200 - Don't Do Life Alone

👉 Take the free scorecard: https://www.made4moreconsulting.com/scorecard

Takes about 5 minutes. Shows you exactly which rooms of your life need the most attention right now.

Episode 200 is here — and we're still inside the house. Today we walk into Room 4: Friends & Community. This room can hold some of the best memories of your life and some of the loneliest ones. Mario walks through the 7 scorecard questions for this room, shares a personal story about showing up to a football game alone, and challenges you to stop waiting for someone else to reach out. If life has started to feel like a stadium full of people and you don't know a single one — this episode is for you.

You were never meant to do this alone.

The 7 Friends & Community Questions — Score Yourself 1 to 10

1. I have people in my life I can be completely honest with
2. I invest time and energy into my friendships consistently
3. I feel genuinely supported by the people around me
4. I have at least one person I can call in a crisis — not just on a good day
5. I am intentional about building and maintaining meaningful friendships
6. My friendships are reciprocal — I give and I receive
7. I feel a sense of belonging and community in my life

Ask yourself: Who is in your bleachers? If something happened tonight — who would you call?

 Connect  with us!

YouTube - YouTube Channel 

Instagram - Instagram

Facebook - Facebook

X - X

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Made for More podcast. This is a podcast designed to get you better, to get you to be a better person, leader, team player, owner, entrepreneur, or just a better human being. Personal development and personal growth are vital so that we do not become stagnant as human beings. So if you want to get better, if you want to be a better person, you're in the right place. That is why Made for More exists, to get the individual better, which in turn makes the team better, the family better, or the world just a better place. So if you're listening, appreciate you wherever you're listening to this. If you're on YouTube checking out the video, check it out. If you didn't know we had a YouTube channel, I would love for you to go check that out. It's in the podcast notes. Click on the YouTube channel. Go ahead and give us a follow on YouTube because that helps us out as well. Um, but motivate, inspire, and encourage are the goals that we have for this podcast for our company. Welcome to episode 200. This episode is a continuation of a conversation conversation that we've been having that started all in episode 194 titled Someone Left You a House. So if you haven't listened to that, we'll go over that in a second. But welcome to episode 200. Thank you for being here. It's so fitting that what we're going to be talking about today is awesome because it's episode 200. The people that have got us here, the friends, the family, specifically the friends that have helped us get to this place. Thank you for that. Thank you for listening. If you're a first-time listener, thank you wherever you're listening. Thank you to whoever maybe recommended you to listen to this podcast. I hope it doesn't disappoint. But give us a rate and uh follow us wherever you excuse me, listen to this podcast because it helps us out, gets us out even more. 200 episodes in, so it'll help us continue to get better. To go on to episode 300, right? So episode 200, we decided to go forward with this episode with this topic just because there's some outside circumstances that were going on that was trying to make something happen, and it just could not work out. So we're gonna get going. School's back in session here in Texas. Both my girls have started school last week. This summer has come to an end. Dance is in full swing for us. Friday night football, Tuesday night football, I think Thursday night football. There's gonna be a lot of football. So I'm excited about that. But more than anything, I'm excited about college football. Really don't care about the NFL, but the Longhorns. Uh, those of you that are listening, wherever you're listening, sorry for you. But um, I'm a Longhorn fan. Those of you that have listened for a while know that. So I don't know where you're at, but Texas is full on on fire. I thought summer was going to be coming to an end. Cooler weather, we're waiting for that, but it is 100 degrees for the next I don't know how many days, but so grateful again that you're listening to this podcast. And going into today, if you have not listened to episode 194, 95, 96, and 198, you can pause this episode and go back and listen to those because they build up to this episode today. If you don't, it's totally okay. But I wanted to make sure before we jump into this episode that I give you a recap of those four episodes. And here's what it is 194. Episode 194, we learned that someone gave us a house. You drive up, you see this house, you notice it's going to take some work, and you sit and accept that this house is now yours. You see the blueprint, and the blueprint is an act is the action step. It's a free scorecard that gives you a blueprint of your life. So this house represents your life. And what I did was I gave you access to a scorecard that actually you can go take this for free wherever you're listening. It's w dot madeformore consulting.com backslash scorecard, and it's a free scorecard. It tells you the blueprint of your life, eight areas of your life, and where maybe you need to work on something. That's where this whole series came from. Is if we're gonna renovate a home, it doesn't happen in one day, it doesn't happen in one week, it does sometimes doesn't happen in one year. So if our life is made up of eight areas and we want to renovate an area of our life, why do we think it's gonna change overnight? It's not. So episode 194 was all about the blueprint of the scorecard. Here it is, and if you haven't taken that scorecard, go check it out. Episode 195, we take a step into the first room. We go into the home, we unlock the door, we go into this room that holds everything together, and that's the room of health, like our health. If you and I don't take care of this room, it's not gonna take care of us. A lot of what we do in life stands in this room of health. Episode 196, this is where we just discuss finances. If our attitude about finances and money is off, we're gonna be we're gonna be going to give, we're gonna be giving away our power to money. And yes, money carries power, but if it carries power over you, then everything you do, everything that you're trying to do, is gonna be generating power from money instead of you giving money your power, it's taking it away from you. So money gives you the power to choose, the power to work, the power to budget, the power to spend, the power to save. But if it's carrying power over you, then the rest of your life you're gonna be searching for money. And and money's a good tool, but it's not something that you should be revolving your life around or my life around. And that's easier said than done. I promise you that. I promise you. Episode 197, the last episode before we kind of cut off and started this renovate course that you'll hear about in a second. We went personal here. We went upstairs, I believe, or I think we went downstairs. And um every one of us has this next room, and it looks different for all of us. Some of us have a lock on this room, some of us have love this room, some of us have to work on this room, and this is a room of family. Every one of us has a family. Some of us are proud of our family, some of us are embarrassed of our family, some of us have hurt from our family, some of us are excited, and we celebrate our family, and that's what this room is. So that's episode 197 about family, and that's the recap of episode 94, 95, 96, and 197, and then you jump to episode um I'm sorry, 198 was family. Uh so then you jump into today's today's episode. That's a recap of the podcast that's gonna lead us to where we are today. But before we jump into this podcast, I need you to listen to this. If you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that everything we talk about comes back to one thing showing up for yourself the way you show up for everyone else. Earlier this year, we launched something for the first time ever, a six-week life group coaching program called Renovate. And the people who went through it changed. They stopped feeling busy and stuck, they started making real progress in the rooms of their life that mattered most. Round two is coming. October 5th. That is the date I want you to write down right now. I'm not ready to open the doors just yet, but I want you to know it's coming and I want you to be ready. Spots will be limited just like the last time. Stay close, follow the podcast, follow made for more on social because when the doors open, they won't be open long. October 5th, renovate round two. I will see you there. Back to the podcast. Now it's time to walk into the next room, room number four. So remember, as we do this, if this is the first time you've ever listened to this, I want you to use your imagination. I've asked us every time we've done a podcast about our room, our renovate this house. I've asked you to close your eyes and use your imagination as a kid to go back. I want you to imagine you're in this house that has been given to you. You're downstairs, and you're walking around the corners of this room that you just walked out of, the family room, and you know that you've been through the finance room, you've been through the health room, and now you're walking around, you see this door that that's shut. It may not be locked, but it's shut. But before you enter this room, before you enter this room and you turn the doorknob, I want you to picture something. I want you to know that this room on the door is labeled friends. Now, but behind this door can be some hurt, some fun times, some amazing times, some loss, some excitement, some downright best times of your life. So before we can walk into this room, before you take your hand and you turn the doorknob to walk in, I want you to take a deep breath. I want you to close your eyes and go back in time when you were a kid with your best friend. Maybe it's a few friends. It doesn't have to just be one or your best friend. Maybe you have a few. But I want you to go back to when you were a kid as that person, and maybe be watching from a distance. The way you interacted with those friends. Who was that person? Who was your best friend? Who were the people that you were hanging out with that day? Go back to a certain date or moment or time or specific event when you were with your friends. What would y'all do? I want you to go back in time where it was just fun. What does that look like? What were y'all doing? What does it smell like? Where were you where were y'all? I think when I think about this with my eyes closed, I go back to a time that we lived in a trailer park, and this kid named Justin, we would ride bikes together and we'd have fun, and every time the sun would go behind the clouds, Justin would freak out and say, Hey, I have to go home because it's getting dark. And I would laugh because I was like, That's just the shade. But I remember Justin being one of my really good friends because we both lived in this trailer park, and then when he moved, it was hard to keep in touch with him, but he moved to Midland, which was 15 or 20 minutes away. Maybe not even that, but as a kid, it's like a lifetime away, and you rarely get to see your friend. But then when I would go to Justin's house in Midland, we'd have fun. It was just like picking up back when we were when we were smaller. But I spent so much time with Justin riding around the trailer park, riding on our on our bikes, going over to his house, he coming over to mine. But I want you to go back because I want you to remember what it was like to be around your friend and just smile and laugh. And as an adult, when are those times that you just laugh so hard that you go, man, I I just could not stop laughing. Do you remember what it was like to have no worries and just be friends before you had to go back home? Before your curfew was up. I want you to go back. And step into the room. The reason I wanted you to think about the moment as a kid was because I don't want you to carry in all the crap that comes with being an adult and having friends as an adult. Like some of us forget what it's like to have those friends when you just laugh and that they're there for you and you're there for them because there's hurt involved and somebody's got their feelings hurt. I just want you to forget about all that and walk into this room, remembering what it was like to have friends as a kid. So when you walk into this room, is it empty? Is it full of clutter, full of hurt? Or maybe it's empty and alone. Maybe that's the reason you avoid this room because you've chosen to leave this room empty. Maybe there was someone in your life that that that got taken way too early, and that's why it's empty. So what does this room look like? When I gave you the the questions, the scorecard in week one, in that episode 194. I believe it was 194 is what I'd said. These are the questions that come up when we begin to discuss friends. And as you listen, I want you to rate yourself on a scale of one to ten, one meaning this is not true, or ten meaning this is very true. There's seven questions when it comes to friends, and this is what we base our scorecard off of. So answer these questions for me. Number one. I have people in my life that I can be completely honest with. I have people in my life that I can be completely honest with. One meaning no, I don't. Ten meaning, yeah. This is so true. I would say these are people that will accept you for who you are, but they're also gonna push you. Number two, I invest time and energy in friendships consistently. I invest time and energy into my friendships consistently. I would say that consistently is a key word. How many times consistently? I mean, I'd say a couple times a month. You keep in contact with these people. It's not like you're a boyfriend, girlfriend relationship where you always have to be texting them and reaching out, but it's a friendship. You spend some intentional time with them consistently. So on a scale of one to ten, do you invest time and energy into this friendship consistently? One meaning no, ten is yes. Where do you fall on that scale? Number three, I feel genuinely supported by my by the people around me. I feel genuinely supported by the people around me. And the key word being gen genuinely. That would be the key word for sure. The people that are around you, do they genuinely care about you? There's no ulterior motive here, there's no narcissistic tendencies that are they're trying to get something from you or you from them. It's genuine, pure. It's a scale of one to ten. Do you feel genuinely supported by those people? One being no, ten meaning very, very much so. Number four, I have at least one person. I have at least one person I can call in a crisis. Not just a good day. I have at least one person I can call in a crisis, not just on a good day. One I do, ten, I mean, one I don't have anyone, ten is yeah, I for sure have. And it's not just a good day, right? You don't just call them when everything's going well. Right now, if something horrible happened, right now, who would you call? That is the person we're talking about. If you have that person, that's who it is. If you don't, that's no problem. That's typically telling me there's opportunity for you to be that for someone else, right? Because you need that in your life, so you need to be that for someone else as well. Number five, I am intentional about building and maintaining meaningful friendships. I am intentional about building and maintaining meaningful friendships. One not true. Ten is very true. Building and maintaining is the key, right? Um, this is making sure that you check on them just as much as they check on you. There's no ulterior motives here as well. This is making sure you pour into that friendship just as much as they pour into you. Maintaining and building. When you build something, you consistently move forward. So are you doing that for someone? Are you being intentional about that? Or is it always when something comes up? You gotta ask yourself that. Number number six, my friendship is reciprocal. I give and I receive. My friendships are reciprocal. I receive and I give. Uh, this is this is where I think some things can get pretty hurtful. Uh, this is depending on what is going on in life. Uh, your friendships need to be give and receive, right? They need to be those things. But typically I see friendships in because this is out of priority. Somebody's always giving, someone's always taking. This person's exhausted, this person feels like they're never hurt or they're they're hurt and they're never gotten back to. Someone tends to take the other side and just gives, gives, and gives while the other's just taking, taking, and taking. And then things, when things get flipped out, someone didn't show up. So number six was my friendship, my friendships are reciprocal. I give and I receive. One true, ten. I mean one not true, ten very true. Last question. I feel a sense of community in my life. I feel a sense of community in my life. One yes, ten. I mean, one no. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna probably be confusing you guys. One no, that's not true. Ten is a very true, yes. I feel a sense of belonging and community in my life. This is one uh this is one key area because everyone wants to feel like they belong. I believe in life, everybody wants to feel like they belong. Everyone wants to be a part of something. It's I remember growing up watching Cheers, right? That song, everyone wants to be where you want to be where everybody knows your name. It's not everyone, but you want to be around people that, hey, I feel accepted here. I feel safe, I'm welcomed. There's nothing worse than walking into a room where you don't know anyone. Yes, it's an opportunity for you to get to know people, but when that becomes life, like every room that you step into and no one knows you at any time, that can be deflating and can be it can make you stay secluded and never want to step back out. If no one knows you anywhere, and that's what we're trying to avoid, is never knowing someone because you decided to stay back. So those are the seven questions that we ask on the scorecard. I would ask how you ranked. I'd ask you to go take the scorecard so that we can see this and you get a response back with a graph on where you landed. So as I wrap up this whole area of friendship, I often get asked, why do would why would I need to even open this door in this house? Why do I even need friends? Why renovate this room? Why work on this room? Why does it matter? So let me explain it this way. I remember going to a football game a few years ago. And you see, I'd been a youth pastor for years. Years. And I knew tons of people, I knew tons of families, parents, leaders, teachers, coaches. But then I stopped being a youth pastor for several years and what before I went to my first football game. And so you fast forward to those years. All the kids are out of school that I knew, all the parents are not showing up to these games, all the kids I knew graduated, and I pretty much didn't know too many people in the community anymore. I remember showing up to the football game because I wanted to go, and I walked into the bleachers on a Friday night, and there were hundreds of people, and I had no idea where I was going to sit. It was so overwhelmingly internal. It was I was so overwhelmed internally that I could hear the voices saying, You should just leave. You don't know anybody, and no one knows you, you don't matter, no one sees you, and that those voices are alive, and you may go, why would you even hear that? Because who I am, like internally, I love being an extrovert and knowing people. But when I stepped into the into the onto the bleachers and I looked up to try to find a seat in the sea of people, it became overwhelming because I'm like, what am I doing here? I don't know anybody. I knew I shouldn't have come. But that was the opportunity to fight and go, I'm just here to watch a game and try to get back into that community before my daughter starts showing up to these games. So I had to ask myself, why didn't I bring someone with me? Why don't I know anybody? People know me and I know them, but have I not invested in friendships? Because you see, when we get to these places where you want someone with you and you're alone, it's so easy to run the other way and shut the door and say, I'm never going back into this room. But it's also easy to go the other way and say, hey, might as well stay. I've learned my lesson. I'm gonna get to know someone, I'm gonna bring them with me. Because there's someone out there that probably feels the same way I do. So you see, in life, when we don't have these meaningful friendships, life can feel like those bleachers on a Friday night, and sometimes a college stadium, right? Full of thousands of people. Full of people that know that we don't know, and no one knows us. So do you have any? idea how lonely a life like that can be, how suffocating the feeling can be, that sick to your stomach feeling, it's loneliness. And we have to have people in our lives, not a million, not a thousand, not a hundred, but we need a few people in our lives that we can call friends. Ones that know us, can call us out, ones that can call on us and we can call on them, and ones that will just come sit with us. And yes, there are introverted people and there's extroverted people, but what I'm calling you to invest in is relationship, friendship. Be there for someone. Friendship that will impact your life and theirs. Not just yours, but theirs as well. So if you're listening to this podcast and you have you maybe let your friendships wander maybe they've been put on the back burner because you're investing too much time and work or too much time in certain things and you failed to prioritize this and you find yourself feeling lonely here's what I would recommend. I put a few things down that I would recommend excuse me. Number one, I just said make up your mind. Stop playing the soundtrack in your mind that you're okay being alone. That's not right. Make up the make up your mind and say this is definitely not true. I cannot stay in a world where I'm alone who in the world wants to be alone when it comes down to it no one does. Everyone can push people away but when it comes down to it you definitely know that you don't want to be alone. So stop playing that soundtrack in your mind. So make up your mind and stop playing that soundtrack. Number two, get on the offense. Get on the offense. Stop waiting for someone else to reach out to you reach out to me. And you may have to ask or you may be saying I knew you'd say that I knew you'd say I need to be the one that reaches out. Well what happened about give and receive and all that give and take I would say this is what I would say to myself I'm going to take ownership of my friendships and make sure that I give where I can first why? Because I also believe that the world will give you what you put out if you're going to put out loneliness depression anger resentment no one loves me no one's reaching out to me well guess what you're going to get in return? The same thing. But if I can reach out and be on the offense and start to begin to build some relationships it'll come back. So make up your mind get on the offense another one is start small. If this challenge for you if this is a challenge for you like if you feel like I'm an introvert and just hearing this is challenging to me then set a small goal. Say yes to going out with some friends once just once a month. You don't have to do it every single night every weekend just say yes once a month and then maybe move it to twice a month. And I'm not saying to have someone over every single night of the day every single night of the week or every single day but I'm saying stop saying no to every single opportunity and then saying that you feel lonely. People are reaching out so say yes and you don't take your own car like take your own car so that you can strategically say that I am putting myself at a place where I'm having to grow and outside my comfort zone. So when things get tough and I need to go ahead and leave and I've had enough then you can leave because I get it some people get peopled out really quick. That's okay. But don't use that as an excuse to say that you don't have friends right you don't need 20 close friends you don't even need 10. Get the number get the number game out of your head this isn't a Facebook or Instagram friendship thing. This is relationship that is meaningful and is um helps you as much as you help them it's it's someone who can be real and honest with you and you can be real and honest with them. It's not a numbers game. So make up your mind stop playing the soundtrack that you're going to be alone to get on the offense be the first one to move ask somebody to go with you go say yes. Number three start small you don't have to do every week and the last one is this look. Just look look for opportunities to show up at your friends stuff. Like do they play sports? Do they go do stuff? Like look for opportunities to show up look for opportunities to support their kids look for opportunities to invite them to support your kids things that you know there will be a lot of people at so that you can leave early and strategically again say I'm I'm helping myself grow by at least showing up and then you go hey when does this happen again I'll show up again start where there's no obligation like hand like you you're going to be stuck there for hours. It's okay to just start small and go, hey, I'm looking for opportunities to show up and support these people look for opportunities to support their kids. Look for opportunities to invite them to support you. But looking for opportunities to show up or invite people with you is a starting point where you go hey this is an opportunity where I don't have to do this alone. Friendship matters. So as we close I want you to remember that life is not meant to be lived alone. A life alone is a very obviously lonely place. That can mean physically alone or internally by not allowing anyone close and you keep everyone at arm's length but then we complain because we don't have anyone close or we're doing things alone we have to look at ourselves first and we have to hold the mirror up and say I have to take ownership of this. I have to get on the offense. I have to break this cycle of thinking and at the end of life I'm I don't I don't want you saying or myself saying I wish I would have invested more time in these people I wish I would have had better friends. I wish I would have had more friends I wish I would have been a better friend. I don't want us saying that in this arena when crap hits the fan and it will in life you have to have people that will have your back and come help you up. They help you pick up the pieces because if you've ever been that for someone and you've helped them pick up the pieces when they get a diagnosis call when something happens to their kids when a tragedy hits you know what it's like to show up and help them you don't want anything in return you just want to be there for them. Well there's people in your life that want to be that for you because on the flip side when you have a baby when you have a birthday when your kids have a birthday or a big day in a sport and you show up to celebrate and they're on the sidelines cheering you can't explain that feeling. It's so awesome to have people in your life that say yes to you and that you say yes to them so what I'm telling you is don't live a life alone and understand that friendship is a very important role on the scorecard but in life we get what we put out into the world and I want you to begin to renovate this room with small steps maybe it's just painting a wall by going hey I'm going to say yes this month to an outing and then maybe you start to put some things on the wall maybe you got to get rid of some things in this room but friendship is important. Friendship is meaningful the way you give and the way you receive so I appreciate you guys listening. I hope that you will take the opportunity to go to the website and click on the free scorecard take the scorecard and then in turn you'll get your results it's free there's nothing that we want we just want to give it to you so you can see where you where you can get better in life because that's what we promise and as we we say every episode 199 episodes in today it's the same. Remember we exist for more we're here to offer more don't ever give up every single one of us are made for more we'll talk to you guys later. See ya