The Jordan Harbinger Show - 147: Erik Aude | Imprisoned in Pakistan for a Crime He Didn't Commit Part One

Episode Date: January 15, 2019

Erik Aude (@erikaude) is an actor, stuntman, professional poker player, and the subject of 3 Years in Pakistan: The Erik Aude Story. This is part one of a two-part episode. Make sure to check out part two here!  What We Discuss with Erik Aude: How an American actor with a successful career gets wrongfully imprisoned in Pakistan for three years. Why Erik's unique history with pain tolerance made him uniquely suited to survive torture and the rigors of prison life. The culture shock an average westerner might expect to experience while visiting Pakistan. What the phrase "physical remand" actually means in Pakistan's justice system. How Erik remains positive and grateful for what he has in spite of the ordeals he's faced -- in Pakistan and at home. And much more... 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 including 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 the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. When I heard about Eric Aday, I didn't know what to make of this guy. He went to prison in Pakistan for three years for a crime he didn't commit, and he came out a murderer. But that wasn't all. I think what scared me most about Eric's story was that it could seemingly happen to any of us if we aren't careful, and even if we are. Eric's story is nothing short of incredible. He's a stuntman and an actor, and he ended up using his stuntman skill set to withstand torture in a Pakistani prison. While inside, he learned how to play Texas Holden Poker and practiced every day with his prison mates, who turned out to be some infamous prisoners in their own right. Now that he's out,

he plays poker professionally using some of the skills he learned inside. But this isn't just a poker story. This isn't just a detailed episode of Locked Up Abroad. This is a story about human resilience, mental and physical toughness, and protecting your mind, even when the world seems stacked against you. I challenge you to listen to this episode and not put yourself firmly in Eric's shoes. This was one of my favorite interviews recently, and I hope you agree. We've split it into two parts because it was so long. I just didn't want to cut it short. And don't forget, if you want to learn how I book all these amazing guests and create these relationships,

you've got to check out level one. That course is what I wish I had 10 years ago. it's all available at jordan harbinger.com slash level one those are invaluable skills now here's part one of eric ade i will say watching this documentary made me it sounds weird but i don't care it made me want to be your best friend because i saw this and i went this guy has integrity he's tough and he still has good humor even though you ended up in like the worst situation that a lot of people could possibly imagine other than maybe some sort of wartime thing. And even that, there are prisoners that could capture it in war that could treat it better than you got treated in prison in Pakistan.

And I think it's because after you watch this movie, you actually want to be more, people want to be more like you, I think. And I know that this is probably a little embarrassing. I don't care. But Jen and I were like, this guy is a person that you, most people, most people would aspire to be like this in that situation and most of us know damn well that we wouldn't. Does that make sense? It does. And I've never heard it said that way before because I don't feel that way, but thank you. I appreciate hearing that. You're welcome. And we are now best friends now. Awesome. That was easy. All right. Yeah. What were you doing before the prison stint? You know, what was going on? You were working as a stuntman,

you were an actor. I was recurring on four different TV shows. I had just finished working on the movie Scorpion King over the course of a year and a half. In that time, you were working on the Also, I just finished Planet of the Apes with Mark Wahlberg, and I had a pilot that I'd booked called 360 that I was going to start. So I had a lot of great things going for me. My dreams of being an actor and a stuntman were paying off. I was a working actor stuntman. I was able to pay all my bills doing what I loved. And I had everything to lose and nothing to gain by being a drug smuggler.

You know, it was just bad luck, bad timing, and just really messed up what Ray did to me. Yeah. And we'll get into that story. But so you're working stuntman. What are you like 21 at this point? I was 21 years old. Yeah. So that's pretty fortunate because you think a lot of people,

there's a lot of people in Hollywood that are 41 and they're waiting for that break. And you were working already. I was in the rooms. I was in the same room as Ashton Cutcher for the role on that 70s show. It came down to me, Josh Hartnett, and this other guy. I was right there and it was going to happen. Like, I was screen testing against the guys who would go on to do. great things. I was up for the role of

Stifler. I was up for the role Sean William Scott beat me out for Steve Stifler. I could see you pulling on a Stifler. And I was so close to so many, you know, huge roles. So it wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of when. Right. One of them was going to hit because you were playing the right game. Because back in the day, things have changed now. Like now it's like, all right, you submit yourself and they just cast off the tape.

But back then you had to go to a lot of callbacks, like a ton of callbacks. and then they would narrow it down to like five or six of you, and then you would go in screen test. So I was always screen test, and eventually they stopped even having me audition. They just had me going straight to screen test, straight to the producers. I was always the top five or six.

I screen tested for Smallville, for not only Clark Kent, but also for Luther, for Rosenbaum's character. That would have been a pretty cool role. Either one of those had been pretty interesting. But they were considering me for all these different possibilities. It was right timing. and everything was going for me, and I was just the perfect age for everything was happening.

And all I did was go to the gym, so whenever they needed like a jock in any sense, I'd walk into the room, and I would literally have casting directors go, finally, you know, you know, life was great at that time for me, but I never even understood how great it was until it was all taken away. So how did this begin? You're at the gym and you meet this dude Ray, who you're training. How does this devolve into you going to Pakistan? When I was 19, I was working at this gym in Burbank called World Gym, and I was the nighttime

manager, but I was also a personal trainer. I worked out with several clients. I would, you know, show them how to use the equipment properly. I would give them, like, exercise regimens. Really, all I would do is motivate them, you know? People just, they can't push themselves. So my whole job was simply to say, hey, we got some more, do it again. Come on, you can do this. Don't rest times over. Common sense stuff that, you know, everyone knows, but they all still need a little nudge. Yeah. And I got to know Ray for about nine months before I finally went on a job for him.

Ray was a regular at the gym in Burbank. He was hiring a lot of young people, mostly late teens, early 20s, college kids to travel around the world for him, importing expensive leather samples and paying them for it. And I ended up being one of the people that went on these trips. And I had always been hesitant because, you know, it did sound too good to be true. It sounded, I asked the right questions. I'm like, well, are you bringing back anything else? And he swore that all we were doing was beating the import tax.

When you travel, they give you that little paper and they say, hey, do you have anything worth more than $400? No one ever says yes. Right, of course. Even if you went on a tourist spending spree, you're coming back with a couple thousand bucks, you're going to be like, ah, I got 30 bucks worth of goods. Very cool. No one wants to pay that.

And I think the limit's like $10,000 or something. Is that cash? No, that's cash. Okay. But you can't, if anything over $400, you've got to pay, you know, import tax. is on regardless. I've traveled so much, and I just always say no, because I'm like, I'm not figuring this. Next time you're traveling, just, you know, try it.

Say, oh, I bought a thousand bucks for the goods and see how quick that bites you in the ass. Yeah, sure. You know, they're like, all right, cool, you owe us some money. You're like, what? This sucks. And you won't say, you know, so he said by us going and beating the import tax, we would be saving him a ton of money. We get a free trip out of it. He pays us some spending money.

And we're doing him more of a favor than he's doing us. Yeah. But for me, the trips were the payment. Like, I would have done this for free just to be able to travel outside the country. At this time, I'd barely been out of the California. Sure. I'd never been out of the country. And to be presented an opportunity to travel and get paid for it.

I mean, people want to travel, but not just to travel, but to travel for free and get paid for it. It's a really good deal. And you're 21 at this point. I would have taken that deal. I was 19. You were 19. I would have taken that deal any time, probably up to about the last, I don't know, a handful of years, I would have taken a free trip to go do something.

and get paid for it. And if it had it just been me, then I sure as hell wouldn't have told all my friends, my family, my brothers, my mother. And people went on these trips because of my recommendation because I was so sure that it was legit. And I wanted everyone, I wanted everyone to experience this. Like, hey, you want to travel around the world and get paid for it? Hell yeah.

And the thing that I'm so thankful for is that it was me that it happened to. Because I don't know how I would have felt had this had happened to somebody else because of my recommendation. Sure. I really don't. And whether they would have made it through, because we'll get to what happened, but you were kind of, this isn't funny, but funny how it worked out, you were uniquely suited to what was going to happen because of your mental toughness, physical toughness. If this had happened to some random buddy that you'd met or your brother, I think even your brother in the documentary, he's like, I don't know how I would have handled it. That would have been even worse because you would have felt really guilty, and I don't think he would have come out in as good of shape.

I don't think any, I don't, I don't think my brother would have been able to handle it. But, yeah, as sad as it sounds, if anyone was built for prison, it was me. And, I mean, my life growing up was never peaches. I had a really bad childhood. And I don't really go and yell that out to the skies. I just, that was my childhood. I thought, I thought the way I was raised was normal, but it wasn't. And, I mean, I'm getting run over by a bus isn't normal.

Yeah, you got hit by a school bus. I got run over by a school bus. So I've known nothing. up pain my whole life. It's told I never walk again. It's told I'd never be able to play a sport, never be able to make love to a woman. I've proven the doctor's wrong time and time again. You've done all of those things multiple times, yeah? Yeah, yeah. A lot of sports. That's a lot of walking. I had my urethra sever and reconnected. I'm the first person on earth to have that done. Really? Yeah. That's a weird badge. I'm in doctor's history books, but it's all because

I've just had an unusual life my whole life. So you get hit by a bus. It crushed your Elvis and that somehow severed a bunch of stuff down. It destroyed me. It just ripped me apart. And I wasn't supposed to make it through the night, a little less the week. And then as time went by, my odds started to increase.

I was told never walk again. A couple years later, I'm walking. And that gave you a high pain tolerance, right? I remember you said something like you just stopped complaining about the pain after a while. Because all I was doing was waking people up. Like my mom's boyfriend at the time, this nice guy named Rod.

He would come, I would get these sharp pain. through my body that would just, it felt like glass is just going through me. And it turned out to be like the worst kidney pains because I was always in pain and things were always passing through me. And I would start screaming in the middle of the night. So my mom's boyfriend would come into the room and he was dead tired. And all he could do is turn on the Nintendo and play Zelda next to me until it passed and I went

back to sleep. And I just remember thinking to myself like here, it's weird because there's like a siren going off. And here I am, you know, nine years old, eight years old, and no one could do anything. And it got to the point that people started just ignore me because they knew they couldn't do anything for me. Yeah. And I felt so, like, such a inconvenience on them that I started just screaming in silence. When you say screaming and silence, you're just screaming in your head?

Yeah. Yeah. And just kind of gritting your teeth and dealing with it. To this day, I still go through those. And it has never stopped. The pain hasn't stopped. So you just will wake up randomly feel. All the time.

All the time. And nobody knows why or they know why and they can't do anything. They say that, for some reason, my kidneys contract and everything. Huh. And they always will. It just feels like someone's ringing it out like a towel. Oh, God. And it happens.

It's not even when I'm sleeping. It's when I'm awake. They just start to come and like my sides, like literally do this because it just starts to get really bad. The cramps, it gets terrible. Wow. But when I was a kid, I didn't know what was happening to me. I've gotten used to them.

to them. I've gotten used to them all the time. Now they're just an inconvenience, but I fill them all the time. Like, what made me scream as a kid is just an inconvenience to me now. So you're going back and forth from different countries transporting these leather goods. What kind of countries are you going to? It was the Turkey. Turkey. Originally, the trips were to Turkey, and Turkey's a great, beautiful country. And then on the way back, you could pick a country to go to. I'd always pick Sweden because I just like Sweden. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of good. I love Sweden, and I can imagine at age 21, Sweden's a pretty good stopover. Remember, it was 19, 20.

Yeah. So stopping over at Sweden was great. I stopped in Sweden during the winter, so it was always nighttime, but all the people are blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful. And during the summer, it was really cool because the sun would stay up in the middle of the sky

at 2 a.m. So you're walking down the street and it's completely deserted and the sun's over your head. I don't know why anyone would want to film a zombie movie in America when they could save so much money by going over to Sweden or another Scandinavian country during the summer and just film there when everyone is just a home asleep. That's right. That's right. Yeah, just a ghost town in the middle of the day. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Maybe it's the exchange rate. I don't know. Yeah, so you're 19 and 20, man, this is so, it's funny because a lot of people must say,

dude, you must have known. You an idiot. People, man, people are pretty harsh when it comes to others. Like, if I knew someone did something bad happen to someone, I want to go up to a rape victim and ask them, hey, did you really get raped? What were you wearing? You know, I would never do that. But I had a woman come up to me and say, were you someone's bitch in prison? And I'm thinking to myself, man, I wish you were a man for a second. You know, just for, I mean, I know man's had the ball to say that shit. No way.

But I would be like, let's humor you. Let's say I was. Do you really want to hear about it? Why would you ask such a terrible question? Yeah, that's just mean. Or people will say, oh, I heard all the bad stuff that happened to you. Did that really happen? Okay, now you're calling me a lie to my face.

You don't even understand that. People don't think before they talk sometimes. Are these people that just saw you unlocked up abroad or these like friends of your? Okay. No, these are definitely not my friends. Yeah. These are definitely not my friends. Huh.

Like there was, there were interviews being done when I was overseas by people who knew me. You know, there was this girl. And she did an interview and she goes, well, yeah, I think he did it. That's what was her words. I think he did it because every time we were at parties, he was always drunk. And I was like, this girl is a fucking liar because I don't drink. Wow. I don't drink at all.

And I don't do drugs. My drug of choice was the gym. That's all I did was work out. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs. And here's this girl doing an interview saying, I think he did it. And he was always drunk. Well, fuck you.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. Like, I'm already a bad situation. So why are you going and pouring lighter fluid on a spark over? here. That's ridiculous. That's unbelievable. And people, but other people would do that too. People would be like, oh yeah, Eric was talking about this all the time. Who the fuck are you? I don't even know who you are. Yeah, that's ridiculous. You know, out of the woodwork come people who don't know the situation, but they want to start, they want to get their own, I guess, their own reasons to feel special. 15 minutes of fame. If so, like if I don't know anything about a person, I'm not going to

go and start making up shit just to be noticed. Sure. People do that, though. So you're going back and forth from Turkey, hanging out in Europe. This is an awesome job. You're telling all your friends and family about it. Were some people like, hey, dude, you should be careful because it sounds really good. And I don't know, I don't want anything to happen to you. So just do your diligence. No. Nobody said that. Before I went, I asked my mom, like I told everyone about this. And my mom put me in touch with her FBI friend who wanted to hear the scenario. And I told them, importing expensive leather goods, beating the import tax free trip. He says, this kind of thing happens all the time. People bring back rugs. People bring back jewelry. And if you get caught, it's a, it's a minor

offense, maybe like a slap on the wrist. I said, is there any jail time? He goes, nah, there's no jail time. It's more a moral crime, if anything. But worst case scenario, they'll confiscate it and give you a fine. But that's it. So when he told me there's no jail time, that clear any kind of doubt or a concern that I might have had. But everyone that I had told this job to, no one not once said, air, careful, it could be this. No, everyone wanted it. And, everyone wanted in. Everyone wanted to do it. Everyone was asking me to meet with Ray. What I do nowadays when people tell me about their scenarios, I say, hey, you're drug smuggling. Simple as that. It's a red flag. Better safe than sorry. Why take the chance? Learn from me. Trust me. Learn for me. At least that

way it wasn't all for nothing. But people want to believe that I was guilty. They want to believe that I deserved to have this happen to me so that they can swallow their own negativities in their life easier because people love to complain. I don't know if you've been. You know, especially in 2018, everyone's so positive. No one ever complains about the littlest damn things that go on in our lives. Oh, you know, I don't have a job or I can't do this because, you know, I'm, it's just life's too hard for me. No, you're just looking for a pity party. You're looking for, you know, people love to have people feel sorry for them.

You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Eric Aude. We'll be right back after this. This episode is sponsored in part by Host Gator. Do you have a business card? If you do, it probably lists your website. If you don't, it's probably because your website is like your virtual business card. Either way, you have to have a website. It's 2019, there's no excuse for you not having one.

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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. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now back to the show with Eric Aude. I think the other reason people wanted to believe that you're guilty is it's too damn scary to think that an innocent person like you could go to prison in Pakistan for three years and go through that crap from having done nothing. I think because I even wanted to be like, please tell me he really did that in the is not a big cluster fuck of a disaster because it's clearly just unfair. It's easier for them to swallow what happened to me if they think that I deserved it.

Yeah. Rather than knowing that I didn't deserve it and that I went through all those things. Exactly. And it helps them, you know, complain about their own little everyday lives because everyone loves, like I said, everyone loves to complain. No one is grateful for the things they have until it's all taken away from them. And that's why I appreciate my life so much more is because I've had it. everything taken away from me is because I've had so many bad things happen to me in my life.

I mean, to me, Pakistan was just one of many bad things that have happened to me in my life. I've had so many things happen and I just learned to get over it. You know, you get knocked down six times, you get up seven. And that's the only way I've ever known how to live. Pakistan was just one of many things that bad things that happened to me. Last year, someone decided to online bully me and because of a joke I put on my page, you know, my dream since I was a little kid was to be a stuntman. And I was accomplishing that dream.

I was hosting these stunt parties at one of my restaurants in Woodland Hills. And I put a joke on my page that I wish I didn't put. But, you know, I've always been a sarcastic guy. I'd gone to this audition, a friend of mine who was producing a, or I don't know if he was producing, but he introduced me to a producer and writer for this, this low-budget movie where they were looking for people who have PTSD. Now, I absolutely qualify for that. Yeah, I was going to ask about that.

I have nightmare, night terrors, I sleepwalk, I hurt myself and my sleep and it's like sometimes going to sleep is like Russian roulette. I'll wake up with, I've woken up with black eyes from hitting yourself somehow? Yeah. I've woken up with smashed fingers with disc out of my neck and I've destroyed, you know, whatever room I've been in. When I travel, it happens a lot. I've destroyed a hotel room. So yes, I suffer from PTSD. Nothing I go around screaming to the skies. So I got brought in for this interview and they asked me what branch of service did you serve in to get PTSD? And I said, I never served. I mean, I tried to serve, but I, after 9-11, I tried to serve, but I sleepwalk. I've always sleptwalk, so they,

they don't want you round, you know, weapons. Weapons, yeah. And explosives when you sleepwalk, but I did try to serve. My dad served, my stepdad, my brothers, my uncles, and these guys, you know, have told me some of the greatest stories, and I respect them, 100%. Well, they said, we're looking for someone who served. So I was irked about it. I understood, but I posted on my page sucks to be told you can't play a role you've played countless times before because you never served in the military. When they say they're only looking for the real thing, what does that say about me? I've been cast as a rapist seven times, the wonderful world of Hollywood, right? Well, obviously, I'm making fun of the situation. I'm not a rapist, but yet I played it

countless times. I always play a douchebag or a bad guy or a thug. Okay. Well, This woman who is very prominent in the stunt industry went out of her way to post on her page because she only cast real vets. That's her thing. That's cool, but she's not the only one that does that. Other people cast cops, real medics, real doctors, you know, but people cast the real thing all the time. She's not the only one. But the stunt industry is so small and they love to just try to kiss each other's ass and go out of the way to bad mouth people. And in order to look good in her eyes, someone brought her this post that had nothing.

to do with her, but basically saying, look at Eric's saying, so she posts on her page, if you got a problem with vets, don't ever submit to me again. I've never submitted to that woman, ever. And then within two days, her posts had 600 likes, re-likes, re-shares, and everything. I was getting death threats again. We had vets come to our house with guns. I had to go to the cops a couple times. And I'm like, wow, after all the shit I've been through, this person's going to go over there and destroy my dream because of a joke on my page. and nothing to do with her. And I'm like, wow, I got blackballed from the stunt industry over a joke on my page.

And my family's all vets. And she turned it into that I hate vets, twisted it around so bad. Everyone in the stun industry has quietly come to me and told me, you should sue that woman, you should do this. This is the worst thing that's ever happened. I'm like, it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me. It's just someone who's very small stepping on an aunt and trying to ruin me and kill a dream. And that's what people do.

I was running over by a bus. I got through that. I was wrongly in prison in Pakistan. I got through that. I had someone kill my dream over here. I'll get through that. How did you end up going to Pakistan? Because you're going back and forth from Turkey.

You're going through Sweden, hanging out. It's great. And then dot, dot, dot, Pakistan. I mean, this is the part that's a little confusing for people because they're like, yeah, okay, Turkey maybe. But when you say, hey, you're going to Pakistan, that's where I would have drawn the line. That's what everyone's thinking when they see this flick, right?

before I went to Turkey, I had a lot of questions. I didn't just want to go to Turkey because before I knew anything about Turkey, all I knew was that it was a Muslim country. I mean, back then, I thought Muslims were dangerous people because you know you only see what you see on the news. But Turkey was a beautiful country. Turkey was an awesome country, and I met so many friendly, wonderful people there. I had a great time in Turkey.

Ray was able to use my experience in Turkey on how amazing it was and how everything I thought was going to happen didn't happen. It had a great time. like any kind of worries I had, he was able to use that against me and justify, well, that's also going to be Pakistan. He painted Pakistan like a turkey. Pakistan was supposed to be my brother's trip. And when he found out it was to Pakistan, he says, I'm not going. And he backed out.

And when he told me that it was to Pakistan, it made no sense to me because this was the first I was hearing about it. 10 days before Peter was supposed to go on the trip, he tells me that, oh, it's the Pakistan, it's not the Turkey. So I ask, Ray, what's Peter talking about? Why is it the, what's this Pakistan thing? First, I'm hearing about it. He lets me know because of the war in Afghanistan, he's getting a great deal on leather goods in Pakistan. My exact words were good. You can FedEx it back then. Yeah, yeah.

You're getting such a great deal than just FedEx it back. Yeah. And he goes, Eric, before you went to Turkey, you were worried, right? And I was worried about like dangers, like, you know, people hurting me. That's what I was worried about. But no one was bad. Everyone was kind. And he used that as justification of how great Pakistan's,

going to be. This is just the first trip to see how things go. If it's not good, then we'll just do it to Turkey. And he made me feel guilty because I had vouched for my brother, and I don't want to leave him hanging. He was my friend. Ray was my friend. And whenever I say something's going to happen, it's going to happen. I always stick true to my word. I always have a man's value is only as good as his word. And I think everyone, when it comes to bets, you know, I pay all my bets. If I lose a bet, I always pay it. If I say I'm going to do something, I always do it. If I say I'm going to show up somewhere, I'm going to do everything I can to show up. You know, so I told Ray, I felt obligated because Peter, I vouched for him and Peter was backing out.

Even though it wasn't to Pakistan, I still felt obligated to make this happen for my friend because I don't want to leave him hanging. But also, I didn't want to lose this opportunity. Even though I was working all the time as an actor, I know, you know, the highs and the lows come. You work all the time. It's feast or famine. So I don't want to lose this opportunity. Yeah. Plus he's your friend.

You're just like, look, I can take a trip. It's going to be a pain because it's the middle of something. I didn't have any time. I really didn't. And even after I said I'll go, I had booked a guest star on the show Arlis. And I would have made more money working on Arles than I would have on the damn trip. But I had vowed, I had given in my word that I'd go. So not only was I losing money, I would lose three years of my life for a crime.

I didn't know I was being used to commit. Unbelievable. All right. So you go to Pakistan and then what is that like? You just land and you're like, hey, let me get a suitcase full of leather goods. I mean, what do you do? No, it doesn't work that way. Ray's context picked me up from the airport.

Now, Pakistan is not a friendly country at all. There's the people in it, you mean? Yeah. The second they see me land, I stick out like a sore thumb. One of the taller guys there, the only white guy there. Usually when you go to other countries, you see all kinds of foreigners, you know, Asians, Hispanics, you know, black people, white people. You see different... Diversity.

Yes. There's no diversity in Pakistan. There's none. I'm the only white guy there. And that's the one thing I'm noticing is there's no diversity. Everyone's wearing their chemise, which are like dresses. Everything's really dirty. There's people everywhere.

And there's no sense of privacy there. People who don't know you. Like, if we were having a conversation, just some random guys walk up, stand right there between us and just start looking at both of us like they were part of the conversation the whole time. That's so weird. It is very weird. And it happens all the time.

I could not handle that. It would happen all the time. Like I'll skip ahead. I'll be in chains talking. talking to my damn lawyer or to the consular, and these people just walk up with their hands behind their back, you know, and just look at both of us. And I'd be like, seriously, man, fuck off.

Or all these homeless people, as I'm being led to the throngs of the crowd and the chains, would be, like, grabbing at my pants to, like, ask for money. I'm like, oh, fuck, do I have money? I'm handcuffed, yeah. Chains, I got no money for you guys. The shit that would happen in Pakistan would make me laugh. Even there, I was laughing. I was like, this is so fucking.

ridiculous it's great it's this is so unbelievable see you're like and then they're picking up from the airport what do they take you to like some hotel they take me to a hotel uh off of murray road and they tell me they go ray fucked up that's the first thing is it ray fucked up you're supposed to go to karachi i go hey what does that mean karachi is an eight-hour drive by the way you're in islamabad well i'm in islam about and i said so what does that mean i said well we got to go to karachi and and bring back the stuff i go so am i going with you guys i'm assuming i'm coming with you guys because that was sort of the the the the selling pitch on Ray is that,

oh, these guys are going to show you around. They're going to show you a good time. You're not just going to be left hanging by yourself. You're going to, you know, how people they're showing you how great Pakistan is. And they said, no, we're going to leave you at the hotel. And we'll come back.

I go, when are you coming back? They asked me, when is your flight? Like, they didn't say they're going to come back. They just asked, when's your flight? I said Friday. They go, we'll come back Friday. Okay. Well, that's, now, I get there on a Monday.

Yeah. And I'm being told these guys are going to be just leaving me at the hotel until Friday. And their exact words were, don't leave the hotel. I'm like, that's not an option. No, no, no, no. Also, Ray said they would give me spending money, right? So they gave me a thousand. When I told them this, they started laughing.

So Ray said, you guys gave me spending money, which is true, Ray says it. Sure. Because I didn't have any, I didn't, you know, I was, I didn't really know how things worked. So nowadays, I bring the currency or I know how to exchange and that kind of stuff. But when I'm there, I'm just sort of like at the, I don't know, at the mercy of everyone around me. because I'm trying to figure things out as they come. Yeah. So they gave me a thousand rupees, told me it's like $200 American dollars.

I learned very quickly after my first breakfast, that shit was $17. Oh, man. Because, like, after my first breakfast, I remember my first breakfast being $360 rupees. That's a third of my funds. I'm like, holy shit. And this are just a couple eggs. Yeah. Eggs and jam toast and some chai.

Oh, man. I'm like, this sucks. And that's day one. That's day one. So I'm like, this sucks. So I want to go and explore this. the city. And the city is like just throngs and throngs and throngs of people. It's not like, hey, there's a person. No, it's just... It's kind of interesting to do something like that

for me. I mean, theoretically. Trust me, I wasn't bored. Like, watching all the traffic and everything, but no matter where I went, there was not one smile, not one friendly face. Everyone was like, who the fuck is this guy? Yeah. And I'm jogging through the streets of Islamabad, you know? You went jogging? Yeah, I went jogging. That was one thing I liked to do is run. I went jogging. I see these three girls who, you know, were somewhat attractive, and they know, younger my age, and they had the burkas on, but their faces were shown.

And I see them, so smiles, and I go across the bridge, and halfway across the bridge over the traffic and the throngs of people. I look back, and the girls are waving. I'm waving up these girls, too. I'm like, all right, all right. There's a flag planted right there. And I find an internet cafe far down the way. Well, on the internet cafe, you know, I send out a group email where I'm at and what's going on.

and in my own sense of humor and my smart-assness. And well, on the way back, those three girls are still there. So I go over and I start trying to chat with these three girls. There's no chance of us communicating other than a smile. They're smiling and they're like looking blushing and looking at each other. And no one speaks a lick of English. This little guy comes out of one of the shops and just starts yelling at me. And I'm talking, this guy looks like he's a buck 10.

Little skinny guy. Right. How much did you weigh? 225. I was benching 420 pounds. So you're like more than twice. I was maxing out at 420 and I was reping 405, you know. That's ridiculous. Just a ridiculous big guy. And you could have picked him up with one hand and throw him. I didn't have to pick him up. I could just like, you know, hey, knock it off. You know, but obviously I wasn't welcome here. Right, right. As I was walking, I was walking away. Like, I'm walking away. This guy just kept shoving me down the road. Like, all right, he could have stopped 10 yards ago.

Finally, I turned around and grabbed him by his wrist, and all I did was bend his wrist. And this guy screams and goes down the crowd. But instead of, like, people just minding their own business, the crowd swarms me. The whole crowd gets around me. Now, when I pushed this guy, when I bent this guy's wrist back, I dropped my bag, my backpack that I had. And when I looked down to grab my bags, I saw the crowd was starting to get antsy around me, and I needed to get out of there.

I looked down my bag's gone. And the only one that could have jacked my bag was this woman who wasn't making eye contact I'm thinking of myself, she's got my bag under her dress. But I'm not about to go shake down an old lady in front of people, because that would look even worse. Yeah, no way. So my first day in Pakistan, I got not the right amount of money. I got put in a hotel told that I shouldn't leave the hotel.

Nothing was going according to plan, and I got robbed by a little old lady. That was day one. I'm like, this place sucks. Not a good start to the tree. No, it wasn't. But I met this girl on the plane from Dubai to pay. Pakistan. And it's only a couple-hour flight. But I never had a problem with meeting women and talking to girls. And she had a British accent. Even though she was Pakistani, she had a British

accent. She spoke English. Great. Sweet girl, very beautiful. And we flirted with each other on the plane. And before we landed, I gave her my email. Well, she had emailed me. And I saw her at the when I got to the internet cafe, that was one of the emails that I saw. So I told her, which, hotel I was at what room number I'm at. The time I get back to the hotel, she's already called. There's a message waiting for me at the hotel. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I'm like, all right. Game is tight. Trips start, man. My games, my game's never been terrible. That makes one of us. I'm friendly, well, you know, confidence in a friendly smile and, you know, people like different, you know? Yeah. Yeah. People like a guy who doesn't mind making a fool of themselves, and I was

great at making myself look like an idiot. All right. Uh-huh. So I get to the hotel and she, she calls me, she goes, hey, we should hang out tonight. And I'm like, all right, let's hang out tonight. So she gives the concierge all the information on how to get to her. And he tells a cab driver how to get where she lives. Now, I go on one of the longest cab rides I've ever been on. And we're going like down dirt paths and everything. And I'm like, this guy's taking me to abduct me and steal my kidneys. Definitely. Yeah. Like I'm already got an escape plan. I'm like, if this guy's going to be a dipsion and try, like, if someone's going to try to pull me out of the car. I'm throwing this guy out of the car and jacking his car. Sure. I'm already thinking, like, I will go after him first and carjack him. Yeah, remember how to drive

his stick and everything. Well, we started off, it's like, the sun was still in the sky when I left, and by the time I finally got to our destination, it was pitch black, dark. We'd go to this neighborhood, and the first thing I notice is there's glass on all the walls between the houses. There's bobwire fence, and like this is... Like broken glass? Yes. Oh, so like a spikes? Yes. Like, they don't just put like walls between houses. It would literally be like if all the fences around your house had just broken glass cemented it to the top so that people don't climb over and everything. And a lot of the houses had guard shacks in front of them with guards, armed guards in front of like one armed guard. Um, well, I get brought up to this house that all these little kids are

outside on the driveway. And I'm talking like the whole neighborhood came together to come be here. And this one girl comes out, talks to the cab driver, tells me to give him a hundred rupees. He's cab driver loses his mind. He's yelling, but I did what she told me to. 100 rupees is still, I don't have a lot of rupees. I started with 1,000. Yeah. I already paid 360 for breakfast.

Now I'm paying my 100, so I'm already losing half my bankroll in my first day in Pakistan. But that's what it was supposed to cost. She knew that already. Oh, no, I didn't know that. No, but she knew it. She knew. She was, like, if the guy was asking for a lot more, he was probably asking for a lot more, but he's pissed off because I'm a foreigner.

Foreigners always have money. I didn't have any money. Yeah, he wanted 10 times the first. Probably way more, actually. So I follow her into the house, and she tells me that her brothers, she told her brothers that I was an actor, and I told her that the time I'd done the movie, you know, I'd done a few movies, and she told, told, you know,

people's, the whole, it spread through the neighborhood. So I met all the little kids out front and whatnot and talked to them. And I, you know, a couple of them spoke English. But then we went into her house, which is a huge compound, like just a big house. And she says, now she's telling me, she messed up. I'm like, what happened? She goes, I told my brothers about it. I'm like, okay, cool.

Like, yeah, now they want to hang out with you. I'm like, okay, cool. So we're all going to hang out? She's like, no, you're going to hang out with them. I'm like, I didn't come here to hang out with your brothers. I came here to hang out with you. Oh, right. They don't want her hanging out with you.

Oh, God, no. Oh, man. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Eric Aude. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

And the worksheet for Eric Audey will not be released until Part 2 airs on Thursday. That link will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now for the conclusion of Part 1 with Eric Audey. So nothing is going according to fun. And I'm like, what the fuck? I didn't want to come hang out with your brothers. Yeah. Now the brothers, they seemed nice.

They ranged in age from 24 to 14. And all the older guys had like beards going, like long, long beards. But they all had British accents. And they all come in and there's four of them. And she made me a burger, actually, which is good. She made me a burger and gave me some soda. And that was, you know, actually the best meal you had in Pakistan? At that time.

Yeah. And then her brothers go, okay, we're going to go now. And I'm like, can I just hang here with you? And she's like, nope, sorry. Now it's out of her hands. And I didn't understand the customs of the culture there. Like I didn't understand, you know, at the time I didn't know that, like her even just leaving the house at night to tell the cab.

how much it was and have me pay the cab to get me was a huge risk on her part because women are allowed to leave the house after dark in Pakistan. They're not allowed to socialize the men that they're not married to in Pakistan. People could start talking and the way rumors spread could literally cost a woman her life in Pakistan. I didn't know that at the time, but she was like really taking a risk even just socializing with someone like me. So I'm glad that I hung out with just her brothers now knowing what I know now. And her brother's idea of showing me a good time was driving around to all the locations. They'd be like, hey, there's pizza hut.

Hey, there's KFC. Oh, yeah. I'm like, all right. I came all the way around the planet to see. Some franchises. Yeah, exactly. Jeez. But one thing I noticed was that all the lines I saw was guys.

My exact words were like, man, it's a fucking cockfest out there. Yeah, sure. And they're like, oh, yeah, we're looking for a woman. I was like, all right, yeah, that'll be cool. Let's go where ladies are. No, their idea of looking for a woman for me was, they wanted to find. find a woman that was out after dark so that we could gang rape her. Oh, what?

Yeah. Their idea of showing me a good time was so that we can go find a woman unshaparowned and gangraper, because that's their right in Pakistan. I thought they were kidding. And at the time, but as obviously time went by, no, that's the way it is. If a woman is seen outside past curfew, unshapar, especially, even if she's chaperoned, but if she's unshaparoned during the day in some of these areas, it's the man's right to gang rape them.

But if it's after hours, no, it's every man's right to gang rape them. This is insane. It's nuts. And people don't understand how good they have it here because this is the crap

that's happening over in other countries. And the media doesn't want to report on it because it's, you know, people will, I don't know why they don't want to shine a light on what's really happening. Like, oh, okay, well, you know, that's just some of them. No, it's not.

It's not some of them. That's the way their customs are. There's honor killings all the time. There's gang rapes. I've got hundreds of hundreds of stories For what I heard, what would go on in Pakistan. I'll jump ahead a little bit. There was a British man who was born in Pakistan, but he grew up in Britain, and he raised

his family in Britain. He brought back his family, two of his daughters. One was a 25-year-old, a 25-year-old doctor. The other one was a 20-year-old. And he brought him back under the guys of, oh, we're going to go see family. It's a vacation. What he didn't tell them was that he had arranged marriages for them. And the reason was because he hated the way they were born with a Western mentality.

Well, the 25-year-old doctor, she has a Western mentality, she's like, you know, fuck you, dad, that's not happening. Yeah, my doctor. I'm not marrying some. Not getting married. Well, he said this brought dishonor to his family. So he shot his daughter in the face killing her. Oh, my God. For two weeks, this man complained in prison that I shouldn't be in jail because the victim's family members have forgiven me.

And under Muslim law, if the victim's family members forgive you, then Allah forgives you and all is for God. Who were the victim's family members? His wife, his sons. So he spent two weeks in prison complaining about being in jail for the murder of his own daughter. He was released. Chargers were all dropped. His other daughter was sold. She's still, I'm sure to this day, she's still in Pakistan.

This is insane. And this is normal. And that was some guy who grew up in Europe. People go, oh, no, that's not how it is. No, that's how it is. I saw it countless times. There was a man. There was a kid.

He was my age, actually. He was 21 when he got arrested and he had an American accent. He grew up in Detroit. That's where I'm from. Oh, you might know him then. He grew up in Detroit and him and his cousin raped and murdered a girl in Detroit. Well, he fled back to Karachi to avoid, I don't know, to avoid prison in Pakistan, but he was arrested in Karachi, transported to Islamabad, getting ready for extradition back to the U.S. and this guy liked the lions.

He grew up in America, spoke with American accent. And I said to him, why would you do this? And his exact words to me are like, it's just the way things are, man. This is how we're raised. That's crazy. I was like, wow.

So he just like, he didn't think it was, he thinks it's in Pakistan because there's no big deal. But he grew up in America though, but he still grew up with that mentality. That's crazy. How is it? I feel like there's such a bullshit excuse to be like, oh, well, you know, I was raised it this way.

If you're such in Detroit that you actually are one of the ones that like the lions, you should have figured out by now that you can't rape people and murder people. In Pakistan, it's just the different mentality. There was two things we couldn't talk about. We couldn't talk about politics and women. You couldn't talk about that. And the reason is because we completely didn't agree on anything. Obviously, everyone, you know, the time hated Bush.

They hated Americans' policies and why America helps Israel. You know, that's usually what it always rotated around. Why is America always back in Israel? But then when it came to women, one of the questions that stood out to me, someone says, in America, well, can a woman ask a man out on a date? Like, yeah, really? And you guys are okay with this? Yeah, actually, I'm flattered when a woman asked me out on a day.

It's good for my ego. They go, and so if a woman comes begging and crawling like a dog, I'm like, I don't really see it that way. Yeah, that doesn't really happen. But that's how it was being described. And so that wouldn't be isolated incidences. Many people would ask me, you know, they would say, Are women not property in America? I'm like, no, no, they're not only are we equal, but actually the men are usually the ones who, you know, need to, you know, mind their peas and keys around the woman to keep her happy.

But in Pakistan, they're considered property. They don't have any rights whatsoever. So that first day in Pakistan, this woman who I met on the plane, who was studying abroad and, you know, had a British accent, and her brothers all studied abroad and had British actions were trying to be. to show me a good time to find a woman that we could all gang rape. Unbelievable. Needless to say, we didn't find a woman. Yeah, lucky. But had we found one that wouldn't happen? Not with me there. Whatever I drank that day, though, made me sick. I drank water from a pitcher at this restaurant. I'm thinking that's where I got sick from. Sure, yeah. The next two days, I was sick as a dog. I was shitting sideways. I didn't even wear pants the entire day on Wednesday because it was pointless.

I don't mean to laugh, but I can imagine how sick you are. It was like no point in wearing pants. No, no point in wearing pants. I lost so much weight. I was dehydrated. Oh, man. I remember I couldn't eat anything on Tuesday. I ordered some room service and I was drinking only like seven up bottles.

That's what they kept bringing up to the room. I was there nothing. That wasn't going to take a chance on anything water-wise. Thursday I started to feel better and I went out and I just needed to get out. I was a little cabin fever being in the room. I felt a lot better. and I got food. Everything I bought was packaged, though. I was buying, you know, packaging. I found a store where they weren't charging me a ridiculous amount. Like, it was like two rupees

for like these little hostess things. And I bought bottled water and everything else. Just, well, I go back to the internet cafe and it's Valentine's Day. It's February 14th. And one of the emails that I got was from this, I was from a girl named Missy. Missy I had been in love with since I was five. Missy was the reason why I had studied. longer, why I'd worked out harder. She was everything motivation-wise for me to do better in my life, to be better in my life. She was my driving for her since I was a kid. And for some reason, I fell in love with this girl when I was only five years old and it never went away. Missy and I, we would date on and off, but her mother absolutely hated me. Her mother hated me.

Her mother was a teacher's aide. And in the second grade, even as a kid, I was always in trouble. My name was just etched into the board. It was always on the chalkboard because I was always telling jokes and, you know, being disruptive and being a little dipship. And I was always trying to get laughs from everyone. Well, her mom sunk these nails into my shoulder. Her fingernails? Yeah. Her mom was an evil woman, just an evil woman. And she sunk her nails into my shoulder, and I was in a lot of pain. So I squirted her with glue. And this is in second grade. Oh, wow. So I squirted her with glue, and she was in shock. And I grabbed her, uh, her sweater and threw it in a mud puddle. Well, she never let that go. She never let that go. She never forgave me. And she made sure

that her daughter wasn't allowed to date me. So Missy and I would have to date like in secret. Sure. And then her mom would find out and I guess take it out on Missy. And then we'd have to distance ourselves again. And this went on forever. And now I'm 21 years old. I'm in Pakistan.

And I'm getting an email from Missy saying that it was a group email. It wasn't to me, but it was to everyone. And I was one of the everyone's that her mom had died from pancreatic cancer. Oh, man. And, you know, my first initial reaction was, fuck yeah. Oh, man. That's terrible. It's awful.

That's terrible. But I was like, yes, you know, because I can, this is finally free. This is the woman that's been keeping me from this girl that I've loved since I was five years old. Five years old. And so I'm like, burning hell, bitch, you know, because I was a fucking ass. I mean, this is, that was my first reaction. And then I get on the internet and go, Missy, I'm so sorry, sweetie. I'm sorry you going to this.

I love you. I get back next week. I will be there for you anything you need. Don't worry. I'm really sorry this happened. But then I'm like, fist pump, yes. Yeah, oh, man. One woman was the reason I couldn't be with this girl.

That's so 20-something. That's February 14. And that's 16 years, it was technically 17 years after I've known this girl. I've been in love with this girl for 17 years. And finally, the one woman, the main reason why we haven't been able to be together and make a go at it is out of the way. It's out of the way. And what happens the very next day? I get arrested.

I'm sorry, but God's got a fucked up sense of humor, man. That's crazy. This dude, this dude, it's always, I mean, I was not meant to be with that girl for some reason. Yeah. Like, I was looking at it for that one reason. Like, all right, what happened in Pakistan sucks, you know, what happened to me. But what I lost at the time? Yeah.

It wasn't getting arrested for a crime to commit. That was the worst part. It was losing her. To me, that was the worst part. Losing the opportunity to be with this woman that I want to be with my entire life. That was the worst part about it. And I go to get arrested the next. day for unknowingly smuggling opium. So the opium is sewn in the lining of the bag.

Yeah. Of the suitcase that you're carrying jackets in. Yeah. It's, uh, the jackets was a, was a smoke screen. If I had taken all the jackets out of the suitcase and put it in my own suitcase, uh, I probably would have, you know, red flags would have been raised by how angry they were. Why would you guys be getting so angry? I'm just going to go in my own suitcase. You know, if I'm here for the leather jackets, then there should be no problem. Right, yeah. But it was professionally sewn into the suitcase. If I had emptied the suitcase, the suitcase looks like an empty suitcase.

People are like, how could you not tell from the weight? I mean, well, it wasn't ridiculously heavy. A kilo of opium is still a kilo. It was still 3.6, so that's 7.2 pounds. But that's not ridiculous for a bag. No, it's not. It's not. And, you know, it was so professionally concealed, there's no way to, like, fill it and know it without knowing it,

being in on it, there's no way to see it. And when people say, how did you not know? I ask them all the time. I point this out, have you ever helped somebody move before? Have you, did you go through all their stuff when you were helping the move? Then how do you know you weren't being used to smuggle? Sure. Narcotics then.

Yeah. And people go, because I know. There's some people who are like, I just know. I just know everything. Yeah, cool. Well, let's go play the lottery since you know everything. People love to think they know everything. I ask them, I go, well, when a magician taps you on the shoulder and you look and you're not there,

or they're saying, look at this hand while they're jacking your watch and your wallet with the other. You know, a murderer will tell everyone he's a thief if it keeps their attention off of him being a murderer. Sure. It's just misdirection. Drug smugglers are shameless and they're smart. And if they can get their product across by keeping you in the dark, they will absolutely do that because they figured you won't draw suspicion to yourself. But also, they don't have to pay you what you're really worth. Sure.

And because you don't know the risk. Correct. Yeah. And it happens all the time. When I got out of the cab with the suitcases to leave Pakistan, the guy, a guy, who was there is like next time you come back we'll show you around we'll hook you up with some girls you'll have a great time and i'm humoring this guy i'm like yeah sure next time i come back i know for a fact i'm never coming back to pakistan fucking country sucks that fucking country sucks and i'm good at

finding like good things that are everywhere yeah you're super positive so the fact that you're just 100% down on pakistan like i know for fact i'm i'm never going to encourage pakistan to anyone this is before i get arrested right this is before you're stint in prison i can i would encourage turkey to everyone because had a great time i did not have a great time in pakistan i got robbed. I got sick. Yeah. Wait. You know, I hung out with rapist. I wasn't really looking forward to going

back to that country. There wasn't one positive note there, you know? Only positive note was I couldn't wait to get back to Missy. Right, right. I didn't even want to go to. I didn't even want to go to Turkey or to Sweden. I wanted to go direct home just so I can get to Missy. That was all those on my mind. Just

getting back to Missy. So it's early in the morning and I go into International Departures and this is long line curving around the corner and I go walking around. I'm waiting in line and the line goes all the way up this wall to where there's a customs, there's customs tables. And when the customs officer sees me and flags me, because I'm about six inches taller than everyone. So I'm like, fuck yeah, you know, I don't want to wait this long line. Skip the line. Yeah, the benefits of being foreign, right? Well, I were tall. I mean, so I go skip this long line. I get to the front. The guy says,

business or pleasure. And like an asshole, I say, pleasure is my business. Oh, yeah. Because I'm stupid. I'm a stupid 21-year-old dude doesn't think before I talk. and they go through everything. Everything's fine. Pack it up. I'm about to walk through the metal detector. When someone grabs my arm, I look back and he goes, you carry narcotics?

And I said, check it again. Grabbs the suitcase. Not my bag. Not my bag. Not my stuff. Grab's the suitcase. Throws everything on the fucking floor. And I'm pissed.

I'm like, hey, asshole. Yeah. What the hell? Like, that's fucking rude. You know, that's what I'm thinking. This guy's a rude dickhead. And he takes the suitcase off to, I don't know where the fuck he takes it.

He takes the suitcase off. leaves me right there. People are like in line to go through the metal detector and also the customs tables are over here. Now, guard's standing over me and I'm just, I'm folding up all the leather goods, right, right in the middle of this floor. This is embarrassing shit, but I'm there for the, for the leather goods. That's all I care about. So worst case, you just carry a bunch of long ways. I'm making them nice. I'm cleaning them off because I don't want, you know, I'm folding everything up and I get brought to another room by this man, by this, by this, by the guard that was left with me. Now, the guards over there sitting with me, and all I don't

Like time's starting to go by. It's taking a while. And I tell them, I go, I don't know what's taking so long, but I'm going to need another suitcase. Destroy the suitcase. I even tell them, destroy the suitcase. I don't give a fuck. Just give me something else.

The guard keeps like asking me to do this, though, because he likes that I can balance my chest. Oh, like flex your peck muscles. That's a little homoerotic somehow. No, they're weird like that. Like, they're really like, oh, do your titty bumps thing. You know, they're like, and I, and I,

humored him. I did it. You know. Yeah, you're 21. I don't care. I'm like, whatever. and I was a lot bigger and just ready. But time's going by and all I'm worried about

is missing my fucking flight. I don't care about the suitcase. I just don't want to miss my flight. Now outside in the hallway, I start to see more guards like congregate and hang out out there. Finally, the guy who asked me if there was narcotics in my suitcase comes in and he's wearing a suit but he's followed by guards wearing a guard uniform

and the guard is holding these two flat like sandwich sealed things. his exact words to me is, what is this? And I said, he's, he's holding it. And I'm like, that guy should know exactly what it is because he's the one holding. And I don't fucking know what it is. Yeah, sure. He says, this is opium.

Opium. But he said, offium. Ophium. I said, why are you showing me this? Says it came out of your suitcase. What are you thinking right at that point? Felt like such a fucking idiot. So you knew that that came out of your suit?

You don't think they were framing you or anything. You were just like, this was in there. No. I knew. I knew that everything I'd been told was too good to be true. I knew my friends set me up. I knew that I knew that I got fucked and I was so sad mostly that I was really, like I wasn't, I wasn't even mad. I was just sad. And my heart just dropped. And I said something that you never want to say when you're on vacation. I said, I need to speak with the American Embassy. Yeah. The only reason I even knew how to say that was because I watched the movie

broke down Palace like the year before, you know? Like Claire Dane's saying, I need to speak the American Embassy. I was like, if I'd never seen that movie, I would have been like, what the fuck do I do? Yeah. Probably would have been like, I need to call my mom, you know? And guy says, American Embassy can't help you. We're going to hang you after 5 o'clock prayer. Like, just matter of fact, as soon as he said that, now I'm scared and I'm freaking. And they saw that I started to panic and everything and they tried to grab at me and I was chucking guys around and I heard a lot of guys. They said that I tried to escape that day and I wasn't trying to escape. I mean, if I knew then what I knew now, fuck yeah, I would have escaped.

Yeah. If I knew then what I knew now, I never would have gone on a fucking trip. I would have smashed Ray when he picked me up to go to the airport. I'm like, hey, Ray, we're going to take a detour out in the middle of the desert and I'm going to make him dig his own fucking grave and bury himself. But they said I tried to escape that day and I was only trying to find a phone because I wanted to warn other people because a lot of other people are making these trips that's all i wanted to do i figure if i'm going to die make your life worth something and warn others that's that's that's what i was thinking so i found a uh i found a phone i barricaded myself in an office down the hallway um they're banging on the door there was no windows it was a window windowless office and you know they're like

come out you're surrounded and they couldn't come in um i was in there for i think 40 minutes or so it felt like, I couldn't, I kind of get out. The numbers, none of the country codes worked. Finally, I hear a knock on the door and says you, I said, Eric Odd, some people don't know how to say the accent on my name. Sure. And I said, you want to speak to an American? I said, are you from the embassy? He says, D-EA. I said, prove it. He says, ask me a question. I go, who, what state are you from? He says, Texas. And I'm thinking everyone's, no Texas. I said, who's your favorite football team? This is cowboys. I'm like, Dallas, they suck.

And I said, they said that he goes, you want to talk to us? I said, they said that they're going to hang me. And so someone talks out there, and then he comes back and he, like, under his breath, like, sort of like, they were kidding. How do you fucking kid about it? Yeah, they're just a bunch of assholes. No, how do you kid about that? I don't get it, you know? Like, it's just, why would you do that?

I mean, it's already a bad situation. Why would you go out of your way to do that? Imagine the cops. Yeah. doing that to people here. Hey, you know, well, okay, we're gonna, you know, we dress you for Jaywalk. Hey, you're going to Joe for the rest of your life.

And we're gonna put you on death row for this. Whoa, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah. This shit escalated quickly. This morning, I'm thinking about getting back to Missy. Sure. And I'm so happy. And next thing I know, I'm being told that I'm gonna be hung.

You know, within the span of 40 minutes, you know, what the fuck? So he says, you can talk to us or, you know, it's up to you. And I said, yes, I want to talk to you. I 100% want to talk to the DEA. and he tells me don't run. Where the fuck am I going to go? The whole room is full of guards. Now, all the guards are, like, grabbing onto my arms.

People are, like, literally, like, touching me like that to feel like they're helping to escort me over. But before we take me to another room, they put me in front of the table that now has just one suitcase. The suitcase that I was hired to bring, but also all my stuff thrown into that suitcase, like from my own bag, I had my own portable DVD player, my wallet, my cell phone, all my clothes, to make it look like that's my bag bag, now. So they combine the two luggagees into one. Oh, right. So they made it look like you just packed it.

Yeah, and now they're taking photos and all the guards are behind me taking these photos. But now that the DEA is here, I'm thinking, all right, cool, there's friendly faces here. These guys, when they hear my story, contact my mom and everyone else, they're going to know that I'm innocent. So now I'm not worried anymore. So now like an asshole, I'm taking photos with these guys. I'm like, well, shit, live it up, Eric. Let's smile. So I'm smiling.

Yeah, there's a photo of you kind of like, what's up, everybody? Yeah, because I thought that the DEA was going to hook me up, you know, because they're going to see that I'm innocent. I truly thought those guys were going to be there to help me now because I wasn't guilty. So this shit doesn't happen to innocent people, you know? Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. If I was scared, then it would be sadder in the photos. But I'm happy.

Hey, these guys are here all right. And, you know, so I was posing for these photos. So there's photos of me, like, with my arms around the guards and being a dick. And I get brought to this office across the airport. Now all the guards outside, and the only ones in that office are three DEA agents. And who's ever office, I'm assuming it is. There's just a quiet Pakistani man behind the desk, just doing his own thing. but he's also there just observing.

And the DEA agents just start bombarding me with questions. One guy will ask me a question and I'll be halfway through an answer. Then another guy will cut me off in mid-sentence and bombard me with another question. And it's like they're trying to twist my words around

and they're trying to capture me. And I'm telling them the story. I'm trying to tell him, you know, Ray Gazzarian and the gym and everything. And this guy goes, how much would you, were you getting paid for this? $800.

$800? Like, they were like, what? Why would you risk your life for $800? dollars, it's a free trip for me. I would have done this for free. That's what it was. I would have done this for free. One guy goes, do you use? Are you a user? Are you junkie?

I was like, I fucking look at a gym rat, man. I'm like, hell these motherfuck you'll ever meet. And the guy goes, and this other guy goes, come on, everyone smokes pot. I'm like, no, that's just you. And when I tell him where I was going, because, like, my flight was going back to U of A, to Heathrow, to Sweden. And the guy's like, why not just direct routes? I'm like, I don't know. I'm assuming that's the shortest route.

And back then, I knew this comment. stuff. Today, when you go to, like the cheapest flights aren't direct. They go 22-hour layovers in Shanghai. Yeah, sure. I found $350 round-trip tickets to New Delhi, and I had to stay in Shanghai for 22 hours coming back. It was the worst layover ever. But it makes sense. So when I told this guy I was going to U of A, to Heathrow to Sweden, he goes, these are all drug smuggling routes. And he starts naming off all these countries.

I'm like, why don't you name the only two countries that aren't on the drug smuggling route? And so these guys are calling them. me a smart ass thinking I'm a tough guy. And I'm like, I'm scared, okay? I'm not trying to be a tough guy, but you guys aren't, you're twisting my words around. You don't believe a fucking word out of my mouth. And then it becomes completely evident that these guys are fucking with me because this one guy, he does basically what the Pakistani guy is did.

I'm already scared. And he tells me, if these guys don't give you death, they're going to give you 20, 25 years in prison. And then when you're done there, you're going to go back to America and get another 10 to 15. I was like, whoa, now I know you're fucking with me because I saw a little movie called Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd. Yeah, yeah. So I don't, why would you guys do that?

So obviously they're just fucking with me. Yeah. So that made me know that these guys don't believe a word out of my mouth. And I tell them, okay, so I'm fucked, right? You guys don't believe a word on my mouth. But give me the benefit of the doubt. Other people are making these trips. You got to warn them.

All right. You can't do anything for me? That's fine. But other people are making these trips. And this guy to my right says, oh, we're going to go, we're going to go over all the information you gave us. But if now's your chance, if you want us to help you, now's your chance. once we walk out that door, you're on your own.

It was obvious these guys weren't going to help me. And this one dude puts his hand in my heart, and he says to me, because why is your heart going so fast? Because you're lying to us. I'm like, I'm not lying to you guys. I'm scared. I was told us going to be hung. You guys are telling me bullshit.

You guys aren't here to help me. The guy calls me a punk. He says, you're just a punk. You think you're a tough guy. This country's going to show you how weak you really are. And then when they leave, they say he's all yours. And I get nailed with a rifle. And I get, you know, that shit stung.

And I get taken out of the damn room. And then I got driven. to this customs lockup, not too far from the airport. And they just throw me in a cell that's got all these other dudes in it. And the first thing someone asked me is, you know, it says something I don't fucking understand. And someone says in English, it goes, country, what country? And I said, America. Wrong answer.

Yeah. Wrong fucking answer. I'm already getting water throwing up me and spit on. So I'm smashing these old guys in this small cell. Like, these guys are ballsy, you know? Like, oh, okay, someone came in here that we can all, I mean, they're all mad. I get it. But now we can all take our anger out on someone.

I'm that guy they think they can take their anger out. I'm not in the fucking mood to be fucked with at all. I mean, I'll watch the show Oz. I'll watch, you know, all these prison movies and whatnot. And plus, no, I'm not the guy. I mean, that's not an option for me. So the guards, see that I'm jacking up all these old guys in the cell and just, like, launching them around. They move me to another cell pretty quickly.

They can't keep me in that room. And the other cell's got two old dudes in there. And these guys don't want to, you know, these guys are just miserable old men. They don't want any trouble. and I wait in that cell for the majority part of the day. An embassy consular comes over a girl named Christy, and she's followed by this Pakistani interpreter who works for the embassy, a guy named Avzal.

And she sees me, and she gets directed to me, and my exact words to her, well, shit, if I'd known I was going to see someone as pretty as you, I would have gotten arrested a long time ago. Oh, man, you just can't turn it off. No, I can't. I'm thinking of myself, people are going to know that I'm here,

they're going to know the true story, they're going to know I'm innocent, I'm going to be gone here, max a day, two days. That's what's going to happen. I'm going to get bailed out. I'm going to go out. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking this isn't, just enjoy it.

I'm like, well, shit, this situation sucks. It's going to be a great story to tell one day. So she's laughing. Her exact words are, yep, he's from California. And she asked me, how are you doing? I said, great, never better. She goes really? No, what's happening?

Yeah. And she tells me that, well, we're going to try to come back and see you on Tuesday. And this is Friday. I'm like, Tuesday? The fuck is. Why are you going to wait until Tuesday? And I tell her the whole. She says, you don't have to talk to this.

I said, yes, I want to talk to you. They're like, you need to sign something so that we can tell other people. If there's people you want us to contact, contact my mother. Also, tell them to call the gym. And because the other people were making these fucking trips, you got to warn them. And then when she tells me, we'll come back, we'll try to come back Tuesday. She tells me what's going to happen that I'm going to be presented in front of the magistrate in the morning. They're going to decide how many days of physical remand that put me under.

And I ask her, what's physical romance? She says, well, in Pakistan, they figure if you're not going to tell them the truth, they can beat it out of you. So physical remand is like, they just torture you until you talk? Physical remand is open torture. Physical remand is straight up torture, you know? Yeah. So this is the embassy telling me this. I'm like, aren't you guys supposed to do something?

And they said, we're only supposed to make sure you're not treated any differently than the people around you. But the people around me are all being beaten too. There's dudes having the bottom of the feet beaten all afternoon or all night. it's it's it's it's not really they're not they lowered the fucking bar when it went to i can't be treated any differently than anyone else sure big time so i'm thinking i'm only to see this girl next tuesday she came back within another like an hour or two the reason she came back is because exactly what i told her my mom told her over the phone and so she brought me a soda and they brought me a piece of pizza like a small weird box of pizza so they brought me food back and she's she let me know that

my mom's trying to get a lawyer and everything else. But, like, her whole attitude changed when she came back because everything I told her was exactly what my mother had told her. So she went from, like, this sucks to be you to, holy, wow, this really sucks to be you. Like, you could tell there's a level of, like, possible, she believed, she believed what I was saying. That night a lawyer came, but I never saw him again. And what was going on was all these lawyers were coming in.

Then they saw, oh, American, so they started jacking up the rates. this is a $400 case for anyone else. In Pakistan, a drug smuggling case is $400 max. People, though, were trying to get, like, they were thinking hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, not rupees, dollars. Dollars, right. This is their ticket to retire. This is their ticket.

This is their one chance to, like, retire and make it big. And no one sees a body, a human being there. They see someone's bones that can get rich off of. Yeah. So I'm not getting any opportunities. When I get presented in front of the court, and I'm led in these like archaic chains or like one side of this.

This is the stuff that you would see in like medieval movies and everything. And the guards would all hold the chains long. And if I really wanted to, I could be swinging these fuckers around, but I'm thinking I'm going to the legal system here. You know, and I don't know where to go. I don't know.

If I knew then, like I said, I would have gone, I would have gotten a car and driven towards the Indian border. That's exactly what I would have done. Sure. But I'm going with the system, trying to figure out as it goes. No one's telling me anything. At the courts, it's bizarre and bazaars.

Imagine like a swap meet with just a bunch of hanging over blankets for shade and everything and dust and trees and homeless beggars everywhere. Everyone is like pushing up on each other. They're bringing me to the lower court magistrate, which is, it's like a rusty shack that has a bunch of papers pout on top of it. And the court is above your head. So you're like your chin goes to the, like I'm the only one whose chin goes above the desk. Everyone else is below the desk. So the judge is like looking down on you. This was really weird.

And I don't understand anything because no one's speaking in English. Whatever was said that day in Urdu, Christy understood. She was there with Alvzal again, the interpreter. And the judge wrote off, and the guy who was leading me with the guards, they agreed on something. And they were about to turn away. Well, Christy came up to the desk and started speaking in Urdu to the judge. Something that I found out later, she was not supposed to do at all. Because the embassy's, American embassy's strict policy is if it's narcotics related,

They don't get involved whatsoever. They leave you completely hanging. Whatever Christy said, the judge agreed with her, brought it back, and they changed it. And the dude who was in charge of it was pissed, like fucking pissed. And I asked her, as we were walking back through the bazaars because we had to walk and talk while I was getting rushed to the vans. I said, what happened? She goes, they wanted 10 days of physical remand.

I got you three. And my first words to her were, I could have lasted 10. Oh, man. Because I'm the fucking moron, right? Like, trust me, but I'm scared, and that's how I handled it when I was scared. She says, you're welcome. Yeah. And I, to this day, I can't thank that woman enough because for the next three days, I'd be tortured for information I did an app.

And I'd be electrocuted. I'd be hung up like a punching bag, used as one. I'd have the bottom on my feet beaten. I was drowned. I was, uh, like waterboarded kind of deal? Yeah, but it was, I was in a dunk tank, drowned. Yeah. Like water boards, they put the, you know, put your face and drown it and whatnot.

This is your head dunked in the water. This is my whole head submerged under the water. And I just hold my breath and try not to panic because if you panic, water will come in your nose, water go in your lungs. So you have to not panic. And they would ask me the same questions. And I would try to delay the answers. I try to tell them the same thing, but they don't believe you. And they just want you to admit the drugs are yours.

But when you have no right answers for them, it's not going to stop. The pain's not going to stop. They're not going to. I mean, it's painful, but it was more demoralizing emotionally because it was just people do this to other people. You know, it's so fucked up. It really is. People died during physical remand all the time, all the time.

I would read it in the newspapers in jail that so-and-so died. Another person died, and it's just the way things are. People can't handle it. I mean, I could handle it, but it was just an effect. in a sense, I guess, it's the closest thing to a rape or an assault, I guess, because it's just so dehumanizing and so embarrassing. And, you know, it takes something from you. Like, it really does.

And I wish I could just forget it ever happen. I really do. You know, and, you know, all I could do is just take it. All I can do is take it because nothing I said was going to make them stop. Yeah. You have in the documentary, which we'll link in the show notes, this is reenacted. This whole scene is reenacted. And you didn't play it yourself.

I did the show, Locked Up Abroad. The whole point of telling my this documentary, because some people are like, well, I've already seen Locked Up Abroad. Why do I want to see this documentary? Oh, this is much more. And I tell them, because Locked Up Abroad only took the exciting stuff. They left the guts and the heart out and everything out. They didn't explain how I was the way I was. They didn't explain how I was able to adjust.

the situations. They just showed the fights, the tortures, and the harshness of it. And that left me hanging. And since I did Locked Up Abroad for six years now, all I do, whenever they air of the show locked up abroad, I get countless emails and messages from people hating on me, telling me to kill myself. I'm a fucking liar that they would kill me and fuck me up and that I got raped every day. And they just want to say some harsh, mean stuff to me. And the only reason I told the show locked up I didn't want to do the show. I never wanted to do the show. They asked me every season to come do the show.

And it was finally season six that I agreed to do it. And it was because they said, what if we let you play yourself? And I'm an actor. I'm a stunt man. And I wanted it told right. But I also thought, had I seen a show like this back in the day, then I would have been armed with the information that this shit really happens. And I would have seen it for what it really was.

And I would have been smart enough to walk away. So I told it because the only way I'm able to sort of justify or find meaning to what happened to me, is to hopefully prevent it from happening to somebody else. If I was built and meant to do anything, maybe this is it, maybe. So I told the story. And then what they did, though, was leave me completely hanging, and I've been dealing with it ever since. You know, I've got feelings.

I've got, I try to ignore it. I've got thick fucking skin, but, man, there are some mean, mean people out there. And for six years, I've just been getting nonstop hate mail because of locked up abroad. It's an apples and oranges. I get positive messages. but I get just as many negative messages. And the negative messages seem to ring a lot louder than the positive messages. So my friend Jamie, who says, we need to tell your story because what's happening to you is wrong.

And it is a good story. It's a powerful story. And when she told me, we'll tell it in your words and we'll make it long enough so everyone can understand it, we'll answer the questions locked up abroad, never answered. And the responses have actually been really positive. I've had people who told me they were suicidal and, you know, we're about to kill themselves. And somehow they came across my documentary. And they've since realized that if I can go through everything I've been through

and somehow still have a positive attitude, they still somehow have a reason to want to live, then they themselves can find a reason to want to live. And I've had people say, look, this does sound like something my friend's doing or something I was offered. And I was able to see it for what it really was. So I thank you for you going through it so I don't have to. or that my friend doesn't have to. The messages have been a lot more positive

because of my documentary, and that lets me know that it wasn't for nothing because my life, I try to be positive. Every day I tell myself I'm happy. Every day I lie to myself and say, I'm happy, and I want to live, and I've got all kinds of good things, and there are reasons for that. But I can't shake my past either.

I've been through so much fucking shit, and when people love to kick you when you're down and make fun of your situation, situation. Knowing that people out there are finding strength from it, lets me know that it wasn't for nothing. So, sorry. No, it's okay, man. This is, the story is truly amazing and the documentary is truly amazing. That's why I wanted to do this show. That's why I flew down here to talk to you, because like I said in the beginning of this, what you went through is so incredibly harrowing and horrible. and it makes everyone who sees it want to be more like you.

And I'm not saying that to blow sunshine up your skirt. It's really, the truth is, nobody comes out of this. Or I should say very few people come out of this becoming somehow a better person, and you've done that. And that's what's really inspiring about this. There's a lot in this documentary that's incredible, but the best part of it is the fact that you came out and you're not just this reclusive angry guy who hates everyone.

That's the most important thing. And I think that there's so much that people can take away from it, not just don't carry bags for your friends across the border. But the way that you have, I mean, when I'm having a bad day, I don't think, well, I definitely don't see things the way that you do. And I think that's what's really inspiring about it. I think inspiration generally is something that you can get. It can be cheap, right?

You can get it from anywhere. But somebody who's really done the work, you worked on your, a lot when you were in prison in Pakistan, whether you realize it at the time or not. And that part is, that part's really amazing. And frankly, the fact that you still have your sense of humor about it is amazing as well. All I did was make fun of myself every day. Even there, I made fun of myself every day. I just, my sense of me, I'm in a bad situation.

I just, I remember the last day and being tortured. And the guards are like, is there anything you want to say? I was like, let's talk more rock. Let's fucking do this, you know? Yeah. I just wanted to get it over with. you know that that last day they just wanted me to admit the drugs or mine the last day of physical the last day of physical or man his only question is just say you're guilty this will stop and like the

two guards that were there they like felt i don't know i kind of got that they felt bad like they weren't vindictive they were just this is their job what do you think about somebody's job it is to torture people i think that they you know i don't i mean unless you're just a psychopath i think that you know sucks it sucks yeah like if your job is to watch people suffer. I mean, that's not, that can't be fun. No. That's got to be draining on them too and everything, you know, and like, wow, man.

Like, this is my job. Like, I guarantee those guys want to get out of that position as soon as possible. I wouldn't want to do that job. One of the things that I found amazing was how you got through the torture in the first place. First of all, you have that high pain tolerance because of probably what happened to you as a kid. But when I saw them dunk in your head in the water and you said you learned how to hold your breath.

Tell how come you can hold your breath for so on? This part was so ridiculous. I can't hold my breath that long anymore, but I mean, I can hold my breath like 90 seconds now. But when I was a kid, the show, the Fear Factor had come out. Yeah, sure. And I watched the show Fear Factor. I was like, this is a cool show I want to get on this show. And I remember the episode I watched, this guy, whoever held their breath the longest was going to win $50,000.

And everyone gets in the tank and is holding their breath. But, like, no. Then there's, it was funny because there was this fat. bartender who's smoking a cigarette before he's about to go in the tank. Unbelievable. And he's just out of shape, dude. He's smoking a cigarette down before it's his turn to go in the tank for $50,000, right? And this dude held his breath a minute and 13 seconds.

And I'm like, what? Man, this out of shape smoking jerk is going to win 50K. So I always saw these auditions for Fear Factor, you know? I absolutely plan on getting on that show. But I wanted to be ready for like, oh, God, man. I'm going to crush this. If there's a breath holding competition, I'm going to smoke it, right? So I started learning to hold my breath.

I would hold my breath whenever possible. I always did it at stoplights. I do it before I got to certain points in the freeway, you know? Like I hold my breath to that sign way down there. And before I went to bed at night and I, in the shower, I would hold my breath all the time. And I got it to where I'm going to hold my breath almost three minutes. That's incredible. It's fucking crazy.

But I started doing that, like the no way. November or October before that happened. Just a couple months before that. And I'm thinking of myself, these guys are going to hold me under this water. I'm wondering to laugh because it's like, what are the odds? It was literally like slumdog millionaire. They were just asking me the questions I just happened to know. They were just happening to do the things I just happened to know.

These guys are beating me. Well, my mom beat me with the belt all the time. You know, they're beating the bottom of my feet. That shit stings. But it's honestly no more pain than I've ever experienced. I've experienced pain my entire fucking life. They were electrocuting me. My friends and I used to taser each other for fun on the football field.

And now they're drowning me. And here I was learning. I had learned to hold my breath literally up until this point. Were these guys frustrated with you? Or were you like, okay, it hurts, stop. And then they're like, all right, fine. No, I just, like, trust me. They were pissed off at me.

They were not happy. They thought it was going to be easy. Yeah, and here they are working for their money. They were laughing when they first started and were, and now, now here we are. The whole day goes by, they didn't get anything they could use. The second day goes by, they didn't get anything they used. The third day, they just wanted a confession. Sure.

Like, for maybe, I don't know, maybe they were going for a record, which was that we always get our confession. I don't know. They didn't get anything out of me. They're about to lose a bet. Yeah. A third day, they just wanted me to admit the drugs are mine, and I admitted nothing. Yeah. All right.

I know this is kind of crazy, but we're just getting warmed up. And in part two, we'll be picking up where we left off and where the real harrowing story actually begins. So this Eric Audey situation, I'm telling you, we're just at the beginning here. If you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships using systems and tiny habits, check out our Level One course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash Level One. Don't say you'll do it later. Don't say you're waiting for the perfect time. The number one mistake I see is people postponing this and not digging the well before they get third.

It's five minutes a day, quit your crying. They're designed to just be really quick, and it's the stuff I wish I knew 10, 15 years ago. This is not fluff. It is crucial, especially if you're in business, and even if you aren't. You can find all that at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Eric Aude. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. This show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by

Jason Royal Flesh to Philippo, and, Jen Harbinger. Show notes are by Robert Fogarty, worksheets by Caleb Bacon, and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Stay tuned for Eric Aide, Part 2 coming soon, 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. great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time.

If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you

or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.