go on this path together?

3:43Or do you have a friend, even if they hate running, but maybe they love working out, maybe just seeing them work out in the effort that they put into their selves and their own fitness inspires you to go on more of a journey of your own fitness. It's not a competition. It's not about who's faster. It's not about who's better. It's about do we verbally by saying, hey, dude, you said you were going to do this. Why are you not doing it? Verbally saying that, but energetically also inspiring us to be better by us seeing them and being like, man, they're really working hard on themselves. It's not a competition, but it's how can we verbally and energetically be around people who challenge us, but how can we also challenge them?

4:19And it's more of this underlying feeling of I love you too much for you to not live up to your potential. I'm not going to let you be less than you could be. Think about how your friendships would be different. Think about how you would be different if all of your friendships, your closest friends, were inspiring you to be better. They're not going to let you deal. They're not going to listen to your BS. They're not going to help you stay in a comfort zone. They're going to challenge you to be better. I love you so much that you better get your shit together. What would your relationships be like?

4:52What would you be like if you were surrounded by people like that? Surrounding yourself with people who are fine with mediocrity or who don't confront their fears or don't challenge their boundaries will influence you to follow a similar path of being complacent with your life. So what do your friends look like? Have you ever thought about this? But when you find people who you choose these friends who challenge you, who push you out of your comfort zone, who are not willing to deal with your BS, who are willing to hold you accountable, who are taking significant steps towards their own personal growth and their own fulfillment, it helps you become a better person.

5:32And one thing that I think that I've come to find after having quite a few relationships, excuse me, quite a few conversations with people who are in friendships and relationships, friends that I've spoken to that are in other friendships and people that I know of, but I'm not really close to, and they go, yeah, well, you know, she's going through this and she's showing up this way. And, you know, I think that this is a problem and I've noticed this in her. And I say, well, have you told her? No, I haven't told her. What the fuck are you doing? You're one of her best friends and you're not telling her the truth.

6:02If you're not telling her the truth and you're one of her best friends, you spend more time with anybody else, more time with her than almost anybody else. Do you think anybody else is actually saying these things? Chances are probably not. And so there is a need for brutal honesty and challenge in a friendship. once again not from a place of belittling them or yelling at them or making them feel less about themselves but from a place of i love you so much you got to get your shit together and you might think that you know you don't want to challenge your friends you might think that you know what like she's going through her own thing and it'll eventually work itself out and then it just stays the same and longer and now it's been a month and now it's been two months and now it's been six months and now it's been a year and so you think you're going to prioritize keeping the peace.

6:51But in reality, I don't know about you guys. I don't want friends that don't call me out. I want people who want me to be better. I want people who challenge me, who can see me better sometimes than I can see myself. I want someone that doesn't encourage stagnation and mediocrity. If your friends never challenge you, who's going to challenge you? You thought about that before? Like if your friends don't challenge you to be better, who in this world is going to challenge you to be better? Because a lot of times it's only you in your own mind. And that's great and all, but it does get really hard.

7:27If our friends ever challenge us and we never challenge them, then we never push each other to be better. And we risk becoming too comfortable, too complacent, and we risk remaining in a rut for our entire lives and not quite reaching our full potential. And once again, I just want to be very clear on this. When I say challenge, because the word challenge can have different connotations with everybody. Challenge does not mean aggressive confrontation or mean-spirited criticism, but for a loving challenge and for guidance. Listen, man, you said you wanted to work out four times a week to get in a better shape.

8:03You told me at the beginning of this year how you were five months in this year and you told me, I need to lose 15 pounds this year. and this is how I'm going to do it. I'm going to work out four times a week. I'm going to work on my fitness. But if I'm being honest with you, dude, you look like you gained weight over the past five months. Have you gained weight? You have. So you were looking to, okay, so we're five months into the year. You were looking to lose 15 pounds, work out four times a week. Now that we're five months into the year, you've gained five pounds and you're not working out like you said you wanted to.

8:34What are you going to do about it? How can I keep you accountable? what can I do to help you actually get to where you want to go? Because if I'm being honest with you, I love you too much to let yourself go, to not hit your goals. So you got to get your shit together. Imagine if you had a friendship with somebody like that. And you don't have to have 10 friends like this. You could have one. If you just have one close friend where you can call them out on their BS, they can call you out on your BS, and you talk to each other multiple times a week every single day. They'll make you better. True friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another.

9:12True friends should have open lines of communication. Hey, listen, if I'm fucking up, you need to tell me. I'm going to give you permission to be brutally honest with me whenever you need to. And in turn, I'm going to do the exact same thing. How does that sound? Because true friends should keep each other at their edge, the edge of your comfort zone. Yeah, I'm just going to, you look like you're there. You look like you've been backing away. to stay inside your comfort zone. I'm just going to be a nice little friend. I'm going to push you off the edge of your comfort zone. It's like 300. I'm going to kick you off the ledge.

9:44You're going to go. But hey, what I'm asking of you, I would not do and not tell you to do this if I'm not willing to do it myself. And I think that's the importance of choosing friends who live at their edge. Like not just saying, oh yeah, we're going to be friends and hopefully we can transform these relationships. But sometimes you have to actually choose new friends who are at their edge. The people you surround yourself with are going to significantly impact your life. And that's why it's really important for us to choose our friends really wisely. It's not like something like, oh, I've just known them for a really long time, so we still hang out.

10:18No, that's not really what friendship should be. I'm being honest with you. I'm going to just flat out say it. From a place of love, not everybody deserves your time. Okay, you need a couple friends, even just one friend, who challenge you, who challenge your worldview, who live at their edge, who face their fears and live just a little bit beyond their fears, live a little bit beyond their edge. And just because they challenge you doesn't mean lack of empathy. It doesn't mean understanding, but there's this piece of like, hey, we're friends. We're doing this together. We're on this life journey together.

10:49We're going to try to help each other be better. And when you look at this, there are people who represent masculine and feminine really well that you're actually looking for. Now, real quick, let me say this. when I say masculine, I don't mean man. And when I say feminine, I mean woman. I mean that men and women both have masculine and feminine qualities. Masculine. If I have a friend, like think about having, if you could build out your perfect friend, right? Like if we're going to like build a bear, we're going to go to build a friend is where we're going to go. And you look at the masculine side of somebody.

11:18That's somebody who pushes you, who challenges you to grow, to get out of their comfort zone. They're challenging themselves. They inspire you. They drive. They work hard. That's the masculine side of them. The feminine side of them is the loving side of them. They accept you who you are. They hold space for you to have all of your emotions. Imagine if you could have a friend, if you could go in to build a friend, and you could build out this friend. They push you. They challenge you. They grow themselves. They help you get out of your comfort zone. They also love you. They accept you. They hold space to feel your emotions.

11:49I didn't say man or woman. We all have the masculine and feminine qualities. But imagine if you could like go to build a friend and you could build out this perfect person. What would they look like for you? Make a list. Write it all down. What would the perfect friend look like for you? How would you inspire them? How would they inspire you? And then really what it comes down to is trusting. Having somebody that you could trust so much, you could trust these friends means having faith that they're going to offer the perspective of your life. They're going to listen to you. They're going to give you another perspective.

12:19They're going to provide support whenever you need it. but they can provide a really honest mirror for you to possibly see things in yourself that you've never seen before because you're so in your head all the time. Sometimes you need a third party just to be like, hey, can I tell you what I'm witnessing? These are the strengths I'm noticing in you. These are some of the weaknesses I'm noticing in you. I'm not here to criticize. I'm just here to help you understand yourself better. And they can help you suggest and help you come up with a plan, concrete actions, not to control your life, but to really help you find other potential paths that maybe you really didn't think of.

12:51Now, here you go. Now you're sitting here and you're going, yeah, this all sounds great, Rob, but how do I get friends like this? Right? Like, how do I go out and I find a friend like this? Well, the first question you need to ask yourself is, are you the type of person that could also do this for somebody else? So would you be inspiring to somebody else? I remember I was interviewed for a podcast one time and it was Sylvester Stallone's Daughters. And I think they have like a TV show now, but it was a couple of years ago. and they interviewed me and they asked the question, how do you attract the perfect partner?

13:22And I was like, all right, here's what you want to do. You want to take a pen and paper. You want to write down every single detail of what you want about this person, how you want them to act, if they are fit, if they work out, if they eat healthy, if they're a kind person, how they talk to other people, how do they talk to themselves? I want you to plan out this person in as much detail as possible. And they're like, okay, this is great. Okay. And they started thinking about it. And then I said, what I piece of paper and ask yourself, are you that person? Because if you're not that person, you're not going to attract that person.

13:54Because it's like, oh, I'm writing out this person who is amazing and beautiful and loving and they work out and they're fit and they talk to themselves well, they talk to me well, and they do this and they do this. And then it's like, you look at it and you're like, that person's like four levels above me. And then you ask yourself, why would that person be attracted to this person that you are? Well, then what I need to do is I need to look at that list of what I want in the perfect partner, and I need to first become my own perfect partner, and then I will attract my equal, right? So if we look at that, if you're like, well, I want this friend who works out all the time and who pushes me and who's great and who's awesome and who will tell me the truth in a very loving way, and then you go, okay, well, if you found that person, would they be attracted to being your friend?

14:37Or they'd be like, eh, that person's not really on the level that I'm operating at this point. Maybe one day they will be. So you've got to actually look at the list of all of the traits and qualities that you want in this perfect friend and then you've got to become that person. If you want them to work out four times a week, get your ass to gym four times a week. If you want them to be someone who is well-read, you better start reading some books. If you want somebody who is loving, well, then you better start working on being more of a loving person. Because just as when you look at a blacksmith and they want to sharpen iron, they say iron sharpens iron.

15:07The only way to sharpen a piece of iron is to get iron. Friends who challenge each other and help each other grow, they then help each other become better. They help each other refine their characters. You have to think about that. They enable each other to live their fullest potential, but are you on a path of trying to get to your fullest potential? Because what's crazy about it is as you start going to the gym and you start going to conferences and you start going to these places where you think that you would be the perfect version of yourself and you want to grow and improve, guess what you start doing.

15:38You start meeting those people. Where do you find these people? Wherever your highest self would hang out. If you want to attract people like this, you need to get it together. If you want people like this in your life, what do you offer? How can you get better? How can you improve? And how can you go on this path and realize that as long as you're on the path to become the greatest version of yourself, of trying to grow, to trying to improve, you know what? I've been really focusing on growing myself and getting better. One thing I think I need to do is I need to challenge myself more. I need to go to a place where I can do some cold baths.

16:12Do you think there's other people doing cold baths at the place where you're doing your cold plunge? Probably. Do you think that they're probably on the same wavelength of where you're trying to go? Yeah, they are. Because random people just don't do cold plunges, right? So where would you hang out? Where would you find this person? Where would they be? How can you start putting yourself in that situation more. So that's what you need to do. You need to reevaluate your friendships, transform your friendships how they are, and start creating new friendships that are going to help facilitate in you, help facilitate you and grow you into the person that you want to be, but you can also help them grow into the person that they need to be as well.

16:50So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode, making it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.