Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jordan Harbinger on Why Building Your Legacy Is Greater Than Currency EP 137

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. A lot of people who will tell you to scale something, they don't know what that necessarily even means. So some people say, scale the business, get 10 different shows under you, and then grow them. And it's like, man, it's really hard to grow something. And when you grow something that's not yours, which it always is, if it's a show made by an artist.

Starting point is 00:00:25 That person can leave when they are larger and you have the choice between suing them to fulfill their contract, which is messy, ugly, and expensive, or letting them go, which is unfair. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the

Starting point is 00:00:55 best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 137 of passion struck. Recently ranked is one of the top 50 most inspirational podcasts in the world. Thank you to all of you who come back weekly

Starting point is 00:01:32 to listen and learn, had to live better, be better, and impact the world. In case you missed last week's episodes, I had on the one and only Brechen Ruben. Brechen is the author of the New York Times bestselling books, A Happiness Project, one and only, Gretchen Ruben. Gretchen is the author of the New York Times best-selling books, A Happiness Project,

Starting point is 00:01:47 The Four Tendencies, and Better Than Before. We discussed everything from understanding human nature, happiness, negative experience, and why knowing yourself is so vital. We also had Dr. Michelle Seager on the show. She is the best-selling author of No Sweat, and we discussed the release of her new book The Joy Choice. And speaking of book launches, I wanted to mention that we have a couple

Starting point is 00:02:12 of amazing book launches coming up here on the show. On May 24th, we will be releasing Admiral James Stavridis' new book, To Risk It All. We also have Michael Slepian coming on the show on June 7th to release his new book, The Secret Life of Secrets. If you're not familiar with Michael, he is a professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia University and one of the foremost experts in the world on secrets. And finally, if you missed my solo episode from this past Friday, it was on the neuroscience of our brains and how our brains impact our overall reality. Please go and check them out, and if you love today's episode or any of the past ones I mentioned, we would love it if you could forward them to a friend or family member, and

Starting point is 00:03:00 additionally give us a five star rating. They mean so much to the growth of this show and we now have over 7,000 of them thanks to you. Now, let me talk to you about today's guest. Jordan Harbinger is absolutely one of my podcast idols and I am so ecstatic to have him on the show today. Jordan is a Wall Street lawyer, turned podcast interviewer with an approachable style

Starting point is 00:03:24 and a knack for securing high profile guests. He's also the host of the Jordan Harbinger Show where he interviews leading entrepreneurs, celebrities, writers and experts about psychology, performance, life and success. For all his work in the field, Forbes named Jordan, one of the 50 best relationship builders in the world, an Inc. magazine called him the Larry King of Podcast. His podcast generates an enormous 11 million downloads per month.

Starting point is 00:03:55 And in today's episode, we discuss Jordan's upbringing as the only child in a middle class Michigan family. His journey to attending the University of Michigan and eventually becoming a Wall Street attorney. What he recognized in 2006 that shifted his focus from practicing law to the world of podcasting and joining at that time, this nasiant industry,

Starting point is 00:04:17 how he has built one of the most popular podcasts in the world and his recommendations on how you can build your own. The FOMO he feels about the successful people he interviews, why he treats podcasting as a lifestyle business instead of turning his show into a major corporation. The intention behind his podcast and the legacy that he would like to leave upon the world. We also discuss one of his favorite episodes, which is one of my favorites of his as well,

Starting point is 00:04:45 with the CEO and founder of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, and why that interview was so important to him, as well as so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me as your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let the journey begin. So excited today to have Jordan Harbanger on the Passion Strike podcast. Absolutely. One of the inspirations that I've had for starting this

Starting point is 00:05:17 whole show. So saddick and humbled for you to be here, Jordan. Yeah, thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate the opportunity. I was hoping in today's discussion, we can show a different side of you than maybe some listeners have had. So I thought a good start point was your family, just like my family, are both for Michigan. My father grew up off a nine mile in inner city Detroit. I think we both kind of grew up in middle-class families, but for us, the core values that I was

Starting point is 00:05:45 raised with are part of me even into today. And I know our experiences are a little bit different because I have two siblings and you were an only child, but I kind of want to understand how did that backdrop influence who you are today? Yeah, I look Detroit is an interesting place to grow up because you say we grew up in nine mile or parents grew up in nine mile. Back then that was probably like a, it was booming, right? I mean, we're talking about 40 plus years ago or so. And I don't even know, is that technically the suburbs or is that technically Detroit? I can't remember where Detroit starts because it's so spread out.

Starting point is 00:06:20 It sort of depends where you are. But that area now is, is rough and you can't go there. And so I had like a front row seat to a, I guess you would say a rapidly changing economy. I think a lot of Detroit got hit of course, really hard, but it was kind of a bell weather or almost maybe a canary for the rest of the United States in terms of manufacturing economy. You know, if we, I saw in the 90s, I was like, so if we saw a NAFTA, won't companies just make everything where it's cheap in Mexico

Starting point is 00:06:52 and my dad would work for Ford was like, yeah, I don't know, there's something, maybe. And then it was like five or 10 years later, there was nothing being made in Detroit. It was just like, it just moved in an instant. And I thought, wow, okay, well, that's really bad. Why won't that happen with other industries? And of course, it did. So I really got a front row seat to how there are no guarantees because the auto industry and motor city was the closest thing to a guarantee you could have. A lot of people, your age and

Starting point is 00:07:22 probably even my age decided or slightly older that they didn't really need to do anything but finish high school because you basically needed a high school diploma and then you could go work in the assembly line and make 20, 25 bucks an hour in the 90s. Okay, we're still trying to get people to make 25 bucks an hour in a reasonably difficult job, not necessarily a skilled trade,

Starting point is 00:07:42 but like that's way more than minimum wage now. And this is 25 years ago, you could make that, making cars, indie trade. I sort of grew up being like, hey, you think you're safe now, but you shouldn't because you can always be replaced or something can change, or the economy can go sideways or south and you just don't have that luxury. So I was always kind of on that footing

Starting point is 00:08:07 of like looking for the next thing and realizing that like the thing that everyone's talking about now is gonna be obsolete toast by the time you're done. And I was also really into computers. There were a lot of people in computers that were like in their 40s and 50s when I was 13, 14.

Starting point is 00:08:23 And they're like, ah, I program in cobalt. And I was like, nobody uses that anymore. Oh, well, we needed at work. And then like two years later, they're retired because they don't need cobalt anymore. You know, and I was like, wow, okay. Tech moves, the economy moves. How is nobody ready for this?

Starting point is 00:08:39 So I was just always like, I'm not going to be that guy. I'm going to be ready for this. If that makes sense. No, it makes sense. And then you end up going to be that guy. I'm going to be ready for this. If that makes sense. No, it makes sense. And then you end up going to the university and Michigan for both undergrad and your law degrees, spent some time as an attorney. And then I was talking to Rob Greenley the other day,

Starting point is 00:08:57 who told me to tell you hello, by the way. Yeah. Good day. You guys were two of the first people who were really in podcasting. He might even have been preceded you a little bit. But you got into this around what, 2006, 2007 time frame? Yeah, 2006 was the beginning of the shows that I did before the Jordan Harbinger show,

Starting point is 00:09:19 which is one I do now, of course, the creatively titled Jordan Harbinger show. So I got into it originally recording lectures that I was giving and then trying to distribute those on CD and being like, how is there not a thing a place on the internet where I can put sound files? It's ridiculous. There's gotta be a place for this. And there wasn't any YouTube.

Starting point is 00:09:40 There was VidLur, but I didn't want to do videos that VidLur came before YouTube. And I was like, I don't want to be doing videos because there weren't digital cameras really readily available back then, not video cameras, so you had to like rip film and digitize it, so that wasn't the thing I was gonna do. I really came into podcasting by the necessity

Starting point is 00:09:56 of wanting to transfer sound files around, and then when I started putting those up on the internet, I was like, this is kind of fun. Let's make it like a radio show instead of a lecture that just happened to get recorded and put on the internet. And so we started making the podcast that was like a radio show. And there, yeah, there were very few other shows. There was one that was like lounge music called Dave's Lounge, which I don't even know. Hopefully it's still around. That was always kind of fun. And then, yeah, guys like Rob Greenley were doing, I think like technology based shows,

Starting point is 00:10:26 which totally makes sense, because you had to be a real geek to even know how to get a podcast on your computer. And then what I'll term, which isn't a real term, the iTunes revolution sort of began at University of Michigan Law School and in college campuses where like everybody had Napster, right, so it was trading at P3 files.

Starting point is 00:10:43 But then that meant that everybody was like, well, if I'm going to steal on P3 files, I don't want to play them in Winamp. I want my CD collection in there too, because of course, here 20 of a CD collection. So we got iTunes and we would rip all our music to that. And then iTunes is like, let's include podcasts. And so I was like, wait a minute, I upload an MP3 file of my show and now everybody who has iTunes can access this, this is incredible. So I really saw the power early on of this and I always thought radio was cool. And once we started getting emails from people in like South Africa who were listening to our show in Canada, I thought, okay, I'm in Ann Arbor uploading an MP3

Starting point is 00:11:21 file and a day later, someone in South Africa is emailing me from a game park where they're listening to this This is an incredible medium and remember for everybody's like yeah It's called social media. There was no Facebook really back then. I mean this is 2000 There was but there was it was like college students used it to look at girls like that was it. It's really really new and There was no Twitter or Twitter. I think got founded right around then. And that was it. No Instagram. See the power of this early. And I was like, this is gonna be huge, because they're gonna make this easier,

Starting point is 00:11:54 and they're gonna figure out that it's a new media channel that everyone's interested in. And Pandora, which was called, I think, the Music Genome Project, you couldn't choose which songs you listened to. It didn't have most music, but it would play some general category of music for you. And I was like, pretty soon, they'll have something like this for podcasts. And now here we are like 20 or 15, yeah, about 20 years later in Spotify spending,

Starting point is 00:12:17 like, you know, half a billion dollars acquiring podcast technology. And Pandora has been soundly beaten by Spotify. So I didn't really know how to put it all together. I would have bought stock. And I would have been on, I would have been on even more the edge of it, but I stuck with it. And that's kind of the next best thing. You know, if you can't really predict where everything is going, the least you can do is just sort of hang on and ride the wave. Well, for the listener who might not be aware who you are, I'm just gonna give a couple of statistics.

Starting point is 00:12:49 Sure. I mean, you do about 11 million downloads. You were ranked in 2018 by Apple, if not the best podcast, one of the top podcasts out there. And the names of the guests that you have on your show is just amazing. From Matthew McConaughey to Colby Bryant, you know, blesses Soul to Duane Wade, Ray Dalio, Brian Chesky. So I guess you were probably told by a lot of advisors or friends that you should scale this business. You should take it to be like this empire.

Starting point is 00:13:25 Is there something that holds you back from doing that? Well, a lot of people who will tell you to scale something, they don't know what that necessarily even means. So some people say, scale the business, get 10 different shows under you and then grow them. And it's like, man, it's really hard to grow something. And when you grow something that's not yours, which it always is, if it's a show made by an artist, that person can leave when they are larger. And you will, you have the choice between suing them to fulfill their contract, which is messy,

Starting point is 00:14:00 ugly, and expensive, or letting them go, which is unfair, because you've grown them to this large size, and now they want to repal the upside while you just took care of the downside. And then it's like, well, okay, what if you own these shows? Well, I can't own people and force them to create good work in a creative way. So I would have to do those shows myself, or higher writers that can only do the show through my voice and whatnot. And I've experimented with that,

Starting point is 00:14:29 but at the end of the day, when I think about what I really want and I go, all right, I've got a baby that's two and a half, a baby that's an actual baby that's a month and a half, I've got my wife, my parents are who are here now are like 80 and 78 years old. Do I want to work a bunch to get a few extra million, this sounds horrible, but I'm going to be very candid. Do I want to work a bunch to get a few extra million dollars that I will probably just die with

Starting point is 00:15:00 or give to my kids or do I want to take more time and spend time with them and be done at 4.30 every day and still die with millions of dollars in the bank, right? Like, nobody's gonna be like, man, I bet he wishes he died with 30 million instead of 20. Like, no one, no one ever says that, right? So, and no one's gonna say that about me. So, and I say that fluently because the marginal value of money is really low. Once you're past the point where you can spend it

Starting point is 00:15:32 on things that you needed to want. Like if you can't afford food and like and fun stuff and vacations, yeah, maybe you could work a little bit more and spend a little bit more time with your kids on weekends that's more present and you got to juggle things and spend over. But if you are making enough money

Starting point is 00:15:48 where you can buy whatever you want already, then time is far more valuable than an extra hour is far more valuable than an extra hundred bucks or 500 bucks. So why would you then trade that time for money? It's actually a bad deal. The reason people do it is because you can't say that you're rich with time, but you can look at your bank balance. Does

Starting point is 00:16:10 this make sense? We measure ourselves all the time by the things that don't really matter. And I can tell you now as a parent who has one out of the house and another one on the way to being out of the house. And when I look back upon my life and I spent a lot of it in these high pressure, fortune 50 senior executive seat type of roles. Yeah. You are giving your time away. And that's one of the reasons I shifted my whole life because I kept seeing why am I creating other people's dreams, but I'm not spending the time to create my own and create the work life balance that I want while doing it

Starting point is 00:16:51 So I completely get it But you're right. Oftentimes we get caught up in the materialism the Awards we get the recognition we get and ultimately none of that stuff really matters in the big, small things. Yeah. I mean, look at the end of the day, I'm my own boss. I haven't ever won anything other than Apple saying like most downloaded new show or getting

Starting point is 00:17:14 these little podcasts or words. I didn't even go to my high school graduation, my college graduation or my law school graduation because when I was done with it, I was like, I don't need a pad on the back from like the Dean of Admissions, like they're nice, but I was already booked to flight out, and I was already backpacking around Macedonia by the time that thing happened. I wasn't about to stick around for that stuff. And I don't need accolades from my boss now

Starting point is 00:17:43 because I don't have one. And so you're right. And I'm not a materialistic guy. Like my wife and I share a car, we just have the one. I don't have a Rolex watch. I don't collect anything other than dirty diapers. I don't really, I don't have like a big giant plasma screen TV, like I just don't, I don't care about any of that at all.

Starting point is 00:18:11 I like experiences more. I also don't react well to like high levels of stress. I start losing sleep, I start getting really upset, I get angry, my appetite either goes away or gets ridiculously out of control. So I'm not like a, I'm not like my best self, you could say. Right. That's under that much stress.

Starting point is 00:18:31 So why do that in exchange for money that I can then use to buy things that I know already that I don't want? It's a lot of people go, oh, we're in the delusion that material things will make us happy. I'm not even under that delusion. I already know I don't care about that stuff. So working harder to get access to it is the dumbest thing I can think of, honestly. Not trying to fault people that love working

Starting point is 00:18:54 and making money and collecting watches. Like cool, if that's your thing, then great. I'm just not that guy. It made way more sense for me to be quote unquote, wealthy in terms of flexibility and free time than it makes sense for me to be wealthy in terms of like, oh, I have a gold plated iPhone case. I just, none of that's ever gonna make me even remotely happy.

Starting point is 00:19:13 What makes me happy is being like, let's take a month off and go take the kids and go to Taiwan. That kind of thing makes me happy. So I optimize for that instead of for money. We will be right back to my interview with Jordan Harbinger, Oprah Winfrey. She's living, breathing proof of the power of passion, running away from home at age 13, starting a media empire, and now worth $2.6 billion. All to say that, when she makes a big move, you can learn a lot by watching.

Starting point is 00:19:41 And after she made $60 million in one fell swoop, I did some research on how and my eyes were opened to a market out there worth $1.7 billion. That, for the first time, we all can be part of no Oprah-level billions needed. How? There's a startup that's blowing the whole thing wide open called Masterworks. Powered by passion, like all good startups are, and eager to change the world. To learn more, go to masterworks.io and use promo code passion. That's masterworks.io promo code passion. See important regulation, A, disclosures at masterworks.io slash CD. That's masterworks.io promo code passion.

Starting point is 00:20:29 And we know all these promo codes can be so difficult to remember. So we put them in one convenient place on passionstruck.com slash deals. Thank you so much for supporting the sponsors who support this show and make it free for our listeners everywhere. Now, back to my interview with Jordan Harbinger. Now, it makes sense. And I guess I wanted to go a little bit deeper on this because you take away the money, being on success, magazines, cover all that stuff. Yeah. But at the end of the day, when you look back and you think about this podcast, what is the impact that you're trying to provide the world? Because you've got such a large audience now that you can make societal impact. It's funny. I've been totally thinking about that a lot

Starting point is 00:21:18 lately because of the Joe Rogan controversy. Are you aware of this? Have you seen this? Joe Rogan stuff with the COVID? Hey, look, not everyone reads the news, and I can't blame you if you don't. But yeah, I've been thinking about that, like what moral responsibility do we have as broadcasters to use our influence for good? And look, my two senses, we have a large moral, if you can measure moral responsibility

Starting point is 00:21:39 in terms of size, we have a large moral responsibility to do that. If I find it distasteful when an athlete gets caught in a Las Vegas brothel and says, I didn't ask to be a role model, yeah, you did, you accepted the fact that you were gonna play in the NBA and get a big check and be on TV.

Starting point is 00:21:55 So you did, you might reject that because you're a crappy person who's immature, but you did accept it when you accepted the role of being in the spotlight and getting paid to do that. And that's the way I look at it. Like I can't sit here and go, yeah, I drop F-bombs and tell people to that smoking isn't that bad for you and you know, drop out of school.

Starting point is 00:22:18 I don't say that in either. I'm not saying Joe Rogan says that either, by the way, I'm to be clear, but you can't go around being a bad influence and then saying, just my opinion, man, I didn't ask for this. Well, are you caching the checks? Because if you are and you're getting paid on ad impressions, you've been working hard to that.

Starting point is 00:22:37 Like, you can't promote your show and get big name guests on your show like I do and then go, well, I didn't ask you to listen. No, I literally begged you to listen by forcing it down your throat, by advertising everywhere, doing media and doing shows like this. The thing that I have to do is if I convinced your kids to listen to me, what I need to do is not feed them chocolate chip cookies. I need to feed them something healthy.

Starting point is 00:23:03 And the reason for that is because otherwise you're doing damage to society. Is that the legacy you want to leave behind? I mean, that's what you got to ask yourself. For me, legacy is greater than currency, right? I turn down advertising deals for things like vape pens, even though they'll pay a lot. And because I don't think it's good for people, sure, I could be wrong. But let's assume that I'm right about vaping being bad for people. Sure, I could be wrong, but let's assume

Starting point is 00:23:25 that I'm right about vaping being bad for you. It's probably not a huge leap. I don't want to be a part of advancing that industry and having young people go, well, Jordan Smart and he said vaping is fine because I got a $45,000 check or something. That to me is distasteful and I can't do that. Not only do I optimize for time,

Starting point is 00:23:42 but I also optimize for what am I leaving behind? If my kids listen to every episode of my show, are they gonna go, man, dad was kind of a scumbag, or are they gonna be like, wow, what a great guy. I think it's really obvious that you, one of those is a better outcome than the other. And you do have a choice. People might say that they don't, but you do.

Starting point is 00:24:02 You can turn down the money from the bad places and you can be a good influence. And it's not that hard. Like you know when you're being a good influence and when you're being a bad influence. And so having a moral responsibility to do that means that if you, for some reason, don't know the difference, you better learn.

Starting point is 00:24:20 If you're gonna be in this position, you better learn. But underlying at all is there's something that you're trying to teach people. For me, everything I do, whether it's my solo episodes or my interviews, it's all through the lens of too many people are living apathetic, mediocre lives, and so I'm trying to teach them intentionality because to me, you can have all the great you want in the world. But if you're not intentional about where you're applying your energy, you could be thrown that grid at something that really doesn't matter. Every finance attorney ever, right? When I was working on Wall Street, I had the amount

Starting point is 00:24:58 of human capital that was essentially misallocated to pushing pencils around, pushing numbers around on spreadsheets was really horrifying. Cause I thought, man, these are some of the smartest people I've ever met. Are they working on getting clean water for everyone in the world? No. Are they working on making sure that kids

Starting point is 00:25:15 across the United States have a good education? No. What are they working on? Oh, well, they're taking all these overpriced mortgages that are on these BS interest rates and they're putting them over here in the security loan pool and then they're drafting a document

Starting point is 00:25:30 that allows an investment bank to sell those loans and then they're, and then listed on a stock exchange. What? Why are we doing that? Oh, well, they're getting paid $20,000, more, $40,000, more, $100,000 more than they would if they worked at charity water. Well, that's horrifying.

Starting point is 00:25:47 These are skyscrapers full of people just doing this. And if these people were dedicated to literally anything else, the value, the amount of value getting flushed down those toilets in World Financial Center is enormous. And that's a shame. I'm trying to teach people critical thinking skills, how to learn from people that are doing things that are really amazing, how to structure a life for themselves that they're proud of that they want to be in, how to get ahead at work in a way that's that they're going to be proud of how to do work that they care about things like that are the topics on the Jordan Harbinger show because that's in the end of the day kind of most of the stuff that matter getting. Getting a perspective from somebody whose older and wiser and a guess on the show about things they've learned in their lives. These are people who've thought about things a lot and that are usually very, very smart or have incredible stories.

Starting point is 00:26:36 And I want that perspective to rub off on the listener because today we released a show about a guy who was a child soldier in Sierra Leone, you know, never had a choice. Parents got killed in a war, had to escape the country, really incredible guy. And you look at that and you go, what am I doing with my life, right? And that's what that those those shows are intended to show is like this guy who saw I met it experienced unimaginable human cruelty came out the other side and it's like a nice person who gives talks to youth. So it really starts to disillusion and pop the bubble that you're in where you go, well,

Starting point is 00:27:09 I can't do a job, I can't do work that matters because I have student loans. Or, yeah, it's like, well, okay, talk to the guy who had to crawl through a ditch filled with human bodies to escape Sierra Leone and is doing work that he cares about. Sorry about your student loan payment though, man. You know, like that kind of I want to put it in perspective. And that's what I try to do on the show. I think you're really going after some really good causes. And I listened to a lot of your episode. You're doing a ton to teach people the things that you're trying to amplify.

Starting point is 00:27:40 So speaking of things you amplify, you have a lot of successful people on the show. I wanted to ask you about your filmo of being around them. Yeah, people ask me this all the time. It must be so great hanging out with awesome people all the time. Or something along those lines, but honestly, it depends. Sometimes it really is, and you go, wow, I'm such a good company. I've got all these amazing people. It's so inspiring. But other times you're like, so you are making all this money for doing this thing, or you're doing this amazing thing, or you're this super famous person. What's that? So yeah, you do get a little bit of FOMO, but as I start to research the guests, and I do a lot of prep,

Starting point is 00:28:18 you know, I do like 10 or 12 hours of prep for each guest. And some of the stories are horrifying like the child's soldier story. So I try and put that in perspective. Like you might not be Duane Wade, but also Duane Wade grew up a really bad situation. But also I'm not a guy who had to escape Africa during a civil war while I was being forced to fight and kill people's parents. But also when you start to research these guests,

Starting point is 00:28:41 you also see usually they have pretty incredible stories that are very clearly not just, I woke up one day and I was so talented I joined the NBA. Right? It's never like that. I mean, with Duane Wade in particular, one of the reasons he got into basketball was because his dad made him play because all of his friends were getting killed. And he's like, if I just make my kid play basketball, he won't go out there and get shot.

Starting point is 00:29:07 Because Duane Wade was selling drugs. He was hanging around kids that were getting shot and shooting other people. And his dad was like, I'm gonna sort of beat him up on the court. And it'll keep him engaged, and it'll engage that youthful, rough and tumble energy. And then Duane Wade just happened to be super amazing at basketball and join the NBA and be the next kind of Kobe Bryant figure.

Starting point is 00:29:28 That's part of the incredible story, but like, but for him having to do all that, he we could just be dead right now at age, he could have got shot at age 16 or got thrown in prison, like a lot of other talented people that went left when they should have gone right. So it's hard to have FOMO when you know the whole story. It's easy to have FOMO when it looks like somebody rolled off the rack and ended up into Hollywood being super famous because of their genetics or something. That's when you go, well man, but once you know the story man, and you see the work involved

Starting point is 00:30:00 and the luck that happened in all the right places, you realize, okay, that's not something that's super repicable for me. I think that's something that you and I have in common is we both do a lot of research on our guests. And to me, if someone's going to take the time to be on your show, then I better know a thing or two about them and be able to lead them and the questions that I want them to do, which is surprising why people call you the Larry King of podcasting because I think a Larry King is kind of like Joe Rogan. He's not very well prepared.

Starting point is 00:30:32 Yeah, exactly. Actually, that line is from Forbes or Ink magazine or something like that. And I remember it was getting published or pressed. It's a funny story, but I did the interview for that magazine and they said, we're gonna compare you to some famous broadcasters and I was like, cool, that always looks good. I get to call it like four o'clock in the morning and it was a friend of mine who lives in France

Starting point is 00:30:54 and he was like, you should probably call Ink magazine and have them change the post that they just posted because they're gonna put it in paper. And I thought, okay, why? And he said, well, it says Jordan Harbinger is the Charlie Rose of podcasting, which if you know Charlie Rose is like a very well prepared interviewer. And I said, yeah, I'm stoked about that. We talked about that. Why are you waking me up to tell me they called me the Charlie Rose of podcasting like, I know about that. They I saw the draft. Well, you should Google Charlie Rose news and just like let that say. And I googled it.

Starting point is 00:31:26 It was when it was like he had harassed some intern. He was in the middle of getting canceled. And I think I won't quote the actual thing because it was a really disgusting sort of tagline. But I immediately had emailed Inke magazine and I was like, can we change that to any other broadcaster? And they're like, we have to change it right now. Who's the, who do you want it to be like?

Starting point is 00:31:50 I mean, who else is a famous broadcaster? And I was like, I don't know Larry King and they were like, done. And then that was like two, you know, an hour before it went to print or something. And so that's how it ended up saying the Larry King of podcasting. It was the Charlie Rose podcasting who's a very well-prepared interviewer. But I didn't, I thought Charlie Rose, we're never going to hear from that guy again. He's getting, he's getting canceled right now. And just a Barbara Walters. Hey, I would have taken Barbara Walters, like 2020 hindsight, Barbara Walters, Anderson Cooper, anyone other than a guy who literally doesn't prepare

Starting point is 00:32:22 at all for his guests, Larry King. I like the guy. I met him a bunch of times, but yeah, he famously was unprepared for his guests. And so it was a pretty inappropriate comparison, but here we are. Sure. I'm not going to ask you who your favorite guest is because if someone would ask me the same question, it'd be so hard for me to answer because there've been so many great ones. But I wanted to talk about one of your guests. I always wondered what Brian Chesky was like. The story about

Starting point is 00:32:50 Airbnb is an amazing one. But when he was on your show, the humility that he came across and the struggles that those guys face along the way, to me, it was really inspirational, much more than I expected. Did you have a similar reaction to interviewing them? Yeah, I was a little surprised because you can tell when someone's media trained, but also you can tell when somebody's not just talking through their media training, talking points, if that makes sense. So these big-time CEOs, they're very media trained. So if you talk to the CEO of AT&T, he might be somewhat personable, but you're going to hear those same personable sound bites in every interview that they do because they crafted those with a publicist

Starting point is 00:33:35 and a media trainer and like their anecdotes and stories are all kind of like, I won't say fake because they're real, but they're definitely not like, I just thought of this thing I want to share with you right now. I mean, they've been rehearsing that of a mirror for a month. But with him, I asked him questions, and he was really like, a lot of it was off the cuff, and I had a lot of calls with his team beforehand, and they were never like, don't ask him this,

Starting point is 00:33:58 don't ask him that. They were like, you can't ask about earnings stuff because it's a publicly traded company, and he's literally not allowed to tell you things that could affect the stock price because it, you know, Elon Musk did that in Twitter and get in trouble. They don't want to do that. I'm like, that's fair. I'm not going to ask that stuff. But they're like, everything else is fair game. He doesn't want to mention the name of people that he's dating. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to ask him that. Everything else was

Starting point is 00:34:22 pretty off the cuff and normal. He didn't know in advance what I was going to be asking. He was able to answer all those questions. We didn't edit out anything weird. There was nothing weird to edit out. He just was a good guy who you could tell cared about his business also having a good impact, which is interesting because Airbnb, a member originally was like hotels hated it, and hated it and then landlord's hated and he's sort of big disruptive

Starting point is 00:34:49 industry like that has a lot of interests that are going to be upset by it. But yeah, it was, it's interesting talking with people like that because he did come across to somebody who like genuinely cared about making a positive impact was negotiating and navigating very tough situations with people who run Airbnb during a pandemic, employees during a pandemic, publicly traded company during a pandemic, technology, all that's and that really came across in the interview. And so I really did enjoy that interview with Brian Cheskey for that reason. I have done interviews with other CEOs where I thought I just got all the canned stuff. That wasn't that interesting for me, you know,

Starting point is 00:35:26 and that was, but Brian Cheskey, he didn't do that. To his credit, he didn't do that. It's easier for them to do that, to give you a canned, rehearse thing. It's far easier because then everything is safe. These guys are trying not to lose a billion dollars, right? They've already made it. That's a lot harder in some ways

Starting point is 00:35:44 when you're talking about media appearances. Well, I think one of the most enduring parts that whole interview was he was talking about when COVID hit and he had all these business owners who were his partners who thought they were gonna have these reservations and then all of a sudden, they're left with nothing. And that whole thing where he said, I can't remember if it was like a quarter billion

Starting point is 00:36:08 dollars he gave back to all the owners to try to at least put some money in their pockets. But the amazing thing was I've tried to raise money in the past and giving away your money at the same time that you're trying to raise a billion or a billion a half dollars. That speaks a lot to the commitment that he made. Yeah. What are you going to do with our money if we invest in you? Well, I'm going to give all of it away to people that use the platform and then hope that they don't then leave the platform.

Starting point is 00:36:38 So you're not going to expand or no, we're literally just going to give most of it away. Yeah. No. That's not going to go over what, but it did. You know, he was in a position of that.. Yeah, no. That's not gonna go over what, but it did. He was in a position of that. But yeah, I think you're right. Look, I don't remember the exact figures,

Starting point is 00:36:50 but it was something like if I booked an Airbnb and then wanted to cancel because of the pandemic, of course I'm not going to go, but then they made a flexible cancellation policy because they didn't want the users of the app to get screwed, but then the people who are using the app to rent a room were like, well, now I'm screwed. So he basically paid them. I don't know if it was the full amount, but it was like, he gave them enough money to where they weren't totally going to be, you know, in the whole,

Starting point is 00:37:16 which was a really good move because all those people went, wow, this app I'm using is going to bet for me in the middle of a pandemic. This is amazing. And to the tune of like a lot of money. It was a lot of money. You're talking about millions and millions and millions of dollars. So yeah, it's, look, he was able to do the ethically

Starting point is 00:37:36 right thing that turned out to be the right thing for the business as well. And it might not have shaken out that way. He might have done the ethically right thing and then been bankrupt. That was the possible outcome that thankfully didn't happen. Well, as much as I love your interview shows, someone's listening here, they're not familiar

Starting point is 00:37:54 with feedback Friday. You answer the audience's questions, but you go really in depth, you bring experts into it. How does someone ask you a question? Yeah, they can email Friday at jordanharbanger.com and we get questions from, I mean, you've heard those episodes where sometimes it's like, how do I get a raise at work? I'm relatively new, but I'm doing more work than my peers, whatever. And the other one is like,

Starting point is 00:38:16 I was raised in a dangerous cult. And now they have my brothers and sisters imprisoned in some place in Idaho and they're all miners. What do I do? And I'm like, so we have a large section, cross section of society represented on that show. And that's what makes it fun for us because it's not just the same old, same old. I mean, we get wild questions every single week. And yeah, so if people have something that's keeping them up at night,

Starting point is 00:38:40 I would love to hear from them and be able to run that on the show. We keep it anonymous obviously. I'll just end here by just encouraging my audience to check out your show because we don't compete. We kind of cooperate with each other and I think your show could impact so many people if they haven't heard it. So please check out Jordan's show if you haven't done it already. Thanks so much, man. I appreciate the opportunity. Yes, thank you so much, man. I appreciate the opportunity.

Starting point is 00:39:07 Yes, thank you so much for coming on the show. I was so thrilled to have Jordan Harbinger on the show. I'm sure you could tell it by the way I interacted with them. And I'm equally excited to have Kathy Heller, another podcast idol of mine, coming on the show over the next few weeks. Both of them have completely redefined for me what it means to host a great podcast. And if you're new to the show or you would just like to introduce over the next few weeks. Both of them have completely redefined for me what it means to host a great podcast.

Starting point is 00:39:27 And if you're new to the show, or you would just like to introduce this to a friend or family member, we now have episodes starter packs, both on Spotify and on our website. These are collections of your favorite episodes organized by topic, which give any new listener a great way to get appointed to everything

Starting point is 00:39:44 we do here on the show. Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs. And if there is a person whom you would like to see me interview, such as Jordan Harbinger, Brechen Rubin, etc. You can reach out to us on Instagram, at JohnRMiles, on LinkedIn, at JohnMiles. And if there is an episode that you would like to see us cover in our Friday Sillo episodes or a question that you would like to ask me, please reach out to

Starting point is 00:40:09 us in email at Momentum Friday at PassionStruck.com. Please include a catchy subject line, keep the email succinct and let us know your thoughts. I so appreciate each and every one of you joining us. You are the reason that we do this show and put so much effort into bringing the highest quality guests like Jordan that we possibly can under the show. Now go out there yourself and become PassionStruck. Thank you so much for joining us.

Starting point is 00:40:35 The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the PassionStrike podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes and you sharing it with three of your most growth-minded friends so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion-struck community.

Starting point is 00:41:09 If you'd like to learn more about the show and our mission, you can go to passionstruck.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, look at our tools, and also download the show notes for today's episode. Additionally, you can listen to us every Tuesday and Friday, or even more inspiring content. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges.

Starting point is 00:41:34 Thank you again for joining us. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jordan Harbinger on Why Building Your Legacy Is Greater Than Currency EP 137

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