The Jordan Harbinger Show - 197: How to Stop Fearing Entrepreneurial Risks | Feedback Friday
Episode Date: May 10, 2019Many people don't pursue their true creative, entrepreneurial, career interests because it feels too risky. Vadim and Sergei Revzin from The Mentors Podcast join us to talk about how you can ...intelligently evaluate that risk and confidently make progress on your plans armed with the best information available. And in case you didn't already know it, 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 friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in! Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/197. 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 friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now, let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Have you told someone lately how much they mean to you? Don't wait too long to regret it -- tell them today. You're clinging to a marriage that seems, by all indications, on its way out. How do you overcome the feelings of isolation and loneliness? A recent windfall gives you the chance to take a sabbatical from work and get your health back on track. But how hard will it be to return to the workforce? Vadim and Sergei Revzin from The Mentors Podcast join us to talk about why many people don't take the risk to pursue their creative entrepreneurial interests -- and how you can get better at evaluating that risk. Your immediate boss attempts to stunt your rise in the company behind closed doors, but gives you rave reviews to your face. What's your best move here? Networking can be difficult for people with Asperger's Syndrome. How do you dig the well you need when you're not thirsty but you know you need water? You don't like sharing on social media, but you suspect there's no way around it if you want to successfully market the book you're publishing. Do you have options? What's the best way to turn down a job you've already accepted without tactlessly burning a bridge in the process? Learn how Jordan organizes his network by using Contactually. Recommendations of the Week: Chernobyl on HBO and Animals Rule Chernobyl Three Decades After Nuclear Disaster by John Wendle, National Geographic Quick shoutout to Christine from the nail spa! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com! Connect... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo.
Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests.
And this week, we had Leon Logothetus, who's making his way around the world without any money and relying only on the kindness of strangers.
And Moby was on the show, talking about his meteoric rise to the top of the music industry just when he thought his career had basically come to an end.
That was one of my favorite interviews recently. And not because I'm a huge Moby music fan, really.
I mean, I am, such was, but really his honesty was crazy.
He really didn't try to make himself look good in the book and was very candid on the interview.
Jason, he was just kind of like, yeah, try taking like a lonely, only child with an anxiety disorder,
give them a ton of money and a ton of fame, like a perverse social experiment, and then just watch everything go wrong.
And he's like, that's my life.
And I just thought, wow.
What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah.
And he had great observations.
You know, one of the clips we took that I think we threw on onto YouTube was him saying,
he's sitting there at dinner with like the Dalai Lama and Elon Musk and Bill Clinton and he's like,
crap, I'm still myself.
I still have anxiety and feel like crap and don't like myself.
And it was just like, wow.
Because I think for a lot of us, if we're really candid with ourselves, we harbor that
secret fantasy too, though.
If we just had these certain accoutrements are trying.
trappings, we would be better off.
And for most of us, it's money.
Like, oh, if I had as much money as so-and-so, like, you know, and he got this lucky break,
you know, I would live in this awesome spot and I wouldn't even worry about any of this
stuff.
But, you know, it's easy to just think that that's going to be you when then you're just
going, crap, all my problems are still the same.
I just have nicer clothes.
Yep, that's true.
You know, wherever you go, there you are.
That's exactly what I wanted to name the clip.
And Jim was like, that's not catchy enough.
So that's not the name of the clip.
Okay.
Anyway, I also write every so often on the blog,
the latest post is how to find a mentor and make the most of the relationship.
Now, I know what you're thinking, yuck mentors, buzzword, that's exactly why I wrote it.
So many people are asking me about mentors and mentorship these days.
So I wanted to get some quality information out there in a sea of just BS crafted by people
selling masterminds and other empty promises about making money or finding mentors or blah, blah, blah.
It's kind of a buzzword that people are using a market now.
So I wanted to pop that bubble and also show you how to get real mentorship from people around you.
So make sure you've had a look at that article.
It's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles.
And of course, listen to the shows from this week and let me know what you think.
Our primary mission is always to pass a long insight to you.
And on Friday, we take your questions and answer them directly,
so to going through the intermediary of an interviewee or guest.
And you can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com.
Try to keep them concise if you can.
I mean, you don't have to make them two lines, but sometimes we open up a three-page email,
and I'm like, just put a star next to that and come back to it in five years when we have an intern.
So concise, good.
Long, not as good.
Not bad.
It's not as good.
I was at a bachelor party in Vegas this weekend with old friends from my old law firm, and it's funny to see where everyone is.
But during the party, the best man, actually, he had to leave suddenly and fly home because his nine-year-old daughter's friend had passed away suddenly because of a brain.
aneurism and so the weekend was this was at the end of the weekend so the weekend was this
really sort of interesting maybe a little bit too whole reminder of how friends and relationships
are really what does matter in our lives and how we need to make the best of the time we have here
and the people we have it with and it made for an interesting night jason because it was like
we're all having fun growing out like oh it's so good to see these old friends oh it's so good to meet
all these new best friends of my friend and his brother-in-law or future brother-in-law,
like just really cool people.
And then you have this crazy experience happen to one of the guys' kids' friends, but
you know, to a child and you just go, okay.
So not only is this a good time, but we should treasure it probably even more than we are.
It was just a really interesting realization that hit us all kind of hard, especially
the guys with kids.
Yeah, that's a tough reminder, especially with kids.
Yeah, like the guy, it hit us all hard, you know, because we're like at a freaking at a table at a club, you know, like, basically.
And or like a cabana type situation.
And then it was like, oh, and just seeing this, our friend who went to go see his daughter wanted to fly home immediately so that he was there when she woke up, it was tough.
And then the guys who had had kids were like really upset because I think at some point when you have kids and I'll confirm this in a few months, you feel a little bit more empathetic like, oh my gosh, those poor parents.
where of course I was thinking that, but I don't feel it, right?
Because I don't have any kids yet.
So anyway, so right now, I would say right now,
grab your phone, text someone who you haven't seen or spoken to in a couple months
or even a couple years, and just let them know that they popped into your head
and you thought you'd say hello.
And this is one of the first drills in six-minute networking,
which is our free course online.
And I think we should all just go ahead and do this one right now
and tighten that bond a little because for a few of us,
it might actually be our last chance.
statistically if everyone who's listening to this show right now does this, there's going to be a
handful of people who that's the last time they ever get to talk to that person. So just think about
that. All right. On that cheery note, let's dive into the show. We've got some dozes as usual, Jason.
Yes, we do. Hi, guys. My wife and I have been together as a couple for eight years and married for
three and a half. I recently found out that she cheated on me with a former work colleague.
The two of them used to flirt before we were married. They went out for
drinks together a few times, which she never told me about and they only found out by accident.
Over the past year, my wife and I had issues communicating and we became distant from each other.
Our sex life suffered a lot because neither of us knew how to talk about it.
In February, she traveled to see this guy under the pretext of visiting a friend of ours in the
same city. She did see the friend, but she spent much of the time with the other man.
She tells me her friend didn't approve of what she was doing, but maybe she only said that to make
me feel better somehow. I got suspicious after she returned and her behavior and mood changed. I finally
challenged her about what happened and she admitted she cheated. She told me it was a mistake that she
regrets, but I've heard that line before. She told me she stopped talking to him, but I know that
isn't true. The reason I know this and other details is that I found them in her calendar after I became
suspicious of Facebook messaging she was hiding from me. I think the thrill of cheating turns her on.
She's gotten into reading erotic in books that revolve around adultery.
I get the impression that she wants to live a life from one of these books and not reality.
I'm open to try things or role-playing, just not with other people.
She tells me she loves me and I think in a way she does,
but she clearly doesn't respect me and I don't know if she's in love with me anymore.
I think she wants the love, support, and stability of her relationship with fun, casual sex on the side.
I've heard of fixing the damage of cheating by thinking of starting a new relationship
with your spouse. While she is receptive to that, I fear she just wants me to become the quiet
schmuck husband while she continues sleeping with other men. If we can save the relationship we
once had, I'll do anything to do so. I am pushing to go to couples counseling, but money is tight,
and honestly, I don't know how to look for a therapist. I did just look up better help,
and we'll see if that can work. Finally, part of the problem for me is I suddenly feel completely
alone and isolated. I have very few friends and have only talked to one of them about this.
She said she was in my corner for whatever support I need.
The more I think about everything, the more I think my life is over.
And of course, that my wife will go on just fine without me.
I worry that in desperation, I will cling to a marriage that should just end.
I want to know how to handle this and how I can think clearly enough about it to make good decisions.
Sincerely, too effed up to think of a funny name.
First things first, you definitely need therapy.
and there are too many variables here to like really attack all of them in one quick answer here.
You can start by going to a therapist locally or use BetterHelp.
BetterHelp.com slash Jordan.
We have a discount there.
That's a company that's really easy and affordable.
I know you said that money's tight.
And always the logistics of getting to a therapist's office are a pain.
So betterhelp.com slash Jordan will help you do it like essentially on your phone slash online.
Now look, you've thought about this a lot clearly about what happens.
about her intentions, I'm inclined to think that you're right.
And it sounds like your marriage was a little bit influx or unstable before.
And then with the travel, which by the way, I'm guessing was mostly her idea.
It sounds like she has become or was and always has been potentially an escapist.
Because people who chase things like the feeling they get from cheating or the feeling
they get from going out and finding someone new and they don't want to work a regular job,
they just want to travel around.
that's there's something that they're running from usually some kind of pain right so there's nothing
wrong with a little escapism as a hobby but this is not good when you shift your entire life to that and then
you can't adjust to reality again the other issue here is that this wasn't some random one-off
where someone drank too much and made out with somebody and oh oops it was there that's bad
because there's something else wrong here but this was a planned trist and had this had roots that were
planted probably before you were even married consciously or not you know the other guy was conscious
and she's not dumb so i have a hard time believing that this just happened she wasn't there to visit
her friend she planned this whole thing i won't speculate whether this was the first time she's been
with this guy or anything but it really doesn't even matter anyway this was not an impulsive decision
it was a plan that could easily repeat itself except she won't get caught next time or the next few times
or whatever. So if you're getting the feeling that she's just trying to make peace with you
so that you'll turn a blind eye, then you're probably right. I'm going to give you that one,
because most people rationalize things the other way. And people who are remorseful about this
sort of thing take big steps to rectify the situation, including coming clean about everything,
right? If she was really like, oh, no, I can't believe it. I got to fix all this. She'd be like,
you'd say, okay, what are your, show me your Facebook messages or whatever. And she'd be like,
all right, here's everything, and you'd talk everything out.
But that's not what happened here.
Instead, she got caught, and now she's hiding the details from you.
You can't see her Facebook messages?
I mean, what's in there?
A bunch of truth, that's why.
That's what's in there.
And if she's doing that, there's more to the story.
So I would not only get a therapist in this situation, I'd get a lawyer.
I would do so quietly at first, and I would grab as much evidence as you can of her infidelity.
So talk to your attorney.
find out what you're able to do legally,
because it's going to depend state to state, whatever.
And then with your lawyer's blessing,
grab all of the Facebook messages, text, calendar entries, et cetera.
And again, only if legal,
record some of the conversations with her,
maybe with the friend that was covering for her on the phone.
Record those conversations with her about what happened.
And this way, if you do end up getting divorced,
you may have some different rights to things like property
since she was unfaithful.
Because what you don't want to do is be like,
you know what, I'm getting a divorce,
and she's like, hey, I never cheated.
I never did anything.
You don't have any proof.
And you're like, well, you admitted it
and you talked about it.
And your friend said, and then it's like, okay,
well, are you going to get her friend in the court
and testify on this?
That's not happening.
Oh, okay, so now it's your word against hers.
So if you gather a bunch of stuff,
you might never need to use it.
But if she suddenly starts saying,
you know what, I'm going to rake you over the coals
because you live in California or whatever,
then you can say, okay,
I have all of your messages
and I'm going to prove that you're lying
about all of this.
or we can settle reasonably and we can go our separate ways.
Trust me, one hand of cards is much better to have than the other,
but you got to make sure that you collect it legally.
What you don't want is for her to sue you for, you know, eavesdropping or wiretapping
or invasion of privacy or something like that and then call the prosecutor
because you were hacking on her computer.
You don't want to deal with that.
You want to make sure you're getting stuff as legit as you can.
Or at least stay in the firmly in the gray area and white space and not across the line.
As always, I'm a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer on this one.
And this stuff always changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
So make sure whoever you talk to knows what they're talking about in your particular area.
So I'm really sorry to hear this has happened to you, but in the end, pulling the trigger on this relationship, cutting off this kind of relationship, that hurts now, but it's going to save you a lot more time, money, and heartache and headache in the future.
Let me tell you that.
You know, building a life with somebody who's doing this is worse than just getting out of one early enough.
I know it's not super early, but trust me, you're going to be really glad you did this now in about two years.
Something tells me this was not a one-off.
Given everything else you've told me, it's likely to happen again, as long as you put up with it via your own inaction or otherwise.
So be strong and step up on this one, man.
We got your back, brother.
Dear Jordan, Jason and Jen, I hope this finds you all well, particularly Jen.
Congratulations on the baby.
Recently, I inherited quite a bit of money, about $600,000 now and half of an industrial building that's assessed at $1 million, which could be sold and split with my sister in the future.
My wife and I have minimal debt, about $130,000 in mortgage and $15,000 in a car loan.
My wife's job is very stable, and she's been with her company for 13 years, and she loves her job.
I've worked at my job for two years, but my job is processing work, and there isn't any upward movement.
With his inheritance, I'd like to step away from the workforce for two to three years and direct my focus on my health and kids.
My kids are two and seven.
My two-year-old would stay in daycare, but we could cut the before-and-after-school care for my oldest since he'd be home.
I'm 36 years old, 5'10 and weigh 380 pounds, and I'm also on two high blood pressure meds,
and I have a family history of diabetes, sleep apnea, and kidney disease.
I see my oldest son starting to head down the same path I had at his age with eating habits
and minimal exercise.
Paying off our debts would offset half of my income and the inheritance would be more than
enough to supplement our lost income for two to three years of not working.
I'd like to join a gym and spend two to three hours a day working out and the rest of my time doing all our other household chores and cooking healthier meals.
We wouldn't have to cram chores and errands into our nights and weekends.
This would free up more weekend time and do more family activities, promote a healthier lifestyle,
and save my wife's paid time off to take a vacation.
I even sat down with my doctor to go over our schedule and she can't find more than 15 minutes of time in my day to get exercise and she recommends I get 90 minutes.
When I presented my thoughts about this to my wife, she was not on board and cited the loss of income and fringe benefits my job provides,
which is mostly $5,000 withheld pre-tax for daycare flex spending.
Her work doesn't provide flex spending.
In my retort is that there are plenty of funds in the inheritance to cover the cost.
Regardless, she also cited that she would like to save as much of the inheritance to use for our own retirement, and I agree.
I'm not proposing this to be a permanent arrangement.
I think she is secretly jealous of me being the one to do this and not her.
However, I'm the one who struggled with weight my entire life, and she doesn't have weight issues.
I think I haven't been considered for jobs and promotions in the past due to my weight.
I understand my wife's concerns, but I don't think she understands the long-term benefits of making this decision to get my health back on track.
I want to be the example my kids can look up to.
Short-term, if I did this and it doesn't work how I'm planning, I could start a job search sooner.
than expected. Long term, my concern would be how to go about re-entering the workforce in a few years.
I know moms do this all the time once their kids become school-aged, but I live in an area in
West Des Moines, Iowa that has a lot of young professionals. I'd be competing with 25 to 30-year-olds
that wouldn't demand the same salary as me as they would be early in their careers versus a 40-year-old
guy who hasn't worked for a few years. Most employers would look right past me. Please help me
weigh my options. Thanks for your advice and input. Signed, possible future stay-at-home dad.
There's a lot to consider here, but I think that they're all actually trumped by one major overarching
issue here, which is your health. Your health is the one thing that's going to be more and more
difficult to fix as you get older. It's much easier to maintain good health once you have it,
and right now you lack time, you have no structure to get and stay healthy. And even worse, is that your
kids are likely to follow your example and become obese at a young age, making their lives harder
and unfortunately also a lot shorter. And that is not good. I think you should talk to your wife about
this and open up about the idea. I'm sure you've already spoken with her about this, but I think you
should open up about the idea that you won't need retirement funds when you die 20 years too early.
Because candidly, you're easily 200 pounds overweight. You're younger than I am. You're the same height.
you're 220 pounds heavier than me or 215 pounds heavier than me.
Think about that.
That is a, that is an, if there were a, if there were two of me at my current weight,
you would be heavier than both of us.
It literally be if you and I melded into one person, because I'm six feet tall and 220 pounds.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's.
Scary thought.
It's scary.
Yeah, because you and I are not thin, Jason.
No.
By any measure.
No, I'm already overweight and worried about my health.
And to add on another, oh my gosh.
To add a Jordan.
To add a Jordan would be catastrophic.
There's only one.
There can be only one, yes.
If you've ever seen me on YouTube, I'm not overweight, but I am not thin, skinny.
I'm built like a normal, I'm even built a little bit more robustly, but I'm not,
I'm not overweight, but I weigh what I weigh now.
I wait in high school.
So you don't want to be 220 pounds heavier than this.
You know, this is, that's dangerous.
So not only are you harming your own body, but your children are following suit.
And so is your wife.
I know that you say she doesn't have weight issues, but there are multiple studies now that
show network effects of things like weight gain, smoking, bad habits.
She might not be overweight, but I can guarantee you that her health and the health of your
kids is suffering because of the way that you're treating your body.
So to be clear, I just want to be really clear.
I'm not trying to shame you.
I'm actually giving you the ammo you need to have a conversation with your wife on this.
If she pushes back, she doesn't want to budge.
And I'm not sure that's what you'd indicated here.
But if she's really digging in her heels, I highly suggest seeing a therapist about this a few times, alone, yourself, prep for the conversation, then bring your wife to therapy and have the conversation with a therapist in the room.
And the therapist might have a different strategy, but it's probably going to be this one.
and yes, you might have some trouble later on getting back into the corporate arena,
but then again, you might just be fine, especially as you've got experience.
Further, even if you can't get back into the workforce right away, or you have to start lower
on the ladder than you'd like, at least you'll survive.
And that's more than I can say for what's likely to happen if you don't start taking care
of your body.
It also sounds like he hated his job, which kind of we cut out for brevity, and he's hit
the ceiling with the current job that he has.
But while he's taken his sabbatical, there's no.
nothing to stop him from learning a new field with like home study or taking online courses.
And that way when he goes back, he can reenter the workforce with at least the hope of a better
career than jumping right back into a job that made him miserable that he'd be stuck in and
probably make him put more weight back on.
You know, that's a good point.
The weight thing probably has other environmental factors like stress and depression at the job.
Absolutely.
And you're right.
If he's got that time off, yes, he'll be taking care of kids.
Yes, he'll be working out.
But no, you know, who's to say you can't spend an hour or two per day getting certified in Microsoft, I don't know, accounting software, whatever it is that you're doing that you're interested in or something brand new.
You can earn a college degree at home in that amount of time if you need it to.
Easily.
Probably an associate's degree.
But, yeah, you could do it all online.
Or you could get certified for a trade, which is probably more useful.
Or he could get, like, training on the job that he previously had, take that experience that he had.
figure out what the next level is and maybe get a certificate in that.
There are so many online courses right now.
You can get certified in just about anything,
or at least he can keep up with the state of the industry.
So when he comes back, he's still knowledgeable about what's going on,
and then he can jump past that glass ceiling that he'd hit and go from there.
Because, you know, if he's going to be at the gym a lot,
that's a lot of time to listen to audiobooks and do online learning,
just listening to things or take your iPad while you're on the treadmill and take classes.
You could point.
I hadn't thought about that.
Yeah, using the time to grow is going to be a good antidote to trying to figure out how to cold reenter the workforce.
You could say, yes, I took some time off because I wanted to study such and such subject, take care of my kids, and I lost 200 pounds.
People would be like, okay, so you weren't just sitting around watching reruns of the A team.
Right.
Right.
You were getting after it and you were taking care of kids.
Like that shows a different path and incurs a different amount of cred than somebody who just says,
well, you know, I left because I really didn't like my career and I did some time to figure
things out.
Or, yeah, I took time off to be with my kids.
It's like, okay, I guess that makes sense.
But if you have done all of these other things and achieved all these other things,
it might even be, I won't say it's better than work experience, but it could be definitely
quite different and possibly better than additional.
experience in your current job where you said there's no upward mobility.
It's also good ammunition for the conversation that he has with his wife saying that, look,
while we're doing this time off, I'll be able to go back and make more money when I go back
instead of being stuck in the job where I've hit this ceiling and my salary is going to be
capped.
It's like if I can take this time, take care of the kids, take care of myself, I'm going to
be here longer, which means I'm going to have more years to live, which means I'm going to make
even more money because I'll be able to get a better job when I come back.
This is Feedback Friday.
We'll be right back after this.
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Now let's hear some more of your question.
here on Feedback Friday.
Next up, I've got a guest slot with my friends Vatim and Sergei Resvin.
They run a show called The Mentors.
And they've got a pretty good insight on why many people don't pursue their true creative,
entrepreneurial, or career interests because it feels too risky.
And we want to talk about things like financial obligations, sunk cost fallacy, golden handcuffs.
These guys are pretty sharp and they outline this whole thing.
And we'll link to their podcast in the show notes, of course, as well.
So the first thing that doesn't really come natural for people is actually being good at evaluating risk. And so you have to practice it to get good at it almost like anything else, right? We equate anytime there's any kind of uncertainty. We've evolved to automatically assign a high level of risk to that. And so most people just act on whatever they automatically assign in their brains. If something feels risky, they make decisions based on that. And that's why oftentimes people,
don't pursue, let's say, a new job or a creative endeavor or a startup business that they want to
think about. And so the first step to getting better at evaluating risk is understanding that there's a
difference between real and perceived risk. Real risk is something that can actually cause
substantial harm to you personally or your family or your financial well-being. And perceived risk
is something that typically doesn't actually result in one of those big negative effects. And remember,
this is actually pretty natural. Stephen Pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art, and he's a famous author, and he's written screenplays and the like, but he didn't actually attain the level of success that he was striving towards until he was about 40. And his whole book, The War of Art, talks about how there's sort of our lizard brain or whatever you want to call it that tells us to not do something because of risk of failure. And so it's actually pretty natural to not want to pursue your creative interests or not want to do something just because your brain is telling you this. And
And so what we're trying to say is you have to have some awareness at first to make that
change.
Now, some of these potential risks could include, let's say, financial obligations that you
might have, like student loans, the sunk cost fallacy.
So let's see you invest a lot of time into your career, but then you realize you don't
like it at all and you want to change it.
You might think, like, well, I already have invested too much time into this and I shouldn't.
Golden handcuffs, right?
So you're getting paid too much at your job and switching career might feel like too
risky since you're going to lose some of that potential income opportunity. But if you're miserable in
whatever that you're doing, it actually serves you to pursue that creative interest, whether it's
on entrepreneurial or a new career path, because overall it's going to have a net positive
effect on your life. So the way to start, at least getting better at evaluating risk, is anytime
you feel something is risky, whether it's a social interacting or interaction that you have
or something that you want to pursue, just stop yourself and start thinking about, okay, what
is the worst-case scenario of a go or no-go action and what is the best-case scenario, the true
worst-case and true best-case scenario? And just the process of thinking about it and writing it down,
over time you actually get better at recognizing what is true and what is not. And so what is
actually one actionable way to remove even perceived risk for yourself? Well, for me of a
deem, that process seems easy. Whether it's a business or a job, like we said, we think it starts
with making yourself marketable in that thing, right?
Even if you don't necessarily have work experience in a certain job,
or even if you don't necessarily have experience in starting a specific kind of company
or working in a specific kind of industry,
you can still work on ways to make yourself marketable in that field.
So, Vadim, you actually have a good story of how you got into sales
without ever having any sales experience.
Yeah, I was in finance and it paid pretty well, but I hated my life.
And I was fortunate enough to have a cousin that was starting a company.
He got a little bit of funding, certainly didn't have enough money to pay me.
And I wanted to get into tech.
And for me, there are two ways to get to tech.
You're either building the product or you're selling it.
And so I figured sales experience is something that's relatively easy for me to get.
Since I was young and since I had some free time, I volunteered to go into his office after work three times a week and just practice doing cold calls while his VP of sales listened in on the calls and gave me feedback.
I was doing this completely for free.
To be honest, I didn't close any deals.
But that experience alone actually ended up landing me an offer from an established tech company
that put me through a rigorous sales training program.
And within 10 months, I quit that job and got a lead sales role at a tech startup that was going
through an accelerator.
So really completely shifted my career in 10 months because I was willing to do the free work.
If you want to acquire new skills, you have to be willing to do that.
So you basically auditioned for a job by going, hey, look, I know I'm not going to be good
at this right now, but I want to learn it.
and then they're thinking maybe not,
but maybe they need that,
and they're thinking, all right, good opportunity.
So when you combine those two things
and you actually end up good at it,
in worst case, I think a lot of people are going,
oh, well, they're exploiting you.
They're getting free work.
Well, not really because you didn't close anything,
but theoretically, you could audition for that
and find out you're not good at it.
Or you could audition for that
and find out you are good at it.
And of course, you're not going to go work
somewhere else.
They just trained you.
Exactly.
So many people think, you know what,
I want to quit my job so I can focus
on my business full time,
or I want to quit this particular career path so that I can pursue a different one.
But you can actually, first of all, find out whether you like it or not on someone else's dime or through that free experience.
You might as well try that.
And you know what?
Actually, in that 10-month process, when I got a job at that established tech startup that was paying me to learn how to sell, I realized I didn't actually love sales.
But I was pretty good at the demoing and the technical part.
And so I ended up transitioning to sales engineering and eventually product management through that process.
but I would never have known if I didn't take that quote unquote risk and actually try something new.
Perfect example as well as we had we put up a job posting at a couple of universities a couple weeks ago for a social media marketing intern.
And we got a ton of applications because people are excited about podcasts, right?
So out of those applications, I can tell you that maybe out of the 40 or 50 people that applied,
only two or three actually had the word social media marketing in their resume.
And out of those, one person had built out her own social media following.
So with every single person that applied that looked at all interesting, I immediately went on their Instagram to see how many followers do they have.
And this woman had 30,000 followers.
And so it didn't matter to me that she never did it for any other company.
It didn't matter to me that she didn't have a bunch of marketing jobs on her resume.
What mattered most is that she built up her own brand for herself.
And that's already convincing enough for me that she could probably do the job, even though she probably didn't get paid for it very much.
So you don't have to quit your job. You don't have to tell your spouse or your family that you're going into this completely unknown realm that will seem risky to them and probably to you as well. There's a lot you can do on your free time to be able to accomplish that. Look, I know, we're all busy. You might have a family. But if it is something that you think is going to ultimately bring you more fulfillment, you do have to make the time and reprioritize things as well. There's always the weekends. For example, if you're interested in startups, there used to be this popular thing called startup weekend where you literally just separate yourself from, you
your normal environment and go into a weekend and hack away at a product over the whole weekend.
And a lot of companies start that way because you're able to find teams that way as well.
Your only risk is, you know, maybe you won't get to relax that weekend, but you'll actually
grow substantially in your career as well. And also, in order to de-risk it for, again,
your family and friends and other people that might not be initially supportive, the best way
to get them on board is to actually show them some traction that you have. So if it's a new career
that you're trying to pursue, maybe you start building a network around that, then you start
actually getting some interesting people that are supporting you as well, that will then lead to
interviews, that will then lead to potential job offers, that again, is positive signaling for
people that love you. Maybe you're trying to pursue a new business will start actually pre-selling
it before you have a product. Maybe you can even get some little initial revenue beforehand,
and again, that's some positive signaling for people that initially may have doubted you.
Yeah, this is great. So learn the difference between real and pursuing.
risk knowing that rejection is not really a real sort of failure.
And real objections or real risk like financial obligations for student loans versus sunk
cost fallacy, golden handcuffs and an unsupported family that maybe just doesn't want to
see you fail or people around you that don't want to see you fail and are telling you that
you can't or shouldn't do it.
And also then of course trying to acquire new skills before you try to go all in or jump
into a new career by either getting more responsible.
at work or seeing if you can just sort of audition for another job. Yeah, that's pretty good advice.
And I think does this sort of sunk cost or perceived risk sunk cost golden handcuffs and real
things like loans do often keep people from diving in. But so do almost fake objections like
your mom telling you not to do it because it's too risky or the idea that you don't know what
you're doing. Yeah, exactly. It just takes a little bit of shift in your own thinking and kind of going
against your natural state of mind and quite frankly the state of mind of other folks as well.
And I think I'll close with this in the example that you just mentioned, Jordan, your mom.
Your mom loves you and hopefully she wants the best for you, right?
But she is, her brain automatically goes into protective mode because you're her child.
And so she's always trying to minimize risk.
She's not thinking about whether it's real or perceived.
So there's certain things that you should definitely go to your mom for, but you have to
ask the right people for advice when you're trying to evaluate risk sometimes.
So if you want to start a business, talk to other entrepreneurs.
If you want to get into sales, talk to other salespeople.
Sure, you want to get varied opinions, but make sure you're getting the advice to properly measure that risk from the appropriate people that are relevant.
Guys, thank you very much.
Thanks, Jordan.
Thank you.
So thanks to Vadim and Sergey Resvin for this and their podcast as the mentors.
We'll link to that in the show notes.
We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after this.
Thanks for listening and supporting the show.
Your support of our advertisers keeps us on.
on the air and keeps us going and keeps food in our little baby's mouth. So we appreciate it.
To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com
slash deals. And now back to the show for the conclusion of your questions here on Feedback Friday.
Jason, what's next? Triple J, hello. First off, thank you so much for featuring Mimi
icon on your show. I learned how to curl my hair years ago from her YouTube tutorials and my hair
has never looked better. See, we focus on what's important here on the Jordan Harbinger show.
Well, that episode did have a couple of mixed reviews.
A lot of people loved it.
A lot of people hated it.
I like Mimi and her husband, Alex,
and I'm always biased when I have friends on the show.
So I thought I'd go a little outside my comfort zone.
So I feel you.
I'm glad that you liked that episode.
I'm glad that you liked me and me.
They are really good people.
About three months ago, I took a part-time freelance gig.
Very quickly, the parent company took notice of me and other departments have approached me about a bigger role
and have already used me for several high-profile opportunities.
My immediate boss, who was also new to the company,
has been trying to stop my rise.
I've heard from others that he's gone out of his way
to keep me out of the loop,
disinvite me from things, etc.
To my face, he gives me rave reviews.
I'm going to have to work with him in some capacity
due to the nature of my work,
but ideally I want to work in a more cross-functional role
with other departments away from his clutches.
What do I do?
Do I talk to my boss honestly,
or should I get other execs to go to bat for me?
Thanks. My boss is blocking my shine.
So first things first,
take a second to appreciate why your boss is acting this way. They're threatened, maybe they're
insecure, you're doing a really good job, that's enough to make them knock back a little bit. I mean,
these are good signs. So take a second and appreciate why this is happening. It's not because they
think you're a horrible person or something like that. I mean, it's pretty natural. But what I would do
to solve this is connect with them. It's easy to go head-to-head and just go nuclear and turn against
your boss overtly or even subconsciously with somebody,
when someone's undermining you,
the first thing a lot of us go to is,
well, I'm going to screw this person over.
How dare they?
But I think this might, it's possible.
It's a little innocuous.
At least be the person who tried to make it right
by connecting with them,
finding out how you can be more of service.
And I know that that sounds a little vague,
but we could use some more details.
But look, if they're a total incompetent dickhead,
at least be a diplomat.
You could say something like, I heard there's a sales report, and it would have been really useful for me to have that.
I know the team got it, but I didn't get it.
Is there a reason that I didn't get it?
Instead of being super patronizing or accusatory, you can really go in on sort of a fact-finding mission.
When you frame things in this way before accusing someone, it's good because this is a safe way to bring it up.
You're not just going in guns blazing.
You're not just pointing a finger and putting someone on the defense.
Either way, you get an answer to your question without being a jerk.
you know your boss might say oh I'm so sorry here it is I need to be better about that it could come across innocuous it could actually be an accident or it could be oh I said it to you oh yeah no I know oh oops I guess I forgot and then you're okay I'm getting a sense they're not telling me the truth here and then it happens again and again then you know it's sabotage framing things before you accuse someone's always safer also I would document this stuff type this up in Google Docs whenever it happens I didn't get them invite to the meeting then got
got an email from the boss later accusing me
of not coming to the meeting
and swearing that she invited me
and not attaching the sales report
that she says she wants a summary of in three hours.
Type that up in Google Docs.
The reason I say Google Docs
is because there's version history
and it's third party.
So when you type a Google Doc,
you can go into the history of the document under file
and you can find what these versions
of your journal looked like last week,
three weeks ago, a month ago.
That way if you ever have to use this information
or you're turning it into HR and your boss goes,
she just made that up yesterday.
You can go, cool, here's all the Google history
that shows exactly what day and time I typed all this in.
So it's not made up, it happened over this course of time
and it happened on the same day that the events occurred.
That's when I journaled it.
That will be very, very good information.
Documenting is the enemy of people
that are mistreating you at work, especially.
If there are a decent person who's just feeling threatened,
there's more room to maneuver over.
over here, you know, run the same test,
tell them the same thing about not knowing
why you didn't get the document, et cetera,
and then speak to them in the same way.
If they're a decent person, then great.
I mean, look, also when someone's our boss,
we often assume they have a lot more power
and authority than they do.
So you might be really worried about any sort
of confrontation here.
Maybe you shouldn't be.
Chances are your results are that you're producing
amazing results for the company.
That might protect you from someone like this,
especially if you're also documenting
your wins and the work you're putting into things. So I would consider keeping a light journal of your
efforts. Again, you can do it in Google Docs. Lawyers bill in six minute increments. So if anyone's ever
like, hey, what did you do this past month? You have everything written down. Oh, I attended this
meeting. I went to this. You don't have to document every single thing. But I would, especially as a
freelancer, be in the habit of showing what you did a few sentences for each day of work.
because if your boss ever tries to step to you and says,
well, she doesn't even do anything,
then you can be like, here's everything I've been doing.
You see my results and here's me actually doing it.
Here's a daily journal with little entries
about what I did to move the ball forward
in my area of responsibility.
And if you notice that your boss is incompetent,
you're probably not the only one who notices this either.
So do some cross-departmental networking
so that if you ever want to segue into a full-time position
with the company,
you can look at other people in the company
and you can approach them for a position instead
so that you still have a future with other departments
and with the company
just in case your boss here wins this particular fight somehow.
And the way I would do some cross-departmental networking,
go grab six-minute networking.
It's free.
Jordanharbinger.com slash course is where that is
and I'll teach you how to reach out to people,
maintain relationships.
I would also throw in some lunches
with other people in the company in different departments.
And when they're like,
who are you and why do you want to go to long?
you can say, look, I'm actually a freelancer,
I'm exploring full-time opportunities with the company,
and I'd love to find out what it's like to work
on the projects that you're working on
and in your department.
And you might have to treat the first time,
but I bet you won't have to treat the second time.
And I would do a lunch with them maybe try a different person
each week or every other week.
No huge time commitment, but it'd be great
if you got to know a bunch of different people in the company.
It's a little bit of a safety net.
At the end of the day, if you're a high performer,
even if you're nice, it can come up,
come across is a little too ambitious and aggressive. So speak in teams. And if you have to go to your
boss's boss over their head, speak in teams. So instead of saying, I want this and I need this person,
this person's in my way, I need them gone, say and speak like, look, I love this company. I love the
work we're doing. I just want to be able to do this as well as possible and be able to continue to
do it. Perhaps I can go to another department. Again, that's if you have to talk to your boss's boss.
That way you're saying, I'm just trying to be a team player and I want to keep doing that,
but I don't think I should be in this department instead of, my boss is a big jerk and is always
sabotaging me, which is what every loser says about their boss.
Right?
That's the adult equivalent of the teacher hates me, so I got a bad grade.
True that, true that.
Yeah.
All right, next up.
Hey, Jordan.
I'm in my mid-30s and pretty much been doing IT support contract work for the past seven years.
During this time, I really haven't made any new friends or contacts.
Once work is over, it's over for me.
I'm out.
I don't want to hear or see anyone from my professional network on my own time.
But obviously, this is a cause of some problems.
Because of this, the only friends I have are two people I met when I studied in Japan over 10 years ago.
One that lives in Austria and another that works in Japan.
No one around me locally.
I've tried going to meet up groups that had some interest to me, but I never could form any connections.
I was diagnosed with Asperger's 20 years ago, so part of the problem is that it's hard for me to read people.
Although I'm much better now than I was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.
I guess I never have had the strong desire for relationships, even though they are essential in this world.
What do you do to expand your network when there isn't a well to begin with?
And how does one even make the well they need when they're not thirsty, but they know they need water?
Sincerely, stuck in the desert.
Way to beat that metaphor, man.
I hear you.
Most people have connections, though, but don't realize it.
And in six-minute networking, we talk a bit about this, but obviously somebody with Asperger's
will likely have a few more social issues than somebody without.
That said, if you're working away through six-minute networking, which is at shordenharbinger.com
slash course, when you have to list people that you knew or connected with back in the day,
that's called our layoff lifelines exercise.
You can feel free to include professional connections as well as personal ones.
If you have no personal connections, fine, now's the time to create those.
What I would do is do that layoff lifelines drill from six-minute networking,
which is essentially where you're making a list of all these people that you wish you'd
stayed in touch with, you know, college professor, your old boss, whatever.
Even if you don't have any personal connections, you still went to school, you still have
an old boss somewhere, you still got colleagues you used to work with, you still got people
from back in college or something.
Start there.
You don't have to have some vibrant social life to be.
be a great connector and a decent networker. You don't. You just have to start somewhere and take the
five or six minutes a day that these drills require. And so for those of you who want to easily
create personal and professional connections, definitely go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.
I'm telling you, I get all these networking questions. I design six minute networking to handle those.
I know a lot of you're like, oh, I don't need professional networking. Oh, I can't do this because
I'm an introvert. Just try it. The reason it takes six minutes a day is so that people who think that
they can't do it, can try it and find out that they can. All right? I promise you, I design this
with the introverted mind. It's not about being the coolest guy at some dance club. It's really,
really easy. All right, next up. Hi, Jordan. Greetings from Vietnam. I often listen to your
podcasts while riding my motorbike through the mad, noisy traffic of Hanoi. Don't worry, it isn't
too dangerous. Sure. Yeah, right. Besides, I'm originally from Serbia, and I know that you spent
some time living there, so that's kind of cool. Here's my dilemma. I don't personally enjoy
sharing personal stuff on social media and feel that most of the things we post about online
are bragging about how awesome our life is. I feel comfortable posting at a frequency of only a few
times a month. Having said that, I'm aware that building a strong social media presence is very
important in today's world and brings many benefits. This is especially true because I want to make a
name for myself as a writer in Vietnam as I'm soon going to publish a novel in Vietnamese. How do I
reconcile this? Should I change my perception on social media or try to go against the trend? What's
your view on this matter. Truly yours, the writer who doesn't like to write on Facebook.
I will admit social media is largely a waste of time, in my opinion. I have some friends who are
amazing at it, like Mimi Icon, who you heard this week, she's born for this stuff, she enjoys it,
she's smart with it, she looks good in it, can't really beat that combination, really.
But what you're feeling is FOMO, fear of missing out. I am all too familiar. When Instagram started,
I had no interest for like five or six years.
I didn't care at all.
And I'm still sort of in that camp.
I finally started Instagram, I think, in like 2017 October, something like that.
Late to the party.
Yeah.
And it was really late.
It was basically 2018.
And I use it occasionally.
I don't look at people's stories.
I'm not screwing around on there.
I rarely open it other than to interact with people who have sent me messages rarely for
anything else. And I've got Instagram, I've got other social media like Twitter. I post things like
articles, show links, photos, funny stuff mostly, mostly funny stuff. I let people who are listening
to the show here into my life. I interact with show fans using the messenger because y'all expect
to find me there. And that's pretty much it. I think I would survive just fine without it otherwise.
And you don't need to have a great Instagram social media presence before you write
the book. If you already had one great, it's good for marketing, really good. That said,
building it big enough to be important is a full-time job, and it's a job you'll probably
hate from the sound of it. It's unlikely you'd be able to start now and build a following big
enough to make a difference in your book sales. So what I would do instead is do the bare minimum.
Make accounts on each of the main ones that you use in your market. So in Vietnam,
let's say it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever. Then schedule a check-in appointment
every week, at least once or twice,
just to check the inboxes
and check your people sending you messages
or whatever you want to do.
And then twice a month or so,
I would post on there
just that minimum amount
to sort of keep people engaged,
post things that are important to you.
And you could even sit down
for an afternoon at a cafe
and create all of the posts
for the whole year
so that you just don't have to think about it anymore.
If there are photos of you writing
and their little passages and quotes that you like,
you could just assemble all of those.
You could even outsource a lot of that,
get it all done in an afternoon,
and then you're essentially done
other than posting the social media
for the whole year.
In my opinion, social media is a little hobby
that a lot of people have
just like any other hobby.
Look at podcasting.
For some, it's a hobby,
and they talk about Boston ice hockey
with their buddies every third Sunday of the month.
They don't care who listens.
For others, they never bother doing their own podcast.
They just like listening to others.
And then there are weirdos like me,
just freaks who found something they love they got way too into it now it's their job and you can't
start to do everything that you or others think you should be doing you'll end up with zero time for yourself
and for your real deep work speaking of which grab cal newport's books he's got deep work and
digital minimalism he'll show you why i'm right about this social media stuff and he'll help you
strike the right balance listen to my earlier podcast with cal newport as well it'll help you let go of
idea that you need any of this social media stuff. And we'll link to his, we'll link to Cal's books
in the show notes here. Cal is a great person to listen to if you've got a little phomo because he's
basically like, nope, there's really no need for any of it and all the things you think you're
missing. You can get in another way. You're welcome. And he gives you a plan to deal with that.
And congrats on the new book. I have to say, it's pretty amazing that you're writing a book in
Vietnamese after learning it as an adult. That's, I've learned a lot of languages as an adult and
I am not about to write a novel in one of them. So that's, that's really, that's really.
impressive. We can't even get you to write a book in English. Seriously. People, yeah, I know.
Exactly. All right. Next up. Dear Jordan, Jason and Jen, I'm a 27-year-old male working as an engineer
and recently accepted a great job in the aerospace and defense industry. Thanks to your episodes
with Alex Coots, I was able to successfully negotiate my salary. However, I'm still in the process
of interviewing for other positions with the competitor of this company due to the slower pace
of that company's interview process.
The company that's currently hiring me
has already invested resources
towards performing my background check
and drug screening.
Due to the length of this process,
I haven't yet signed an employment contract
or settled on a start date.
It's unlikely I'll change my mind,
but I'd like to know
what's the best way to turn down a job
you already accepted.
I listen to your episode 125
for mending a bridge you've burned,
but is there a tactful way to do this
so I don't burn a bridge?
Sincerely, curious candidate.
This is a tough one.
Generally, honesty is going to be better here.
Telling them you're still in an interview process would have been ideal.
And that said, it might also have signaled that this company isn't your first choice.
So the outcome could have been different as well.
And I think at this point, they'll feel burned, which is bad,
but it might be worth it to work at the company you really want to work at.
So is this Harvard versus Hamtramic High School?
If so, take the better company.
But if this is like Nike versus Reebok or Adidas, then be careful because
These industries, even though they seem large now, they might turn out to be smaller than you want.
You don't want a bad reputation in it.
You don't want to ditch one company, go to the other, and then two years later, three years, four years later, you're applying again.
And they're like, isn't this the guy who ditched us last time?
Shred.
Right?
No thanks.
So worst case in this scenario, stay at a competitor for a few years and then move if you really still want to.
But if this is a dream job and it's your number one choice and you're feeling serious fomo now, then go for it.
burn the bridge with the current company realizing there might not be a good way to ever repair that
bridge. Doesn't mean they'll be mad at you forever, but they will be angry and annoyed, and you can't
probably avoid that at this point. But you have to balance what you want with your ability to get it,
and of course, what will happen as a result. Okay, last but not least.
Hey, guys, I'm in the middle of your six-minute networking course and deeply appreciative.
I'm thinking about building a networking spreadsheet through Google Drive instead of using CRM
software. Can you share your method for building and organizing your spreadsheet? Thanks,
networking newbie. So I do use a CRM. I use contactually, but if you're going to create a spreadsheet,
I don't have one. But what I do in contactually is I organize people in buckets. So the buckets are
90 days, 45 days, and 21 days. And I think some of the buckets, which is the amount of time I
have between contacting people, I could probably go from 90 days to six months, but it really is only
taking me like an hour to 90 minutes a week to keep in touch with hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of people and I wish I'd been tracking earlier but I would say 90 days 45 days 20 days
21 days is like family super close friends I almost never need that bucket because I'm in touch
with those people anyway so it never comes due 45 days are people that I like but I don't talk to
that often but I would like to and they're they're not going to get annoyed by me checking in at that rate
and that I want to increase the relationship and the 90 days is everybody on
the periphery. So former show guests, publicists, and people that I occasionally hit,
if they have any clients that are going to be good for the show, people that have interviewed
me a year ago, that kind of thing. So just the sort of everyone else. My newest thing is
gifting monthly. So somebody who's really done a number, helped me, helped the show, done something
really nice, or is just a cool person and I want to send them something. I will shoot them
something. I do that once a month. And I spend about, it depends.
50 to 100 depending on the person,
because I want to make it nice.
I'm not trying to send them like a shirt
with my logo on it, right?
And the way that you can select these people,
you can either do it on a whim
or you can also track important dates
and milestones for these people,
which I just started doing.
So birthday, anniversary, that kind of thing.
Because if you gift just because, that's great,
but if you gift on a holiday,
you're gifting with everyone else.
But if you say, hey, you and your wife are awesome,
thanks for all the parenting advice,
happy anniversary, they're going to be like, wow.
These are the only people outside of our family,
that actually remembered this. That's amazing. You know, that really sets you apart.
So use the buckets, throw those in the spreadsheet. Tracking manually is going to be a huge pain
and very unscalable. But you're welcome to start that way and see how it goes from there.
Recommendation of the week. So I haven't seen this yet, but I'm excited to see Shernoble on HBO.
Jason, have you seen this? I haven't yet. It just came out on Monday, but it's in the queue.
It's definitely in the queue because it looks just riveting.
I think if they don't screw it up
and then it becomes all about like,
I don't know, the fictional part,
but they actually really keep it close to the historical
and there's a lot of sort of side,
not what am I looking for?
Like plot line instead of just like,
here's one couple that was in love at Chernoble.
Like, I want more.
I was hoping it was a documentary
and that it wasn't.
I'm like, okay,
I still want to learn accurate things
and not just like a made up out of whole cloth version
of what I have.
Yeah, it's a docketrama. So, you know, there's always going to be some editorial bent to it just to keep people involved. But I don't know. From the trailers, it looked like it was going to be fairly accurate. Did you follow Chernobyl when it happened?
Well, I was too young. Chernobyl, for those of you who don't know, was a catastrophic nuclear meltdown that happened in the mid-80s, late 80s or something like that. And it happened in Pripyat, which is northern Soviet.
it Ukraine. So it basically they covered the whole thing up for a long time. All these people died.
It's still abandoned because you can't grow or do anything there right now. And I know that
there's, basically they covered up the whole incident. It started to blow into Europe. It was just a
huge mess. And even now, and I think for years and years and years, you're not going to be
able to go and live there. I don't even know if you can ever go live there. For, for,
thousands of years. I'm not totally sure what that's going to look like. I guess we'll see.
Maybe they'll talk about that. But anyway, they're doing a docudrama about it. So that should be on
HBO. We'll include the link in the show notes as well. We'll also include a link to the
animals of Chernobyl three decades later, which is a fascinating piece from National Geographic,
where people have gone in and actually taken photographs of the wildlife that have come back there.
It's kind of crazy. Well, yeah. Like there's wolves walking around essentially downtown.
Yeah, yeah.
Because there's...
There's no people.
Yeah, there's no people.
And of course, they're probably getting all kinds of radioactive fallout or whatever.
You know what else I've heard?
I heard there's motorcycle tours that go through there.
I've heard that there are really old people that live there.
Not in the town, but kind of nearby, and they're just like screw it because they're poor.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I know.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
I would imagine there's also probably criminal.
there because any place that doesn't have police and very few people, there's going to be some people
that are doing something strange there.
Oh, definitely.
You can get some nuclear meth there, I'm sure.
I'm sure, yeah, exactly.
People who go radiation, I'll be lucky to be alive in five years.
Yeah, exactly.
What if I got to lose?
Exactly.
So yeah, you can actually get a tour from Kiev between $100 and $500 USD for a person.
I think it would be cool.
I do worry about going.
Has anybody been to Chernobyl?
I've got a friend who went.
I would love to hear about people's experiences if they've gone.
Because what I would worry about is, hey, what happens would you inhale a speck of dust and
later on it kills you?
Yeah, I'm going to skip that one.
I know you like the adventure tours like North Korea, but I don't mess with radiation.
Yeah, I just, one thing.
It would be different if it was like, oh, this is like kind of a scary place with no government
and they're taking you on a tour, but they've done it a bunch of times and ha-ha.
But I'm like, how do you know you're not just going to inhale dust?
And then later on they're like, oh, man, you have the crazy lung tumor from inhaling a speck of, or a little bit of whatever that was blowing around because there was a tree on fire when you went to Chernobyl in 2019.
It's like, that wasn't worth it.
Yeah, you can't really talk your way out of leukemia.
No.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I'll pass on the tours, but I'm definitely going to watch the show.
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
to get your questions answered on the air.
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quick shout out to christine from the nail spa i was there because i had raptor claws growing on my
feet she spotted me a couple months ago and we took a selfie she's been a show fan for six years
i thought it was pretty funny because i was looking over and i was like oh there's this cute girl on the
other side of the pedicure thing i'm just going to sort of zone out and listen to my audio book and
we're the only people in here under 50 or whatever and then she's like are you jordan harbinger and i
It felt really freaking cool, by the way.
So if you ever see me out in public, it's always really kind of neat when I get recognized.
It makes me feel really pretty amazing, pretty awesome.
And if I'm ever with friends, they're always like, dang, your podcast must be so popular.
So I will readily admit that I am a sucker for that kind of thing.
Who doesn't like a little validation?
Come on.
Seriously.
Go back and check out the guest from this week, Leon, Logothetus, and Moby, if you haven't
yet.
And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage these relationships,
I've talked about it before here.
Go grab six minute networking, Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.
Do not ignore this habit.
I know you're thinking, I don't need networking.
Yeah.
When you do, you'll be like, oh, crap, I didn't do any of this stuff.
I didn't spend five minutes a day getting the insurance policy for my career and personal life.
Don't come crying to me.
Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.
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It's a great way to engage with the show.
there are videos of our interviews at jordan harbinger.com slash youtube jason you can check out my tech
podcast grumpy old geeks at gog dot show your podcast player of choice and we've been diving into the state
of surveillance capitalism recently and going deep down the rabbit hole on deep surveillance and who's
making money off of your data hmm that's interesting the answer is everyone right everyone everyone
but you this show is produced in association with podcast one and this episode was co-produced by jen harbinger
Show notes for this episode are by Robert Fogarty.
Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com.
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Lots more in the pipeline.
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