5 Ways to Make New Friends - #BelieveLife

Good morning, Believe Nation. Today we're going to talk about how you can make new friends.

Probably that's maybe the sweetest word to a kid— friends. As we get a little older and we have our friends, they become very close to us and And sometimes they become almost all-consuming. They are everything to us. I can remember as a parent, as my children got to a certain age and where they looked to me for influence, I can remember very well when I saw them beginning to go to their friends. And that's where their influence began, and that's where their influence began to increase. As a parent, that got a little scary for me because I could, I could see I was having a little less influence and the friends were having a little bit more. Well, my parents were very wise. My parents understood that who my friends were would determine who I was going to become. Birds of a feather flock together. And in their wisdom, they decided that they wanted to know my friends and they wanted to see my friends. And so therefore, they provided a lot of wonderful things in our home so we would have our friends at our house so that my parents could observe and watch the kind of kids I ran around with. And what I learned as a, a kid growing up is very simple. There are some friends that were positive for me, and there were some friends that were negative for me. And my determination of which friends I was going to let influence me basically determined whether I was going to have a positive or a negative life. Fortunately, because of good parental advice and guidance, I chose good friends. Which really did make a difference. Because you see, friends are wonderful. They give us support, they give us strength. They're either, though, a real asset or a real liability. So I would just want to encourage you, choose your friends wisely. You don't need a lot, but you need some good ones.

The first tip I want to give you guys when it comes to making new friends is having a common interest with someone. There's There's so many people in this world, and I'm pretty sure you guys walk past hundreds of people all the time. How do you know that you have something in common with them? How do you know if that person's gonna be your friend? You don't. That's kind of the whole point of life is not knowing what's gonna happen and not knowing who you're gonna meet. But I think if you open yourself up to it and you are showing people that you have a certain interest that you like, there's gonna be certain people who are very like-minded like yourself that's gonna pick up on it. Don't underestimate the power of having a sense of common interest because it really does bring people together. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to have everything in common. If they're speaking to you, if they're making a comment like, "Oh my gosh, I love that song!" "Oh my gosh, I love your shirt!" "Tell them where you got it!" "I love your jeans too, where did you get that?" Bam! Already right there, you have common interests with that person. So what do you do from there? You engage, and that's the next step. You're not gonna be able to make friends if you're not the one actively engaging with them too. Ask them questions. I mean, if you're actively engaging with them, they're gonna engage back with you, and that's when you can you can really make that connection. And that's step number 3, connect with that person. You can add them on Instagram or Facebook, and that's when you will know if this is someone that really wants you in their life or vice versa. Give them an email. I mean, you don't really need to exchange numbers right away. It can just be as simple as, "Hey, you have Instagram? Can I follow you? Is that cool?" I think it's polite to show that, you know, you're asking to follow them. Friendship is not just one thing. There's different levels of friendship. But how do you know if this person is more than an acquaintance is when you're constantly texting them or you're chatting with them online, you're video chatting with them, you're sending them links and messages. If you're honestly dialoguing all the time, that's when you know that, hey, you know what? This person might be a cool friend.

Accept every invitation. True story. I have a good friend. Her name is Amy. Amy went through a messy divorce. In the process, lost a lot of her good friends. And so what she decided when she was sort of bummed out, right? She's like, "Yo, I don't have all these friends anymore. I'm sort of a little bit lonely. I'm not being as social as I'd like to be." What she decided for one year was to accept every invitation that people offered. And what she found is that she had the best year of her life. By the end of it, she had some friends that she loved that were incredible that she never would have met if she stayed isolated and didn't say yes. Gentlemen, accept invitations. Say yes. Do not be precious about who you hang out with in the beginning, okay? Don't go hang out with the crackhead on the corner who is going to bring your life down if you start hanging out with them, but hang out with whoever you want. Be chill about it. You don't have to find this person that connects with you in every single way and becomes this best friend for life immediately. Some people you'll go out and watch football with, some people you'll go out shopping with, other people you'll have good intellectual conversations with, but you don't have to find everything in one person. You know, I'd go party, and I'd come with this person, but I'd end up meeting 5 more people that they didn't even know. And one of those 5 people ended up being the person I still know today. The point is, don't get so picky that you cut yourself off before you've even started.

You need to be understanding. We all, like I said, have bad days, we have bad weeks, we have bad months. Friendship is going to be hard, especially when you've known each other for a really long time, or know someone— like, everyone is raised differently, every family does things differently. I think, you know, for me, I try to be really forgiving. I try to be the first person to apologize, but, you know, I try to be understanding. I try to see things from other people's perspectives. I'm not perfect, but at the end of the day, it really is up to you, like, how deep of friendships that you want to have with people, because you are going to get in fights with really close friends, and you have to decide, do you want this person in your life, or do you not want this person in your life? And it's really up to you. And if you're gonna have, like, deep lifelong friendships, there's gonna be rough moments and you have to learn to forgive and not necessarily forget because people are not allowed to abuse you, but you do need to learn to forgive and move on or that person isn't around and then everyone loses.

I think that for most people, if they're really having trouble making friends or have zero friends at all, it's really because of point number 1. You're not actually going out and being around people. You need some ideas for how to do that. See, your life right now, it's like this, this pattern, this habit of just going to work or going home or doing stuff that's very isolated and insulating. Instead, you want to open that up. That means you need to do what? You need to go join some new group. Join a club. Join an organization. Go hang out with the people that are at work. You know, organize a work event where you're going out after work and socializing in some way to a bar or club or restaurant or some sort of event that you're doing together. You got to do that. Maybe join some sort of sports team or sports league. You can go to meetup.com. There's tons of meetup groups that you can basically find a meetup group on any topic in, in the entire world that you want to and, and join that. So you got to do a little bit of research and figure out where you can place yourself where you're literally surrounded by more people. This is probably the biggest thing because if you do this, the other points, they'll tend to autocorrect. Right, this idea about being shy and fake. Well, if you're around a lot of people all the time, then this shy and fake thing, it will eventually dissolve. Eventually you'll just kind of, you know, you'll break through it. You'll bust out of your comfort zone if you're around a lot of people. But if you're never around a lot of people, then that's never gonna happen. You're gonna remain shy and fake. And if you're always judgmental about people, that too. If you're always around a lot of people, then you're not going to be able to maintain that judgmental attitude. So the reason that you're very judgmental is probably because you're already very isolated and living in your own little bubble. Be around a lot of people, be around a lot of diverse people, and then your judgment, it'll, it'll also dissipate because your mind will open up. People will open up your mind as you're interacting with them. And also, if you don't have the time and energy right now, then that too might change after you go out and join one of these groups and start to socialize more. Because as you're socializing, you're seeing little difficult to describe benefits that you get from friends. A lot of the benefits you get from friends are very subtle and small. Maybe a friend will just tell you about a book that they read that they really liked, or they'll tell you about a new cool restaurant that's opening, or they'll invite you to go with them on some, some trip next weekend. You just like very simple little things like that which can lead to actually pretty extraordinary profound changes in your life, because maybe then you go and to that restaurant and you meet your dream spouse there. Or maybe you go read that book that they recommended and that turns out to be a life-changing book for you. So friends are nice because they open you up to all sorts of new ideas. This is why having diverse friends is important. Don't just be friends with people that are identical to you. You're not getting— you're not getting that cross-pollination that you will get when you're interacting with people who are very different than you. I love having friends that are very, very different from me. I learn so much from them. To me, those are some of the most rewarding and interesting friends.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because my videographer Jason asked me to. So if there's a topic you want me to cover in the next edition of Believe Life, leave it in the comments below and we'll see what we can do. It's also a really interesting topic and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on making new friends. If you have trouble doing it, how you do it, and if you've learned anything from this, this video and what you've learned and how that might impact how you go about your day-to-day life. I'm really curious to find out and I think your story could also help inspire some change in other people as well. So please leave a comment underneath in the video. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.