The Mindset Mentor - Do You Have Any Fake Friends?

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Sometimes "fake" relationships can be more stressful than toxic ones. In this episode, I am going to teach you how to identify these relationships and what to do with these people so that you can maintain your sanity. Follow me on IG for more inspiration here: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/ If you live in the US/Canada and you want to receive motivational texts from me, text me now at 1-512-580-9305 or click here https://my.community.com/robdial Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you've ever listened to this podcast and gotten any value from it, do me a favor, go into iTunes or Apple Podcasts and give us a rating and review. It helps us be found. It helps the algorithm so that more people can find this organically. And I would greatly, greatly appreciate it if you would give us a rating and review. Today, we're going to find out if you have fake friends in your life and other fake relationships and how to start to wean those people out of your life. So, you know, the most powerful thing that you can do for your

health, for your wealth, for your happiness is to have great relationships around you. And there was a study that was done by Harvard. It's an 80-year study and the study is still going on. Well, what they did is they found a couple thousand guys that were in Boston. Some of them went to Harvard. Some of them were living on the streets and they studied them and studied them for 80 years. And they studied them. They studied their lives. They studied their health. They did surveys with them every two years. They met up with them. They did interviews. They spoke with their spouses. They spoke with their kids. They spoke with their grandkids on and on and on and on and on. And what they found is that the number one indicator on if somebody had a happy life

was the quality of their relationships, not the quantity of relationships that they had, but the quality of their relationships. Now, this is super important because not only their happiness depended on their relationships, but another thing that was interesting is that their health depended on their relationships as well. The people who had bad marriages but stayed in them and they had resentment and not a bunch of people around them that they could trust, they actually were sicker throughout the years and almost every time died earlier. And almost every time the people who live the longest and the few that are still alive are people who have really great relationships. So as we dive into this episode and talk about real friends, fake friends, you know, people who are there to

support you, people who are not there to support you, start to think about, you know, how can I take this information realizing that it's not just, oh yeah, this person's been in my life since I was a kid or this is, you know, one of my family members and realize that this actually has to do with your happiness and your health more than anything else. So let's identify some fake friends, some fake people on your side that don't necessarily want the best for you. And let's talk about how to get the right type of relationships around you as well. So people that are around you that are toxic are killing you faster. So let's dive into this. toxic are killing you faster. So let's dive into this. Let's talk about first off toxic relationships. Now, we all know toxic relationships in our life. And the beautiful thing about a toxic relationship, if there is something beautiful about it, is that they tend to be very obvious

that this is, yeah, this right here is a toxic relationship. How many people listening to me right now know that there's at least one person in your life that is toxic? It could be a friend, it could be a family member, and honestly, it could be a parent. Think about that for a minute. Think about, does this person serve the direction that I'm trying to go with my life? And I've had people send me messages after I talk about relationships and say, hey, listen, if one of your parents is extremely toxic, makes you feel like shit, talks down to you, makes you feel worse about yourself every single time that you're around them, it's okay to spend less time with them. And I've gotten messages from people saying, oh, you know, how could you tell someone to

spend less time with their parents after all that they've done for them? I'm like, if you heard some of the horror stories of what some people's parents have done to them, the mental, physical, emotional, sexual abuse sometimes that people have gone through, and you were to see that, you'd go, yeah, they probably should spend less time with that person. Or in a lot of cases, completely get rid of them in their life. And that happens sometimes. And sometimes people need to break those really close relationships for their own mental energy and for their own life to be better as they get older as well. So I'm just going to say that from

the very beginning. So the toxic relationships are the people, we know them, you know, they're very toxic. They talk down to you. They're negative. They don't make you feel good. And those ones are obvious, which is a beautiful thing is they're obvious. And I'm going to talk about other relationships in a minute, which will kind of blow your mind because there's other relationships that aren't toxic in your life that might actually be causing you more stress than anything else. But let's talk about the toxic ones first before we dive into the other type of relationship. So toxic relationships, you know, are the people who are negative to you.

They make you feel bad. They call you and you're like, oh my God, I don't want to talk to this person. They come over to your house and you can feel your energy drop. You go and you spend time with them, or maybe you're over at a friend's house and they show up and you can feel your body shift. You can feel your energy shift. And when you leave that person's house, even if you're only there for 15 minutes, you can feel a physical difference in your energy from leaving that person's presence. That right there is a toxic relationship. And that's somebody that you should probably spend, I'm going to say less time with,

but what I really want to say is no time with, because that's actually how I truly feel about it, is you should spend no time with that person. Not everybody deserves to be in your life. I'm just going to say it the way it is. Not everybody deserves to be in your life and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes relationships go stale. Friendships go stale. Relationships go stale. All of these go stale. Sometimes, you know, a person in your family's relationship with you has gone stale, not just romantic relationships, but they go stale and not something that you need to realize. And sometimes you're trying to breathe life into something that's been dead for a really long time. Think about that one for a second. Are there relationships in your life that you just

keep trying to keep it going, keep trying to keep reading the same damn page over and over and over again versus just turning the page already. Just turn the fucking page. Because I'm telling you this, having that person around you isn't serving you and it's not serving them either. Sometimes somebody needs to see that they've lost a great relationship with somebody in order for them to change. So sometimes by staying in a relationship where that's friendship, familial relationship, or whatever it might be, or a romantic relationship, sometimes that's actually enabling that person to stay the same. And sometimes it's got to stop. So take it as you wish, but I'll just tell you that you deserve more than what that person's giving you if they're a toxic person. And you need to find a time to stand up for yourself and decide

and put your stake in the ground and say, I deserve more. Either you treat me better or we don't talk to each other again. And that might make a shift in them. It might not, but at least for you, your life will be way better. And that's a good thing. So toxic, easy, simple. We all understand toxic relationship. There's another relationship that we're going to dive into though, that actually might be more mind blowing to you. And that's ambivalent relationships. So there's been a lot of studies done around ambivalent relationships. And these are the types of relationships where it's not toxic, but there's just, it's got an interesting energy to it, right? Like they're not blatantly bad to you or toxic, but there's just something

that's not a hundred percent right. Like you don't know where you stand with them. You don't know if you like them. You don't know if they like you. You don't know if you enjoy hanging out with them. You don't know if they enjoy hanging out with you. This could be somebody that you're friends with. It could be an acquaintance. It could be someone that you work with that happens to be in the cubicle next to yours. And they always invite you to lunch. And you're like, you know what? If I'm being honest, I think I'd rather eat by myself than eat with this person.

But you feel obligated to go and do something with this person. And then sometimes it's like, I'm just so bored. I just want to hang out with somebody. And then you go hang out with this person, right? I'll tell you this, choose boredom over ambivalence, choose boredom over it. Like what is, I don't understand what the actual problem with boredom is. When you're extremely bored and you have to go do something with someone who you don't even want to go do something with, or if you're like, I have to be on Instagram instead of just sitting with my own thoughts, what it's really showing you is we are nowadays addicted to stimuli, to being stimulated. We have to be around somebody because we can't be

with ourselves and our own thoughts. We haven't been able to train ourselves on how to be alone and not be lonely. Have you ever thought of that? Like, what is wrong with, if you were to literally go, you know what? I'm going to sit outside and stare at a tree all day long. If there's a part of you that's like, that would drive me crazy, question that part of you that would be driven crazy. And it's really interesting. I did a 10-day silent meditation retreat a few years ago and people were like, I could never do that. I could never do that. I'm like, why? Because you're not actually doing anything. Like you're not doing anything.

So how is that so hard to do? It's because we're addicted to stimuli. So choose boredom over ambivalence. Hey, it can be hard sometimes to find some time to sit down and learn and get better. And it's not easy with social media and all of the other things that be so addictive and so time consuming like Netflix as well. So you might think to yourself, man, I don't have a whole lot of time to develop myself. Well, if you feel like you're in that case, there's an app that I

recommend to you. It's called Blinkist. Blinkist is for anybody who cares about learning but doesn't have a whole lot of time. And Blinkist takes the key ideas and insights from over 4,000 nonfiction bestsellers in more than 27 categories and gathers them together into 15 minute text and audio explainers that help you understand the core ideas of that book. And 15 million people are already using Blinkist to broaden their knowledge in 27 categories, including self-improvement, personal growth, management, leadership, mindfulness, and happiness. And I love Blinkist because there's so many books that have so much fluff and this just gets short to the point. We can learn what the books have to say and then you can go on with your life. And right now, Blinkist has a special offer for

our audience. Go to Blinkist.com slash mindset to start your seven-day free trial and get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist, spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash mindset to get 25% off and a seven-day free trial, Blinkist dot com slash mindset. The question that I have for you is if this person walks up to you at work, they're a work friend, quote unquote work friend, how do you feel when they walk up to you? When they call you, how do you feel when they call you? Is there a party that's like, I don't know if I really want to answer this, but I feel like I'm supposed, I feel like I have to answer this. They haven't done anything wrong, but they're still kind of like, I don't know what I'm

supposed to do in this situation. That's an ambivalent relationship. And there was a study that was done on police officers where they actually went through and they found out, you know, the police officers who had toxic relationships. And they did a study and said, hey, do you have any toxic relationships? Be honest with us, with people that are in your workplace. And then they went, do you have any ambivalent relationships? And they explained them to them. And they found out that the people who had toxic relationships, a lot of times were actually healthier than the ones that had ambivalent relationships. So they would have their partner that they ride with all day long.

And there was this ambivalent relationship where they were kind of stuck, but they were afraid to ask to switch for partners. And they found that the ones that had the most ambivalent relationships in the workplace, they liked their jobs less. So they rated themselves as they're not enjoying their workplace. And number two, they were actually sick more often. themselves as they're not enjoying their workplace. And number two, they were actually sick more often. And so they found that these, these, a lot of times these ambivalent relationships were actually worse than the toxic relationships. Because when you have a toxic relationship,

it's very easy to set boundaries. They call you and you're like, oh, hell no. But ambivalent relationships, you're like, I don't know. I feel like I'm supposed to, I feel like I'm obligated. Like this person keeps calling me. They're kind of nice, but I'm not really sure. And so ambivalent relationships sometimes are actually worse than toxic relationships because it's easy to set the boundaries in toxic relationships. It's not as easy in the ambivalent ones. You know, you can, a toxic person calls and they send you a text, say, hey, you know, do you want to go for lunch? It's like, hey, sorry, I'm so busy right now. You know, you can set those boundaries. They call you, you're ignored. But ambivalent, you feel obligated to go lunch with them because there's nothing bad that they actually did, but for some reason it just doesn't feel right. So the thing that you have to realize

about this and why this is so important is because your mental energy and your physical energy are finite. Like you don't have like just this, this, all of this mental energy that you can use all day long. There's a certain point where your brain has used up all of the mental energy that it can, and it's not supposed to be not, not going to be working as hard as it could be. Like we all have those times throughout the day where we are working our best, we think our best. And then the rest of the day, we're not a hundred percent on. So your mental and physical energy, it's the, it's finite. It's very finite. And so when you're trying to chameleon yourself to somebody, you're trying to act the way that you feel like you're supposed to act, you're acting like you're having fun when in reality, you don't even want to be

there. You're showing up at a party or going to movies with somebody or lunch or dinner when you don't really want to be there, or you're fake laughing and trying to act like you're a part of the conversation when you don't want to be there and you don't want to be around those people, trying to make conversation with everyone else around you when really you're just feeling completely disconnected, that's using up a lot of your energy. That's using up a lot of your mental space. That's using up a lot of your physical energy and the way that you feel. That's really draining versus just saying, no, I don't want to be around you. So you can see why these relationships can actually be much more toxic than actual toxic relationships. And sometimes you can be around these people and you could have an ambivalent relationship for years with somebody. And it's just kind of that

lingering relationship. And I saw a video on this not too long ago where they were talking about ambivalent relationships. And the guy who was interviewing this lady talking about it, he said, hey, how can you identify with somebody that's out there? Because it's kind of hard to identify, like, is this person bad? Is this person not bad? How can you identify that this person is probably an ambivalent relationship? And what she said was, are you ever doubting that they're really happy for you? You know, if you have good news, if you have something that you celebrate, are you ever doubting that that person really is stoked for you, that they're happy for you? Because a true friend that really is excited for you will mirror the exact way that you feel.

Their feelings and the way that they celebrate with you, they will mirror what you're doing. And if you're excited about something that was amazing that just happened and you're going, you know, I don't see it in this person's face, they're probably somebody who is actually in a bivalent relationship. Are they actually excited for you? Like, do they really give a shit? Or are they sitting there and they're looking at you like, oh, well, I wish I had that success. I wish that I did that. And then what do they do? They start poking holes in it. They start asking you questions. You know, these are the type of people that you could literally come to them and be like,

I won the lottery. And you're so excited. And they're like, oh, that's great. Oh, how much do you have to pay in taxes for how much you just won? Like no matter what you bring to them, they're poking holes in it. No matter what it is, they don't seem like they're excited. They're not as stoked as they could be. And then you could go to somebody else who you feel is a real relationship and you're like, oh my God, this person is so excited for me. I can really see it. So if you're trying to figure out if someone's ambivalent or not, think back to the last time you wanted to celebrate a win with them, if you wanted to be excited with them.

A lot of times, one of the best parts of a success is being able to call somebody and celebrate it with them. So did you have a success and you thought about calling somebody and you didn't simply because you weren't sure about how they would take your success? Or they might poke holes in it and make you feel worse about it? That's probably somebody who is ambivalent. Are they trying to poke holes in everything that you do? And what's important about this is, and what I want you to realize is this, there's kind of two parts of you at all points in time. Okay. Two parts of you. Number one, let me explain this because this is what's important, is the person isn't necessarily blatantly doing anything bad.

They're not being negative directly to you a lot of times. And sometimes nothing seems like nothing is actually wrong, but something seems wrong. If you're looking at it and you're writing it down on paper, this person seems fine on paper, but something doesn't feel right. And there's the thinking side of you, which is like, this person seems like they're okay. Like they're pretty good. Like they're, you know, they're wanting to hang out. They're having conversation with me. But then there's the feeling side of you, which is the more important side, which is how do I feel around this person? How does this person make me feel when they call me, when they walk up to my desk? How do I feel? Do I feel resistance? Do I feel my body kind of tightening up? Because your body's telling you what's going on with this person. Your body can sense them a

lot better than your brain can sense them. Have you ever walked into a room before and it's just like something doesn't feel right? Or you ever had a feeling about somebody and you're like, yeah, that person seemed... Your friend introduces you to their new boyfriend and you're like, ah, that doesn't... There's something that, there's something off about that guy. And then three months later, you find out what was off about him, whatever it was, you know, he was, he was a cheater or he was just the type of person who was, you know, verbally abusive or something like that. And it finally came out weeks, months down the road. And you're like, yeah, I had that feeling. That's the feeling that you want to listen to with the people who are in your life in different relationships,

because our bodies are always giving us clues. We're really good at thinking in our Western society. We're really bad at feeling. And so that's something that you want to try to develop. And the important thing is this is, and I said it earlier is don't let your loneliness keep you around people that don't give you energy. Don't let your loneliness keep you around those people. You have to protect your energy. And being alone and having good energy is better than being surrounded by people and having bad energy because that's something that you need to protect. And so there's four types of relationships I want to go over with you real quick. And this would be a good time if you got pen and paper that you could jot these down. There's four types of relationships. There's two that you should get rid of.

And then there's two that you should try to strengthen. Okay? So number one, and the question that I would ask myself if I were you, and you can write it down, is what are my toxic relationships? If you're driving and you're listening to me, you can literally mentally think of these toxic relationships.

What are the toxic relationships that I have in my life? Number two, after hearing about ambivalent relationships, what are the ones that I think are ambivalent relationships in my life? Number two, after hearing about ambivalent relationships, what are the ones that I think are ambivalent relationships in my life? Okay. Those two are the ones that you're going to try to get rid of, or let me rephrase that. Those are the ones that you should get rid of. Then on the other side, we've got ones you want to strengthen. So then the next question that I have for you is who are my relationships that are my most important ones that I should strengthen? Maybe it's your relationship with your mother. Maybe it's your relationship with your spouse. Maybe it's your relationship with your brother, business partner, whatever it is. What are the relationships that are most important to me that I need to strengthen?

And then number four is what are the relationships that I need to find and then strengthen? Maybe I need a mentor. Maybe I need somebody who is in the same industry as me that's doing well. It's going to motivate me to be better. So those are the two relationships. The first two relationships are the ones that you want to try to get rid of. The second two relationships are the relationships that you want to strengthen. And you go through these and you start realizing that it's more important for you than anything else to have great relationships around you. And the relationships are good. You should strengthen. You should continue to invest your time into them. The ones that are not good, whether it's toxic or ambivalent, they're not serving you. They're

not serving the other people as well. Slowly getting rid of those relationships are going to serve you and going to serve those people as well. So leave those two relationships and then strengthen the next two relationships that you have. Identify who's toxic, identify who's ambivalent, let those go. And then that will leave you more time to have great relationships to strengthen those as well, because your health, your wealth, and your happiness all depend on the relationships that you have. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to receive an email from me every single Monday morning with my intentions

going into the week so that you can steal my intention from me, put it into your week if that's what you want to do. Go to mondayemail.com right now. You can sign up. It is absolutely free. And I'll just send you an email every single Monday with my intentions going into the week so that you can steal those as well. So once again, that is mondayemail.com

and I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.