How To Make Amazing Friends

These are some notes I took from this video on how to make amazing friends. Not many personal thoughts, just reminder notes.

The four main steps

How to meet new people
How to turn those meetings into friendships
How to make friendships worldclass
How to maintain them for decades

How to meet new people

Proximity
- who do live near?
- Who do you work with?
Join a flock
- like a sports team, a yoga spot,
- “look for a pre-selected group that shares your interests”
- Also, how can you make the things you’re currently doing (alone) more social?
  - Work from home? Join a coworking space
  - Working out? Join a gym that specifically looks to foster community
Become a beacon
- host the events yourself
  - reminds me of that “scream under the campinele” event Donny put together
Say yes to invitations

Turn them into friends

Focus on a good first impression, so that they want to meet up again
- on this note: FOCUS ON THE PROCESS, DON’T PUT TOO MUCH PRESSURE ON THE RESULT OF MAKING THE FRIENDS

make your focus to be to have fun and see if you connect
- if you don’t, continue that process and you’ll continue finding the people who are right for you
If you’re not at the point of being able to keep up with the people you want to be friends with, then you need to work on yourself to be the type of person they (the people you want to be friends with) would actually want to be friends with

Figure out logistics of hanging out a second time
- If you’ve met someone in one setting, find a way to hang out in another setting
  - food or drink after whatever you’re doing

Making strong friendships

Just spending time together is a big thing
Some things that can deepen friendships
1. A shared north star
  - can foster a lot of deep conversations, and opens up time to share together quite a bit
  - Learning what someone’s big dreams are.
    - I like the idea of asking people, “what do you want to accomplish with your life?”
    - “what’s a dream you have for your life?”
    - “what’s your ideal vision for yourself in 20 years? Family? Accolades? Food?”
    - ooh, send someone the material that inspired your big dreams.
2. Being a lifeline
  - Being there for them
  - Or just letting them know that you’re around.
3. Mutual Vulnerability
  1. Sharing honestly (as opposed to just looking good)
    1. You may have to go there first, make that a part of the long conversation you share
  2. Being willing to accept honesty in return
  3. Having a lack of judgement and a sense of acceptance (of your friend)
    1. If you have to give them disagreeable advice, make sure they know that you’re doing this because you care about them
      1. If it’s something morally wrong, don’t pretend to be fine with it and decide what to do from there
        
        (My thoughts) 1. Confront on what they did, what happened, and their reactions to it 2. decide whether or not you want to have someone like that in your life, 3. let them know your decision, see if they have updated thoughts.
        
        (I’m not completely sure if this is correct, but is good for right now.)
      2. If they still do it, it’s them that has to face the music. And if it’s not something that would devastate the friendship, then you should still be accepting of them after that.

Maintain friendships for decades

Get good at constructive conflict
- Avoidance is fine if it’s something you’re willing to put up with forever
1. Set a loving container
  1. “this is something I want to talk about because I deeply value this relationship and imagining it without this being brought up jeopardizes my willingness to be apart of it.”
  2. No judgement, still have love for them; and that’s why you want to bring this up
2. Make it about the behavior, not the person
  1. “Why didn’t you do X?” instead of “It’s because that’s the type of person you are”
3. Talk about it with Facts, and Feelings
  1. No one can tell you how you felt, and facts are facts
    1. “When you said that, it hurt my feelings.”
- What if they’re coming to you about conflict?
  - Don’t get defensive; primary focus is to stay calm and listen
    - Make sure they feel heard and understood. (Note: this doesn’t mean that everything is fine though)

Final notes

5-to-1 ratio: for every one negative interaction there needs to be five or more positive interactions
Jealousy will ruin a friendship (turns into unspoken, and building, anger); instead be happy for them, a good thing has happened to them.
Don’t force your friendships to be stagnate (this seems weird to me, why wouldn’t you let them grow?)