The Jordan Harbinger Show - 11: How to Deal with Conversational Narcissists | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

Jordan (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason (@jpdef) are back to banter every week and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday on The Jordan Harbinger Show! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now, let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Sending a question for Feedback Friday? Remember: No cuts, no butts, no coconuts! How do you best take care of business today when you're squatting from a suitcase at Mom's while awaiting a possible job offer from a friend's company? You're a parent and you've just caught your child in a lie. What do you do? What's our advice for dealing with conversational narcissists? How do you add value for people in your network when you don't feel like you're bringing anything to the table? What's the way forward when a juvenile criminal record and a dysfunctional family keep you from achieving your dreams now that you've worked so hard to better yourself? How do you enjoy embracing your inner grown-up and a life with an amazing fiancée when you still have urges to revisit bachelor-era indiscretions? Where do you begin if you've never had a "passion" to pursue and it already feels too late in life to start? Recommendation of the Week: Darkest Hour Shout-outs to Mark and Stephanie whose Airbnb we enjoyed, and all the fans of our former podcast who have come to find us here on The Jordan Harbinger Show! Have any questions, comments, or stories you’d like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger, and check out Jason's (@jpdef) other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. You can also find him on Instagram at JPD. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps. Consider leaving your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DePhilippo. And here on the Jordan Harbinger show, as much as we love having conversations with our fascinating guests, our primary purpose is to pass along there and our experiences and insights along to you. So in other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you. And that's what we're going to do today and every Friday here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us for this at Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com.

That's where you reach our Friday inbox. A lot of people have been emailing me personally, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. I love hearing from you. But if you send me a Feedback Friday question to my personal inbox, then Joe Lee or Jen or whoever's just going to forward it to the Feedback Friday inbox, and it's going to end up at the bottom of that list. So you're better off sending your Feedback Friday question to the right inbox.

Just saying. I think a lot of people, Jason, are like, Oh, if I send it to him personally, he'll get back to me personally. And I can't do that. Yeah. And I've been getting him on Facebook and Twitter. And I'm just like, ah, guys, Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Fastest way to get on the show.

Yeah, otherwise it's hard for us to keep it straight. And, you know, we don't want to incentivize people to send stuff to the wrong place. Because it kind of makes me think, are they just not paying attention? Or are they trying to scan the system? They're trying to cut in line. Yeah. And as we said in third grade, no cuts, no butts, no coconuts. Did you say that?

No, I never heard that before. No cuts, no butts, no coconuts is what we used to say. That's probably just in my school. I doubt that things went viral back then, and I don't think that's how that worked. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure. As always, we've got some fun ones and some doozies. I can't wait to dive in.

Jason, what is the first thing out of the old mailbag? The new mailbag, not the old one. This is the new one. Dear Jordan and Jason, I'm a junior at university, and I'm taking a semester off for financial reasons. While I'm off, I moved back in with my mom, who's amazing and raised me by herself, and she's glad to have me back home for a while. I left school to make some more money to keep up with my education and went back to my hometown because my friend said he could hook me up with a great job at his company. It's a great job and I'd get to work with my friend. Sadly, they haven't pulled the trigger and hired me yet.

I'm running low on cash. I need help making a decision whether to jump ship and get another job or stick with my friend and wait it out. What if I get a job and his company makes an offer? How would that make me look if my friend went out on a limb for me and I took another gig? The other issue is my mom. She's already got a lot of people in her house and I'm basically squatting out of a suitcase. It's loud, dirty and I just don't fit anywhere. And I'm stuck there since I don't have a job.

Do I just stay and suck it up until I go back to school or do I find another place to live? And if I move out, how do I tell my mom the reason? Signed, unemployed and restless. Well, this sounds like a little mess for sure. A little bit. Yeah, man. All right. So I understand being stuck between these jobs.

You're kind of in limbo. I know what that's like. Very clearly. I know what that's like. I would say first things first. Be honest with your friend that you need to know quickly. Time is of the essence. He probably can't do anything about that.

Right? He probably can't go, all right, look, manager. You better make this offer pretty damn quick because my friend who really needs this job might find something else. You have no leverage here. You have none. None. None.

So let your friend know that so that he doesn't look like a schmo. He can pass that on and say, hey, look, my friend would love to work here. He's got these qualifications. I wanted to see if he did the da-da-da-da, because he's already here, and he's got to have, you know, he's in a logistical situation. People should understand that, whether they care, different story. Also, let him know your alternative plans to find another job if his company can't come through. He should understand this, I would imagine. And it's better than him being surprised by this, right?

and his manager being surprised by this. If you find another job and your friend's company comes through, you should be very careful about burning your new employer by leaving so quickly. That could really butt you in the ass later down the line because they'll know that you dumped them, and then you could end up at this new company and your offer could evaporate, or you could hate it, or you could get canned or laid off, or you could love it, and you might still regret having done this to your current employer.

That can be really, it's just really, really bad. Nobody likes to be treated as an option when they're treating you as a priority. Whether this is in professional relationships or whether this is an intimate relationships, nobody likes to be treated like that. And always someone sticking their neck out for you in a job situation. So that aside, your home life sounds pretty bad. You need to protect your sanity here. And living out of a suitcase, there's just something about it, Jason.

If you don't have a personal space, you don't have a place to call home. I've been in this situation when traveling abroad where I was kind of with his host family and it was kind of temporary. And then their other exchange student came and he took the room. And I was kind of sleeping on the living room. But then the grandpa would get up at 4 a.m. And I couldn't keep my stuff in there because it was the family room. It was awful.

It was bad for my sleep. It was bad for my sanity. And I really felt unsettled. And it was a really uncomfortable place to be even for just a few days or a few weeks or however long this was in my 20s. And I didn't have a job. I was just farting around. So I can imagine how it is if you have a job

and you've got to be at peak performance and you're living in a space that's not your own. It's just not good. Environment will influence how you eat. Environment will influence how you drink and you think and you sleep. Self care here is absolutely critical. And if you've got a new job and you come in looking like crap or not performing at your top

because you are living out of a suitcase and somebody walked in at 4 a.m. and kept you up the rest of the night, you're not going to do well. And they're not going to say, oh, poor guy doesn't have his own place. They're going to go, this guy's a loser. You know, they're not going to try to make excuses for you. So yes, you should leave and find a place of your own. Even with roommates, you need a place where you can be settled, living out of that suitcase, not healthy emotionally. And I can't put my finger on exactly why, but it leaves something in your psyche unsettled in a way that's just not good for you, aside from the sleep and all the other stuff. You don't have roots. I've been in that situation,

you don't have roots and there's that insecurity of, okay, maybe they'll change their mind. What am I going to do? You just don't have that grounding. So you can't, everything, like you said, it's uncertain. And that will just, like, wear you down over time because you need certainty. You need to be able to come home at night after a day of work, go in your room, shut the door, and relax. But if you're at the whim of the house, you'll never get that, you know, that piece and that calm. And it's a really tough feeling to get past. So I totally sympathize with what. he's going through with that. And it's really hard, especially if you have a job, for sure. The other thing that caught me in this letter was the wording that he used, how do I tell my

mother I don't want to live with her? That's you sure. You're not telling her that. Don't tell your mom that. Yeah. That is so not going to give you, that's not going to work. The wording, the way you're thinking about this is what's causing you stress. You got to tell her that you need to live in a place that's your own home. Don't make it about her at all. Reinfirm. that you love her. You think she's incredible. You're so grateful that she let you stay with her. You don't even have to make it about the house. You don't have to make it about the living arrangement. Make it exclusively about you taking care of yourself. And that's really important. If you make it about you taking care of yourself, nobody can ever really argue with that. And your mom would

never argue with that. Oh, I need to take care of myself, Mom, and it's just not happening here. And I want to go live with Rich. Okay. Love you, honey. Great. Hopefully you'll be home for dinner a few times a week. Sure, I'll show up for the food, right? You don't make it about her house because you don't want her to go, oh, I'm going to tell one of our Airbnb people who's paying the mortgage, they can't live here anymore because my son needs it. And then your mom's in a financial struggle and you're in a financial struggle. You don't need to do that. Don't make it about her. Don't make it about the house. Make it about taking care of yourself. I almost guarantee you, depending on how she rolls. She's not going to argue with that. All right. Next up.

Hey, guys. I just finished listening to the show from February 16. Jason mentioned that he lied to his dad and his relationship suffered for 10 years as the trust was broken. As a father of a 15-year-old boy, what advice would you give to address lying when you know your son is lying? I want him to know that it's not right, but I don't want to have a ruined relationship for 10 years. Jason, what could your dad have done to make the issue less destructive to your relationship? Signed, Lost in Liar Limbo. Okay, so here's what happened with me and my dad, And this is something that I think you should definitely take to heart. Your son's 15.

I was a little bit older. I was about 17 when my thing happened. But I was treated as an adult because at that time I had been moved around and I'd been living with adults for a long time. So I was kind of seen as one of the adults. Your son is not an adult. He's 15 years old. So treat him as a 15 year old. And what my dad would have done to me what you should do to your son is say, hey, you lied to me.

let's clear the air and let's talk about it my dad was he's a very cold person he doesn't really like he's not very emotional so it kind of just went in the refrigerator for 10 years and we never really talked about it until i got up the you know basically the courage to say hey let's let's just clear the air and talk about this but if you would have come to me and said hey i'm your father you lied to me and laid down the law and given me a chance to state my case he could state his case and we could talk it out we would have had that entire 10 years together but you need to be the father not the, you know, kind of pretending to be the older sibling, which is what my dad did, which I know a lot of people's dads do. As their kids get into their teen years, they see them as, oh, they're almost a man so they can, you know, need to act like a man and be treated like a man.

But as we know, the brain's not even close to fully developing in the teenage years. You know, it doesn't like finish developing until the early 20s. So you still need to treat people like they're your children and guide them and say, look, you lied to me. let's work this out and you shouldn't do this in the future because I'm your father and I want you to talk to me and I'll be here for you. But if you lie to me, it makes it difficult for me to help you become the man you want to be. Does that make sense, Jordan? It does, yeah, it does make sense. And I would not have thought of that.

So I'm glad that you had a personal experience with that. One thing that comes to mind is this is kind of a non sequitur, but back in the day. And I mean, centuries and centuries ago, if not long, longer when 15-year-olds had kids and stuff like that. Yeah. Can you imagine the brain development? I mean, did the brain develop faster? Probably not.

Because we're talking about evolved behavior and evolution and aging and stuff like that. So the majority of living men at that point were just morons. Like they were 15 years old, 17 years old. They grew up faster because they had responsibility. But their brains were still like doing dumb crap all the time probably. Right. Yeah, I bet they had amazing survival skills and they could, you know, milk a cow and, you know, farm a field and kill a bear and all that stuff. But emotionally, they were just, they were still children because the emotional part is the part that really is, you know, is what doesn't get developed until your 20s.

But yeah, I'm sure like, you know, the physical skills about going out and living rough and making a way for your family at 15 back then was fine. But yeah, they probably had no idea how to talk to their wife. Yeah, of course. No wonder. And their 14-year-old wife. I know. I'm not making excuses for this, but I'm saying I get why people created all these laws that treated women as sort of like should be seen and not heard. Because that's what they were comfortable with, man.

They were probably like, oh, crap. If I have to actually relate to this person on a day and day out. This is going to make my life impossible. Because now it's all right. It's hard now. Imagine what it must have been like back then when you're like, well, you're 13. It's about high time. You got married and popped out some kids.

I mean, you just had no ability to do that. It's an interesting thought experiment to think that most of, you know, civilized society was, you know, built and written by people who were just completely and utterly immature. And you kind of, I guess you can see the ripple effects on where we are today and trying to fix it all now that everybody's kind of getting, getting grown up. Yeah, my goodness. Well, let's not go down that. But that's a, this is a conversation we should be having with some sort of scientists. This is probably a conversation we should be having with, like, you have. Vol Noah Harari who wrote Sapiens or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Not exactly. Next up.

Hello, Jordan. Do you have any advice on dealing with a someone that's a conversational narcissist? You know that person that always diverts the subject back to him or herself, seems to lack interest in anything you have to say or one-ups anything that has happened to you, good or bad. I find it extremely draining to spend any amount of time with a person that has this type of attitude. Therefore, I avoid them. But what if it's a co-worker, boss, or family member which you cannot avoid? Do you have any tips on dealing with these types of people? And lastly, would it ever be acceptable to call the person out on his or her behavior? Sincerely, Mr. Anonymous. Gee, what's it like to deal with someone like that for a long period of time? Anyway,

yeah, I think we've all had these people in our lives. Not just conversational narcissists, but narcissists of all kinds. But let's limit it to conversational narcissism. Calling them out will not work if they are a real narcissist. They won't, it won't work because if they're a narcissist, they're thinking, yeah, of course we're talking about me. Why wouldn't we be? It's a good start to call them out, I guess.

But look, it won't work. It can be a good start because then you can figure out if they're a real narcissist or not. Some people might just go, oh, crap. I was an only child. I haven't even thought about the fact that I only talk about myself. Or I used to be shy and now I'm not, and you're right. I'm outgoing, but I don't have any subject matter other than myself because I'm not used to this. That might be the case.

Okay. So you're also opening the door to keep talking about them even more. You kind of are. You're feeding the fire on that. You could be. Or they could get the hint, but that's unlikely. If you don't mind them blaming you for feeling bad after you call them out, then go ahead. But oftentimes a real narcissist, they will get angry.

And they'll either get angry in a way that's to your face or more likely passive, aggressive, of BS that you're dealing with months later because you made them feel bad a long time ago. And we dealt with this inside our business for a while. I mean, we saw this a lot in our relationships with certain people because that's how this functions over time. And it can be kind of nasty. It may also just get them to stop talking to you because they might feel awkward after you've said something.

However, that works for me. I know this is weird, but if I don't want to deal with someone like that and I call them out and they go, you know what, screw you, Jordan, I'm not talking to you anymore. I feel like that's problem solved. Exactly. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It's like, oh, yep, okay, see you later. Yeah.

Don't call me. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Exactly. The problem is if you have to work together or something like that, you've got another problem. But if it's just somebody you know and then they avoid you, great. But now that I think about it, the only downside is that you might offend them. But if you don't like them anyway, it solves the problem no matter what happens. Remember, you can't change anyone else.

his behavior. But what you can do is you can set boundaries for what you'll put up with. That's really it. You can really, you can't make them change. You can draw attention to something you wish would change. And that would work. If somebody said, hey, Jordan, you only really talk about yourself. That's the kind of thing where I would go, oh, crap. Hey, Jason, if I go down this, let me know. Hey, Jen, if this happens, let me know because so-and-so told me this. And yeah, you know, I didn't want to say anything because we like you, but you only talk about yourself. That is actually helpful for somebody who's not a conversational narcissist, but it just has poor skills, social skills in that area, or bad habits.

And then they'll want to change, and then they won't be as embarrassed or they'll be a little embarrassed, but they can change. If somebody really doesn't care about other people, they're just going to move on to another target because they're going to go, oh, Jason doesn't understand that I'm brilliant. What an idiot. I'm going to go talk to somebody else. And then you don't have to deal with them anymore, really. They might be nasty to you behind your back, but you know what?

Who cares? People aren't going to put up with them very long either. So I think this is a problem that can solve itself if you're willing to sort of draw a little bit of a line in the sand there, the conversational sand. But how do they deal with it if it's a co-worker, boss, or family member? Yeah. And they're stuck in their relationship. That's really the meat of the question here. Then I would draw attention to it in a kind way and say, hey, you know what?

I know you probably don't do this on purpose, but I notice that a lot of our conversation. center around you, and I noticed that it's happened with other folks, too. And I was wondering if you noticed that or if you saw that as a problem. And if not, maybe, you know, maybe it's just a few of us have noticed. And if it, but I have a feeling most people are going to be embarrassed. So don't do this in front of a group. Do this privately. I think that probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway.

Nobody, don't call people out in front of eight people at lunch at work. That's going to be, that's rude. Yeah. You just made an enemy for life there. You just made an enemy. And other people might feel the social awkwardness and they'll stand up for them, even though they agree with you. And then you just ruined an opportunity. If you do it privately and you go, hey, so I noticed this was happening.

And you can even say something like if this is even remotely true for you, I'm not a big liar. But, you know, in this case, it might help be more palatable. I noticed that I used to do this. And what I did, I was turning these people off. And the reason I did it is because I was just inept and didn't notice. And, you know, I used to be shy. So I talked a lot about myself in the beginning because I didn't have other subjects. And I just didn't even notice that I was isolating other people or making it weird.

And I wondered if that was coming through in your relationships because I kind of noticed it. But I'm more attuned to it because I used to do it. Then they might say, gee, I didn't really notice that. But thank you. You know, what should I do about that? Or, geez, I'm embarrassed. And you can say, don't be embarrassed. No, everyone loves you. It's just that I noticed that a lot of times in our conversations, it ends up getting turned back to you. And that's fine. It just comes across like maybe you don't want to hear about what's going on in my life or other people's lives. And I would hate for other people to think that you don't because I feel like you're a caring person. If you handle it that way, instead of, God, you're such a conversational narcissist. Talk about yourself much. Jesus, get out of my face. That's going to be a different. That's going to be a different.

type of conversation that's not going to go as well. So you have to give them a way out, right? Oh, I used to do this. And you also have to do it in private. And you also have to do it in a way that says, hey, I want to help you fix this if you want. But if you don't want, yeah, maybe it's just me, right? Because you know it's not just you. So let them suffer the consequences in that case. But I think most people want to change. Now, that works, I think, for coworkers and family. But what if it's a boss? Somebody who has like you know power over you to give you a raise or put you in a really bad position at work do you think that same approach would work no because if they turn out to be vindictive or passive aggressive then you have to deal with that and they like you said have power over you

and that can become a real problem and that is a big problem in the organization but do you really want to become the target of that person and no i i unfortunately the truth is there's all kinds of crap you can read oh you should file a thing at hr no in the workplace you are often just stuck dealing with this shit you just are what do you think about some conversational judo like every time they start talking about themselves kind of direct the conversation to something about the upcoming projects or somebody else on the team or you know just kind of deflect the the conversation to a place where everybody can talk about the same thing instead of them just talking about themselves what do you think that might be a strategy so this is what i do i don't have a boss other than jen

Yeah, you totally have a boss, dude. You're married. You have a boss for life. Actually, it's funny. Basically, everyone who works here tells me what to do all day long, which is kind of how it has to be now that I think about it. But you're right. I don't know if I call a conversational judo. Maybe you could.

The way that I look at it is I become an energy vacuum for topics that I don't care about or that I don't want to talk about. So if someone says, yeah, you know, I blah, blah, blah, this and I blah, blah, that, I would just go. I would let them just sort of exhaust it. And then instead of saying, wow, that's so interesting, your vacation does look really exciting. I would go, oh, yeah, looks relaxing. So the Milford case, the manufacturing on the mugs, all of the seams on the inside of the glass are off by a millimeter. And they'd go, yeah, you know, and my wife, she really had a great time at this thing. Now, I'm not saying don't make personal small talk at work.

But if somebody just cannot let it go, bear in mind, most people who do this, they're not conversational narcissists, they're freaking lonely. You know, they are. Boss or not, maybe they don't have anybody else to share this stuff with. Now, I tend to just deal with those types of people, but if it's negative, then I'll steer it. Does that make sense? So I don't want to hear somebody complain about their life all day, but if someone just wants to share their vacation with me, fine.

Use it as an excuse to connect more deeply with that person. If they're consistently doing this in a negative way that's bad for you, that's when you need to draw the boundary. I should have probably said that earlier. Yeah, if they're coming into work every day and talking about their bunions, you probably don't want to have to deal with that every day. Yeah, and look, you'll be lucky if it's bunions. But if it's something where you feel like, oh, man, I hate working here

because every day my boss comes in and talks about how we're all going to get fired, that sucks. And that's a time at which you need to go, look, man, we don't, we can't deal with this. It's bad for the team. And if he goes, you know what, you're fired. You're better off out of there anyway. I know that's easy for me to say, but you really are. If you've got a leader like that, you really should look at leaving.

Most of the time it will not go to that level. Most of the time this is a friend or a family member that just doesn't know. They don't have the social skills to realize that people don't care about their bunions or their problems or their vacation or this or that and the other thing ad nauseum. I do want to warn people, though, that everyone has the right to share stuff. So this really better be somebody who only talks about themselves and not somebody. who just wants to share something because they don't have another outlet. Hello, so glad you guys are back on the air. Me too.

Me too, trust me. I had a question about networking at conferences that might help some of your other listeners. I'm going to a scientific conference this week and want to network with well-educated high-level professionals to interview them for a book I'm writing and because I'm interested in how they think. I feel like they will judge me and not want to talk to me because I don't have high-level academic credentials,

just a garden variety master's degree in an obscure somewhat unrelated field to the theme of the conference. Oh, a garden variety master's degree. Oh, geez. What a loser. Oh, sorry, geez. Oh, my goodness. Scientists can be snooty like that. Yeah, apparently. Geez, I've never heard anybody talk like that about themselves, so it's strange.

You talk a lot on the show about adding value to people's lives, and I genuinely want to do this. But I have no major accomplishments to speak of. haven't been involved in research, etc. I have nothing to offer professionally and can't think of any reason these scientists would want to associate with me. How can I network when I am in this position? Thanks in advance for your help.

Friendly volunteer with low self-esteem. Yeah, I notice a low self-esteem thing. All right, so I'm going to cut past all of the counselor stuff about the self-esteem here and just cut right to some practicals. So this is something I call pre-shaping, because it sounds better than stalking, on LinkedIn, you can find out, this is such a weird thing, but trust me, this works really well. So before going to a conference, I taught a bunch of scientists this a long time ago, and it just

crushed. Before you go to a conference, because scientists are kind of snooty, it's like, oh, I just have a master's or oh, I'm in the early stages of my PhD, and this person's had a PhD for 15, 20 years. They're the man. You know, I can't even approach them. They don't care about me. This, you go on LinkedIn. Social media, LinkedIn's really the best for science.

I found. I don't know why. I mean, I guess they're just more pro. Find out which sports and weird random hobbies you might have in common. So I actually did this with a, this wasn't a science thing, but it had to do with politics. And I found somebody who was really interested in North Korea. And they were giving a talk. And I reached out to them beforehand and I said, hey, I want to come to your talk on North Korea. I've actually been there. Have you? I'd love to bring you some of my propaganda posters and stuff like that to check out. And he went, Oh, my God, I would love to do that. So, of course, he's there giving a talk.

There's hundreds of people there. And at the end, everyone wants to talk with them. And I just cut up to the front and I said, hey, I wanted to let you know I'm Jordan. I'm just going to hang out in the back. I'll wait until you're done with these folks. I did bring some propaganda posters if you want to check him out. And he went, oh, good, good, yes, I'll be done in a minute. And he finished this conversation.

And there was a huge line of probably 30 people waiting to talk to him. And he went, look, I would love to talk to each and every one of you. here's my email address. I do have something I need to attend to. And he walked right past me and he goes, let's go to my office. And he just pulled me away from everyone. Way to cut the line.

Yeah. And I was like, I'm not even going to wait in this line. I already have an appointment. You know, I made this appointment on LinkedIn. And another couple of the scientists that I was teaching this to a while back,

these were students from, I want to say UCLA or something like this, they went to their relevant conferences and they had found I gave them homework in the room. And they're like, oh, racquetball. Oh, cool. Underwater basket weaving, whatever.

And they wrote to these professors, these academics, these think tankers. And a lot of them reported later, oh, yeah, I scheduled a game a racquetball before his talk. I scheduled a game a squash. I figured out that they wanted to check out the best tacos in the area. Real example. And they made that happen. And the scientists giving talks were more than happy to take a few minutes and get some workout in. And now you've got one-on-one, one hour, two hours with this person in an environment that doesn't have them going,

tell me why I should be talking to you for more than five seconds, right? They're going, no, let's play squash. They're not thinking, you only have a master's degree. Why are we associating with each other? You should be taking my class. They're thinking, great, best two out of three. You got time? And the answer is, of course you do, because you're there to meet them.

Right? So that's what we call pre-shaping, aka stalking on LinkedIn, find out which sports, hobbies, activities you have in common, reach out beforehand, introduce yourself, then find them at the conference, get to know their work, of course, and discuss with them during the activity if you can. And then offer other introductions to people at the conference if they need them. So if you meet one professor who's giving a talk about North Korea and he doesn't know the other professor and she's there for whatever other thing, you can.

offer that introduction. You don't even have to make it relevant. You can just say, hey, Professor A, I'm actually also meeting with Professor B tomorrow. Do you know her? No, actually, I don't. Would you like an intro? I don't know what relevance it would have to your cause, but, you know, having a bigger network is always useful. And often they'll say, yeah, sure, why not? You know, it's always great to meet the other speakers. Thanks for facilitating that. Now, you've got this social capital from having looked up their work, from facilitating another intro. They kind of owe you one. They'll answer your email. in theory. And last but not least, this might not be appropriate in this context. This might be more

appropriate in another type of context for networking, but I often at conferences will set up outside events. And what I mean by that is I'll set up an escape room and I'll invite a handful of people, other speakers, if I'm a speaker, to go and do this. They have to commit. We end up doing this fun activity. It ends up lasting an hour. Then we go out for tea afterwards, whatever. It'll last a little while. And it's a great way to set this up. I also like mini golf. because a lot of people will go, oh, man, what are you going to do tomorrow? The whole day is beginner podcasting or something. And I'll go, let's go play minigolf.

I found a great place. And five or six of us will take our wives, girlfriend, significant others, boyfriends, whatever, and we'll go play minigolf. And that's something that people haven't done for years, and it's fun. You can't go wrong with puttut. You can't go wrong. No. And it's safe.

You don't have, you don't have to sweat. You don't need to change the clothes. Nobody's going to be like, oh, gosh, I'm not good at this. it's not beach volleyball, right? You don't have to worry about your performance. You can totally suck at it, and then you're just spend more time chatting, which is the point anyway. So I have a ton of stuff like that. We can get into more of that later.

But I think this is a great way the pre-shaping and the creating of opportunities at the event by creating the opportunity to meet them before the event is going to be key. Do not stand in line with the rest of the chumps. You're just going to be another schmo with a master's degree. Now, I think you might have buried the lead a little bit here because he's there to do research for his book, which will get them publicity. Is there any way that he can leverage that to really kind of dig in to, you know, get the meetings that he needs to get?

Yeah, yeah. You can lead with that, but I would all, I would, well, let me, let me rephrase that. You can put that in the second message while you're talking with them about something they're interested in, or you can put it in the first message, but put it right after their interest because these people may also even still be the kind of people. that are getting a ton of attention and they might not even care that you have a book unless you already have a publisher and et cetera. But if you lead with, hey, I heard you're interested in North Korea. By the way, I'm also writing a book about things that you're working on. Now you've

got a winning combination. Perfect. One two punch. Yes. All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan. I just recently graduated high school. It was a long road, but I did it. I'm a former introvert, but now I come off as fairly extroverted. I don't like to talk about my past because it's a very sensitive subject for me. However, I will give some brief details. When I was a child, my mother was an alcoholic. I had a physically abusive stepfather who had regularly beat my mother. I grew up in a ghetto neighborhood.

We were homeless for a short while, but my mother got remarried to a great man who I used to consider my true non-biological father. I had problems as a kid. I was violent, hyper, diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar. I had formal reevaluations done years later, and it turned out it was a miscellaneous. diagnosis. Yeah, because you had a crazy home life, so of course you were acting out. No kidding. My God. My mother overdosed me on prescription so I would enter a zombie zen-like state most of the time. I've spent a year in juvenile detention. We've had a few child protective services

investigations done on my mother, especially after she went to prison, but nothing ever came out of it. I've been to seven different high schools. This is due to me moving around or essentially getting kicked out due to behavioral issues. Long story short, my mother sold my car. and I got kicked out of my senior year of high school. I was so close to being homeless, but I had a great friend who let me stay with him for a while. I now live with my cousin and work full time. I've gone through so much self-improvement.

Life is great, but I can't help but just feeling so many mixed emotions thinking of my past. I spent a year trying to get into the Air Force. I was working with a special operations recruiter, and he gave me his word he could get me in. I was denied last month because of my juvenile history. I was shattered. I plan on attending college classes this fall. Do you think it's a bad thing I withhold information about my past whenever I meet new people?

I have a bad habit of telling lies about my childhood to make it sound like I had a normal life. Do you think I should eventually try and reconnect with my family? They're stable now, but we always seem to have strong opposing views. I didn't leave on good terms when I was kicked out, but it's hard having nobody. They left me with nothing, and I think it's going to be very hard to ever forgive them. What's some advice you'd give me for my freshman? year of college. Love the show. Signed, future computer engineer. Wow. Holy moly. Okay. Peace. So, first of all, sorry to hear all this. You don't need my apology or my sympathy.

But I admire you for working so hard on yourself. Future computer engineer, let's scroll up a minute. Alcoholic parents, abusive stepfather, kicked out of the house, spent a year in juvie, homelessness. I'm I'm speechless. So props from going from homeless to college, just let that sink in for a bit. Be proud of yourself. Damn. Look, for the military thing, I'm not sure about this. My gut says, well, I mean, we're talking about the government, so screw my gut.

But something inside me says there's got to be a way around this for crying out loud. I would, if I were you, I would try to make an appointment with your local senator or house representative. I know that sounds impossible. It's not. I've done it. I did it when I was in Boy Scouts and Carl Levin hung out with us for like 90 minutes. It was awesome. Which reminds me, Carl Levin's been in the Senate for a damn long time because that was so long ago and he's still there.

But you can make an appointment with somebody who's an aide to that person. A House representative will probably be easier as well. This might be a huge pain, but they might be really interested in helping you with this. Anyone out there who's a military recruiter who can help out our boy here, I just refuse to believe that a good person who's now in college is going to be disqualified entirely because they have a juvenile record. Don't they seal those things? I don't know. There's got to be a way to get them to make an exception to this rule for the circumstances. Think about how many people who are qualified and this driven want to get in.

Why would you deny that? I understand it's a bureaucracy, but maybe there's something that can be done. But anyway, worst case, try to go to the military after college. Maybe you can do ROTC in school. They might really want you after you've got a degree, or maybe you won't even want to go after that. I don't know. As for your family, I don't know, man. Your family's done a lot to get themselves back on their feet, but I don't get why they haven't reached out to you.

It's kind of, you're the son, right? What the hell? Why wouldn't the parents reach out? What's your mom doing? They seem, it sounds like they seem like they're rolling around in their own ish right now. You say they're stable, but how stable is a mother that doesn't even try to get in touch with their son? That's, I don't know, man. I'm not sure.

I know you feel alone, but you are not. Your friends are the family that you get to choose. You mentioned a friend let you live with them so you could finish school when your own family kicked you out. I think you might need a few more years of stability so that you can form your own identity as a man before you go back. and try to reconnect with the family. Because what I'm worried about here is you reconnect, and then they start bringing you into their drama, and then there's drama in your life,

and they derail you from what you're doing now, which is finally getting started in the right direction. You know, you've got college, you've got all this stuff ahead of you. I don't know. Do you want to throw wild cards in there and say, hey, parents who kick me out of the house, stir the pot a little bit more? I mean, you just don't need the risk.

What are they going to do for you? I know that that's a selfish question, but you've got to be a little selfish right now. You got to protect your mind right now. And as for the lies, I get it. Your past is embarrassing to you. But honestly, I think admitting to others and to yourself that you had a crazy past will not push other people away from you. I think it will draw people closer to you. If I had a friend that said, hey, by the way, I grew up in this insane dysfunctional environment, and now I'm the person that you know, I don't think I'd go, oh, gee, now I don't want to hang out with them.

I think I'd be like, damn, this person's impressive. And I'd want to help you a lot more than I might want to help a normal friend who I thought was sliding off the rails a little because I would understand you at a deeper level. I personally, I really admire where you've come from and what you've done to recover. I'm proud of you, man. You don't have anything to lie about. The past is the past. Your future is really bright. So go to college, make tons of friends, study hard, don't party too much.

I mean that. And get a part-time job to keep you on the straight and narrow because that'll keep you from partying too much. focus on the future. You've got this, brother. I'm happy for you. I think this is great. I think this is a great start. I'm just worried about him falling off the wagon, Jason.

I don't think I'm that worried about it. He seems like he's got his head screwed on straight. Yeah, but if you get the people in your life and they're all kind of all over the place, I worry about that. He's dealt with alcoholic mothers and abusive stepfathers in the past. I think he knows the deal. I think he's a streetwise kid and he's going to do okay. Well, I hope you're right. All right, next up.

Hey, Jordan. I feel like I have the perfect life for who I want to be. Beautiful, hardworking fiancé, who keeps the house looking amazing. Her preference, not mine. I'm not writing you from 1955. I was going to say, wow. Okay, we're going to get some letters on that one. Go ahead.

Great job that feels like it might be finally taking off, et cetera. But deep down, I kind of just want to play. Get back on Tinder, drink beer, watch TV, etc. How do I enjoy embracing my inner grown-up and getting fired up for this next chapter of my life, hopefully one that includes kids, hard work, lots of sleep deprivation, etc. Yours kicking and screaming in North Carolina.

I'm going to tell you something I wish people told me before I got married, which was that we all have this. We all have this. Whenever you look at, quote, unquote, settling down, you're like, oh, wait, did I do enough of this dumb thing? Did I do enough sad sacking around with a beer? I never did build that cool beer pong table for my swimming.

You know, you have all this. And then you think about it and you go, eh, I'm good. And he says deep down, I kind of just want to play. I get that. But here's what would happen if you did that. Here's what would happen if you woke up tomorrow and you didn't have your fiance and you didn't have a good job. You do like a week of this and you'd go, what the hell am I doing right now?

This is too much. I don't need this anymore. You'd get it out of your system really fast. So my idea for you, and this is how I handle this, get permission from the wife slash fiance here and there. And Jen calls this going to rage. She goes, oh, you want to go rage? She can tell when I'm ready to go rage because I get a little antsy and we get an invite

from friends. And she's like, I don't really want to go out. I know they're going to stay out late. Do you want to go rage? I'm like, yeah. She's like, okay, I'll pick you up in the morning or, you know, in two days or something. Yeah. Spend a weekend with friends, go to Vegas, do it once a quarter, something like that.

You'll be fine. If you're anything like me, you just want to get this stuff out of your system. And it feels like a need, like, oh, I want to do this. It really isn't the lifestyle that you want, though. You've already created the lifestyle that you want, I think, and you're living it. You just miss the old days, and that's normal. The changes are a little scary because they feel so permanent. They feel so, oh, my God, I'm getting married.

There's no going back from that, you know, without a lot of loss and heartache. So just dip your toes in the water. Get a few hangovers. realize that hangovers now lasts you three days instead of two hours and realize how much being a bachelor was fun but kind of empty for you not for everyone sorry jason hey watch it hey yeah but remind yourself of this every three months by just going to rage go out with some other friends who need a guy's trip to remind themselves of the same and i really think that you want to do that before you make some sort of sweeping decision like i'm not supposed to be married sorry fiancee yeah i have a

personal story about this, a friend of mine, I was living with a friend of the show, Robert Fogarty, who does our show notes. We had a very good friend who was engaged to a beautiful, very smart woman who he loved to death. And as the date approached, he dumped her. No, before the wedding. Before the wedding, it wasn't, it wasn't right before the way, but it was like about two months before the wedding. Dumpter moved out, moved into my house because he saw the life that we had, and he had that same it. She's like, I just want to sit around, drink beer and hang out with you guys. This guy would drink a 24 pack of Coors Light every day.

Oh, man. Sat on my couch, farted up my house, and missed the best possible life that he could have had because this woman was amazing. We all loved her and she was devastated. And it was terrible. And to this day, this guy is just basically a nobody. He's got nothing going on. he I mean he really ruined his life by going like I just want to I want to sew my wild oats one more time it's like okay you can do that one more time but you just spent 25 years being miserable because you made a really dumb decision and it I mean it pains me to this day because I mean yes we were the three amigos back in the day but you know what time to time to start adulting and move on and if you want to be with somebody be with them and get that out of your

your system. Yeah, go rage. Absolutely go rage. But don't, just don't give it all up because you want a little bit of fun here and there. That's just stupid. It really is just dumb. And I feel really bad about this guy, but because he was a friend and he just, he put himself down a well and he realized what he did after it was too late and she wouldn't take him back. And it's just like, oh, man, it's just, it breaks my heart for him all the time. But yeah, just you got to go for the future, look forward to those kids. Look forward to that hard work, that sleep deprivation, because it's not going to last forever. And you're still going to have a great wife who does clean the house for you, her preference, not yours. We know. So I say enjoy it and go go whole hog into the

future. Just don't even think about the past. I dig that. And I think that your friend probably made that decision based out of fear. And so, oh, what a mess. Yeah. Well, there's a cautionary tale if I've ever heard one. Mm-hmm. All right. Next up. Howdy, Jordan, and Jason. Congrats on the new show.

It's so good to have you both back after your brief hiatus. Amen to that. Hiatus. Good word for this. I'll dive right in as I know you like to get to business and hopefully you can throw out a bit of advice for a gal way over here on the East Coast. I'm a 45-year-old executive assistant for a thriving real estate development company. My position is certainly not the most mentally stimulated.

I mean, as you can tell from my title, I'm essentially a glorified secretary. Ouch. It has, however, allowed me to purchase a modest home of my own, and though my budget is tight, it enables me to pay my few monthly obligations. I couldn't ask for a better boss, and I have an outstanding retirement plan offered through the company, which, let's face it, a woman my age definitely needs to be thinking about. The dilemma you ask.

I am miserable. For as long as I can remember, I have never known what I want to be. be when I grow up, but more recently the filling of the sands in my hourglass swiftly running out has become more chronic. What does someone my age do when it's a bit too late in life to start investigating what you want to be in life? Where does one begin when they have never had a passion to pursue or an inkling of which path to turn down? I'm college educated and even that goal was achieved as an adult at the age of 30, primarily due to the fact that no spark fanned my career fire. I pride myself in fact that I have always possessed a strong work ethic and I don't just arbitrarily leave a job

without a solid plan in place. I feel sad that the only plan I can see ahead of me is tucking my head down and trudging through my day to day because logically and financially it makes sense to stay right where I am with no promise of inner fulfillment. Any words of wisdom would make my day. Signed, middle-aged woman in misery. Jeez. Wow. I mean, oh, I'm 45. I'm so old. I can't do anything. anything with my life. I'm 46. Come on.

No, but really, I see this a lot. People think they need to live their dreams. I got to follow my dreams. I got to live my purpose. Stop looking at Instagram inspirational photos and get your head on straight. So people feel lost. And this isn't just a millennial thing, right? And a lot of people find that the internet exacerbates this, social media exacerbates this.

I'm not just going to be like, turn off Instagram. That's the problem. you don't have to follow your passion in your career. I know it's countered everything on the internet and all the self-help gurus just, you know, shrank down Alice in Wonderland style because we just pulled the curtain back on their BS advice. Jordan, are you saying she shouldn't get a Lambo? I'm saying you can get a Lambo if that's really what you want. But what I am saying is you don't need to live your dreams, bruh.

Make a list of skills. Make a list of things you want to learn. take courses in each of those, volunteer for different things that you find interesting, volunteer with kids, animals, I don't care. You'll find tons of hobbies because you'll also figure out what you don't want to do. You need to try a ton of new things before you find your thing. So the classes and lists are a great place to start, you know, make a list of these things, find classes where they're taught.

Then, though, let go of the idea that you have to become an Italian culinary genius just because you like noodles or that you have to become a skydiver. because you did it once and now it's your passion and you're going to become a professional. You do not have to make your hobbies your job. This is such a 2010 and beyond kind of thing. Have you noticed this, Jason? It's like when I was younger, you didn't have to make your hobby your job. And now it's like if you don't, you're some kind of loser.

Yeah, it's just ridiculous. I mean, look, we did it, but it was an accident. Total accident. And I'll tell you, turning your hobby into your job usually just freaking ruins it anyway. It just usually ruins the hobby. Yeah. Yeah. Not always, but a lot of the time. So give yourself permission to be good at your job, but give yourself permission not to love every minute of it. You can find something else later.

If you really think you're a glorified secretary, you know, you can work on other skills. You can build other skills while you're there. I think she does like her job, though. I mean, she says she has a great job. And she, you know, It sounds like it. It gets her through the day. I think she's just missing that spark is what it sounds like that. That other thing that kind of, you know, something to look forward to after work. Yeah. is what I kind of think of it as. It's like, what am I going to do when I get home instead of watch TV, have a Swanson, you know, meatloaf dinner and go to bed and eventually die?

Yeah. Yeah, I would say that a lot of people really put pressure on themselves because they feel like they have to make their hobby of their job. You can find another job later. In the meantime, don't put that pressure on yourself to find the perfect vocation in line with your daydreams and making your profession. I'd wager the pressure you're putting on yourself combined with the false idea that you're someone. somehow running out of time, you're 45. Unless you want to become a professional athlete or have five kids, just relax, dude. I think that's what's making you miserable.

It's the pressure. It's not your circumstances. It's that you feel like somehow you're supposed to be different. Your circumstances are supposed to be different. And that's what's making you feel like crap. So give it a rest. Make the list. Take the classes and watch your FOMO Fear of Missing Out, which is what I really think this is.

Watch that melt away. And in misery, look, I'm 46. I'm in the same boat as you. You know what I do? I do my job with this guy, who I have to talk to every day. But in the after hours, I find, I do find the things that make me happy. I'm not trying to become the next, you know, Gordon Ramsey. I enjoy cooking.

But I find little things and walk my dogs, play with my dogs. There are little things in life that make your life meaningful that you can really enjoy that will take that little, that itch in the back of your head. I know that itch that you're talking about because I've had it. And there comes a point where you just go, life is life. Let's just kind of go with the flow and find the things that make you happy. And like Jordan said, it will take a little bit of work to find those things if you haven't been looking for them for a long time. But they're out there.

They are totally out there. I never thought that I was going to be a dog person until two years ago. And these guys have changed my life completely. Now I have an entire new community that I go hang out with that never was on my radar two years. ago. And it's completely changed my life. The little things that you don't think you're coming at you are out there and you just kind of, you know, stick your head out and look every now and again, and you'll find something that will get rid of that and get rid of that fomo because you're not missing out. Life is out there. You just got to, you know, go find it. That was deep, Jason. You know,

I'm usually the, I'm usually the shallow end of the pool, but, uh, sometimes. Surprisingly deep. All right. Recommendation of the week. Darkest hour. Did you watch this, Jason? Jordan, I recommended it to you. Well, that doesn't... Yes, I have seen it. That doesn't answer the question. All right.

So, dark, I have seen it. It's fantastic. Yeah, this is Winston Churchill. Is this Netflix? I think so, right? No, it's not. It's actually, you had to go to Sweden to get this because it is an academy screener. I saw it because I have friends in the academy.

You saw it because you're a criminal. Right. But yes, it is a fantastic movie. Yes. Don't talk to me about copyright. I'm creating stuff for free for everybody. That's my moral license to steal. maybe I bought it you never know this movie parallels what pressure feels like for us a little bit now

in a way that was just 10,000 times worse it was so humbling and so inspiring to see what England and Churchill were going through and it was just man jason when he's on the phone with the American president and the president's like yeah we're not sending the ships sorry and he's just do you have any horses do you have any horses yeah and he's just thinking i have 60,000 men who are going to die on a beach. What do you mean you're not sending the fuel or whatever it is? It's the one thing I will say, though, damn, it's hard to understand what the heck he was saying. Here's the deal with that, though.

It doesn't matter because that's Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill. And when you're watching it, if you're a Gary Oldman fan like I am from the early days and you watch him playing Churchill, you're just, I'm getting goosebumps right now. Literally, the hair on my arm is standing up just thinking about this movie because it was so damn good. but watching him play that part. Yes, he does the on the beaches, on the land, on the landing strips. He gets full Churchill into it.

But it is hard to understand sometimes. But that's why they made subtitles. Yeah, I would say it sounds like that only it's way less intelligible than what you just did. But anyway, the movie's great. It's not available on Netflix. It's not available yet. It'll be out on Blu-ray very soon. Yes, if you're into that sort of thing.

And if you're not, you can go to Sweden, if you know what we're saying. I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Notice the address change. No longer at the Art of Charm. Delete any contact you had. For me, Jason, Friday, anything at Art of Charm.

We had nothing to do with that. We're never going to see it. But if you email us at Jordan Harbinger.com, we'll get your questions answered on the air. We're happy to keep you anonymous, of course. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Quick shoutouts to Mark and Stephanie. They were these sweet old couple that let us their place for Airbnb when I was in L.A. And they said, what do you do? And I said, oh, well, do you know what a podcast is? And he goes, do I look that old? Of course. I know what a podcast is. And I said,

all right. Well, you know, you probably listens to Planet Money or something. I said, well, I host this one. And I, you know, it's this new show. And I used to host this other show. And he goes, oh, I listen to the Jordan Harbinger show. And I said, are you kidding? And I thought he was just. just being nice. And he goes, yeah, I just heard the one that you did about the nutrition with the breadhead guy. And I thought, wow, okay, you actually listen to the show, which is pretty cool. So I want to give them a shout out. I couldn't believe it. I mean, imagine, I used to have to explain to people what podcasts were, and now I rent an Airbnb in a new town and the dude's a fan. It's unbelievable. That's awesome. And I also want to thank everyone from the old show who came

to find us here on the Jordan Harbinger show. Loads of support coming in from email to Instagram to Twitter. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. We got a long road ahead of us to rebuild the audience. We're already about 10% of the way there. We really need you to help share, but it's really cool to see the support come in. We read everything. I share it with the team.

It's really keeping us going right now. It's really, really keeping us going. So thank you. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. it's a great way to engage with me and share some support or ask questions. Jason, you're on the socials. I am on the socials. I'm on Instagram at JPD, and as always you can check out my other podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks. We are on every podcast player you can possibly find or go to go to gog.org. Show to find out Moe. All right. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com,

and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think,

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Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.