The Jordan Harbinger Show - 128: How to Be a Trustee for the Untrustworthy | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: November 30, 2018

Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason DeFillippo (@jpdef) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! 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: When is a cheater no longer a cheater, and when is an addict no longer an addict? If you're going for quality connections over quantity, is meeting four people in two hours at a networking event reasonable? How do you set boundaries when a family member on hard times has overstayed their welcome in your home? Who'd have thought the parents at your kid's new school are more cliquish than their offspring? What can you do to win them over -- or should you? Because you didn't just wait until you were thirsty to dig the well -- you ate a spoonful of salt, too -- how can you recover from job instability when it already seems too late? If you're employed in a full time but unfulfilling job purely for the cash, when is it time to take your side hustle more seriously? Being the trustee of a family trust is hard enough without someone in your own family negotiating like a jerk for more than their fair share. So what would make the situation easier? Recommendation of the Week: The Resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts Quick shoutout to the guys who got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and listened to the show for three straight hours while waiting for the tow truck and discussed all of the topics! 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. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, and check out his other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. Like to travel? Check out Zane's World! Each episode focuses on a different city/country as Zane and his co-hosts break down the best attractions, food and beverage stops, and interesting locations in each destination. Find Zane's World on PodcastOne here! 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...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests. And this week we had Matthew Walker talking, Dr. Matthew Walker,

excuse me, talking about sleep, why we sleep and how sleep works. And of course, how we can get better sleep. And this is a fascinating look into the process of sleep, a process of the brain that is responsible for a huge part of our lives and is crucial to both emotional and physical health. I really loved this interview. We could have gone on forever.

It's not your normal, like, go to bed early, wear a night mask. I mean, there's a lot of stuff about dreaming and all the stuff in there and why that even happens, what happens in our brains. It's cool. Yeah, no, it's a great episode. I was a huge fan of this. I read the book before we actually did the show, so I was, like, so glad that we got him on. Yeah, he's great. And I also did a deep dive with Gabriel Mizrahi on Imposter Syndrome.

And this is one of the most requested topics. And frankly, we got seriously into this one. We discussed it at length, offered some real tried and tested. solutions, so to speak, for an issue that affects almost everyone, especially high performers. I thought it was kind of funny that people who, whenever I go to these rooms of like company, corporate executives or special forces guys, everybody raises their hand for imposter syndrome. Whenever I speak at a school, it's like, nah, you know, it's like people who don't have imposter syndrome are in high school.

Everybody who's done something with their life, they all have it. So if you're feeling a little imposter syndrome where you feel like you could use a personal performance boost, definitely check out that episode with Gabe Ms. Rosh. as well. Of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guests and our experiences and insights along to you. 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 here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Try to keep the questions concise. And please, for the love of God, and this is something we saw recently. Don't make the subject line feedback Friday.

Because they're all just blending into one thread and Gmail and I don't know what it's about. So I just, I skip to the ones that have a descriptive subject line. So those two things will increase the chance your question gets answered on the air. Please and thank you. And we just wrapped up our live event in Las Vegas. Now I'm in L.A. doing interviews and meeting some more amazing people for the show, hanging out here with Jason Live. And we're prepping our UK trip coming up here in January as well.

And we're looking forward to that. As usual, we've got some fun ones here on the show and some doozies. Can't wait to dive in. Jason, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Hello. When is a cheater, no longer a cheater? When is an addict, no longer an addict? I'm a mid-30s woman and seem to be drawn to men with issues.

I always think they're great at first, but after about a year and a half, something and then crashes and burns, typically manifesting in alcohol abuse and suicidal thoughts and cheating. And I've yet to take anyone back. I realize that I'm the common denominator, and I'm looking for a therapist to help figure out how my history and upbringing contributes to my choices and relationship patterns. But I'm honestly curious to hear your thoughts on when one can say a potential romantic partner has learned from his mistakes. I think it's a good start that they're usually

willing to admit that they made mistakes and talk about what they're doing to improve themselves. I'm aware of the adage about the best apology, being changed behavior, but everyone's on their best behavior at the start of a relationship. You remember that old Chris Rock bit where he's like, when you go on a first date, you're not meeting the person, you're meeting their representative. That's right. That's right. Definitely. Yeah, he's, and that was true. That's why everyone laughed at that. Yeah, it's a great bit. I believe they're good people. and I don't want to hold their past against them, but I'm getting sick of getting burned.

I know there's no guarantee, but ah, it's frustrating. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks for your work, and congrats on the transition to the new show. Cheers, Trainwreck Spotter. Ooh, nice. Good name. Yeah. So, all right, train wreck spotter.

You're addicted to fixer uppers. That does say something about you, and I'm glad that you're going to a therapist and finding out why you are repeating this pattern. You are the common denominator. What is it in you that's attracted to these guys? You say you're attracting them, but really it's you who are attracted to them. So find that reason and accept that this isn't happening to you, but it's a process you are engineering subconsciously or perhaps not.

And you're right, the best apology is change behavior. The thing is, people with addictions are physically and psychologically hooked most of the time. And there's always a chance things are going to roll backwards. It doesn't mean they're bad people, but it's a matter of what you are willing to deal with yourself. And as for the cheaters, this is something you're bringing into your life and it is indeed a pattern. I say run from anyone who has cheated in the past couple of relationships. If it's a pattern and not just something crappy they did in college, then run. Cheaters are either narcissistic.

They can't help themselves or they simply don't care. This is not something you will change and you don't need to keep setting yourself up. Yeah, everyone makes mistakes. Do you need to be on the front lines, though, for all of those mistakes? I don't think so. why do you feel the need to be with these people instead of someone that you don't have to work to trust because of their past? That is the question, and that is what you need to uncover with a therapist. Once you find the reason that you're going after this type of person, whether it's self-worth issues or some other pattern, then you can start to break these unhealthy patterns that put you into these situations or have you putting yourself into these situations in the first place.

So take a little extreme ownership for the win here. Sounds like you're off to a good start, acknowledging that you are the common denominator and that your therapist. is going to help you find this because this isn't happening to you. This is something you are creating and you've got to figure out what and why. And I'm guessing there's a whole lot of childhood or past baggage issues coming into play here, but we don't have enough details for that. And that's something you can uncover with your therapist. But the important thing is to pat yourself on the back because it is you that is bringing this into your life and causing this. And the fact that you know that and you've got a professional helping you out now is a good sign. All right, next up.

Hello, Jordan. I recently heard you on the 10% happier podcast. Well, done, young man. Well, thank you. And I wanted to reach out with a question. That's good, because this is the show that we answer questions on. This is where you do that, yeah. Yeah. I was at a networking event this evening that was a total of two hours, and I met four people. Now, I believe in quality over quantity, and I like having more involved conversations.

Is this an abnormal number for that amount of time? Am I even asking a question that makes sense? I ultimately want to build connections for my professional life, but I don't want people feeling like a number either. What are your thoughts? sincerely going deeper. All right, it's always better to go deeper than to be on the surface in any sort of new conversation or network connection, relationship. If you make one real connection that you can call upon or work into your life later

down the line, that is a huge victory for any meetup of any kind, any social interaction. Thousands of mere surface level connections are worth pretty much nothing. I know a lot of people that know everyone, they can't do anything. They haven't built anything because they just have this really, superficial level of connection with all these people. Always, always prioritize deeper conversations and deeper relationship quality over quantity. Doesn't matter who they are. Doesn't matter what they can do for you right now. Remember, that's not what this is about. I cover why this is important and how to prioritize which events to go to in our level one course. That's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one.

And if you're one of those people who keep saying, I hear you talk about this all the time, and I know I've got to do it, I'll say this. Just go ahead and start. It's a few minutes today. and you're just wasting your time not doing something that you absolutely have to do, which is now lowering the chances you're going to have the relationships you need when you actually need them. So go start building deeper relationships now. It's not about quantity. It's about the quality that you have. And don't use that as an excuse to be like, well, I met one person last year.

But yes, if you go to an event or a party or something like that and you meet one or two people that you like, spend as much time with them as possible. You don't have to meet the whole room. It's not about filtering for opportunity. It's about creating deep relationships, period. And level one is at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. Yeah, I used to do a lot of networking stuff in Silicon Valley when I was up in startup land.

And a lot of them were just like, hey, nice to meet you. What do you do? And you exchange business cards. But the ones where you finally meet somebody that you can talk to and like spend half the night with and go deep on, those are the ones that, you know, I'm still friends with now. Exactly. Yeah.

And if you need something, you're like, hey, let me go ahead and text Kevin Rose. It wasn't because you met him once for five minutes. It's because you met him and you hung out with him the whole night. and you don't remember who else was there. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that's the way it should be. It's always better to go deeper than to have just a wide network. You should have both, but start with quality and stay there.

All right, next up. Hey, Jordan. I'm having a hard time staying positive. Just recently, my brother-in-law broke up with his girlfriend and has been living with us for the last couple months. I've definitely noticed a change in the relationship between my wife and I. I can't express to her how much I dislike him living here without her getting upset. with me. We can no longer be intimate with him around, and I feel like our home is no longer our

home. Keep in mind, it was just us living here with our two dogs. I'm stuck with cleaning up after everybody and doing the dishes, laundry, cooking, etc. The problem is he has two young children. We have to separate our dogs from the children whenever they are here due to court orders from the ex-girlfriend. We also occasionally get stuck with watching the two kids. Well, my wife does. He's talked about finding his own place, but I know financially he can't afford it. Between the amount of child support he's going to have to pay, a current wage garnishment, and bills, he's left with close to no money. I'm not sure how much more I can take of this and have even thought of moving out and finding my own place. Please give me some advice. Thanks,

trying to stay hopeful. Okay, so this totally sucks. At the point, the point of which you are thinking about moving out of your own home and getting your own place, think about the damage this is causing to this marriage. Oh, it's ridiculous. Like if I'm at the point where I'm like, You know what? I'm moving out of my own house. I can't have any intimate relationship with my wife. I've got to babysit kids. I can't lock up my dogs. This is BS. And he's doing all the chores. He's got to do dishes, laundry and all this stuff. What the hell is this guy do all day? Yeah, exactly. Look, people fall in hard times, but I'm imagining some Dupree type guy. You remember that movie? Lay on the couch, you know, eating stuff, throwing the dishes in the sink, and then you've got to roll over and clean it up because he expects his sister to take care of him like she did when they were 16 or 1. whatever. And I'm guessing, let me guess, older sister, younger brother, younger brother doesn't have

anything going on. Ex-girlfriend, a bunch of kids, court orders, doesn't sound very amicable. Now he's crashing on your couch. Yeah, he doesn't have any money, no surprise there. I know this sounds obvious. I'm wondering if he's talked to his wife about this. She's probably upset as well, but I bet you it's being directed towards him instead of the brother. Yeah. Yeah, he even said that he talked to her and like she just gets mad at him. Right. Right. Yeah. And I want to say, look, trying to stay hopeful, you are allowed to have feelings about this and you are allowed to be angry. This is, you're not being unreasonable. This is about your wife's relationship with her brother.

I just, I know this in my gut that she's probably always cleaned up his messes figuratively and literally. The parents are probably spoiled this guy. That's why he doesn't have his crap together. And if so, this is a pattern that's going to recur again and again and again and again. And you're going to be in the middle of it. I'm wondering why he doesn't live with the parents. Maybe they're not around anymore. Maybe he was living there before, right?

This guy just sounds like a freeloader. And this might just be the most recent iteration of this guy overstaying his welcome and blowing it and letting other people help pick up the pieces. I know the solution isn't awesome, but is it possible for you to subsidize the brother's place? It sucks. I was thinking that too. I'm like, you know, if you're thinking about moving out and you're going to have to spend money on rent, why not just buy him an apartment and get him the hell out of your life? Because, look, if you get a cheap place, you're like, oh, crap, I live in this crappy place away from my family. Get him a dump, okay?

It is not your responsibility. Maybe if he doesn't live in your nice house, he'll get off his duff. Yeah. You know, yes, he's got young children. If they want to hang out with him somewhere, that's fine. That's up to him. You don't need to get him a nice place, but you need to get him out of there. I would be, and look, here's the other thing.

This sounds like it's going to be the case for a while. It doesn't sound like he's just about to move out. It sounds like he's just comfortable having you guys wait on him, hand and foot. You're in a hard place, and I get your wife wanting to help her brother. I do. But you also have rights to enjoy your home and your relationship with your wife. And you need to talk frankly with her about this before it grows and festers and someone leaves the cap off the toothpaste and get stabbed. And she's probably going to be the one that gets stabbed because he's not getting any now. Right. That's right. Because the brother's there. That's right. Yeah. And look, has this guy heard of Craigslist? He can get a roommate. Yeah. That roommate doesn't have to be you, your wife and your dogs, right? This guy can get a roommate somewhere else. He does not need to live in your house. He can freaking put a tent in the backyard if he's so on if he's so hard up right if there's no way you can get him out there and let's be honest there's a way to get him out there is it's just your wife is enabling him i think then you need to set a firm deadline for him getting out and if your wife doesn't want to do that you need to have

a frank talk about your quality of life with her what you think about your relationship and why your relationship is being damaged by this not just this guy's a screw up you're always covering for him talk about why your relationship with her is damaged because of this and then you can present these options to her. Look, we'll get him a roommate. We'll subsidize it, et cetera. Talk about why this is damaging your marriage. Because what you're asking for is not unreasonable. It's not. Anyone who makes you feel like it is unreasonable is just asking you to enable this brother who, frankly, doesn't sound like he has his stuff together and he takes advantage of both of you. I'm all for helping people who've fallen on hard times. I really am. I've just seen

this play out over and over with my mom's brothers. I've seen it happen. It's been in my inbox 100,000 times in the past 12 years. There needs to be boundaries in place. Otherwise, there's going to be collateral damage, and you are on the front lines. It's going to be you gets it first. So best of luck with this. There are solutions to this. I just think, I think there's a lot of enabling going on inside the house. Please keep us informed on how this turns out because I'm really interested in this one. Yeah, me too. This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a

nice rating and review in iTunes or you're a podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, just head on over to jordanharbinger.com And now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Hey, Jay and Jay. I love your show and love how. How fantastic, Jordan is it speaking? That's me. He's always sharp on the ball, truly engaged with the people he's interviewing, digging deeper, bringing things full circle, and not reading questions in order off a list without exploring further. Yeah, I wrote this question.

He's intelligent, yet witty and humble. Oh, yeah. Hi, Mom. So humble. It's a true heart, and it motivates me to converse similarly. Jason has such a positive and welcoming voice and should definitely be a big-time announcer in some capacity. Okay, that's enough. Move on.

Oh, I get a sentence. You get a paragraph. I get a sentence. Okay. I'm seeking your input on how to make new mom friends at my son's elementary school. My oldest son just started kindergarten in the suburbs of Chicago. We moved to the burbs about two and a half years ago after living in the city for 10 years and living in Ohio before that. We met some of the kids in my son's new class over the summer playing soccer.

However, many of the kindergartners in his class have older siblings, so the moms really already have their squad. They may have been in my shoes three years ago, but now. Now it seems like they're the in-crowd and I'm an outsider being new. I feel like I'm the new kid in school, not my son. We're friendly, but I'm not making any real or deep connections. I've made friends with several moms in my position, first-time kindergarten moms, so it makes more sense to foster those relationships. But I kind of want to see if I can become closer friends with the veteran moms as well.

My husband tells me not to try too hard and that if they don't want me in with their tribe, then I shouldn't even want to be in. What do you guys think? sincerely moms need friends too so this is funny obviously I'm not a mom but I took a bunch of oh I didn't notice you didn't notice I didn't notice I took a bunch of advice from corporate networking and I'm basically adapting it to the mom the mom scene and by the way this is a really huge compliment so thank you so much that really speaks to me and I hope also to bring the show to something bigger like a bigger platform and that's one of our next moves for sure so stay tuned for stuff like

that and I'm going to start doing uh big time announcing yeah Sunday Sunday Sunday you might pay for the whole seat, but you're only going to need the edge. Yes, I knew you were going to use that exact example. Because it's the only one I got. It's the only one I go back to the well. It's a good to stick with what works. So, first of all, why does it matter what mom group you're in? That's one thing about this question that wasn't really clear to me.

Why does it matter which mom group you're in? I get it, maybe they're the cool kids, and you just kind of find that you think they're more interesting than the kindergarten moms. What I would do is create connections in both groups, if you can. Focus on the easy group first. so the more welcoming group to build support, you can count on them, you're not ignoring them, trying to hang out with the in crowd, whatever you want to call it. Once you make friends and relationships in the kindergarten mom group, you might not even

care about the veteran mom group after this. What I would also do when trying to get in with the veteran moms is ask for advice. Everyone loves to help. We've talked about the Benjamin Franklin effect a lot on this show. Everyone loves to help and be of value. So make it a thing to tap into this group for advice, especially find the person that seems to influence the other veteran mom. So this might be the mom with the most older kids. So she seems the most experienced. It might be somebody else. There's obviously somebody that's kind of the leader of the

group. You can find that through observation. I won't that probably don't have to break that down for you. And ask that person for advice. It could be about anything. The kids, the town, the school, or anything. And then once this happens, you can also ask for an introduction to somebody, either another mom in the group, an activity coach of some kind, like, oh, I'm looking at getting piano lessons. Should I get little Charlotte started earlier. Oh, do you have piano lessons? Who can you recommend? Who do you think is the best?

You know, that kind of thing. What this does is prime the other veteran mom to introduce you to people that she knows. And when people make one introduction, they are much more likely to be comfortable making other introductions as well. Also, if you have time, volunteer for something at the school. You'll meet a ton of other moms with kids of all age groups. So instead of just soccer mom for kindergartners, you could become the mom that helps run the school fun fair. Then you're networked across age groups. You're in with school administrators.

You're in with the teachers, the activity coaches all know you. This, believe it or not, is actually a mommy power position, right? You've become known by all the right people. They'll help introduce you to other people. And then once you get a lot of these other relationships, veteran moms will be like, oh, she's really in the scene. Okay, she's a good person for us to know because you've built your value there. Then you're not knocking on the front door being like, please accept me. They're probably going to introduce themselves to you. That's a little bit more long-term strategy. But I think it's great that you're building a network among moms. This is likely to be important in the future for you as well as for your kids and to get some sanity and stability

in your life. Congrats on everything and let us know how this goes. I'm curious because what I did, again, is I adapted networking techniques for both corporate and military and just adapted them to the mommy scene. All right. Next up. Dear Jordan, Jason, Jen, and Klan. Okay, so I royally effed up. I'm a 37-year-old licensed massage therapist, and for the past three years, I've worked part-time in my own private practice and part-time at our local university's student health center. The student health center was in the process of making me a full-time employee when it was hit with record low enrollment. A hiring and promotion freeze was immediately implemented. On top of that, my department was one of the first for downsizing, meaning that I'd go from 24 hours per week

to 12 or less. So I walked out. It was a dead-end job with literally, literally, no advancement opportunity, even if it did turn into a full-time position. Still, I could have at least counted on a slow but steady income until I made other arrangements. I didn't just wait till thirsty to dig the well. I ate a spoonful of salt, too. So here I am trying to turn my feast or famine side hustle into a successful business. I've started your level one course and have found some value in it, but I have a problem. I have no real network. Most of my contacts from email or social media are either old friends who ask for money or family members whom I love, but have little value professionally speaking. I've been using many of the tools in Level 1 with current clients when I can

and it's been great. The problem is my current client roster is quite small. I've been to networking events both in and out of my industry. Unfortunately, at a vast majority of these events, the people are more interested in selling you their thing than hearing about yours. I went to a tech networking event and nobody would even take my business card, but everyone tried to sell me on how badly I needed their $300 SEO marketing system. What am I not seeing? How can I think outside the box, or in it for that matter, and make new connections and acquire new clients? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Love the new show, better than the old one. Hazaa. Sincerely, digging the well while eating salt. All right, so a few things I'm seeing here. Yeah, you didn't dig the well.

I'm sorry to use you as an example here, but this is exactly why this stuff is important. Now, you're up Poops Creek without a paddle, and I'm not rubbing it in, but I want people to learn from your mistake instead of learning the hard way like you're doing right now, because this is a very tough situation. All right, so you say you have no network. Everyone thinks this when they start, and I know you think it's true. If doing the re-engaging of weaker and dormant ties exercise from level one isn't yielding much, then you need to go through your school roster, old jobs, link.

LinkedIn if you use that and make the list manually using LinkedIn and social media to reach out. It's not as good as using the phone and sending texts, but it's certainly better than nothing. Everyone has a network loaded with weak and dormant ties. And unless you were born under a rock and you stayed there, you know loads of people. You just haven't bothered to cultivate any useful or any relationships useful or not, for that matter. And it's late, but it's not too late. Also, you say the networking events have been fruitless. Yes, this is why I often, here on the show, I say never go to a networking event that isn't curated.

If anyone can go to that event, it'll be full of buthead SEO marketing turds and financial planners clumsily doing lead generation. These are universally a waste of time, these events that are not curated. You're going to the learning annex. Some guy in a $99 suit is going to give you some stale cookies and be like, introduce each other. and then you're just going to end up having a bunch of takers approach you to try to pitch you on crap. Don't go to those. Find out about curated events. Curated means they're likely not free.

You may have to travel to them. You may have to be invited specifically. These are much more high yield than other events. Go to the best one that you can afford to go to. And remember, you're not getting ROI right away. You're just starting to now dig that well. And this process is not instant. Finally, diligently do the level one action.

Every day, look, these take a maximum of five to ten minutes a day, and consistency is the key. You are very late to the game, having not put in the effort earlier, and now you're paying the price. But like I said, while it might be late, it's still not too late. Oh, and while you're trying to build a book of business, it might not hurt to get at least a part-time job someplace. You want stability for your life now while you generate relationships and clients. There should be no rush going all in on your own. And if you've got a part-time job, you've got other income, you can dig the well now and you're not going to burn relationships by trying to turn everyone you meet into a client,

which is hugely annoying and a great way to push people away. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air, and I mean that literally. So please support our advertisers. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordan harbinger.com slash deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday and your questions.

All right. Next up. Greetings, Jordan, Jen, and Jason. I'm in my early 50s and have had a great life. My wife and I have been married for nearly 30 years and have three grown children that are doing a fantastic job charting their courses in the world. We have a nice home and a group of close friends. My job provides a generous salary in a growing industry that offers exceptional long-term stability. We recently met with our financial advisor who indicated that we're on track to a fulfilling

retirement. Life is good, right? But that's where my dilemma lies. All my life, I've focused on personal and professional growth. That's been the reason for my success. Thanks to that hard work, I'll be able to achieve all I want just by staying in my current position. There's no further need for a promotion or better job.

On one hand, that's great. It means I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish in life. I've reached my goal. Conversely, I'm having difficulty reconciling that. point of view with the drive I've always felt to continually improve. Should I keep striving for growth the rest of my life, or is there a point where I can say that I've made it? Thanks for all the awesome work you do. Sincerely, Mr. Midlife Crisis. All right. Well, great. You've hit your goals, which is admirable. I mean, not many people. Bravo. Yeah. Not many people write in and say,

like, I have done everything I want. I'm good. Yeah. I think it's normal for high performers to feel restless. We all want to keep driving forward. And it can actually be unhealthy if we let it get away from us. Perhaps instead of driving forward for yourself or even for your family, if you're all set, you could mentor and you could volunteer. Mentoring and volunteering is like personal growth, but for the benefit of other people. You might not have much left to achieve for yourself, but you might and almost certainly will find an endless pool of folks in need of your wisdom, in need of your experience, whether this means mentoring people in their career, which might be your field, or just helping kids get better quality of life from doing a program like Big

brothers, big sisters, mentorship can be extremely. It can be incredibly fulfilling. And it might even help scratch that itch you have to continue to drive forward while being rewarding in a way that an extra vacation, a nicer car, another boat, or another promotion that you don't even need could possibly be. So whenever people feel restless and they're already really successful, often it's because they have an it for purpose again and they don't know how to get it. And one of the ways in which I strongly encourage people go and find it is to help give back to others. It is extremely rewarding. It's something, it's an itch that you probably haven't ever scratched because you've been too busy kicking butt on your own. Congrats on that. So best of luck. Congrats on all you've accomplished. Now maybe it's time to turn

the spotlight on some other people and see what you can do for them. I really like that. All right. Next step. Dear Triple J, I used to work for a startup company, which I enjoyed, but it took a lot of time. When that ended, I got a job with a large corporation because I'm now the sole breadwinner for my wife and small kids. I'm a few years into this job and it's not particularly fulfilling. However, it pays the bills and I have a very flexible schedule. Because I'm sure there's a big overlap in your listenership, I could describe myself as having implemented many four-hour workweek principles.

I was looking for a new job for a while, but came to the realization that it would either be more of the same, like a big company, or way more time and risk, a small company or startup. Instead, I've started a side project that's a real business, but also kind of an art project. Figuratively speaking, that doesn't need to make money because I have my relatively lucrative day job. Because I don't need it to succeed, I don't put as much time or effort into it as perhaps I should.

I know you advocate for not quitting your job until you know you've got a solid alternative, but at what point do I need the kick in the pants to really get going? Or suggestions to find motivation to work on it when I'm tired after putting the kids to bed without success being a need. Thanks for your advice, signed comfortably numb. Hmm, interesting. Okay. I like this question because I feel like I get it actually all the time, but this one's phrased really well. You just answered your own question. You don't even know it. First of all, never quit your day job to run a side hustle unless the only thing keeping you from scaling that side hustle is your time. And it's impossible to outsource anything else. That is the rule bar none. People love to just like quit, go all in and da, da, da, da, oh, I got to check my social media. You got to be outsourcing everything. as long as it's cheaper to outsource it than it is to get money from your day job. Look, if you work at Taco Bell and you're starting to get a side hustle and you've got to pay somebody your dowryly wage at Taco Bell to do something, then fine, quit your job.

But if you're a freaking accountant or something like that, don't quit your job to do a $10 an hour or $15 an hour job. That's not how this goes. I know your ego wants you to go all in so you can post on Instagram that you're a full-time entrepreneur. Now, don't do that to yourself. All this advice from YouTubers about quitting your job and going all in. this is all ill-advised. It's stupid. It's stupid advice.

Mostly for this advice comes from people who have never followed that same advice themselves. No doubt about that. They've never done that themselves at all. Or they did it and then they forgot about the part where they struggled for three straight years and it was terrible. And they lived on their sister's couch or their mom's basement. You know, they just so they only, they put that in their cool bio, but they don't tell you, oh yeah, had I gotten a regular job, this would have been a softer landing. The reason you're not succeeding more with your side hustle or your art project. It's not because you don't need the money because of your day job. It's because you aren't motivated to do it. The reason you're not motivated to do it is not the money that you're

getting from the other job. It's because it doesn't excite you enough. I know that's controversial. People are always like, oh, I'd be more motivated if it was my only thing. No, you wouldn't. No, it's the other way around. Yeah. Totally. Exactly. Exactly. So can you motivate yourself to do something because you burn the ships and you put yourself in a difficult position and now you have to do the side hustle to survive? Yeah, you can do that. Is it a good idea? Hell no, it isn't. Sounds miserable, actually. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's like you get fired. Now you got to figure out how to generate income. No, if you're not motivated to run your own business because you have money coming from somewhere else, you're not cut out for this. It doesn't mean you can't do it.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. But it does mean that you're likely more suited for the day job, at least for now. And there's nothing wrong with that. This whole culture of like everybody's got to be an entrepreneur. It's a bunch of BS. It's designed to sell entrepreneur programs or it gets you to watch more Instagram or YouTube videos. When I was a lawyer on Wall Street,

I'd work for six or seven days a week, straight. I'd come home and we were running the other business out of my apartment. I wouldn't just crash and go to sleep. I would work for a few more hours. I'd go out with the team, whatever. I was making $0 because I didn't take a salary at all for, I think, years, actually. So as you can see here, it wasn't that I had some lack of motivation because I didn't need the money. I was motivated regardless.

Yeah, I was making 160 grand or whatever my first year out of college as a lawyer on Wall Street. That was pretty good. I didn't need the money at all. And I didn't take a salary from my side hustle. I would work no matter what because I loved what we were doing. I'm not saying everyone has to function the same way as me. But what I am saying is that if you're not motivated to run a side hustle now, then the kind of motivation you'll get from quitting your job will massively increase your level of stress. It will decrease the quality of

your life. And it will almost certainly ruin your fun side hustle by turning it into a job that you have to now have to do in order to survive. It won't be the kind of intrinsic motivation you need to survive and thrive in a new venture or profession. It'll be extrinsic financial pressure, which is massively unhealthy and not good for you and not good for learning to love what you do. So keep your day job. There's no shame in it. And you can continue to slowly grow your side hustle until you find the passion and motivation needed to take things to the next level. And if it never comes, then that's fine. At least you don't have to find out that it's not something you want to do because you went broke and you lost

your house. Yeah, seriously. If he, if he's not like waking up in the morning thinking when I get home from work, I'm going to like put the kids down and then work on my side hustle. If it's a burden, it's not right for him. Exactly. It's not right. Look, everything feels like a job sometimes. if you think you're not working on your side hustle because you already have money from somewhere else, then you're just after the money. So just stick with whatever earns you the money, period, the end. All right, last but not least. Dear Jordan and team, you all put the awesome in my bottle of awesome sauce.

Hmm. Hmm, nice. I'm finding myself the trustee of a family trust. Ugh, that's a terrible position to be in. Where I'm being forced to deal with a family member who went to the douchebag school of persuasion and negotiation. Basically, this person spends time insulting me and accusing me of things instead of just discussing the issues with me. I've spent time trying to understand this person's pain points to maybe better do this task. Yet his motivations seems to be creating chaos, telling me I'm doing a horrible job, and then using that mess to negotiate for more than his share.

Do you have any good advice for a person who finds themselves on this side of things? Thanks, dealing with a douchebag. Ooh, bummer. Yeah. My mom dealt with this stuff too. My mom has actually been a just fountain of wisdom when dealing with crappy family. It's kind of funny. Sorry, Mom.

I know. Look, Mom, look at it this way. You're helping other people through your suffering. Hi, dealing with a douchebag. This sucks. That's my commiseration. So enjoy it. That's your professional opinion.

That's my professional opinion. What I would do is, first of all, can you get a lawyer involved to help administrate the trust? this way, whenever he wants to talk to you, whenever this icky family member wants to talk to you, he has to go through somebody who he can't manipulate emotionally. People, the kryptonite for emotional manipulative jerks and families is attorneys because they go, my sister, this, and she's crazy and as a lawyer, you get to go, it doesn't matter, my fiduciary duties to the trust, you're both crazy. I don't give a crap.

I don't give a crap. I don't care. Look, it costs money, but you can tell him that half of the fees will come out of whatever he gets since he's going through the attorney and running up the costs. Ooh, nice. I don't know if you can legitimately do that, but telling him that is a nice little way to get him to stop making phone calls every five minutes. It might not be true, but it's a good way to shut them up. Yeah, exactly.

This isn't a free solution, but it'll save your sanity. And by the way, this technique I'm giving you is a common negotiation tactic. It's almost like an anti-negotiation tactic. Basically, you're not only pulling the appeal to higher authority. You're actually putting that higher authority between yourself and your negotiation. partner. So in a job situation, this would be the equivalent of your boss telling you that he has to ask the higher ups, his boss's boss, if he can get you that salary increase or that time off bump or whatever because it's out of my hands. And so if you bring in an attorney, then he has to

speak to that lawyer who can negotiate on your or the trust's behalf, probably the trust, he's going to have a fiduciary duty to the trust. And when this happens, it takes all the BS and emotion out of things because not only does this other party not have direct access to you anymore, but even if they did, it wouldn't matter because as far as he knows, you're no longer the one in charge of everything. He doesn't have to know the lawyer's doing what you instruct. Every time he comes at you with his tantrums, you can just tell him that he needs to put it in writing and you'll discuss it with the attorney. And if the attorney's not the attorney for the trust, you can still have an attorney represent you in this business, and he can be your attorney, and you can just say, hey, one of your

things is I need you to deal with my craphead cousin or brother who's driving me up the wall. So everything he wants, he has to put in writing and discuss with the attorney. Emotional, crazy people have a hard time putting things in writing and then going back and forth on email with an attorney. They like to call and be jerks and then get their way. That's not going to happen anymore. So then, of course, he's also got to put everything on record. He's not going to be able to torment you and have that be effective.

for negotiating because you're in this negative state. Perhaps most importantly, if there's any legal issues in the future, you've got a written record as well as this attorney as a witness to all the communication that shows that he's being greedy and unreasonable. He's the one having temper tantrums and you're being so rational that you actually hired someone to stay rational for you. That's how serious you're taking this. So for you and for everyone, anytime you're negotiating for something important, there's

a legal element, whatever. Make sure you have everything in writing and on record. And if you're having live conversations or phone calls, make sure you let the other party know you're recording the call because that's part of the trust. You're advised to do so by your attorney, whatever. It doesn't matter any state you're in. If both parties know that you're recording it, then it's illegal. Some states you have to have both parties know other states you need one party to know. California need both.

If you let everyone know this is being recorded, it just has a way of keeping people on their best behavior. Yeah. Hey, Jason, I'm recording this conversation. well, you know, you're going to be a jerk about everything. That's fine. I'm just going to record this conversation. You're going to find the temper tantrums. They get a little tixie edge off a little bit.

Yeah, definitely. Because they know why you're recording this. Well, you know, just in case anything, I want you to remember what you said. I want to remember what I said. And then it's like, oh, you want to remember everything that was said. Like the gears start slowly grinding. Because I've been in situations where you've got to play recordings for a judge. And they're like, well, I hear one person is a crazy a-hole.

And the other person is staying. rational and oh here's 17 more hours of one person being a crazy a hole and the other person being rational right says tends to keep people on their best behavior it also signals that you've got someone else on your side which is abusive person's kryptonite so if you can't afford the attorney at least record both sides of the conversation and then if they're like why just be like my lawyer told me to do that then people go oh crap she's got a lawyer yeah and now i'm on record yep hope you don't mind and you don't need a special voice recorder your smartphone can do it iPhones have voice memos,

Android's got to have the same thing. Everybody's phone can do this. If you don't want your phone on the table for some reason, go to Guitar Center, get a cheap voice recorder. I mean, these things are not expensive. And it's just, it's that spotlight on that negative behavior that makes it go away potentially. And plus, it's always good to have a record

because these trust and family negotiation things, these things can get ugly. Take it from me. As a lawyer, I've seen a lot of this. As a non-lawyer, I've seen a lot more. All right, recommendation of the week. Jason, what is this? What do you got here?

I got the resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts. Okay, what is that? Jake the Snake Roberts was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. And he kind of fell on hard times. He fell on, you know, booze and drugs and just kind of went down the rabbit hole and was just a mess of a human being. And his buddy, Diamond Dallas Page, I don't know if you've ever heard of DDP Yoga. I have, yeah. Yeah, Diamond Dallas Page.

Like, Jake mentored Dallas when he was coming up. like Dallas started wrestling at like 36, which is unheard of. You know, at 36, you start a professional wrestling career. Yeah. No way. You're about 16 years too late, right? Yeah. Exactly.

But Jake took Dallas under his wing and taught him the ropes and, you know, mentored him to become a wrestler. So when Jake fell on hard times, Dallas was like, brother, I'm here for you. I want to help fix you. Wow. And took him into his home for years and got him with the yoga and, off the booze and off the drugs, and it's the story of how this whole thing came about.

It is a fantastic story. And if you have a prime account on Amazon right now, you can watch it for free, but I highly recommend everybody check it out. It is, I mean, there were definitely, there was some dust in the room. I had to grab, grab tissue every now and again. I would imagine that seems like a touching story.

Because seldom do friends really do that, go the extra mile, especially when it's, they kind of owe you from decades before. It's like, oh, hey, had to cut him out, but he didn't want to do that. No, and he paid for his bills. Like Dallas, like, he moved him into the house.

Wow. And they called it the accountability crib where everybody, like, was, you know, doing stuff. And there were a couple other wrestlers in there, too. And, like, you know, Diamond Dallas Page, man, he's a saint. I'm guessing he's not married because any wife would be like, get these guys out of my basement. Well, it's not. He doesn't live at that house. Oh, got to, got, got, got to go.

He is married and all that. But, yeah, even in the middle, he's like, man, I've been dealing with these guys for a while. I'm going to Costa Rica for a couple of weeks. I need to get out of here. He took a vacation for babysitting. Yeah, good friend, though. That's amazing. So we'll link to that in the show notes.

It's on Amazon Prime. The resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts. That's good for guys our age, right? Totally. He's like, we all know who these guys are. Yeah. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week.

And don't forget, you can email us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. That'll get your questions answered on the air. We're happy to keep you anonymous. Of course, we always do. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordanharbinger. Com. Quick shout out to the guys who got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and then listen to the show for three straight hours while waiting for the tow truck and they were discussing all the topics. We got a note to that effect. And then apparently they just kept going with it. So we got some new fans from that. Thanks flat tire. Very nice. And if you want to know how we manage to book all the great people and manage all these relationships and use this technology and some of these techniques to network, well, we've got the level one course that's free Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. A lot of people. people keep saying, oh, I keep meaning to go do that. You can't make up for lost time.

That's a number one mistake I see people making is they're like, oh, I got a plan for this. It's minutes per day. Quit crying. It's just something that you cannot ignore. And this is the stuff I wish I knew 10, 20 years ago. You want to know what I, people always ask me that. What would you tell your younger self? This stuff, level one, Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one is where this is at.

And I'm telling you, this is a life-changing set of skills. And it's a little free course we put together. You don't need to put your credit card in or any of that BS. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. Jason, where can they find you? My personal website is over at jpd.m.mee, and you can check out my tech podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks at gog.

Dot show or your podcast player of choice. Nice. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember to keep them concise if you can. Put a real subject line in there. It does help us out a lot. This show was co-produced with Jen Harbinger. Show notes for this episode are by Robert Fogarty.

Share the show with those you love. even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited for some of the upcoming guests as well. And in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. 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.

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