The Friendship Blueprint: How to Build Deep Connections with Shane Gerhart

In this powerful episode of Overcome: A Mental Health Podcast, host Travis White sits down with Shane Gerhart, creator of The Friendship Blueprint, to explore how we can move from surface-level interactions to deep, authentic connection.

Shane shares his vulnerable journey of losing himself in the pursuit of popularity, the toll of emotional suppression, and how that inner pain cost him meaningful relationships. Through years of reflection and intentional growth, Shane developed The Friendship Blueprint—a 6-step framework that empowers people to build lasting friendships with purpose, trust, and emotional depth.

This conversation is packed with insight for anyone struggling with loneliness, anxiety in social settings, or simply craving more meaningful connection.

What We Discussed

• Shane’s journey from masking to healing through friendship
• How emotional suppression fuels anxiety, burnout, and isolation
• Why we often feel invisible in crowded rooms
• The myth that “real friends should just reach out”
• The six pillars of The Friendship Blueprint
• How to move a friend from casual to close with intentionality
• What “ankle-deep vulnerability” looks like in healthy connection
• How social media and texting have rewired modern friendship
• The role of reflection, follow-up, and serving others in friendship
• Rewiring your brain to believe you're worthy of real connection
• The biggest mental health myths Shane wants to see challenged

Follow us today, let's end the stigma together.

Explore The Friendship Blueprint: www.thefriendshipblueprint.com
Follow Shane on Instagram: @theauthenticfriend

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Friendship and Mental Health
• 2:00 Shane’s Journey: From Fitting In to Feeling Invisible
• 6:30 Social Anxiety in Crowded Rooms
• 10:00 The Cost of Emotional Suppression
• 15:30 What Is the Friendship Blueprint?
• 21:00 Understanding the Three Levels of Friendship
• 27:30 The Power of Ankle-Deep Vulnerability
• 34:00 Reflecting & Following Up: The Missing Links in Modern Friendship
• 39:00 Friendship vs. Being Served
• 45:00 Rewiring Beliefs & Mental Health
• 52:00 How Technology Has Changed Friendship
• 58:30 Advice for Those Feeling Invisible
• 1:02:00 Where to Find Shane & Final Thoughts

Transcript

Travis White (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Overcome a Mental Health Podcast. I am your host, Travis White, and this is a place where you can share your mental health stories. I'm very excited for today's guest. We are speaking with Shane Gearhart. He is the creator of the Friendship Blueprint. Welcome to the show, Shane.

Shane Gerhard (00:21)
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

Travis White (00:24)
my pleasure. And without further ado, I'm just going to turn the time straight over to Shane and he's going to take us through his journey.

Shane Gerhard (00:32)
Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to just take a moment, just sharing my story so you kind of understand where I'm coming from. But, you know, a lot of the times people can see me as like a friendship expert, someone who's figured it out, someone who's like, everything's going great, but that is not how it started. You know, really, I think my journey is very similar to a lot of people where I started off just as a kid wanting to have friends, wanting to be accepted, wanting to belong, you know, not knowing and having those words.

necessarily in my heart is, you know, as a kid, just saying like, Hey, I want to make some friends. want a friend here to just play with. Right. And, but the problem that arises with this situation is there was no one really teaching anything about friendship. Like my parents didn't sit me down and say, Hey, here's your social skills. Here's how you do it. Here's how you follow up with someone. Here's how you connect. And so I was kind of just left to figure it out on my own. And what's the way that most of us learn it's typically through.

watching other people do things. And so I, where did I get my information? But TV and movies and seeing what other people did. So I'd watch what kids would do when they were fitting in and I'd watch like what movies, like how did they respond to friends? And you know, it's so funny cause it's all so wrong. It's just the best thing. But I got this belief in my head that says, well, for me to be, have like that sense of belonging to be accepted, then that means I need to have a lot of friends.

But when you have the desire for a lot of friends, you're willing to let go of who you really are to achieve that. Your morals drop, your values drop, who you are and your identity goes away to fit in. And that's what I did. I was in this position when I was just a little kid and I was kind of in a fork in the road. I had just one or two friends, which looking back, I was like, man, I wish I just invested in and fully committed to those two friendships. But that was kind of in this fork in the road, like, Hey, do I go down this road and be popular?

Fit in and do all the things that all these kids do that I don't really enjoy Or do I stick it out with my two friends and just enjoy being like just us three? Well, I did not choose the right decision. I Was like, you know, I'm gonna be popular. So I went I got a haircut because this is why I saw movies I saw on TV shows you want to do it just change everything about you do a whole makeover because that's what they show I bought new clothes change my haircut change the way I walk change the way I talked did everything and I began fitting in

Travis White (02:48)
Mm-hmm.

Shane Gerhard (02:59)
It like it worked and I did this for years, but it was interesting because I started having, I didn't recognize at the time, but it was really social anxiety. I was always so alert of how everyone responded to anything I said or did. I was always watching to make sure that I was fitting in. I was always trying to make sure like, okay, did my joke land? I was always making sure like, okay, did I make everyone laugh? they didn't laugh. my gosh. I must not be fitting in now. Everything was just thrown up in the air of like confusion and like

freaking out and I did this for years and years and years and years and it got to the point where I was such a chameleon that I didn't know who I was at all. I didn't know what I liked. I didn't know what I enjoyed because I only liked what other people liked. If they liked a certain type of music, I'd start listening to music because that's what would get me to fit in. And even though I'm like, man, this is not good. I don't enjoy this. I was just like, all right, well, let's just keep pressing on. Let's get cheap doing it anyways.

And then found myself when I was about 20 years old, I was surrounded by all my quote unquote friends. And yet I felt so alone. I felt like, man, no one knows me. I don't belong here. And anytime that you feel like no one knows you or you feel alone or you feel hurt, like a sense of belonging or not belonging really begins to rise up. And that's what I had. And I was like, well, maybe I'll just leave.

But when you leave your location, your problems tend to follow you. And so I ended up, was dedicated. was like, you know what? need to figure this out. I want friendships, but I want it the real way. I want to have authentic, meaningful friendship where they care about me, where they pursue me, where I'm loved. And so I spent 10 years of my life. spent over a decade learning relationships, learning like, romantic relationships, platonic relationships, like every, anything I can get my hands on. And I ended up in this place where I'm like, okay,

I spent a decade going after this. What is friendship? Like what is a friend? And I was like, how do I figure this out? How do I, how do you build friendships? mean, I fortunately was able to grow and like, man, I had to overcome so much, which I love this podcast and what you're going after and overcoming certain things because it wasn't just learning skills. was overcoming the mental limiting beliefs that I carried for so

many years and unlearning all the wrong mental things that I acquired over the last several years, like, you know, first 20 years of my life. And I ended up going to my room and I was like, all right, I to write this down. What does this look like? And I wrote down so many different things. I literally looked like a madman, just like losing my hair, like pulling everything. I was like, how does this work? I literally had a whiteboard filled with like hundreds of different friendship dynamics and different things. And

I finally like got, once I got everything out my head and started organizing it, I realized friendship came down to just six elements, just six and everything else kind of like there's a little subcategories and everything that you can dive into, but it's so simple and so easy that it's easy to forgo. But when I finally got that, I'll say, all right, this is it. This is the framework. This is the system. This is friendship done completely differently than anything else taught out right now, or completely against the culture. And that's what the friendship blueprint is. That's what we created on.

within the authentic friend and framework and completely different way of doing friendship now.

Travis White (06:12)
That's really cool and it's all because you kind of picked that popular route and lost yourself.

Shane Gerhard (06:18)
Mm-hmm.

I definitely lost myself.

Travis White (06:22)
So you mentioned that you were in these crowds, but yet you felt invisible. Why do you think that kind of loneliness in like the crowded rooms is so common, even though we feel so connected?

Shane Gerhard (06:37)
Usually it's because we've never expressed our needs to anyone in the room. A lot of times if you're become this like kind of high functioning at all, like a lot of times we can either become on one side of the room, right? Where either social butterflies who can like just know what it means to just fit in, which means you suppress who you actually are in that capacity or you're on the other side where you're a bit more.

Fearful of even sharing your needs because you don't want to be too much and if I'm too much then I'm gonna push my friends away and they're gonna reject me so either way your your balance on this beam of like hiding who you are and so you begin to get lost when you And we feel alone a lot of time because we never actually Express the desires of our heart and what we're needing and that could be as simple as like man. I just need you to text me I just need someone to just reach out

And we just leave it be. And a lot of, especially men do this mostly. This is, I mean, women do this as well, but you'll find it more in men where we'll go, it's fine. It's no big deal. I'm all right. It is what it is. And that is going to destroy your mental health because you're ignoring the signs of the emotions that we're feeling. And what happens is most of us, begin to push down our emotions so much that I have this like, you know,

When you push your own, your emotions, it's almost like pushing them down into a cellar that has no light and that gets moldy and crusty and just the worst thing, the worst smells. And it's like, man, it becomes bitterness. It becomes resentment. It becomes this feeling of alone and depression when in reality we're meant to deal and process all the emotions that come into us. But we don't, we hide it.

Travis White (08:24)
Yeah, that's very true and I have a personal experience with that. It's like when I first got married, I'm known to like shut down when certain things happen and that's what exactly what I do. I just push it down like I'm okay, I'm fine, but my wife is always like, no, you need to communicate with me. You need to open up and tell me what's going on so I can know how to help you.

Shane Gerhard (08:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, that's exactly right. It becomes almost like a skill. It's a muscle that you have to grow. We're so used to it because that's what we're taught in movies. Again, we're learning the social dynamics through movies and television. it's like, if you might not be learning it, but maybe your friends learned it, maybe your father learned it from that dynamic. And now it's being passed down and rearranged through this. And it's like through the culture that's a broken culture that's telling you how to manage your feelings by just

Don't talk about it. You're good. Or they call you names. put you down and they like, they cuss at you and they're like, no, do not show that, you know, however we might learn it.

Travis White (09:23)
Yeah. And so during this period of time when you were in these crowded rooms and, you know, like not being seen and you realized that people weren't seeing the true version of yourself, what emotional toll did that take on you?

Shane Gerhard (09:40)
man, there's definitely a level of fear and shame and hurt that came along with that. But it was a lot of the time, like in the moment itself, it felt like it was fine. But I remember there was a moment like a little bit later, I was just learning how to process my emotions. And all of sudden, when I started learning just like basic ways of just acknowledging my emotions,

There was like a two week period where all I did was just cry and I didn't even know why. was literally talking to like a mentor of mine. I'm like, why am I crying? It's like, I don't know what's happening. I'm not, nothing's coming to mind. Like I'm not remembering a memory. I'm just crying. And they're just looked at me like you've suppressed your emotions for so long. It's finally coming out and it's going to be messy and it's going be really, really messy. But it's hard to, cause it's, it's so easy to go so many years.

without ever pressing into this because of the, get so used to the pain. We get so used to like, it's fine, it's okay. And it's like, it's hard to say in that exact moment what the emotional toll was, but I do know what it cost me. I do know it cost me many friendships. I lost so many friendships because of my own emotional pain, because I didn't know how to care for them, because I didn't know how love them. Or I lost so many friendships because I would rather

I developed this sense of rejection in my life through the pain and the hurt that I experienced and I was so overly fixated on being rejected that I wanted to protect myself by rejecting them first. And even though they weren't really actually showing any signs of going to reject me or hurt me, I'm just like, you know what, before I get hurt, I'm rejecting you and I'm leaving this friendship. I'm abandoning, I'm getting off this ship, I'm out of here. And so it cost me many friendships. cost me very, probably a lot of...

partnerships and deals and probably where I would live my whole life trajectory is different because of like the pain I never decided to go after at the time

Travis White (11:38)
And you've got to love when that anxiety kicks in and something that's not factual just plays into your mind and you think you just have to push people or things out of the way.

Shane Gerhard (11:45)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The, ⁓ one of the components within the friendship blueprint that we teach is that you need to reflect after every single hangout that you have with someone. And this is a part that like kind of separates us from anything else out there is we want you to take a moment after you hang out with someone and just process what happened. Like a lot of the time, and this really comes down to like, if something irked you or really not. mean, if you have a, history of pushing emotions aside and saying it's fine, then you definitely need to do this.

But even more so if like there was actually something that hurt you or offended you, it's like one little moment within a hangout, like whether maybe you thought something that was wrong, maybe you had this thought like, ⁓ I'm too much right now. I talked too much. I must have put too much weight on them or vice versa. It's like, man, maybe they interrupted you like three times and you're hurt. And you're like, man, like they don't care about me. They just keep talking over me. If you don't process those things out, if you don't take time to just, just to write it down and acknowledge it, then

that story grows and grows and grows into something way bigger than it was ever meant to be. It just spirals.

Travis White (12:52)
Yeah, I remember that I used to, back in college years and years ago, I'm feeling pretty old now. I would suppress my feelings to the point where like ⁓ a roommate would like just take me off to the point and I would just blow up at them. And I'm sure I've ruined some friendships in that way, but, and it's just crazy like what not dealing with your emotions could just do.

Shane Gerhard (13:01)
Yeah

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for every person, it looks so different. And what's interesting is that your mind begins to try and validate itself. So it always looks to confirm your inward belief. So if you have a belief that someone's going to hurt you or reject you or push you around, even if they won't, your mind is going to look for those answers. They're going to look for something to confirm and validate the belief that you have.

whether it's true or not. And that's something that we have to be really, really aware of. And it's going to show up in differently. A lot of men, it tends to come out in anger or frustration, or might come in from separation, shutting down, just leaving the picture completely. It looks different in so many different ways, but it's a necessary muscle that we have to develop, which is reflecting and just processing. And sometimes that means getting your own share, having a place that you go to to reflect.

Like don't have the chair that you work in all day be the chair you sit in when you're reflecting. But if it has to be, what I used to do is I would take my chair, move it to a totally different part of the room, face it a completely different direction. And then that would be my space. So anytime I got there and I would sit down in that way, then it's like, boom, it's time to reflect. It's time to process. Or I used to, when I was younger, I used to have a rock at a park. I would go to this rock all the time and I had a certain place I would go to exercise the muscle of reflecting.

Travis White (14:48)
It's cool. It's like, yeah, that change of scenery and kind of, it's like a known spot to kind of get your mind in the right place. So yeah, I'd love for you to go more into the pillars of the friendship blueprint and how they move people from surface level interactions to something deeper.

Shane Gerhard (15:00)
Exactly.

Yeah, and that's a key point, right? The friendship blueprint is not a tool on how to make new friends. Let's just make that clear. It's a tool on how to make one person and take them and go deeper. So how to take one person and go deeper in the friendship with them. So it's like, how do you maintain and actually have this deeper connection with someone for a long term? That's what the friendship blueprint's for. And so it is really simple. It's almost so simple that you could just not do it.

And so the first piece is the foundational component. So you need to understand your needs and then get on the same page with them. So understanding your needs, meaning like, Hey, what do I, what do I need from this friendship right now? And a way that we help people figure that out is by helping them discover what I call the friendship circles. Now there's three categories, but seven circles. And I'll just keep it very simple for the categories for now.

But essentially you have the first one, is the environmental friends. The environmental friends are the friends that you typically only see when you go to a specific location, or maybe you only see them when you're hanging out in a friend group. Like it's like a friend of a friend, but you only see them when you do it, but you don't technically reach out to them on your own. Maybe you see them at work or at the gym. And like there's people like I built friendships, but I only see them at the gym. If I take away the gym, then I don't really have the basis of a friendship anymore with that person.

And so you have your environmental friends and then you have the second circle, which is the chosen circle. These are the people that you find enjoyment with. These are the people that you're like, I want to pursue you. Like I'm choosing you. I want a deeper friendship with you. This is typically where the friendship blueprint comes in. In a lot of ways, it's like the intentionality that behind your desire for friendship services. And you're like, Hey, I want to be friends with you. And then you have the third circle, which is the inner one, which are these are the people that you have.

not only pursue a relationship with, but you both are committed to each other. You desire the best for that person. These are your ride or die. These are like your four or five people that know you the best. Like outside of your spouse, they know you better than anyone else. And they are on this journey with you. And a lot of people, what they think of when they think friends, like I want friends, usually they're referring to inner circle friends most of the time. But it's unfortunate we have.

one word to describe so many different features of friendship. You know, I studied this within scriptures and scripture has seven words for friendship, all discerning a different component too, which is fascinating. Many different cultures have like seven, eight, 10 words to describe the different places of friendship, which is awesome. But what you essentially do is you have to understand your needs and you know your needs based off the circle you're in and the circle you are going to. So if you're...

have someone who's in the environmental stage, you only see them when you go and you're hanging out with a friend group or you only see them when you're at the gym or you only hang out and see them when you go to a coffee shop or wherever it may be. Well, now you're trying to get them to a place where you're meeting outside of that place. Well, what do you need for that? What does that look like for you? How does that like, what changes is like, okay, well for them, I just need to get to know them more. I just need a place, a change of scenery. I just need like,

Maybe you need to like feel comfortable sharing like more information and being more vulnerable with them. Like, what does that look like for you? Right. And so, and that's going to look different if you're taking someone from like the chosen circle to the inner circle. Well, maybe you need to feel safe with them. Maybe you need to trust that like when you share something, they're not going to go around sharing it with others. You know, it's all shifts in there. So you understand your needs and then you get on the same page, which means you communicate your desire for friendship with that person.

Then you go to the next step, which is you initiate. Now I tell people, like especially everyone that does the friendship blueprint, like you need to take on the identity of the initiator. You are the one who now initiates. If you have the desire, if you have the feeling that it is now your responsibility to take action and reach out to that person, not wait for them to reach out to you. And so you initiate the hang and we show you steps within the friendship blueprint, like different ways on how you can do that and be prepared for it. And then the third step is just hang out with them.

Now, when it comes to hanging out, I teach what's called ankle deep vulnerability in modern day culture in so many places. And it is true. You do build connection with people when you're vulnerable, but lately people have been teaching that that you to go just share everything, share your deep dark secret. It's like, Whoa, hold on there. If you're anything like me, you've done this and it's backfired. It's like, yeah.

Travis White (19:47)
I've done that. I've

done that.

Shane Gerhard (19:50)
It's so commonly taught, it's so frustrating. It's like you share so much and then they don't want to be around you anymore. It's like, what the heck? That's not how this is supposed to work. But what we're doing is we're trying to skip the process. We're trying to accelerate making friendships when they don't actually have the relational equity with us to actually understand the needs we have when we share deep, vulnerable things. A lot of the time, they just don't know you.

And most of us, most of us have this desire. We have this connection. When someone feels sad, we feel sad. We have empathy within each other. And a lot of times if someone shares something so deep and vulnerable and heavy, we want to care for that person, just naturally human ingrained mentality. And what happens because we don't know you, we don't know how to do that. We don't know how to care for you in that moment. So we get uncomfortable and a lot of us don't even have words for it. Like most people can't say,

Huh, I'm uncomfortable because I don't know you and I don't know how to care for you in this moment. They're just like, whoa, I don't know what to do with that. And so they're just like the next, so they feel uncomfortable. And now the next time they see you, it just resurfaces because most of us, don't sit there in the thick of it and work it out. It's like, whoa, I'm uncomfortable when I see you now. And now it's like, this friend is gone. And so we teach ankle deep vulnerability. It's controlled emotion. It's being able to take it slowly but surely our whole system for that.

when to look for them, how to go deeper and what to do in those process. And it's really fascinating and amazing on the progress that it can actually get you if you take it a little bit slower. And then you go from ankle deep vulnerability, you go from hanging out with them on just a regular basis to, all right, reflect. That's the next step. Step four is after you hang out, you reflect, you process these things. And the fifth thing is what you do after you reflect is you follow up with them. This is the biggest thing that I noticed within ⁓ the younger generation, Chen Z.

They're really good at making friends. They're like really phenomenal at it. Like I watch a ton of vlogs. I talk to a lot of people that are like, you know, anywhere between like 17 to 25 and they're incredible at making friends. They don't know how to maintain them though. They don't know how to go deeper with them. And this is the part that they're missing is the follow-up. And there's three types of follow-ups. You have follow-up to hang out again. You have a follow-up to just start a conversation and you have a follow-up to get clarity on something that happened.

So this is where you bring up like, Hey, was I too much? Hey, did I talk too much? Hey, you said this kind of thing. And I just had a question about it. Like you're getting clarity. And then the last part, which is repeat. Now you just do the whole step over and over and over again. And we dive deep into this because it, there's studies that show it takes 200 hours to make a best friend. 200 hours and

Travis White (22:35)
That's crazy.

Shane Gerhard (22:38)
It is crazy. And as an adult, that's like almost seems impossible as a, as a kid, that's easy. You can knock that out ASAP. Like, that's why, that's why so many of us had so many friendships. And when you were younger is because I would, it's, I call it forced consistency. We were forced to be in a consistent place with our friends day in and day out on a regular basis.

Travis White (22:42)
⁓

Yeah.

Shane Gerhard (23:02)
with school and then sports after, and if we did anything afterwards, like if our parents were friends, then I'm seeing you on a regular basis and we're clocking those hours and all of a sudden you have a best friend really quickly. But now as an adult, it gets much harder, which is why it's so important to start this now. And so instead of taking 200 hours to make a best friend, I tell people, do the friendship blueprint, all six steps, 200 times with one person, and you will have a best friend. But you have to start now. We can't wait.

But that's in its simplicity. But of course it goes much deeper in that, of course.

Travis White (23:35)
You spoke about like follow-up and sometimes I feel like the follow-up could feel almost forced. What strategies do you recommend to make that feel natural and meaningful?

Shane Gerhard (23:49)
Yeah, it's so to make it natural and meaningful, I would recommend, mean, the number one thing that you have to do is just maintain who you are. Like we teach people, we give people templates, like we give them guides, we give them structure, we give them systems on how to follow up. But if you just copy and paste, or if you just go into chat to BT and you just say, Hey, write a follow up message for this. And it's not authentic to you. That's where the area like it's really foggy and murky. Like

Keep everything authentic to you. But I teach people like, depending on how you're following up, I use a formula. I go with appreciate, express, and suggest. So, and when we're talking about follow up, I'm assuming you're talking about like getting clarity, right? Like something, yeah, something happened and you're like, hey, we need to talk about this, right? And so it's, I start with appreciating, like, hey, I really enjoyed our time yesterday. That was great. Like I had such a fun time. asked like,

Travis White (24:32)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Shane Gerhard (24:48)
Honestly, it was a, asked great questions. It was really good. Like I felt like you were pursuing me. It was awesome. I wanted to, bring something up. felt like it was sometimes hard to respond because sometimes I share and then you get excited and kind of, kind of talk over me. And it felt like a bit interrupted. and then this is where you go into suggest. So you, you appreciate it, you expressed and now you suggest like, Hey, next time can, can we weigh like when you.

ask me a question, can you give me some time to respond? I know you want to hear it. I know you're just excited, but I just need a moment to like kind of just get my, my thoughts out first. That's like one little example, right? Or maybe they're, maybe they're not asking questions like, Hey, I really enjoyed our time. I loved how present you were. personally, it kind of felt like, you weren't asking too many questions. Like I wasn't feeling pursued in that area.

next time, can we take some time and kind of let you take the lead in that area and kind of like press more into the questions and you're kind of suggesting something like keeping it open. It's not like, Hey, do this one thing. That's where we can get controlling and manipulative. That's where like, if you want to, if you want to avoid being controlling and vindictive in certain areas, it's like, all right, leave the hand open. Like go to them with an open hand, meaning you're not set on how this is going to roll out. You're not set on how it's going to end and what it's going to look like.

at the end of the day, you're just like, hey, this is where we're at. Like, hey, are you open to this? Are you open to this shift? What do you think? Bringing them in to be able to express or maybe you just need understanding, right? Like you're, what you're looking to do is going to shape the communication style that you use. So you have to understand why are you following up with them? Are you following up because you just want to, you want to get connection? Something felt really off? Well, that's going to look different than if you're trying to understand them more. It's like, ah, I just don't understand why they did this thing.

Or maybe something like you're trying to see something different happen in the relationship. Like you want to see change in the friendship. creating connection, understanding them and creating change are three different ways of communicating. And they're going to look a little bit different, then, you start there with why, why am I following up with this person? Or maybe you're just trying to be heard. Maybe you don't need anything. Maybe you just like, I just want you to know this.

that I was felt this way, but I don't need a solution right now. don't, I don't need us to fix this. I just want you to be aware, you know, start with why if you keep it natural, keep it who you are. Don't go to like Chats to be T and like have like, maybe it's a good really starting point. love Chats to be, I use it all the time, but it loses who you are when you use it and just, yeah.

Travis White (27:18)
Yeah, you... Sorry,

I didn't mean to cut you off. You lose authenticity, you're not being yourself, for sure.

Shane Gerhard (27:24)
Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. You lose authenticity, like stay natural and understand why you're following up. If you do those few things, like you're going to be golden. It's going to be much easier and much more natural for you.

Travis White (27:38)
This is all so cool. Like, it's, and it makes me happy that I've actually, I mean, being as old as I am, that I've actually chosen just a few friends to keep in touch with and try to build those real connections. But most of it too is I don't have time to go out and make any new friends either. Like, get out far and few in between. But it just made me think of a question though, like, what is...

Shane Gerhard (27:53)
Yeah.

Travis White (28:06)
Friendship means you now compared to back then.

Shane Gerhard (28:09)
Hmm. That's a great question. Wow. It really depends. You know, one thing I've just been sitting on in so many different ways is trying to understand what is a friend. And I don't know if I've really come to a conclusion on that because every time I think I get closer, it really comes down to what type of friend, you know, like I mentioned, there's three categories of friendship, the environmental, chosen and inner, but there's seven circles, right? You have.

the surrounding friends, have, uh, familiar friends, friends that like you see in that spot. And when you see him, you're glad to see him, but you don't look for them when you're there. You have your comfort friends, which is like when you're already in the environment, you are looking for them. And there's different versions of that. Right. And it's so interesting. Cause when you talk to someone, when I talk to someone, it's like, what it's figuring out when they say friend, what are they referring to? And more than not, it's usually saying

someone's talking about, I'm looking for an inner circle. I'm looking for the ride or die people. I'm looking for the three, four people that I can devote my life to in some capacity that like is there when I need them in my pain and my discomfort. And so each one really has a different definition. And one thing I've really come to learn in my life right now is that it's one, okay to have a lot of friends. And two, it's okay that friendships don't go deeper than where they're at. And then three,

There's different levels of friendship for every single person that you're at and that's okay. And that's fine. So friendship to me has shifted significantly because before, especially when I had all these limiting beliefs about friendship and really, mean, I wouldn't say I have hundred percent overcome everything. see there's still work to do. don't personally, I don't believe in things like arrival. I think that actually hurts us more than helps us. So I just remove the idea of revival and it's like just constant.

work, which is what I love about what you're doing with mental health. It's like, this is a constant F like intentionality that we have to have. But I love that question because I, it means so much more to me than it ever did. It's because I think if I were to sum it up in a legal phrase of what is friendship mean differently now is friendship is one of the more important things in my life at this moment. I think I've encountered the weight of

how important friendship is and I don't think I valued it as much. Like, I did not value friendship when I was younger. I valued being accepted, but I didn't value friendship as a pursuit of another person that I love and care about and choose and want to pour into and serve and love and care for. It was always about me. Actually, I think that's probably what I would say. I would say that my shift in friendship

was that friendship in the past was all about me. How can you love me? How can you serve me? How can you be there for me? And now it's become more, how can I be there for you? How can I love you? Taking down the mentality of like, well, if they don't pursue me, then they're not a good friend. Like that's, that is the wrong thing. It's like, I've been posting on social media. And so right now, like my social media is filled with friendship content. I just get tons of stuff of what people are saying with friendship.

And that is the most common thing I hear. Like, if your friend doesn't reach out to you, cut them off. But here's the thing. Right now, our country is the most lonely it's ever been in history and recorded data. And this is not, they have like the UCLA loneliness scale is what they're using currently. And a couple others that they kind of partner together for depression and anxiety and all these areas. And this is how they're measuring it. They're getting factual data since the seventies, since it existed to determine like, whoa, there is an incredible rise in loneliness.

And so our culture is the most lonely it's ever been. And here they are, the advice they have for all people on social media is cut them out. Just cut out all your friends. If they don't serve you in some way, cut them out. And I'm like, whoa, hold on. The more I learn about friendship, the more I learn it's not about me. You feel truly fulfilled in life when you love and serve another person. When you pour into them and you make it less about you and more about them.

How can I pursue you? How can I love you? How can I care for you? One of the things that it's so fascinating is you never actually feel a sense of belonging until you give to the community that you're part of. So if everything about that community is about serving you in some capacity, giving you something, then you actually lose that sense of belonging. But when you change, it's like, you know, the people who have the most school pride are the people who play the most sports are in leadership are the ones who are like,

consistently involved in school activities and one who hates school and don't want anything to do with it, usually just show up and then leave. It's so fascinating. They did some studies on this too, and it's like a marriage principle as well. And they found that like parents begin to have an increasingly large bond with their children the more they serve them because it's unconditional servanthood. They're serving with no expectation of anything getting given back to them.

And what happens is, in marriages, that the parents serve the child so much that they stop serving each other, which causes them, when the child is gone, it causes this space, this distance that's happened between the husband and the wife to the point where they're like, whoa, what is this marriage? Our marriage was this child, our children, but now that it's gone, who are we?

When in reality, if you want to maintain that connection, have to serve your spouse. And so I had the same mentality. Lay down the idea that every friend that you have should be serving you in every capacity and take on the mentality that no, I will give to my friendships. I will be sacrifice myself in order to love them. It's like, no, I will. It's like I was talking about this someone just recently. It's so many people that I work with, they won't do it because of the fear of being taken advantage of.

So for instance, I was talking about hospitality with someone else. Like, Hey, we needed to have like some radical hospitality where we begin to host people in our house and be intentional with what, like what we're hanging out and doing, like be intentional, like plan a dinner thing, plan, like an event plan, like a going out thing, like be intentional with every component of it. And they're like, well, when do I stop doing that? What if I get taken advantage of? What if people just start using my house as a place to just like manipulate me or like a stay there nonstop? And I'm like,

Okay, but will you try it even if that's the case? And like, well, I don't know, I'm fearful that that's gonna happen. And most of us, we just won't do it out of the fear of what could happen, of the negative, the what ifs, right? And it's like, hey, let's lay it down. Like, let them take advantage you for a little bit. Like most of the time, it's just our mind lying to us or it's the story that we have in our head.

of someone else that's rejected us or we've seen in a movie or a TV show or something that a parent told us would happen. It's like, who, what, what's the voice? Who's the voice that's actually talking to you in this moment? Is it you actually, or is it maybe your parent or is it maybe a mentor or maybe is it a friend? You know, sorry, I just going on a little rant there.

Travis White (35:28)
No, no,

you're good. I have so many thoughts come to my mind. First, the environmental friends. And you made me realize that like, so growing up, I used to go to concerts a lot. There's actually a group of people that I would, I lived about an hour and 45 minutes to the nearest venue that I could actually go to a good show. And so there's a group of us that drive up together and most of those people were environmental friends. Like I didn't...

Shane Gerhard (35:32)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, yeah.

Travis White (35:59)
anything to do with them outside of those concerts. It's just we found like friendship there but like I've never hang out with those people on a regular basis. I mean there was a couple of them that kind of became like my closer friends now but I was just never I always thought of them as acquaintances so I like kind of formally putting the word environmental friends to that.

Shane Gerhard (36:21)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting,

you know, I like, pressing into, was listening, reading, sorry, reading more about like Aristotle and his views of friendship, because I, after writing and developing a lot of this content, I realized that he has his own version of his three circles. He, he classifies in three levels of friendship and his belief is that you'll never actually go deeper with someone until you remove yourself from that environment and you actually

uh, intentionally begin to engage with them outside of that environment. So a lot of the times what we do in friendships is we have these environmental friends and we have these people that you go to concerts with on a regular basis, but because we never put any intentional effort to take it outside of that. When we stopped going there and they don't reach out to us or we don't have that, like that basis of friendship anymore. It's almost like we look at it as like, man, they never cared about me. They never loved me. They never wanted me. It's like, no, no, they did.

It just never actually progressed outside of that space. That was the basis, the foundation of your friendship and you removed that. And unless you replace it with something else, you will lose that intentionality of the friendship. And you have to begin to take that mentality and go, okay, I like these people. I want to continue. I'm probably not going to be going to concerts. How can we connect outside of this place and be intentional about making that shift? Cause it is difficult and it takes time and it takes effort.

Travis White (37:49)
And I love that. Another thing that came to my mind while you were speaking is you talked about comparing friendship to like how marriages kind of become about the kids. And I want to kind of put it back to friendship. It's like when you have kids and you have to almost be intentional with your spouse on serving them and continue to build that friendship. If you don't do it, you're going to lose everything that you can have.

Shane Gerhard (38:19)
Yeah, you have to be really, if that's one thing that anyone could walk away with is be more intentional. And what does that mean? It just means taking a moment to think through what you're doing. Like start asking the question, like why? Why am I reaching out to this person? Why am I wanting to connect? It's like, man, I really want to hang out with someone. Why? Why do you want to hang out? Well, you know, I'm feeling kind of lonely. Why are you feeling lonely?

Well, honestly, I feel really bogged down with work and I don't feel supported. I feel like no one knows the hardship I'm going through. Okay, great. Now you have more purpose. Now you have more intention. Now you know who to reach out to because of what you're trying to go after. It's like, okay, well, this friend, I can talk to them about my work and I know like, I trust them. They're a good solid voice in my life. And now you know, okay, hey.

Can we hang out? I've been having a hard time at work. I'm feeling a bit unsupported and lonely. It's been really difficult and I just need someone to talk to about it. That changes the friendship completely. But most of us, what we do is we go, hey, you want to hang out? You want to get dinner? And we just leave it at that. And our friend never actually knows what's going on. I was just watching a Simon Sinek video and he was talking about how they met up with their friend and like, man, I had literally the worst week of my life. And he's like, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call me? I would have been there for you. They're like, I did text you.

And the texts were like, Hey, want to get together? You free on Thursday? And he's like, that's your call for help. That's you telling me that you need me. Like we have to get better. And it's really just simply starts with just being more intentional and taking a pause and just moments. Like, all right, why, what am I doing? How can I help them understand me? Cause we can't read each other's minds. We want to believe they can, but it just doesn't quite work like that.

Travis White (40:08)
Yeah, exactly. what you became like when you started, you know, doing your research on French, French, sorry, friendship and deepening your relationships, did you kind of coming out of that kind of popular crowd where you felt invisible, did you feel your or did you start feeling less anxiety?

Shane Gerhard (40:21)
Mm-hmm.

no, I, I started feeling, no, I, I still felt it until I did the heart work. getting, being more authentic and having more integrity and pursuing people that are more aligned with you helps significantly. It is a huge thing that you need to do, but another, if you, all you do is you, me, if all you do is replace your friendships.

with the new friends, the hurt, the wounds, the pain, the limiting beliefs, the stories you tell yourself about friendships and relationships in general, they all come with you. You have to do the hard work. You have to understand the stories. Like for instance, a story I had, it took me time to just process out. Like I was hanging out around a fire with some buddies. We were hanging around, we had some whiskey and cigars and.

listening to music and just having good conversation, chatting, laughing. you know, like I, I don't know if you've heard of the working geniuses, but my working genius is wonder. So I ha I just think about how things can play out. asked a lot of questions. I asked great questions. And I, when I was having some whiskey, just like, started asking a lot of questions, questions, questions, questions, questions. And then someone kind of like,

Took a job my question like man like they said something about me asking so many questions, right? I mean it was all in play and all in good fun and they meant nothing by it because I mean I talked to them later and they found I heard from all like dude I loved your questions like I was able to bring out stuff that they never talk about or everything think about right? But when I heard them kind of almost reject my question, I completely shut down Everything about me just I did not ask another question that whole night. I barely talked in the group. I completely became a different person like

I didn't get angry, but I became passive. I became quiet. And I was like, what is going on? So I took some time the next day and I'm like, I just need a process. I'm like, well, what happened? What did I feel? felt, you know, I felt really rejected. I felt dumb. I felt like I was too much. I like it when it came specifically to asking questions and I had the process like, well, I just kept asking myself why, what was going on? And I was able to trace that feeling all the way back to a moment in second grade.

In second grade, I was in my classroom and what the teacher would do is she'd have like story time. So we'd all be in our desks sitting down and she'd be like, hey, it's time for the story. She would sit on a chair in the front of the class and we'd all run and find a place on the rug and just sit, you know, crisscross applesauce in front of her and just listen to the story. And I'm sitting there and I don't remember what happened. I don't remember what I said. All I know is I asked a question and then all of sudden everyone was laughing at me.

It's like every kid was laughing at me and I was a center of attention for all the wrong reasons. And I just felt so dumb in that moment. I felt so rejected and so isolated and hurt. And it was just this really terrible moment as like a second grader. I'm like, well, like seven, eight years old at the time. And in that moment I learned it's not okay. It's not safe to ask questions. And it doesn't matter where I go because I have this belief about myself, this story that I'm telling myself.

It never became safe. So any time a friend would like say something about my questions, I'd shut down. And so you have to learn and discover what are you actually believing? What is actually going on? And so many times a friend might hurt you and then you bring that friendship hurt into your new friendship. And like the other person, maybe they never paid you back ever. And it caused so many issues in your friendship.

and it eventually ruined the friendship because that person would like ask about money or money would come up. And then you have a new friend and that friend says, and it says just the littlest thing about money. Like, oh, why don't you spot me and I'll get the next one. Like, you know, picking up the tab or something. It was like, oh, can you grab this? I'll get the next one. You literally shut down. You're like, oh, I can't do this. You're a terrible friend. I hate you. It's like, no, you got to do the work. Does the anxiety and everything reduce when you go through it? Yes. In some aspect.

Will you have much deeper friendships going through the friendship blueprint? Absolutely. Your friendships are going to completely change. It is friendship done completely differently. Is it going to fix all your problems? No, you have to do the hard work. that's what we do. One of the things that we do, I mean, we sell the friendship blueprint and it's based level for $10, right? And you can get at the friendshipblueprint.com. And one of the things that we do along with that is we also give you for free these mindset shift cards. There's 20 of them. There are 20 beliefs that people have in regards

to friendship. And it's things like, if I, I'm too much or I'm going to get rejected. And it has a breakdown of these really beautiful cards that my wife designed. And then the, another card that has a truth on it. It's kind of like affirmations that start kind of helping you go through this, helping you start believing new components about your life to help. And that when you change your mindset, when you change the story that you tell yourself, when you change your belief system, that's when the anxiety really begins to go away. It's doing the hard work and pressing into your heart.

that's gonna make all the difference.

Travis White (45:38)
that's super cool that you have that kind of bonus with it. And it's very true though, it's all about repetition when it comes to like mental health. You have to work daily to build these habits and basically, it's almost to me, it's almost like rewiring your brain to think differently.

Shane Gerhard (45:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, 100 % rewiring the brain is one of the best ways that you can put it. a lot of, I mean, I have a book called the Bounce Back Blueprint, which helps you kind of just do this work, like story work. And one of the components is just challenging the belief, you know, just challenge it. I was working with someone the other day and they're like, man, like when they were having a concept of like, man, I don't know if I ever want to get married because if I get married, then...

My business is gonna fail. I won't be able to work on my business. I'm like, well, let's just challenge that for a minute Do you know anyone in your life that's married and it has a successful business? And we just went through and just need off people. She just challenged the beliefs It's like man, my friendship is gonna take complete of my friend is gonna take complete advantage of me if I pay for a meal It's like well, let's challenge this like do they have a history of this? What are they? What's their response to the money? How do they do they treat anyone else? How do they treat others with money? How do they treat other things in certain situations?

It's like, let's start looking at these and understanding like our, like the way our brain typically works is it, it fires off. And I think it's a neuron, right? It's like, we have a thought, maybe it's a fear, or maybe it's, it could be anything. And now it's looking for justification or reasoning. It's trying to check on something and it will go the fa wherever it can, the fastest. doesn't matter if it's a lie or if it's truth, if it's going to help you or if it's going to hurt you.

It's trying to get to another part of your brain as fast as possible. And what happens is when you have a belief system, was like, I love someone made an analogy. It's kind of like a jungle. And every time you have a thought, it's almost like cutting through the jungle and you make this pathway. And that pathway can be like, my gosh, like my friendship, like money is going to ruin my friendships. If you have that thought, when money comes up, any swarm of money, and you have that thought, you're cutting away into the jungle and you're making this path.

But you have to intentionally stop and be like, wait, no, my friends love me and they don't take advantage of me. And what happens is you stop cutting a path in that jungle of like saying, money's gonna ruin my friendships. And you start cutting a new path to actually money will bring me closer to my friendships. And it's that then the old path begins to grow and the new path, it's just like wherever your brain can get to the fastest, whether it's gonna help you or hurt you, it doesn't matter, it doesn't care.

It's just like what, and that's why we get so easy to jump to false beliefs. And that's why it's so important to pause and reflect and change that and spend time working on.

Travis White (48:25)
completely agree. This is all good stuff. I love learning what you've been speaking about. ⁓

Shane Gerhard (48:33)
Come on, I'm glad,

that's great.

Travis White (48:36)
And what do you think is one of the biggest misconceptions about friendship that you would like to see more people challenge or unlearn?

Shane Gerhard (48:47)
I'd say right now in this season, the culture that we're currently in, one of the biggest things that I would want people to challenge or just change in their life is that if a friend doesn't text you, then they don't love you. They don't care about the friendship. If a friend doesn't text you or call you or make plans, then that means they must not care about the friendship. That is not true. We all get busy in life. We all like look down at our phone.

go on Netflix and then we look up and six months have gone by in our life. We're like, what just happened? How did I get here? We just get stuck in a rut and drift, right? And we all are susceptible to that. And one thing that will help you with your patience is by increasing your understanding. If you understand that, hey, life gets super busy, life is crazy. Like you're not, we're not always the center of attention for every person.

But if you have the desire for friendship, if you have the desire to reach out to someone, do it. That belief that if they need to reach out to me first, if they don't pursue me, then they don't love me. No, no, no, that's not true. That's a lie that culture's telling you. And the culture that's telling you this is the most lonely culture that's ever existed. It's like...

Travis White (49:57)
Yeah.

And I've lived through the day and age of we didn't really have like the social media platforms and everything that we have today. So it was like in high school, I started to call my friends to actually hang out. I mean, texting was there, but it was still fairly new. And most people didn't have cell phones when I was in high school.

Shane Gerhard (50:08)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Travis White (50:24)
So it's

like, it's almost in a way saddens me to like see what all this, I mean, the technology, technology is really cool, but it has also ruined us. And I, in my mind, I would think that had something to do with us, has something to do with us being the loneliest that we are today.

Shane Gerhard (50:43)
Yeah, there is a recent study. It's, you can look it up. There's many people that are kind of like rewriting it, but it's called like the eight minute phone call. And what they wanted to do is they wanted to see, they took a whole group of people and they measure them based off the UCLA loneliness scale, the depression one, like a lot of different things. And they all measured medium to high on loneliness pretty much. And they wanted to see what would happen if a group of strangers called them every day for eight minutes. They talked to them for eight minutes.

And what they noticed over the course of a month, talking to strangers, like complete strangers, right? Every single one of them had a significant drop in loneliness, depression, and anxiety. And what they found is like it takes that human contact. And what's happened in today's culture isn't like, you're being come on isolate because of tech. In some way, I'd blame more texting than anything else because you just getting a text isn't enough. It doesn't release the necessary

things within our brain that build connection, like hearing their voice. Face timing is incredible. Even going on like in the VR world and meeting your friends in VR world, that builds connection. Hearing their voice does something to your mind that actually decreases loneliness. And what we've done is we've used technology as a crutch. It's like, yeah, I checked in on you. just say, hey, what's up? What's going on? It's like, no, no, no, that's not enough. Like it's not enough for just that. have to like...

Call them, get in touch with them, let them hear your voice, let them have your presence. I call it the law of showing up, the law of presence. It's like being there with them is far more important than almost anything else you could do in the friendship. It has far more weight when you can show up for them in that time of need and just have your physical presence available. That will do so much more. And that's one of the issues with technology. We've supplemented connection and we believe we're connecting with them by texting them.

and just sending a little message, liking their posts. That is not enough. That actually does not do what we think it's doing. And there's more more studies that are proving that in today's day and age, which is nice. We're getting more scientific fact about it.

Travis White (52:48)
Yeah, and I can say that from doing this podcast, like, actually, you know, like, you know, before this show, you were a complete stranger. Like I didn't know really much about you and a lot more about you now. But like, and I'm not saying that like I, you know, continue to these relationships because that'd be very difficult, but it does something to my mental health and calms me down and keeps me kind of at bay.

Shane Gerhard (52:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis White (53:16)
So the study is really cool. Like just talking to a complete stranger for eight minutes. It's really interesting.

Shane Gerhard (53:16)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's really it's really

fascinating study. It's I would highly recommend checking it out I mean Simon Sinek has a whole video on it to breaking it down and I recently made a video breaking it down. It's Incredible. I mean, man, they did it with strangers like these weren't their friends and they had a significant It wasn't like a little it was actually significant decrease, which is just amazing

Travis White (53:44)
And what you said about texting too, like so I have a friend that we text quite a bit. I don't always have the time that I wish I had to talk to him on the phone, but I would be like, Hey man, how's it going? And he'll send me a little response. Like, no, how's it really going? Like, I know it's not exactly how you're feeling. And so like, even though I can't, even though I can't like get his voice, like I know I'm well enough to know that he's not giving a full response.

Shane Gerhard (53:54)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah, no, that's great.

Hmm.

Travis White (54:14)
So I'll be more intentional

with my texts and ask better questions and I'll usually get something better.

Shane Gerhard (54:21)
Yeah, it's so good that you have

a friend like that. That is amazing. I love that. Come on.

Travis White (54:27)
And so here is a kind of a generalized question I ask everybody just because I love to hear the different feedback. What do you think is the biggest stigma to mental health today?

Shane Gerhard (54:35)
Sure.

the biggest stigma today. That's so interesting. Cause it's so such a unique perspective. feel like my answer changes based on the age group that I'm talking about. Cause you have the younger generation mental health and going after that is actually that priority for them. I think, man, this might be a hot take. I don't know if there's the biggest stigma.

Maybe this is just a hot take. I don't think just talking about it is enough. I think there's a lot of therapists out there that just let you talk and it gets you nowhere. You stay the same. You actually need to do some discovery and go after the root issues. Talking about what's going on is not just enough. There has to be some sense of vulnerability involved and

some form of discovery involved. If all you do is talk about what you already know, then you will stay where you already are. And I think, I don't know, does that count as a stigma? It's like just...

Travis White (55:44)
No,

no, I think that totally counts. Like it's, because I completely agree and you need the therapist that will hold you accountable. Like if you come, if I, because I've been going to therapy now, like the very beginning of the year was pretty like once a week, just because I was in a really rough spot. And if I came in one week and I didn't do the tasks that he assigned me, he'd be like, well, why didn't you do them?

Shane Gerhard (55:48)
Great, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Travis White (56:12)
Like what

was going on? Is there something more I need to talk about that stopped you from doing them? And if I did, I'd report more and he would, then we dive deeper into that issue and say, okay, well, is this going to work? Do you need more advice on this specific thing that you're trying to overcome? And it just, the fact that he held me accountable, just helped me kind of push through and.

Shane Gerhard (56:17)
Yeah.

you

Travis White (56:37)
Like it's, like me just, you're exactly right. Me just sitting there talking about it doesn't do anything.

Shane Gerhard (56:43)
Yeah, no, that's great. It definitely accountability is so key and it's interesting too, because we're seeing this interesting thing on social media. If you follow any of the AI world, a lot of people are making fun of chat to PT at the moment because it's just gassing you up. It's hyping you up for no reason. It does not chat. Like I think they may have fixed it recently, but for a while it was just agreeing with you. It was like, yes. And some people making videos, which are hilarious. It's like,

Hey, Chachibe T, should I take my batteries out of my controller and throw them in the ocean? It's like, absolutely. You are a pioneer. Great idea. That is not just electrifying idea. That is a groundbreaking pioneering idea. Wow. It's just like, wait, you're just agreeing with me. You're just telling me like you're not helping me grow as a person. You're not changing me. And it's interesting that it's like coming to this topic. It's like the culture is kind of like having an issue just even with Chachibe T in this area. It's like, man, we need.

We need objective feedback. We need someone who's going to hold us accountable. We need someone who's going to help us and point out the blind spots. When you can discover a blind spot, like if you set a goal, like I'm going to try and discover one blind spot a week, then you will become a new person. Even just having that awareness, that creating awareness in your life is so pivotal and so critical and knowing like there's freedom in that. There was freedom in me recognizing, I actually felt rejected in the night by the fire because

of what happened to me in second grade. There was freedom in that, that allowed me to ask more questions and not feel shut down. You know, yeah, it's a fascinating time.

Travis White (58:15)
Yeah,

that's big though that you recognized and remembered it was all the way back in second grade. Okay, there's days where I feel like I can barely remember yesterday. ⁓

Shane Gerhard (58:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, it's very real. mean, most

of our trauma and pain typically happened when we were four to 18. I mean, not always, but most of the time. it's everything else in our life is just a confirmation of that lie. And it's like, wait, that happened when I was 22. Yeah. But that may have just been a confirmation of what happened to you when you were younger. And you got to keep pressing back and keep pressing back. It's not black and white, right?

Travis White (58:34)
Yeah.

Shane Gerhard (58:54)
There are definitely exceptions, but most of the time you'll find that the beach of the truth that it's our younger ages and it's there. You just, and it's hard work. I was talking with someone recently and they're like, man, like, you know, it's so well, like you're kind of processing it like, no, dude, I spent sometimes hours, hours alone in my room, just processing and thinking and asking questions. Like thinking is actually difficult. Like you sit in a room, you're like, okay, well why? And sometimes nothing will come to you for a while.

If something doesn't come to you in that moment, it's okay. Keep pressing in. You are exercising a critical thinking muscle and it's difficult work. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, but it's hard.

Travis White (59:35)
So one last question for you that I have here. It's kind of like the last main question. What advice do you give someone that's kind of stuck in that crowded room and feels invisible? What advice do you give them? What first steps do they need to take to get out of that place and that mindset?

Shane Gerhard (59:58)
Well, the first one is get the friendship blueprint. No, in that moment, I would say what you need to do is you need to take a step back and understand what are you needing in that moment? Like a lot of it's like maybe even that moment, like, I just need someone to say hello. I just need someone to acknowledge me. Well, why? Why do you need that? What's actually going on below the surface that's causing you to desire that? It's like, you know what? This week was super lonely.

And I felt like no one cared about me this week. Okay. So maybe what you need is actually to know that someone cares about you. Is that true? That would that sell? It's like, yeah, that's what I need. I need someone to just tell me that they care about me. And it's like, okay, now you know, the next move let's reach out to a friend. it's like, Hey, I'm felt lonely this week. I felt like, no, like I just need to hear from someone that I'm cared for. Can you, can you affirm me? Can you encourage me? And it's like,

Make sure you choose the right people for this, right? And don't just bring, if you have a group of friends that are always just trash talking, only talking about sports on a consistent basis, you know, you're gonna like, don't bring that up in the group. Like know the place, know like some of the questions that I asked myself is, and then one of the questions I had to ask myself in that moment is like, okay, is the environment I am a safe place to bring up this topic at the moment?

It's like, all right, well, if everyone's like joking around, partying and drinking and just like laughing at each other and teasing each other, it's not the right time. That is not the right environment. It's like, no, use some discernment and recognize like you might have to sit in your pain for a little bit or you might need to leave, whatever it might looks like. And then it's like, all right, am I with the right person? Is this person safe? Can I trust them? It's like, is it the right environment and time? Is it the right people? Asking yourself these questions to bring up your needs, then you can start sharing these things and going after it.

That's what I recommend doing. they're feeling alone in that moment, it's like, take a pause back and reflect. Like, why are you feeling alone? What's going on? What are you needing in this moment?

Travis White (1:01:59)
Awesome. Good stuff. And where can people find you?

Shane Gerhard (1:02:05)
Yeah, you can check out the friendship blueprint dot com for our main product. That is like our flagship one. It's how to go one to take one person and go deeper with them. And our main product, our main company is called the Authentic Friend and we'll be releasing a lot more products as time goes on and lot more really cool things. But our main one, I would say, check out the Friendship Blueprint. That is where you should start. If you're going to start anywhere, that is the number one place.

Travis White (1:02:32)
And last thing here, what or is there something that we did not discuss that you'd like to bring up?

Shane Gerhard (1:02:39)
Wow, great question.

Hmm.

I think we covered a good amount. I feel like I gave a lot of good information. I think the story was good and sharing, just bringing a little bit more light into who I am and what's going on. No, think we covered. Is there anything else that you feel like we didn't want to touch on that you'd like to?

Travis White (1:03:06)
No, think,

I think, no, I think we've covered a lot of area today. It's been a good conversation. I've learned a lot. And I honestly want to challenge the listeners to one of the things that we really touched on was being intentional with your friends. I think I'd like to challenge all of you to be intentional with your friendships and try to deepen those, those friendships and relationships.

Shane Gerhard (1:03:34)
Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to hear anyone who has any feedback or issues or questions or challenges when it comes to that with the, with being more intentional, like any roadblocks that you face. love the, you can reach out to us at the authentic friend on Instagram. We check those messages on a regular basis. We see it. If you want to reach out there, happy to hear anything. If they submit it to you questions on with you as well. Love to hear the feedback. mean, I'm, I have such desire to serve the community.

I feel such a heavy burden in this work because I talked to so many people that need a friend, but they never spent the time to build it. takes a long time to build deep, meaningful friendships. And you have to start now. You have to start now because you're going to wake up a year from now and realize you didn't put in the work. And when you needed someone, they're not there.

And there's a hard truth and a hard reality. And I just want to implore and encourage everyone, like pursue the friend, call them, don't wait, out-serve them. Have the mentality that you are always the initiator and you will out-serve all your friends and you will love them better than anyone else loves them.

Travis White (1:04:47)
passionate you are about this project and I'm excited to see where your future endeavors. I want to thank you though for coming on to the show.

Shane Gerhard (1:04:50)
thank you, yeah.

Yeah, I'm glad to be here. I'm glad everything worked out and I'm glad to connect with you and I love what you're doing. mean, overcoming is such a powerful thing. And I think it's ⁓ almost like an identity that you can take on. like, I am an overcomer and I think there's any challenge that people are facing here that they can't overcome. And I just want to encourage you, doing a good work as well. And the podcast is great and you ask amazing, amazing questions. So great job on that part.

Travis White (1:05:23)
Thank you so much. And I just want to say to the listeners, one last thought that I have. Just because you overcome something doesn't mean that it's going to go away. I think we've kind of mentioned this throughout is we have to build these habits and rewire our brain to think a certain way. And that's going to be a lifelong event that you can overcome stuff that you're facing every day.

Shane Gerhard (1:05:40)
Yeah.

Yes, absolutely spoken very well and true.

Travis White (1:05:49)
So thank you to all the listeners out there. Thank you so much for listening and please subscribe to our channel and share our stuff. That's the best thing you can do for us right now. Until next time.