NO NEW FRIENDS (My “Extreme Views” on Friendship)

Video

Summary

• If you're not actively rooting for my success and instead secretly hope for my failure, that's a red flag; you're not true friend material.
• Genuine friends will celebrate your achievements both publicly and privately, and won't feel threatened by your success.
• My personal relationships must contribute positively towards my long-term goals. If they don't, it's time to reassess their place in my life.
• I prioritize my goals above relationships that don't serve me, believing that achieving my goals will lead to gaining friends who align with my new level.
• As demand for my time increases, my approach to friendships becomes more selective, similar to individuals like LeBron who adopt a "No New Friends" policy.
• I view friendships transactionally; both parties should benefit, feeling like they're getting the better end of the deal.
• Chose hard decisions over easy ones in friendships; if it were easy and right, you'd have done it already.
• Relationships may not support the future you. Prioritize those who align with your long-term vision, like family and spouses.
• Accept that friendships can change or fade as you grow; it’s healthy and necessary for personal and professional growth.
• Authentic help makes your life easier, not harder. True friends add value and alleviate burdens.
• Don't be afraid to 'prune the tree' of your social circle to allow personal growth, just be prepared for tough choices.
• Gradually reduce contact with friends who don't align with your vision for a natural end to the friendship.
• Communicate honestly, keep people's humanity in focus, and accept your changes without animosity.
• Surround yourself with friends who inspire you, even if their paths differ from yours, it's their passion and support that count.

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by evaluating the friends you have now. Are they cheering for you and your dreams? If not, they might not be the best for your growth. Don't feel bad about making your goals a top priority. The friends who match your hustle will stick around.

When people are after every minute of your day, you've got to be picky with who gets your time. Just like the saying 'No New Friends' helps some stay focused, it might be helpful for you too when time is tight. Remember, only keep those around who make your life better, not harder.

You're allowed to grow and change, and your friendships might too. If someone isn't supporting the “future you,” it's okay to let them go. It’s healthy to change your circle as you grow. If a friendship isn't aiding your goals, it might be time to spend less time together. That way, things can naturally wind down without hard feelings.

Always keep honesty in your conversations about changes in your friendships. Show that you care, but be firm about your need to evolve. It's not about creating an enemy, just moving in different directions.

Finally, fill your circle with inspirational people. They don't need to be doing the same thing as you, just passionate about what they do and supportive of you. Those are the kinds of friends who bring value to your life and help you succeed.

Quotes by Alex Hormozi

"Just because you lost me as a friend doesn't mean you gained me as an enemy. I'm bigger than that. I still want to see you eat, just not at my table"

– Alex Hormozi

"I think that you can have friends who aren't necessarily pursuing greatness as long as they're helping you pursue yours"

– Alex Hormozi

"I like to be inspired by the people that I'm around. I want to admire something in every friend that I have"

– Alex Hormozi

"One of the hardest things about pursuing your dreams and pursuing your goals is that a lot of the people that are in your life right now will not support the future version of you"

– Alex Hormozi

"I believe in abundant exchange which is if both of us feel like we're getting the better end of the deal then this relationship will continue ad infintum"

– Alex Hormozi

Full Transcript

Approach or view on friendships is transactional Extreme whatever and I'll say sure you're right and I don't see friendship as a binary term meaning it's not that we are friends or not friends it's how good of friends are we to Define friendship the opposite of friend would be an enemy or a rival someone who doesn't root for me they actively try and destroy my efforts they try and get me to be emotional rather than make logical decisions and they try and distract me from my ultimate goal and for many of you some of your friends fit that description now I understand that people are human and people make mistakes but if you want the one strike not three strike one-way ticket out of my friendship you only have to do one thing you have to not root for me meaning you actively resent either explicitly or implicitly when I win if you resent me winning why are you here like the reason they're still there is because there's a chance that your success will benefit them but while you're succeeding they'll still try and destroy it in case they can bring you down it's [ __ ] up but it's true so the reverse of that would be somebody who roots for you in front of you and most specifically behind your back real talk that's one of the hardest things out there especially amongst guys where it's very Alpha competitive as soon as your status starts to raise within the group You by comparison make everyone else worse so it's in their best interest to make you less of a threat to them by diminishing your status the things like talking behind your back trying to distract you make you emotional make you feel guilty about the things that you're doing take you away try and label you with old labels that are your old identity not aligned with the things that you want to do later and the thing is is like I don't think these are bad people to be clear I don't even think there's good or bad people anyways the question is just are they going to help me towards my long-term goal are they not if it's more likely they've earned a spot they're paying their rent for my time and attention if they're not more likely to help me hit my goal then for me the question is is the relationship more important than my goal and that's a decision for you I made my goal my most important thing because I believe that if I achieve that goal I would feel better about myself my identity associated with it and I think that there would be a new level of friends who would unlock as I got to that new level and for me me up to this point that has been true I'm not trying to achieve a common life goal and so it would make sense that my views would be more extreme than other people's I also think that some of these views become compounded when you have increasing demands for your time if that's not real for you right now if you don't have people vying for every minute of your day right now then what I'm saying might not be relevant for you but for the people who do have people buying for every minute of their day it might make more sense there's a reason LeBron says No New Friends hey LeBron hey LeBron how are you LeBron he's decided like he doesn't need a new printer he doesn't trust anyone new and that's fine that works for him he has a rare life it would make sense that he has rare rules you can't really give a [ __ ] about what people say no more because everybody gonna [ __ ] critique everything that you do no matter what you do they say we're creep into your mind the biggest issue that I've had with friendships in general is that people project what they believe friendships should look like in their minds onto our relationship for me I am transactional this is gonna probably piss a lot of people off the pros of this relationship should outweigh the cons and if people are like I can't believe you'd say that we probably wouldn't be friends and that's okay you'll probably be friends with people who don't have that definition but for me that means that like my life is better off with you in it you helped me achieve my goal you root for me along the way if you think about everything you do as an investor you invest time and energy into a relationship with the hopes of getting some sort of positive return you spend that time no matter what and the people who build their best relationships the best networks are the ones who invest in relationships that yield the highest returns in terms of exchange I believe in abundant exchange which is if both of us feel like we're getting the better end of the deal then this relationship will continue ad infant item it's going to keep going you would have no reason to end it where you get into trouble is the types of relationships that you're wondering should I keep these you probably already know you shouldn't and I love this little framework for decision making when you're faced between a hard thing and the easy thing and you're not sure what to do you should do the hard thing because if the easy thing were the right thing to do you would have already done it one of the hardest things about pursuing your dreams and pursuing your goals is that a lot of the people that are in your life right now will not support the future version of you that you need to become in order to accomplish those goals people don't actually want the best for you they want the version of you that best serves them now the closer they are to you in terms of long-term alignment the more likely those two versions of you will intersect which is often why often not always why family and your spouse should hopefully be the most aligned with you because long term their best interest is often aligned with your best interest I think the spouse is like the nth degree of what the most extreme French should look like that is the best friend you have for life which means they should root for you harder than anyone else they should never resent your success the biggest strongest Ally you have and then the friends you have are just non-sexualized versions of that core Ally you have there's a lot of statements that friends will make to try and keep you where you're at they'll say you've changed and they'll phrase it in a way that makes it feel like you're doing something wrong by changing all you have to do is look back at them and say you're right and you haven't that carries almost an equal weight back to them because some people want to stay the same comma and that's okay that's been my recurring theme with friendships is just accepting them for what they are and saying that's okay things have changed good that's what growth is you can't grow and stay the same and if we want to grow as entrepreneurs then we have to expect change and I think Tupac embodies this transition in between friends really well and he said just because you lost me as a friend doesn't mean you gained me as an enemy I'm bigger than that I still want to see you eat just not at my table I don't wish you ill I want you to succeed and I want you to do all the things you want to do in your life it's just that your vision for your life doesn't merge with my vision for my life it's the same thing as having an ex-girlfriend or an ex-boyfriend you had a season together it doesn't mean you don't honor the season and all of a sudden start destroying the memory appreciate the fact that you had a season understand that season's by their very nature end we both contribute to another and then we found out that we wanted different things which is great that's the whole point of learning the thing is a lot of people have these precepts of what a friend should be we're going to be friends for life how many 85 year olds you know who are friends with the same people their whole lives not many and if they are they've got like one it's not common but it is okay in my opinion to have seasons of Friends we're friends for the season and then we had train tracks that aligned and then we found out we had train tracks that diverted comma and that's okay have you ever had somebody who's like I was just trying to help and that person just like made your life 10 times harder that is not help that is destruction but true help comes from someone who comes into your life and all of a sudden everything gets easier that is Health that is a friend that is somebody who's an ally let me give you a little frame shift around Burning Bridges because people love using their friends like you don't want to burn Bridges remember where you came from you can consider it burning a bridge but you could also consider it pruning a tree in order for the tree to grow you only have certain amount of sunlight water and minerals in the soil the healthiest thing for the tree is to prune it cut the branch off and that may seem uncomfortable for many of you but again there's the hard thing and the easy thing and if you're making the decision you already know the right thing is probably the hard one so if you encounter somebody that's not aligned with the vision of your life and it used to be your old life they want to go to clubs every night they want to drink on Sundays do the bar crawls and now it's coming in Conflict they're losing friends so they want to keep you there and that's okay like don't hate them for wanting that it's just that it no longer aligns anymore I think there's really two directions for these types of friendships number one is that if you decrease the frequency of communication with someone over time you get fewer and fewer invites and then it kind of Fizzles that's how most friendships or loose acquaintances end the very hand select few of times where you have family or like super close homies whatever you want to call it I have one framework for having really hard conversations that I stole from Layla keep the other person as a human being at the Forefront of the conversation rather than being right if I remind myself every time I go into hard conversations that way it's amazing how much better of a conversation I have and accepting responsibility for the fact that like hey I've changed and that's not on you that's on me if it means that we're not hanging out as much anymore again it doesn't mean that you have me as an enemy comma and that's okay I think that you can have friends who aren't necessarily pursuing greatness as long as they're helping you pursue yours that's the bridge in my opinion I like to be inspired by the people that I'm around I want to admire something in every friend that I have I have a very close friend of mine who is an FBI agent every time I talk to him he's got like new stories of things that he's doing and for me the benefit I get from the relationship is that it gives me an escape from the day-to-day business stuff that I'm dealing with he benefits in no way from the status from the followers because he has no way to financially benefit he's an FBI agent but what we both mutually appreciate about one another is that we've both been committed to being excellent at our craft I just want people who are as passionate about their art as I am who root for me to make the best painting possible that's what I'm really going for at the end of the day it's just like does this person make me better if they don't then why are you here