The Jordan Harbinger Show - 170: How to Ask Questions Like an Award-Winning Podcaster | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: March 8, 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: You accidentally sent your roommate a message meant for someone else in which you were indirectly complaining about them. Is there a way to gracefully recover from this faux pas? Even though you seem to hit it off when meeting new people, you can't seem to form close friendships and make them stick. What's missing from the formula? As a young couple about to embark on a life of wedded bliss, what's the fairest way to handle finances from the start -- especially when one person makes considerably more money? Here's Jordan's strategy for investing money with compound interest. If you could ask only one question of a person you perceive to be successful, what would it be -- and from Jordan's perspective as an interviewer, how should you ask it? What are some unexpected things you can encounter when moving to a new city -- especially when you feel like you haven't prepared enough in advance for the changes immediately ahead? What's the best way to heat up cold contacts into bona fide network connections? Is it worth it to stay at your current job for another eight years to secure your retirement finances, or is now the time to take on your own business venture? Though you relocated three years ago for a job you still consider decent, you miss family and friends back home. What are the pros and cons of moving back now? Life Pro Tips: [Jason] Treat the halfway point on your gas tank as empty. [Jordan] Use Rebump for a 33 percent better response rate with your emails. Recommendation of the Week: Abducted in Plain Sight Quick shoutouts to Taylor Moser and Rick! 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! In See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our guests, and this week we had Mike Posner talking about his journey through fame at a young age, what it did, and more importantly, what it did not do for him. That was a really fun show to do in person, hanging out. We grew up in the same town, so that was kind of a fun little, almost like a throwback, sort of nostalgia effect there.

We also had Nathan Latka talking about how he uses leverage and hustle to accomplish a lot of really unique and amazing things for a guy in his 20s. He really is good at negotiating and sort of playing one side off of another. There's lots to learn this week on the show. I also write every so often on the blog. The latest post is the negative consequences of accentuating the positive. In other words, I do a little takedown of positive thinking. I really don't love this movement where everybody's got to be positive all the time. I did a self-help take down a while ago with Gabriel Mizrahi, if you heard that deep dive. And this is somewhat similar in terms of it being a takedown of why people are always supposed to be positive and happy. It's just not true.

It's not based in science. And I think that it was important to expose a little bit of that. So you can find that at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles. So make sure you've had a look and a listen to those shows in that article. And of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guests and our experiences and insights along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you. And that's what we're going to do today, and every Friday, in fact, here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. And as always, we've got some fun ones. And I want to get right to it, Jason. Hey, Jordan and team, I accidentally sent my roommate a message I meant for someone else where I was indirectly complaining about them. Has anyone

discovered a good plan for recovering from this? The roommate's fairly non-confrontational, so I don't know if anything will come from this since I wasn't saying anything super rude in the message, but I don't want to die nonetheless. Have any tips? Thanks. Signed, what's the emoji for dope. Yeah, nice. This is embarrassing. So basically, I guess she was talking with somebody else about her roommate. And we've all kind of done a little bit, something like this, right?

Subconsciously typed in the roommate's name, probably sent the text to them instead. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think everybody I know has done this. Oh, man. Yeah, I would literally honesty is the best policy here. Because look, there's probably all kinds of creative and funny things you could do to say to get out of it. Like, oh, that was for somebody else.

but they're never really gonna believe you. And if they do believe you, here's the problem. If they do believe you, right? You're a really good liar, congratulations. If they do believe you, then you come back in three months and you're like, so it's really annoying when you don't clean up your dishes. They're like, ah, I knew it.

You were complaining about me, and then you lied. So now you talk smack about me behind my back and you lie to me about it. So you're gonna permanently damage your relationship. that's the problem. Yeah, definitely. You got to just be up front and own it and say, yeah, yeah, I'm pissed off about this. Let's talk about it. Yeah, it's a good excuse to do that. And look, I know your roommate's non-confrontational. That's not a good reason to not confront somebody about something.

Because non-confrontational people, we always have to get it out somehow. Some of the guys that I used to work with back at the old company were very non-confrontational. That just mean they talk smack about everybody behind their back. Or it would blow up, like, it would be, you know, somebody would leave a dish out. And it'd be like, oh, yeah, and you never blow. And it's like, whoa, what? So it was completely nonproductive. It ruined the relationship that they had.

I don't want to throw names out there, but it ruined all of his relationships. He has no close friends. It ruined all of his relationships with his significant others. So being conflict avoidant or non-confrontational, you really, that energy goes somewhere because the problems never get solved

and you end up just stewing over it. Right? It's almost like a covert contract. They knew they were doing that. Not really. Right? So I would say being straight up about it is the best way to do it. It lets the steam out of everything.

You'll feel better about it and you'll say, look, I've kind of messed up here. And it'll get you out of the habit of venting in nonproductive ways, which is telling somebody else about your problem with your roommate. Because that really is nonproductive. Sure, you should have emotional support from people. Sure, sometimes we complain about people and then it doesn't really affect a relationship. Like, Jason, I'm sure there's been plenty of times where you and I have hung up. and been like, damn it, Jordan's late, I'm so annoyed, or I've been like, yeah, he's in a cranky mood,

but it's like you don't have to, you don't, it's not like I should say something to Jason about that, right? Or I should say something to Jordan about that. It's just venting. But I don't try to do that a lot, you know, it's not really that healthy. And it doesn't fix anything. So it's kind of like negative idle chatter, which is the worst kind. Totally agree about that. You don't want to have like a pressure cooker with no steam valve. You need to be able to get that. stuff out. And I think one of the things I do with my roommate now is just if we have a problem, we just talk it out. We don't go bitch to somebody else about it. Because in the past, that's just gotten us both in trouble because you always get one person that's going to tell the other

person and then it just gets worse from there. Yeah, like, hey, did you have lunch with Kathy? You told her that I didn't do the dishes? I did the dishes. And then it's, then they're embarrassed and the problem isn't solved, right? Because it's like, now Kathy thinks I don't clean up after myself, you jerk. Oh, oops. And then you've got a problem with Kathy because you're like, geez, what a loud mouth. I think the other lesson to be taken away from this is always check your two field when you're making a quick text. Yeah, sheesh. I wonder how many times I've done it, never gotten caught, or gotten caught, they never said anything, and I never thought about it again. Like, have I ever sent a text to the wrong person? That person doesn't say anything, and then I never

noticed that I sent it to the wrong person. Yeah, could be. And then they just silently push you away. Yeah. Okay, now I know how he feels, so I'm just going to ghost him. Yeah. Oh, so weird. All right, next step. Hi, guys. I'm a 23-year-old woman, and I'm terrible at making friends. I went to five different schools before high school. I always had a hard time making friends, though, particularly girlfriends.

It was always easier to get along with the guys because I didn't feel as judged. But every male friend I've had ended up developing romantic feelings, when all I wanted was friendship, which I always made very clear from the beginning. In high school, I got into an extremely controlling relationship and became a complete recluse. not allowed to even stay after school for five minutes. I was single in college but lived with my parents, so I just went to class, then left. I made no friends there the entire time. You say recluse and not recluse?

Recluse. I say recluse. But I don't say concrete. That's just weird. Hey, we all have our foibles. Yeah, anyway. Or foibles. Well, I guess I do say concrete.

Like, I don't have a concrete reason. Yeah, I say concrete. Yeah, but I say concrete if it's like the material. Because I say recluse because they're reclusive. Right, but they're recluse. I don't know. Whatever. That's probably both correct. I don't want to look this up right now because it's a, it seems like something I should already know. And we're in the middle of a question. All right, so it's a bummer. She's hot and can't make friends. Okay, continue. you. I've always been an introvert, but through reading, research, and practice, I've become really good at making a great first impression. I love people, and I can strike up a conversation with baristas, people in elevators, et cetera, and I always ask questions, which makes people

love me in the current conversation. In longer conversations, it's extremely common for people to tell me how great I am or how they feel like they've known me forever. People open up to me very easily, but it just ends there. People seem to love me and forget about me. I feel like a burden when following up, but it feels like others never put in the effort to reach out first. I have a boyfriend now, and we have a healthy relationship. When I meet his friends, girlfriends, it's the same thing. They all like me and we get along, but it ends there. Plus, these conversations often end up as complaining and or gossiping, which is extremely boring for me. This seems to be a recurring theme when conversing with women

in their early to mid-20s. How do you go from having a good conversation to exchanging contact information and seeing each other again. And how do you do this from a short conversation, someone in an elevator or coffee shop, versus someone you know, but haven't hung out with one-on-one, like my boyfriend's friends, girlfriends. It seems to be much harder with women. Maybe Jen has some thoughts on this. This is an important skill I desperately want to figure out while I'm still young and as I start building my business. Thank you and keep inspiring. Signed, friendly and friendless. Huh. So this is actually rough. I know a few women in this. this position. And I also had trouble making real friends. Well, not entirely, but a lot of real

friends in my 20s. Everybody just wanted to party all the time, especially in the niche that I was in. I found that extremely boring. And other people were just focused on their career. I never saw him. So I ended up just kind of falling into the whole let's go out all the time scene instead of doing real work on myself, which was such a waste of time. Now, this gets easier and harder as we get older. People often grow up and stop wasting time partying and gossiping, but then they also get more serious about their careers and their families. They get married. They have kids. They check out socially. They stop doing everything. So a lot of people tend to go in one extreme or the other. It's really hard actually to find people with balance. And since you're running a business, you've actually got quite an

advantage because you can hang out with other entrepreneurs, which have a lot of events, both in person and virtual, as well as those people tend to spend less time talking about other people and more time talking about generating revenue, crafting ideas, et cetera. So I would focus on the entrepreneur crowd. I really would. I wouldn't focus on them exclusively, but I still would follow up with them. And you still need girlfriends. They might be entrepreneurs, but you should have a relationship with them beyond business. And, you know, look, I think it's okay to make friends with guys. Any boyfriend who tells you that that's not okay should be shown the door. Just make sure that you include him on events and activities so he doesn't feel too out of the loop

because that can take a toll on the relationship. It would be easy to feel insecure if you had a pretty and successful girlfriend who hung out with other dudes all the time and you were never invited. So I could see that getting a little old for him. So be careful there. But what you're experiencing now is totally normal. I can't tell you, especially when I was in L.A., it was so rare for people. to follow through on plans. Some of that's LA. Some of that is just people, but set the bar to a higher standard. Make it so that you're putting in the work. You're following up. You're setting up plans.

That's how a lot of guys have to do it their whole life. Maybe that's why it seems hard. It seems like you're having to do what most guys have to do. This is a filtering process. You're going to meet a ton of people. Those who don't keep in touch or put in any energy, they just get cut. And it is a number scheme. You're going to meet tons of people at events. You're going to meet tons. I wouldn't meet people in elevators. It just seems a little weird. I mean, you can talk to people in elevators, but you don't have enough time to generate anything. And if you're working at a coffee shop,

you can talk about what people are working on, and you can see them a few times, and you can say, hey, are you normally here? What time you normally hear? Shoot me your number, and we'll be in touch and try to work here at the same time. So, you know, whatever. But you've got to be, here's the problem.

If you do that with a guy, he's going to think you're interested, period. It's always going to be that way with dudes. It just is at first. So if you're in the entrepreneur scene, it'll be a little different. It'll be different. It'll be more acceptable, work at a co-working space.

And entrepreneurs are better at following up. It's not because they're more organized or not just because. It's because their relationships help their business and we're all a little bit lonely, sad, crazy. So we need a little bit of support around us. Join groups, go to events, put on smaller local events yourself,

like a dinner party would be good. That's a great way to meet other people who own businesses in your area. And create that value in your circle and people will be more likely to stay connected and cut those who don't commit or who are wishy-washy about attending or who say they're going to come

and then don't show up, just cut those people. You don't need those people around and it sort of detracts from the circle. You know, if you say, hey, we've got eight people going and then only four people show up, those four people go, oh, well, that sucks. Maybe there's less value here than I thought. So if people don't show up, cut them,

don't invite them to other things. If they tell you they can't make it, that's one thing. but if they're just not showing up, that's, you don't need those people. It takes time to build a social circle, but it is super rewarding and fun. And as for creating entrepreneur connections, it will keep you sane as a business owner.

So maybe join EO if you have your revenue up that high or join Accelerator, which is for six-figure businesses that haven't hit that seven-figure mark yet, and you get to network and hang out with other entrepreneurs, and it is fun. So check out those types of organizations. And look,

you're ahead of the game at 23 running a business like that. So that's also part of the problem. The people that you're dealing with at 21, 22, 23, they're just not in the same headspace as you. And that will change as you get older. All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan, Jason, and Jen. I'm a 25-year-old man and my fiancé is 22. We're going to be getting married next November and we've been discussing finances. Starting out, I'll be making two to four times for salary because of the fields we're in. and we were wondering how we should split bills and how we should set up our accounts. We were thinking we would have three checking accounts, one for bills, one for her, and one for me, but maybe doing two or one account instead.

As for bills, I was thinking that we add our salaries together and use percentages to figure out how much each salary contributes to monthly expenses. For example, if my salary is 60% of our total income, then I pay 60% of the mortgage, 60% of the electric bill, et cetera, from my salary and she pays the other 40%. Also, how should we do investment accounts? Should we have separate ones or just combine those? I currently have several since I like to experiment with newer investment companies. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks. Accounting for the future. Interesting set of questions here. Getting married super young, but, you know, that's – I'm kind of jealous, but I'm also like, wow, 22 and 25. Holy cow. But you never know. Never know how they were raised environment they're in, how long they've known each other, etc. I would say this is a pretty sound strategy for investing.

I like the idea of contributing a percentage of salary to the bills and having that in a third account for bills and expenses only that affect both of you. Everyone's different in what they're comfortable with. But since you are so young, you have to do things a little bit like kids at first because y'all are still kids. With Jen and I, I added her as a signer on my checking account, which is fine. I kept my own retirement accounts. She kept her retirement accounts. She works with me now, and she takes a pretty meager salary, so we reinvest a lot in the business. But our major joint asset is the business itself.

And this is a bit different for us, because we're in California where the courts will split everything up no matter what, which in our case is pretty fair. And while my name is on one of the houses we have, you know, her parents own the other one, and I'm putting cash into it. So if we ever got divorced, man, we would be both incentivized to be fair, because California will rake me and, frankly, anyone over the coals anyway. way. And this is another reason why I waited a long time to get married. I did also get married in another state, but since I live in California, it doesn't really matter, especially once we have kids. And for you, I would say you're on the right track. Keep your own accounts, have a pool for bills, contribute the percentages you planned on doing. And for your investments, you can each do your own and keep them in your own name. You should have retirement accounts from your

employers, and anything you contribute beyond that should just stay in your own name. You won't need that money until you retire and you can combine things later as needed you know if you ever even need to combine anything in 10 to 40 years you're good you know or 50 because that's probably when you'll be able to retire since those are separate accounts you won't have to worry about them joint assets and things like that you don't have to worry about that stuff till much later down the line and once you get married talk to a CPA about your options since jen and i run our own business we have things set up a lot differently than most people for example some of our property can be owned by a trust that's funded by the business, et cetera, et cetera.

And this is unique to our situation, and tax laws in place are pretty great for small businesses, especially right now. So definitely don't rush to combine things. It's a logistical hassle. There's no need for it. And candidly, we've all seen the stats on divorces, especially for people who get married really young. I hope it doesn't happen that way for you, but there's no sense in making things more

complicated if it does. It won't affect your life at all to keep things separate. And going backwards, it's harder than keeping things. separate in the first place. 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. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right.

Next up. Hi, Jordan. I hope this message finds you well. I know you mentioned in the past episodes about how you invest money with compound interest. I was curious if you could talk about that more during Feedback Friday or if you have a link to something that I could use. I know you're busy and hope you are safe in your travels. With gratitude, compoundedly curious. I'll keep this one pretty quick. I recommend index funds. I know a lot of people have all kinds of fancy stuff. Index funds, those things outperform everything. This is what sort of Warren Buffett always says to do and it's very unsexy. Just buying. index funds, they track the market. Compound interest, I don't really want to go in and explain this, so I'm going to link some resources in the show notes. It's really, really simple. Basically, if you put in $100 one year and you have 10% interest, at the end of the year, you have $110. And then if that 10% interest is compounding rolls over to the next year, then you get 10% of the 110, not just the original 100. So you end up with this exponentially larger amount of money each year. This is why this is so important because over time you'll start to see that if you invest let's say starting at age 19

and you invest two thousand bucks a year for seven years and then you invest nothing for the rest of your life until you're 65 you'll end up with over two million dollars something like 2.2 million at that interest rate. Now, if you start investing when you're 27 and you invest $2,000 every year until you're 65, so a ton more principal, but you started, let's say, eight years later, you end up with $1.5 million only. So the difference is absolutely enormous. You end up $700,000 behind because you waited eight years to start investing. That's insane. Starting early, is crucial. You put in less money, but you start eight years earlier. It's just unbelievable. You turn 16 grand into $2.3 million. And it's just, this has to be seen to be believed. I'm going to link to

charts and things like that in the show notes here. It's just unreal. So you've got to pick funds that maybe average 12%. It's not hard to do that. It's very low risk. These things track the market. And yes, look, $2.3 million is not going to be the same thing when I'm 65 from right now. I get that. but it doesn't matter. You're going to be investing more than two grand a year, most likely, and you're not going to stop after eight years. You're going to do it every single year. So you're going to end up with millions of dollars in the market.

That's why all these guys who are like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm going to be a doctor later so I can spend all this money now. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Somebody who's got a high salary but starts investing 10 years later, they're never going to catch up to somebody who works at frickin' Taco Bell but invests every single year. It's going to be almost impossible.

So we'll link to articles and a video that explain how this works and why it's important in the show notes. And look, if you're not 19 and you want to start investing, still do it now. You're going to have to invest more. Yes, it's a bummer. We can't go back in time. But it's also one really good reason to invest even a few hundred dollars a year now is better than zero and then waiting because you can't catch up to that compound interest rocket ship. All right. Next up.

Hi, Team Triple J. If you could ask a person who you perceived to be successful only one question, what would it be. You're a good interviewer, and I was curious to understand how to ask potent questions to get the most out of the small windows of opportunity to get to speak to people whose qualities I want to have. Thanks, getting to the good stuff. I get this a lot, actually, some variation of this question. And it happens a lot also on podcasts, where they're like, if you, da-da-da-da-da, this, if you had to start over, what would you do? Just these sort of blanket, unimaginative questions. I would say no blanket questions. Do prep for conversations. That's the key.

It's not about the clever question. You don't get one question. These sort of hypotheticals are just kind of silly. But it depends on the person. You have to prepare for these conversations. That's how you get high return. For example, if you're going to ask something of somebody who is still running marathons in their 60s,

that question would be a lot different than what you'd ask somebody who sold a ton of books. And that question would be different than somebody who worked two jobs and had a big family and was able to afford everything they needed. People always want shortcuts. Eventually you pay for that shortcut, and trite questions get trite answers. And if you don't know what to prepare because you're not sure who you're going to run into,

like you want something in your back pocket for when you run into somebody in an elevator, then a good general rule is to ask about habits they wish they'd had back in your day. And the reason for this is that most successful people, almost all, in fact, they're consistent. They consistently train, they consistently learn, they consistently practice, they consistently work on their craft, whatever, hone their craft. They don't stumble into things, and they're very intentional. So I would ask about the systems and habits they have, and then ask what advice they'd give to themselves at your age

about those specific things. Then when they give a BS answer that has no substance, probe further, because you've done your homework. Most people give terrible advice because they haven't thought about things thoroughly. And if you don't believe me, just listen to like any podcast, right? It's your job to dig a bit deeper until you can get something that you can actually use. Ideally, though, you've prepared yourself by consuming that person's work.

You can see what they've accomplished. You can ask something that cuts through all their autopilot answers and gets right to the meet. So if I know I'm going to talk to somebody who's been running marathons in their 60s, I won't say, what's the secret, which is what everybody asks. And the person just internally rolls their eyes and says, hey, just run every day. Bye. You know, they've heard that.

They know you're not going to apply it. It's just silly. But if you say, you know, a lot of people who run all the time, end up with joint pain. Have you suffered from that? Well, yeah, you know, but I manage the, I manage it. Oh, how do you do that? Well, every time that I feel like I'm getting a little bit of joint pain, I make sure that I'm icing. And even if I don't feel like I'm in pain, I always walk in a hot, you'll get a real answer if you ask that kind of thing. People are often going to give you the BS trite answer because they figure you're never going to use it. You're just making

small talk, so why put in the energy? And usually they're right. So do your homework, get the prep going, and make sure you ask the right questions. The reason I'm able to ask, the questions that are good on this show is because I spend eight plus hours, maybe 20 hours prepping each guest. It's not because I'm so creative with the questions. I mean, that's 10% of it. The rest of it is I did the work beforehand and thought of the questions beforehand. All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan, Jason, Jen, and team. Do you have any advice for making connections in a new city before arrival? For the past decade, I've been living and working in Asia. It's been an amazing

experience that I wouldn't change for anything. But now that I've decided to move back home to Canada, I'm facing a career shift and location change. The level one course has been really helping me reconnect with some of my long dormant connections, but my problem is that I don't have many in the city that I'll be moving to. I should have dug my well 20 years ago, but today is the second best time to start. I'd like to set myself up as much as possible to hit the ground running. What's something that you're glad you had prepared that could easily be overlooked? Was there anything that you wish you'd done but didn't think to prepare beforehand? What are some unexpected things I can encounter when moving to the new city. Thanks again for everything you do signed need a leg up.

Well, first of all, congrats on the move. And FYI to you and everyone else, I don't do level one anymore. I've left advanced human dynamics. I've left that brand entirely. I want to focus on something else that I'm doing for the military, law enforcement, and some corporate clients. And I can talk more about civilian events that I'm running later on, but just be aware I've nothing to do with advanced human dynamics anymore. My likeness should ideally be coming off of that site in the next few weeks at the most. I'm giving the person some time to sort of transition everyone. In the meantime, I've redone the level one course. It's not called level one anymore because apparently that new person's going to run that brand, which is weird, but I've got six minute

networking, which is a much better brand and much better name and it's much more descriptive. And that's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. It's like what level one was in terms of networking and relationships, but I've improved upon it, added new drills, new systems, and some new strategies, reshot all the videos, and added some tools. So Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where that is. As for making new connections, you're right. You need to dig the well before you're thirsty, but since you didn't do that, that's water under the bridge and you've got to start from scratch. So my usual go-to strategy here is create a list of skills that you want to learn. look up courses to learn those skills or groups to learn those skills in that city.

So if you want to learn Italian cooking and Japanese, look for those classes, sign up for those classes in that town, and some hobby groups and things like that are always great to go. I would say paid is better than free. If you pay for a group Japanese class, it's going to be better than the Japanese meetup where people show up once every six months and then never show up again.

And the reason for that is that you're going to end up with a bunch of people that never show up or you're going to end up with people with skin in the game and they're more serious about learning that skill. So worst case, even if you don't make any friends there, you end up with that skill. So that's sort of a go-to. The other thing I would say is joining running groups,

local sports leagues, volunteering, taking dance lessons. My friend met his wife that way. I mean, these are all great ways to meet new folks. They're not as good as having done the legwork for a move, but you're too late for that. I also, if you're running your own business, join entrepreneur groups, career groups as well, those tend to be really active.

It's a slow process, but if you put in the work, you do the follow-up and you accept the fact that you're going to have to do most of the work, especially in the beginning for new friendships, things will eventually snowball and you'll create a circle for yourself. It will likely take several months, possibly, and probably even years for this to happen. So just get ready for that. It is a longer slog, which is why it's always good to have done prep and, kept in touch with people. Because even if you didn't know, even if you're telling yourself, well, I wouldn't have

known anyone in Toronto and I'm moving from Tokyo anyway, it doesn't matter because even if you had a big local social circle, those people will know people in the place where you're going. But if you've made no effort at all ever, you're starting from zero, which is really tough. That's like moving to a different country where you don't speak the language and you know no one. It's really, really tough. So you'll be fine, but man, let this be a lesson to sort of. everybody who thinks, I'm never going to move. It doesn't matter. You know, you never know, and you've got to make sure that you're doing this stuff and creating circles. You have to.

Otherwise, you're going to end up, man, this can really just negatively impact your income and your whole professional and personal life. And it does all the time. I feel like we get this question a lot. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after these important messages. 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 jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if you're listening to this show on the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the episode. Really helps us out. Now back to the show for the conclusion

of Feedback Friday. Hi, Jordan, hope you're well. I'm a Canadian co-op student in a very competitive double degree program, where I received a B-Math in statistics and a BBA and finance simultaneously from two different schools. I'm working this co-op term in equity capital markets at a large Canadian Bank in Toronto, and I'm interested in moving into investment banking long term. I've dug my well and have lots of contacts across the quote-unquote street in Toronto, but I'm interested in moving south of the border after graduation and therefore securing a co-op placement or internship in investment banking in New York for the fall would be a big help towards that goal. The problem is that I have very few contacts in New York City and don't know how to develop them. I've been reaching out

by email from contacts I've added on LinkedIn, but it seems quite fruitless. I'm going to New York with the goal of meeting as many bankers as possible for coffees at least once in March, but because it's the weekend, many of the few I know are out of town. I'm trying to make these trips count, and I'm wondering if you have any ideas beyond what I've already tried. Thanks for your time. Future banker in need of some social capital. So this sort of is almost just like the previous question, but what I will say, aside from the advice that I just mentioned earlier, check out your university alumni connections and see who works at those banks. Reach out to those people using their college email address,

which they probably have forwarded to something that they actually check. Also, reach out to recruiters in the city. Not only are they going to potentially help you get a job or get placed, but they know people at the banks. They know people in all these different jobs. They know what it's going to take to get in. If you're reaching out to recruiters and not just people at the banks themselves, they'll be incentivized to generate relationships with you.

Recruiters are really good at starting relationships. I remember going out to lunch and dinner with tons of recruiters, even when I was happily employed, because they just figured, look, if I have a relationship with this guy over the next couple years, then in five years, when I've got to place him somewhere, he'll trust me.

And so reach out to recruiters. They're very responsive. They're essentially salesmen. So they actually know how to check their email. They know how to follow up with calls. They're going to be great people to be in touch with. They also know people that they've placed so they could potentially hook you up with those people

for informal or informational interviews because it helps them do what they want. to do, which is place you later on. And if email's not working entirely, call the company operator. So if you call Deutsche Bank and you ask for that person by name, request them, see if you can get them by phone. Keep it really brief. They're probably in the middle of something, but they'll, here's what's going to happen.

They'll answer the phone. They'll be surprised to hear from you. They'll make an excuse why they haven't seen your email, but now they know you're serious. It's not annoying if you're respectful of their time. And this is a tough field to get into. It's a tough field to work into, but of course, if you want it, you'll get it. But look, you seem like you're no stranger to hard work. You just got to go around a couple of the gatekeepers

because these are some of the busiest, most overworked people in finance. All right, next. Hey, Jordan and Jason. I've been in education for 22 years now and I'm getting so burnt out. I'm currently an elementary assistant principal, and I know that I've made a difference in the lives of the kids and families that I've served, but I'm looking at doing something outside of the school system. My friends and family say I should stay in it to get my 30 years in for retirement,

but I don't want to stay in something just to make it to retirement. Over the past few months, I've been looking for other jobs that still have ties to education, but aren't bound to school or state restrictions per se. I want to do something where I can be part of an organization that builds future leaders of tomorrow, but many of them train people to be certified coaches, and then they're supposed to go out on their own. I'm not ready for that just yet and want to be part of a brand that helps build the leaders of tomorrow now. I'm not sure if I should try to start something on my own instead. What are your thoughts on staying in a job just to make retirement, and what suggestions do you have as to where I can look to find what I need to do?

Sincerely, frustrated in Florida. Yeah, you definitely don't need to become a certified coach if you have 22 years of education experience. I've done the certified coaching thing, and I remember going, okay, that was pretty basic. If you have 22 years of experience, you don't need that. You're going to be competing against 22-year-olds who were born when you started teaching, basically. and don't know to check in with people and how to communicate things clearly and have people held accountable.

So I'm with you, I understand. I would say never, and I always say this, don't ever go all in, never quit your job until there's a solid plan, and you're doing something that is already generating revenue, and that is taking up so much of your time that you can't scale without quitting your job. That's the rule.

Don't go all in because you need to figure out, because you want to sit at home or you don't like your job, the new endeavor has to be pulling you in because it's generating so much and you love it so much, it can't be your job that you hate pushing you out.

And I think this is very relevant for you because it doesn't even sound like you know what you want to do yet. So the worst thing you should do is quit your job. What you might find is by exploring different opportunities, you feel like your current career is actually much more tolerable.

Right? So yeah, you want to do something else, but you're taking steps towards that without sacrificing the security that you have. Also, look into private universities. I don't know, you said you don't want the constraints of the state or the legislature or whatever, but private universities might have a little bit more autonomy. Also, look at leadership training companies that are more corporate.

Dale Carnegie courses have tons of teachers. It's a franchise. A lot of them work at night. So you can do that, join up something like that, see if it's for you. And you'll parlay your skill set from education. you'll get into speaking, you could go in-house at a company once you get some experience doing that, that is where I would start. Because I think a lot of people go, oh, I have this dream in my head about what this is going to be like.

And then you end up teaching people who have stage fright to go introduce themselves in front of a room at a Dale Carnegie class. And you go, actually, maybe I want to make a left turn into corporate stuff. And then you get a couple corporate gigs and you find out that it's Dale Carnegie, only people don't even want to be there because their boss is making them go. and you go, okay, maybe I want to do something else. So you've got to test the waters, and the best time to do that is when you're getting paid steadily by somebody else. Okay, last but not least. Hi, Jordan. What do you do to help make major decisions in life?

I'm struggling with the direction of my life right now, mainly whether I should stay in my current city or move, or stay here and just leave my current job. I've been living in the Washington, D.C. area for three years and have a decent job, but I'm bored with the area and really miss Florida where I used to live. I tried away the pros and cons of where I'm at now. The pros. My job is rewarding, and I'm paid well with extremely reasonable hours, much better than what I'll find in Florida. There's also no shortage of things to do in the area. Didn't she just say she was bored of the area? Yeah.

Weird. Okay. I'm saying a little indecisive there, so we're getting started. Yeah, good point. Yeah, I'm bored of the area, but there's so much going on. I just hate all of it. I'd be like, okay. All right.

The cons. I have no friends or family here in D.C., and while rewarding, my wife. work environment can be toxic. Every time I'm ready to throw in the towel and change jobs and or move, I have doubts whether I'll regret my decision. I feel like maybe I should give it more time with my job, or maybe I should make more effort in making friends here, which has been extremely hard. What advice can you give me on making the decision? Thanks, decidedly undecided. This is a common question with a common inbuilt mistake. I actually don't see the pros and cons of moving to Florida. It might seem self-explanatory.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it isn't really done. I only really see half your thinking here. I see pros and cons on DC only. And maybe I'm supposed to fill in the blanks here, but I'm willing to bet that if you sat down and you did pros and cons for Florida and you showed them to me, we'd seal a lot of idealization. You know, I'll have all my old friends back. It'll be great.

I'll see my family all the time. And yeah, Con, I won't have a job that pays as much. But, oh, it's going to be so great, I can go back to all these things. I used to do 20 years ago and it'll be the same. So on the one hand, life's too short to be miserable in a job. If you're hating life, get to building a better life someplace else, even if the pay is lower to start. But you should know what you're getting into because I think there's probably pros and cons

for Florida that you haven't fairly evaluated yet. Alternatively, you can work to the point where they can't afford to lose you and see if you can work remotely from Florida or work at another office. I don't know what you do. I don't know enough about your situation to really answer that part. But what I will say is that it sounds like you're afraid of taking a job for less money, which should only be valid if you actually need the money to accomplish something. And I know you can always find a use for money,

but getting money for money's sake is not a good idea. Otherwise, you're trading happiness and quality of life for money that you then have no plan to leverage to increase quality of life and balance out that sacrifice. So a lot of people would be like, no, I need this because, I've got these kids and they're in a great school and then I'm going to send them here and I'm going to retire at this age and I need X dollars a month to do that. Cool, I get it. But if you are just like, well, I'm making 20 grand more a year, there's no way I'd get that in Florida, then move

to Florida and just forget it. If you really have no friends in D.C., I would also examine why this might be the case. If you're moving to Florida, why would whatever it is that you're doing in D.C. to not make any friends and have no life? Why would moving to Florida change anything? Maybe you've got your old friends and family there. Are you sure they're going to be the same people they were when you left? Are you going to be interested in hanging out with them again? You got to make sure of that too. A lot of people want to move to a new city or country only to find out they just brought all their problems with them. You know? Yep. There's an old saying, wherever you go, there you are. And I had that problem. When I used to move around to different countries, I'd be like, great. When I moved to Israel,

I'm going to have an awesome girlfriend and my friends are going to be so cool and we're going to hang out all the time doing da-da-da-da and then that wouldn't happen. I moved to Mexico and I'd be like, great, okay, cool, I'm going to do this and I'm going to meet all these awesome people and then I'd be like, what's the problem here?

And then I realized, oh, I'm not doing what I need to do to create these social circles and make friends and putting in the work. And then when I finally did that, I could move anywhere and make great circles. And so, yeah, I magically, my problems were not left at baggage claim when I got off the airplane.

You know, I brought all that crap with me. Been there, done that, that's for sure. The one thing that I would say is if you are banking on your friends to still be in Florida, if like that's where you grew up, all your friends are there and you think you can just walk back in and jump back into the old circles, I would do some due diligence on that because people change over time. People have lives. They have families.

They have jobs. And people move. And it might not be the place that you thought it was. I went back to Chicago a couple years ago. And I had a ton of friends there. because I spent most of my youth there and I got back there and three people were left. That was it. Yeah.

You know, they're still really good friends. I've known them for 20 years, but they were all that was left of my entire circle from the old days. And I just assumed a bunch of people would still be there, but that's not the case. Yeah, they move or they live there and they're like, dude, I got three kids and two jobs. I'll see you at Christmas. Exactly. Yeah.

I hung out with my friend for a little while, but he's like, I got to go home to the wife. I got to go fix the, you know, the sink. And my other friend's like, yeah, I got to go to work in the morning. Can't hang out tonight. It's just, we grow up and we grow apart and things just change. So make sure that you take that change into account before you just try and plop yourself back into a situation that you used to have because you can never go back. Exactly.

It's kind of like, oh, man, I should move to Ann Arbor. Remember, we used to go out four nights a week and everybody was cool. We'd go chill and guys are just wander into our apartment and we'd have friends on and we would just chill and somebody would toss you a beer. That literally won't happen again with those same people. You would have to rebuild that very deliberately. And I shudder to think who at age 39 wants that same life, right? So, like, it's a feeling that you may be chasing, not the actual reality of that life.

And that's dangerous. Yeah, that's a very good point. You know what I'm saying, Jason? Like, Florida was so great or Chicago was so great. And it's like, you will literally go back there and nothing will be in place and you'll go, oh, crap, I'm just in a colder version of what I had in L.A. Mm-hmm. So you got to be careful. Do the pros and cons for Florida.

Do that diligence. Life pro tip. Jason, this one's from you. Yep. I've been doing this one for, oh, God, like 15, 20 years now. This is when I was from my prepper days. I was always worried about the big one because I was in California. And I'm like, oh, we're going to have a big earthquake.

So I came up with this a long time ago. And what I do is I treat the halfway point on my gas tank is empty. That's always it. Never below half a tank. because if you're like in an area like this one here it's prone to natural or manmade disasters, you're going to want to be able to get out if something does happen because people who just run out of gas

and want to hit the gas station when something, you know, when the ish hits the fan, they're going to just back up the gas stations. They're going to be stuck here and it's going to cause traffic jams and all sorts of bad things can happen. So if you treat your gas tank just as half empty is empty,

then if something does happen, you have a ton of room to get out of town and find a gas station while everybody else is still stuck back in the city. This also works too when if there's a family emergency and you have to get in the car and go somewhere, you don't want to be like, oh, my son just cut his arm and we have to get to the hospital right now. We can't wait for the ambulance. You get in the car and it's like you're on E and you have to pull over and get gas.

Yeah. It's just planning ahead to make sure that you have the resources that you need to get somewhere when that time comes. And that time may never come, but it's a good thing to do that's very easy to. to do. Yeah, literally, all it is is a shift in thinking. You don't have to invest in anything. You don't have to do anything. Yeah, you don't have to do anything. Yeah, you just literally treat that halfway mark is basically that's E. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's it. I can dig it. One from me is that I use this tool called Rebump, and it's R-E-B-U-M-P. It's for Gmail. I've been using it for close to three years, and

I have a rescue rate of 32 percent, which is pretty high. What this tool does is, you and install it, it's like five bucks a month or something like that, installs in literally a minute, and you can use it right out of the box. What it does is it follows up with people for you if they don't reply. So when I'm pitching guests and things like that, I can type in the pitch and send it, and then I click the rebump checkbox, and then if they don't reply, it's like, hey, circling back on this, hey, thought I'd follow up on this, and I only do a couple because otherwise it's annoying and it's really really useful for getting a hold of busy people and it comes

it does come with some pre-can templates which i started using i later tailored to myself five bucks a month for the unlimited plan 12 bucks a month for the unlimited plus plan which comes with some metrics and things like that so it's super super affordable you can specify the delay between each one the time that it sends it'll remind people up to 10 times it'll track if the email was open and read you can personalize it. You can create unlimited different types of bumps so you can have different types of follow-ups for each one. And it really integrates easily with CRMs and things like that. I just, I love it. It's for Gmail. And one thing that's great is it's got this dashboard. You can monitor everything that's out. And I know that Gmail has a snooze feature. Rebump does the actual follow-up

for you automatically. That's the big difference here. And I really love this thing. I think it's super useful. And you can go and find that at rebump.com. Rebump.C. We'll link that in the show notes as well. Okay, recommendation of the week. Jason, have you seen abducted in plain sight? I watched it yesterday. Oh, my God. First of all, I started to quickly lose sympathy for those people. I mean, not the girl, obviously. Her parents were just, I wanted to punch my iPad. We all did. We all did. Yeah, there's more articles on how terrible the parents are in this entire story than I think anything else so far. Oh, God. It's just unbelievable. And then, no.

20 minutes in, I won't spoil it. But Jason, when you heard that, did you hit, I hit rewind and I was like, wait, hold on, I must have misunderstood what happened here. And then I was like, nope, nope, I got it. I understood. My roommate and I paused it and just started screaming at each other, like, what? I know. And for like five minutes, we're like, no, no, no, no way.

Can't be. Yep, sure enough. Yeah. It was just like, wow. This story gets crazier and crazier every minute, and it doesn't get any non-crazier. No, I know. So this girl, this little girl, she was abducted twice by a friend of the family, kind of like with the parents' permission in a weird way. I don't want to, I can't get away too much.

It is just, it's a true crime documentary. This neighbor who's a pet of, I mean, it's just, it's so crazy this guy. And he's a manipulator, but also these people are just like the most ridiculous target. Just absolutely unreal. So that's on Netflix. I was watching this, Jason. I downloaded it on my iPad, you know, so that I could watch it on the plane. Mm-hmm.

And when I got to that part, I started laughing in this really uncomfortable way that people in the plane were kind of like, I felt like maybe people were looking at me. You don't know how loud you are with noise-canceling headphones on. So then I pause it. I go to the bathroom and I just lose it a little bit. And I'm like washing my face because I'm like, wait, wait, wait. I go back and sit down. And I'm giggling, and the guy next to me is like, oh, what do you want?

Like thinking I'm watching some sort of comedic thing. And I was like, he goes, what are you watching? I go, abducted in plain sight. And he gave me this look like, that's not creepy right now. But I'm just like giggling in the chair and being like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, oh, yeah, it's pretty harrowing. You know, I'm just like, oh, God, I'm a terrible person. Abducted in plain sight on Netflix.

We all had the same reaction. It was just like, oh, my God. As soon as I got off the plane, I texted Jen, I was like, you got to watch this. and also let me know what you think about 20 minutes in, and she was like, why, what happens? I was like, just trust me, watch it. She texts me later, she's like, 21 minutes or whatever it was,

you know, 19 minutes and 40 seconds. What? And I was like, yeah. She watched it with my brother-in-law Glenn. She's like, we just rewound it, and we were like, wait, wait, hold on. Did I understand that correctly? See if you do a double take

with abducted in plain sight. 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 to get your questions answered on the air. We always keep you anonymous. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. All the links will be in there that we talked about today. Quick shout out to Taylor Moser for sending us all these hippies. It's like hip peas. And we're not sponsored by them, but they're tasty puffs made from chickpeas.

My favorite flavor is the white cheddar. And Rick, who wrote in, loved the feedback Friday, especially talking about the addiction. His 27-year-old son battled opioid addiction since high school. And what's really a bummer, James, remember we were talking about how people with drug addiction sort of freeze? He was 16, he had a ton of advantages, way ahead of the game. Now he's 27, and he's kind of, like, still in his late teens. It's really tough. He lost 11 years.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry to hear about that. Rick, thanks for listening as well. It is rough. You freeze emotionally and mentally in many ways. when you start doing too many drugs. It's just one of those things. I'm not totally sure how it works,

but I think you just miss out so much on life experience that you don't develop as quickly. So go and check out the Mike Posner and Nathan Latka episodes if you haven't yet. And if you want to know how we managed to book all these amazing guests and manage relationships using systems, tiny habits, consistency in just a few minutes per day,

check out six-minute networking. It's a free course. It's over at Jordan Harbinger. slash course. That course replaces the old level one course and has a bunch of upgraded drills, tech, and systems in there. Again, I've left advanced human dynamics. I no longer do level one at all or AHD at all. And the problem is, look, don't kick the can down the road. I know a lot of you are thinking, I'll do it later. You need those relationships. You're going to be too late. If you don't believe me, just think of those questions. People asked today here on Feedback Friday. The

drills are designed to take a few minutes per day. Just you ignore these types of things at your own peril. It really is the stuff I wish I knew 20 years ago. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm 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 all of the video interviews are on YouTube. Jason, where can they find you? My personal website's over at jpd.me, and that has links to all my socials and other stuff that I'm doing. And you can also check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks over at gog.com or your podcast player of choice. This show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger.

Show notes for the episode are by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Share the show with those you love and those you don't. Lots more in the pipe. Very excited. Got some great people coming up as guests as well. 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.

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