Ep04: The Friendship Formula

Here is a helpful formula to increase likability and rapport.

 

On this episode, Mike talks about how he activates the friendship formula in his life to connect with almost anyone.

 

---Transcript---

 

(Intro)
This is the Conversation IQ Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Ford. Are you sick and tired of dealing with social anxiety? Do you want to overcome your fear of feeling awkward or looking silly in social situations? Do you struggle with just saying hello or maybe keeping a conversation going? Well, welcome to our community of communicators where we are on a mission to rid the world of loneliness by sharing tips, tricks, and techniques from some of the world's best conversationalist. Super excited to have you guys on this journey with us. We'll see you on the other side of this episode.

(Episode)
What's up and welcome to another episode of the conversation Iq podcast. I'm your host, Mike Ford. If you didn't get a chance to listen to the last episode, just very briefly, we went through the conversation ladder. Yes. How the conversation flows through the different phases. It was a 30,000 foot view perspective and we went into breaking the ice and the soften techniques. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to that, take a listen. It's pretty informative meant for me. Like I said, it's been pretty darn helpful. You know, I mean it's been something that I've been able to implement and I've gotten some pretty incredible results from practicing law soften technique. So again, check out the last episode. So this episode will we want to get into is the friendship formula on a fresher formula. Something that I learned from a doctor Jack Shafer. He wrote the book that likes witch Doctor Schaefer was a FBI agent, right?

Ex FBI agent. And he really focused on the behavioral part of things. In the book he talks about how he basically would flip agents, right? For other countries that were spying on the u s right. So you would make double agents and uh, it was pretty incredible because he would be able to do it without, you know, saying a word. He would develop a friendship going on. What I was saying, a single word. I think it's really important that we talk about the friendship formula because if we approach conversation as just a transaction, right? Or if we just focus on the framework and we don't necessarily explore the mindset, right. How are you showing up in a conversation mentally ready to have that conversation with the right intentions that we really miss out on some really great opportunities to develop strong, deep, real connections with people. So the friendship formula will also allow you to troubleshoot you. Hey, what's going on with some of my relationships, whether it's a friendship or even if you have a significant other freshmen for a minute has really helped myself and my wife identify some places where for me personally where I could improve our relationships. So I'm going to share that with you guys here in this episode. Friendship formula

is proximity plus the intensity plus duration plus frequency. I'm going to say that one more time. The friendship formula is proximity

plus intensity plus duration plus frequency. This is basically how each one of those portions of the formula, how they're defined, right? How doctor Schaefer defines. And so proximity is the physical distance between you and another person. I mean there's a difference between me sitting next to someone and proximity, right? And then me being a one side of the room by the water cooler and the other person. And being by, you know, the supply closet or nowadays it's, I'm in one state and another person is online in a completely different state. That's proximity. Frequency is the number of encounters between you and the other person, right? So use the gym. For example, if there's someone in the gym that every time I show up at the time to go to the gym and that person is there, every time I show up and I'm there, you know, Monday through Friday, those are five instances throughout the week and I'm showing up and I am in proximity and the frequency that I see that individual is there, right?

So that's five times a week, then I'm seeing that person. So that's what your frequency is. The number of encounters between you and the other person. Duration is the length of time that you spend with each person each time that you see them. So still using that gym example, I show up to the gym Monday through Friday. I see this person in the gym every time I go. And every time that I'm there, I'm there for at least an hour. So that's an hour of time every week. Then I'm spending with this person in the same location, same spot, seeing them. That is the duration. And it finally is the intensity. So the intensity is how well you are connecting with the other person through verbal and nonverbal communication. So using the gym example again, I show up Monday, Tuesday I see the person is there, you know, the next time I show up, Wednesday I see the next person there, right?

We've seen each other a couple of times. Thursday rolls around and finally I make eye contact with the person and I give a one of those. What's up eyebrow. We call them eyebrow flashes when you flash eyebrows. And when you say when you see someone that you know and you give them them the eyebrow, you know, your chin kind of goes up and says what's up? That is intensifying the relationship. Cause what's gonna happen is if that person feels safe enough and familiar enough with me, they're going to reciprocate the same kind of nonverbal gesture. What's up? We, uh, are in the gym working out and that person then sees me and gives me the shake of the hand or the hand raise to acknowledge that I'm there. That is intensifying to a relationship and it's still on that Jim example. As we move forward throughout the week, a week goes by, second week we're in and I'm doing a set on the bench press and that person that I haven't necessarily met or anything like that comes up and sees me kind of working on the bench a little bit, picking up to heavyweight and they come over and say, hey, you need a spot.

Boom. The relationship has just been intensified and this is the friendship formula at work. I normally use that as an example, but real life, I'm, I'm in the office yesterday and one of the guys that I don't speak to very often came into the office and said, hey man, you know, how, how's everything going at the gym? And we've never really spoken like anything like that, you know, 10 oh man. Yeah, everything is going good. He's still going at the same time. And now we're connecting. How were in in conversation and that is because the friendship formula, whether or not you're aware of it is at work all the time. The question is, all right, that's great. How do you implement that and you create some awareness around it. How do you implement it to start getting some results? Look at how you schedule Your Day, right?

If you are someone who wants to improve your conversational Iq, you're going to have to get into more situations where you can start to engage in conversation, but you don't necessarily have to like launch into, I'm going to have conversations with a hundred people a day and all that, right? It's really important that you take into account the level of extrovertedness and the level of introvertedness that you have and just real quick, being an extrovert versus being an introvert doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether or not you like or dislike people, right? Sometimes people get that mixed up. They'll say, hey, I'm introverted so I don't really like people or I don't really like to socialize. That's not entirely true. As an introvert or reason why you don't like to socialize has to do more with when you're in a social situation, you spend more time thinking about what you're going to say than actually saying like, what's your thinking?

Meanwhile, the extroverted individual is talking more than you are, you know, being able to contribute to the conversation, which leads to feelings of you're being left out of the conversation. You're not adding any value to the conversation. You might feel like you're being steamrolled or bulldoze during conversations. Um, and it's like I can't get a word in edgewise cause the dude or chick won't shut up. Right. Yeah. It makes sense as to why you would say, man, I don't like being a social situation. I don't like spending time with people. And then especially if the person that is running their mouth the entire time, you know, isn't mature in their thought process. So it sounds like a bunch of nonsense that's coming out in her mouth. You know, they just enjoy hearing themselves talk. So just to clear that up, being introverted, being extroverted does not mean that one person, the other has a better for fence any of developing their conversational Iq.

In fact, if anything, I think that folks that are introverted, in my experience, people that are introverted actually have a better ability of developing deeper relationships than someone who is extroverted. And the reason is because they practice the number one skill that people say they wished, their conversational partner with practice and that is listening. So introverts, you have a super duper power, which is you have an extraordinary ability to listen. All right, so back on his furniture formula thing. Totally took that, took that left field. The way that you start to implement it is identify where in the world you feel comfortable being physically. Okay, Mike, I feel comfortable physically being at home. I can let you ride on that one. You're going to have to figure out places outside of home because if you want to really truly develop your conversation Iq, you're going to have to get out of the house, right?

And there's awesome ways of doing that. Sit Down, take an inventory of different places that you feel the most comfortable being in physically, right? Do you feel good being in a library? Do you feel good hanging out at the bar? Do you feel good going out to local events? Right? Do you have a place that you go work out that you feel comfortable in that location? You know, is there a restaurant you enjoy? Frequency is zero. A mall you like going to, is there meetup groups that you like attending those local events that are going down in your area, find those places, write them down. And now what you could start to do is schedule time for you to go their scheduled time to get out the house and for you to just be present in that space so that folks that see you there often start to develop a familiarity with you start to increase the friendship potential, right?

Cause now you're practicing proximity, you're practicing frequency, you're practicing duration. Do you have an opportunity to practice intensity, right? Because pretty soon you go to the same Starbucks every single morning and order the same thing. That person at the counter is going to say, hey, welcome back Mr so and so mrs so and so you're getting your, you know, a cappuccino extra shot of espresso. I already got it ready for you. How's your day, how was your weekend, how's the family doing? And now what you're seeing is that you are actually becoming attractive with other people, which is another episode that we'll launch into here the next time we get back together. So that's all I wanted to share with you guys. Again, I appreciate you for tuning, checking us out. I look forward to learning more with you guys. Right? Cause this is a growing process for me as well and uh, again thank you and we'll definitely catch you all on the next one.

(Outro)
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Conversation IQ Podcast. It's always a pleasure just to spend time and share and to encourage and empower folks to be better conversationalist. If you are picking up things that you can implement and you had positive results from that, please share with us. We love to hear about your successes. We'd also like to hear about any challenges you are experiencing so that way we can continue to serve the community. We could continue to provide value and continue to equip you with the tools you need for you to be an awesome conversation. Please check us out at www.conversationiq.co for an opportunity to be a part of our Facebook group Increasing Conversation IQ. It is www.conversationiq.co, We'll see you guys on the next episode.