The Jordan Harbinger Show - 152: How to Cope with a Schizophrenic Neighbor | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: January 25, 2019

Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason DeFillippo (@jpdef) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now, let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your new neighbor's loud arguments and wild parties at all hours would be annoying enough if they involved multiple people, but the only person who ever seems to be in attendance is her. Should you be concerned enough to inform management -- or the police? When reconnecting with someone in your network (per our Level One exercises), how can you identify ways to add value to their goals? Long-time listeners would understand a covert contract from the contractor's side of things. But what do you do if you suspect someone has a covert contract out on you? Your newest roommate is a slob who pilfers your food and doesn't clean up after himself. What can you do to put your foot down without causing too much contention? With so much motivational and personal development advice being thrown around these days, how can you tell the difference between genuine self-help and utter bullcrap? Without succumbing to the formulaic elevator pitch, how can you politely introduce yourself and make an impression when you're in convenient proximity to your company's higher-ups and decision makers? How might a public school teacher who loves to teach supplement their painfully inadequate income? What thought exercises might help someone on the edge of burning out at their job decide whether to soldier on for the next few months to qualify for a bonus or just quit now and damn the consequences? Recommendation of the Week: FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened A quick shoutout to Heike Dunkel from Germany! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, and check out his other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Hosted by Brooke Gittings and Bill Kurtis, Cold Case Files explores some of the most difficult-to-solve murders,...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests. And this week, we had the one and only Darren Brown talking about how he designs his shows, how he creates those influence and persuasion. I don't even know what you would call it, Jason, kind of these controlled environments that get people to commit murder, commit essentially self-sacrifice, believe they're in a zombie apocalypse, all this. kind of hypnosis meets influence meets magic and illusions. It's just absolutely incredible. Darren Brown just breaks reality. That's what he does. He finds one person and he completely breaks reality for them and they come out the other side of better person. That's really what it is. That's right. That's the idea. And of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guest

insights and our experiences and insights along to you. In other words, the real purpose of this show is to have conversations directly with you. And that's what we're going to do today here on feedback Friday. You can always reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com with your questions here. Try to keep them concise if you can. It really does increase the chances that your question will get answered on the air. And this week, Jason and I are doing this face-to-face. We're out here in L.A. I'm sitting in Shea. The studio, DePhilippo Studios here. That's right. This is JPD Productions. That's where you're at. That's right. And who knows how much porn has been made in here. None. Absolutely none. Are you sure? I'm pretty.

I'm pretty sure. I don't know. These directors' chairs look a little. Hey, those are brand new. I just got this off Amazon. Come on. It's a coffee stain, huh? Okay.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Sure enough. I love being down here in L.A. I do my regular segment every week on Adam Carolla. I'm doing my monthly segment on Adam and Drew, which is Dr. Drew Pinsky with Adam Carolla and myself. So I'm feeling pretty special being on the shows that I grew up with when I was in middle school and hearing Adam Carolla say things that now I realize are just you.

euphemisms for sexual stuff that I had no idea back in the day. Look at you, Mr. Fancy Pants. Well, remember when he used to say, yeah, when you're going out with your girl and you want to, you know, go eat at the sushi bar? And I was like, why? How much sushi do people eat? I've never even tried it. And now I'm like, oh, got it.

Okay. Now you get it. Yeah. All right, Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, Triple J. So I had a new neighbor move in below me less than a month ago. She seemed relatively normal. However, I'm living in a city where ignoring your neighbors and not becoming friends with them is the norm.

Since settling in, however, I've noticed her sitting outside having a smoke and talking to herself, not on the phone via AirPods, but having full conversations with herself. When I walk past her, within a foot or so of her, it's like I'm not even there, like she's in a trance. She plays her music quite loudly at all hours of the night. Last Tuesday, she seemed to be having a party that lasted until 5 a.m. but I never saw anyone come into our complex. All of this, while odd, isn't super concerning. But my gut instinct is that she makes me super nervous. Recently, she's been in her apartment having arguments with herself. As I live above her, she is yelling so loudly that I hear every

word that she is screaming. To be sure, she's having both sides of the argument with herself rather than with another person or on the phone. What, if anything, should I do? She isn't directly bothering me and I'm honestly a wee bit too concerned to approach her about all of this. Do I talk to management? Am I being a weirdo or jerk for thinking of doing that? Any advice would be much, much, much appreciated. Signed, living with a schizo. I mean, that's a little inconsiderate.

It's disconcerting is what it is. Yeah, I mean the schizo. She's clearly actually mentally ill, I think. Yes. Like this person is actually suffering from. And I have compassion for that. I think, you know, I used to be really annoyed by people that would have that when I was younger. And now I just put myself in their shoes now that I'm older and not a self-centered prick entirely.

Well, that's good because I grew up. My grandmother was schizophrenic and my great-grandmother had Alzheimer's and they were just mentally just gone. And there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. You have to be sympathetic and empathetic about it. I just think what's the worst thing in the world that would just be torturous? and it would be having someone in your own head that's annoying, right? Like a voice that you can't control, not knowing what's going on around you.

It just seems like a horrible combination of factors. The problem with schizophrenia is you don't know that you don't know. My grandmother would get dressed up every night at 5 o'clock, go down to the end of the driveway, and wait for her date with Walter Cronkite. Oh. And then she would come back in the house and tell us all about their date. Oh, man. And so she was out there on a date.

She didn't know any different. So in her head, that's what's happening. She goes out, she gets dressed up, dolled up, goes out, has a date, comes back in, and is very happy because she just went on a date with Walter Cronkite every night. The upside, though, is that she's not being stood up by Walter Cronkite. Exactly. He's always going to show. Yeah, it would be really horrible if she came back in crying because Walter Cronkite stood

her up and she was all excited and got ready. Yeah. I suppose it's better than the other way around. And even Darren, actually, speaking of Darren Brown, he had mentioned that he's got a lot of fans, probably not a lot. He said a handful of very memorable fans that are angry with him for the secret messages that he's communicating them through the television or the crazy things he's doing to control their mind remotely through the television or the internet. And so whenever you have a high public profile, you have this. This lady is not directly bothering

you. I get it. I would say she is though bothering you at some level. Sure, she's not like banging on your door, but she is bothering you just not directly. You have to call management, put in a noise complaint, but you also need to call the police and do this because management's not necessarily going to do anything. You have to have it documented. I'm not saying you need to have the police harass your neighbor, but it's not really, you're not being a jerk for having someone request requesting someone not scream around their place all day and night to the point where the neighbors can hear it. I don't know about the police thing, man.

That's going to take it to the next level. Then the police might call the pet team and they might actually have her committed if they don't see her as mentally stable enough. Isn't there a reason for that though? You know, like what if she starts a fire or does something like that? I mean, should you wait for that to happen? I don't know. Here's the deal, though.

He doesn't know that she's crazy. She might be a scriptwriter and she's actually doing scenes in her head. Then she's inconsiderate. Well, yeah, then she's just a jerk. Then call the police. Oh, sorry, I'm a scriptwriter and I blast my music till 5 a. Well, ma'am, you're being kind of a crazy fool. Your neighbors think you're going to burn the house down, maybe tone it down a notch.

I don't know. I think going to the police at that point, I think there should be like baby steps. Escalation of force to get there. Yeah. Talk to management first. If management won't do anything, then maybe call the police. Because if she's somebody in the apartment below, one of the things I think that we may end up editing it,

she's screaming, get away from me! You know, you don't know there's not somebody else in the apartment. He says that he does, because he doesn't hear anyone else. But do you really know? It sounds like she has some pretty severe mental issues, and don't interact with her. I know that sounds counterintuitive, because normally if you have noisy neighbors,

you say something, I would document and possibly, if you can, record what you're hearing in your apartment. You know, just turn your phone on. and set it on the floor and record her screaming and it'll timestamp and record the sound. That way if she's threatening to hurt herself or anyone else, you can call the police. But if she's just screaming, screaming, screaming, it wouldn't hurt to have a timestamp, you know, 3.32 a.m. Tuesday.

Get away from me. You know, F you, all this stuff that you're hearing. That way it's not like you're exaggerating. And there's a documented record of this. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. What I would worry about is not just the.

screaming, yes, that's annoying, but I would worry, like, this person lives below you. So if something else goes on, if she starts doing something else or loses control of the stove, you live above her. You're going to burn in that fire. That's true. I worry about fire. I don't know if it's an irrational concern on my part, but I, my mom's brother has this, and he's flooded his apartment. He's lit fires. He's just, it's just like a thing he does. Maybe it's unique to him, but I don't think so. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, no, I'm terrified of fire. Fire is the one, fire, Bad. Fire bad.

Yeah, the social worker for my mom's brother is like, yeah, you know, a lot of people who are, who have these conditions, they just like leave the water on for a week or they'll light fires in their house and then it gets out of control or they smoke and drink. Like a lot of people self-medicate. And I hate to paint people with mental illness with like this broad brush because not everybody who has schizophrenia is like lighting their house on fire. Well, it, it does happen. It does happen. Yeah. And maybe she needs. This might be, by him calling the police and management, he might be the only person in the world that actually cares what happens to this person.

Yeah, we don't know if she has any family at all. No, she could just be, she could have gotten stuff there by adult welfare and they'd check on her once every three months. Yeah. You know, like we don't know. I've changed my position. Yeah, call the cops. Yeah, the cops aren't just going to write her a ticket and be like, shut your mouth. They might be like, oh, hey, do you have medication?

Do you have a problem? Oh, there's a bunch of, you don't have food here or like, oh, your water doesn't work. Like, you don't know what's going on there. Yeah, it depends on the cops that she gets, though. That's true. You know, that's really the thing that does she get, you know, the good cops that show up that want to show her welfare and say, hey, what's going on with you? Or does she get the jerk cops that are just like, okay, call the pet team. We're taking her in.

What's the pet team? I've never heard of this. I think most cops are trained to deal with this. Sorry, that. The pet team is called the psychiatric emergency team. A friend of mine was married to a guy who wrote some very famous songs for this guy, Beck, you might have heard of. And he was taken in by the pet team because, and they literally come and they just strap you in and take you to the psych ward. So it, really?

Yeah. That seems hard to believe that cops are going to be anxious to go and strap someone down. No, no, no. If they're a danger to themselves or someone else, they will call them and take them out. Well, isn't that the point? If they're a danger to themselves or someone else, yes. But if they're not, then they what? Hey, don't scream at night.

See you later. Yeah, it depends on the situation. It depends on the situation. But my friend's wife called them to have them take him out because he was going a little bug nutty, as it were. But the pet team does exist here in L.A. and other cities around the country. And sometimes they can be called without cause. It's like swatting someone.

Sometimes you can call the pet team on people that don't. deserve it if they're like too drunk or just acting irrationally but they're not psychotic and you can have that happen to them i've heard of instances where that happened if someone called that person that team to my house they would for sure take me away hey there's a guy there's some weirdo here with two hairlets cats singing mexican karaoke in his kitchen at one p.m he's for sure insane thinking he's a super villain with a careless cat right he's for sure crazy why are you in my volcano lair get out All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan. When I've been doing the strategies at level one, I get the sense that my conversations end up way too short or shallow and end in, it's nice staying in touch with you and just end there.

I haven't really gotten into a lot of, here's what I'm working on these days. Perhaps I should escalate as our relationship and conversations keep moving to something like email, then text, then phone call, then grabbing coffee, then grabbing lunch. Then maybe by the coffee or lunch stage, I can expect to have more deeper conversations. I've been trying to say at the end of the conversation, let's grab lunch or coffee sometime. Am I correct in assuming that deeper conversations, to the level of, here's what I'm working on,

tend to happen when you are having a face-to-face conversation? When I do get to that point, what are some good questions I can ask beyond a generic? That sounds exciting. What can I help you with? I'd prefer if the burden was on me to understand their process in identify ways to add value to their goals. I just don't know how to do the identify ways

to add value to their goals part. signed generic no more. So this is interesting for me because this is somebody who's following level one, but then not, then like sort of breaking the rules. So thanks for the note here. A lot of people are doing level one with great success. And if you are interested in this,

Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one is where that's at. But this is also a classic case of what seems to be not following the instructions. And it's not that you're blatantly disregarding them. You're just overthinking. You start with texting an email asking what the person is, working on. So this is, I think, drill one and possibly two. It's literally in the script. If you're just small talking, yes, your conversations will stay shallow and die. Follow the script. I created the script for a reason. The reason the script says, what's the latest with you?

What are you working on right now? And something to that effect. The reason for that is you're not going, hey, haven't talked with you in a while. How are you? Sure is a rainy one. Yeah, your conversation's going to die because the person goes, eh, what is this person what? The reason you're eliciting the goal by saying, what are you working on is because you want them to tell you, I know this sounds ridiculous, I'm not trying to be insulting, you want them to tell you what they are working on. That way you don't have to go, how do I elicit what they're working on so I can help them? They will freaking tell you.

You don't need to get creative with the questions. You literally only want to elicit how you can help the person and what they are looking for. So overthinking this process actually makes it less efficient. So when you say, when you're trying to re-engage weaker or dormant ties and you go, how do I have a 20-minute conversation with each one to elicit goals so I can figure out how I can help rather than just saying what are you working on and then knowing how you can help, this makes the process unscalable because the process is less efficient. That means you can't do re-engagement of five people per day in four minutes. It ends up taking like 10 minutes per person and then you can't reach a lot of people. And then this increases the workload because you're trying to be clever or you're trying to small talk people to death instead of just getting to the point where you can offer value. I will often text someone and say, hey, John, it's been a minute, haven't talked to you in a while.

Are you still working on your car restoration project? And they go, no, that sort of died. And I go, what are you working on right now? I'd love to figure out how I can help you because, you know, that's what I'm doing. And it's not weird. They know how this is how I roll because I've done this in the past. So stick to the instructions in level one. And unless I've just misunderstood you here and there's something else going on, you'll be just fine.

A lot of people go, oh, I feel weird asking directly how I can offer value. Don't feel weird. You should feel weird about beating around the bush. Because if someone reaches out to me and says, hey, Jordan, what's up? I'm like, working a bunch. What's up with you? Nothing. Are you ever going to be in the South Madison, Wisconsin area?

No, why? What's going on? What do you need? What can I help you with? Like, busy people just want to know what the deal is. And I'm not averse to getting a text that says, Hey, Jordan, if you're ever in Orange County, my friend just opened up an amazing coffee shop.

We'd love to have you come by and show you some of these novel ways that we're doing A, B, C, D. Great, cool. I'll add that to my list of things to do whenever I'm in that city. I don't want to have a 20-minute conversation before that when really your objective is to get me to this coffee shop. Just tell me. Just do it.

right it's direct and so people i understand that a lot of people are are more prone to social nicety than that but busy people are not almost exclusively they are not so when i'm reaching out to somebody that i haven't talked to in a while like a show guest i might just go hey what are you working on right now like here's a classic example graham wood who we talked to about his book about iis i love that guy and we keep in touch and i'll reach out and go hey have you written anything new recently and he'll go, yep, here are the latest three articles. I'll maybe read one and go, wow, that was really good. Are you trying to get these published somewhere else other than wherever news outlet or would you be interested in doing a conversation about that? I don't go,

hey, Grant, what's going on? Still a writer? Cool, man, are you traveling? It's just like, get to the point. We're friends, but we don't want to spend a 30-minute texting conversation. I just want to know how I can help him, and he probably wants to know the same thing. Cool. Yeah. Cut to the Touch to the chase. If you want a small talk, somebody, do it when you're face-to-face or do it at the end of your conversation or do it another time. But where's the beef? Everybody wants to know where the beef is.

Where's the beef? Is that commercial still relevant? Does anybody, you know what I'm talking about, obviously. Of course I do. Where's the beef? That Wendy's commercial from it. Is that the 80s or the 90s? That was the 80s.

All right. I'm old now. I know it. I know it. Well, Bob will figure it out and link it in the show notes. If you don't know where the beef is, Bob will tell us. Yeah, I need to find out. I need to rewatch that.

I just remember where she's having dinner or lunch with a monkey. I don't even remember that one. The monkey is throwing the pieces of the burger around. She goes, Roger, you're pushing my buttons. Maybe that's a different product. I think that might be a different one. All right. Next up.

Hi, Triple J. Longtime listeners would understand the covert contract from the contractor side of things. But can you give some advice on what to do if you suspect someone has a covert contract out on you? I have a friend who I'm sure has unfulfilled expectations of me, but she doesn't communicate her concerns. She just goes quiet and distant sometimes. This happened two years ago, and we got over it by sweeping it under the carpet, but now it's happening again.

Can you help me define the terms of the contract? Thanks in advance, covert contractee. So this is definitely annoying when this happens. Covert contracts, by the way, are when one party has expectations about what the other party should do. So here's the classic dating example that I would give. You drive your friend to the airport and then she says thank you. And then you drive your friend to the airport again and then she says thank you. And then you drive your friend to the airport again and she says thank you. And then you say, hey, can you sell my dog grooming ebook to your email list or can you hire me to speak at

your book club? And she says, no, I really don't think that's a good fit for what we're doing. And then you get mad at that person because you have a covert contract that says if I drive her to the airport, she has to do this other stuff for me later. But you never agreed on it. So she thinks you're still friends and you're mad at her because she didn't fulfill her end of a bargain that she never really made that exists only in your head. And this happens in dating. This happens in all kinds of situations. You know, oh, if a driver to the airport enough, she'll become my girlfriend or, you know, sleep with me. Oh, this happens in business. Oh, if I help this person over and over. over and over, they owe me one.

Nobody owes you anything. So it sounds like this friend has some sort of expectations, and often you'll be able to tell there's a covert contract because this will happen. She'll be passive aggressive or go silent and distant, and that sounds like what's happening here. But I'm wondering, how do you know there's a covert contract and your friend just isn't moody?

You know, that's what we don't know. Some people are just moody. And it's like, okay, well, maybe she's moody because you didn't give me a good Christmas present, and I gave you a great Christmas present. Okay, that's a covert contract. But if she's just quiet and distant because she has some emotional stuff going on or she doesn't react to stress well and her work sucks right now,

that's not really a covert contract. Your friend's just moody, right? And so I'm wondering how she knows it's a covert contract. If it's been in the past behavior, there's been things where she finally had said, had sort of an emotional vomiting moment where you say, what's wrong, Angela? And she says, you never came over and checked. on me when I was sick. You don't like me. And it's like, okay, there's this covert contract or whatever's

going. You didn't walk my dog and I walked your dog. Yeah. You know, whatever. Keeping score. Keeping score, right? So if it is a covert contract, this person is expecting you to read their mind and getting passive aggressive when you don't. And so, frankly, that burden is not on you. This is what covert contractors want you to feel. Like, you've done something wrong by not reading their mind and filling a need that they've got that's unstated. It's frankly controlling an immature behavior. We all do this sometimes, especially with our partners or close friends, will be like, I'm not going to say anything to Jason because I'm secretly mad about this, right?

But really, I think we should realize, like, hey, it's not a good idea to do this because you should say, hey, I think it's crappy that you showed up an hour late when we told you when it was going to be an inconvenienced everyone. Like, that's how mature people handle stuff like this. and if she's expecting you to just know, because you should know, that's her issue, not yours. And you can ask her directly what the deal is.

If she says nothing, then you're off the hook. Fine, good. I'm taking your word at face value. I'm not going to push. I'm not going to prod. I have absolutely no reason to sit here and try to figure out whether or not you really mean nothing. We're not married.

And even if we are, you shouldn't act like that. So you're off the hook if that's, and if there is a problem and she comes clean and states what it is, you then have a right to ask why she didn't bring it up earlier. Why didn't you just say so? Well, I don't know, fine. In the future, bring it up earlier. Tell me what's going on.

And if she doesn't, then you have to decide whether you want to be friends with somebody who just actually enjoys being mad and causing drama. Because that's all this is. This bears repeating, you are under no obligation to read people's minds or fix or repair covert contracts that other. people place on you. You did not agree to the contract in the first place. You don't have to fix it. You don't have to make it right. You may lose some friends who do this habitually. That's okay. People either grow out of this or they don't. It is not your responsibility to make sure that your

friends mature beyond this. If you ask directly and they still don't tell you, but they stay mad, that is their drama. And I suggest you opt out of that whenever it arises. Jason, you look like you want to say something. I'm dying to say something. I had this happen to be. me the other day. And somebody I'm very close with was we had a, we had a little dust up. And they threw out all these little things as just little negatives in the argument that they have been saving up. Oh, that's so annoying. They've got like a little pouch on the side that's just like, well, the other day the dishes

weren't clean. And the other day you didn't vacuum. And like they have this, this like clip of ammo. Gee, let me guess who this was. Yeah. Yeah. Don't even, don't even go there. But you know that there are people like that to just save up those just for that occasion when they can throw them back at you. And I'm immune to it now. You know, I've been through this so many times. I'm just like. You didn't vacuum, correct. Well, you're this, the kitchen.

You left the kitchen. Correct. Yeah. I'm sorry. Half of those dishes were years. Why didn't you do the dishes? Yeah. You know?

And after that, it's just like, it doesn't phase me anymore. When I was younger, it used to bother me a lot. I'm like, oh, my God, I didn't do the dish. I didn't vacuum. Oh, wait a minute. It's not my responsibility to do it. everything in the world. Oh, cool. You're going to control me with guilt. Let me opt out of this. Exactly. I'm like, uh, yeah, uh, ZFG, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's different,

of course, if somebody's really, really close with you. If you're in sort of a roommate, like you have to deal with certain concepts. Some people have to do with their flavals. Yeah. But like, if this is your old co-worker that you don't work with anymore and you see once a month and they're giving you the silent treatment, sorry. I've got, I got, I got, ish to do. I'm not going to pry you open. I'm not going to pry you open. You go do your stuff. Yeah, I'm not going to freaking pry you open and ask why you're mad. Oh, well, three months ago, I got back from my vacation. You didn't ask to see the photos.

You're right. I don't give a shit about your vacation. Because you're a crappy photographer and I don't want to see your pictures of Montana. Yeah, exactly. No, I can Google pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't need the ones with your finger in them. Thanks. This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. And if you're listening to this in Overcast, please click the little star button next to the episode. Now, let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right.

Next up. Hi, Jordan. I bought my house over a year ago and sought out other guys to rent out my two extra bedrooms. With me getting the master bedroom, of course. It's just on a month by month basis, so I've only had a few guys so far, and for the most part, things have gone smoothly. The newest renter, who's been here for a few months now, is, let's just say, not my favorite. His room tends to stink. From what I'm guessing, there are some questionable habits. I've caught him taking my food several times, even though in my agreement it says we keep our personal belongings unless

there's permission to share. And he constantly leaves dirty dishes around the sink and other places, even though he's a dishwasher at a buffet restaurant, which I find ironic. We have a dishwasher, but since we don't use many dishes, I've asked him several times if he can at least clean the dishes and put them in there in preparation for when we do run the dishwasher. What can I do to put my foot down without causing too much contention? It's nice having someone raining out the room, but since I do own the house, I like to keep things clean and orderly. Am I being too nitpicky, or should a more formal one-on-one take place? Thanks and sincerely, happy homeowner but annoyed roommate.

All right, my opinion is that this is not nitpicky. Nope. I think first he should check with a lawyer in your jurisdiction, make sure you're not going to do anything that's getting into trouble with tenant law, whatever. Just double check because you don't want to be like, that's it, you're out of here. And then the lawyer's like, you need to give someone 30 days and bubble.

I don't know. It's a month-a-month rental, though. So he can, you know, theoretically. just cut the rental and say you're out. Just don't do it and be like, you know what? We don't like your kind in this house. And when you meant dirty dish lever, you got to be. You got to be specific.

Yes, be specific in the right way. No, but you should check with the lawyer. But I'd consider warning him about everything you've listed. Make a written list. Don't just wing it and go like, I don't like how you're dirty. And then it's vague. And he's like, great, I mop the floor once. Or I wiped off the table with a dry paper towel.

Right. let him know in no uncertain terms that this isn't personal per se but you have certain standards for the house and those standards need to be met and then put the standards in writing and have him agree to those you know you ever see uh the big bang theory they have the roommate agreement sheldon's got the roommate agreement section one two four seven three outside guests right you don't need something maybe that detailed but have the standards in writing have him agree to those have him sign a document. Even if he just initials the bottom of I will wash my dishes within a few hours of using them, you know, 24 hours of use, I will not leave exploded cheese sandwiches

in the microwave. That kind of mayonnaise laden, laden spoons. Right. I will not take my roommate's food without prior permission, explicit permission, whatever. And this way, if he starts backsliding later on, you've got it in writing that he agreed to this and that he's not abiding by that agreement. If he can't follow what you've agreed upon here, then you should give him whatever notice you're required to give by law before asking him to leave the house and finding another tenant. Sure, not having someone in the room for a month or so while looking for another tenant, maybe even just a few weeks. Yeah, that's a bummer. But it's better than living with a freaking slob who doesn't respect the rules, doesn't respect the house, doesn't respect your property or

your food, and doesn't respect you either. He doesn't respect you. He doesn't care about you if he's taking your stuff. And I know this may be a bit of a stretch, but somebody who's that big of a slob and only steals small things like food, my opinion is this can cause a larger problem later on. What happens when his shower, his toilet's leaking, and he's too lazy or stupid to tell you or say anything? Screw it. I don't know if to say anything. It's not my house. What happens when he decides he doesn't care about closing or locking his windows and doors? Because screw you, homeowner, this ain't my house, and then leaves for a week and it pours rain and he left his window open. You know, that's you. You've got to repair. that that's your problem then people who don't respect themselves and don't respect others they don't have

any incentive to not get worse and worse over time i take these not so little infractions is a is a hint where there's smoke there's fire and then again he might just be a little immature he might just need a kick in the pants in which case give him this written document after your meeting and who knows he might shape up but if he doesn't at least now you've got a course of action you can get somebody in there who's not who actually cares about your house this could devalue your house If he gets a flood in there, there's a leak, you can get black mold, and then you've got to pay 20 grand to repair it. And that month of lost rent, or those three weeks of lost rent, are starting to look pretty sweet. You know, you could have somebody in there who's a productive member of society instead of a slob.

Yeah, honestly, he had me that he stinks. You know, if the guy smells bad, out. You know, who wants that in their house? And as we've always talked about before, how you do anything is how you do everything. So this guy needs to go. That's just my personal opinion on who, someone who has had stinky, nasty roommates who don't do their dishes. Out, out right now. Agree.

I think the odds of somebody who smells themselves and who is leaving dirty dishes everywhere, the odds that they're going to go, hey, I got a little bit of mold in my shower, maybe we should clean that off before it gets too bad. That's not going to happen. Not going to happen. You're going to go in that room or that bathroom after he leaves and go, there are actually mushrooms in here. There's going to be like Audrey, too, from Little Shepa Horrors. living in his bathroom trying to eat you at that point. Yeah, you're going to be throwing out his old garbage clothes that are rotting under the sink and you're going to hear, hello, baby,

and you're going to be like, no. See how things escalate when you just don't take care of them? That's right. That's right. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan. I started to notice that you and the people you've interviewed bash the self-help industry a lot. I know there are a lot of self-proclaimed self-help people out there trying to sell bullshit. But many of your guests have written books in that space. I was just wondering how you distinguish between useful things and all the fluff. I'm not saying your guests are selling fluff. I've actually read a few of their books.

They produce quality content. My question is, aside from the ones who are obviously full of crap, the ones who don't actually have anything to share and just post on Instagram all day long, how do you distinguish between the ones that merely seem like they're worth listening to and the ones that actually are? Self-help or self-crap? Very creative. So a lot of authors who write books in the self-help space, they don't really have a choice which genre their book goes in.

The publisher says, hey, look, this doesn't quite fit into business. It doesn't quite fit into fitness. Let's put it in self-help because we think it'll sell there. And the author goes, whatever you want, got to earn that advance out. So they don't go, I want to write a self-help book. They might go, I wrote a leadership book. And it's like, well, this is more, let's throw this in self-help, see if it works. I look for practicals instead of feel good fluff.

My question to myself and to them is often, are they trying to inspire you? Fluff. That's fluff. Make your bed. Yeah, make your bed. Fluff. Are they trying to give you real world tactics?

That's great. Are the real world tactics to things like make your bed, right? Fluff. Is it every morning wake up and tell yourself in the mirror that you're good enough, smart enough, and doggone it people like you? That's fluff. disguised as a real world tactic.

So that leads to kind of my next points here, which is, could you make a worksheet out of what they told you? And would that worksheet be something someone can actually go through and create those practicals and do them? If so, great show guest. If not, probably just feel good rubbish. Do they use actual science? Or do they use case studies to back up their claims?

If they're just saying things that sound good, like, hey, do affirmations because, yay, stand up straight and raise your hands in the air because Superman, no, that's not real science. There's no meat to that. That's fluff. It can probably be discarded. Even if something is science that's unsettled, that's fine. But if it's blatant crappola, then that's self-help garbage. I think we call that crapeoka.

A nice bowl of crappyoka pudding. That's right. Crapioca pudding. Is what they're saying only aspirational? That's another question. And I talked about this with Phil McCurton. In other words, is their main goal to sell you the idea that you can make money and you can have all these Instagram followers and you can be more like me? If so, they're probably just selling a BS dream of becoming some sort of influencer or personality.

You should pass on that. This isn't to say that motivation for its own sake has no value. I know corporations and book publishers like this stuff from time to time. What I'm saying is that I personally see very little value in what these people are. offer. Most of them don't even care whether or not you learn or do anything. They don't care if you change in any permanent way for the better. They don't care about having an enlightened discussion. They don't care if what they're saying is real. It just sounds good. It's a nice little bumper sticker. They're trying to get more eyeballs on them so that they can charge more for

their next book, their next online course, their next event so they can go, you know, crowd surf and be like, look at all these people that love me. It's just BS. Here's me in front of a private jet that I rented for a photo shoot. It's just baloney. And whenever you hear something, see if you can apply it for yourself in a practical, tangible way, not just, I feel good having heard that. If there's nothing to apply, but you just feel good, you just feel motivated, you feel psyched up, and it's probably just self-help BS, and you can get it out of your mental headspace to make room for something else.

And I did discuss this at length in the Phil McCurnan episode as well. So if you want more on this topic, you can go back and listen to that episode as well. And I know you're kind of big on people who just toot out of the wrong end or the only end that one generally toots from. Yeah, that's true. No, I've read thousands of self-help books. And look at where you are. And look at you now. Exactly.

I'm sitting in the garage with you. Yeah. Holy moly. Oh, man. Scrash those books off the list. The thing about when you and I got together was I was trying to debunk a lot of self-help people. I would read the books and figure out if it was BS or not. because I was sick of people selling people a bill of goods.

I mean, my first big purchase when I could afford it was Tony Robbins, Personal Power 2, the cassette tapes. I listened to those things over and over again, and I realized he wasn't saying, he was talking for a long time, but was saying nothing. And after that point, I really got fascinated with breaking down self-help and people who were selling things to people and getting them on the bandwagon to spend more money. and I really wanted to spend my life. It's kind of like I wanted to be the amazing Randy of self-help.

Yeah. It just point out how bullshit these people are. And unfortunately, I didn't go that route, but what I did was ended up working with you and can weed out the people who want to get on the show and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have nothing. You are a, you're just a paper-machy facsimile of somebody who actually has something to say because all you did was read somebody else's book, look it up into thesaurus,

change the words around, and then sell it back to the public again and with no value added. And if you read enough of this stuff, you will know the trigger points. Read the table of contents of any book that you want to look at, and you can probably tell that,

you know, most self-help books, the meat is in the first three chapters. After that, they're just trying to fill the pages to get what their publisher wants for that 250 page case. Exactly. Yeah. Most self-help books could be an article. Yeah. But they don't want an article because the publisher says we need at least 180 pages in order to sell this for 12 bucks. Exactly. So they're fluffing the rest of it out. And the way that they'll fluff the rest of it out is go, all right, I got a, I need like an origin story where I had this really tough time and I came through it because of the power of gratitude. And it's like, that's great. And that's not to say that gratitude has no place anywhere. It's just,

that that's been done. You're not an original thinker. So why write this book if you're not adding to the body of work? Oh, yeah. Because you want to be a thought leader and get people to follow you so you can make a living off of your events where you tell people that you're going to help change them to. We have enough of those people. Go to, if you don't believe me, go to a Tony Robbins event. There's 11,000 people there or 12,000 people there in any given city. We don't need you to try to do that at 5% of the effective rate that Tony Robbins is doing it. He's got it covered. You're good. We're good on that. If you're going to be in the self-help realm and read these books, just pay attention to what people are selling and learn how the game works.

Yeah, see the patterns in the books. There's not original stuff being written by a lot of these people. Some of them have great stories. Some of them are very interesting. Some of them have very novel ideas, but most of them don't. And so I'm looking for people that have something science-based or somebody who deliver something in a way that is really, really effective and interesting. Yeah, we do our due diligence on this show. So if they're coming on the show, we have done our work to vet them to make sure that they are going to be good for you as our audience. You know, that's really what we do. Exactly, exactly. And sometimes someone will come on and I'll read their entire book and I'll

hone in on one point or two points. And I'll be like, you can teach that stuff. But I don't want to hear about Make Your Bed. We had Admiral McRaven talk about that. He's the original Make Your Bed guy. He's the original Make Your Bed guy. He can say that. Everybody else is not allowed, right? If you want to talk about gratitude, show me the science behind your journaling process for this, like James Clear and the habit building stuff. He can do that. He's done the research. He's got a process for everybody else who just says be grateful every day, get out of here with that. Yeah. That's just a sloppy process and you're selling your skin care product off the back of that.

Get out of my, you know, I don't want it. I don't want that. Get off my lawn. Get off my lawn. Get out of my listeners' ears and headspace. That's, you know, that's, we're sort of trying to protect you guys from this because otherwise you're just getting bombarded with this garbage, especially on Instagram, especially if, because now, now you can be 15, write a book about how you're an entrepreneur.

and it's like you have no experience. You're interesting because you're young. That's it. It's not interesting enough to be interesting to an adult. Tell me in 25 years when you actually have done something. Yeah, if that ever happens. If it indeed ever happens. There's a lot of like novel, I've had some special challenges and it's like,

did you move here from another country? You know, start from the bottom up, come up with the novel idea, execute really well on it. If not, you're just kind of trying to be a thought leader, and I just don't have the stomach for that anymore. I just can't deal with that. There's no more bandwidth for that. So those are the questions we kind of ask in our heads while we're going through the material, and a lot of people get sort of swept away now because there's just so much of it.

When we first started the show, there just weren't that many people doing this. I think now people have kind of figured out they can tell the same story in different words, like you said, and then sell a live event. and they're good for the year, and then they just have to come up with more garbage to sell people. Yep. And tell people, and here's, mark my words, then they devolve into how to make money online, because that's what they're really doing. Yep.

So then they're teaching other people how to make money, and then it just devolves into that, and we're not into that. No, then you go into the orbis with a snake eating its own tail, and then nobody has any value to give whatsoever. They just want your money. They just want your money at that point. Exactly. All right.

Next up. Hello, Jordan. I've been a listener and a big fan of your show since the early days and especially love it when you go on a tangent and interview Navy Seals, astronauts, ex-convicts, spies, or anyone with an interesting life story. Well, that's awesome. Good, because those are the ones we're enjoying the most lately. Yeah. I'm a 30-year-old business analyst from Toronto with an MBA, engineering degree, and a bunch of other credentials, which make me overqualified for my current position and could use some networking skills to move up in my company. I was recently passed on for a promotion that everybody, including myself, was pretty sure I would get.

I'm usually confident around supervisors and middle managers and can maintain a good relationship with folks immediately above me. But I lose a bit of my confidence and even become shy and insecure around higher level directors and executives. That's with the ones I work with. But also, many times I'm in a washroom or elevator with a director or VP who doesn't know me, and I shy away from striking up a conversation. I really don't know what to talk about in that short amount of time to make a good and memorable impression and not seem cheesy or desperate. Knowing your philosophy, I'm pretty sure you won't recommend an elevator pitch. I'd cringe even thinking about that.

Should I be concerned about making myself known during that brief time? What's your take on having elevator or washroom small talk that's not a pitch that no one asked for? What would one small talk about in that situation? Cheers. Teach me how to diggity dig that well. Nice. I assume you made that one up. Nope.

No? Okay. This came in from the author. All right, fine. So the first thing I would do is introduce yourself. Don't shake hands in the bathroom. I hate when people try to shake my hand in the bathroom. Even if they just wash their hands, it's just like, like, your hands are wet.

And before that, they were somewhere else. No thanks. But introduce yourself. Say you're in the elevator. Just say, hey, my name's Tim. Nice to meet you. And they go, oh, yeah, Jim, I work in marketing. And you're like, yeah, I know who you are.

It's okay to admit you know them if you do know who they are. They're senior to you. It's not weird that you know who the CFO. is or whatever. I would also ask if they were ever in your role if you don't know already. You could say, yeah, you know, I just started here in the finance department, accounting department. Were you ever in this role before you moved up or did you come from somewhere else? Then employ the Benjamin Franklin technique here. Ask what advice they would have for someone in your role who wants to excel in their career and move upward in the company. Or you can ask

what is the highest leverage thing you did when you had your role, whatever role you have, that's really paying off now that they're more senior? What's the highest leverage thing they did when they had a lower role that's really paying off now that they're more senior? And then take notes. Of course, listen, first of all, take notes if you can. And after they give you advice, thank them and say, thank you for that. Great to meet you, Mr. Bossman.

Once again, my name is Dig, Doug, whatever. then actually implement the advice. And once you do, email them if it's appropriate and let them know that you're implementing the advice, let them know what you're doing, and then thank them again for their advice. This is appropriate in 99% of cases. Use your own judgment here, depending on the corporate culture.

But this will solidify your impression, and next time you see them in the elevator or elsewhere, you can thank them again and let them know how the advice is helping you in your career and tell them you're all ears if they have any other suggestions or advice for you. This type of networking says all the right things about you as a professional. And side note, if it's appropriate, you can also ask if they have any work or projects for people at your level.

For something like the legal profession, this is totally appropriate. It's totally appropriate for, in most firms, for a junior associate to approach a partner and say, hey, if you ever have any work in this particular thing, I heard you're working on the Citibank merger, if you have anything for someone at my level as a third-year associate, let me know. I would love to work on something like that. It does depend on your line of work, the structure of the office command, hierarchy, et cetera. So, of course, I'll defer to you on this. Jason, what about you?

You have anything for this? Yeah, I used to work at a company. I was an ad agency in Hollywood, and we were spread over six floors, and we had to move up and down the elevators all the time. So I would always be in the elevator with, like, the owners or executive VPs and things like that. And the way I struck up conversations was based on our crappy competitors work. So I knew what was going on with competitors, who was doing the new movie posters that we didn't get, like the jobs we didn't get. So I'd be in the elevator. I'm like, hey, do you guys see

that company B over there did that new poster? Isn't that thing God awful? And like, you know, that gives me a bit of knowledge about what we're doing, knowing that I'm actually cognizant of where we are in the space and what the other people are doing. Also, it's something to riff on and joke about and make fun of the competition with. And it just kind of, it's, it's an easy way to endear yourself with people who, they'll pay attention to you when they know that you notice that what we're doing and what the competition is doing. It's kind of like a, I'm not going to say a life hack, but it's just, it's a, it's an easy end around. And also, just have a bunch of jokes in your back pocket to just throw out one-liners because what I ended up doing with a lot of,

lot of people is I'd just be talking to them in the elevator and just, you know, small talk. Small talk first. So every time they see you, they'll remember you. Just little things to get them to remember you. Don't go in for the kill right away. Don't start asking, you know, for, I need life advice. No. It's like, oh my God, help me. No. So you want to be able to see these people over and over again. And so when they get in the elevator, when they see you, they're happy to see you. And they go, hey, how's it going, you know? I can see that working really well in the creative space, especially, because people are really proud of what they do versus someone else. I'm thinking of being at the law firm and going,

hey, did you see what Thatcher is doing? They suck. It's like, oh, I don't know. We're all kind of the same thing here. Like some firms do shoddy work, maybe. But creative space, I can see it being like, can you see, look at what they did. Doesn't that stink compared to what we would have done?

And they're like, yes, I would have managed that project so much better. Yeah. I can see that working a little bit. I think in the corporate space, depending on what his line of work actually is, asking for, hey, what habits did you develop at my level that are really helping you right now? It's like, wow, this guy's smart. He's asking the right questions.

You know, that I can see working better in a corporate space. But yeah, what you're saying, definitely in the creative space, it might be weird to be like, hey, do you have a life hack for me? It's like, wait, who are you? You're some dude who does our website. It's like I work on creative and photography. I don't have advice for you. I don't even understand what you do, you know, at all. No, I still think, though, like, you know, adding a little bit of social loob, but before

they ask, they go in for the kill just to, you know, because if they're going to see each other in the elevator often, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, make, make yourself known to them just by being personable and ready to, ready to go. Sure. So it's really nice when you get in an elevator and somebody smiles and says, hi, that, you know, is well above your pay grade and you didn't expect it. Like, hi, how's it going, you know, because you've, because you've laid that groundwork. I feel you.

All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan, Jen, and Jason. I'm a 37-year-old middle school teacher with a fiancé and new baby. Before my fiancé and baby came into my life, I didn't take my health, finances, career, or life seriously. I bounced around from school to school, over drank, over eight, made excuses, and partied too hard. Finally, in early 2016, I got clean and sober and serious about my health and overall life. I found my dream job, but because I'm a public school teacher and our salaries are collectively bargained,

I only bring home $33,000 a year after taxes and deductions. I supplement my income with after-school tutoring and weekend delivery gigs. I'm feeling the tug of moving into another industry for more money, but the risk is high because I don't have a lot in savings. Should I stay in a safe and stable teaching job I love for less money and keep grinding for supplemental income? Or should I take a leap and hope to double my salary or bust? What might be a good industry for a teacher to transition to? Thanks for the help, tenure, or take off? So I've said this before.

Never, never, despite all these influencer knucklehead saying you should never just quit a job and go all in. This is a bad idea. You will have no income for a long time. It always takes longer than we think to build revenue streams. There is no room for mistakes if you go all in because you need money to survive so you can't go, oh, you know what, I should get my SEO straight by hiring a firm. Oh, I can't. I need that money now to feed myself and my kid and my wife, right?

you can't do that. You don't have any risk tolerance if your income from your side hustle is now used to survive. You don't have a safety net. If something goes wrong because of a risk or because of the market or because you don't know what you're doing,

now you're screwed. So there's absolutely no reason to go all in. This is such a bad idea. The reason a lot of these influencer people tell you to go all in is because they want you to buy their stuff and be dependent on them or and or because it sounds really good

to be like, take bold action. No, that's absolutely ridiculous. Scale up anything you're doing outside of your day job. Scale that up to make income and get those revenue streams going. And then you can scale in other areas. First of all, you could do whatever you can in the amount of time you have to work, then outsource as much as you can to other people overseas, especially, that are really cheap.

Like, hey, I can't manage my social media. Great. Hire someone who's a VA to manage that stuff for you. now you just regained, what, 30 minutes a day, whatever, keep outsourcing that stuff. You should only be quitting your job until there's absolutely no more time where you're awake and available and coherent in the day and you need three more, four more, five more hours of your own productive time,

not something that could be outsourced to somebody else, something that only you can do. So in your case, you could theoretically staff other teachers as tutors, you could jump into another industry that you're really interested in, learn as much as you can until your only limitation is how much time you personally are able to put into things. And for example, my friend's wife, she tutors Chinese kids in English on Skype. She teaches kids English on Skype. She recently quit teaching in public schools because she was coming home from work every day, tutoring on Skype, tutoring all weekend, and making more money

per hour doing that from home with a baby than she was at this public school where she was. didn't like to work and it was annoying and the schools are going on strike and all the stuff. So she quit doing that in order to do this because it was more profitable and she was running out of time and she was trading time for money in this case. That makes sense. She also knew that she liked it. She also knew she could do more of it, but her regular day job was getting in the way so she resigned.

It always sounds so sexy to quit, go all in, et cetera. But the people telling you to do that, they aren't the ones who have to deal with the consequences of any fallout. They're not the ones who are going to have a gap in income. They're not the ones whose wife and kid are going to be looking at them and going, I told you this was dumb, now we don't have health insurance, what the hell? Going all in quitting, this is universally bad advice. You can always start a side hustle and scale.

And this is infinitely more secure than leaping and then just hoping that the net will magically appear in a short enough time frame that you don't starve. Yeah, there are two rules when you have a baby. Don't buy a motorcycle and don't quit your job. That's pretty much. I like those rules. Yeah. Jen, I'm getting a motorcycle. She's just shaking her head.

Not even worth a verbal response. All right, next up. Dear Jordan, Jason, and Jen, my husband is close to burnout. He used to love his job in Singapore, but has been thinking that it's too much for over a year now. We're planning to move to Europe in the spring and enjoy a more balanced life and have kiddos. He doesn't want to resign until the end of April because of a substantial bonus being paid out then. We don't need the money, but that would make our move a lot easier. Since we decided to move, his head and his heart are really not in the game anymore,

which makes it even harder to withstand the daily pressures and long work hours. He's told me I have the power to, quote-unquote, pull the plug, aka ask him to resign, if I think he's too close to burnout. And we clarified that this does not mean it's my responsibility. I support him the best I can with healthy meals and taking on all the admin parts of our move. He goes to the gym at least once a week, which is my only request. I'm not asking you whether or not he should quit before the bonus or soldier as if it were the last mile of a marathon.

But I want to help him see more clearly, make the decision for himself, and be happy with it. Are there any open-ended questions you could recommend to help lift the fog? I've been thinking of asking him on a weekend, let's pretend we have just decided that you will resign on Monday. How do you feel? And see whether it's more of a huge burden lifted off or is it a shame that I gave up since I saw the finish line? I think there's more to this than just the current situation. His dad passed away a few years before retirement after a really deep. tough blue-collar career. Thank you for all you do, avoiding the inferno. So you took the words right

out of my mouth here. The thought exercises are so beneficial. If he seems massively relieved when you do this thought exercise, that's a pretty good sign that it's time to go. Then again, money's money, April is like three months away now. When you do these hypotheticals, don't do them with the TV on, don't do them with people running around or distractions, do them either on a longer car ride at home over dinner, you've got to have some space where you can really dig in, get some quiet, and then ask him to sleep on them. A weekend is good because you don't want him to be emotionally influenced by some impending project, deadline, or the fact that at 6 a.m., he's off to work and he's half groggy, half asleep.

I think it's important for him to learn the lesson from his father's untimely death as well. Time is something you're never going to get back, of course. And what I would do is spread the amount of the bonus, sort of amortize that out over the next few months. So let's say you're getting 10K bonus, spread that out each week or each pay period over the amount of time that he has left and then add that to his current salary. That way you can see what he's putting up with now and if that's worth the salary plus the bonus. Because if it's not, quit now.

If it is, then stay on until bonus time. The reason you do this is because once you split the salary over several pay periods, it's easier to wrap your mind around, say, making an additional 500 bucks a week and saying, no, wait, this isn't worth it. I'm killing myself over here. Or you're going to say, if you look at the bonus as a whole, you go, whoa, 10 grand, that's a lot of money. I'm going to hang on.

But if you look at it as $300, $500, $500 a week, you might go, this is not worth it. It's killing me. So spreading it out, which is the exact same math, right? You end up with the same amount of money. It dampens the emotional impact of the big number. That's why people get bonuses instead of raises. That's one reason why people get bonuses instead of raises because it looks like I just got to make it to the finish and I get this.

It's different if you're making an incremental cut each week, but it's the same amount of money in the end. So it'll make it easier to make the decision. Does that make sense, Jason, the way I explained that? No, absolutely. I've never even thought about it like that because I have hung on for big bonuses before. And it's like, oh, I'm going to get like a 5K bonus at Christmas and all that,

but I cannot stand this job and it's July. So I'm going to spend six months hammering away at this job. I cannot stand for that, you know, 5K bonus at Christmas. I should have just left, you know, because I did not do this math. This math actually like makes it makes more sense because then you can say, oh, so I'm going to stay here for six months, you know, that is like, you know, was it, 21 weeks or 26 weeks and however long it's going to be

and that's like you know nothing per it's like 200 bucks a week I'm gonna stay here for 200 bucks a week more and I hate this place right every day sucks you want to just ram pencils through your eyeballs every day or when you walk in the office or my boss's eyeballs back then it was exactly yeah so it's not worth it but if you look at the total bonus you're like oh man I'm gonna get a new car with that

and it's like yeah but you have a year of hell and also take off 30% because the taxes are coming out of it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's important. Do it after taxes. Yeah.

Because then it's basically cut in half, depending on what income bracket you're in, especially if you're in Singapore. I think taxes are insane. Yeah. Hard to say. Recommendation of the week, fire F-Y-R-E, the greatest party that never happened.

Have you seen this, Jason? I am dying to see this. Oh, we covered this on Grumpy Old Geeks when it happened. And we were just chuckling like a bunch of school kids. We were like, you dumb-ass millennials. you're trying to have a festival, but it sounds like this is even deeper than everything we've ever heard. Right. So Firefest was this supposed to be this amazing party, and it was like Kendall Jenner's Yacht Party.

Look at all these Instagram models and influencers and all these YouTube guys are going. It turned out to never happen. Not only did it never happen, people showed up to it. And they were supposed to be in these like luxury villas and there was going to be chefs and gourmet food and all these lines. up all the acts canceled. They show up and there's like FEMA tents with wet mattresses in them. And it's just, it's kind of funny, but it's massively tragic. And then at first I was like, oh, this is just some 28-year-old jackass over-promising and

then not just under-delivering, but blatantly scamming people. This guy turns out to be kind of a more devious con man, probably a functional sociopath. And it's a really interesting story. and it goes into everything with the sort of Instagram influencer scene, the internet marketing scene, a fraud, giant scam. I thought it was fascinating. Fire, F-Y-R-E on Netflix.

We'll link to it in the show notes. I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. We'll answer your question on the air, maybe. We always keep you anonymous. And a link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Quick shout out to Haika Dunko from Germany.

She asked me if I lived in East Germany before the wall came down. I did not. I was there six or seven years later. So I actually don't have a Stasi file. So there's the Stasi files, if you ever lived in East Germany, the secret police back then, they kept files on everyone. And now those files are publicly available. Oh, cool.

Yeah. And you can go to the Stasi office and look at it. But a lot of people are finding some pretty traumatic stuff in there. Like they're finding out that their spouse. of 30 years was informing on the Stasi about them. Oh, man. And their activities as like a teacher or they're, I guess, non-communist mindset or their capitalist aspirations.

So people are going there and they find out that their brother, their girlfriend, their wife, their whatever was ratting them out. Or their best friend was an informant the whole time, never said anything. So there's a lot of people that have some pretty traumatic experiences as a result. But the Stasi, I mean, imagine I would be so curious to find out what's in that file. Oh, man. How do you say Snitches get stitches in German? I don't know.

I'd have to Google Snitches. Yeah, I'd have to figure that out. That's crazy. Go back and check out the Darren Brown episode if you haven't checked that out yet. And if you want to learn how we manage to book all these amazing guests for the show, we've got systems, we've got software, we've got tiny habits. I'm teaching you how I do this stuff for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. And a lot of people are going, oh, I'll do it later, I'll do it later.

Or, oh, my favorite, I'm naturally pretty good at this. Oh, really? Sure you are. You know, we just taught this to, we teach this to intelligence agencies, entrepreneurs that you've heard of on television, law enforcement organizations, the military. The people that say they're naturally pretty good at this, it's just kind of a joke. Are you really engaging people every day? Are you really using software to manage it?

No, but I kind of do that. Whenever you learn a skill, look at the things that you don't do when you're learning this from someone else, don't look at the five things out of 15 that you do already, or that you in your head kind of already know. That is a loser mindset. Oh yeah, you know, I know all about diet and exercise. Great. Are you physically fit and healthy? No, well, there's a problem with that. You know, your knowledge is not what counts here. It's your actual application of consistent application that matters. So check this out. It's Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. It just takes a few minutes per day. Quit making excuses. I'm so sick of hearing these things on Instagram.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I just, I'm so busy lately, really? You're busier than Mark Cuban? Didn't think so. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. And Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube is where the video interviews are on YouTube. And we will have a lot more video interviews here up in 2019. Jason, tell them where they can find you.

You can check me out of my personal website at jpd.me. And you can check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks over at gog. or your podcast player of choice. This show is co-produced with Jen Harbinger. Show notes for this episode by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Keep them concise if you can. It really does help us out and increase the chances that your question will get answered

here on the air. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. 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. Have a great weekend, everybody.

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