Alright, I'm really excited for today's toolbox because it's the one question that absolutely almost every single one of our clients and our one-on-one coaching as well as our group coaching programs, Elite Human Dynamics, ask us, which is, how can I make more friends? Oftentimes, we come to this conclusion because we've held on to some friends from different phases of our lives before we had kids, before we made that career change, maybe was high school or college, and we recognize that we want to add more to our social lives. We want to be more dynamic and interesting and be surrounded by dynamic and interesting high-value people. And of course, for many of us, we've put so much time and energy into our career and then so much time and energy into building a family, we feel like we might be losing friends more than we're gaining friends. So how do we effectively gain friends, build these great friendships as adults? Well, we have to admit, it is difficult. And one of the main reasons it's difficult is because we have less time. And the science tells us that we need to be spending time with people in order for these relationships to happen. But we also know that with these other choices, work and family, we prioritize our friends less and we end up staying in touch with them less and we end up slowly drifting away from the people that matter in our lives. And what is the science saying around this feeling that we're all having as adults, Michael? So there is a seminal study that we've talked about often on the show, and this is done by Miller McPherson in 2006. It's called Social Isolation in America Changes in Core Discussion Networks over two decades. And this pivotal study found that Americans Core Discussion Networks, so the really close people in your life that you discuss those important matters with, they have significantly shrunk between 1985 and 2004. So between 1984 and 2004, there were the number of people that said, I have no one to discuss really important matters with. People that said that have tripled in those two decades. In 85, when participants were asked how many close confidence they had, the most common answer was three. In 2004, the most common answer was zero. And this is true for both family and friendship confidence. It's a powerful trend that we all might be feeling. And of course, COVID may have exacerbated with us being even further separated from our peer groups, our friends, and our connections. And when we think about building friendships, building new relationships, growing our social circle or our wolf pack, as we like to call it, it feels overwhelming, right, Johnny? It feels daunting. It certainly does. And there's a lot too. I mean, one of the reasons is, I think it's difficult for us to tap into just how our peer groups and social groups and networks have been depleted over time. You mentioned COVID, that certainly didn't help anything. And for a lot of people, they had to figure out how to maintain in a very insular way due to everything that was going on in order to survive. And one of those ways was, well, we stayed connected through the internet and through all of this technology. However, what people are now waking up to is that that technology and the networks that we had built through it and those relationships are sort of, they're like, they're an illusion because the reality of it, and we've talked about this with many different experts, and they've all said the same things. Our online relationships are basically the equivalent to eating a McDonald's, a Big Mac, when you're starving. And sure, it may do the job in that moment to allow you to feel better and stave off that hunger, but its nutrition is very limited. And of course, we're hungry again later. These are very superficial relationships. So we wake up to that reality, and then it's all of a sudden it's, oh, you know what, I do need replacement friends. I have allowed my social circle to be depleted and it needs to be built back up again. So if you've been out of the market and out of going out for quite a long time, maybe you were raising the kids, maybe you were putting your, all of your energy and effort into building your business and to get it to where you need it to go. And now you're looking around going, wow, I'm really excited. I would love to enjoy the successes that I have put together with somebody, friends, romantic relationships. And we're looking around like, wow, you know, I really don't have it. So where do I begin? And for a lot of us, the idea of trucking back out to the bars or heading out to the clubs like, why am I going to do that? A lot of those efforts put us in a position where we have to engage in activities that take us off of our A game. If I just spent five years building my business and putting everything into it, why am I going to now start going out and getting hammered to where I, where I can't maintain all the habits and routines that I've put together to be successful. So this opens up like, wow, I haven't been in a game so long that it can be overwhelming. So where do I go? How do I begin meeting people? How do I break into some new groups so I can start meeting some new friends? How do I become efficient with my time and energy so that I'm taking advantage of the efforts that I'm putting in? This gets overwhelming to all of us. And Michael brings up a great point around close confidence because much of what we're seeing online is the highlight reel and we've talked about this. And when you see your friends, your peers highlight reel, you feel less comfortable sharing your vulnerable sides, the things that you wouldn't post on social media. And we have to call out the elephant in the room.  Hey, I was too focused on my career and we let time pass and we haven't spoke. We haven't hung out in a while. That can feel really daunting to be the first one to reach out. And for some people, that can even feel like an admission that you did something wrong. But this is happening, this trend is happening on both sides. Both of you are feeling that on both sides of the connection that you had. And oftentimes it just takes you sharing a photo of a great experience you had. Maybe it was a kayaking trip in college that you had together. Maybe it was the last time you went to the football game and tailgated. You share that photo, sparks the positive memory. And then the other person is so happy to hear from you, but we struggle to reach back out to those connections that are drifting away. So immediately a lot of our clients will go, okay, well, I just need to find new people. And finding new people can be even more difficult with the PAC schedule, with a lot going on on your plate when your career, with your family, growing your business, your side hustles, all these other things that are consuming our time. And what's often the easiest way for us to de-stress, to find some space between career and family is to do activities alone. To find that hobby that allows you to just completely unplug. And that might be mountain biking. That might be camping on your own. That might be building model airplanes where you just get to paint and you're just in the moment completely consumed in something that you're passionate about. And of course these activities, they're solo. They're not an opportunity for you to be meeting new people. They're not an opportunity for you to be inviting the people that you already are connected with your acquaintances or your friends that have drifted away back into your life. And it can feel very quickly like you're on the path of being a lone wolf, losing the wolf pack, not gaining the wolf pack. So what is the first step is how can we tap back into that state where we are at our best, we are passionate, we are having a great time, we're relaxed, we're comfortable. And how can we do that with new people or people we already know and strengthen those relationships and give us a chance to build new friendships. And that's exploring your hobbies in a way that allows you to socialize, in a way that actually brings people back into your life instead of you spending another Sunday afternoon doing it alone, watching the ballgame alone, building the model airplane alone, going on the hike alone. Yeah, I want to add this is the same thing that we discuss to help with dates. Who wants to go on a date sitting across the table from somebody that they don't know hoping that magic happens, right? No one wants to be in that position. And in fact, I think all of us have been in that position too many times to want to have to do that again. So by focusing on your passions and interests and core values, in a social way, well, this makes the priority of getting together the event, the passion that you're sharing, the interest that you have together. So you can focus on that everything else, the magic moments will happen naturally, you can't force those magic moments, right? And this becomes difficult because everyone starts to think like, well, I don't even know anyone who thinks like me or that I get along with right now. That's okay. That will come later. First, let's find some, some interest, passions, and core values that we can engage in a social manner so that it's naturally to hang out with other people. And let's be honest, I'm not saying hike every day with a group of people. I'm not saying go on your runs with a group of people. I totally understand the, the presence and the solitude and the enjoyment and fulfillment you get out of doing activities alone. But if you once a week can engage with the run club, if you once a week can do a workout class where you're socializing, if you once a week can go to the hiking meetup group and hike in a social environment, you are creating space for the connection that you're craving for the friendship and tribe and wolf pack that you want to build. If we don't create that space, it's not going to happen on its own. We just know that as these scientific studies shared by Michael show us that we're drifting further away from close confidants, if we let nature and technology take their course right now. So the first step is recognizing, okay, I want to build and foster better relationships, friendship is important to me. For some of our clients, it's recognizing, unfortunately, that their spouse is now shouldering the kin work, their best friend, their confidant, their partner, their adventurer. And all of this pressure is now on your significant other and your spouse to be your therapist, to be your coach, to be there, to be that confidant, to hear about the ball game, to hear about what your kids are doing that you're excited about. And that's a lot of pressure on the other person that you care the most about in your life. It's a lot of roles for them to play and vice versa emails that we get. And when we're talking with clients, it's, it's usually I'm driving my spouse crazy. Right. I'm putting all this pressure to be all these things on her or him. And I need to make relationships outside of my main relationship. Or all of that pressure is going to collapse my most important relationship. And this is something that you have to come the terms with out of respect for your partner and your relationship. Well, sometimes it's their partner pushing and prodding them to join our coaching program to work with us because their partner is saying, I can't do it. You know, in one of my favorite examples, so Aaron started working with me in executive coaching program and his passion was mountain biking in Chicago. Now, as you can imagine, it's not what first snaps to mind when you think of mountain biking. And of course for him, mountain biking was a way to get on his own to explore the mountain on a bike to be out in nature and in almost a meditative way for him. But at the same time, he was feeling a lot of pressure that his social group was starting to drift away and really center itself around drinking. And as Johnny said earlier, he wasn't necessarily into just going to bars weekend and week out in order to have that socialization. So we worked together on a battle plan to actually train for a mountain bike race. Now you wouldn't think a mountain bike race would necessarily be social, but actually it's what happens after the race.  But then after there's this euphoria when everyone is in a great state and you all accomplished something together, you took on this crazy course, it was muddy, it was rainy, you completed it. And you also have a shared passion for racing, for mountain biking, for obstacle courses. So by grabbing a six pack of non alcoholic beer and hanging out instead of just going home after the race to share with his fiance, how he did, he is actually able to find a community in Chicago of guys who go mountain biking regularly that he now could share his passion with and create space to socialize. And for him, that was really important because they're not necessarily heavy drinkers, Chicago style drinkers as Johnny and I know and we're well aware of from a boot camp in Chicago, right? They're guys who get up early on a Saturday and take on the mountain. So that's not staying out late on a Friday and hitting the wiener circle and then not making it up in the morning. Well, I want to add to this as well. You mentioned something that's very important that I want to highlight, which is after the event, everyone, if it's an adventure, right, is going to be in this your furek state. Well, what is the natural mechanism that allows people to connect? It is being in a heightened emotional state together, right? If you're going through an emotion together, you naturally bond to the other person who's experiencing it as well. So this creates a that natural state for two people to connect and then have that experience to look back upon as to why they're connected and what their relationship is about. It makes it it's natural. Now you don't have to force those magic moments. Yeah, for our military special forces, especially some of the closest bonds they have are with their peers in the foxhole together. Talk about a negative emotion, the fear, the anxiety around actually facing war, but the positive emotions also put us in that heightened emotional state and create the space as Johnny said, the magic moment for that deeper connection. And what's really funny about it. So with that came training for a race and all of a sudden his goal of being healthier and choosing the bar less than the gym became even easier because now he's training for a race. So it was a two for for Aaron to create space in his life to meet like minded people to grow his social circle outside of his bar friends and to dial in his health even further, which was really important to him as a busy executive. So we understand that it's hard. The science shows we're all drifting and feeling this tear in our social fabric in our relationships. So I want to talk about the next big thing that we see going on and a common frustration that our clients have.  It could be hard to think, well, what do I have to offer? I'm not in college anymore. I'm not playing intramural sports. I'm not in Greek life. You know, what are the values that I'm offering to socialize with? I see everyone else has vibrant social circles in lives and you could start to think, well, based on social media and based on what you're seeing when you're out, like, man, I don't have much to offer. What is the value that I have to offer my network or my social circle? And that can also make it feel daunting for creating new relationships. It's kind of that roadblock to you feeling like, well, let me go after it. If we're going at this in a methodical scientific manner and you enjoy this podcast, odds are that you're analytical mindset leaning, which means you're problem solution oriented. And that mindset works really well when you're building things, when you're putting things together, when you're looking at processes. But that mindset also has its limitations and its limitations is in connecting and sharing emotional space with others, which is just a different skill set. But what comes with that, one of the dangers, the cons to that analytical mindset as well, is its analysis to paralysis, making excuses over analyzing the situation. And so what we need is steps and actionable steps that we can work and engage in to get out of that thinking and moving into having an understanding of what that self worth is. And it's very important to begin to make a list. Think about what your skills are. What are your interests and how can you use those and leverage those interests in meeting new people? And we have to be honest, the Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and real here, but it's the reverse. So oftentimes Dunning-Kruger effect to break it down is those who are actually low skilled in an area will often overestimate their skill set. Well, the opposite is also true.  You will think of yourself as boring compared to others. You will think of yourself as uninteresting. You will think of yourself as not having much to add and offer new social relationships. And that's just you as a top performer being extra hard on yourself. So we have to recognize the reverse Dunning-Kruger effect here because it does impede us from putting ourselves out there and throwing ourselves into new social relationships. It can feel easier to hold on to relationships than that maybe don't fit your core values anymore, that maybe we're just those drinking buddies, but now your life isn't revolving around alcohol. So it's not as important to you. AJ, this also involves a bit of flipping the script as well, because once we realize, hey, you know what? I need a new wolf pack. The first thought is, well, I need to find a wolf pack to join. Well, those other wolf packs have already been created and solidified and in order for you to break in, somebody has to think that you are worth opening the doors and vouching for in order to get accepted into this new wolf pack. Now, that is definitely something that you could be searching for. However, the things that you chase tend to run from you. So you have to focus on building your own relationships in your own wolf pack, and doing the work to be a high value person that others are going to want to hang out with and connect with. And of course, that takes having an understanding of the value that you have. And AJ is going to get into that in a moment.  Now, all of a sudden, other wolf packs want you to be in their wolf pack.  AJ has been going golfing with these people. He's connected with these people and they've all got together and now they're doing all these things. I want to be doing that too. You know what? We should be combining wolf packs. I need to meet up and see what those guys are going. Because remember, folks, the grass is always greener on the other side. So if you are out doing things, you're connecting with people and they see that, they want to be a part of that. That's going to come to them naturally. But if you're the guy who's always knocking on the door going, hey, guys, what are you up to today? Can I join in? That is going to push that wolf pack away from you. And I think it's really important, Michael, that we talk about the science behind what people are actually looking for in platonic relationships and friendships to clarify some of the misconceptions that we have, again, on that reverse stunning Kruger effect and how hard we can be on ourselves. Yeah, I just wanted to jump in here and almost interrupt Johnny because here's where science comes to the rescue because this is actually one study that I want to present in this episode. That's actually really good news compared to the doom and gloom that often comes with social isolation and building friendships and so on. But this study here by Sprecher and Reagan in 2002, this was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. And yes, there is a journal about the social and personal relationships out there and it's actually quite influential. So this study looked at the qualities that people prioritize in friendships, as well as in romantic relationships. But I'll put that to the side for another episode and just look at those platonic relationships, those friendships. So the main findings in that study was that what people are really looking for is trustworthiness. It's warmth. It's a sense of humor. Those were the most highly valued attributes that people were looking for. Now, how easy is it to bring those values forth? We're not asking for a PhD in neuroscience, right? We're asking for trustworthiness, for warmth, for a little bit of humor, for a smile, for a little bit of ease in talking to people and cracking a smile easily. How easy is that to do? So what they also found is that there is a preference for people that share your values and that share your beliefs. So that is your wolf pack, right? You're not going to someone who believes in the exact opposite and values, the exact opposite. And your wolf pack consists of mountain bikers and not of people that go drinking because that's what they enjoy. And that works perfectly well. You just flock. You just come together with people that have those similar values. Now, even in romantic relationships, these internal qualities like trustworthiness, warmth, whatever I've just mentioned, they also increase there. At the beginning, it's a little bit different. There's attractiveness and all the superficial stuff, especially in the first, second date. But over time, then, these exact qualities are also those that are prioritized the most. And in that study that they quote in both types of relationships, the most preferred qualities were, again, trustworthiness, warmth, and a sense of humor. It's that simple. So how do we leverage the science here? And this is what we call our social capital. It's really built on three pillars. It's your relationships. It's your knowledge. And it's your emotional support. So you already have relationships. And if you can introduce people who can help one another, who share the same values, who are great people, you're the linchpin, you're the person that they're going to think of that brought them together, that increases your social value. That makes you trustworthy. It implicitly makes you trustworthy if you're sharing your relationships. Now, knowledge. Okay, let's be honest. Maybe your knowledge in your career isn't that impactful to your social circle. I, for one, don't want to be constantly coaching all of my friends and talking about everything we talk about on the podcast here. Maybe you don't want to be doing your friends' taxes. Maybe you don't want to be giving your friends investment advice. Totally get it. Your knowledge in your career is only one facet of the knowledge you have. You might know how to swing the golf club better than anyone. You might know how to master your short game. You might know where all the best micro brews are in the greater Chicago area. That's knowledge that's valuable to your friend group. One of our clients, Chris, so he has a friend who's leveraged this to a T. His knowledge is all the best new restaurants in his town. He loves food. He reads all the food bloggers and critics. And he knows when a restaurant is opening so well that he will sometimes get invited to their soft opening before anyone else gets an invite. And that knowledge he's used to bring his friends together to come into town from the suburbs and hang out. And when I was talking to Chris about this, a light bulb went off. He was like, wait a second, my friend is using his social capital to bring us together. That's an example of knowledge that's really impactful and valuable to your social circle. I know a guy just like that. And so when I go to dinner with that guy who I know knows these restaurants and knows food better than me, I don't even look at the menu. Listen, man, I know you know this stuff better than me. And it's all you. Go ahead and order for the table. You know what I dig. You know that guy, AJ? Yeah, you're welcome, John. I need that knowledge in my life. I feel I spent so much time looking what events are happening here in Vienna. What's cool? What's not? Where do I need to go? What do I need to try out? What are new restaurants? What do I eat in that restaurant? I feel I spent so much time doing that. I just want an AJ to call up and be like, AJ, I'm in this restaurant here in Vienna. You've never been there, but what do you think I should be eating here? And where should I go afterwards? Well, the reason I bring that up is because AJ, that's an interest of his, right?  So by letting him order for the table, I mean, he gets excited, but he's always like, let, and I gotta say, AJ, you always have a big smile on your face because you know, you get to go at it with the menu. Yeah. Yeah. And that knowledge, it's so vast. You just have to take a second and think about, okay, what are you super interested in and passionate about? And what are those little rabbit holes that you find yourself falling down? You know, my buddy, Adam, he could snag concert tickets and time it just right when the ticket prices were dropping and he would send a text message out. He's like, Hey, do you want to go to the show tonight? Literally tonight because he was able to snag the guns and roses tickets that I thought were sold out. And all of a sudden I'm going to a show. That was Adam's knowledge. It wasn't anything about what he was doing in his career. So when you think about your social capital, the value that you add, we have to really take account of all the different facets of our life where we've explored, we've dug in deep and we can use that. We can add that value to other people's lives. Maybe it's that hidden parking lot that's close to the farmer's market on Sunday that no one knows about. You invite your friends and you show them how to park there. That's incredibly valuable to them to get their organic farmer produce. So once we understand knowledge, again, that's increasing our trustworthiness and it's warmth, right? If you're sharing knowledge with someone, you obviously feel really good about them. The other piece is emotional support and emotional support. It's one of those tricky ones that's a little counterintuitive because of course we think, oh, well, I'm such a supportive friend. I'm thinking about people. I'm constantly letting them know that I care about them. I'm asking them how I can help them. That may feel like emotional support that you're offering it, but what real emotional support is, is being there in their life to celebrate the highs and actually care for them in the lows. It's not to ask them, what do you need? That's not helpful and that's not real emotional support because often our friends don't know what we need. But if they just got a job and they posted it on LinkedIn or their son was just born, it's showing up at the house and bringing gift and being so excited for this moment in their life. Or if something difficult happened to them, it's calling them saying, hey, let's go out to eat. I want to hear everything about. I want to help. I want to support you. Not what can I do to support you? So sorry to hear that. Thumbs down emoji on social media, a comment. That's not real emotional support in a way that actually increases your social capital. It's great that you brought this up and it's interesting because I was recently doing some editing on an old David Goggins video, that an interview that we had done years ago. And we were discussing our relationships and the goals that we've set out and the emotional support that we get. And there's this saying that everyone's heard a million times of, you always find out who your friends are at your lowest moments. And everyone, I think everyone can understand that, but there's also the opposite side of that. You're also going to find out who your friends are when you're hitting your stride, when you're crushing it, because the emotions of wood, everything that you had to do to climb over every hurdle to get to that place, right, has an effect on somebody watching you do that. They are either going to get fired up and cheer you on because now they have hope that, well, if AJ did this, I can do it too.  This is important information to understand. And no matter what you might be feeling, maybe you're watching your friend bust those hurdles and achieve some, some aspirations that they've been working towards.  It's important to recognize that. So you go, you know what, that's not who I want to be. I want to be the guy cheerleading my buddy so that he can help me with my steps. So regardless of the initial trauma that I'm going through of watching that, I want to be the high value guy. And it, and guess what? This is an emotional growth that, that you are training yourself for so that you're not subjected and being a slave to your initial emotions, but you are growing and becoming and maturing into the person of the emotions that you want to foster in yourself and the relationships that you want to be fostering that are going to take you to where you want to go. That emotional support also happens in the messy middle. So what I want to point out is like, for many, it's like, okay, AJ, I get it. Like, cheer them on when they're winning the race and be there for them when they fail the race. Actually, there's a lot of emotional support in the middle. And we see this on our boot camps in our experience with clients. So when we go out on field night and we have these experiences of putting these skills into practice and working on becoming more charismatic and confident in social settings, of course, there's going to be mistakes made. Of course, there's going to be putting yourself out there. There's going to be failures. There's going to be the messy middle of trying to figure out how to put all these strategies into action. Well, the next morning, all of our clients come together and we go around the room and we brag about one another. Now, you could enter that room feeling really hard on yourself. Like, man, that night really didn't go well. I had a goal of talking to 20 people and making some new friends and getting some phone numbers. And I only really approached a few and the conversations didn't go the way I thought they would. But when you hear someone else in the room brag about how they felt inspired by you walking up to that person, by you putting yourself in the arena, by you challenging yourself knowing that that's outside of your comfort zone, those are the most impactful moments of the bootcamp experience because you're seen and validated for your effort, not for your result. So if you want to grow your social capital, don't just think about the highs and the lows of being there to celebrate the birth and being there when they get fired. But be there in the moment where they inspired you to put on your running shoes because they signed up for the mountain biking race. They inspired you to book that trip to Italy because you saw their photos on Instagram. That's real emotional support. That's the warmth, the trustworthiness, and the fun, the levity that we need to be bringing to foster these great social relationships and ties in our lives. And if we're constantly focused on either ourselves and the comparison, as Johnny was saying, and sometimes the envy that comes out of this moment, we're not going to be there in the emotional supportive way that actually fosters the relationships we want. Yeah. And this brings up a great story. So one of our clients, Mark, he was new to a country club that he was going in and wanted to get invited to more partnerships of playing golf. Mark was looking to join in on some more four sums and meet some new people and play. And he's began to show more interest into what the folks that he's been meeting and what they had going on and what they were aspiring to. And by checking in with them and encouraging them and, oh, it's great to hear about that. And then maybe see them a week later and ask them how that event went. Found himself getting asked to play in more four sums. And he was really excited to see just how easy it was to show people that he's engaged with what they're doing. He's taking an interest. And with that, well, they wanted to be around more of that. They're like, well, this guy seems quality. This guy's engaged with what's going on around him. We need to get that guy to come out on our next round. Now, obviously, you're busy. You're getting after it. Your goal oriented growth minded. And we know you have some big, hairy audacious goals for yourself. So now you're thinking, how the hell am I going to find all of this time in my life to make new friends, to deepen relationships that have drifted away? And this is where the science is important, but we're going to teach you after you learn this lesson of science how to be more efficient and effective with your use of time. So what does the science say about building these real relationships? Yeah, you definitely want to learn to be efficient with your time when you hear those numbers. So this is Jeffrey Hall 2018, again, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. The title of that study is very aptly, How many hours does it take to make a friend? Very much to the point. And the authors were looking at how many hours it typically takes to form different levels of friendships are from very loose to very close. And what they found was get your pen and paper ready, dear, dear listener. It generally takes about 50 hours of time spent together to move not from I met you to you're my best buddy, but it takes 50 hours to move from a mere acquaintance to casual friends, 50 hours. It takes roughly 90 hours of time spent together to go from casual friend to good friend. And if you're already breaking out a sweat, it takes more than 200 hours to go from good friend to very close friend to that confident to that best friend. Now I'm loosely throwing out numbers here, but the researchers were very clear on the fact that the type of activity was a major role in how quickly that friendship formed simply spending time together sitting next to each other on the bus or sitting next to each other watching YouTube or TikTok videos doesn't count. This needs to be quality time. This needs to be quality activity of things that both of you enjoy, and you can support each other in an intimate and deep conversations and those shared routines or group settings as in the golf example with Mark can also very much accelerate a friendship development, but it does take a lot of time. When we're an adult and we have our life set up and our career is going and maybe we have a family, we're going to do everything that we can to protect those things. So I can't just open the doors to my life and bring in anyone who is interested in coming into my life because their actions could harm my career. Those actions could harm my family. When you're 21, it's easy to make friends. In fact, you can find your best friend forever around the corner and it's like, hey, I want to get messed up tonight. Do you want to get messed up? Hey, that sounds great. Awesome. We're getting messed up together. We are new best friends, but that's when you're young. You don't have any momentum in your life. You're still floundering. So as we become these adults, we are very concerned and they're starting about who it is that is going to be coming in and who we are going to spend that time with and invest in to build these relationships. And this could harm my network. This could be a bad influence. There's also opportunity cost. Think about 200 hours. That's a long time over a couple of weeks, months, if not years. Now you're meeting someone who's like, yeah, kind of okay. It's a friend of convenience. Do you really want to use that time to spend investing in this friendship when that is time taken away from fostering really meaningful friendships with those that share your values, share your beliefs that are trustworthy, that are warm, that have that sense of humor, will you invest it there because you only have that much time in the year next to your education, your family, your hobbies, your health, your sleep, your work. There's very little time left and that is the being efficient with your time and with your approach that AJ mentioned earlier. We also need to be a little bit picky on who gets that attention and time from us. And of course, in this experiment in the study, they were not the most masterful communicators. They were not experts at getting vulnerable and sharing stories and creating the conversation that actually deepens ties. And we're going to share that in upcoming toolbox of how to actually speed this up even further in terms of strategies. But I want to point out that time spent together doesn't have to be one-on-one. This is a huge unlock for a lot of our really busy professionals who are looking to grow their wolf pack is they think in their mind, okay, AJ, for me to commit an entire Saturday afternoon to someone only to find out that it's not a good fit or for me to chase this person to dinner and that's a dinner away from my kids and that's a dinner away from me working on my side hustle and only to find out that we don't have any values. This isn't really that interesting to me. That's a big commitment. And oftentimes, that's because you're just saying yes to everything. You're not intentional with creating the space. And of course, without intention, we can't even remotely become efficient. So the unlock is what we call our social sales funnel. And if you're familiar with sales funnels, this is going to sound very refreshing to know that we can use this in our social life. But let's just quickly walk you through a funnel, as we know, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The first step in the social sales funnels, you got to get leads, you got to be meeting people, you got to get people on board to even want to spend time with you. That's pretty clear. We've talked about that earlier in this episode, how we need to start engaging in more activities and passions that involve socialization to create the leads. But what do we do with all of those people? Well, if you're only hanging out one on one, you're basically a secretary chasing them down trying to figure out in your busy schedule how to get together, then you're trying to figure out, well, what can I do with this person and how do I fit it in in my schedule?  So we want to clear up all of that and make it effective in your time. So the middle step is where we actually qualify those leads in a sales funnel. Now, in our social sales funnel, we want to do the same thing. We want to qualify the people that we're going to give more time to based on our interests and passions and the things we already love doing. Because if we already love doing them, it's going to be quality time. We're going to be at our best. And we're going to invite multiple people to do it together with us. Now, this invite, this hangout, creating space in your life to have many people hanging out with you at once is to Johnny's point earlier, going to showcase to these people that you already have a Wolfpack. You're not a lone wolf. They're not going to sit there at dinner checking notes, how long have you known AJ? Have you spent 200 hours with AJ? Why are you friends on? No, they're going to assume that we're all together. You got the group together. Hey, this is AJ's Wolfpack. He's inviting me to my Wolfpack. So I'm now going to start thinking, well, what can I do to invite AJ to my Wolfpack? Because I'm meeting AJ's Wolfpack. That's number one.   And this could be literally as monotonous as going to the farmer's market on Sunday and saying, Hey, I'm going to pick up some produce. I love this one farmer stand. He's got great apples this time of year and inviting a few people to come meet you at the farmer's market. Odds are they probably have to get quality organic produce for their family too. And it's an opportunity for you to start to create that space doing things you're already doing. That didn't take you rearranging your whole schedule. That didn't take you printing out banners and party hats and favors. That's something you're doing that you're passionate about because you care about your health and you care about organic produce. And the people who say yes to that, well, they're starting to show you that they're qualified that they actually care about those things too. So we're creating more space in our life. Another example, I have a client who loves after a long day of work, once or twice a week, he loves sitting on his porch in the summer and smoking a cigar. Now in the past, when I had shared with him, Hey, let's host an event. Let's invite some people into your life. He's like, Hey, Jay, when I throw a barbecue, it's a whole day of my time and it's chasing people and it's letting them know this is happening. And then they want to ask what dishes to bring. It's complicated. No, no, no, no, we're not complicating this.  Share this passion around cigar smoking and do something you're already going to do anyways. You're doing that on Thursdays, but invite some people to it. Now your natural next question is AJ. Well, what if they say no? What if they don't show up? Now I'm hosting things, I'm inviting people and they're not showing up. Here's the key unlock and my client, Ed, recognized this very early on. So when he started inviting people, trying to network and grow his new friend circle in San Francisco, moving there, he would send out invites and way less people would say yes. And even of the people who said yes, a lot of people would end up flaking. So they're low on the trustworthiness. They're not keeping their word. But what he found was he started getting invited to other people's events and gatherings and things simply because he invited them. He was signaling to them, I want you in my wolf pack. And that signal was received and in turn, they reciprocated and said, you know what? The next time I have something going on, I'm going to think of Ed. Ed invited me. And there was a reciprocity in the invite that led to him meeting new people, hearing about new events and getting invited to other things simply because he was doing the inviting. And the first couple of weeks of inviting, he was a little frustrated. I'm not going to lie. I get it. You want everyone to show up. You want to have a great time.  You're feeling you want to be efficient. But this actually is the most efficient because you're sending out the signal to everyone that I'm looking to grow my circle. I want you in my circle. That's as clear as you can get. Not a needy way, but in a very high value way that shows them you're trustworthy, you're warm, you're fun, you're thinking of them. And this can very quickly, you do this for just a couple of months time, regular things you're doing.  So he got a hanger and got his favorite bands together and started inviting everybody new two months out to this concert that he was going to put on. And all of a sudden he had a packed hanger, a bunch of people that love music because that was something he's super passionate about. But you could start as small as a beach day and some beach volleyball. It doesn't have to be at your house. There's no cleanup. You can go big and you can invite a bunch of people over to watch football on Sunday or hang out in the pool and bring their kids over. And you can barbecue if you love barbecuing and it's what you do every weekend anyways. But we are leveraging our passions, our time and all these great connections we've made in a way that we spend more time together. We're amplifying our time spent. So instead of one-on-one trading our time for one-on-one with people who might not be qualified, who aren't a great fit for friends, we're getting a bunch of them together. And guess what? The ones that you got great vibes from, the ones that actually said thank you, maybe they brought something over, maybe they brought their own cigar, maybe they shared a cigar place that they love going to. That's the person that you pursue a little further and try to hang out with one-on-one. That's the person who's saying, hey, I'm a great fit to be your friend. I'm really interested in this too. That's the bottom of the funnel. You've now qualified who you want to spend more time with working towards that 200 hours. This person has shown that they are worth that time and effort. And guess what? The return that you get out of it is makes you excited to spend more time with them. And you don't have to worry about putting in effort and energy to be taken advantage of, which is a big concern for a lot of people. Everybody has been in situations where they feel they're putting in all this effort and people seem to take, take, take, but never put anything in. Well, this gives you that opportunity to figure out who is worth that extra time and energy. So building friendships as adults, we admit it can be hard without the right strategies, without the right mindset and not finding the right values and others. But today's episode, we shared some insight in what we do with our clients and our coaching programs, busy professionals and those who are just looking to rebuild a social circle or maybe lost some friends due to a life change, a move or even divorce, so that you can start leveraging your passions, your time and your values in a way that creates friendship in your life when everyone else is feeling more and more disconnected.


Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering Microsoft Ignite. Brought to you by Cohesity and theCUBE's ecosystem partners. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite here in Orlando. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, co-hosting alongside Stu Miniman. We are joined today by Steven Rosenthal. He is the senior product specialist at QTS data centers. Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. Welcome, thank you. So let's start by finding out a little bit more about QTS based in Kansas City. What do you do? What are you all about? Yeah, so QTS is based in Overland Park, Kansas. We have our operations base and actually right outside of Atlanta in Swanee, Georgia. Where actually I'm from. And we have 16 data centers across the United States, about six million square feet of data center floor. We cater to everybody from hyperscalers, the hyperscalers of the world that everybody I think knows about. To enterprises, to federal customers. We have product lines that cover again, hyperscale, co-location, private cloud, which I think we'll talk about today, and managed services around that private cloud offering. I know Stu is dying to talk private cloud with you, but can you just tell us a little bit about how you fit in precisely with the Microsoft ecosystem? Yeah, so we fit in because we will offer Azure management. So for customers that will, you know, have workloads up on Azure, we can help manage that. And we also have dedicated connections through our connectivity products that will get you to Azure from our data centers. So that's how we kind of fit into this ecosystem. All right, and just to geek out on that one little bit, like when I talked to a lot of service providers, things like AWS Direct Connect and Azure ExpressRoute are one of the things we're seeing just massive adoption on being able to take my own stuff and plug it in or use services from the public cloud. Do you offer all of those? So we have AWS Direct Connect in our Chicago data center that we can cross connect to you, to that via our other data centers. We're also utilizing the software defined networks as packet fabric and Megaport to get you those to those direct routes into Azure and AWS. Okay, great. So you do have the way to, because the discussion has been for a few years, it went from hosting to service providers and like, oh wait, public cloud's the enemy. And now I think we've matured a lot. It's like, yes, of course there's competition there, but as Satya Nadella and Microsoft say, look, we're going to compete against people. We're going to partner with a lot of people. And of course, your customers are using everything. Yeah, I don't think it's just a line. We definitely partner with the public cloud offerings. It's not if you can't beat them, join them. There is a workload for public cloud. There's workloads for private clouds. And we can get into that in detail, but there is absolutely a partnership that we can have there and not a competitive partnership. Yeah, and actually, let's bridge that discussion over to the private cloud discussion. And I'll give you the one that, there is no answer for it, but how are customers sorting this thing out? How are they dealing with it? What do they put where? How do you help them with that discussion? Yeah, what we're finding is customers are, anywhere from all into public cloud to I'm kind of just dabbling in it, maybe putting my toe in it. And we can go in and help them kind of along their cloud journey. So because of the integrated product set that we have within QTS, we can help you from just being a co-location customer to kind of dipping your toe in a little bit with some public clouds, getting you that direct access via AWS Direct Connect or via software defined networking, helping you manage that. But there's workloads out there that customers just want to know where their data is. Where's my data? When you go to a public cloud, I'm not saying it's not safe, it's not secure, but we all know there's issues that sometimes they go down and there's customers for compliancy reasons, for whatever reason they have, they want to know my data is in Swanee, Georgia. And due to the private cloud, and we know it's always there, we can provide that to the customer. Do you think that that customer anxiety of where is my data will always exist for certain clients? Or do you think we will actually get to a point in the cloud computing evolution where people feel really secure? I think if you look over the last few years, people are a lot more secure today than they were three years ago, two years ago, or even one year ago. So if I had a crystal ball, I think people will get a little bit more comfortable, but I think customers in finance, healthcare, healthcare, they're all going to really be nervous about where that data is. So there's always going to be that need for that, certain workloads I want here. The rest of it, yeah, we can put up in public cloud, but I want to know that this data resides in this data center. Yeah, governance and compliance obviously is going to play into that. So let's talk about the private cloud a bit. In our research, we started a few years ago, we said what customers need is true private cloud. And we said that because cloud should really be an operating model, and the public cloud really set the bar as to how I consume, how I manage, how I don't have to get in some of the pieces. So to do that, you really need to modernize the platform, maybe bring us through your journey as to how you've seen it versus just kind of, I had a bunch of servers in Iraq, versus kind of what, how do you define what is private cloud for your environment today? Yeah, so at GTS, we define the entire stack is dedicated to a customer. That's everything from the Nutanix hardware that we use, and we decided to use as our infrastructure base for this, all the way up through the Cisco 9Ks that we support, everything is dedicated to that customer. So there's no multi-tenancy at all within that. So there's no noisy neighbors, there's nobody next to you that you might not know what they're doing. Our journey started about a year ago, maybe a little bit more, where we saw that, as everybody probably did, the evolution of the customer going to that true hybrid model, that not everything is going to public. They, again, not to repeat myself, but there are some workloads that stay within the private cloud, and they needed somewhere to put that. Customers also were looking for more of an OPEX model than a CAPEX model. We can host that for them within our data centers, provide all the data center services that we provide to our Colo customers around duplicate power, and the security that we provide, and allow them to host that within our data centers. So that's what we're seeing in our customers, and that's what's really driving that. All right, when Nutanix positions to the enterprise, it really is about that simplicity that they can offer. Service fighters often have different metrics, and as to how you determine what led you to the Nutanix solution, how does that fit in your overall operations? Yeah, honestly, we did, I mean, for lack of a better term, to bake off. We looked at competitors out there, but Nutanix, by far, they have a right to be in that Gartner Magic Quadrant, because one, their support is just excellent, that we have found from them, everything that we needed from them, they were right there in helping us. Up until now, and we don't think they're going anywhere either, right? Nutanix has been one of our best technology partners that we've brought on board, and we see the benefits of the hyper-converged environment, allowing us, you talked about people want that cloud experience, the cloud experience is, I want to be able to swipe my credit card and have a server running in five minutes. That's not what dedicated private clouds are, but they might want it less than 30 days, less than 60 days. Having hyper-converged there, we can provide that to the customer, get them up and running in a matter of weeks, not a matter of months, with their traditional architecture. One of the things we're hearing a lot at this conference is the importance of having the right kinds of partners and making sure that there is a lot of trust embedded in the relationship. You just described choosing Nutanix, having this bake-off, how else do you walk through the process, can you walk our viewers through the process of how you choose the right people that you want to do business with from a business mindset standpoint, but also complimentary functionality? I think a couple of things, one, we obviously look at the technology. Technology for us is, if not number one, it's up there as pretty close to number one. Does the technology meet the needs of our customers? Can we provide the service with the service level agreements that we have in place? Around our host of private cloud, we have 100% SLA around that, so we want to make sure that we can meet that for the customer. So the technology has to be there. Then outside the technology, the support. This is technology, technology is going to have issues. If we can make sure we have the support to back that up, so if a customer or we have an issue with the infrastructure, we can bring that back online as quick as possible. Then we look at how closely they can do co-market with us, especially Nutanix. We do a lot of things co-marketing with Nutanix. We put on panels within our data centers. We've been doing this for the past, almost a year now, with Nutanix ourselves. Maybe we'll have AWS sit on it. We'll have Cohesity sit on it, and bring in customers or prospects into our data centers and have different topics around there. So all of that kind of mixed together provides a really good partnership for us. Great. Steve, we talked a little bit about how Azure on the public cloud fits in. How does Microsoft fit in on the private cloud discussion? So most of our customers are running Windows. I mean, that's really where it fits in. Of course, currently our host of private cloud runs VMware as a hypervisor, but most of the customers are running Windows as they're operating systems. Oh, absolutely. I mean, still, even from the early days and still today, with the application sits on top, Microsoft has all the business apps up there. Been a lot of announcements at the show, Windows Server 2019, talking about a lot of the shift to kind of SaaS. How are you seeing, is that still a big driver for your customers? Kind of the generational shifts of Windows and what about the changing workloads? I'm curious how those impacts are going. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the changing workloads definitely drives our business. And as you pointed out, a lot of those are going to either Office 365, going up to Azure. We're getting a lot more customers asking us for Azure these days, and I don't want to put AWS against Azure, but we're at the Microsoft show, obviously. We're getting a lot of customers that are driving their business up to Azure. And to be able to support that within our community is really important to be able to support that customer. So, we are definitely seeing that drive towards those type of workloads.  You've been in IT for 25 years. I wonder if you could talk about this point in time that we're at now. It feels like an inflection point, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, can you sort of paint this point in time in the greater context of the cloud computing revolution? I think hybrid's the word, right? I know it's a marketing word. I know a lot of people use it, but I think it really has hit today, where you have companies that say, hey, we're all in on public cloud, and I think that's a great marketing term. But if you really look at all of their workloads, they don't have everything up there, but even if they have 90%, 10% of their workloads are legacy applications that they would have to rewrite to be able to really work in the public cloud. And these applications are running just fine where they are. They don't want to touch them. So I think that hybrid model is where we are today, and it's only going to grow. Yeah, I mean, Steven, I'm curious. We watched for a while, public cloud pulled on the data center apps, but now we have the edge out there.  Is that having an impact yet on your business? You know, how would you play in some of these IoT and machine environments? Yeah, I mean, we are constantly looking at the new technologies out there, especially, you know, autonomous cars. It's something that we are looking at very heavily and they require, there's something like six terabytes of data that gets passed back and forth between that car and whatever service is running that car. And that's got to be somewhere on the edge. But I think if you look back at how people were defining private cloud a couple of years ago, how are people defining edge is very different and over the next year or two, we'll get more common, you know, how people are defining edge computing will become a lot more common. So we're looking at how do we plan that market? Do we have to, you know, have data centers closer to the edge, wherever that edge is, in cities that you typically don't see data centers, you're probably going to have a different type of data center within that city to. Oh yeah, absolutely. The edge is very different if you're a telecom provider versus an enterprise, you said that data centers is going to be a pop, is it going to be something in a wireless tower or is it somewhere that supports it? It's all going to be, you know, something that just fits on our wrist at some point in the future, right? Yeah, it's going to fit right there. Check on my data. So getting back to the cities that you don't necessarily think of, I mean, you're a cutting edge tech company based in Kansas City, the Heartland. Right. How do you find it difficult to recruit talent? Because frankly, even the companies in Silicon Valley and Washington and Boston, they're having trouble recruiting talent. Where do you come down? I think it's not only recruiting the talent, it's keeping the talent, which, you know, QTS is very good about keeping the talent. I think if you look at our attrition rate, it's probably some of the lowest in the industry because we have a culture that people want to stay in. But even though our headquarters are in Overland Park, Kansas, again, really our operation headquarters are outside of Atlanta, Georgia in Swanee, which is probably just about 30 miles north. So we have Georgia Tech that we can pull from. You have Emory that you can pull from and you have the entire Georgia University system. I don't want to leave anybody out that we can pull from. And we have data centers around the country, even in Silicon Valley, we have Santa Clara, which we can pull from the Silicon Valley individuals. Dallas has a lot of tech companies, so we're not just pulling from one market. We're pulling from 16 different markets across the country, which helps us a lot, not just to dry up a single market. You said that QTS has a culture that people want to stay in. Microsoft is touting its culture as collaborative, inclusive. Describe QTS's culture. Our culture, a lot of people ask me that and it's like you got to live it. It's very, very family oriented. I know a lot of people say that, but we live it. We care about each other. Nobody walks around going, it's not my job. Everybody is there to support the customer. We are very customer focused. You can see that in our NPS scores. Our NPS scores are very high in the industry. Probably some of the highest out there. And that goes back to just how we take care of our customers. And we look, it goes back to your question about what do we look for in partners. Nutanix probably has a very high NPS score. And we want to make sure that our partners are treating their customers as we want to treat our customers. Great. Well, Steven, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. Thank you, appreciate it. I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Miniman. We will have more from Microsoft Ignite coming up in just a little bit.