Social Confidence And Friendships...Your Core 4!

Who are your core four? The four people in your life that you can share most deeply with, that you're most connected to, that you can talk about, what's really going on in your life, and so can they. And as a result, your lives are that much better. Stay tuned to watch this episode to discover who those people are and if you don't have that in your life, how to create it. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, and this is the show for you if you want to maximize your confidence in every area of your life that matters, including your social life, including your close relationships and your friendships. And that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. If you benefit from this show and want to watch more of these, there's tons of videos coming out these days. Hit the subscribe button down below and you'll be aware of everything that comes out. So you can keep learning, keep growing in this area, because confidence is a master skill. The more you grow in your confidence, the more every area of your life improves, including your close relationships. So that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. So who are your core four? That's what I ask in the intro, and that's a phrase that I came up with maybe last year when I was realizing that, you know, with family and young kids and work, I was not following up and keeping in as close a contact with people that were really important to me in my life. And I hadn't talked to on the phone with my brother for a long time, or I hadn't seen a good friend or gone out to lunch or done something with another friend in town. So I said, okay, time is. I have to allocate it wisely. And this is a very important part of my life. So maybe I can't sustain all my relationships at the same level that I did when I was single or when it was just me and Candace. But I still need a solid number of people in my life that know what's going on with me. And so I said, well, how many do I need? I was like, how about four? The core four. Now, it could be more or less, right? That's just an arbitrary number that. To have a lot of depth with more and more people, like 10 or 20, it's possible, but that's a lot to sustain. And to have it with just one person, which some people do, that's really good. It's better than zero. But then it's also like, you're totally relying on that person to go deep. And also, you might benefit from broadening a little bit because different people have different perspectives. You might be able to share some things with men versus women. You can just learn to be more vulnerable with more people. So that's better than one. Some people that I work with, the only person that they're really vulnerable with and share what's going on fully with, take the mask off with, is their spouse. And while that leads to a better relationship, then they don't have any deep friendships, and there's something missing in their lives. And that does negatively affect their romantic relationship, too. So it's important to have both. So I said, okay, who are my Core 4? And I didn't include Candace, although she's the person that knows me best, that I share the most with, because I was like, okay, I need four friendships outside of that, and I have more friends than that. But who are the four that I'm going to prioritize in nourishing those relationships? That's what I want you to be thinking about as you're watching me share or listening to this video. Who are the people? Who are the relationships that I want to nurture the most that are the top of the priority? Yes, life is busy. Yes. You have work or commitments or family or school or whatever. And it's important. In fact, I'm gonna have a link to this in the description below. But there's a study, Harvard Psychological Longitudinal Study, something like that was the name of it. And it's been going for like, 75 years. They've had different directors of this study, and it's like the longest longitudinal study ever done, I believe. And they measured these guys from Harvard and another group of people from Boston, and they're totally different socioeconomic classes. And they just track them and every couple of months. And then they would have these call ins to find out a lot more about what's going on in their life. Then they'd sit down with them, I think, once a year, and interview them in depth. Interview their families, their spouses, people that knew them. So they were going beyond just like, hey, have you been? Are you satisfied in Life? You know, 20 years ago, what did you do that made you satisfied? It's not hindsight. It's tracking along the way so they can really see what leads to happiness, what leads to fulfillment. And what they found was that it wasn't someone's ascent in socioeconomic status. You earn more money, you get more power. Yes. It wasn't people's descent from wealth to poverty, which happened to some people in the study. And it wasn't even their physical health. I mean, things that we think are going to lead to the happiness. You know what it was the quality of their relationships, the quality of those relationships. And if they had a partner that they were really close to and friends that they were really close to, it trumped all the other factors in determining their happiness. And you can watch the ted talk just 15 minutes. The guy who's the current head of the study and his summary of the research, which he starts with a really interesting point, which is that when they poll millennials, they found that 75% of them, one of their core goals in life is to be rich. And 50%, was it some number you can see in the TED Talk was to be famous. So pursuit of, you know, rich in fame, you know, it's the rap star dream. But in the pursuit of that which is going to yield questionable results in terms of happiness, we can deprioritize the relationships. So that's one issue. So you got to focus on it more. But the second block, and this one comes up a lot in my work with people, is it's not that they're not prioritizing it. It's that they're scared to take it deeper. It's a lack of confidence. It's a fear that, well, if I, you know, I can have acquaintances and I can share, but to really put more of myself out there, to deepen those relationships is scary. And it's hard. I don't know how to do it. I don't know who to do it with. And there's a lot of stories around, you know, how they don't know how and why they can't. But the truth is, at the end of the day, those are just stories. It's really fear. It's the fear of being vulnerable. It's the fear of sharing more. And it's so simple in some ways, but our mind wants to make it so complex. It's when you're with that person who's an acquaintance and they say, how's it going? You don't just say, fine, great. Or, how was your weekend? Cool. We did this, like, share a little more in depth about what's really going on. And it doesn't always have to be negative, you know, like, oh, so terrible. It's like, maybe it's positive, but you let your passion show. You let your enthusiasm show. You don't inhibit who you are, and you let that Energy out. Or you share something that you're excited about spontaneously. You don't say, well, I'm not sure if they're gonna be interested in this. I don't know. You're just like, you know what I'm really into these days? And then you share that thing, whatever that is for you. Or on the flip side, if you are struggling, if you do have a challenge, we think that if we reveal this stuff to people, they're going to judge us. They're going to think that we're weak. And the truth is the exact opposite. Like, that's the only way that people forge depth in their relationships is the revealing of some of their challenges or insecurities. And so whether you want to do that sooner in a relationship or later, that's your choice. But that's going to determine the rate at which you go deeper. That's why there's people that you've known for 20 years, 30 years, your whole life, family members, maybe extended family, cousins, whatever you've known forever. But the relationships are not deep at all. You know what I'm talking about? Do you have some people like that in your life? And so depth doesn't come just from time. Depth comes from going deeper, from revealing more. And with certain family members and certain dynamics, people just don't reveal. They get together at Thanksgiving or whatever, and it's just like, how are you doing? I'm fine. We're all posturing. And then they leave. And then you're more authentic with someone else. And that's why you can go on a date with someone, or you can meet someone, and two hours into that experience, you can feel closer to them than you have to your cousin of 25 years because of the depth. And here's the thing. If you're waiting for your acquaintances or your friends to lead you there, to be the one to go first, you might just be waiting forever. You need to be the one to go first. You need to lead if you want this in your life, which, if you watch that TED Talk, if you're not already convinced, watch the TED Talk below. It will inspire you. You will then be the one who needs to lead that. Because we gotta be the leader of our lives. You gotta be the leader of your social life. And this is the way to do that, is to deepen the relationship. So decide who are the people that I'd like to go deeper with? Who are the friendships that I want to prioritize? And then how can I go deeper with them? And then go do it? Obviously, that would be the next step is go do it, not just think of it. That would be a good idea. Yeah, that's that. Go out there, take the risks. If this is something that you want to learn more how to do, you want more guidance on exactly how to establish those relationships, how and when to be vulnerable, how to assess if it's a good time, what to say. And maybe it's to deepen the relationships, but also just to create more social connection relationships in your life. Then I highly recommend you check out my program, Confidence University. It's one of the most comprehensive, powerful, confidence building systems in the world. And there is a whole course on social mastery where we go step by step on helping you construct from the ground up your ultimate social life, building the social confidence to do it, the nuts and bolts of how to do it. So if you really want to master this stuff, go there. Check that out. It's at TheConfidenceUniversity.com that's TheConfidenceUniversity.com and in the meantime, go out and apply this right now because immediate action, it's when it's going to help you transform in your social life and everywhere else. So share your comments below. What are you learning about your core four? What gets in the way for you? What are you going to go do after watching this video? And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.