The Jordan Harbinger Show - 200: How to Deal with Retroactive Jealousy | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

You're having issues with retroactive jealousy regarding your significant other's past. You've tried to find resources to help you cope with this, but most of what's you've found feels gimmicky with little to no real information or exercises aimed at helping you overcome these feelings. In this Feedback Friday, we'll try to lend a helping hand. 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 [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your parents are first cousins, and it's a secret not many know -- including your significant other with whom you're building a life. Are you obligated to share this? Creeps offering to rub your realtor girlfriend's feet for $500 isn't the side hustle she was hoping for; how do you ensure she's safe when meeting clients in empty houses? You love your job, but you don't love the corporate culture and lengthy commute. When is the right time or the wrong time to trade one company for another? How do you go about asking for the raise you know you deserve (especially as more tasks are being assigned your way) without jeopardizing your current position? You've been using our free Six-Minute Networking course, but have a few questions about some of the details. We're here to help! Is Better Help cheaper than in-office therapists, and is it covered by traditional work health options? How do you evaluate it from a budget priority standpoint? You're trying to prove your value during your company's review period, but one of your overseers seems closed-minded to your process. What's your best move forward? Even though you don't consider yourself possessive, you have intense bouts of retroactive jealousy regarding your partner's not-that-sordid past. How do you move past it? Pro Tip of the Week: Instead of saying 'my ex,' say 'a guy/girl I dated.' 'My ex' insinuates that person is still a part of your life. Recommendation of the Week: Chernobyl on HBO A quick shoutout to Liam from the UK! 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. Full...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests. And this week, we had my good friend, Mark Manson, one of the best-selling authors of the decade with his previous book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. We get into, look, he invented putting that on the cover. I know what you're thinking like, oh, one of those. No, this is, he originated it. Everyone else followed suit because of the success of this book. we get into a great conversation about how us humans find meaning and why this the way that we find meaning actually leads us to be such miserable a-holes sometimes and of course we'll talk about what we can do about this we also had my other good friend remit seti one of my first podcast guests

ever 12 plus years ago he came to visit we had another great conversation about how to think about money automate finances and think about value in our lives so that we can optimize not only our financial situation, but our enjoyment of the resources that we do have. So there's a lot of psychology in there, not just like make a budget and cut back on lattes. In fact, he takes serious issue with that kind of advice. And both of these guys are so friggin smart, and I just love it when I get a chance to sit down and be in the mix with people as sharp as them. So their work is really worthwhile, and those conversations are really worthwhile, in my opinion. I also write every so often on the blog, the latest post is about how to find a mentor and make the most of the relationship. This is one of

the most requested topics that I've written about recently, and that's on the website at Jordanharbinger.com slash articles. So make sure you go back and have a listen to those episodes and have a look at that article, of course, and our primary mission always is to pass along experiences and insights to you, and we love having conversations directly with you in a way here, and that's what we're doing today on Feedback Friday. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com, and if you can keep it moderate in length, It always helps us out.

The wall of text is a little intimidating sometimes. Jason, what's new? What's going on in your world, man? Dude, I don't know if you noticed, but this is episode 200. You know, I didn't notice until we started doing this, and I went, wait, 200. 200 episodes after we started from starting from zero. Yep, we made it this far. Yeah, we've barely been doing this for a year at this point.

I mean, the new show, of course, this is our 12th year that we're in now. Yeah, yeah. Or are we in the 13th year? And we'll do that meth later. Here's a deal. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. Yeah, I got to go back and do some subtraction, some complicated subtraction.

When we get off the mic here. Yeah, wow, 200. Good. You know, I'm grateful to hear this. And I look at the show recently, and I just think we've had some pretty dang good conversations. We've had some great guests on. And we have a lot of attention on us right now from people that matter that can help us get even more interesting conversations going. So there's a lot that we can work with this year.

I'm excited for the next 100 because it seems like episode 100, we were getting back into our stride episode 200 really hitting it. So it's always exciting to see the evolution of the show. And people are very supportive of it. So I think everyone that is sitting here listening to this right now as well. And I want to respect their time by getting to the first thing out of the mailback. Hi, Jordan, Jason, Jen. I have a secret that I've never shared with anyone. My parents are first cousins.

My parents told me when I was 11 or 12 years old, and I hate carrying this around with me, but the thought of sharing this with anyone who knows me personally makes me extremely uncomfortable. My boyfriend of four years knows almost everything about me, except for this. I can't bring myself to tell anyone about this. I shared this information with some friends in middle school not knowing what I was doing, and suffice it to say that it was a bad idea, and I regretted it. I just feel a lot of shame over this, because although it wasn't anything that I had any control over, it is somewhat tied to my identity.

Do I have to tell my future partner and family about this? I feel that with the growing prevalence of DNA testing, this kind of information is bound to be discovered eventually, and I don't want my future family and kids to think I kept this from them. However, I also don't think this truly matters in terms of raising a family. First cousins are not that close, and both my sister and I turned out to be completely healthy. I've carried this for over a decade, and I've never known what to do with it.

Thank you all so much for all that you do. Best, weighed down. Yikes. I'm sort of confused how this would happen, but I guess it's not sibling stuff, it's cousin stuff, which actually is super, super common, especially back in the day. Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, they all married their first cousins. And turns out the risk of any genetic issue is very rare. The problems arise from recessive genes, which don't really affect people with single copies. It's when you have that dual. recessive and there's a lot of populations that are more inbred that have that but anyway I mean I know how this might have happened I'm just curious how it all went down and wasn't nipped in the butt I mean you hear about this kind of thing but you know you rarely ever hear well I guess you don't hear it firsthand because maybe not because it doesn't happen but because people go I'm not telling people about this yeah that seems more like it

yeah that does seem more likely so all right here you don't want to hide something and then have it cause issues later on but what you you do want to do is go get some genetic screening and make sure you're not carrying some recessive dual recessive trait that could cause problems later when you have your own kids. You know, you're not marrying your sister or something. You're not pulling a Jamie Lanister, so you should be okay. The real genetic threat from most situations like this is between closer relatives. So cousins can, as far as I know, still have some danger of recessive traits, but it's much more rare and it really does sound country though so i get where she's coming from or he's coming from

here i get why you might not want to be super public about this and we're all adults now so if you're thinking about getting hitched and having kids you should just be more open about this you know you're not it's not middle school where you're this is going to slip out and everyone's going to find out and know about it it's something you can speak to your significant other and be like this is highly confidential and highly embarrassing but the practicalities here say we should get genetic screening because this random low occurrence thing could happen, and we might want to be careful about it. So get it from a doctor, though.

Don't get your genetic screening from a spit test that you take over the internet. And the reason isn't because they're super inaccurate or they lie to you. It's because a doctor's responsible for saying, I've found something, and here it is, whereas these genetic tests on the internet, I think are kind of like,

here's your genome, you're welcome, bye. You need to make sure that you're healthy. So this way when you go tell your boyfriend, you can caveat out the whole thing with some, you can caveat the whole thing with like, all right, this might sound weird, but I'm all good and I got genetic screening and I have a clean bill of health from my doctor, so it's nothing to worry about. But I don't want you to find out later that my parents are cousins. What do you want for lunch? Something like that, right?

Slide it in there. And sure, your boyfriend might not be able to get that one banjo riff from deliverance out of his head for a couple days. But he loves you and should be able to get over this as long as it's not going to cause health problems with his kids later on down the line. And even if there is some danger of that, there's ways around all of that, of course. And I totally get why you've kept this a secret. And I suppose what's important is that you're healthy and that your family was supportive growing up. So who cares if they're if they were cousins? Jason, let me get that riff one more time. And I know just for me, this isn't something that would bother me in the least. You know,

it happens. No big. I can understand why, you know, she's upset about it and wants to get it out there not have this secret over her head, which I think is the more important thing for her health down the line is just the stress of keeping that secret can actually cause more health problems than anything else. Totally. I can imagine someone telling me this and being like, well, it's a little weird and not ideal, but it's not going to affect the health of everything, so whatever. And then you just kind of forget about it. But someone holding that secret for 20 years and hoping nobody else finds out, and then the other person's like, why did you hide that? And you're just thinking, wow, the amount of sleepless nights, you know, you'll shorten your

lifespan keeping a secret like that. Yeah, and it's not worth it. No, you can get that conversation over within 15 minutes, I think. Yeah, honestly, if any of my girlfriends ever told me that, it'd be like big whoop. Yeah, it's a, it's not, like I said, it's not a Lannister, so it's really not that big of a deal. No doubt. There's no Joffrey coming out of this. Right, exactly. Yeah, that's right. All right, next step. Hey, Jordan, two months ago, a creep from my girlfriend's old high school job contacted her, asking if he could rub her feet for $500 a week. Okay. He promised it would be nothing sexual.

I highly doubt that. She said, no way. I gave him a call and gave him a piece of my mind. He ended up apologizing and asked if he could take us out to dinner in a kind of desperate, unhinged way. I respectfully declined. Since then, she's been contacted by two more creeps asking if she could financially dominate them. What does financially dominating mean? I think what he's saying is they would pay her for her to dominate that.

I don't know, but I can only assume what he meant was they're willing to pay for her to dominate them, not she's going to financially dominate them. Yeah. It was odd. So, to financially dominate them to scratch their humiliation itch, she either ignores them or kindly declines. Her phone number is posted publicly online because she's a real estate agent. I'm wondering if some creep posted her in a forum for these kinds of fetishes online. I can't think of any other way these weirdos are finding her. Lastly, her job requires her to visit empty homes one-on-one with clients.

It's very easy for a stranger to book a showing with her and to meet her alone in a house. I bought her a taser and tried to go with her to each showing her open house, but I can't always be with her. How should I handle this and to help keep her safe and relieve myself of the worry that one of these creeps will bring her harm? Thanks, sincerely, anti-creep hunter. So this is a really strange one. And here's the thing. You should report these occurrences to the police. when they happen and make a note of this when it happens each time, along with the numbers that

they come from. And we know from our Joe Navarro episode and our Gavin DeBacker episodes that the only way to deal with some things like this are to completely ignore the communication. And she also needs to make sure she's keeping a log of who comes to the home and when. Maybe use a Google Doc so that someone else has access. It's not just sitting on her phone or her laptop. Maybe you have access. Maybe someone else in the office has access. Probably you. But also, since she's she's showing homes for people, these people will often have Wi-Fi in the home, right? Unless it's new construction, never had a tenant. Chances are the internet's still going.

She can purchase a drop cam. She can get a Nest cam or another device. And look, if they don't have internet, either create a Wi-Fi network with your phone or get one of those little mobile hotspots or something like that, it's cheap security. Those are like $40 a month. Get a drop cam, a nest cam, some other device. Make sure they're mounted and pointed at the door, the front door. and make them totally obvious

so that people see them when they walk in. And if people ask, and even if they don't ask, you can say, oh, yeah, we're monitored 24-7 for security purposes. For normal people, they'll just be like, okay, cool, whatever. But for a potential creep, this should be enough to scare them a little bit, right? If I walk in and I'm staring at a drop cam

and I'm thinking I'm going to steal this woman's laptop, the first thing I do is say, oh, sorry, I got a call from the office, I've got to go, I'll come back another time and then never go back again, right? I'm going, the jig is up immediately. So this works when she's showing an open house, but it won't work when she's driving someone around doing other showing.

I get that. When she's doing that, she should consider something like asking for someone's driver's license when they first meet so that she can make sure she's got all their info down correctly. If someone scoffs, she can simply say, look, it's company policy for me to take that info. We don't use it for marketing.

I think normal people, again, will be pretty okay with this. Yeah, you'll get some privacy. nuts, but you can then say, look, you know, I'm a single woman taking people around privately, so this is part of my own safety. If they don't get it after that, if that's like the third rung, because you don't want to scare away your customers, but if they don't get it after that, then, you know, how worth it is it for you to be nervous the entire time, right?

And that said, if someone's a predator, they might not even care. They're a danger to anyone, especially a lone female in a job like this, regardless of whether or not her number ended up on a... foot fetish site. I would ask, have you run searches for her number online? You know, what about her name? Do you have Google alerts set up for that? Because you might find something strange or creepy online that you can then say, hey, this person posted my phone number. And a lot of times the administrator of these boards, these weird message boards, they don't want to get sued. You know, it's a fetish thing, but they don't want to get shut down. So they might be like, oh, this is listed as something else,

like a massage place or whatever. Let me delete that. You know, you can, you can, you can, ask them to do that. They might not reply, but they might. And that said, I want to caveat this because just because some people are creepier, they have a fetish, doesn't mean that they're dangerous. You know, there's a lot of people that have these fetishes that watch this stuff that are not, like, dangerous to society. It's just a little strange. And of course, the ones calling a random number, you don't know what her number is listed as. It could be like, hey, foot fetish, uh, phone sex girl, phone number. Toes are us. You know, toes are us. It might not say, here's this real estate agent I knew in high school, call and scare her.

You know, they might not know what they're getting into. So you don't have to worry that just because someone maybe seems a bit pathetic in their approach, it doesn't mean that they're going to become a stalker or something like that. Like this guy desperately asking you to dinner, he just sounds lonely, right? It sounds like he's lonely and strange. However, I still completely understand why you're worried about this. I would be worried about this as well, just if I were in your shoes. And the best thing you can do is take precautions here.

Use the Google Doc, get their info, put the Wi-Fi, cameras in the open house. Another thing I would consider, especially when she's doing showings and driving around, there are dash cams. You can find these on Amazon. There are other places near you that will professionally install a dash cam that they carry. They look great. They don't have wires going everywhere. They basically will replace the rearview mirror or hang from it. They're not expensive. They're noticeable enough that when someone gets in the car, they'll go, oh, there's a car camera in here. And it can film everyone in the car. You can have a passenger cam they make these now that everyone's driving uber and lift they make these specifically now for that

market and she can also say oh don't mind my weird rearview mirror people always ask it's a dash cam it films the inside and the outside of the car in case i get hit while driving or even while i'm parked you know never can be too careful never had to use it thankfully and anybody who's a predator in that situation and doesn't want to get caught is going to think twice because now they're already on camera it's time stamped you know she could say yeah it records directly to the cloud i mean you can just say whatever the hell you want at that point, right? And this will definitely give someone pause, knowing they're already on camera the second they get in the car

and that footage could be in the cloud. This one gives me a little bit of the creep, so I definitely feel you on this. And speaking of feeling you, can I rub your earlobs for $100? It's nothing sexual, I promise. You just have really nice earlobes. And you said you bought her a taser.

Make sure she's practiced with it and knows how to use it. Because, you know, just because she has one and has never used it, you wanted you wanted to have muscle memory and practice with that just like any weapon that you own you need to train with it and you need to know exactly how it feels what it's going to do and make sure that she it's very comfortable with it because if she pulls it out doesn't know what she's doing somebody else could take it from her and use it on her because that's usually what happens so get her trained up on that for sure they have classes where you bought it or if not go check out the local gun ranges because i'm sure they're going to have classes yeah good good take on that that makes

sense. I think a lot of people with weapons, guns, tasers, otherwise, they just end up shooting themselves or losing it or not knowing how to turn it on in a hurry. Exactly. That's why you want to get muscle memory around it. You want to be able to take it out. You want to have it in a place that is accessible at all times and be able to pull it out, engage it, use it, and get away. 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, hit on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right. Next up. Hi, JJ and Jay. I work in corporate for a Fortune 500 retailer. I love my job, but I don't love the corporate culture.

I drive an hour and a half, work all day, commute, another hour and a half home, have dinner, sleep, repeat. Ooh, three-hour commute. Yeah, yuck. During the work week, there is an semblance of a life outside of work. My job is in a not-so-great town, so it's not desirable to move there. Plus, in the close to two years I've worked there and commuted from my parents' house, I've been able to accelerate my loan payments and completely pay them off. There are no food options, daycare, gym, social work events, or really any amenities at our corporate campus. There are a lot of great companies out there that do offer their employees benefits outside of health care and time off that truly improve the corporate culture

and morale. I know one in particular in a nearby city that has a full gym, fitness classes, a personal trainer, and sports teams you can join just to name a few. I've been doing really well at my current company and enjoy the people I work with, but I'm struggling with when is the right time to leave one company for another. I'm 26, single, and have the ability to move for any job. I would only move to another company if it was a title bump. Moving laterally wouldn't make sense, and I'm honestly close to being ready for a title bump as it is. Also, I have a boss that has a reputation for keeping people longer than they should be in a position because they're too valuable for her to lose,

which results in them missing out on a promotion that would have moved them to another team in the company. Ultimately, my questions are these. When is the right time or the wrong time to leave a current company for another? So let me jump in here. The right time to leave is when you think you're overdue for a promotion and you've brought it up with the company, the manager, and you're not getting it for some reason. There's a host of other considerations.

It is really up to you, but it's good to be looking for a job when you're in a solid position already and willing to make the leap. And you've been somewhere for longer than a couple of years, so it doesn't just look like your job hopping. And that sounds like it's the case here. When you were early on in your career, who do you list as a reference if you want to interview quietly elsewhere when the most important reference would likely be someone at your current company? Recruiterers, HR, they're generally very understanding about this.

and they know that you can't use your current employer as a reference when you're leaving, so you should just be honest about that. But you can still use other people as references. So friends, relatives, maybe clients that you've worked with and are close to. If you've got a really tight coworker, potentially you could do that too.

Or like a former boss inside that same company that doesn't have any incentive to share this with anyone, you might be able to get somebody to do that. And so don't sweat that too much. people get that you can't just be like, oh, yeah, I'm secretly leaving Apple, but here's my boss's phone number. I mean, they know that you can't do that. If you do land the new gig, do you tell your current employer exactly where you're going? No, not right now, right? So if you're thinking, oh, I'm going to start in three months and I'm putting in my two weeks or my four weeks or

finishing up this project, you shouldn't tell them where you're going. You're going to obviously have to give them notice, but you shouldn't tell them where you're going. There are a few reasons here. One is because while we'd love to think the best of everyone, there's a chance, smaller or not small, that your current employer might know someone at the new company and potentially jeopardize your position before you even start your job. And if your employer asks you directly, I would answer in a general way and say something along the lines of, I'm still exploring a few options in XYZ industry or our industry, but I'm not sure where I plan to go yet. because they don't have really a right to ask. There's no reason.

If you don't need their help, they don't need to know. It's just curiosity. They can wait. You really don't want that 1% chance that somebody has it out for you and decides, oh, well, my friend over there is the head of HR,

and I can sort of hang out with him on Friday and tell him a bunch of BS about why they shouldn't hire this person because I don't like Angela. You know, screw her. I don't want her to get a job that I should have. Or I don't want her to succeed and she's finally leaving

and I can put my foot in her butt on the way out the door. Like, you don't want to give anybody a reason to do that, and they have no need to know. Is claiming corporate culture an upward mobility for the reason for the change sound like a hashtag millennial problem? Sincerely, the culturally unfit employee. Well, asking this question with a hashtag sounds like a millennial problem. You might want to look into that. Seriously. But this is totally normal and reasonable, especially the part about upward mobility. Sure, culture in a way might be a bit of a millennial thing. But millennials, we are no longer, maybe I should just speak for myself, we're no longer the 20-something jack-offs in the office

that take ourselves too seriously. Now we're the 30-something jack-offs in the office, okay, that take ourselves too seriously. We're like a third to half the workforce. I didn't look up this statistic, but I can, you know, look, I know how old I am and how old millennials are and the size of the workforce. This isn't just corporate culture. This isn't just corporate culture. This is culture and the location of the position and the three-hour freaking commute and your current supervisor blocking upward mobility inside the company. There's a big difference between that and when they won't let me ride a scooter down the hallway and install a slide in the lobby, right? These are legitimate concerns that you have. It's not like, oh, our micro kitchen doesn't have GT's kombucha, which is a shame, by the way, I feel for you.

But this is not something that someone's going to roll their eyes. I think even my dad who had a crazy commute and worked like six days a week and put in a hundred hour work weeks at Ford when I was growing up. I think he would go 90 minutes. Each way, that's horrible. That's terrible. Even he would go, why do you spend so much time in the car? It is a waste of your life, not just of your productive day. It's a waste of your life.

Who would not kill for three hours a day extra to do whatever they want to improve themselves? I mean, you're just sitting in a car. Hopefully you're listening to the show learning something, but still you could be at the gym doing that, right? Instead of guiding a chunk of steel down a crowded highway. Anyway, best of luck in the new position. And good call staying with this position long enough to get experience as well as paying down your loans.

Having less debt means more freedom for you in the long run because you don't have to stay with a job that you don't like because of the salary. So being debt-free in this way equals freedom. So pat yourself on the back for that. All right, next up. Triple J. I've been working for a,

tech company for a few months. In that time, I've been asked to take on a ton of responsibility and been given special assignments like hosting events and representing them at industry conferences. My boss and executive team want me to do even more, basically being a public face for our company. This would be a new role that I'd be creating that didn't exist. I'm currently making $5,000 a month for part-time. The new role would be substantially more significant and other people make $200,000 plus at competing firms. I'm worried the company has no reference on how much I should be paid. How should I go about asking for this huge jump, even though I know I'm worth it? What if they don't give it to me?

Is it worth getting high-profile experience at less salary? Thanks in advance. Anxious Rockstar. This is a tough one. But first, start looking for jobs elsewhere, even if you don't plan on leaving. And this gives you more leverage, because you don't know this could be, oh, we meant to tell you, we're going to pay you even less because we feel like this job is great exposure for you. And you're going to work twice as much.

You just don't know how this is going to shake out. And having the keys to the prison is a very, very good way to go about this. And I would listen to the episodes on negotiation with Alex Kutz. We'll link to those in the show notes. If they don't give it to you, the bump that is, but they expect you to do the work, you should leave and go elsewhere so that you can get paid what you're worth. Unless the experience is such that you're just like, wow, my learning curve is amazing. This is epic.

I can't believe I'm getting paid to learn this. and then stay for a few months and then immediately start looking for other positions during this whole process. If they can't pay you because it's a startup, negotiate stock options or equity instead. If you really believe in the company, like I get it. If a startup says, look, we need you to be the face of the brand. We didn't even know this position would exist. We are super tight. We're trying to get Series A or Series B, whatever, funding.

Then I get it. And then you say, cool, I'm happy to do this. If I'm really the right person for the job, I want 100,000 shares. You know, you can ask for things like that. These are what make people, by the way, rich A.F. In Silicon Valley, anyway, equity and stock options. Your revenue's great if you own a company and you're making a lot of revenue. What makes you rich is you own stock options in a company and then five years later it goes public at 90x.

That's what makes people, turns people from sharing a room to chartering a yacht for their vacation with their buddies. I'm not kidding. I've seen it happen a bunch of times. Jason, you're just talking about this yesterday online. Yep, yep. A couple of my buddies, just with all of their options at Uber became multi, multi, multi, multi-millionaires. Yeah.

And these are people that could have either invested early or started working in the driver acquisition department first year out of college. You know, it could be anybody who gets options like that. Anyway, while you're looking at other positions, find out how much other positions similar to the one that they want you to do are paid. And yes, you're creating a role, so you might have to mash things together, but it's not going to be too hard. If you're doing recruiting on campus and you're also doing all of the media or something like that, just sort of add those together and round down, right? Because you're going to end up doing those jobs yourself.

Those will be your comps. That'll show you what the position is worth to similar companies. And you can also bring ideas to the table and show the types of projects that you'll execute and the value that you'll deliver to the company once you're in that full-time, So look up briefcase technique. We talked about this maybe last month on a feedback Friday, and Ramit Sati, who's one of our guests this week, has a great article about the briefcase technique. You can go to the table and say, here are three project ideas. Here are my outline for these projects, and these are projects executed by so-and-so at a different

company at this type of fee structure. I'll be doing that. I'll be doing this. Here's the outline for this. Here's how I would execute that. I mean, you're just going to blow them away. And somebody else who's like, yeah, get on Instagram. It's like they're just not going to be able to compete with you.

Briefcase technique. We'll link to that in the show notes. And like I said, look, if they don't give this to you, then you have to strongly weigh the experience you feel you're getting to the money that you could be getting paid elsewhere. So it's not that you're not being paid what you're worth. It's that you are losing money not doing this job where you would be paid more, right? It's opportunity cost. So if you're getting amazing experience, like if you, look, if someone said, hey, Jordan, we need you to host a show on NPR for six months, we're not going to pay you, though. I'd be like, great, I could really use that.

I'm going to be sitting next to Terry Gross the whole time, something like that, right? I would do that. But if they're like, we really need you to edit audio for us here at NPR and it's going to be free, I would go, you know, that's, no, I don't need that experience in my life right now. So pass. I'll go find another job. you won't really be able to go back to part-time, in my opinion, because to them it'll just look like you turned down the work, even though you actually turned down the lack of compensation for a different job, which is something you should turn down. So no, just getting to be an underpaid slave for another company that doesn't understand your value, that's unlikely to have any sort of intangible benefit that makes up for what sounds like it's almost going to be close to $140,000 shortfall in salary. I just can't get the math to work for you here.

So listen to those negotiation episodes. We'll link to them in the show notes. Remember that your best hedge against this is to find other positions where you'd be paid for this sort of work. It doesn't mean you can't do the job for less than 200K to get experience or work for a company that you really love.

But if they're paying you for part-time work and they want you to work full-time, they have to pay you for full-time work. You do the job for a while, then negotiate another raise or leave for someone who will. I hope that helps. Keep me posted. I'm very curious how this shakes out.

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 the air, and I mean that literally. So to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, to visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right, Jason, what's next? Hi, Triple J.

For the past few months, I've been using six-minute networking to re-engage with my friends and mentors who are no longer in my immediate social circle. It's been so rewarding to talk with all of these people again. I have a personal CRM to remind me when to contact members of my network, but I have a couple of clarification questions. When re-engaging with your network, what do you say to them? I'll often ask how they're doing, but I don't want to be sending them the same message to people every X weeks. Should it just be as simple as saying, I was just thinking of you today? I don't want to spend too much time each week trying to find something to say to my contacts. Also, if it's a professional contact that you don't have as close of a personal connection with, what should you say?

So I do have the script laid out for this in six-minute networking. If you want to change it up, you can use something like you popped into my head this morning, or I was reflecting on our previous conversation and I thought I'd reach out. That should do the trick. That works for both personal and professional contacts. I would stay away from thinking about you, which could easily be misinterpreted, especially by somebody of the opposite sex. That could blow up in your face. It's funny, Jason, this reminds me of the Burtcast when I was on Burt Kreischer's podcast a couple weeks ago, and I was trying to teach him this, and he kept typing in things like, just thinking of you, and he sent it to, like, his gun dealer.

Yeah, that was funny. That was really funny. He was laughing so hard, he turned purple, and I thought, okay. I've killed Burt. Yeah, I've killed Burt Kreischer, or like, does this require the Heimlich maneuver, or do we need to just, like, elevate his feet? Like, what do we do now? He was doubled over in pain from laughing because he just, he wasn't sticking to the script and he was writing these things that just sounded so stupid and funny. So yeah, stay away from anything that can be misinterpreted. It shouldn't be too hard. I mean, I wrote the script because, look, you're going to vary it up, no problem,

and you're hitting these people up every 45 to 90 days. They're just not going to remember. And if they're in texts and it's like, oh, I scroll up a little bit, I see a similar script. Who cares? You can say, yeah, I remind myself to check in with people and I check in with a lot of people and sometimes I end up reusing some of the same thoughts. That is not that big of a deal. You're still the only person who's doing this and keeping in touch with them and it's not automated. So there's little room for them to say, how dare you, right?

I mean, who cares? At least somebody's thinking about them. At least someone's thinking about it. Right, exactly. But I do get the idea that you want to vary it up. So here's two more variations. That'll get you through nine months with most people, right? I, as well as many of my networks, are currently graduate and undergraduate students scattered across the country.

In six-minute networking and on the show, you've talked about giving value to your network, such as offering to make introductions or helping them with something they have an issue with. However, as a student, I don't have much to offer in terms of helping out my network. I suppose just reaching out and reminding them how awesome they are now and again may be enough. Regardless, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this. This is also a common misconception that I cover in six-minute networking, which is you don't need to introduce people upward or have these super high value contacts at first.

You can connect people to one another as well, anywhere it's appropriate. So this is why six-minute networking works, even if you think, well, I don't know anyone or I don't have any money. It doesn't matter. That's why a college student who has a decent network can be of value to a billionaire,

because the billionaire goes, why is my Wikipedia keep getting screwed up? This is so annoying. I'm going to hire a PR firm, and then somebody who's an intern in their office says, oh, you know what, I know somebody who knows about Wikipedia, I'll fix this for you. And they go, oh, wow, okay, cool.

Or their nephew says, hey, my friend knows about this stuff, and you end up being of value to that person. Because your network is unique to you. You have connections that they may not have. And even super well-connected people who know everyone, they might be in almost a bubble of high-level connections, which is a great bubble to be in, But like, think about this.

When I interviewed Eric Schmidt, who was the former chairman and CEO of Google, that episode's coming up soon. After the interview, he goes, wow, I was going to do something like this. And I had all these consultants come in and teach me how to use lighting and cameras. And they're all these big professional things. And they all ride in on dollies and they weigh a ton. And I have to rent them and have them shipped. And he goes, this all fits into that case because our portable gear all fits into a Pelican case, which is kind of like a waterproof giant suitcase. He starts taking photos of this and he goes,

Jordan, I don't know if it's trade secret or if you'd be willing to share a list of this equipment. And I said, of course. And I offered to set it up for him. So basically he went from spending multiple, potentially multiple six figures on gear to do media. And he goes, oh, this all fits into a case.

I want this instead. So his assistant and I are talking and Jen about getting this gear for Eric Schmidt and setting it up and helping him do it because it's simple and it works. This is one of the wealthiest people on the planet. He was in charge of one of the biggest tech companies in the world that's ever existed in history, right? He has compared to most of us unlimited resources, almost to the level of mystical power, right?

And yet he needs me to help him set up his podcast, mobile podcast studio, because that's the value that's there. And so there's no reason that somebody who's a college student doesn't have value to offer somebody in a powerful position. You probably know a ton about subjects that this other person has never thought of or heard of. So don't be afraid to leverage that. How often do you suggest keeping in contact with people in your network since you don't want to message people too much? I have people split into bi-weekly, 14 days, for very close friends and family, monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually. Thanks for all the work you do. Sincerely, networking newbie.

So the buckets, the lengths of time between keeping touch with people, I think I discussed this before, but I do 21 days for family and close friends. 45 days for closer connections and 90 days for everyone else. Your buckets sound fine. You don't need to change them. I was not scientific, really, in the way that I set those up. They were just suggestions from the CRM contactually that I use. And so I kept them. I'm really glad you're putting this stuff to use.

That is great to hear. And look, if you're trying to get your mind wrapped around some networking stuff, you don't want to spend a lot of time doing it. Our course six-minute networking is free. It always will be free. I'm not upsell. There's no upsell at the end. You don't need to put in your credit card.

nothing. It's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Oh, and by the way, somebody said, why do you do it then? If it's free, I've completed it, it's free, there is no upsell, I didn't have to put in my card. Why do you do this? I know that if I teach a hundred thousand people this skill set and 10,000, maybe 10,000 of them actually do it, then the returns to the world are huge, but the returns to me, let's be real, the returns to me over that time are going to be enormous because even if one percent of that amount of people is like wow jordan this really changed my life i owe you one and then within the next 50 years they think of me for an opportunity i have so many more opportunities in my life that more than i'll ever be able to handle plus people will

share it as a course and people will get into the show because of it which also helps jason and i and jen you know pay those bills so there's there's a lot in it for me it's just not your money and it's not you're selling your personal information or some other BS. It's more of a super long-term play that improves the world in the worst case. So I'm cool with that. All right, what's next? Hello, long-time listener, and I've heard you recommend therapy over the years for many issues, so it seems like BetterHelp is a great sponsor for your show. I don't have severe mental health issues, but I have thought about getting therapy for a while to help with some of my insecurities and anxiety. I checked out BetterHelp and it was more expensive than I thought it

would be. Is it actually cheaper than in-office therapists? Is therapy usually covered in traditional work health options? I know a lot of your listeners have mentioned the cost of therapy as an issue over the years. I imagine that I make too much money to be eligible for a reduced rate, but I have a lot of debt and $65 a week sounds like a lot. How do you evaluate what is more of a priority in a budget? Paying down debt or investing in mental well-being, especially when the debt is something that causes a lot of anxiety and insecurity. Thanks, anxious, and on a budget. So many people are writing us about therapy. So that's like if I didn't know any better, I'd be like this whole show is so in the pocket of better help. Like Jordan, you, you're a

bastard really isn't the case. They've run like a handful of ads. I assume they'll renew now because we're probably sending them a ton of people. But really, you guys are writing us about therapy a lot, which tells me I'm on kind of the right track here. I told Jen, I was like, can we knock off some of these therapy related questions? She's like, there are so many. So don't worry. I am cognizant of that here. But most therapy, to answer your question, isn't covered by insurance, unfortunately. Most therapists I've ever been to are upwards of $100 an hour. And I don't think I'm going to like Hollywood celebrity therapist. I think I'm going to needs to make a living therapist, right? So better help is definitely more affordable. Our code for better help is

betterhelp.com slash Jordan. You get 10% off your first month. So it makes it a really a lot better of a deal. I don't think I've ever, even when I was like a broke student, been able to pay less than 50 to 65 bucks per session. So if you're an employed adult, I think 65 bucks per week is actually quite good, especially the access you get with better help, you can text and call and all that stuff. And I hear you though, debt and insecurity, they're a big deal. They're linked. If you're sure the reason you're feeling anxiety is only because of your debt, then yeah, pay down the debt. Like if this is just something that's been neurotically eating away at you, then, yeah, pay that debt down. But if you have other issues going on, then mental health is just not a luxury.

It can't wait. You can pay down the debt and get therapy. Yes, it'll take longer to pay down the debt. I get that. But if there's other things bugging you, you're not just stressed out about this or you've got other depression or anxiety issues, which is very possible, then you'll be happier in the long run if you engage in a little mental health here. Student debt is something that is going to be with you for a while regardless.

And the interest is usually so low, I don't know if this is still true. but when I was a student, interest on student loans was actually lower than just throwing money into a bank account. So it's not worth paying that off early because you're literally profitable not paying it off. And I can explain that later if people care of it. You have to decide if being happy and healthy can wait. And I don't think it can, but only you can be the judge of that. You know, if you're just being eaten away by this debt, pay it off. But if you're being eaten away by a bunch of stuff and debt happens to be one of those things, then go get therapy and straighten it out.

Life's too short to be unhappy. It really is. All right, what's next? Hi, Jordan and team. I work at a licensing startup. I started working on an entry-level team, but after about a month, I was shifted to working mostly solo, managing assets while checking in daily with one of the CEOs and two overseers. I recently had my three-month review, and the company gave me a raise, but also another 30 days while they decide where to place me before talking salary and benefits. I used to stay an extra 30 minutes a day, collecting notes to create a training program for them. The company is open to input from employees. Unfortunately, one of my overseers seems closed-minded and stubborn. He admits that new hires don't retain their training.

He said that he doesn't mind if I organize notes on my own time, but also doesn't think it will be effective. He told me he likes me, but feels that I overcomplicate the work. After the review, he came outside to make sure I was okay, even though I wasn't upset at all, which I found belittling, because I'm a woman, I can't take criticism or need to be coddled. I explained that I'm a critical thinker, researcher, and problem solver, but we'll try to take things at face value while I'm still training. I feel like he doesn't understand people or management and isn't seeing my potential value because of his closed-mindedness. I'm trying to keep my head down during the extension of my review period, but I'm convinced creating a thorough training guide will help the company

and will prove my potential. Any advice? Sincerely, let me help, God damn it. Okay, there are a few things here. First thing, though, this is maybe a little bit of a tangent, but how do you know he came outside to see if you're okay just because you're a woman? Did I miss something, Jason? Maybe there's more to the story here, but I don't see anything in what she wrote to indicate that this is the case. It's just a thought, but maybe he's stubborn. Maybe he doesn't see the potential in creating a training program, but yeah, maybe he's got his head up his butt. But it sounds like he at least cared enough to see if you were feeling okay after a performance review. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't or no. It's hard to tell without seeing the guy in his vocal, you know, tonality when he came out

and what what he was like when he came out. Because if he came out and started mansplaining and talking down to her, you know, it might have been self-evident. But since we weren't there, it's really hard for us to judge. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I just sometimes I'm, I've become more sensitive to both sides of this story. And I see, I mean, I've gotten messages from people like, how dare you? And I'm like, oh, here's why we didn't do this. And they're like, oh, oops, sorry. And like, why did you just assume I hated people of color because that didn't work out? And they're like, I don't know. I just, you know, I'm watching the news. Sorry, bro. Or I've gotten that a lot. I'm just thinking like, geez, you know, give people the benefit of the doubt here.

But yeah, maybe he's got his head so far up his butt. This is like the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't know. In any case, a lot of ideas don't get support before they're proven, especially in corporate culture. I mean, that's like corporate culture 101, right? Beat the idea, prove it so well and then the higher up still don't get it and you're just ramming your head through the freaking screen of your computer what you're doing now shows initiative it will help future employees in the company obviously in fact one of our i think one of our tips a few months ago was while you're going through training in a company document the whole thing and turn it into a valuable piece for the company i think that was our idea yeah it was not that she got it from us

but i think that was literally something we talked about on the show it and i got that of course from people who are hiring and they're like, my best employee is the one that did this. And I knew it right then that this was a great person. This is a good thing to do, this documenting of the training process. Even if your direct supervisor doesn't get it, he might just not get it yet. And even if he never gets it, it doesn't mean that nobody will ever get it. It doesn't mean nobody will understand the value here. You could present what you create to the CEO.

You could present it to the head of HR or recruiting, which will make both your boss and you look good. even if he didn't do squat. Remember, your job, Guy Kawasaki told us, your job is to make your boss look good. And even if you make your boss look good and he's an ass, people will figure this out pretty damn quick, right? Because if everyone else makes him look like a schmuck

because he's an ass and you make him look good, they know it's you. They do, and he knows. And after that, after you make him look good and this works, you might get more leeway. Right now, he just sees what you're doing is something that's not high priority in his agenda.

might be because he doesn't know how to solve the problem that you're solving. If he's a bad manager or bad with people, he might go, eh, training, you're just supposed to remember it. And if you don't, you're a loser. And I don't remember it and whatever. Who cares? I got bigger fish to fry. Once you can prove that you can make the training and retention better,

he could recognize this. If he doesn't, fine. You put your name all over the training program and you present it elsewhere. Put your name. I'm literally mean that literally, right? When you set up a binder or you make a deck, put your name in the bottom right of every freaking slide your email like oh just in case you need to reach me head of hr i'm jeanine at new email dot com i mean you just throw that in there and they go oh good okay

this is identifying it doesn't look like you're hogging the credit it's your contact info so they're going this person is a friggin genius this is a superstar they'll get it somebody will get it right now though to be fair you're 90 days in you're super new to the company once you've been in there another 30 days because they extended your, I guess, your probationary period or something, you can show what you've done. And if they don't get it by then and you're still checking in with the CEO regularly, like she said, then make sure those you're checking in with understand what you're doing. And if those people don't get it, if this goes all the way to the top and nobody cares

about training new employees, the writing is on the wall for this organization in some ways. Start looking for another job where they actually care about their incoming employees. From where I sit, I get where their heads are at as well as you. You're new. They don't expect you to do much to change the game. I know whenever we have had new hires here at this company and at other companies that I've worked with especially, sometimes people come in trying to show us how to do something differently. And sometimes it's a good idea.

But other times they think they're a freaking genius and we're just so dense, we don't see the forest through the trees. Meanwhile, we've tried their idea 100 times, 100 different ways they don't know enough about the company to make it work. Okay, and those people don't last long. Then again, we've also hired people who have great input, and sometimes it does take us a while to trust them, because 90 days isn't really long enough for them to have built trust inside the company. They don't even know how half the business or 80% of the business works yet. They're still mastering their own job.

And the program your building should go a long way to change that. So you're on the right track. Good luck. Keep us posted. All right, last but not least. Hey, guys, I'm having issues with retroactive jealousy in dealing with my girlfriend's past. It's not even a bad pass to begin with, societally, or even by my own standards. I've tried to find resources for myself, but most of what's out there feels very gimmicky with little to no real

information or exercises on how to deal with retroactive jealousy. I tend to get intrusive thoughts during sex, particularly when she performs oral on me. Sometimes my mind will start to wander, and I'll get images of her doing that for past boyfriends or a hookup. It's not a shameful sort of way, but more in a way that feels like they may not have deserved it, or maybe it's me wanting to feel like I do deserve it. I can usually get past it, but it still takes me out of the moment. I'm not possessive and I have no trust issues with her. It's really just a passing image, but it's hard to deal with in that regard. I've evaluated it in depth and have tried to meditate past it, and that works to an extent, but it's hard to find anything constant that will

help at the source. Thanks, guys. Stuck in the past. So I get this. I've had this. Jason, I feel like all guys get this with new girlfriends is absolutely a thing dude that's part for the course right okay because i'm like i remember getting this a lot with a lot of different women in the beginning of their relationship it's just a thing that's happened to me throughout my whole life as long as i can remember being interested in women like middle school high school college after grad school now up to now up to my current relationship this has always been the beginning of the relationship you get over it i was talking with susan winter who's an amazing of honey, what is she, she's like a coach, I guess, good friend of mine. She, I called her about this.

And the first six months-ish of any relationship are the honeymoon phase. And it's totally normal to have these thoughts, up to a year, year and a half, I think even, which is good for you if you're in that phase that long. Evolutionary psychology, I think, does this for some sort of primal reproductive reason that's probably too involved to get into here. This is a David Bus question, Dr. David Bus question. Basically, your mind is telling you, maintain exclusive rights to your mate during this time so you can reproduce successfully. And I think women get it too, but I believe it's more common in men. Look, let me take that back.

Men definitely have a harder time with, actually, let me take that back too. It happens probably to both of us. I don't know who has a harder time with it. Men may or may not be more vocal about it because that's who's showing up in my inbox. This does show up for women in other ways too, though. So don't worry, you will both get over this after a while. And if this is still causing you issues, let's say, in six to eight more months, then address it with a therapist because it probably then indicates a deeper insecurity with you and the relationship. But in the beginning of any new relationship, especially during that romantic love phase, you're par for the course, buddy.

You're supposed to be kind of torturing yourself over this. I mean, I wouldn't say it's good for you, but I will say that you are not alone on that one. That is just a thing that happens with new relationships. relationships every time. Life Pro Tip of the week. Instead of saying my ex, say, oh, a guy or a girl that I dated back of the day. When people say my ex, it sort of implies that person is still a part of your life. And that's fine. If it's your ex-husband or ex-wife or something and they're still, you know, you share custody with a kid, that makes sense. But if you say your ex and then it's like somebody from college and it's been 10 years, it sounds a little, I can't quite put my finger on it,

but it sounds like they're still part of your life, and that could be unhealthy sounding in a way, in a way that's unintentional. Like you haven't been able to let go. Right, like you're still thinking about them in the context of your relationship, not just this person that you knew way back when that you dated, but that's so inconsequential that it's about this current story.

It kind of sounds like you're about to tell a relationship-related story, and it's like, ugh, this person again. So just be cognizant of that. And if you hear people talking like that and you're dating them or you're getting in a relationship with them, it might help to dig a little deeper on those people because it sounds like there's still some baggage left over. No recommendation this week.

We're still watching Chernoble and will be probably for a while. 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. We'll always keep you anonymous. We're doing some corporate training for some Silicon Valley Giants, and we will have public-facing events soon.

So if you're in six minute networking or on our email list from the website, you will be notified from that. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Quick shout out to Liam from the UK. He just wanted to say he's pleased that your advertising is back on for him with just crack an egg. He lives in the UK and he's been entertained with the window into North American culture that our advertisements have provided for some time. And he says he loves your read, Jason. He doesn't even eat eggs. He just, in fact, he finds the concept not to his liking, but he likes your chirpy reading of it.

It brightens an otherwise dismal morning. Well, that's good to hear. Just crack an egg. That's right. Just crack an egg. And it says, thank you for giving me an insight into weird American products. It's actually not that weird. It's like a rice bowl, I guess, that you crack an egg onto.

It's got some other things in there. That might be uniquely American. Something where you add an ingredient, a fresh ingredient, but the rest of it is the packaged product. You're right. that is a little strange, right? That could be weird. I don't know. I think they're delicious, so I'm curious if anybody else in the world has something like this. Because there's crazy food everywhere. Just go to Japan, see what they got. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you think our products are weird.

Go back and check out the guest, Mark Manson, and Remeet Seity, if you haven't yet. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships, using systems and tiny habits, and keep that network bringing opportunity to me, check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger. com slash course. Don't kick the can down the road. Don't say you'll do it later. You're not too busy.

You're spending more time on Instagram than you are doing this networking. Trust me. The number one mistake I see people make is not digging the well before they get thirsty. And once you need those relationships, you're just way too late. These drills will take a few minutes per day. Ignore it at your own peril. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. You can find that at jordanharbinger.com slash course.

I'm also on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. and videos of our interviews are up at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason? You can check out my personal website over at jpd.me. I'm going to be posting up some how-to-podcast videos coming in the next couple weeks, which would be kind of fun. And you can also check out my other tech podcast, grumpy old geeks at gog.

Dot show or your podcast player of choice. And keep the kids out of the room because it does get a bit salty. Ah, this show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger. And show notes for this episode are always by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those you love and even those you don't.

You got a lot more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time.

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