Ep138
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode 138 of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. Today's episode is on making new friends. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I've been a coach, a family therapist, mental health professional for over 25 years. My passion is helping people find transformational clarity to face their biggest fears and live their legacy.

[00:01:00] I don't have it all figured out. I'm a fellow traveler. I struggle myself. I recently saw a buddy who was in my life. During a very difficult time. He's been in my life consistently for many years, over 20 years. And I was reminded that three years ago to the day, I was going through a very rough spot in my life.

I ended up being in the hospital for sleep deprivation and my buddy Brent, who had coffee with yesterday and my friend Dave, they walk with me through it amongst, and we, I had a lot of friends. I'm very blessed with a lot of good friends that got me through and today we're close to the holidays. In fact, we're in the middle of the holidays.

You're going to have a chance to see these friends that you already have and appreciate them and spend more time with them potentially And also develop and rekindle old ones develop new ones It's a great time to repair and to move things forward and I have recently felt kind of lonely I struggle with that at times during the holidays and you know, I am single it which is which is I'm complete, I have a great life, but there's times when I [00:02:00] can want to control and not be vulnerable and not risk getting hurt again.

Not opening up to people. And it's been one of those times recently. I've had some transitions going on, my daughter's getting ready to turn 18. I have made some changes with professionally growing the business, potentially. Oh, I mean, big changes, good things, positive things, but they're risky as well. And I'm having to figure out ways to let go of control, not to want to grab onto control.

When I grab onto control, I don't want to open up and be vulnerable. And one theme you're going to hear today is that it's going to require you to be vulnerable, to let go of the outcome, to build new friendships. By the end of this podcast, you're going to have some ideas on ways you can make new friendships and rekindle the ones you have and repair the ones you have.

You're going to find some inspiration from today. I do something and share about something uncomfortable every episode that I've done. And I'm going to share it today. And the reason is because nothing in my opinion is more important to your mental health than facing your fears. And nothing is more damaging than [00:03:00] playing it safe.

This is a podcast that you engage, you do something based on what you learned today. So what I did is I spontaneously asked somebody to get coffee with me and didn't know me. And I did that in California. I had a conversation at Thanksgiving with, when I was out there visiting family. It was really cool.

I'm surprised it worked out. Connected with a good person. It was fun. This topic of building friendships and connections as you know, is so important to me. And one of the main reasons is because it's so highly connected to your quality of life. I want you to start with an action right now.

I want you to think about something, who is the newest friend, friendship that you've built? And how did it come about? You know, was it through work? Was it because you reached out to somebody you hadn't talked to recently? Was it, Somebody that was a stranger that you met or you took advantage of an opportunity to go to an event and you met somebody and then you connected with somebody you didn't really think you would, or maybe you haven't made a new friendship in years and years.

I can talk to people that haven't made a new friendship, built a new friendship [00:04:00] in over 10 years. It's not that incredibly uncommon, especially when you're an adult, we have tons of opportunities, but we aren't necessarily around people with as much free time, I would say, or it's just different as an adult, but I don't think that's an excuse whatsoever.

My opinion is that it's different as an adult than when you're younger, but it's as plentiful because people are as wanting and desiring of connection as ever before. So it's so many opportunities out there and you may have these negative things going through your head. Like they don't have time for me or I'm a burden, but I'm going to challenge you today to let that go and to see the potential in building new friendships.

It's going to mean not playing it safe. It's going to mean being vulnerable as I've shared. And why do you want to do this? I mean, think about it. You're going to have with friendships, all of these Hope in situations and find hope in situations that may seem hopeless. That's what I had from Brent and Dave and Brian and Nate and all these people that have encouraged me in my life over the years.

You're going to see and find [00:05:00] help and see your current situation more accurately. Perspective is going to remind you of your potential when you lack confidence. It'll inspire you to persevere when you want to give up. It'll help you lighten up and enjoy life when you're struggling to do so. It'll help you find practical solutions to problems, creative solutions when you didn't really even see those solutions out there.

Such a fun thing. It's going to help you. Make progress in your life. And there's three more big reasons why you want to make new friends and connect and rekindle and build the ones that you have. So reason number one is that it's going to make you resilient to depression, to anxiety, to fear.

It's going to help you to see you're not alone in this journey called life, that you have people who want to walk alongside of you, that you can handle situations with other people much better than all. than trying to go it alone. Famous study that I've shared with you before. If you listen to this podcast where they put a monkey in a cage and terrify the monkey with [00:06:00] loud noises and fire and gongs and water and just this poor terrified monkey, then they reproduce the study again and again.

They put a buddy, a monkey's buddy in the cage, loud noises, fire shaking the cage, and the monkey's cortisol level has decreased significantly because they have a buddy in their cage. We all need these monkeys in our lives and to find them. I fear rejection. I fear people judging me.

I don't want people to look down on me. I look at people and say, well, they're going to think I'm this and that and whatever. I struggle with that every day. But if I'm aware of it and know it through my friendships who remind me of that, then I can handle those negative mindsets much better, which prevents me from getting in an anxious state and prevents me from getting into a cycle of depression.

It decreases the tendency to become depressed and anxious because having friends, because partially because when you engage new people and meet new people, you're being brave and bravery shows you that you can [00:07:00] handle the difficult things in the future. Even if these situations when you reach out, you don't, doesn't go as you would have hoped because you're the one you're choosing to reach out.

So the action of choosing to go ahead and connect with other people, even if it doesn't work out, it makes you resilient towards depression. That is an amazing thing. I asked a friend recently, last minute to pick me and my daughter up at the airport. I asked for help and it was uncomfortable.

I should have asked a few days in advance. We got in, Our plane landed and it was, well, I think it was a couple hours before, maybe three or four hours before that I asked for somebody to pick me up. It was great. He came by. It was really cool. Said yes, obviously had a great time. Just connecting on the way back home with our luggage.

Saved me some money, all that. So when I'm, when I connect with other people, it gives me a sense of energy. I connected with a friend, Alan, over the weekend and a friend, Ben, over the weekend. It helped me to actually see that I'm not [00:08:00] alone. And especially when I feel so controlling and anxious and I want to be stuck.

I mean, it's like I want to isolate. I'm tending towards being anxious, tending towards depression. That's the time when I want to reach out. So the action I would challenge you to take is, is to just ask somebody for help. Like, that's one of the first steps you can take.

You can ask somebody for help, a neighbor, somebody at a event, somebody at work, and then you get to see their true colors in the process. And they get a chance to, they have a chance to be, to help you, which is a blessing to somebody else. You know, they may not say yes. You're asking somebody for advice.

You're asking somebody for feedback. You're asking somebody for some way they can help you. That's a tremendous blessing to other people when they can see that they can help you. So this article that I wrote years ago, it's one of the first articles I ever wrote for the blog is on 17 ways to, I think it was called 12 ways to make new friends.

Now it's been republished and [00:09:00] redone. It's 17 ways to make new friends. The first thing I have on there is to ask somebody for help because it creates this, you have to be vulnerable in a sense. When you're genuinely, sincerely asking somebody for help, you're putting yourself out there and they have the chance to help you out or they can not help you out.

So it's, it's, it's vulnerable. So that's the first thing it's going to decrease your tendency to become depressed by trying and putting effort into connecting with new people. Asking people for coffee or lunch or for help. You want to check out that article and I'm going to link to it on those 17 ways, very actionable things you can do right now.

You can do over the holidays. You can use it as a checklist, but it's things you can do right now to build new friendships. And each one you can see will also inspire you. To rekindle or strengthen the ones that you have. So the second thing is that friends, as you make new friendships and engage the ones you have, it's going to help you with your perspective.

You know, for one, as you reach out, you're going to realize that rejection isn't so [00:10:00] bad that there are good people in this world, even though. You may not always believe that, that there are unique people with different talents and abilities that really want to help you, and there's really a lot of good people in this world.

There's lonely people, there's lonely good people, there's lonely mean people. I mean, there's a lot more lonely good people, I believe, than lonely mean people, but people come across often as being negative, and you can realize, too, as you reach out, that they're, they're actually pretty friendly.

They're just lonely and they're hurt and they're guarded. And maybe they have some hurts in the past. They haven't actually dealt with, but that's something you can get past as you take the risk to build new connections. And these are connections potentially you may be around them all the time because they work with you, but you're going to reach out in a different way.

Maybe it's asking them. Like I said, for advice, but maybe it's asking them for some kind of well, insight. Maybe it's just asking somebody out to lunch when you don't really usually do that, but they can also be people that you reach out to through [00:11:00] different avenues. As you look in the article that I wrote on these 17 ways to build new friends, you'll see that these are things that are going to require vulnerability, where you're going to see that There are people different than you that you can engage in with and on a consistent basis.

So, you know, I talked to another friend recently, his name's Dan and Dan's actually quite a bit, well, I don't want him to hear this, but he may listen to this podcast, but he's probably 20, 20 plus years older than me. And I was really anxious about a meeting that I was going to have the next day, and we had lunch and connected, and he told me some things.

Basically, he told me that, here's some ideas. He has a lot of experience in the same field as me. And so I was going to have a meeting with the leadership team the next day. And I was, I was kind of anxious. I was kind of anxious about the dynamics and he gave me some insight about handling difficult dynamics that you can handle it.

That this is a situation where you're bringing out the elephants, you're bringing things to truth, to light, and it's a wonderful opportunity. And I was energized by it. That's what friends do. I mean, he gave me a new [00:12:00] perspective. It was really reminding me of what I already knew, but helping me to see that I could handle the situation.

And it went super well. I mean, it was fun and we laughed when it could have been conflict. It was like, I was in my wheelhouse. I really love working with teams. When I get into this situation where I'm okay with the conflict, I'm okay with being vulnerable myself. And it turned out just really great. So I would challenge you to build is the thing you can do is to think about relationships, people you can engage that are significantly younger than you.

So if you're 50, maybe a 25 year old or significantly older than you by age, when I don't believe. Being old or young, I think it's an attitude. It's actually not representative of a person's biological age. I will also say that it's a good way of measuring whether we're challenging ourselves to meet certain people that are more diverse in a different way.

Age diversity, so they have different life experiences. They have different areas of expertise, different [00:13:00] talents, and you're going to get insight from them, and you can learn from them. And as you build new friendships, you just want to engage and learn. So you get curious. You can build relationships with kids, with teenagers.

You know, I love to learn things from the kids in the youth group that I'm a, I'm a leader of. At my church, you know, we have a number of senior boys there, and I learn a lot about them. We have questions. I ask. As an icebreaker, every time we meet and I have found that they love answering and I love learning and I get to answer the question as well.

I'm vulnerable myself and share and I'm open myself, but that's a really great thing. You get curious. I love questions. I love asking questions. I love getting curious, be genuinely curious, have that kind of mentality. As you approach people, think of what or how questions, and it's going to allow you the opportunity to learn from people and also build new friends.

You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to be in control. You can surrender control. In fact, [00:14:00] when you surrender control, you're much more likely to make true friends, challenge you to make true friends that are older or younger than you and the ones that are the same age as well, but that's just a challenge for you.

So if you found this podcast helpful, there's a whole section in my mini course, shatter, put yourself light on building true friends. And so you can get the link to get the free mini course. Right here, there's seven different sections, seven steps to a giant leap in your mental health, and you can also purchase the full course.

So if you've already gone through the, the light mini course, you want the full version. It is available for purchase right now, a soft launch. You're going to love it. You're going to want to go through it with a partner, a spouse, a friend, a group, check it out, hit the link below. Third main reason why you want to build and make true friends, reach out, connect, is because they're going to help you reach your goals because they're going to hold you accountable as you make friendships, as you rekindle the ones you have.

It sounds selfish to say, well, I'm going to build new friendships so I can reach my goals, but it's really [00:15:00] not because you're going to help them reach their goals along the way. As you connect, they're going to provide accountability. They're going to provide inspiration. They're going to help you see your talents, and you're going to help them see theirs.

They're going to help you get your vision in check, because they're going to give you feedback on that vision that you've set. If you take the risk to share your vision, then you've got to be willing to get some feedback. As I asked you at the very beginning, that action you could take, that one new friend that you've made and how you met them, have you shared your goals with that person?

Have you shared your vision with them? Because that's gonna be one of the things that I would say is required for you to really, truly say you have a true friend. You're gonna be wanting to share that vision with them. You're gonna trust them enough to say, here are my goals over the next year, and how can you help me and how can I help you?

I've been a part of support groups at times. I was, when I first got divorced, and those were helpful to me. I made some friendships that I, and some connections I still have. It would be good for me to go back. You can go back to these things. I recently had a guy in our legacy group because the [00:16:00] legacy group is an avenue To make new friends to build new friendships we're going to start a brand new legacy group There's a very limited number of slots available You can hit the link to get involved it meets at my office We meet twice a month for three months recently we had a reunion for the first two legacy groups like a legacy group alpha and beta and we're gonna have the third one again starting soon, but You One guy who was in the legacy group shared about how this group inspired him to be assertive with one of his parents.

And there was a difficult situation on Thanksgiving and he opened up related, related to this parent and said it bothered him. And that parent apologized. And he was very emotional about it because for one, he, to me, I felt like he was expressing and got courage. from these relationships that he had built and he got courage through a group coaching process.

And then he took the step and the outcome was actually really cool. And he could even identify that even if his parent didn't [00:17:00] apologize, he would have still found it worth taking that step. So you, you reach out to people and you connect and they're going to help you reach your goals because you're going to see that they have goals as well.

And you can help them reach their goals as well. An amazing thing, but you have to be willing to be vulnerable about what you're wanting to achieve in your life. So one of my friends today texted me. He doesn't live here, but he he shared with me about a specific challenge that he's having and it's related to relationships and he said To me, something like, why do I have so much trouble following through in relationships?

It's like I dropped the ball and I'm not consistent. I don't stay committed and we're going to talk about it. I didn't even know what he was actually referencing, but I was really encouraged to see that he had done that during the day, during his work day. And I texted him back and we're hopefully going to talk about it tonight.

And it's really cool because I'm thinking he's being vulnerable with me. I'm going to help him reach that goal because he's expressing a goal in his life. And then I've told him about some goals that I have. And [00:18:00] it's a friend that I talked to recently about my tendency to not want to be vulnerable. And it comes out sometimes.

And I shared actually with some people about a tendency that I have to want to control. I have a lot of different transitions going on in my life. I shared that making some cool big changes with professionally my daughter's turning 18. I'm trying to change my role as a dad. I mean, I know I'm still important and I know it's very significant to be a father, even of an adult daughter, but there's times when I can struggle and it's, I've never done this before. So, when I struggle like this, I found myself wanting to use this Zyn nicotine again.

I haven't used it since January and I find myself wanting to just kind of numb because I have this stress going on in my life. It'll be a year in January, end of January, since I've had any, and so, but I'm just feeling that draw right now, big time.

But instead, what I did when I was stressed out on [00:19:00] Wednesday is I asked some people for advice in parenting, and parenting as my daughter gets older. And that was really cool because I got some great feedback and encouragement. And then I shared today with a friend about my, you know, all these changes and then I start thinking they can go bad and, you know, things can fall apart because it's transition and I don't know what's going to happen.

It's like, I'm pushing through to the next level. So I don't know what's on the other side. I mean, that's the whole reality is that when you're vulnerable, you don't know what's on the other side, but you're willing by faith to trust that it's good. And so you're willing to keep taking those steps forward.

So these transitions and changes professionally, that's really important. The stuff with my daughter, the stuff with making new friendships, the stuff with dating, the stuff with just connecting with new businesses, doing things differently, professionally, bigger. Professionally, it's pushing through a barrier.

It's like a ceiling that I'm going through, and then I want to just hide out and isolate. But instead I'm talking about it. I'm talking to you about it. This is my accountability to you. So you're helping me reach this goal as well, that I don't want, I don't want to fall back in these unhealthy [00:20:00] coping mechanisms that I've had in the past, that isolation kind of thing.

So in review, Three big reasons that you, well actually let me give you one action you can take. So an action you can take is to share your vision with somebody else. So think about this friend that you identified, or think about somebody in your life you can share your vision with, or somebody you're starting to build a friendship with.

Well, share some of your goals with them. Share some of the, where you want to be in 10 years or five years or one year with them. That'll show that you're trying to build more of a connection, because you're being, it takes some level of vulnerability. Don't share your goals and your vision with people who you know aren't trustworthy because they're going to help Sabotage your goals and throw water on the fire I mean, that's not who you want to reach out to if you believe there's a chance Of cultivating a good healthy friendship will be vulnerable enough to share your vision and your goals So three reasons that I would challenge you To make new friends and to really treasure and build the ones that you have and rekindle the ones that you have One is it's gonna it's gonna really decrease the the tendency to fall into Addictive [00:21:00] Patterns, it's going to decrease the tendency to get depressed and anxious, and it's going to help you tremendously in the process.

Two, is it's going to significantly give you different perspectives on your life, opportunities you didn't see that you had, things that you feel like you could experience that you didn't even know that were options for you. It could even increase professional options for you. You'll manage your lifestyle better, your health better.

New perspectives, hope, opportunity, all that good stuff right there. It's going to give you that. Good, true friends give you that. And it's also going to help you reach your goals because you're sharing where you want to go and your people around you are going to help you take the steps to get there.

And other good friends are going to help you get there. Just call, thing to think about here is if you found this helpful, check out Shatterproof Yourself, the full version. You can purchase it now. Seven steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Step seven is on building true friends. So I go through works, power action worksheets, go through whiteboards that I love to show to clients that have for two decades.

You're gonna see all that there. You watch [00:22:00] the videos, the worksheets, complete it. Go through it with a friend, your team. You're gonna find it extremely helpful. Hit the link to purchase Shatterproof Yourself, Seven Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Your Mental Health. So in closing, you know, what is an insight that you gained from today?

You gain information, information turns to insight and inspiration, then it turns into action. So let's take that thing that's an insight from today. You know, maybe it was that you want to share your vision with somebody. Maybe it was that, maybe it is that you see opportunities to meet new people that you're not taking advantage of.

What is it? I want you to commit to taking that action today. By the end of the day, an okay plan is a hundred times better than a perfect plan you do nothing with. So what resonates with you today, put it into action, check out and hit the link, 17 ways to make new friends.

That can be one of the actions you take. That's easily a great action for you to take is to hit, hit that link, check out that article, download it. Check it out and then circle one of the actions on there for making new friends. It can be something you can take action [00:23:00] on today as well. So I'm going to sign off the way that I always do.

Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone. You decide your legacy, no one else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.