The Mindset Mentor - Do You Have Fake Friends?

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast and you want some extra mindset tips inside of your email box, I send an email every single Monday with some tips and tricks on how to actually improve your mindset as well. So if you're sitting there in the can and you want to read some tips on how to make your mindset better, I send an email out every single Monday.

If you want to receive that, it is mondayemail.com right now. It's absolutely free. Once again, mondayemail.com right now. Today, we're going to be talking about your friends. We're going to be talking about your relationships, and we're going to actually identify if you have any fake friends or fake relationships that have, you know, kind of run their course in your life. The most powerful thing that you can have for your health, that you can have for your happiness, that you can have for your wealth is your relationships. Yes, you heard me correctly. Even your wealth, one of the most important things you could have is the right relationships, your health as well. What do I mean by that? Well, just so you have an idea, Harvard did a study. It's one of the

longest running studies on humans that's ever been done. Over 80 years, it's still going on right now. They did an 80-year study and found out that the key to happiness is deep relationships, not the amount of relationships somebody has. It's not about the quantity of relationships. It's not about having a million friends. It's the quality. It could be one person that you're in a romantic relationship and then one person that is your best friend in the entire world. And you could just have those two people and you could be great. And the people who had the best relationships lived longer. And the people who had the most turmoil actually died earlier. Listen to that. The people who had the most

turmoil in their relationships died earlier than the ones that had great relationships. So those people that are around you that are toxic, that you won't let go of and you've been hanging out with them because you feel obligated, because you grew up with them, or because they're in your family, whatever it might be, they're actually killing you faster. Let that one sink in for a minute. Not only do they lower the quality of your life each day, they actually shorten your life. That's pretty crazy to think about, isn't it? And so it's not only shorter life, but it's also a little bit less happiness every single day, a little bit less happiness, not as great as it could be. It's like living a life in black and white and gray and all of that when you could

just get rid of those relationships, let go of them, find better relationships or strengthen relationships that you do have that you do want to continue to keep. And that's like turning on the brightness and all of the colors so you can see life how it truly is. And you have to understand the power of relationships that you have. You have to understand the power that a great relationship with another human, deep relationship, will have on you in your life and the quality of your health, but you also have to understand the lack of quality of a relationship that you have with somebody else will actually hinder your life and hinder your

wealth, your health, your happiness, everything. And so, you know, we're going to talk about toxic relationships first because those are easy. We all know that there's probably somebody in your life, maybe an acquaintance, maybe someone that you see often, maybe they're a friend of a friend, whatever it is that they might be, or somebody you've been friends with for a really long time that has just become toxic. And those are obvious. And we'll dive into that first. And then we'll dive into another type of relationship, which is actually sometimes harder to get rid of and harder to actually figure out. And that one's probably going to blow your mind. So one thing that I want to say about that is this.

With the toxic relationships, they got to go. You know that. But for some reason, if they're still around, you're holding on to that relationship. Why are you holding on to that relationship? Sometimes, sometimes, many times, lots of times, relationships and friendships go stale. They do. Friendships go stale. and friendships go stale. They do. Friendships go stale. Relationships go stale. Not just romantic relationships. We all know romantic relationships go stale. I know, let's be honest, that a lot of people listening to this podcast, because

hundreds of thousands of people are going to hear this, a lot of people listening to this podcast are in a romantic relationship that has gone stale a long time ago. What's that doing to you? I don't know. Just not going to tell you what to do with your life, but I just want you to start to think about that. Think about that because relationships go stale, not just romantic ones, but there's also some friendships that are out there. Maybe you have a friend that you've been friends with since college. Maybe it was your college roommate you met in college. He was awesome. You were awesome.

You partied. You had fun. You did all kinds of crazy stuff. You got in trouble. You have so much history together. But at some point in time, you started to grow apart. And you grew apart. You grew apart.

And it was slow. But it's been 10 years, 15 years, 16, 17 years. And you don't really have the same want to hang out with them. But when they call, you feel obligated to hang out with them. You feel like it's something that you have to do, but you know that when you get done with that, hanging out with them, man, you just don't feel good. You feel drained. You know sometimes when they call, you immediately feel the drain. So with those toxic relationships, those are some relationships that you have to start to get rid of. You have to release. You could see them every

once in a while. You don't have to never see them again, but see them a lot less. Okay? So the toxic relationships, those are easy to identify. Now we're going to jump into another type of relationship that can actually be even worse, which is ambivalent relationships. This is in a relationship where you don't really know where you stand with them. You don't know if you like them or if you don't like them. You don't know if you enjoy hanging out with them or you don't enjoy hanging out with them. I'll tell you this, choose boredom over ambivalence. What is wrong with boredom anyways? And we're all addicted to being stimulated by stuff. Boredom is not a bad thing. Boredom just means that you're not being mentally

stimulated at every single second by something going on all of the time, which is how most of us usually are. But when somebody calls you in this relationship that you're thinking about, maybe that you don't know where you stand, you don't really know if you like them, if you don't like them, if they like you, if you don't like them, when they call you, how do you feel? Because here's the thing that I know, your body, it's always talking to you. Your body's sending you signals. If they call you and you look at it, you look at it and you're like, and you get a little bit of some little tightness in the pit of the stomach.

That's not the right person. Your body's trying to send you a signal. Nope, don't do it. This isn't it, right? They actually did a study with police officers years ago and found out that the ones that had more ambivalent relationships in the workplace, like there were some people that were just like, they had friends and they loved working as a cop and the friends they had there. And then there were some workplaces where there was a person that was there and they're like,

I don't know if I like these guys. Like they're my coworkers, so I kind of have to be around them. They liked their job less when they had those types of relationships and they were actually sick more often. Not like called in sick. They were actually physically sick more often by having ambivalent relationships in the workplace. That's just police officers. How many people listen to this podcast and you might go into an office every single day and have those types of relationships? Can you get rid of those people? Maybe not. Can you leave the workplace? Maybe. I don't know. That's completely up to you. Can you design a life to be away from them more often? Sure. That's something that you could do. Ambivalent relationships are worse than toxic relationships. Why? Because toxic

relationships are easy. You can set boundaries with them. You immediately like, nope, not doing it. They called like, hey, you want to go to lunch? You're like, oh man, I can't. I'm sorry. Busy. Oh my God, this thing happened. The children just shit on themselves and they're pissed all over the house and whatever it is that you want to say, right? It's easy. Just immediately lie to that person and tell them that you can't, right? They call you or you just ignore it. But ambivalent relationships, because you don't really know where you stand, you often feel more obligated to go to lunch or to hang out because there's nothing actually bad about the person, but they still drain you for some reason. For some reason, their frequency and your frequency just do not match. And you have to realize this, energy and

mental space is finite, like very, very finite. And when you're trying to chameleon yourself and be somebody that you're not truly, it takes energy. It takes energy to be someone that you are not, or to act in a certain way when you're not necessarily that person. Avast is a global leader in cyber protection for more than 30 years and trusted by over 435 million users to prevent over 1.5 billion attacks every single month. Avast's new all-in-one solution, Avast One, helps you take control of your safety and privacy online through a range of features. Because Avast believes that essential protection should be available to everyone, a free version

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from viruses, phishing attacks, ransomware, hacking attempts, and other cybercrimes. Learn more about Avast One at avast.com. That's A-V-A-S-T dot com. You know, and you have to think about it like this. Every time you are being somebody else for another person, it's like opening a tab on your computer and you open a tab and you open a tab. You have to be this way for this person, this way for this person, this way for this person. What happens to a computer when it gets too many tabs open? Slows down. It starts to get drained. Battery dies quicker. It's going to be the exact same thing for you. You have to act like you're completely different people in front of

different people. That's not good. Acting like you're having fun when you really don't want to be there. Fake laughing, whatever, just to seem like you're a part of all of it. Trying to make conversation when really like you're mentally disconnected and you're looking at your clock and you're thinking to yourself, how long until I get the fuck out of here before it's not rude? So it's like all of that is draining. It's mentally draining for you. And your energy, your mental energy, your physical energy is finite. You've got to be able to use that mental and physical energy towards something in the production of your life, making your life better, not feeling obligated to have to go and do something, which is why ambivalent relationships can actually be harder and worse for you. And sometimes these ambivalent

friends have been around for like years, you know, like a long time. And once again, it's not necessarily that they suck. It's not that they're a bad person. It's just there's something that doesn't match between you and them. That's okay. You don't have to have everybody like you and be someone for every single person. And the video that I saw that made me start to think about this podcast episode and actually start to create it, I was watching a video where a lady was talking about ambivalent relationships and she asked the question, big question, is are you ever doubting that they're really happy for you? You know, sometimes there's people that you have in your life that are not fully happy for you. You know, someone that's a true friend. What's interesting

about somebody when they're a true friend and you're on kind of the same wavelength is that they will mirror and match your excitement for things. So when you have a big win, who's the person that you call to celebrate with first? That person, that's usually your person. That's your best friend. That's your person that's on the same wavelength as you. They're excited for you. They want you to win. But when you call up or you have somebody that's asking, oh, I heard that you got a promotion, you start talking about it. Are they celebrating your wins or are they trying to poke holes in every single thing? You know, these can also be people, maybe not just the ambivalent ones, but just some types of people can poke holes in everything and try to make you feel bad even about something amazing. They're the same types of

people. They're like, oh my God, you won the lottery. How much do you have to pay in taxes of that? God, that's crazy. Like those types of people exist. And some of you have those types of people in your life and you see them way too often, right? And it can be that way sometimes, toxic, all of that stuff. But once again, the ones that are the hardest to actually start to work through are the ambivalent ones. They seem okay. The person seems okay. There's actually nothing that you can pinpoint wrong sometimes. There's actually nothing wrong, but it doesn't feel right. And once again, your body is always giving you signals, but you have to listen to the signals. Most people are too busy in their head too often

and thinking and thinking and thinking, oh my God, well, this is Stacy's friend. So I've got to hang out with Stacy's friend. I can't be rude to her because then Stacy's going to hear about it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're thinking too much for us being like, what is my body telling me right now? My body's telling me, is it like, and this is a great question for you. Is it a fuck yes or a fuck no? If it's not a fuck yes, it's automatically a fuck no. And so is this person a fuck yes? Because if they're not, they're automatically a fuck no. You have to listen to the feeling. It's a skill, I get it. We're not trained how to listen to our body, right?

There's not like a microphone, we're in a microphone and a speaker and be like, oh, what's my body saying? Like we're not taught how to listen to it. It's a skill that needs to be developed. But it's something that even if you're bad at it right now, you can become better at it. We're always thinking, thinking.

We're a thinking society. We're a terrible feeling society. But your body's always giving you clues. Are you listening to it? One thing that I'll say around this is don't let your loneliness keep you around people that don't give you energy, right? Now, this all might sound selfish and it's not meant to seem selfish, but sometimes you do need to be selfish with your energy, selfish with yourself, selfish with the life that you're trying to create. You need to protect your energy. Being alone or being in good energy is much better than being around someone that is eroding your energy.

How your energy is and when you're feeling around somebody is going to give you those clues. That is a big clue from the body, the energy. How you feel when you get done with them. If you get done with somebody and you get done with time with them and you're like, man, I energy, how you feel when you get done with them. If you get done with somebody and you get done with time with them and you're like, man, I feel good. I feel great. I feel like I just chugged a coffee. I'm excited. I'm motivated. I'm happy. That was so much fun. Whatever you feel, that's the person. That's a good person to hang out around. You're on the

same wavelength. But if you get done with a lunch and even if it wasn't bad, but you're just like, oh shit. Yeah, that's not one that's for you. I'll tell you that. And so what I want you to do is this. I want you to think about this. And if you have a pen and paper, I want you to write this down. I've actually got a few questions for you. But before I get to those questions, I want you to identify two relationships that you need to spend less time with. And I want you to write that person's name down. What are two relationships that you need to spend less time with, and I want you to write that person's name down. What are two relationships that you want to spend less time with? Write them down. And what are two relationships of somebody that you want to spend more time with? More time with is someone that gives you energy after spending time with them. They're on the same wavelength. They make you feel better. They're fun as hell,

or they're motivating, Or they want the best for you. Or it just feels right to be around them. There are two relationships you want to strengthen and then two relationships that you want to spend less time with or get rid of. Okay? And these are the four questions that I have for you. Okay? Who are my toxic relationships? First one, I want you to write down or start to think about. If you're driving your car, don't write it down, but just pause me if you need to. are my toxic relationships identify them those are people you need to not spend time with who are my ambivalent relationships those are people you need to spend a whole lot less time with next who are

the relationships that are most important for me to strengthen who are the most important to me for me to strengthen and then who are the