Making and Keeping of a Friend: Part 3

Okay, so how do we get friends? It seems like something that we only have to talk about, right? I mean, we knew how to make friends when we were little. We had friends in grade school. We went through high school with them. Something happens when you're a mom and we've been talking about that for quite a while here inside Mom Master University. And that's exactly what we're talking about today. We're going to talk about the art of how to keep friends, how to win friends, how to care for friends. Because isolation sometimes happens in motherhood. Inevitably, however, we can create a garden of friends that can nourish us, that we can walk through life and we can actually be a blessing to people around us. This can be part of your life as a mom. I know it sometimes feels challenging for us, but what we're gonna walk through today in this entire series is exactly how to get friends. Maybe it's not that hard. Stay tuned. Welcome to Mom Mastery University. The education every mom should have had but didn't. I'm Hannah Keeley, America's number one mom coach. And class is now in session. Sh. All right, we are at it again. How do we make and keep our friends? We've been talking about that now for a minute here inside Mom Bastard University. If you showed up for our first part of the entire coaching series, we talked about why we have a tendency to isolate as moms. In the second part, we learned about, you know, what happens when we outgrow friends, what happens when we have to weed our friend garden. And today what we're talking about, this is part three in the making keeping of a friend is this beautiful art of how to make friends. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard. Like it seems almost like automatic, right? So why does it become hard for us? That's what we learned already. Now how do we make it happen? How can we make and keep friends? That's exactly what we're talking about today. And I want you to really focus because what we're going to learn about today is not just like age old wisdom, but I'm also going to share some insight with you that will help you develop personally so you attract those people who can just be a blessing to your life. Because we learned in, in part two about, you know, not everyone fits in our garden and sometimes there's some weeding we have to do. But how do we make sure that those friends we get are the ones that we really want to walk with through life? That's what we're going to Talk about today. And I want to tell you a quick story about when I was nine years old, one of my favorite places in the world to be. You're going to laugh at this, but one of my favorite places to be was an old shed in our backyard. I remember so well sometimes, you know, just as the youngest child, I would want to get out of the house. And as a youngest, my older siblings had better things to do than play with me. But I often I found consolation in just being alone. And one of the things that I love to do, yes, I did have friends. But also as a youngest, sometimes, you know, you have to find your own entertainment, right? But one of the things I love to do was we lived in a house. And that in the back of the house is tiny little house, like teeny. You could like literally like sit on the toilet, open the front door. Like it was a tiny house with a lot of kids. I'm the youngest of five. But one thing I love to do is I would go in the backyard and there was a old shed there. It had enough room for a chest freezer, a big old bookshelf, a lawnmower and some other lawn equipment and just enough room to walk through. But that chest freezer was bumped up right against the back wall of the shed. And right over that was a teeny tiny window. Maybe not like 12 inches by 12 inches, just enough where you could roll it open and open up the vents there. So back in, back in the country in South Carolina, we didn't have like air. We didn't have air. Our house had like a window unit, right? But it was hot, it was muggy. But I loved being in that shed. And what I would do was there's an old bookshelf full of books and I would grab a book, sit on that chest freezer, open up the window just enough to open up those little vents and get some air circulation and. And I would just read. At nine years old, that was like My Secret Hideaway. I loved it so much. Well, my mom and dad, they, they had bookstores, they always collected books. A lot of these were self improvement books. And I remember one day I walked in the shed, you know, that was my secret hideaway, right? And I grabbed a book off the shelf and it was the book how to Win Friends. Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I'm sure you've heard it. If you haven't, you absolutely. That's the next book that you're going to read. Old book, right? And it was called how to Win Friends and influence people. I remember getting that book off the shelf and sitting on that chest freezer and devouring it and I was like, this is good. Like, this just shows me exactly what I need to do to win friends. Like I said, only old as the hills. It is an old book, but a classic book. And when I read that book, it made an impact in my life. Not just how to win friends, but how to be a friend, how to truly be authentic, how to show up with integrity, how to really care for people, how to put the concerns of other people before yours. And the wisdom of this book was so profound. And I want to share a little bit of that in this episode today of Mom Master University. And I'm going to add something to the book now, the book I'm going to share with you. It's almost like, you know, I'm going to bring out these principles in the book and I'm going to share them with you and put my little like, Hannah ease to it, right? Like, like my little spin on it. But I want to share one thing. This is not in the book, but it's in my heart. And I want to share this with you. This is the first principle. Now I'm going to go through the principles in the book again, giving it my spin to it. But the first principle I want to share this with you from my heart is like attracts like. So there are six principles from the book, but there's seven principles that I want to share with you in this episode. And the first principle is like attracts like. This is something that was not in the book, but I found out about it later and I started really putting this into practice and it blessed me in such a way. I want to share this with you. And probably the most profound found principle of how to make friends, how to keep friends, is understand it all depends on the energy you carry. Like attracts like. When you have an energy that you want to bless people, guess what? People who want to bless you are going to just fall into your life. When you have an energy that, that you want to love people, there's going to be more people that want to love you. When you carry the energy of looking for ways to help others out. Like, your radar's always open to see who needs help. Who can I serve today? Guess what? Someone else's radar is going to be open to you when you're in a time of need. And this one principle, so profound, it could literally change your life overnight when you dialed in. So when we're looking for good friends and we're not finding many of them. Sometimes we need to do a gut check and we're like, am I a good friend? Do I look for the worst case scenario or the best case scenario? Do I operate in pessimism or optimism? Do I see the worst in people or do I see the best in people? Do I look for ways that people can serve me, or do I go out looking for ways I can serve others? Do I look at people with judgment and criticism, or do I look at people with compassion and hope? These small shifts, and really, it's not that small at all. They're huge shifts, but it's just a small shift in your mind. Like, what if every day we woke up and we decided, today, just today, I'm going to look for ways to be a blessing in other people's lives. I'm going to look for ways to serve other people. I'm going to have my radar open all day today. Whether I'm just at home all day or whether I'm going out, whether. Whether I'm shopping, whether I'm running errands. I'm going to have my radar open for how I can serve other people. And this one principle I want to share quickly. It's like story time. But I was recently at. At the airport, and I was waiting in line to. To get my bag weighed and send it on ahead of me, right? And I noticed this woman. This line kind of snaked around. I noticed this woman who was in the. Ahead of me in that line, and she looked so sad, and I could tell she had been crying. And she just had this face of like, you know, just like so much despondency, so much sorrow. And I was behind her in the little snake line, right? Like the Disney World line. And I just tapped her on her shoulder. She didn't speak any English, but I tapped her on her shoulder and I turned her to me. And I just looked in her eyes and I said, it's gonna be okay. And I just wrapped my arms around her and I embraced her and she started crying. She was shorter than me, everyone shorter than me. She started crying on my. On my shoulder right here. And I just held her and I. And I held her. I rubbed her back, I patted her back and I said, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. And I prayed over her. I don't know if she understood it or not, but I prayed over her. But God understood it, right? And I just held her and held her and the line moved. I didn't move I was. It was more important that I held her at that moment and probably uncomfortable for other people. I don't care, right? And I just pulled her away from me. And I say, you're gonna be okay. And she just looks at me and nods and smiles. I gave her another hug. And, I mean, I don't know what difference it made, but, you know, I saw someone who was hurting. You could feel that pain. It was like a tangible pain. And I'm not okay with pain. I'm not. I have to step in. So, anyway, that all happened, and I went. Now it's time to go through tsa, right? So I was in line for tsa, and this woman tapped me on the. On the shoulder behind me, and she said, I just have to tell you, I was in line with you when you dropped off your bag. And I cannot tell you how profoundly that act of love affected me. Like, I started crying. I called my husband immediately afterwards, and I said, hi, honey. I just saw the most beautiful thing. I was like, oh, my goodness, how amazing. Like, that's. That's so crazy that. That it blessed you too. And. And she said, oh, absolutely. I can't even begin to tell you how that blessed me. Like, having the boldness to do that right there. No care for what other people thought. And the cool thing is, we started talking, and she's a coach, and she actually lives near me, and now we have this friendship, right? Hmm. How did that happen? Because I was looking for a way to serve and not looking for someone to serve me. Now God opens up the right doors. You see, we never know, but when our heart is outside of us, looking for ways to give and care and love and serve, just like Jesus, all of a sudden, people are drawn into your love vortex. I love the idea that I am a love vortex. Like, people who know that love and sense that love, they're drawn into it. And now I have friends who are like me. Like, we have the same chemical makeup. We love God. We love each other. We love people. We love the world and want to change it. What a beautiful place to live and move and breathe in that presence of God that just is always looking for ways to love. Like, guess what? We love because why he first loved us. And when you get such a clear understanding of the love of God for you, it makes it so easy to show up in the lives of other people. So easy. It's like, almost like an irrepressible urgent. So this is the first principle that I want to share with you is like attracts like you will know the quality of your heart. When you look at the quality of the people who are drawn into your life, it becomes like a litmus test that we can actually see what's inside of us. So remember this. The first place to make and keep friends is to start with you. Am I showing up as the kind of person I want to pull into my life? So number one, like attracts like. Number two, now we're getting into how to win friends and influence people. So these are his principles, and I love them, and I'm going to share them with you. So two is become genuinely interested in other people. You know, sometimes we're so interested in ourselves that we don't think about being interested in other people. But what if you were like, I find people fascinating. I love talking with them. I love finding out about them. I love finding out about their families. I love finding out about what makes them tick, how they feel, what they think. Like, all the things. I just find people fascinating. So what if you adopted this first. First principle that Dale Carnegie shared is be not, not fake. People can read fake a mile away. Don't be fake. It stinks. It smells bad. Don't do that. What smells great? What is that fragrance that attracts people is genuine interest. Like, genuinely, I want to know more about you. Oh, why do you feel that way? Tell me more about that. Oh, my gosh. Tell me what it was like growing up like that. People are just open books with fascinating stories. Like, I'm sure you love to watch a good movie. Maybe you love to read a good book. People are the greatest stories in the world. So be genuinely interested in that and let that drive you toward knowing more about them, asking more questions. People are fascinating. I think you'll find that out when you start taking a peek under the COVID of that book. So that was number two. Number three is this one word. You ready for this? Smile. That's what Dale Carnegie says. Smile. Have you ever looked, like, really looked when you were out shopping at the grocery store, of people's expression? Usually they're looking down at their phone. Usually the corners of their mouth are down, the eyes are down. Like, gravity will do enough to your face. You don't have to help it out, I promise. But a lot of people are helping gravity out by having, like, a downcast face, downcast mouth, downcast eyes. What if you just decided, I'm gonna just smile more? A smile is such a beautiful, attractive quality. It is disarming for people. It builds intimacy. It provides immediate connection to just smiling. Practice that just See what happens if, like, put it to the test. Like, take one day and just decide, I'm gonna smile more. I'm gonna be more conscious of my face, and I'm gonna smile more. I'm gonna make eye contact, and I'm gonna greet people, and I'm gonna smile. That's the energy I'm gonna go out in. Like, imagine if you held a smile energy everywhere you went. You were just a big smile. People will be drawn to that. Now, the fourth principle. Remember that a person's name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. You know, I'm guilty of saying I'm just not good with names. Well, if I say that enough, I'm sure I won't be. Think about it. Are you the kind of person it's like, oh, I just have a hard time remembering names. What if you quit believing that? What if you started believing? Actually, I love the sound of people's names, and I always remember them. It's like, well, Hannah, that's not true. Have you tried believing that long enough to make it true for you? One way to remember a person's name is always associate something with that person with their name. I'm going to give you an example. There's this woman. There is this woman that we often walk our dogs together, and her name is Susan. And I met her one day, and next time I saw her, I forgot her name. I was mortified. Oh, my gosh, I'm bad with names. I forgot her name the next time I met her. The third time I met her, I was with my sister, and I leaned in and I said, can you get her name? Because I forgot it. And I feel so bad. Like, can you ask her name? She's like, oh, yeah, I got this. So my sister asked her name. She said, Susan. I was like, oh, Susan. That's it. That's it. And. And Susan, that day, was frustrated because they were doing a lot of building around her house, and it was making the trails where she used to walk. She couldn't walk on those trails anymore. And then when we parted ways, I was with my sister Susan, and her dogs went one way, me and my sister and our dogs. Dogs went the other way. And my sister said, you know, Susan's gonna sue. Sue's gonna sue. She's gonna sue those people who are building those houses around her. And I said, yes, thank you. I will never forget her name again. So what if you practice this? What if as soon as you met that person, you got something about that person. Maybe it's a physical quality. Their face, their hair, what they're wearing or something that. That you can't forget about that person and attached it to the name. Make up a little story for yourself. Make up a little game. Make up a little rhyme. And when you do that, that mnemonic device is so effective to help you remember someone's name. And guess what? Here's another way to remember their name. Say it more often. People love the sound of their names. The other day, I was going down the road, and I was talking with my husband on speaker, and he was talking, then he said hannah and then said something, and I was like, oh, my gosh. My name just sounds so beautiful when you say it. I didn't even remember what he said after it. I just. I said, it sounds so beautiful. You always call me, like, sweetheart or honey or, you know, little. Little, like, cute names, which are fine. But when he said my name, I was like, oh, it sounds so beautiful coming from you. People love the sound of their names, so practice saying their names more when you talk with them. Just in the conversation. Weave it in and out because it builds an affinity with that person toward you, and it'll help you remember their name. All right, so we are on number five. This is so important, y'. All. Be a good listener. Be a good listener. It's not that hard. The main reason we are not good listeners. Are you ready for this? Is we're listening for an opportunity to speak and not to understand. Did you get that? Most of the time, we listen for an opportunity to speak, not to understand. What if you decide to switch that? What if you decided, I'm going to start listening to understand. Listen to people's conversation as if you're going to have a test on it later. Like, be so tuned in. Get all the details, ask questions about it. Go deeper. Coaches are professionals at this. They are such good listeners because we have to go into their thoughts, into their mind and help them, like, decode everything and make sense of their thoughts and get the best thoughts to move forward. Like, we are pros at listening. So what if you decided you're going to start being a great listener? How do you do that? Listen to understand. Don't listen for the pause. Like some people when they're listening, what they're actually doing is they're forming an opinion or a thought in their head to prepare to speak. So they're distracted from what someone's saying because they're in their own head forming the next line of conversation. Or maybe they're think they're distracted and thinking about where they'd rather be or something they'd rather be doing. But what if you decided, I'm not going to listen and form my own thoughts on what to say. I'm going to let God give me the thoughts when the opportunity opens up. So don't look for them to be quiet so you can, like, say your thing. Start mastering the art of listening. Listen to understand. Now, what does this do? It actually, it makes you a better listener, but also it makes you retain more information about the other person and it does something else. It causes you to live outside of yourself. If you think about it, Jesus always lived outside of himself. There is one situation where there was a. There was a man who brought his child who was. They said a demon takes hold of them, throws them in the fire, throws him in the water. I have to get him out of the fire. I have to get him out of the water. He said, please, can you, can you cast this demon out of my son? And Jesus said the most amazing thing. He said this. He. He could have just cast a demon out. He could have spoken to the boy, but he spoke to the Father and he said this. How long has he been like this? Now that just hit me in my gut. And I'll tell you why. Because so often what we do is we're so quick to speak that we don't find out about another person's pain, their story, their successes, their failures, their emotions, their grief, their joy. We don't find out about that. And we go through life stuck in our own heads. Jesus lived outside of himself. And just that one question said to that parent, I, I'll help him, but I care about you too. This is. Has to be hard on you. This has. I'm sure it's been a struggle because you've had. You've been so concerned about him and trying to keep him alive. Pull him out of the water, pull him out of the fire. How long has it been like this? Do you see that? Jesus was not just after healing for the son, but he was after understanding the dad. What if we could live outside of ourselves and start getting more information about people asking more questions, diving into their heart? That's how to win friends. That's how to make friends. That's how to keep friends. And they're the best friends. Because guess what? You're going to attract those people who live outside of themselves too. Okay, awesome. Number six, talk in terms of the other person's interest. People love talking about their own interests. I get it. I could talk about coaching all day long. I could talk about motherhood all day long, talk about marriage all day long. I talk about gardening and talk about homemaking. But what if you tapped into the other person's interests? What if you found out what they loved? I have this one friend, loves horses. She has a horse, she has a stable. She takes care of it. I love asking her about her horse. I've ridden a horse one time, but I love asking about her horse. Tell me, like, what do you do at the stable? And tell me how. Tell me how your ride was today. Oh, my gosh. Where'd you go? That must be so much fun. What's your biggest challenges of taking care of a horse? Like, why. Why were you, like, attracted to horse in the first place? Talk about that. When you talk about other people's interests, they come alive. And guess what? It's a little more challenging. You know all about your interests, you don't know about theirs. So get interested in it. Find out more information. Dive into other people's lives. I'm telling you, it's the best storybook in the world. Now the last one, and this is number seven. And this is so important. When you talk with people, make sure they feel significant and important. Did you know there are four core needs that everybody has? And guess which one is at the top, Top of the list? Significance. People need to feel significant. What if you could be the person that God puts in their pathway to make them feel significant, to make them feel important, to speak to their qualities, their purpose, the reason they're in the world? I'll tell you. When you make people feel important, make them feel significant, what does that look like? It looks like giving them a call. You were thinking about them. You. You saw something and made them think of them. You. You congratulate them for doing something. You. You remember important things for them. You make them feel important. When you do that, you make someone feel significant. And when you make someone feel significant, guess what? You make them feel loved. What if it isn't that hard? What if it really isn't that hard to make and keep friends? What if you had to just check your energy, make sure like attracts like, and then a lot of these are common sense. The biggest barrier. Biggest barrier is we get stuck in our own heads. I have a thing I say, I tell it to coaches all the time. You get in your head, you're dead. When we always live in here, we're limited. But when we live outside of ourselves, just like Jesus showed us how to live. All of a sudden, life becomes unlimited. Now we have friends all over the place. We have an amazing network of people who love like we love, who care like we care, who support like we support. And guess what we hear all the time? Laughter. Remember, laughter is one of the strongest energies. And we get together with friends. That's what you're going to hear. Especially if they're a bunch of master moms. Now this brings us to doing the work. Make sure you don't stop here. This is just the warm up. Make sure you get inside Mom Master University and click on this episode because you will see it. It's going to be very clear right there. The making and keeping of a friend. And this is part three. And make sure you go in there and do the action steps. It's called doing the work. I walk you through it in real time. We do the work together because it's one thing to know something, it's a totally different thing to do something. So what we're going to do is we're going to do the work. Faith without works is dead. We don't stop here. So if you are not already a member inside Mom Master University, why not? It is amazing. It's a vault of all different mom coaches, over 300 different moments coaching programs for you. So go to mommastery.com take the quiz, get inside and you're going to find inside Mom Mastery University how you can do the work. So you can listen to this, apply it and get the results because there are friends out there who are waiting to meet you. So what about you, mama? Are you ready to enroll in the only school that will not only change your life, but also your legacy? Go to Mom Mastery University where we dive deep into the biblical principles that give ordinary moms extraordinary results. Get enrolled today.