Hey friends, you're tuned in to the learn or be learn podcast a show where wisdom meets curiosity in order to discover the human experience. I'm your host, Shiva D. And remember, you either learn from or you learn from now, let's get back to the Show
All right, welcome back learner be learned community we are jumping into 2024 February here. And I have an interesting episode. This is about the hierarchy of friendships, social structures. And I actually did an episode with a guest named Ron Worley. He went from being homeless and addicted to drugs to turning his life around becoming a multi millionaire entrepreneur. And he talks about social structures of friendships and relationships. And this is, you know, this plus a couple other things. And ideas that have happened over the course of some time has made me want to talk about this topic and construct some points and tips that I believe are helpful. If you are curious about that episode with Ron Worley, it's episode 35 In the show, but here we are, with the hierarchy of friendship, social structures, right? So hear it I'm sure you've always, I'm sure you've heard the notion, you are the five closest people you spend time with, right? You're the sum of those people. And to some extent, yes, that is very true. Because who you end up spending time with is who you start to think like how you start to act, how you start to behave, the values you develop, and so on. So I believe this mindset is somewhat warranted. So this leads me to believe that I think the pathway to success as a human with, you know, navigating social boundaries, it is important to create this hierarchy. Obviously, you don't tell people about the hierarchy, you don't really talk about it, it's more of a mental categorization of what you want to get the most out of your life. Right. So not saying cut people off, I'm just saying create a structure where you can assess is this worth my time to get me closer to the things that I really want in life. And, you know, without beating around the bush, let's get a get into some questions that I created that would help you create this social structure, right. So for example, in the episode with Juan Worley, we talked about how you'd have the people closest to you like a circle, right, the inner circle, and then a slightly outer circle, and then an outer circle. And these are kind of the hierarchies, right, you have the people closest to you that are probably your greatest influence, maybe the close five or whatever. And then you have outer circle, maybe they're a little less close to you, but they're still good friends, then maybe you have coworkers or acquaintances, and then you have, you know, even further than that. So you can categorize people in order to see how and what influences your life. And I think these are really important topics, because we're humans, so we are influenced by our surroundings, inevitably. And I created a few questions here five, to be exact, that I believe will help you kind of identify your social structures and, and maybe move people around that you were surprised that were maybe not supposed to be in your innermost circle that are, right. So for example, question one, do I want to be more like this person? So think of somebody in your inner circle? Or who you hang out with a lot and think, do I want to be more like this person? Question two, do we build together or consumed together? I love the quote, good friends consumed together, great friends build together, right? So if you ever think about your closest relationships with people, you're always or at times building something, right? That's what creates closeness is when you actually start to build things together. Whether it's a YouTube channel or a podcast, or go into the gym, or cooking, right? It's when you start building things together in life, that you actually become a lot closer than just consuming things like movies, bars, dinner, coffee friends, right? So that's a really interesting question, I believe. Question three, does this person build me up or drag me down? And how do I feel about myself after this interaction with them? This is super important, in my opinion, because I've made a previous episode somewhere about energy takers and energy givers with See if I can find that it's I've made so many episodes at this point
well, I guess somebody else will have to find it and let me know I can find it. But I did do an episode on energy givers versus energy takers. Or maybe it was just a few points in an episode, which is what I starting to think it was. And I was talking about how you have energy givers and energy takers in the sense that if you have only so much energy in a given day, at the start of the day, and it dips, you know, by the end of the day, there are certain people that we when you interact with and leave that interaction, you feel more pumped, you feel like you want to do more, be more, you feel more influenced by them. They're on a higher vibration, so to speak. And that really resonates with you and boosts boosts you up almost amplifies your vibration, right makes you want to do more. And then you have the energy takers who see your high vibration, they see your potential, they see how much energy you have. And they want it not because they want to also grow and have higher energy, but because they want to bring you down to their level. So they'll say demeaning things or backhanded compliments or micro expressions. They don't really say micro expressions, micro expressions is more of how you can tell if somebody's you know, faking it fakers, and whatnot. But all these are important in order to understand person's motive, which is always inherently selfish to some degree, right? So it often isn't even a reflection of you. If they're dragging you down. It's more of a projection on them. And you'll see that right. It's people will say, Oh, wow, you don't know how to be alone with yourself. When in reality you go, you only know me for this hour today. Even if you know somebody close to you, they're not with you. 24/7. So how do they know if you're used to being alone? Are you comfortable being by yourself, but they'll say comments only for you to realize they're speaking from the perspective of their own life. So unless they had a warranted evidence to say that, for example, you're talking about every day, and they start saying, hey, the pattern seems like you're not comfortable being alone, unless it's a warranted advice, constructive criticism style like that. It's often a projection, right? On which you can clearly define from example, A versus B, who's the energy giver and taker, the example A, the person is giving constructive criticism, trying to help you better yourself, and the person B is projecting to bring you down to their level, because for some reason or another, you are a mere reflection of something they don't have. And they see that so they tried to diminish it. And obviously, there's probably a lot of variables here, and people are gonna say, oh, but what about this example? And that example? And yeah, we could talk about this all day. But I'm giving you more of the essence here and kind of distill it down. And maybe I'll do a whole nother episode of just this topic. But this is an important question, right? So you should always ask yourself, is this person building me up or dragging me down? I think it's very important. If they're dragging you down, demote them, if they're truly dragging you down, and they're not a good person, completely remove them, right. So if they got 5050, like, sometimes they're helping you. Other times, they're just kind of giving you backhanded compliments. Maybe they're envious or jealous or something, demote them, maybe there's a reason they're in your close friend group, and you can't really cut them, demote them. But if they're truly dragging you down, day after day, week, after week, or whatever it is, just remove them completely from the social structure, right? Number four, can I trust this person with my possessions, money, my significant other information, stuff like that. And I say all these things, because trust is important, if you don't have trust and communication, those two things, a any relationship will work friendship, an intimate relationship. Any anything truly business partnership, right? I believe those are one of those are two of some of the most important values, communication and trust of a trust is broken. The relationships broken if there's no communication, the relationship won't form just as simple as that. And I say possessions because you know, sometimes, if you can't trust somebody with your belongings, then clearly there's some underlying things there. money. Money's a big one. Money makes people do a lot of weird things. So if you can trust somebody with money, that's really important. Significant Other that's an interesting one. I say that because For example, at least in with men, you can actually see a person's true color based on a few factors from money, power, and women is what I believe you can often find a male a man's true colors. And, you know, money's easy if you see somebody make a ton of money and they start acting differently, or they start acting rude to people, clear example, power, money and power kind of go hand in hand, sometimes in this case of the last example it did, but power as well, then you have women, if a person's you know, sexist, or rude or backstabs other guys for girls, you can learn a lot about a man based on his interactions with women as well. So the reason I say can you trust this person with your significant other is I've met some guys that I would 100% would not trust my future girlfriend or wife or whatever, with them. Just horrible as that is to say, that's just the back of my mind, I go, I don't think I would trust you with with them, you know, there's a certain level of trust, you have to have, where you have a value set, which is really what it comes down to, if you boil it down, as they don't have values to create boundaries of abundance in their mind, there is plenty of other women, if they single or whatever, you don't have to go after a girl in the guy friend group, that's just you got to create value sets. And that actually kind of leads me into number five, which is do they have values? Right? So do they have values and how is it constructed is an often good one. Because in today's day and age, I see more and more of a faithless, godless society, where people just don't have very many values anymore. You as I'm sure if you ask somebody, what are some of your values they wouldn't know. And, you know, I'm a guy in my 20s. And I was speaking to another guy, you know, good friend, fairly successful dude. And we were talking about values we look for in a future girlfriend and wife. And it was a very refreshing conversation, because today, not very many guys do. It's whoever gives, if she's beautiful, and she gives me attention, it's good enough, and they'll settle. But they don't have values of this is what I'm looking for. Because this is the future potential mother of my children. And that's very important, more so than my own life, I want the life of my children to be constructed in the best way I have, which is the control I have here. Right. So, you know, values are really important. And I think that's actually a great episode to make next is, values and some important values that I see that maybe other people naturally have, if they don't have values, or it's not very clear, defined values, right? Because it's also hard. It's not like everybody goes around day to day talking about, Hey, these are my five values that I follow every day. But you can see it through actions, which honestly speak more than words, in my opinion, right? Seeing how a guy interacts when he makes starts making more money, or how he acts around women versus women and his friend group, right? Or when he starts having more power. For example, maybe he became a manager at the workplace, how is he treating people, these little small examples will really start to show I believe there is a the microcosm is a self reflection of the macrocosm. And in basically what I'm saying is, micro behaviors show macro behaviors, how you do anything is how you do everything. I truly stand by that. I believe that and I tell my family and friends that all the time is how you do anything is how you do everything. If you have a messy place, you probably have a messy mind, and you probably have a messy business and you probably have a messy car. And you know, maybe every one of those things is clean, maybe the car is clean. But those are rare examples, right? If you have clutter in your life, you probably have clutter in your mind. So how you do anything is how you do everything. If you don't exercise and you eat poorly, then you probably don't have the value of fitness, longevity.
future happiness for your family, right? You're going to put them through struggle struggle, and I've said that in a previous episode where I said I said, one of the most selfish things you can do is not care about your own health because you're inevitably putting that onto somebody else if things were to go south, and that is incredibly hard on anybody because it is outside of their control. All right, so they have to a the tax that you wouldn't pay, which is why I believe it's so painful and selfish. And obviously there's accidents and things happen in life. And that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the day to day interactions of health, nutrition, water, sleep, things like that. So values, guys values are very important. Now, I want to end this on three small tips here that I think will be really interesting. And I really love if somebody could hit me up and tell me what they thought about this episode of social structures. I'm trying to do the best I can constructing how I follow this and what I believe. But three tips. Frequency does not mean closeness, just because you hang out with somebody every day doesn't mean they should be in your inner circle. Nor does it mean are they right. So just because you see them more frequently doesn't mean they are there. And that's difficult, because naturally they start to, they will start to influence you more. So you have to be very careful and tread with that I would create boundaries, I would create other things to do if frequency is an issue with people that shouldn't be in the inner circle that are then that means you need to start doing other things outside of seeing them to journaling really helps to helps clear your head and helps kind of understand things I always suggest talking in the US perspective as if you're talking to somebody else, that often helps with journaling, and then asking yourself questions as if you're talking back to yourself. So like a conversational style. And then three, this one's really interesting, do the reverse of these questions and ask it about yourself. And I thought that was really interesting. I mean, I just kind of came up with it on the fly. But right before starting the recording, and I was like, Oh, I really like that. Because think about it right? Question one? Do I want to be more like this person? Now reverse that, when people want to be more like me? Man, that's powerful. Because if you think about it, it's like, no, people wouldn't want to be like me. That's because I'm not doing these things. I don't have value systems, I don't have this and that. So then you start to realize, I have to start improving some of these things. Maybe I'm the friend that doesn't belong in the inner circle of other people. And that's so powerful, because that whole question flips everything around, not to just think about it from your perspective. But to think about it from a bird's eye third person perspective, which is so powerful to help you become the next best version of yourself. So I hope you guys got a couple things out of this. And you know, doesn't mean you got to cut out people, it doesn't mean you got to stop hanging out with friends, it just means you got to prioritize your time, and who you spend that time with, especially if you want to be successful, you want to do more, you want to be more. And that's mainly who this episode was for is for the people that want to do more, but need some, you know, tips on what they feel like, you know how to maneuver through life, because sometimes we don't really think about our social structure, close proximity frequency, we don't even you know, creeps up on us, maybe our co workers we see every day end up being our friends, but they're not great people, we start hanging out with them just because we need friends. And next thing, you know, you're ending up more like them, which you wish you weren't and you're not doing the stuff you wish you were doing. And next thing you know, you're thinking, Hmm, why is that? So, you know, questions like these, reflecting like, this really helps. And I'm really excited for you guys to try it out. Let me know what you think. I'm still working on this community. So we can actually start chatting back and forth a little bit more. I think that'd be nice, especially on YouTube and stuff like that. So, you know, everything's going things are going great. The team is underway, and we're building everything and since I moved recently, redoing a whole studio, which is why things have been pushed back, but don't worry, this year is going to be the best year yet for the podcast and for you guys and for this community. And thank you guys so much for investing your time in me. I don't take that lightly. And remember everybody, either learn from or learn from Thanks. Bye