What's In Your Toolbox?

Hello. Hi, Cadre. It is Tuesday, which means one thing. We're diving into the toolbox to see what tools you have or what tools that you could add in order to make your life more easeful, brighter. You are confident. All of the things. We are your lovely Tuesday hosts. We're Jill and Mary. We are the co founders of Girls Mentorship. We're your hosts. Oh, we got the mic out. We are your lovely hosts, where we teach life and personal development skills to tween and teen girls. And although you might not be a tween or teen, you certainly are the ones who love them.

And if we want our kids to show up as their best, brightest, and most confident selves, guess what? We have to, too. We need to learn these skills and tools as well. And not only do you have someone in your life that could benefit from them, look in the mirror. Because you could benefit from them, too. Because simply because you are not a teen or tween girl doesn't mean you tune us out. Because guess what? We get to have these conversations with adults every single day. I'm looking like alfalfa right now.

Let me move that. The antenna. We started this work because at 35 and 37 years old, we realized that we were severely lacking in these skills and tools. And the question that we asked ourselves was, what would we have done at 1514 1325? Knowing what we know now? And as opposed to letting that question just live in the ether somewhere, we decided to do something about it. So three years ago, we started a business called girls mentorship, where we get to teach these skills and tools to those teen and tween girls.

However, the people who benefit are their moms, their dads, the people in their life who desperately needed to learn these skills and desperately need to learn these skills as well, which I have an inkling that you're on this app to learn skills like this, to manage anxiety, depression, to make friends, to get out of your own way, to not let comparison itis take you off track. So what are we talking about today? Today, this has been a conversation that we've been in for the last month. It feels like it's always there, but really prevalent in the last month, and that is friendships.

Friendships. Whether you are an adult and seeking new friends, because I know being an adult looking for friends is hard, especially if you are the one growing and evolving. And you're noticing maybe the people that you're surrounding yourself with isn't growing and evolving with you, and that's okay. So, Luke, I know that you're gonna love this. Because you've been talking about your circle and you are the average of the five people you hang out with the most. We've got. We've got another little shtick saying here for you.

You become one with who you run with. That is important to understand because either your five closest friends are vaping, smoking weed, drinking, you become the 6th. Or your five closest friends are going to bed at eight, getting up early, sauna, cold, plunging, working on themselves, reading personal growth and development material, you become the 6th. Either way, it is your choice. And I think it's important to notate that it is your choice. But a lot of the time, especially as we start to grow up, it is an expectation that we know how to choose our friends.

It is an expectation that we see at movies and tv shows and sitcoms, that we go to school. We should just find our people. That's not necessarily the case, because what we know about who we choose as friends is it's usually based on proximity. You go to work, you go to school, you do the same things day in and day out. There will be people in your day that you will be friends with based on that fact and that fact alone. But realistically, there are two types of friends. Two types of friends. The first one are your close friends.

That could mean super close friends. Jill is my ride or die. All day, every day. She will be here for me, whatever I need and vice versa. It could mean the secondary tier of that. Like you're close, but I don't share every intimate detail with them. Either way, your close friends are a choice. You choose your close friends and if you're not aware, your close friends will choose you. And that's a double edged sword, because it could be the people who are messing around, not growing, not evolving, that actually choose you.

And because of your lack of awareness, you're kind of along for the ride. And that allows you to then feel resentment or frustration, or that you're noticing that you're talking poorly about them, or that they totally drain you when you're around them. I specifically see this a lot with moms. So when I am at a birthday party or if I'm at a sporting event with different moms and or dads, I start to notice and pay attention to when other people are talking about other people. When the conversation's down here.

Exactly. And I have the awareness to not go to that level because that's not who I am. So I always say, and we always say we're here to raise the group, average up so that other people can start to, you know, just question and we'll get into that in just a second around questioning, like, is this, is this serving me? Does this make me feel good when I say these things about these certain people? Because that is such an indicator for you to explore that they're either for you or not for you. And I.

I'm gonna tell you, they ain't free. I said there were two, so we covered close. That's a choice. The second type of friend is a casual friend and that is more based on circumstances. m. It's going to be the bar flies at Joe's Pizza, right? Your casual friends are circumstantial. Now, we want to be much more deliberate in who we choose to let in. So I'm going to go back to your closet. And that's a choice. It needs to be your choice based on a few things that we would love for you to walk away implementing or being more aware around in your life.

So your close friends can always be your choice. And like I said, if it's not your choice, you're walking around with your head down and your blinders on and other people are pulling you into their atmosphere, which isn't necessarily always good for you. So our first takeaway is you gotta get quiet. You have to get quiet in order to understand who you are. There is a lot of noise and notifications and people trying to pull you this way or that way to get you to do this and that and everything else that they want to do that's not serving you.

When you're trying to figure out who you are, what you stand for, and how you want to cultivate relationships for yourself. The second piece or the second takeaway is you have to start questioning everything. So like we were talking about at the example around you feeling like, ah, these people are talking poorly. Now I feel like I'm gossiping. Is this really serving me? Those are really great reflective questions that you can start asking yourself, is this person good for me? Does this person lift me up?

Am I growing around this person? Or is this person really making me feel a certain type of way when I'm around them? Those are really great questions to start asking yourself if they are for you or if they're not for you. So that you, again, can always go back to choosing the people that you want to surround yourself with and let's say they're not for you and you come to the conclusion that they're not. That doesn't make them wrong. It also doesn't make you a bad person for wanting to move on. Generally speaking, if we lessen our communication or we're not available to hang out that Saturday into that, the relationship will naturally grow apart.

If you are choosing growth, which generally means you're choosing yourself rather than choosing to hang out with the people who are not serving that chapter of your life. So the questioning of everything, that can be just as a disclaimer, really, really confronting. Because we are habitual in nature, we like to do the same thing over and over and over again because it doesn't take a lot of energy. What does take a lot of energy is questioning why we're doing that thing in order to maybe change that thing to serve who we are right now.

The last thing that we need you to do in order to establish standards for yourself within your relationships is establish your values. So we're getting quiet. We're questioning everything. And from that quiet time, and the answer that you derive from those questions should be a set of values. What do you value? What is important to you? What you stand for, what you want to be known for? Is it going to be early? Do you like to get 8 hours of sleep because you know that that is how you perform optimally?

If that's the case, you get to use that as a filter for friendships moving forward. So if Barbara Ann calls you at 1030 on a Thursday night and says, says, we're going out, do you want to come? No, because you're already done your skincare routine. You're in your silk pajamas, you've got your blue light glasses on, and you're reading a book, right? If you don't necessarily know that sleep is important to you, you might toss off the covers and get your going out clothes on and go meet Barbara Ann, and your future self is going to be p***** at you because you know you operate well under 8 hours of sleep.

So find yourself in this example. What do you value? And if something or someone comes into your orbit that doesn't align with those values, it's not a hard decision to make. From that point, it's not your choice. I know sometimes, too, values, when we start to talk about values, can be a little tricky because you really look back into the Rolodex of family values. And family values can absolutely serve your personal values as well. But we want to challenge you to look past maybe how you were brought up so that you're reflecting on what matters to you.

And if you're stuck, a great place to start is look at people that you're inspired by. So who are the people that make you feel a certain type of way? They are the people that light up a room when they walk in, or you're drawn to them. What about them that you're drawn to? Write that down and then start to ask yourself, okay, do I possess this or do I want to possess more of this? Because that's who I'm growing into. That's such a great place to start when you're in this really interesting growth era.

And I know that for the girls that we work with, that serves them in honing in on their own personal values better when they're stuck. Because I know that this work can be a little confronting or makes you feel like, well, why does this matter? It matters because then it helps you make decisions from that place moving forward. And it's borrowing somebody else's belief. It's not copycatting. It's really trying to emulate what you see in them as aspirational and inspirational. And let me tell you, let me just throw this little caveat in there.

When you start to grow and change, it's confronting for other people. You are never going to get s*** on by somebody doing more than you or somebody who is more successful than you. The people who are confronted by your growth and change are going to want to hold you back and bring you back to what they're doing at their level. Don't let them. It is okay for you both to to be on different levels and them not be wrong, like I said earlier, and you not have to make excuses for your behavior. If they want to grow with you, they absolutely will.

They will take you as inspiration as opposed to competition. And when somebody sees you as competition, they will try to Tanya Harding you at the knees. So if anybody gets that reference, that is exactly what people are trying to do. They are trying to take you out at the knees because they don't want to see you grow. They don't want to cheer on your success. They don't want to be the cheerleader. They want to be the naysayer. And the person who's throwing popcorn and tomatoes at you on center stage.

That's also a good indicator that they've moved from that primary level of friendship, that close, that choice, to more of a casual and a circumstantial friend. So move away from those friends. So what are we doing? We're getting quiet. We're questioning everything, and we're establishing a set of values. Maybe you already know inherently what those are, are. Maybe you don't. Maybe you need to look around and glean certain personality traits from people who you are inspired by. It's okay to borrow other people's beliefs 100%.

And it's okay to start now. Now, not Monday. Start now. Because I'll never forget when I really saw a leader that I admired and I wanted to become. I remember being like, well, why can't I be her now? So it's okay. It is confronting. Be okay with that. You're gonna wrestle with that your whole life. When you're trying to grow and make the impact and be the influence that you know that you are, that's okay. But don't wait. Don't wait. Don't wait for someone else's invitation to be like, hey, I see this in you.

You should be this person. No. Be inspired by someone that you are inspired by, and do it now. Don't wait. Action. Action. Action breeds more action, which breeds confidence, which breeds change. And we go all the way down the line. So those three things are your homework, your takeaways. We want to hear all about the incredible friendships you're cultivating with people who love you, support you. We'll keep you honest. We'll give you the feedback that you need to hear, not tell you the bullshit that you don't need to hear.

And other than that, y'all, fantastic Tuesday chat. Thank you for tuning in. All we want. Tune in Tuesdays. Tune in Tuesdays, tune in Tokyo. All we want for you is to be the best, brightest, and most confident versions of yourself. And we know we do that in community. We are communal beings. We thrive when we are in community with other people there to support us. So, until next week, y'all, until next time, we will see you on another episode of Toolbox Tuesday. Bye, everyone.