The video for Part 2 starts at the ~13 minute mark.
Invest in Your Relationships
Andy: So, I have a question for you on that though. So this is more tactical because you said a pretty powerful statement there.
“Hey guys, go find that friend. You know he’s on your heart (or she). You know they’re there and you knew you need to connect with them.” But some people go, “Well, you know what. I haven’t been a good friend so how do I start? I know I find them but what do I say to them?” And I know you have some tactics for that. Some of them are text so I’d like you to share one or two of them on how to break that ice and get the confidence up that they know the can go out connect with these people.
Bob: Yeah. So first is so many people have let their friends go. They had a friend and for some reason they move. they haven’t talked to them in awhile, they just kinda got side ways, and what’s happens is your own self taught mechanism starts to tell you, “Oh, you know I can’t call them back. I let them down.”
Here’s this phenomena. Listen to this.
Once someone takes a place in your heart, they never leave. This is just a fact. I mean the first time you call them up, you know what they say? You’re thinking, “I need to come up with this idea like Andy just said. What am I going to say?”
They gave you that person for purpose and intentionality and when the moment you make the call…so we tested this all over the country so far. We created this text message. This is so cool. This is so outrageous. So I go around and I’ll give talks and then I’ll say to people, “I could talk to you about friendship, but why don’t we test this?” And so what I do is I get them to do a text message to their best friend.
So the hard part is getting people to declare who this person is and so they won’t even sometimes remember that they have a mate whose their best friends. So that’s really of course disturbing when the crowd all knows them and then they didn’t mention their mate and then they, “Oh, yeah! My mate. Don’t tell anybody that I didn’t say my mate was my best friend.”
So, listen. Here’s the text.
Andy: Lets do it to Jimmy’s audience right now.
Jimmy: Oh, they’re going to do this? Okay.
Bob: So, if you’ll listen to me, this is unbelievable. So you gotta first think who’s that one friend? We’re gonna think of one friend and I’m going to have you send one text message and you’re not going to say anything, but what I tell you to say and then they’re going to respond back to you.
It’s going to be outlandish. So, think of your best friend. It can be your wife, husband, best friend, brother, it can be anyone.
“Hey, I was just thinking about you,” and that’s the first line. “I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your friendship.” So think about that, “Hey, I was just thinking about you. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your friendship,” and then you’re gonna say, “I love you.”
The best thing you can say you can to someone is to let them know you’re thinking about them. They don’t know what to do with it and if you send this to your mate, you have a 90% chance they’re are going send back, “Did you mean to this for me?” The reason is because you said friendship, but you’re gonna to respond to someone that says anything other but, “I love you,” back, if they say anything but, “I love you,” back, you’re going to say, “No, I meant this for you.”
You know, they may come back sarcastic. Your friend could say, “Hey, are you drunk?” They might say to you, “Are you okay?” Some might say, “Who has your phone?”
This is staggering! So listen to what happens. People are gonna be touched because its written. Some people say, “Oh, I say that all the time to people.” Yeah, no but you don’t write it. So some of the messages that are gonna come back are fantastic. If they say, “Hey, ditto.” or “Oh yeah. That’s fantastic,” but they don’t say, “I love you,” the reason they’re not saying that is because someone hasn’t told them that isn’t their mom or dad or someone in a long time and so they’re gonna be hurt.
So your response is, and there’s only two responses, if they say, “I love you,” that’s fantastic. Otherwise, you’re going to say, “Where’s the love?”
Andy: You’re listening to the Tuttle Group Radio Hour and were talking with the great Bob Beaudine. If you have questions for him or if you want to hear what that text was, call or text me (469) 319-0660. Just text the word FRIEND to (469) 319-0660 and we’ll get you that text. If you’re in your car right now and you want it, Bob say it one more time and I want you to literally, if you’re in a place to do this, think of your friend and do this right now.
Bob: “Hey, I was just thinking about you. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your friendship. I love you.”
Andy: So huge and I remember doing this. Actually, it was years ago at one of your first conferences and I was…I think like everyone else. First of all, it’s a great energy when you speak. It was kinda awkward.
Bob: Yeah, it’s very awkward and if somebody comes back and says, “Why did you send this to me?” here’s what I want you to say. “I was listening to this guy once and he said, ‘If I said these 3 lines to someone, who would I choose?’ and I chose you.”
Andy: Its huge. And I’ll tell you, it was a big impact in my life, but I know you had something that would impact the audience especially since you’ve got some big experience with this. Any examples of stories you’ve had that you’ve seen this one on one?
Bob: Okay. So I had a guy at a mortgage banking conference stand up and say to me that, “My mom has 6 months to live,” and so he sent the text to her. She’s in Forney, TX and she’s looking out the window. She gets this text from her son and he says he sees it and I said, “What did she say?”
My mom said, “Son. I’m looking out the window. I’m thinking you just sent this to me. If could tell you, son, how much I love you from the highest mountain in Switzerland I love you echo echo echo,” and then he sits down. He starts to cry. A week later, he sends me a message on Facebook, “My mom died today.” He said, “What if I hadn’t sent the text?”
Okay, a week later he sends me a picture of Switzerland in his office and it says, “I love you son echo echo echo.” Listen what good is it, what good is it if you love someone and they don’t know it today? You gotta send the text. You gotta tell your friends. We gotta stop this. Friends, kids, sons, daughters, they gotta be told that you matter and once you do this, your personal friendship, this entrepreneurship group, they’re all gonna have that person.
Why? Because we’re screaming for it as a country. We’re screaming for it as buddies. This is what we were meant for. We were created for relationships.
Andy: I don’t know about you guys, but its got me a little choked up. That’s huge. It’s just a text. It’s something that you think is so small, “Oh, its not gonna make that big a difference.” It makes a huge difference.
You’re right. We all want to be appreciated and loved. Man, that is it. It is within all of us and you can make that impact on someone today. You guys can make that impact on somebody today and you guys can make that impact on somebody today with a text. Take advantage of it because you mention at the end of it, the mom with 6 months to live and she died.
When we come back, we’re gonna talk about what happens when you are in those dark times and there’s wavy things going on in your life. Not that your text won’t load when you’re trying to send it, but that you’ve got financial issues, major divorce, death, sickness, there are major pains. What do you…where do you start and where do you go? Bob’s going to tell you next.