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A mindset of friendship begins with the understanding that people are your greatest resource. We are social creatures and we crave loving relationships with other people. It is those other people in our lives that will help support us when we down, allow us to share ourselves with others, and be willing to tell us the truth when we need to hear it. If it isn't our family then it is our friends we rely on to do those things. The benefits of having friends, true friends, professionally, personally, in you civic life, and spiritual life are boundless. The following is taken from: https://dephilosophia.com/collections/socrates-on-friendship/

The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates by Xenophon.

CHAPTER IV.  A DISCOURSE OF SOCRATES CONCERNING FRIENDSHIP.

I remember likewise a discourse which I have heard him make concerning friendship, and that may be of great use to instruct us by what means we ought to procure ourselves friends, and in what manner we should live with them.  He said “that most men agree that a true friend is a precious treasure, and that nevertheless there is nothing about which we give ourselves so little trouble as to make men our friends.  We take care,” said he, “to buy houses, lands, slaves, flocks, and household goods, and when we have them we endeavour to keep them, but though a friend is allowed to be capable of affording us a far greater happiness than any or all of these, yet how few are solicitous to procure themselves a friend, or, when they have, to secure his friendship?  

In the bible, we find this verse in John 15: 13 – 15. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

From the website, Buddha’s advice to lay people we find this:

“In an ancient Buddhist story, the Buddha’s faithful attendant, Ananda, asked about the importance of having wholesome companions. Ananda asked the Buddha whether having noble friends and companions wasn’t half of the holy life. The Buddha replied: “Do not say so, Ananda. Noble friends and companions are the whole of the holy life.” (SN 45.2, Bhikkhu Bodhi)”

In an article entitled “The Importance of Friendship” which appeared in Psychology Today online the subheading reads, “Good friends enhance the quality, the pleasure, and the health of each other.” Regardless of your worldview, the value of friendships in undeniable. People truly are your greatest resource and that begins with friends.

Of course, deep friendships are undoubtedly anchored by… yes, love. A mindset of love influences greatly your mindset of friendship. What are the other significant aspects of building and maintaining this deep friendship? Yes, having faith in your friend and being faithful to your friend. When a friend is unfaithful it is a painful experience to go through. When we have been unfaithful to a friend guilt and all its negative aspects comes to the forefront. If we build that foundation of a loving mindset fully adopting as many of those characteristics as humanly possible, great friendships will result, especially when our friends have a foundation of love. Imagine a world where most people develop a mindset of love and a mindset of friendship.

Besides those character traits, the classic work by Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, has several important lessons in it that are essentials to have in a mindset of friendship. Lesson number 1 is don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. No one likes whiners and complainers and this one lesson alone if put into practice would save many people from lots of aggravation in their relationships with not only friends but people in general. Complainers and whiners do not have a mindset of friendship. “Count your blessings one by one to see what great things God has done,” is one powerful secret to not being a complainer and to attain that mindset of friendship. If we realize how imperfect we are and stop and think about all our mistakes, it also becomes much easier to keep yourself from criticizing or condemning. Learning to ask questions instead is a much more powerful tool to address mistakes that may have been made or poor judgement that may have been acted out. No whining. No complaining. No criticizing. No condemning.

Lesson number 2 is give honest, sincere appreciation to people. Be thankful. Do it in person or make it personal. While handwritten notes and thank you cards may be going out of style in this modern electronic age, they shouldn’t. A mindset of friendship values your relationships enough to take a little extra time to write a personal note. Handwritten notes and cards tell the person that you have taken time and personalized your appreciation. You value them. Sure, a text and email are nice, more immediate, but they shouldn’t replace the personal handwritten note or card. Doing both would be the best of both worlds. You can give the much quicker and more immediate thank you and follow it up with the more personal and thoughtful card or note. When someone does something nice, does something well, does something unexpected, or is simply doing their job of a friend by listening or being faithful – give honest, sincere, appreciation. It is the right thing to do and will win you friends for life.

Lesson number 3 is more about influencing people than winning friends, but it obviously does apply to both. It is also requires dedicated practice to develop the skill. The skill is developing the ability to arouse in another person an eager want. It is all about the ability to motivate, influence, or persuade. There are courses dedicate to just this one concept. One of the most powerful fields for acquiring this skill is the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. One of the best trainers in the field and who I got my Masters training from is Dr. Tad James. If you are serious about improving your communication skills his trainings are as good as you get. Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall, my trainer in Advanced Behavioral Modeling, also has great resources on NLP. One of the earliest pioneers in the field, Robert Diltz, would be an obvious choice for more information. Finally, I would be negligent if I didn’t mention the two co-founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Obviously, going to the source for information on the NLP communication model is not a bad idea. The course I provide contains very basic lessons on holistic communication including the power of structuring your language to arouse in another person an eager want. It would be very beneficial for anyone interested in becoming more influential or at the very least understanding how language influences behavior.

Lesson number 4 is to become genuinely interested in other people. When you are genuinely interested in other people you want to know about them, so you ask questions. You get them talking about themselves and their passions. Learning to ask good questions to keep people talking and engaged while truly being interested in their responses is perhaps the greatest secret in getting people to like you. Do I need to say it again? If you have a foundation of love it becomes part of who you are to want to know more about other people, whether you are a natural extrovert or even an introvert. It is a powerful component of a mindset of friendship.

Lesson number 5 is simple. Smile. A warm genuine smile does more to put people at immediate ease than just about anything else. Training your mindset of friendship should involve training yourself to see life's bright side so you can genuinely smile. It is one of the very first things people will see and they can instinctively tell when it is genuine or forced. It is much easier to genuinely smile each day when you wake up grateful. One of the first things you should do every morning is look around you and be grateful for what you do have versus worrying and complaining about what you don’t have. When you have a grateful heart, which comes from a…. wait for it… that’s right…. a foundation of love, it is natural to have a warm genuine smile. It flows from who you are. Obviously, there will be those down-in-the-dumps days which we all get, but we are not talking about that, we are talking about what is typical for you. We are talking about the norm. When you have perseverance and hope that comes from a loving heart you will have “sunshine on a cloudy day” and you will smile more often and more naturally than if you don’t.

Lesson number 6 is to remember that a person’s name is to that person the most important sound in any language. In ancient cultures, the person’s name was tied deeply into their very identity. Abram became Abraham, Jacob became Israel, Simon became Peter. In the movie Dances with Wolves, John J. Dunbar became Dances with Wolves. All those name changes were about changes in who they were – changes in their identity. While that is not so much the case in the modern western world a person’s name is still a significant way they create an identity. It is often tied to family history. People must have and will do anything to have an identity. If you truly love people, you will not dishonor them by not using their name. Give them honor and use their name. Your mindset of friendship will make you much more aware of the value of this simple gesture.

If you are like me, the fear of stumbling over or worse yet forgetting their name may prevent you from doing this. Remember, perfect love casts out fear. Have faith that you can remember names. Practice by using the person’s name immediately after learning it. When introduced to someone, say it is a pleasure to meet you, John or Jane or whatever name they go by. If you are hard of hearing as I am, use that as an excuse if you must to be sure you heard it correctly. If you have an opportunity to have a conversation with them again, use their name. If you forgot it, ask. I am sorry but your name again is…? Begin to develop this habit and it will do wonders for your personal and professional relationships. 

I had been working in a school for a few years and a new principle had been hired. When I went in to do some work late in the summer, before I had ever met this principle, he came into the office while I was in there and called me by name. What I powerful first impression. That has stuck with me for years and is the perfect example of the power of using someone’s name. He truly had a mindset of friendship.

Lesson number 7 is very closely linked to lesson number 4. In my opinion, they go together. Learn to be a good listener and encourage people to talk about themselves. Being a good listener enables you to ask good questions which enables you to get people to talk about themselves. Both grow out of lesson 4, which was being genuinely interested in other people. As already stated over and over and over, so much of this is built from the love you develop by building that foundation. Your love mindset impacts your mindset of friendship.

Lesson 8 can only happen when you have mastered being a good listener and good questioner. When you have, you can talk about the other person’s interests. You know what they are interested in because you listened and asked good questions. When you talk about their interests, remember, it isn’t about you; it is about their interests. Be careful not to turn your experiences with something that interests them into a story where you are the center or where you have done something bigger, better, or more interesting than them. That is a quick way to lose any rapport you built through listening. It is fine to share your experiences around their interests, you must not be perceived as boastful. Ah, there it is again, another love characteristic.

Lesson 9 is the ability to sincerely make another person feel important. Honor them. Recognize them. When your friends, colleagues, associates, employees, students, or anyone who have a connection with does something well, worthwhile, generous, kind, or any of those success qualities we are discussing honor them. Give them a high five. Thank them privately and publicly. Recognize them for what they did to help you, your business, another colleague, a customer whomever or whatever it was. Look for opportunities to do this for everyone you know. That demonstrates a mindset of friendship. 

Lessons 10 on are truly about influencing people so we will save those for another course. If you work on the first 9 of these lessons and add them to the same tracking sheet you use for fully adopting the love character traits you will build deeper relationships with your inner circle and your outer circles will become stronger and more loyal as well. It has been said we truly cannot maintain true friendship type of relationships with more than 100 – 150 people. We all have an inner circle of just a few friends with outer circles that expand that number reaching a maximum of what we can handle as true friends. Many of us have “lots” of friends because we count people we went to school with, played on a team with, were in some club together, and we know them and liked them. We had a relationship with them at one time, but we were never really close to them. Those friendships fall outside the inner three circles that will cover your true working friendships, which are those people you have more regular contact with and rely on personally, professionally, in our civic life, in our spiritual life or all of these components to our life.

Bottom line is if you build a foundation of creating a love mindset and then apply those lessons on winning friends, you will have a very loyal and close group of friends. That will be a strong pillar for your success. You will have created a mindset of friendship.

You are well aware by now that you would truly benefit from training your mindset and training to become a champion of life. The best value for doing that would be to register for our Growth Mindset Training Academy curriculum. The course on Training a Mindset of Friendship has 45 lessons that will train your mindset in a way that will help your strengthen and deepen or expand the friendships you already have or even increase the circle of friendships into every sphere of your life. It is thorough, will provide structure, accountability, all the while training you and changing the way you see things. Besides changing or improving your mindset, you will learn strategies and learn to apply strategies to help you build relationships in all areas of your life. All these courses work together to create the mindset of a champion. Champions handle the adversities of life. You can’t become a champion without having the mindset of a champion and you can't have a mindset of a champion without having a mindset of friendship.