 All right, you're on the Mind Pump channel, but today is the second installment of Mind Pump presents. We have Adam Lane Smith on. He's a relationship expert. He's an expert on attachment theory. You loved his first one. Here's a second one. This one's talking about how to make friends, how to get out of toxic relationships, how to avoid toxic relationships. Adam Lane Smith is so impactful that we're literally letting him have his show on our channel. And so this is a second one that we're doing. We know you're going to enjoy it. Today's giveaway is the RGB bundle. Do this. If you want to win it, leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We also have two days left for our program sales, maps, bands, half off, the hardgainer bundle of programs, half off. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here's Adam Lane Smith. Welcome back to episode two. We're going to be fixing your attachment today, especially in friendship. Today we're talking specifically about attachment in your friendship and why friendships are so absolutely vital to your well-being. They might be some of the biggest impact in your life that you will ever have in any factor, and so many people take friendship for granted or they don't think it's important. We're going to talk about fixing that today and everything you need to know to either fix the friendships you have or find entirely new friendships if you're running aground right now. We'll figure it out. I'm also going to teach you the easiest method for making friends, something that I teach to people who come in who have not had a good quality friend for 10 years. This method is so easy that children can do it. In fact, children do do it. I'm going to show you the basic, normal, biological human method for making friends that is so easy you will be embarrassed and then you'll have a bunch of friends who actually like you. It'll be cool. We'll get you there. So specifically in this video, I'm going to show you how to make new friends the very easy way, how to make sure that your friendships are quality. So we're going to filter for toxic versus healthy. I'm going to show you how to improve any old friendships that you have, a very specific method I call the anxious person speech. I'm also going to show you how to nurture those new friendships that you're going to be building and how to grow your friendships over time. A big key part of this is also that I'm going to teach you the four levels of trust that's going to show you how and when to deepen a connection with somebody so that they stay with you for the test of time. You're going to understand how to make friends, but people want from you and how to maintain friendships for your entire life. So let's get right into it. First, let's talk about the big, big problem. Loneliness, friendlessness. I don't know if you even knew that friendlessness is a word, but it is friendlessness. The lack of friendship in your life may be one of the biggest pain points you're experiencing, even worse than dating, romance, parenting, everything else. It could be friendship that is ruining things for you. Now, the research shows that 33% of millennials aged 24 to 42 is so crushingly alone every single day that they are depressed. They are miserable. Now, this is the most extreme cases in that group, but that doesn't even count the people who are just pretty unhappy about being lonely. The vast majority of millennials are crushingly lonely and unhappy and a huge portion of Gen Z and a giant portion of Gen X and Gen Y, even baby boomers. Everybody is feeling the pinch at losing friends, having no friends, feeling lonely and feeling like you are the only one. A lot of people look around and they think everybody else is out there having a great time that everybody else has friends and that it's just you sitting all alone in your apartment on your couch right now listening to this miserable. That everyone else is having the time of their life and you are all alone and left out. Everybody feels that way, which should tell you a lot. We're going to talk about how to fix that exactly. Loneliness, did you know, is one of the top cited reasons. In fact, it's the biggest cited reason for depression and suicidal thoughts is being lonely. If you have good quality relationships, your quality of life goes way up and it just doesn't just get better from misery. It then goes up into great, wonderful territory where you are fulfilled. You can have that legacy, that 240 that we talked about. You can do all of that connecting. It comes a lot of it from friendship. Men especially are hurting. Men especially are crushed by this. Women are lonely, but they can get by. They can build relationships. People will build relationships with women. If a woman walks out of her home, people try to talk to her. A lot of men don't. A lot of men have no one to encourage them. A lot of men have no physical contact. I hug all of my male friends every time I see them because it might have been the first hug they've had this year. A lot of guys, they grow up and they hit seven, eight years old. People stop hugging them and then people never hug them and then they are all alone and maybe they get a handshake. Maybe they bump shoulders with somebody once and it's the first piece of human contact they've had in a long time. Friends are good for physical contact. They're good for your mental health. They're good to have deep talks with. When you're lonely, you have no one to talk to about anything, about the deeper stuff, even just about your hobbies. Talk about video games, talking about going out, having, doing fitness and working out together. Go to the gym together, watch a movie together, do anything. Every meal is alone. Every activity is alone. Everything's alone. You're all alone in the world. There's no accountability. There's no support, no encouragement, no nothing. How are you going to maintain anything? How are you going to build? How are you going to grow without friends? Friends, I will argue, matter more than having a romantic partner. I've been married for almost 15 years. I love marriage and it does. It does impact your life in a giant way. But your friendships change everything through the course of your life. So the first step we need to do with you is assess what you've got. Let's figure out what you actually have because it may feel like you have nothing or maybe you think you have a bunch and you don't know why you're unfulfilled. Any of the friends in your life right now, let's start thinking about them. What's that more? What is their moral character? What is their moral character of the people you have in your life if you have anybody? Do they follow your values that we talked about? Not are your values more important than theirs, but do they keep to your values? If honesty is the most important thing for you, do you have friends who are honest or are all of your friends liars? If discipline is really important to you, getting up, doing what you're supposed to do, going to the gym, taking care of yourself, going to work, and all of your friends are complete bums who sponge off of other people. How's that going to go? Can you respect your friends? Can you trust them? Do you even really like being around them? Do your friends have a mission? What's their purpose in life? What are they pursuing? Or do they just sit around and smoke pot in their underwear? Is that their plan to do that forever? Do they act with honor? If a crisis hits, can you trust them to be an honorable person who does what is right for everybody involved based on those values? Or are they going to collapse into fear and then give in to all the temptations, greed, selfishness, self-preservation, taking money from you and justifying it? What are they going to do when a conflict hits? Are they transparent? Do you know who they are? Are they pretty clear and honest? Are they reliable to be who they are? And how do they handle criticisms? When you have to tell them something harsh, something rough, something true, how do they handle it? Do they get defensive and angry? Do they begrudgingly thank you for it and mean it? It hurts, but they mean it. And then they take that criticism well. I once had a friend who pretended to keep to his values and my values and he begged me for a chance to make his life better. So my wife and I took him in, gave him a place to sleep, gave him food to eat. And we told him, you have to get a job, not to pay us. We don't need your money. You need to build a job. You need to build discipline. You're going to take, go with us. You're going to go out with us to various events. We're going to take care of you. We're going to show you. I will guide you. Don't force anything down your throat, but let's talk about building a life you're proud of. And over time you can tell me what will make you proud of you and you will build that life. And he said, yes, I need this. Thank you. I was young enough to believe him. So he lived with us for about six months. In that time, he got way too comfortable and slid way back into who he was before. Sneaking out, doing drugs, hiding it behind my back like as if I was his dad. Quit his job, hid that behind my back. Just barely started sliming through life, begging money from other people. And then eventually started taking things out of my home and selling them for side cash. We were wondering why things had disappeared. So eventually I sat him down and said, hey bud, I care about you too much to let you keep dragging your life down. If you being here is too comfortable and it's ruining your life, I need to be your friend and move you along. And he didn't take that well either. Destroyed what was a fake friendship. But it saved me from having that person in my life at the same time. So I've also had very, very good friends that when they fall short on something I go and say, look, you are better than this. I know you are. And you need to take care of this. I'm not telling you how to live your life, but living your life this way, not who you should be and not who you are. Here's who I know you are. What do you want to do about this and how can I assist you in living to that? And they grit their teeth and they thank me and they do it. And those are good friends. Who are the friends in your life? We're going to have to filter that really quick. Now questions to assess the people in your life. When you have a conflict with them and you have in the past, how have they reacted? When you have had a need and you've asked them for help, how have they responded? Now, these are needs. It's not, hey, bud, can you spot me five bucks? This is, hey, I am devastated right now because I lost somebody important in my life. And they say, sorry to hear that, man, but I already have a movie date planned with this new hot chick. You can go cry at home for a few hours after your mom has died today. Were they there for you when you needed them, really needed them? Hopefully you're there for them when they need you to reciprocate. But how do they treat other people during a conflict? When their convenience or pleasure comes into play with a need, how do they treat you? When they're stressed out, how do they treat other people? Maybe not even you, other people. How do they act in conflict? Observe them because how they treat others is how they eventually will treat you. This is why I will never be friends with a man who is cheating on his wife. Now, I'm not saying I would never be friends with a man who has cheated on his wife in the past and is now saying, that was wrong and I know that that was wrong. Here's how I've said it right. And here's who I am now. Okay, great. Now he's a good man. Great. But a man who is currently cheating on his wife and she has no idea and they've got kids and he's currently doing it and lying about it and hiding it. I would never be his friend. Now I will call him out on it and say, bro, this is not who you are. You need to fix this. But if he won't step up to that, he will eventually treat me that way in some way. It's just how people work. Be aware of it. What are your friends' stories like? Listen to the stories that people tell. Are they problem saturated stories? I worked many, many years as a licensed marriage or family therapist and I studied something called narrative therapy. And in narrative therapy, we talk about people who have problem saturated stories. Everything is somebody else's fault. Everyone is out to hurt them. Everyone is out to get them. Everything is awful. Nothing is their fault and it's all doomed and hopeless anyway. So it's all based on fear. If your friends have problem saturated stories with everybody else that they've ever known, they will eventually turn you into a sob story too if they haven't already. When you have a need, they will use your story as means to get empathy, kindness, and resources from somebody else to feel better about themselves. Do your friends take ownership? If something goes wrong, do they say, this was me? I made this happen. Here's how I'm going to set it right. They don't have to beat themselves down. They don't have to grovel and be wretchedly miserable. Do they take ownership? And can they be merciful, cooperative, and loving when it counts? Do they cooperate with you during a conflict? Are they merciful to people? Are they merciful to people? And I don't mean just naive and stupid and just let people be, you know, they're not a doormat, but merciful to someone who makes a genuine mistake or do they go for the throat? And loving has to find love. It means to do what is truly right for somebody else, especially when it costs you something. Do they do what is truly right for everybody involved in the circumstance themselves and others? You don't be a doormat and you don't attack other people and take from them. Do they love other people? Good or bad? Rate the friends in your life. If you aren't sure about any of these or if you're too afraid to ask about them or share your needs with people, the problem could be you. You need to go back and listen to episode one again and fix that. You need to make sure that you are on point and you're actually asking people questions and making sure you're sharing needs. Otherwise you'll have no idea who the people in your life are and they probably won't have any idea who you are either. You're just a big cardboard cutout to them. So fix your attachment and lean into this. But if you do know these things, you need to make sure that you know these things about these people to see if they are worth your time and trust. The questions I just laid out tell you if somebody is worthy of your time and trust. So start leaning into conflicts. Little ones. Don't go punch your best friend in the face unless you guys bond that way. Don't just go start a conflict. There's plenty of conflicts out there. I don't want to eat at that place. I'd rather eat at this place. Is it okay if we make a shift this time? We always eat at that place. Can we try this place for me, man? Hey, I can't see you that day because I have this thing going on. Is that okay? Hey, can we shift this to another night? Hey, I need some help from you. Hey, can you help me out by giving me a referral to somebody who can help me in business? Lean into those and do them and see how they act because you need to know immediately what the people in your life are actually like. Now, if anybody crosses these things we've talked about consistently, they're probably not good to have in your life. I'm not saying they're evil people, but they are probably not good to have in your life and that's a big reason why you are watching this series trying to fix your life. If you have a great life, great friends, great attachment, you probably say, I don't need to watch that series. I'm okay. But if you are not, you're watching this, you're like, I need this. Take a very close look at your friends because your friends may be a big portion of why you're here right now trying to watch this and trying to get better. If people cross these boundaries a lot, they are probably very bad to have in your life and you need to clean them out immediately. So you're going to have to make a decision about those friends down the line. And I'm going to show you how to make that decision right now. All I want you to do is start with two, two people in your life that you can trust. You only need two. See if you have two. If that sounds like a whole lot of people, then we can show you how to make new friends. If you're sitting here saying Adam, two people would be a miracle. Okay. Then that's your problem. That's your problem. I just saw a creator online today on Instagram and she was posting about the number one dating criteria that a lot of women use if they're looking at you for a committed relationship. And she said it's your social circles. It's the people in your life. It's your relationships. It's the people you connect with. That tells her how you're going to treat her and the seriousness you use in your relationships. So many guys get this wrong. So if you're excited about the dating portion of this series down in a couple episodes, build your social circles first because that's the criteria that healthy women are going to look at. Now you need to have two or three good people in your life to fix your attachment issues. That can be your friends, could be your family, could be your romantic partner. But if it's your friends, that's so much easier. I coach so many people fixing through their attachment and friendship is the number one place most of them start because the stakes feel lower. You're usually not trying to sleep with your friends and they're not your family. You haven't formed problems with them. They're a comfortable neutral ground to begin fixing your attachment with where the stakes are lower at the same time. Friends are the best starting place for fixing your attachment. I had somebody come into my office one time and say, Adam, I need help fixing my attachment. And I said, do you have one friend? Just one friend that you can open up to. And they said, I don't know. What does that mean? So I walked them through the guiding questions that we just picked out and they said, yeah, that is a good person. I have one person like that. I've never met anybody else and I always have been because I feel so fake. This person, by the way, ran a hundred million dollar company and was the CEO and had built that. This was no person who had just sat in a basement smoking pot. They had built a gigantic company. No friends. I pointed them at their friend, taught them the conversation to have and they had it and they cried with relief. They cried with relief because they finally felt accepted by somebody in their life. That was a friendship. That's what I'm going to show you how to build through the course of this episode here. Keep watching. Write down right now, anybody in your life, anybody who is a good prospect to open up to and to build those connection points with. I'll show you how to do that. But right now, people who have passed all of these tests so far that we've talked about, write down their names. Give me some names on a piece of paper or on your phone. Write down the names of prospects in your life that you can talk to. Write down the names of a person for you. I call this the I am an anxious person speech. I teach this inside my coaching. It's in the attachment bootcamp course. It's in my book Slaying Your Fear. It's everywhere. I teach this because it is the core of testing a relationship and it's the core of fixing your attachment. Everything begins right here. The I am an anxious person speech. If possible, do this in a video call. If you have to, but in person is very best. Video call second over the phone must never over text message. You need to do this in person. I am an anxious person speech. You need to be in person as much as possible or visible. The nonverbal cues are crucial. So you're going to go to this person and set them down and say this roughly. You may already know this about me, but I'm an anxious person. I overthink relationships all the time. I try to tell people what they want to hear. I am always scared that people are going to get mad at me or reject me or just be pissed and try to hurt me or just use the truth against me. And I know it's irrational and I know you wouldn't do that, but I keep trying to find myself, keep trying to do it. And I hate it and I never want to do it again. So I am telling you because I trust you and I want to build an honest relationship with you from now on. I just always want to be honest with you and no more games on my part ever again. Is this okay? I'm not saying this and your heart is pounding out of your chest and you're thinking, Adam, I will never do this. This will make me miserable. I will, I look stupid. People will hate me. Your brain is designed to hate you and make you think that you're going to ruin everything because of this because again, think back episode one trying to be interesting, never expose yourself, never open up. You're not good enough on your own. Nobody really wants you. If you show them that you are fake people, trustworthy human being with a good value, good morals, good goals, good mission that they can trust. That's what you want, isn't it? People are just like you. So what's going to happen is your brain is going to scream at you and tell you that this is never going to work and that they're going to laugh at you. They're going to reject you. They're not going to be, they're not going to want you. You'll know that they don't. They're going to laugh your limbic system, everything. So you get into the conversation and about three seconds in they'll be leaning forward. They'll look sympathetic. Their pupils will dilate a little bit. They'll be looking at you, listening to you very intently. They'll be caring about you and your brain will start to calm down through the nonverbal signals. They'll get through the conversation by the end of it. When you do this with two people, three people, this is what really starts fixing your attachment at the beginning and you can feel the relief, your chemicals will shift, your whole brain will shift. Your brain freaks out the first time, then it calms down and says, okay, maybe that was a fluke. I should never try opening up like this ever again. When you open up the second time with somebody, your brain will freak out and say, no, this is 50, 50, I don't know. Then you'll do it a third time and your brain will freak out not as much and then it'll work and the person will accept you and still care about you and your brain will calm down again and then it will say I've been wrong all this time and then it will start rewriting all its pathways and then every honest interaction you have with somebody from that point on will start to heal you and you will start to say at least there are some people in this world who have been every human, not saying that, but you will at least feel loved, you will at least feel worthy and you will at least feel accepted. This is a process called systematic desensitization, which is a fancy way of saying doing it over and over and over until your brain stops being scared. I had this work with systematic desensitization works for just about everything. I worked extensively with trauma at that time. I would ride the bus with them because they were petrified of the bus. They were too afraid to leave their home to go grocery shopping or get on the bus. So I'd get on the bus with them and ride it with them. And the first time they were so terrified that I would have to act completely stupid and obnoxious to make them be embarrassed that they were with me. So all they did the whole time was focus on how embarrassing I was acting and they forgot to be scared about the bus and afterward I'd say so and I'd say, okay, you want to do it again? Yes, but can you not talk as much this time? Yes, I can do that. So I'd sit quietly the second time and they'd kind of be tense. I'd say, you doing okay? Yeah, I'm kind of nervous. I'd say that's totally normal. It's all good. Don't worry about it. We'll ride it out. And at the second time, they'd be feeling better. Third time, so much easier. And after that they would laugh because they were never scared again. It's crucial that you have this experience with friends. This is one major reason that friendship is so important because you will have blips along the way, right? A romantic partner may cheat on you. Your parents may be screwed things up and we're really awful. Something bad will happen. Your boss will fire you for no reason. Your company will go under. Whatever is going to happen, your friends are the people that maintain consistent proof that there are good people in this world. People who you can trust. Mutual care between you based on values, goals, real, honest, good things. Friendship is the constant steady in your life and should be. Even if everybody else lets you down, your friends should not. And if they make mistakes, you forgive each other and actually make it right. Two parts there, very important. Here's what's going to happen though as you start making this change. Your brain chemicals are going to shift. You're going to have very good oxytocin. Oxytocin is that thing that little babies get skin-to-skin contact. That's one reason why in the first three weeks if you get an almost no skin-to-skin because of NICU, you have low oxytocin. Your brain is now terrified and doesn't understand why your mother has abandoned you in the woods to die. Your brain is built for hunter-gatherer time. Sorry. Low oxytocin, you'll have very little throughout your life and you won't know how to get it. Vasopressin, really important. That stress is going to destroy everything so you just knuckle under to smooth it over as fast as possible and then solve problems alone or you solve problems alone because you're afraid people will victimize you during the process. So you have to solve it and you have to use other people to solve problems. That's more avoidant attachment. You won't get vasopressin bonding either. You definitely won't get, I won't do the middle finger. You definitely won't get GABA, Gama Aminobioric Acid, just GABA because that flows through oxytocin. Actually, an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It's an active anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication that you're always taking as long as your oxytocin is high, which depends on your attachment. So if you have good attachment, you have good oxytocin, good GABA, good melatonin, and all of your brain calms down. It's literally your brain's way of saying I don't have to be scared or depressed because people love me and care about me so I'm safe. And if you don't have all of those things, ring finger. If you don't have all of those things, you have very much serotonin. Serotonin can release alone, but it can also release in a huge way inside healthy loving relationships. You probably don't have much if you have broken attachment and poor friendships. So of the big five, you have dopamine. You're binging porn, you're binging sugar, you're binging just about anything else to feel good. Dopamine is your course of fuel and motivation throughout the day. Interestingly, coffee. You chug down a bunch of coffee. It transforms your serotonin into dopamine. People wake up first thing in the morning and they're miserable in their life, but they pound that caffeine as hard as they can and sometimes sugar, Mountain Dew, anybody? Have you ever seen somebody really depressed, drink a ton of Mountain Dew? Sugar for dopamine, caffeine for dopamine. Then they watch porn. Then they just play video games and they just do nothing but escape. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. When you fix your relationships and your attachment, all of them, you feel loved and connected to other people through good conversations, through hugs, through feeling relaxed and safe, oxytocin. You solve problems with other people, vasopressin. You have GABA flowing now and your brain is actually suppressing anxiety and depression symptoms so you can focus better and sleep better at night. You're getting better serotonin quality, which is your long-term motivation, long-term good feelings, long-term feeling good. And dopamine is still there, but it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. You fix all these things. Your brain chemistry is now amazing. You're going to feel better than ever. Doing this anxious person's speech, getting back to that really quick, it will prove to you that somebody will take you seriously when you have needs. It will make you feel accepted and loved and this overwrites all those old attachment beliefs that you had from your childhood, a bit. A solution-focused kind of sharing. People say all the time, how am I supposed to open up? How do I be vulnerable? This is solution-focused vulnerability. I am sharing with you because I trust you. I want to make a change. Here's what I don't like. Here's what I'm fixing. Can you still accept me? Yes, great, done. Vulnerability with a purpose, focused. Let me ask you this. If somebody came to you and trusted you, they said, I trust you. I want to connect with you more. I want to be honest with you. I'm sorry that I haven't been. I don't like this. I'm fixing it. Can you still be my friend? Can you accept me? Would you laugh at them? Would you say, oh, this is stupid. What a burden. Would you spit on them? Would you jump out the window to escape? What would you do? When we could build a connection, I could do it back with them. They're going to feel the same. I have, quote, so many, so many people through this process now. Over the years, you guys, so many people, and at least half the time, people reciprocate and say, I feel that way too. What's that called? Attachment? I need to learn this. Thank you for telling me. Let's both do this together. Can you hold me accountable too? I have a friend who's a good friend. I went to one of my other good friends and did this with him because I was guiding him through the process. And he said it took him three drinks. And then he invited his friend out on the balcony and said, I have to tell you something. And as Fred looked at him, drinking hand, and he drank that, took another drink and walked through the I am an anxious person speech. And then paused and in a very high-pitched voice, screeched, will you be my friend? Will you be my friend? As rapid and high-pitched as possible. And his friend said, what? And he had to repeat it in a calmer voice. And his friend said, of course I'm your friend. And my friend told me he experienced such a rush of acceptance in that moment. Such a rush of brain chemicals. Such a rush of relief of being loved. That it changed everything for him because he had never felt that before in his life. He had always felt like relationships happened to him. He had accepted a terrible marriage. He had felt so alone. And in that one moment with his friend who accepted him, it changed everything for him. Took him three drinks and a high-pitched voice on a balcony to get him there. But that's how his friend got him through that. And it was a miracle for him. Now, this is only the beginning. I am an anxious person's speech. It only forms the foundation of a good relationship with somebody. You deepen it from here. But this sets an easy point to return to during conflicts. You can say, hey, remember when I said I'm going to be more honest with you about conflicts? Well, I have to be honest with you. I don't like your new cologne. It is the worst thing in the world. Sorry, man, I told you I was going to be more honest. You can laugh about it. You can also say, hey, for me to be more honest, here's what I'm going to need. You can start sharing needs from here. And they can call back to this conversation with you and keep you kind of like, hey, man, you said you overthink things and you don't want to do that anymore. I see you right now. See the wheels turning. Just tell me what you mean. Quit playing around. Just tell me. You can both call back to this conversation. It's not about being perfect. It's about being accepted for being authentic and who you are, right? It goes back to the first six months of your life. Were you accepted for who you were when you feel unloved and like you would have to perform for your whole life and act out to get attention. I talked about that in video one, video two. Here it is with friendship, fixing it. Lean into this with more testing. I'm going to show you more later on how to do that exactly. Now, what if you don't have any friends for this? A lot of you watching this might say, Adam, that sounds fantastic. I wish I had someone do the anxious person speech. I would do it right now, but I don't and I haven't had friends for five years. I'm so alone. I guess I'm doomed. It's a very, very, very easy method for making friends that all of us have forgotten and I'm going to teach you here today. It always, always works. This is pulled exactly from how kids make friends on the playground. They are super good at it. They run up to somebody else who has something in common with them and they say, hey, do you like dinos? I do too. Let's be best friends forever and they will form a 10 year friendship based on dinosaurs. Kids do this all the time. You can do this too. I'm going to show you exactly how this is going to work. They have no doubts. They have no worries. The same method can work for adults too. We just need to update it a little bit for adulthood and for 2023 or whatever year you guys are in right now. Maybe it's just a hundred years in the future. I don't know, but we will get you there. It can always be updated. Here is something you need to do. Pick something, anything, that has some kind of social component to it. This could be hobbies like games. It could be a craft like crochet. It could be like dancing, ballroom dancing, something like that, salsa, anything at all. It could be martial art. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is for many men a miracle because they get to go there. They have an experience with other guys, physical contact, fighting. They make friends. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a huge social piece, even just apart from the physical aspects of it. The social connection with it can be incredible for some men who are very alone. Maybe it's your religion or religion you've been investigating. Maybe it's volunteering. Maybe professional networking in your career, learning skills, anything like that. Pick something, any of this list. Rewind, listen to that a couple of times. Pick something that has a social component to it. Now remember how I said 33% of even just millennials are so crushingly alone that they are agonizingly depressed. And the rest of them are very miserable and Gen Z is miserable and older people are miserable. Remember how I said everybody is miserable and alone? People go to social events to meet other people. Most people can do all of these activities I just listed completely alone in their home. They don't do that because they want to meet other people and be around other people. When you see social connections and social events happening, it is for the sake of connecting with human beings. That is what people are there for. So pick a social thing and go to any social event that is linked to any of those things you have selected. And then do the activity there. It could be as simple as board game night at your local game store. It could be joining a men's group at your church instead of just going on Sundays. Join the men's group and go there every Thursday or whatever it is. It could be going to a dance class, going to a ballroom dance class. So many men grow from this. You might be laughing right now but it's an incredible game changer. It could be growing, going to Brazilian jujitsu. It could be any of these things. Go. Do the activity. Every time you're there, talk to somebody about the activity you are doing. Like a kid on a playground. Hey, I see you're playing with a dinosaur. I love dinosaurs. Let's talk about dinosaurs for the next three hours. Go find a place where people are doing things you already enjoy and you're all doing it together and talk about the thing with them. Isn't this great? What are you doing there? That looks cool. Hey, tell me about that. Hey, what got you into this? Why do you do this? Hey, this is cool. How long you've been doing it? What does this mean to you? Are you sharing this with people in your life? Whatever it is, talk to them. And if you talk to somebody two or three times and it works and you enjoy seeing each other there and they reciprocate, they come and talk to you occasionally. They're going to be happy or something and chat a little bit more. That simple. Now, how would you feel if somebody did this for you? Let's say you were at dance class, martial art, board game night. And somebody talked to you a couple of times and said, hey, you know what? I love talking to you. Can we go have some coffee and get to know each other in a different way and be friends? You don't have to say, in a different way. Hey, can we go meet each other? I want to learn who you are outside of here. Would you say you? Would you say no? Would you be annoyed? You'd probably love it. The truth is that everybody, just about everybody is out there waiting for somebody to approach them and nobody is willing to do the approach. If you are the person who does the approach, you are a miracle in somebody else's life. Go out, talk to people, then go on that coffee date. You don't have to call it date, but go on the coffee date and be there. Hey, what got you into that? You know, we both love this thing. What got you into that? What about it draws you in? Do you want it to be a part of your life? What do you see in your life? Like, hey, do you have a wife and kids? Do you have a husband? Do you have a boyfriend? Like, what are you doing? Are you including them in it? Like, tell me about you. How does this thing fit into your life? Tell me a little bit more about your life. I'm going to talk to you about that here a little bit, but go out and talk to them about it. So as you do this, maybe you go on a second coffee date, a third coffee date, whatever, you start asking them those stories about their life to see what their values, their mission, their honor code, all of that is. So, hey, tell me a story about you growing up. What were you like? What are you doing lately? Tell me a cool story about you and what you're trying to achieve. What are you trying to achieve? What have you done lately you're proud of? Problem saturated stories. We talked about that. Oh, everything is terrible. This is the only good thing in my life. I take this class to escape from my abusive husband. Everything's terrible and he was abusive. All my boyfriends were abusive before that. My mom was abusive. Everyone is, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Everyone is awful. Okay, probably not. Maybe not a good match. Problem saturated stories are not what you want. That's not what you want to find. That's not the people you want to connect to. I have a Bugatti. No, not like impress them with stories. Tell them stories about your friendships. Haven't I told you a few stories about my friendships and relationships here so far? I have. What did you get out of those stories? Did you learn about me during that story? It didn't just illuminate things. It showed you who I am as a person when I'm not what I'm not here filming. Who am I out there? Who am I at home with my friends and family? My stories told you, didn't they? Same thing here. You're wrong. It is not about being interesting and stimulating to try to get a response or else they'll abandon you. That's those mirroring neurons from childhood. That's the belief that you're not good enough on your own. Instead, remember in the first episode? Being interesting comes from, what does it come from? Your personal values, staying consistent with them and the mission that you are following. Those are the two parts of you that make you fascinating and wonderful and good healthy people can rely on you for knowing those things about you. This is what they want from you. Good, healthy, securely attached people don't want to be endlessly stimulated, stimulated, stimulated. That's the dopamine. Good healthy people want all the other brain chemicals from you which really comes into those deep conversations solving problems together, right? Building emotional connections and safety and being long term bonded and maybe a little bit of dopamine together once in a while. This is what people want from you, the five big brain chemicals, not just an endless dopamine wave. They don't just want that from you. It's about chances for bonding and growth and connecting and this just doesn't require you to be something fancy and interesting. It requires you to be the best version of yourself and that's what you're building. So once you've got your two or three people picked out, you've done that anxious person speech with them, you deepen the bond over time and secure people do this by sharing problems with each other and getting advice from each other. They also share by sharing the good times together, right? Oxytocin bonding, oxytocin is that love hormone and the absence of stress. You start oxytocin bonding, they bond through sharing good times and they bond through vasopressin bonding, solving stress together, solving problems together, getting advice, getting solutions. This is vasopressin and oxytocin, this in dating and in marriage, vasopressin especially in dating and marriage is really important, but it's important in friendship too, times together, time solving together, two key differences. Now male relationships especially flourish with vasopressin but if you have had poor oxytocin through the course of your life, your vasopressin receptors will often shift to your oxytocin receptors, will shift to associate you'll be more fixated and more bonded to people that you have solved problems with because you don't trust oxytocin. But men naturally have more vasopressin receptors anyway in their brains. So very, very important that you are solving problems together. I'm going to talk to you here in a minute about exactly how to do that with people and open up. So here's the method. Step one, find any problem you want advice on. Now, this can be anything. It can be a skill or get better a task or fix a work issue. Don't go to your friend and say, hey, I need some help. I am crushingly alone and I want to kill myself. No, maybe not, maybe not like a first step friend, but build in something. Hey, you know what? We're at work together. You are really great at this part of the job. I'm still struggling to get there. Can you teach me a little bit? We'll talk about this here in a minute. A skill that you want to improve, something that they are good at. Okay. I have picked you. I want to get advice from you because and you explain, I really respect you. You're great at the skill. You've done something I want to do. You've made an industry shift and I want to do that next. You coach these people. I want to coach those people too. You cook really well and I cook terribly. You know, whatever it is, I am coming to you because of this. This is a compliment to them, by the way. And then share what you want specifically before. You've shared anything. You need help deciding something. It's not going to become their decision, but you need some help deciding it. Give the exact feedback you want. Then you talk. Now you have the talk and you share what you're going to be telling them. An example of a talk is this. Hey, I need to get better at this move in martial arts and you do it really well, but I cannot get my hips to move quite like that. How do you do that? Can you give me some insight on that and show me some quick pointers? You want to make this quick job change? And I don't know what to do. So you have. Can you give me some insight on that? Here's the quick situation. Here's the change I want to make. Whatever little changes you want to make, the improvements, micro improvements over time. You are showing them respect. You're complimenting them. You're telling them exactly what you want from them so they're not trying to guess and feeling overwhelmed by your needs or you're dumping information on them. And then you share with them really quick. What would you do in my circumstance? Can you share some insight with me? What's your feedback for me? What should I do differently so that I can be more in the way that you are, more like you are doing? And then you thank them. They'll tell you and then you say, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I'm going to put that to work. I'm going to think about it. I'll come back and let you know how it goes. Then later you follow up and you say, hey, thank you so much for your advice last week. Thank you so much. The follow up is a big piece too. Now what happens here is you have respected them. You've respected their time. You have complimented them. You have shown them that you are a person who's solution focused. You have shown them that you are a person who pays attention to them and other people. You've shown them that you are someone interesting for them to keep in your life because you're going to make changes that are good and the same way that they have made changes, but it also builds their affection for you. You will increase the relationship on both sides. You will trust and respect them more over time as their advice helps. Hopefully it does. You've also showed them that you're grateful for their time and you respect them through that. Later, they can reciprocate. Hey, really quick. I gave you that advice. Can you give me some? I have this problem and you've solved that. Can we help each other? Can we solve this problem together? Reciprocation creates a spiral of bonding. All human brains, but especially the male brain. We are solution finding machines and we are meant to click in with a network of other male brains who have found solutions. Podcasts are a great example of this. This is connecting to the one data node into a cluster that has all this information that ripples outward. When podcast hosts bring on guests, they are clicking a huge amount of information into that data node cluster and everyone who listens, it ripples outward so everyone shares all those solutions. This is why we don't have to reinvent fire. This is why we don't have to figure out how a toothbrush works. This is why we have shoes to wear and we know how to tie those shoes. We share solutions without having to reinvent over and over and over. It is incredibly important that you do this and our brains are meant to bond through this process as well by trusting each other and saying, you are quality, let's click in together and share solutions. As you reciprocate, that builds a connection. People have probably tried to do this and never reciprocated with them ever and the message you sent was that you didn't want to create a relationship with them. You're probably like face-palming right now thinking about all the times that people have done this with you and you never reciprocated and now you're lonely. Big part of the problem right here. So fixing this is going to be very important. Follow this step. How do you decide what to talk to people about? How do you decide when to increase the relationship? How do you decide that somebody is a better friend than somebody else? How do you decide when to click them up and what are the four levels of trust? I want to teach you the four levels of trust today. This is going to help you out a lot. Fear of rejection is going to start going away after this especially. The four levels of trust are shared values that you are both consistent with. You're doing this with each other. Do you have the same values and are you both consistent with those values? When the stress hits, do you both keep to those values? Very important. This is level one. Do you have any relationship with somebody based on any kind of trust? If the values are not there at least, they have to be. You can't even respect somebody who doesn't have your values. To be honest with you, you can care about them but you may not respect them. You probably won't. Do they at least share your values and stick to them when it counts? That's level one. Level one trust. Level two. Do you have parallel goals? And are you both consistent with that mission, that goal? Do you chase it? The closer they are, the better friends you can be usually. The closer the more time you'll spend together, the more you help each other, the more you'll vasopress and bond, solving problems together, but parallel goals at least that you both stick to. Consistency and reliability. These two levels are about consistency and reliability so that you can actually have trust. Once you have that, can you be honest with them about your shortcomings? Can they be honest with you about their shortcomings? And can neither one of you enable each other? You can accept each other where you are but you also hold each other accountable for getting stronger and you accept each other as you are imperfectly. Hey, here's something about me, the anxious person speech. Here's what I'm going to be. Here's how I'm going to change. Can you accept me over time? I'm going to keep growing. Yes, awesome, mutual acceptance. Can you guys talk about the things that are on it and move forward as good friends? Great, level four. The highest level. Mutual fulfillment. Can you stop with each other and say, hey, you know what, I want to be a good friend to you. How can I be a good friend to you? What do you need from me? Hey, I need this. Can you help me with this? Sharing of deep personal needs. Do they reciprocate? They don't just take, take, take and they don't just give, give, give. Do you guys reciprocate mutual care? And they come to you and say, hey, I don't like this. Okay. How do I not just make it better, but how do I make sure I never do this again in the future? Great. You solve it together, mutual fulfillment. And they actually act upon that. So they care for you. This is actually love. This is how you understand somebody loves you. As a person moves through these levels, you will share more personal details with them. So at level one, they have shared values. Cool. You ask them about work and little things like that. Level two, like missions and parallel missions. You ask them more about like work relationships, really important relationships that aren't maybe romantic yet. Or you ask them about more personal details. Level three, mutual acceptance. You can start asking them for help on improving yourself, going through your values, your goals, your missions. You start actually taking more life advice from them at level three. Level four, mutual fulfillment. Okay. Now I need to start talking to you about like, let me be honest with you about my marriage. Here's where I'm at. What do you think I should do on this piece? What would you do? How can we fix this? Hey, this thing with my kids. Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever those things are, level four is the deepest level of trust. That's why you don't share the deepest problems with them yet. Build the four levels of trust. And that will show you exactly what to do and when to share. This four, four levels of trust method shows you what people want from you in return. After you fixed your own self in the previous video, consistent with your values, consistent chasing your mission. Can you accept other people? People with broken attachment are really great at this one, to be honest, because you have compassion, because you understand what it's like. And level four, can you open up and work on mutual fulfillment with other people? People don't want you to be interesting and stimulate them. They want the four levels of trust. This is what people want. This is what friendship is supposed to be based on. So how do you stack up? Measure yourself one to 10 with consistency in your values. How are you consistency with your mission and goals? How are you in consistency with mutual acceptance of other people and being accountable to yourself to grow and taking criticism? And number four, how are you at being mutually fulfilled together, sharing your needs with others and asking them how you can help them? One to 10, each of those four. Give yourself that score. Maximum 40. From zero to 40 is your score in a friendship. From zero to 40 is somebody else's score with you. They don't have to be perfect. They should aim for like eight out of 10 on each of those four, and you move them up into the next category. But the closer they are to 10 out of 10, the better. This is what you offer to people in friendships, by the way, is these four levels of friendship, the four levels of trust. This is what securely attached healthy people actually want from you that will make them want to connect with you and bond with you. Not constant dopamine stimulation. They want all of those other pieces. This is what you offer. Don't forget this. Now friends are going to be a huge part of your driving process, especially in dating. Friends are going to be gigantic in your dating. Very, very important. You don't even know yet. You're probably listening to this saying, what do friends have to do with dating? Everything. So do not miss the next episode because we're going to be talking about dating in the modern world, how to make it happen. I'm going to teach you, especially my three date method that's going to filter out the crazies who are going to hurt you, but also attract the people that you really want to be around. So don't miss that episode. And in the meantime, make sure that you check out the attachment boot camp video course. It will be linked down below if you want the full course on fixing your attachment in every area of your life. Check it out. And otherwise I will see you in the next episode about dating.