The Jordan Harbinger Show - 143: How to Learn a New Language and Make It Stick | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: January 4, 2019

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: Our safety tips for a solo woman traveler. Suggestions for understanding, coping with, and supporting a significant other suffering from anxiety. Advice for someone with no finance background or college degree to learn how stocks and investments work. Networking without the happy hour. Why you should get started with the ideas you have for content creation (whether it's podcasting, videos, blogging, or something else) sooner rather than later. Showing support for a loved one who makes poor decisions without enabling their situation. How to learn a new language and make it stick. Recommendation of the Week: American Circumcision Quick shoutouts to: Wahn and American Dream University! 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. 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, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our guests, and this week we had CrossFit Champ and entrepreneur, Jason Kalipa, talking about how to surround yourself with the right people, focusing on what we can control and taking the reins on your life when you hit hard times. His story is pretty impressive. This is a classic example of turning your life around in a lot of ways and not having to have a classical or traditional education in order to be quite successful. I really enjoyed my conversation. with him. We've been friends for a minute. And we had John Taffer from Bar Rescue, talking about excuse processes and how running any business or any organization at all comes down to the people inside the business and what he does to get past ego and excuses. And of course, it's John Taffer, so it's really like, kind of like a conversation with somebody, Jason, you, you know John Taffer. It's kind of like talking with a guy who was in the mafia or something. He's got that charisma, but he's like kind of in your face, but he's nice, but you know,

he could kill you. That's, you don't want to turn your back on him. Yeah, yeah, that's what I feel about John. He's, he's very much like, what I noticed about him, if you watch the YouTube video, by the way, we put a lot of our video interviews on YouTube. I don't know how many people even know that because we don't talk about it too much. But if you look at the video, whenever I talk, but he wants to talk, he touches my arm or he grab my arm. And it's a way of him physically dominating the conversation. It's not a bad thing. It's actually quite useful. I'm going to probably take a page out of that book. But I found that really interesting. That's how he's very good at controlling the conversation because he's very good at being in charge. And I like that.

I thought this interview is interesting because of what he said, of course, but also because of some of the sub-dynamics there. Of course, our primary mission on the show here is to pass along our guests' insights and experiences to you and our insights and experiences 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 here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Try to keep those questions concise. It does help us help you because if it's seven pages long, we've got to edit it and we're just going to not. We're just going to not.

We're just going to not. Yeah, we're just going to not because there's a lot in there and some of the stuff. It's like if you're not sure of what details, have a think about it. But most people, they just do a brain dump and you can tell they dictated it. And it's like, and next. So try to try to give us a little, throw us a freaking bone here, okay? Throw us a bone. Throw us a bone.

And grammar helps. Good grammar helps, by the way. Yeah, you don't have, look, we're not going to be like, it's then, not then. But if we have to add punctuation for you because we have no idea what you're saying at all, and there's no periods or commas or anything, it's going to, the more work you make Jason and Gendu, the less likely it is to get to me. How's that as a general rule of thumb? That's pretty much it.

That's pretty much it, yeah. We interviewed Ehud Barak. He was the former prime minister of Israel. He's Israel's most decorated soldier in history. I think that's still the case. and the unfortunate part is that he just, he was supposed to give us 20 minutes. We went for like an hour and a half or whatever. Yeah, it was a long one.

His wife finally kicked us out. But the issue with that was heavy accent and audio issues in the place where he was recording in Jerusalem. So it's only on YouTube because we had to subtitle it because otherwise we knew you guys were going to throw crazy amounts of fits. And I don't blame you. I mean, it was, Jason, you kind of. said look if you're not looking at him talk it's it's not easy to understand right it's yeah it was a it was a really tough one he was very fascinating i loved the interview but without his visual cues it's really hard to to get through it but um i mean it was fascinating i love this guy i bought his book i

read his book i think he's just like a crazy dude but yeah we could not do this in audio only so definitely check out jordan harbinger dot com slash youtube yeah and that'll take it to our channel where you can check out the Ehud Barak interview and all the other new video interviews that we're doing because Jen has the swanky new rig, you know, it's right. We're doing good stuff over on YouTube. So go check it out if you want to. That's right. This is the first show after Christmas. And for 2019, what you can expect from us are upgraded guests. We already have great guests. We're going to continue that trend. But we're going to be getting, I think, some more visible personalities, if you will. And don't worry, I'm not going to be pulling a

influencer show where it's a bunch of YouTubers. Don't worry. That's not what I mean. I mean, we're going to be getting some A-list celebrities that you've heard of that are going to be really interesting and have something to say. And we're going to be doing long format interviews with them. And the A-Hood-Barrack interview was kind of a taste of that. I thought he was super fascinating, like you said, Jason. And we've got a full three camera setup that's mobile. So Jen actually figured out how to do all that, got lighting, got portable everything, got portable sound gear, we got all that. So we're traveling a lot to the guests and doing some pretty cool in-person stuff.

Not every guest is in person, but most of them will be, I think. That's the idea. So we're going to have an exciting 2019, and the YouTube channel is going to be kidded out with a lot more. So Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube is where that's at. And let me know what you think of the Ehud-Brock interview if you actually go ahead and check that out. It's mostly war stories about what he learned during counterterror operations, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah, no, I mean, his story is amazing. And I do want to give a shout out to the guys at Sling Studios for hooking us up with our Sling set up for our three camera shoots.

And, yeah, I mean, thanks, guys, honestly, seriously. That was awesome. We really, really appreciate it because if you have to do video, go check out Sling because their stuff is awesome. Yeah, the Sling Studio, willing to it in the show notes, essentially it's a wireless video mixer, so you attach these things to cameras or you use phones like iPhones with Wi-Fi. It beams high-deaf video, high-res video, to this hub that is battery powered and has an SD card slot and it records all the video sources and you can live switch. So you have an iPad or a Mac and you can click on the video that you want and it will show that. So it saves on editing. It's really next level.

And it goes like 300 feet. So you don't have to carry cables everywhere. I mean, it's incredible. It's so far ahead of its time that I hope they stay in business. You know what I mean? Jason, it's like, whatever you have really good tech like that, it's like, oh, crap. Everybody's got all this old school stuff. But I think it will revolutionize the way that people do live video production.

They use it at the Super Bowl. It's like consumer grade. It's a pro grade, but consumer pricing. I mean, the whole thing, the whole thing is like $2,000. Yeah, we call that pro sumer. Pro sumer, right. It is definitely pro sumer. So check that out, Slink Studio.

Give these guys some business because they hooked us up. And man, this thing is a game changer for us for sure. And Jordan, since this is the first show after Christmas, how'd you make out? Did you get any good stuff? I did. I got free time. That was awesome. I took time off.

I never do that. I read like 10 books, not even, I think maybe more. Wow. Yeah. Your machine. I mean, I still have like. 600 emails but whatever you know I'd rather read books if you wrote me I will reply eventually I've just been busy living life reading some books and working on stuff

for next year I actually went through and did like I did Simon Cynix find your why workbook with Chris Lockhead from Find Your Different podcast so I've got some clarity on what's coming in the future hopefully you know or at least some catchy clever stuff that Simon Cynic would approve of and then I read stuff that I haven't read in like 10 12 years I think like the tipping point point from Malcolm Gladwell, outliers, you know, stuff I just like read the first chapter of five years ago and then put away. I finished.

Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. Over the break, I was actually on Chris Lockhead show. So if you guys want to check that out, be my guest. Go to Chris Lockhead.com. And you know what I did, Jordan, this Christmas?

What did you do? I bought myself a drone because I like to get out of the house sometimes. So I bought myself a drone. Via the drone camera. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to sit literally in my garage. I'm just going to fly the drone. It's like, it's like air wolf. I'm going to send out the helicopter and it's going to do all the work and I'm just going to sit here with my VR goggles on.

Right. Yeah, you're like still, you're still on the toilet, flying the drone around the neighborhood. What are you doing in there, Jason? I'm going for a walk. Okay. Yeah. I would have Bam Bam and Dino tied to the drone and walking the dogs around the park. Chasing the drone around the street.

Yeah, that's only a matter of time. You know that. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait because some days I'm just like, I don't want to go deal with the neighbors. Do you think a drone could walk a small dog? A small dog. Yes, not my dogs, not my dogs. But you could.

A small dog. A chihuahua. You could walk a chihuahua with a drone. But they tend to get freaked out when there's a drone over their head. So might be a, well, actually, you'd have to take them for a run because they'd be running away from the drone that would have the leash attached to them. I'm, is there not, there's got to be a YouTube video where some. but he has their tiny dog tied to a drone and it's just flying around like a park. If not, Casey Neistadt needs to get on that because that's his jam.

Yeah. He should totally get on that. That's right. All right, Casey, you're welcome. And yeah, so let's die. That's enough housekeeping for now. We almost never do housekeeping. So I feel okay that we can do five minutes of it in the beginning of one show every five months.

It's the holidays, man. Let's talk to the peoples. That's true. That's true. I'm we've got some fun questions this week. Let's dive into the mailbag. Hi, JJ and Jay. I'm a 23-year-old female college senior living in the U.S. and a long-time fan of the show. The entire time I've been in college, I've dreamed of traveling abroad, but a heavy class load and internships have made it impossible to squeeze this into my schedule.

With my graduation approaching in May, I wanted to take the first month after graduation to finally see the world before diving into my career. The only thought holding me back is the issue of safety. I'll probably be traveling alone, which is a little intimidating, considering that I'm five feet tall and weigh a whopping 100 pounds, an easy target for someone with bad intentions. Stay away from Serbia. What's that supposed to mean? Well, Eastern Europeans are kind of known for human trafficking, so I'm just saying. Sorry, Serbians. I'm not going to touch that one. I don't want this to hold me back from achieving my goal, so I was wondering if you guys had any advice for safely traveling abroad as a solo female traveler.

Sincerely, flying solo. Well, yeah, stay out of Serbia. That's Jason's first bit of advice. I mean, in fairness, I went to Serbia and I stayed there for a long time. And you got kidnapped. And you got kidnapped also. So that was like the third time I went. And that they thought I was a spy.

Third times a charm. Third times a charm. Great. Anyway, that aside. The first thing, I love the idea that you're going to travel. Go with friends if you can. Post an ad on the school's Facebook or classifieds pages. And I know I sound like an old guy right now, but I don't know what college students use online to talk to each other.

there's got to be some sort of hub for people, right? Like, there's got to be some sort of student hub. When I was in college, literally there were boards that you'd post things on in the student union, and I realized that that's not how this is done anymore. And I didn't even look at those when they were there. So there's got to be something to do that. I know that we had an international center, and people would post like, I'm backpacking and da-da-da-da.

Is anybody going to be around? And people actually did check that because people would go there to, like, borrow lonely planets, get maps, plan their trips. ask other people for advice. We actually had an international center at Michigan, and it was pretty cool. So you might want to check something like that and ask them, what's up?

They might not even know what to do on this, but I would say meet friends on the road. Like go to youth hospitals, befriend people there, meet people at the places where you are, use couch surfing.org, which is a nonprofit, and you can meet some locals on the ground and meet groups of expats. That's a great place to meet people.

safety, your safety concern is totally legit, especially if you're staying in hostels. Those places are kind of like, no, I mean, there's a freaking movie called Hostel. Ignore that. But there are, there are, any time you have a room that you're sharing with 20 random strangers and their only vetting is they showed up and paid, you've got security concerns at some level. So be careful, of course. I don't mean to sound like your dad, but always let people know where you are.

And if you have an Apple cell phone or an Apple watch or both, turn location, share. If you have an Android, use Google location sharing. Share with a bunch of your friends, and it's time limited, so don't worry. Yeah, people are going to know where you are. Who cares? Share it with your parents, share it with a bunch of your friends, and spend the extra, I think it's like 10 bucks a day to use your US phone and data plan while you're overseas. Yes, it's gonna be a month, it's gonna be like 300 bucks.

It's expensive, but this is, if you get a SIM card, it won't necessarily work with the location sharing, so you should look into that and check. But the location sharing is great because then people can find out where you are if you are missing for like 12 hours and don't check in or 24 hours and don't check in. Stick to safer areas and safer countries. You know, Europe by rail is very different than South America by hitchhiking or on foot. And I know that's not PC. I don't care. This is your safety.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's totally true, though. Yeah, it's true. I mean, look, I worked in Panama, Mexico, great places, great travel. Chances are nothing's going to happen. but it's a different place than going to Europe on an organized tour and hanging out with a bunch of people on a well-worn path. It's just different, especially for a single female. Don't accept drinks from people you don't know, duh.

Don't drink anything that isn't in a bottle that you watch them open yourself. And if the bartender's like, what the hell, I just opened this for you. Tough crap. It's not worth it. Let him get mad at you. Open the bottle in front of me. I want to see you open the bottle. You know, tell them when you order it.

I want to see you open the bottle. If you's like, what? You think I'm going to drug you. You're being crazy. So what? Who cares what they think? As someone who has actually been drugged at a bar, watch them open the bottle. Seriously. It's important. Yeah. I mean, it's a real thing.

Yeah, it happens. It happens to everybody. It doesn't matter, you know, even if you're a five-foot-tall, 100-pound girl, I'm a six-foot-tall, 225-pound guy, and it still happened to me. So watch them open the bottle. Dude, I got roofied in Israel because my friend was like, hey, I'm a little. a little too drunk, can you drink this? And I was like, sure. So she gave me your drink. And I was sick as hell. Yeah.

And I remember being like, what is going on? And then when I was like, hey, I got to leave. I don't feel good. My friend Lisa was like, I feel really sick. And I was like, oh, this is so weird. And me, Lisa and Ben are about to leave. And some dude is like, I'll take care of her. And we were like, bro, we don't know you.

And he's like, it's fine. I take care of her. And we were like, are you kidding? And then when we woke up the next morning feeling like we got hit by a truck, I was like, wait a minute. How did we get so? Because she was doing shots and I thought, oh, she overdid it. I had two drinks, both of which were Kool-Aid in a cup that were given to us at the door

when we walked in. And she was drunk and we thought she was just drunk, but we both woke up with the worst hangover we'd ever had in our entire lives. And it was like, okay, that guy drugged us straight up. The night that I got drugged, 16 people from my club that I was at. It was a club in Hollywood. 16 people were taken to the emergency room. So there was somebody going around just, you know, drugging the drink.

So I got lucky that I didn't have to be taken to the emergency room. So my girlfriend could take me home. But, yeah, 16 people had to go to the emergency room because there are people that are just out there doing that stuff. And all they're doing is just robbing people, taking their wallets. Plot twist. It was your girlfriend that drugged everyone. Ah, well, you know what? Maybe not.

Well, she didn't share the cash with me. So damn her. Yeah, well, you can pick them. Start on an organized tour with flex time built into the trip. This is what I would do. If you're not that experience of a traveler, which it sounds like you're kind of new, start on an organized tour with flex time built into the trips. In other words, you know, go on something where it's like, hey, we take you by bus all around France and Germany or whatever.

This way you get to meet other people your age. Colin obviously find out the median age. Someone knows where you are, the tour organizer. they can warn you where and where not to go. You'll be traveling in a group. They'll set up the hotel. You're not going to end up. Because when I was traveling, man, dude,

I remember spending the night on park benches in Slovenia, which, by the way, is like the safest place ever. But I remember sleeping on a park bench in Slovenia, which is part of the former Yugoslavia because this youth hostel just was full. And I thought, oh, I'll just go to a hotel. And then it was like, we're full, we're full, we're full, we're closed, whatever. And I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm outside. So I slept on a park bench and I remember a homeless guy woke me up and was like, hey.

Dude, this is my bench. Get out. No, he was like, it's warm. I couldn't tell what he was saying. He was speaking to Slovenian, but I'm pretty sure he was telling me that it's warmer elsewhere because I saw him sleeping where he was pointing. And I walked over there and there were like vents blowing out of a building. And I thought he thought he legit thought I was just going to be cold. Oh, that's nice of them.

Yeah. I was like, this country is awesome. Yeah. Super nice. Everybody in Slovenia was so friendly. It was insane. Slovenia is a gem. Anyway, we can talk about that another time.

I'm just going to say, don't fall asleep in Vienna in the train stations, because if you fall over, the cops will kick you in the stomach. That happened to me. So if you're going to fall asleep in Vienna, make sure you stay upright. Stay up right.

There you go. Yeah. I got kicked in the stomach on my 21st birthday by a Viennese cop. Yay. You're probably sleeping in the hallway. But, yeah, find tours with the most flex time built in

versus the party trips where you just go drinking all the time and then you take a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower that you don't remember. Because you got to, the balance here is find trips with younger people but find trips that aren't just all about drinking and getting wasted or that are super organized where it's like, go to a bar for an hour, get on the bus, go to another bar for an hour, get on the bus.

You want something where it's like, we're in Vienna, there's a tour in the morning afternoon free. We're in Paris. There's a tour in the morning, afternoon in the next day, entirely free. Like you want to set up something like that. What I've done also with Betterluck is pick one or two places to go for a few weeks, take language classes or immersion courses that involve me with a one-on-one teacher who walks around with me literally all day.

And you can call language schools, small ones, especially, and ask for immersion courses that involve walking around with a local or a teacher all day while you learn some history, you learn some language, you learn some culture. You can also do something like LiveLingua. In fact, I can refer you to this because that's the preferred school that I use. You could probably get a language teacher there online, learn a couple of basics, get to know the person, make sure you feel comfortable with them just by talking even in English for like an hour, which probably cost you $20. And then you'll learn about who that person is and you can say, look, can I hire you for like three days? and I want to walk around Chihuahua, Mexico.

And that's where they live. You can find them by location. And if you're comfortable with them on Skype, you can hire them for a day and you can just hang out. That's a great idea. I love that. Yeah, language teachers will generally gladly take a job that's a day long where they hang out, show you basics,

teach you about their country, and get paid like a discounted hourly rate. Sure. Oh, that's so cool. I wish I'd have done that when I was over there in Europe. Oh yeah. That would have been fun. And if you're going to a place like China, you can hire a college student who's a teacher in training or an English major. They will be super stoked for like 20, 30 bucks a day to hang out the entire day, take you around, show you everything.

I mean, it's like hiring a fixer. Yeah. It's great. They know where to go. They know where it's dangerous. They know all the great restaurants. They know how to get served. They know what tourist traps are.

They know how to go when things aren't as busy. it's just so worth the price of admission. And they'll keep you safe, you know? Yeah, I wish I'd have had that in Thailand. That's the one place that I was just like, this is sketch, but I'm loving Thailand, but I wish I just did have a local with me. That is a great way to get a local to show you around.

It is. Yeah, because even if you want to get into some shit, I don't think she probably does. But even when you want to get into some stuff, if you've got, like, when I was traveling, I'd hire some dude who was a fixer and he'd be like, you know, a high school kid or a college kid, generally college or university and they're like okay well if you want to have fun go to this bar

and I'm like do you go to that bar and they're like no it's too expensive I'm like take me to the bar where you go and like are you sure it's pretty gross I'm like yeah so we go to this bar and it's totally fine they're just kind of embarrassed because it's a local joint not like signor frogs right yeah and I don't even if they still have those and then you're hanging out and he's like oh my friend's here and then you're hanging out speak and he's translating for you because remember you're paying him to do that so yeah if he's got to translate for you for him and his friends, that's really like he's earning his money, right? That way.

So you end up with a friend, he's going to look out for you, and you don't have to feel bad by being like, hey, take me here, translate this. They're gladly doing it. That's the point. I love this idea. And it's just a great way to make friends. You'll see stuff non-locals can ever see. And this is going to be awesome.

I'm really excited for you flying solo. I think you're going to have a great time. I don't know exactly where you're going, but I think you're going to have a blast. The trick is just to meet a local, and the best way to do that is to arrange a in advance and pay for it so that they don't flake on you and stuff. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan, Jason, and team. My fiance and I are both in our mid-late 20s.

We seem to be in a period of growth balancing a wider scope of responsibilities as we're aging. This has led to a stressful year, which has brought out his struggles with anxiety and a shortened level of patience on my end. We've had some talks on it, and I don't understand it as well as I'd like, in spite of his input and my own research. The general problem is I'm not able to pick up or get that he's distressed, and he gets into a get everything that is bothering me taken care of mode. Normally this is workable, except when there are factors that can't be controlled. Washing the dishes is simple. I can do them or get out of the way. Making plans and depending on other people's input to make decisions,

not so much. Even if I'm following up to figure out the unknowns and he knows what stage it's at, there is a disconnect where it's not getting done fast enough. We've discussed seeing a therapist together and he's open to the idea. In the meantime, I was curious if you had any suggestions on ways I can help when he's got tunnel vision. I realize that it's not a rational time for him and simply saying the logic of the situation isn't as effective or supportive as is needed. Thank you in advance. Really appreciate all your works. We're both big fans of the show.

Sincerely, he's still a gem, flaws in all. So I actually like this. You know, I, I, I should say, I am this. Yeah, you are this. I, when I get anxious, I get really short fuse. I get, I'm like, I get into this distressed get shit done mode. It's like anxiety plus I get a little agro, but it does, it's the reason you're listening to this show, right?

Because when I get all jazzed up about something, and I mean that in the way where I'm like all fired up, whatever that might mean. It's like, I'll read that whole book. I'll get that whole thing done. I'll reply to 400 emails. I'll chase down a guest and be like, what the hell's going on? You know, I will do that. It's not super pleasant.

I've got to work on it. Jen doesn't love when I'm in that mode, unless I'm in that mode, especially if I'm in that mode for no reason, which happens. But my advice to you is help or get the F out of the way when he's like this. But that's not a long-term solution. One of the things that helped me get a handle on this

was going to surprise, going to see a therapist. Doesn't have to be a doctor. You don't need pills for this. In fact, you should not let him get pills for anything like this. I'm super anti-depressant unless you have a real brain chemistry issue, which is diagnosed by a doctor and a therapist in combo. Because doctors, I feel like often don't know enough. And therapists, some of them are pill pusher, so you've got to be careful.

But this is not something that needs medication. This is something that needs a coping strategy on his part. but I totally get it. I'm like this. It's probably a feature instead of a bug except when it's a pain in the butt. So I totally understand that you don't get it.

But I think for him getting his mind wrapped around this by having somebody who understands what's going on, seeing a therapist together would be great because he's probably going to go, I'm not mad, I'm just having trouble communicating

that I'm worried about this. He's also probably worried that he's not getting enough done, that he's not doing enough, that he's not able to get things done, and he senses a loss of control, and that's what's really bugging him. Because for me, it's taken a lot for me

to get clarity on what I really want in my business and stuff like that, especially this year, Jason, with all the crazy changes that have happened in the pre-birth of the new show, I had a lot of anxiety because it was like, oh, my gosh, I have to restart social media. And then I was just like,

oh, social media doesn't matter except for engaging with fans. I don't have to, like, build a following. I'm trying to do a show. I'm not trying to be an Instagram influencer. I don't give a shit. So being able to let go of stuff like that is helpful, but it's very tough when you feel like you have to do everything.

So I think that going to see a therapist on, there could be other causes though. We don't kind of have the full picture here, Jason, right? We don't know what's causing the anxiety. Maybe it's more responsibility and he's outside his comfort zone or maybe he's got a bunch of stuff that's getting swept under the rug and then when he finally wakes up and he's like, oh my gosh, I have to balance the checkbook.

We can't afford our taxes. The car needs repair. And we didn't do any of that because we were watching Netflix. You can self-induced plenty of this anxiety because it's it often is self-induced. It's just that sometimes it's self-induced because of our beliefs and sometimes it's self-induced because we didn't freaking check the mail for two months, you know? Yeah, I mean, this guy sounds like a classic procrastinator to me. I mean, honestly, he lets stuff pile up.

Then he just goes insane when he really. how much stuff he needs to do. I mean, I think he needs it to do list, not a therapist, but, you know, a therapist might help him get his to do list in order. Yeah, you're right. He's letting stuff pile up. That's all he's doing. Yeah, if stuff is, if he's disorganized, if you guys are both, I should say, disorganized, there's a good chance that that actually is part of the problem. Right.

But if he's kind of, if everything's seemingly fine, but he's got all this anxiety, then you've got something else going on. but for a guy like me, I've got a lot of stuff, it's all done, right? The problem is that I've got this self-induced anxiety. But if he's disorganized, then, yeah, creating structure around it will do a lot to mitigate that. Therapists can help with that too, though. You know, because if you're procrastinating, it's probably not just because you're procrastinating for no reason because you don't have the ability. There's probably some fear. It's good to see why you're procrastinating.

If you're procrastinating, it's not just because you really hate doing whatever it is. Often it's because you're like, oh, crap, I don't want to face the responsibility, which is part of growing up, you know. Yeah, there's a deeper issue there. So I think a therapist might help, but he definitely needs a damn to-do list. Exactly. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you.

All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan, Jason, and Jen. I've been listening to you guys for several years now. And the lessons you all have taught have been an essential tool for me in developing better social skills. While being socially developed was my initial goal in. finding you all, your advice on career and self-betterment opened my eyes to additional improvement possibilities. Currently, my two biggest goals in life are improving my financial situation and learning

a second language. I'm 32 years old, originally from Los Angeles, and have worked as a video editor for most of my career. My first editing job was for a large international company that moved me to Hong Kong for three years. Oh, that's awesome. I love Hong Kong. I eventually returned to work in Los Angeles for another three years before accepting a corporate social media video producing job in Beijing this past August. Beijing has been an exciting city so far, but there is, of course, the language barrier. I was taking Mandarin classes once a week last year, and while it has made the basics of Beijing life very helpful, I want to be able to communicate even better. Jordan, you've mentioned in the past that one-on-one Skype classes have been great in your Mandarin studying.

A search online brings up an overwhelming amount of options, and I would love to know which service you've been studying with. Now on to the financial side. With my mother getting up there in age and having close to zero savings, I'm interested in long-term investment to have more money stored in the future in order to take care of her when the time comes. The only problem is I have zero education in finance and stocks, and reading how-toes and investing feels like a harder foreign language than Mandarin. What would you advise a guy with no finance background or college degree to go about starting to learn how stocks and investments work? Any help, would be wonderful. All the best, lost in translation, language and stockwise.

All right, so let me start with the language stuff here, because why you need a Mandarin teacher, you just won't be accountable, you're not going to learn it on your own. Being self-taught with the language is extremely difficult, even with a teacher on Skype. So get a Skype teacher, I'll happily refer you. I've got the ability to do that. Just email me if you want to learn. The stuff is paying like two grand, $2,500 a year. for a teacher on Skype that has like 200 hours invested in you is that's what's going to keep you learning. That's really what it is.

You really do need to learn this that way. You're not going to be able to do it on your own. So that is the first thing I will say is just taking Mandarin classes once a week. It's just not going to do it. You really, really need to do this regularly. And I don't give financial advice. I've got to be careful because I'm an attorney, but I'm not your attorney, et cetera, et cetera. don't try to pick stocks.

Just pick index funds. I'm talking about Vanguard Fidelity with little to no fees and just invest in those. You should not be trying to cram this knowledge down if you're not interested in it and you don't want to develop some knack for it. There's no reason to do this if you're just saving for retirement. The difference is you're trying to help take care of a family member who's not necessarily going to be, this is somebody who's going to need the money before you are. So you've got to be careful not to put it in an account that you can't withdraw from

without penalties. What I would do is make sure that you're committing the max to IRAs and things like that. Right now is, it's a little different because taxes are so low right now that you actually kind of want to pay the taxes now. But that's not going to last forever. So you also want IRAs and things like that. You don't really need a financial planner. Most unfortunately don't have a fiduciary duty to help you, which means they don't have to tell you what's best for you. They can tell you to do what's best for them, aka buy some commissioned product. They want to make commissioners. They want to make commissions off you. I do have some planners that do have a fiduciary duty due to the nature of their qualifications. Most of them work for entrepreneurs and freelancers, so I'm not sure if those

are a fit for you. But go to Fidelity or Vanguard, get index funds with no fees, put your cash into those. That's literally it. They track the market. It'll grow over time. You're not going to get rich off it, but you'll build a retirement. And if you have a regular brokerage account and not just an IRA, you can withdraw the money without penalty. And once your financial situation becomes more complex, you can re-examine this, but you won't go wrong parking cash into index funds for now while you're young. The key is to invest while you are young, even if it's not a lot. If you can only put away $100 a month, do that. Compound interest is a marvelous thing. It is a miracle of modern mathematics. It's almost impossible to make up for lost time. When I was at my old company,

I was the only one who invested for a long, long time. And when I did the math to help other people in the company invest, the news was bad. The news was real bad because it was like I'd been putting, I don't know, like a thousand bucks a year away since I was probably 17, 16 years old working at a movie theater because my dad made me do it. But then I was talking with other guys in my old company that were like 32 and they had to invest just tens to even six figures a year to get the compound interest that I was going to get because I'd started so early.

Right. If you wait too long, you have to make an absolutely insane amount of money to make up the deficit. And I'm going to have you do the math here. I'm linking to this Motley Fool article about this for you guys. It'll be in the show notes. It's essentially change your life with one calculation, I think, is the title of the article. This is a good article because it shows you what 1,200 bucks gets after 10, 15, 25, 30, 40 years,

and it's crazy. Oh my God. This is insane. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, you're talking about turning $1,200 into, with compound interest, over 40 years, it's something like a half million bucks. Yeah. It's just bananas. $479,642. Right. But if you start five years later, it's $300,000. And if you start 10 years later, saving, I mean, it's $194,000.

of 500,000. That's 10 years. That's more than a hundred percent difference. So that's why you got to start now. And you'll see the math here. It's something that will make you want to, this will have you saving money next week when you see the math, because it's just nuts. You can't avoid it. It's a train. And congrats on thinking of this early. Most people think that they're going to be able to spend now and save later because everyone thinks they're going to be rich later. And if you don't believe me, look at the way people vote. People will vote for tax cuts for the rich, even though they're broke as hell. They'll vote for tax cuts for the rich. Because the truth is you will not, you cannot catch up to compound interest. Someone who washes windows for a living

will, they'll have a huge amount of cash putting away a couple hundred bucks a month over their lives than somebody who waits until they can invest thousands per month later, but waits 10 to 20 years to start doing it. Don't fall into that trap. Anyone who needs a referral to my guy, by the way, has a fiduciary duty to you and has income for their business or, you know, makes a few hundred grand a year, whatever they can reach out to me. His goal is to save you more in tax than you spend on his fees. He's hit the mark for everybody I know so far, including myself. And I'm happy to refer people to him if you're serious about that. But the truth is, all you need are index funds start doing it yesterday and get that Mandarin teacher, if that's what you want to do.

No, definitely. Yeah, I've got my stuff kind of spread around. I'm still not anywhere near where you are right now because I started way late like, you know, three years ago, which is a bad thing when you're 47. Oh, my gosh. But I'm using M1 Finance right now. It's an app that you can do partial stock buys. So all I have is I have a list of stocks that I want to invest in. And every month, it just pulls $100 out.

Pulls $100 out, throws it in there and spreads it evenly across there. So, you know, okay, so I put $100 in. Okay, I can't afford an entire share of Amazon, but it'll give me a partial share. And I've been doing that for, you know, six months now. So I got a couple hundred bucks in there. And it really also helps you kind of just tweak how you learn about stocks. Because since you are financially invested in it, you know, because, I mean, you're talking about index funds because he's talking about his mom, but if he wants to learn about stocks, M1 finance is a pretty good

place to start because they've got a lot of tutorials on how to invest in things like that. But when I was in high school, what I did was I went and bought the Wall Street Journal, and I tracked stocks over time. You know, I made, I had a ledger and I was tracking stocks. I looked at different industries that I was interested in. And I tracked stocks because that was my, basically my economics class. They had us do that. And I learned how to kind of go through that.

And, you know, the nice thing about having an actual physical newspaper is there are no banner ads. There are no pop-ups. You have to actually read the damn thing. And you can slow down, take your time and get interested in those kind of things. If that's what you're looking for, if that's not what you're looking for, if you're just looking to just, you know, money for your mom's retirement, Jordan Route index funds, perfect. If you're looking to learn about how the market works, just invest in a Wall Street. journal subscription and start reading it every single day. But, and there, I mean, there's tons of online tools right now.

So you can see how things trend over time. But right now, you know, I'm just throwing everything. Every like spare cent I have at the market because it has dropped so far. It's ridiculous. I don't know about you, but it's like, you know, I invested in Invidia not too long ago. It was twice plus what I had it at. and now it's back down to below what I bought at. And I'm just like, well, hell, I'll just buy some more because, you know, it's going to come back.

But this is an advice. I'm just relaying to you what I personally do, you know. I'm not giving any advice because I don't give financial advice. That's for sure. Because that would be a very bad thing. I'm just telling you what I do. And I love M1 finance because I can just, you know, throw a little bit of money at it every month. And you can, you can swap out your stocks.

So I got rid of Facebook and I replaced it with Berkshire Hathaway. And, you know, that's doing better because Facebook's evil. But, you know, your mileage may vary. But it's a good way to learn and you can do it without spending a ton of money. But definitely for the long haul, listen to Jordan, get a fiduciary because those are the guys that count and, you know, invest in some index funds. Yeah, the warning is any planner that doesn't have a fiduciary duty, like isn't also an attorney. Run. Yeah, run.

Because their incentives, they're salesmen. Their incentive is not necessarily to help you. And that doesn't go for everyone. A lot of them will do what's best for you. But you can't tell which ones they are. That's the problem. They're all going to say, look, I've got this, this, da, da, da, da, da, that. They make their money on commissions.

Commissions come out of your money. That's how they generate those. So you have to be careful with any financial planner. Our financial planners of Fidelity probably hate us. And we have a lot invested with them, but they make like nothing off of us. So when we make appointments, they're always like, hey, have you seen this? And we're like, you know the drill. And they're like, yeah, all right.

You know, because they know we're not doing it. I'm just not doing it. And I would say track the index. I've bought individual stocks because I like it. And I've got a bunch of Apple. I've got a bunch of Tesla that I bought earlier on. But truth be told, it's better to just buy index funds because that's how you grow your money for retirement safely without looking at it and without worrying about it.

That's what my IRA is and that's outperforming everything else. Tesla is the only thing that's keeping my stock portfolio above board right now. I hear you. All right. Next up. Hey guys, I'm a 27 year old guy that had been working full time in a corporate job for the last two years until I decided I wanted to make a career change and go to law school. After a few grueling months of perfecting my application, I got into my top choice.

Since I started law school, there's been some networking going on, but it's mostly been the circumstantial kind that likely won't result in advances in my career. Doing networking events and socializing is hard for me. Ever since I started college, I had a very intense work ethic, and my social skills have suffered as a result. Working 10 to 12-hour days is pretty much the norm for me. I gave up alcohol a long time ago, and I'm concerned about the amount of drinking that's happening in law school. Going out to drink is basically what law students do to socialize. I hear this is the norm for the entire profession. Ideally, I would like to be able to go to these events and still not drink.

How can I avail myself of all the networking opportunities available, attract confidence into my life, and maintain my personal integrity by not drinking. Best regards, the teetotaler. Jason, you've got some ideas for this. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, club soda with lime looks just like a gin and tonic. and when I go out to events, when I want to stay clear, that is my drink of choice.

And you can even get tonic water if you want to spruce things up and get a little bit more bubbly. But if your friends are fans of doing shots, this is like, you know, upper level trick here. You get a beer, you pour half of it out in the bathroom. And when you take a shot, you basically spit the shot back into the beer bottle, but it looks like you're doing a chaser. Now, this is for people who are going to judge you for not drinking. There are a lot of people out there who will not judge you for not drinking. Don't, you know, don't confuse the two. But there are a lot of people who, if you go out and say, I'm not drinking tonight,

they will not be as open around you because they don't feel like you're in the club. And that's the people that I would do these kind of tactics with. And it works. It totally works. It's kind of cheating. But what do you think, George? Do you think that's a way to go? Yeah, I mean, there's no, it's nobody else's business.

Yeah, really. It really isn't. And most people who drink and aren't absolute children, some law students definitely are. They don't care if you're also drinking with them, right? They just don't want the judgmental aspect of like, yeah, you guys are always drunk, right? Like, you got to play along, but you don't have to drink with them. You can go and find a handful of people who want meaningful conversation and just stick with them. I would say not to worry.

Tons of law students are also workaholics instead of just alcoholics. Some are both. You can find groups of people to study with and you can become close with them as well. And that was most of my circle in law school. I had a study group. We studied all the time. Then we'd go out for a drink. We'd go hang out.

We go to the gym, whatever. And honestly, make sure you're doing level one. That's where we outline all the ways to network and keep ties with people in a few minutes per day so you can get on with it and keep studying, which is far more important right now. You do need to make connections, but you don't need to hang out with people for five hours at a bar every night. That's a massive waste of time. And it's great because some people make lifelong friends in law school, but I made lifelong friends in law school, and I didn't get drunk with them every single night. You know, we hung out here and there.

We went to the gym. We played racquetball or squash, whatever it was. You know. Racquet ball back in the day. Back in the day. Oh, yeah. And I kept in touch with them. That was the difference.

The difference was I actually kept in touch with them, period. So start implementing level one, Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one, and you'll get the exercises that we used for that. If I'd known that stuff in law school, I never would have had to go out at all. It would have been great. Could it just save my room. That's right. Could it save a lot of money.

I'm like, God, I don't even want to think about it. All right. Next up. Hello, Jordan, Jason, and Jen. Love the podcast and the consistently intriguing guests and content you keep coming up with. My question for you, Jordan, is, what was your primary motivation or event that really pushed you to do what you do. I've been sitting on some content for almost two years and just can't seem to find a way to get started. Sincerely, maybe it's not good enough. What this sounds like

to me is fear of rejection. What's your goal with the content? If it's just hobby stuff, you're fine. You have nothing to lose. Publish it already. The problems come when your goal is to become some kind of influencer and get some result with the content. Then you put expectations on yourself, and if those expectations aren't met, you feel like a failure, and then you avoid putting the content to the test because you're afraid of the failure. What motivated me to start was simply that I was interested in the content, and I kept teaching it to people informally. You know, I'd go to a bar or something like that and talk with my friends about it.

I never wanted this show to be a business. I never wanted to be an influencer of any kind and ever thought this would be my career. I'm beyond excited and happy that it is, but I never planned on it. And that was great because we didn't check our podcast stats for, like six years, you know, more than once every three or four months, because it didn't matter. And I suggest you stop placing any sort of pressure on yourself for any sort of outcome. Publish, share, continue to publish and hone your craft. Because honestly, truth be told, your early stuff's not going to be that great.

It's just not. So start sharing it and realize it's not that great and realize you're going to get feedback and realize you might build a small audience or not. Nobody listens to the first decade of the show, right? I mean, that's fine. There's some good stuff in there, but it's few and far between. Just listen to the new stuff. The whole point of rebranding and everything, starting over, was a rebirth.

You know, you're going to have to do that through your career. Content sitting around unpublished is a waste because nobody learns from it, and you never improve. You never improve and you never find an audience if that's what you're after. I think if you decide that you're just doing this for fun, it's never going to be any sort of business, probably, then you'll have no problem publishing. This is like dating. You ever wonder why you can talk to women when you have a girl? girlfriend or then you get married. You have no agenda. So it's easy. It's fine. There's no outcome. There's no pressure. If you do the same for your content in the beginning, you can always decide later that you're

going to go for it. In the beginning, you have no idea what's going to happen. So fixing your eyes on some goal or outcome is actually just a waste of time. I know everyone's like you should always have goals. No, this is a hobby. This is not your job. If you're trying to make your hobby your job, you're going to run into problems. Spend the next few years honing your craft. This is a long game if you ever want it to be anything. I'm kind of against that whole get motivated thing. Really?

Yeah. Like, if you're successful, you're self-motivated to do stuff. If it's a hobby, then you're doing it for intrinsic value. So what's the problem? The problem is people are like, oh, I need to have, this needs to, like, be a job. It's different if something needs to be a job because it needs to pay for the year, right? Like you got a drone. Right. Yeah. You need to, it needs to be ROI positive or it's a really expensive hobby and turns out being something you can't afford.

But if you're writing stuff and you're going to put it on a blog, you don't need to get paid for your time. If you need to get paid for your time, get a different job. Yeah, true. You know, get a side hustle. But you have to decide. The funny thing about this question is, I've sat on my hands for two years about my podcasting class because we've gone back and forth about this. I know that feeling that he has. I know that feeling. It is intrinsic.

It's just like, ah, should I put it out there? Should I put it out there? And I finally started making videos last week on our break. And you know what? Just do it, dude. Just do it. Because now that I finally sat my ass in front of a camera and hit record, it gets so much easier after that first time. And you're going to be terrible.

I'm terrible at it. but it gets easier and you just do it and then you feel this just giant release. It's just like, I'm going to put this out into the world and it's going to be whatever it is. Don't just sit on it for this long. That's ridiculous. I've done it. I've been on it for two years too. So my man, maybe it's not good enough.

Just go do it. It's not even maybe it's not good enough. This is your early stuff. It's crap. Oh, it's going to be terrible. It's terrible. I suck in front of the camera. And so he's going to be.

suck in front of the camera too or on his posts but you improve and you do it for the love of doing it yeah look your early stuff supposed to be crap i'm not i'm not ashamed of my early stuff i laugh at it because it's garbage but like people found value in it people find value and stuff that is not going to be your best work the problem is you're not improving you wasted two years sitting on this stuff yeah and why to preserve ego that's really what it is what if everyone thinks it sucks good it does next right like it does who cares it does yeah that's how you improve you go to the gym not because you want to run a triathlon you go to the gym because you're flabby and out of shape because you just ate cookies for two weeks that's fine you're supposed to suck at stuff in the beginning it's okay

right that's what people need to realize the only time it's not okay is if you're pretending you to be something that you're not or you're trying to be something that you're not if you're trying to be that triathlete the first day in the gym if you're trying to be that pro writer the first time you publish a blog, you're always going to fall short, so you're going to be scared to start. So get rid of the agenda, get rid of that outcome dependency, and you'll be better off. All right, next up. Dear team, Jordan, Jen, and Jason, thank you for your show. Hopefully you can help me and the community by answering my question. We are located in Northwest Europe just to give you an actual cultural reference. My sister has been dating her now former manager off and on for two years.

She's 29 and he's 50. Recently, he's separated from a family with a wife and two children, a 13-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl. This happened just when she finally started to date other people. She says she wants to find someone to start a family with and have children. However, she's never had a committed relationship and mostly focused on her studies and career. This is not going to end well, but what should I do? Should I let her make her mistakes and try not to worry too much? Or should I try and help her to see that this is not what she says she wants. When he separated, I told her how I felt that I was worried about what she was doing, that she's throwing everything away she worked for and not working towards her own goals.

She thanked me for my honesty, but ultimately made another decision. My parents are really hurting since they believe in the institution of marriage and family, so her helping to break up a family is breaking fundamentally with what they believe in. My mother and sister were close, but now my sister barely made it through Christmas at home. My parents are ill as well, so there was a lot of tensions. My father still tries to talk normally with her, but my mother can't. She feels confronted when she's at my parents' home and always says, if it gets too much, I'm just leaving. My younger brother is in the stuff happens and we should accept it mentality. Hopefully you can help provide some perspective. Cheers, confused, and worried. Oh, man. Well, it sounds like a self-esteem issue.

She feels like this is what she can get. Yeah. And she's got to correct this herself. She has some shame around it, but she's afraid of being alone more. And you can tell she's got shame around it because she doesn't get along with your mom who's judging her. And, you know, if someone judges you for something that you know isn't a problem, you can sort of sluff it off. But I think when you know you're a home wrecker, you got a problem. The solution, though, is not to isolate her for punishment, which is what it sounds like the rest of the family's doing.

They're like, we're just going to be jerks to her. That's going to be a bigger problem because she's fully aware of what she's doing and she made the choice anyway, which is why I think her biggest fear is being alone and isolated in the first place. It's very possible there's a pattern here. Mom disapproves, cuts off support. You know, who knows? Maybe that's why she feels like this is all she can get. This will not end well for her, but people need to make their own mistakes.

Just be there for her when the inevitable happens. You don't have to like this situation or like this. the guy, but you should stay in close touch with your sister so that she knows she can come to you when it hits the fan. Because she won't want to go to your parents who are going to rub it in and say, I told you so, look, we were right all along. Why don't you listen to us? She doesn't want to hear that crap. And your parents are mishandling this from the sound of it. All you can do here is wait for her to come to her own conclusions. You know, when the guy has older kids and doesn't want to have kids with her and keeps lying to her and she's getting older, that's just going to

happen. And bear in mind that this self-destructive pattern was always there. This is the first symptom that you guys have all noticed, but that pattern's been there. And this could also just be a phase, but if it is, it seems like a long one since this has been going on for a few years now. In situations like this, all we can do is stay close and stay supportive without further enabling their situation. You know, you can express your disapproval if she asks, but you can't, what you can't do is say you're making, you're making a huge mistake. You can say things like, you know, I just, I worry about you. I love you.

You're my sister. I want you to be happy. I want you to get married and have kids. And this guy is old and it's not going to be able to do that with you. I want you to travel with someone and have a great life, you know, and you can do that. But you're stuck with this guy right now. But, you know, eventually when that changes, I'll be here for you. I'm your brother.

That's what she wants to hear. That's what she wants to hear and what she needs to hear. Sounds like your parents are driving her crazy. All right. Last but not least. Dear Jay Crewe, I'm 26 living in Manhattan and married a Japanese woman 10 months ago. She's the girl of my dreams. She speaks English fluently at a collegiate level and is also learning Spanish just for fun.

I, however, am nowhere close to being trilingual. I went to public high school in Ohio, taking only the two semesters of Spanish required for graduation. I've been trying to learn Japanese since we got engaged, buying books and apps, but still can't seem to actively learn the language. I'd describe my problem as having writer's block but for learning. I can study for hours and retain nothing. My wife and I are going back to Japan for a month for the 2020 Summer Olympics, staying with my in-laws, and I must speak Japanese by then. Any ideas on how to motivate yourself to do something you want to do,

but for some reason, a wall is stopping you from doing it. Thank you. No Abla Japanese. Hashimamaste. Yoroshkuhnogishmasu. Oh, wow. Very impressive, Jason. I took a lot of Japanese.

I still can't speak it. I suck at Japanese. That's pretty much the level that I'm at. I can say, hello, nice to meet you. Please be very kind to me. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. All right.

Well, you know my answer. Get a teacher. You're not going to learn from apps. You're not going to learn from books if you're just starting. This mindset of being self-taught is people have a misconception here. They think, oh, I'm self-taught. It's bunk. It's bunk.

It's total bunk. We, as humans, we're wired to learn languages from other humans. You're not going to learn it from reading it. It's just going to be so much slower. Plus, if you've never done it, you're not going to be self-motivated enough to sit down with a textbook, go through the whole thing on a regular basis. You won't be able to check your mistakes. I mean, it's just apps are good for vocabulary. Done.

That's it. Full stop. They're flash cards. That is it. You're not going to have some, this freaking Rosetta Stone stuff. You're not going to sit there and learn how to say the employee is in the bank. The employees, and it's just not going to happen. I took a French course, and all I remember from that French course is Ue le Bonk, which is, where is the bank?

It's ridiculous. That's the first thing they teach you. Yeah. Yeah. Language is intuitive. It's instinctual. You don't need grammar. You don't need to read.

Forget learning that for now. Get a Skype teacher and do lessons, no less than three times a week. If you need to learn this in the next year and a half, three times a week, five times a week is even better. If you have a regular routine, you know, you're working in the morning, get up early and take an hour of Japanese on Skype. I can refer you to my buddy's company who does this. Jen can refer you. We'll put the link in the show notes here. Jason, you can get the referral link from Jen on this.

It's affordable. If you mean it, you're going to do it. You need a teacher. They're going to keep you accountable. If you want to get an app, do flashcard vocab aside from the lessons. You can learn just Romangi, so you don't have to learn Hiragana and Katakana. you can learn just how to read later once you're comfortable with a few hundred or even a few thousand words. Two years is not that much time or 18 months to learn a language such as Japanese.

The other thing... Oh, yeah, dude, he's got a hustle. He's got a hustle. Yeah, if I were you and you were serious about this, I would take it five days a week. I would just, my routine would be get up early Japanese lesson. That way you don't even have to study outside it. If you're doing it five times a week, it's going to end up being a couple hundred bucks a week, max. But you'll get it.

And you won't have to study outside of that. Get into anime, get into Japanese drama or movies, see if you can get interested in that. Highly recommend watching Death Note, one of the best anime series of all time. And you'll pick up some words from that for sure. Well, if you've got a teacher and stuff like that, then you can't yell. You get used to the sounds. Keep your lessons up. Don't kid yourself that you're learning with your wife for two minutes a day when you're in the car.

You're not learning anything. You know, she's teaching you a phrase. You can't say it. Accountability is key. Start reading some kids' books. I mean like for like kindergarten kids once you can read really basic stuff it'll show that you're trying and you'll start to enjoy it the first few months are going to be hard but it gets easier and I'm telling you take the referral from the language teacher on the website and the show

notes or email me jordan at jordan harbinger.com and I'll refer you to the teachers getting a teacher is the best way to do this everything else is just half asked period I don't care what anyone else says get a teacher you'll learn it don't get a teacher you probably won't you certainly won't. I'm going to go out and say that. I've learned five languages. I'm self-taught on all of them. The only way to get good at a language is to have a coach and a teacher, period. Self-taught is in, I learned it not in school, but I learned it either with a tutor or just purely alone. And I'll tell you, I don't know why I even tried to learn languages purely alone. The reason is because I didn't have freaking internet earlier, you know, 10, 15 years ago when I was learning these other languages.

Chinese has been a miracle because I can just get a lesson in at 4 p.m. on a Saturday with a teacher that's in China for 15 bucks. You just can't beat it. And I'm going to tell you right now, I've watched Jordan's progression through Mandarin from the day he started. I mean, I knew you before you started taking Mandarin. I forgot about that. And then the first time we went to a Chinese restaurant, you were miserable. You were terrible at it. And then we went to the same restaurant a year later.

and you were conversing with the waitress. And I was just like, holy crap, how'd that happen? I'm like, oh, that's right. Every day he gets up and does it. So that's that, I mean, that's what you got to do. That's all you got to do. I mean, it was unbelievable when I saw how much you progressed in just a year. So this guy's got two years.

He can hustle and get it done. And look, his goal to talk to the in-laws, you can get really good basics in a year to 18 months. You're going to learn how to read the Hiragana Katakana. You're going to learn how to write it, most likely, which will be a lot easier than you think. And you'll learn the sounds. And then all you have to do is start memorizing words with flashcards. You can get hundreds of words done in Japanese by the time you get there. And you'll be able to use them because you're going to be speaking with a teacher.

And if all you can say to the in-laws as a random white dude or non-Japanese dude, I don't know if you're white, is if you can say things like, hello, nice to meet you, I'm your son-in-law, where's the bathroom, I'm hungry, let's eat, wow, this is really delicious, is this meat, chicken, or beef, you know, like they will be blown away. They will be absolutely blown away. So the bar is low. You just have to get there and not be like, hello, and they're like, hi, what's your name? And you're like, oh, shit, I can't speak Japanese.

And you're looking at your wife. You know, they're going to know you didn't even try. All right. You got to put it in the work. Yeah, you got to put in the work. Recommendation of the week. This is a weird one. My wife really liked this, generally like this.

I thought it was interesting. It's called American. I'm looking at the title and it's just scaring the shit out of me. It's called American circumcision. Yeah. Yeah. As a dude, no. That scares me.

But it's a documentary about circumcision. And it's weird. I didn't realize that the U.S. was the only Western country. that does circumcision and says it's medical, but it's really totally not. Yeah, no, I can't watch this. I can't watch this one, but tell me,

tell me what your takeaway was. Well, it's just, it's a real, at first I was like, oh, only weird hippies aren't doing this. Like, there's all kinds of stuff that blah, blah, blah. It's actually kind of seems like one of those outdated things that you don't need to do anymore.

And at first I was highly skeptical on that, and then it showed the map of who does it. And it's like, Israel, well, yeah, Okay, a Jewish country. The Middle East. Okay, yeah. Everybody else who does it for medical, it's like, well, of course they do it there. There's not clean water anywhere.

You can't wash your wiener off, right? But in America, it's like, do we really need to do that? Europeans are doing just fine, and they haven't been circumcising their kids for decades here, generations possibly. I don't know if they ever got into it. So it's really not necessary anymore. And there's a lot of people that feel pretty strongly about it. And it just opened my eyes up to something that I haven't really thought about.

Okay. I'm guessing there are a lot of weaners in the special. I mean, they're baby weeners, so don't worry about it. You're not going to feel traumatized. You're going to be watching it with your legs crossed, though. Yeah. Tell you that. So I just thought that was kind of an interesting take.

Jen loved it. I don't know why. I mean, she just really found it enthralling. So I was like, okay, I was on the fence, so I throw it in here. All right. 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 jordan harbinger.com to get your questions answered on

the air keeping you anonymous we always do a link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordan harbinger.com if you want to get the referral to language teachers level one is in there quick shoutouts to content creators on instagram at juan enterprises they are uh kind of like crazy practical jokers jonathan dick over there thanks for being a fan of the show shout out to American Dream University. It's a charity I work with to help veterans readjust to civilian life and get things moving for them in their businesses. So if you're looking for a good charity to support, check them out, American Dream, the letter u.org. Had some great guests this week. So go back and check out Jason Kalipa and John Taffer from Bar Rescue if you have not already. And if you want to

know how I manage to book all these great guests and manage my relationships and using systems and tiny habits in just minutes a day, check out our Level 1 course, which is free. over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. You can't make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. It's the compound interest of your social life. And the number one mistake students, entrepreneurs, people make is postponing this not digging the well before they get thirsty. Once you need those relationships, you're way too late.

They're designed to take a few minutes per day these drills. And it's a type of habit you just cannot ignore. I wish I knew this stuff 10, 20 years ago. It is crucial. And it's free. It's at Jordanharbinger.com slash level one. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show.

And the YouTube again is at Jordanharbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason, where can they find you? They can find me over at jpd.com. That's my personal website. And they can also check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks at gog. Dot show or in your podcast player of choice. And it is not kid friendly. So don't definitely play it in front of your kids.

Gotcha. All right. This show was co-produced with Jen Harbinger. And show notes for this episode are by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember to try to keep them concise if you can. It really does increase the chance that your question will get answered on the air. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't.

Lots more in the pipeline and excited to bring it to you. 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. 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.

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