The Jordan Harbinger Show - 206: How to Disappear from an Unstoppable Stalker | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: May 31, 2019

Getting a stalker to drop their obsession with you is seldom as simple as just telling them to go away -- if anything, that might just make the problem worse. So what can you do? In this Feedback Friday, we'll try to show you how to disappear from an unstoppable stalker without escalating an already bad situation. 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! Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/206. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: How do you get a mentally ill stalker -- who seems to track you down no matter how many precautions you take -- to leave you alone for good? What should you do when your long-term significant other is an alcoholic in denial who regularly drinks themselves into becoming someone you don't like? You had a breakup because you couldn't commit to marriage after 2.5 years. You want to wait until you're 100 percent ready, but when will that happen? With Jordan in Silicon Valley and Jason in Los Angeles, how do we seamlessly make it sound like we're in the same room for Feedback Friday episodes? After multiple attempts to make it work with your Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosed ex, how do you truly move on and work on yourself? You've been mulling over the basics of starting a product-based business. What should you worry about now and what could be put off for later? While reaching out by text to dusty connections per our free Six-Minute Networking course, how do you know when it's time to make a graceful exit from the conversation? There's no doubt that finding a coach to help you through anything personal or professional can be valuable -- but how do you find the right coach? Life Pro Tip: Budget $20-50 for a "just because" gift each month to someone. Recommendation of the Week: BlacKkKlansman Quick shoutouts to John Raynaud and Gene DeFillippo! 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: 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 Scott Gallup, Professor Scott Gallo, excuse me, talking about how to get ahead and optimize for happiness. And I love this episode because it was very non-woo-woo at all. It was a really good episode. He's just a wise man who's made a lot of mistakes and then went, oh, I made this mistake. Let me figure out a better path.

then doles out advice. So it's not just sort of bumper stickery advice or look at all these things I had to overcome. It's, all right, tested that failed. Here's the real way to do it. And a lot of his advice is quite a slap in the face. There's one part of the show, Jason, I don't know if you remember, where he basically says, and this is from the book, the algebra of happiness, where he said if you don't work like nonstop in your 20s and 30s and stop worrying about work life balance, there's a pretty good chance you'll just never be successful economically. I remember very well. And I was like, ooh, because all these, there's all this whole sort of cult of the entrepreneur right now where everyone's like, I work from home and I'm a consultant in gig economy and I'm an influencer. And it's like, okay, cool. And there's people on the hustle for that. There's nothing wrong with that per se, some of it's fluff. But a lot of people are doing this whole, I'm working from the beach. I, you know, I only work five hours a week now, all this stuff. He's just like, yeah, that's not real. It's just not. He's like, very few outliers can do that, a soon. you are not one of those people because the statistics are not on your side. And I'm just like,

yes, keep punching Scott. So that episode's a really good reality check. And if you have kids, it's a great one. If you don't have kids, I loved the book. I loved that episode. I could have gone on for another hour. Anyway, it's a very popular episode. I highly recommend that one. We also did a deep dive about what to do when something you love, something you think is your purpose, starts to suck. So this is a very popular, heavily requested topic by a lot of you, because a lot of you have that dip where the thing you're doing that was awesome is starting to feel like a job or worse, you're starting to actually hate it.

Do you quit? Do you move forward? How do you move forward? Is this normal? The answer could be maybe, maybe not. So we did a whole deep dive about that. So check out those episodes from Tuesday, Thursday. I also write every so often on the blog and the latest post is about how we can turn

something embarrassing into something useful and into a growth opportunity. Now I'm not saying you should go around embarrassing yourself. I do that just fine. and I have lots of practice, but we did a deep dive in that piece about useful lessons from embarrassing experiences, whether personally or professionally, and I also include one of my largest professional embarrassments in that piece for your entertainment.

So if you've never been to, if you ever been embarrassed or you think you might be embarrassed at some point again in the future, take a look at that piece at jordanharbinger.com slash articles. Make sure you've had a look and listen to all the stuff we created for you this week. Of course, our primary mission is to pass along our guest's insights and our experiences and insights along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you, and that's what we do on Fridays. Here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. And Jason, we've got some real doozies up in this piece today.

So what's the first thing out of the mailback? Howdy? I'm currently dealing with a stalker problem and I'm not sure how to approach it. I'm hoping you'll have some insight since you've interviewed experts like Gavin DeBecker and Joe Navarro. Over a decade ago, my younger brother had a friend who developed a big crush on me and became obsessed. We talked a couple times through the years and started simple, like, how's life conversations? But it always ended in me ignoring or blocking him, and he'd get needy and obsessive as if there was something there. And there never has been. I blocked him on social media the last time we talked a couple years ago, and this guy has popped up again in recent months by messaging my friend trying to get to me and even found my phone number and texted me to which I replied,

it's not me. I've told my husband about this and we both wonder if this guy is dangerous, if we need to worry about him going farther to actually find me and cause me harm. Luckily, my last name is different now, which makes it a little harder, but with enough digging, I can be found under my maiden name on Spokio, which almost pinpointed my exact address. I remember examples in the gift of fear that some people will disappear after getting that one bit of response back, but some people continue their obsession. What should or can I do to deal with this guy? I told our mutual contacts from back in the day not to give him info if he reaches out and removed my maiden name from all my social media. Also, how the hell does Spokio get away with giving access to that

much info about others? Thank you for your help, the unamused stalky. Wow, this one is a really spooky one because she included a lot of screenshots, which we obviously can't slash won't post anywhere, but the things this guy is saying are mental, they are not, this is not a normal person. Yeah, a little bit cuckoo. Yeah. So depressive, suicidal one, but also seemingly like, Jason, what's that term for when you're you're acting like a victim, but you're also acting aggressive.

Like, it's like this aggressive kind of entitlement. Like, I need you to call me. Like, it's needy and pathetic, but it's also aggressive. I don't know if there's a word for it, but it's very much a stalkery kind of creepy, crazy thing. You see it from ex-boyfriends a lot of the time or exes where you've really got a harmful breakup or one person gets dumped or cheated on, and the other person's like needy, but also really pissed and wants to smash your windshield in kind of thing.

And that's the tone I'm getting from him. There's one here where he says, I'm trying to be nice. Please don't make me get informants. You know, like, basically, please don't make me spy on you, kind of I'm taking from this. And there's all kinds of other weird stuff where he's threatening to kill himself. Like, this is a very, very spooky situation. Document all of this. Get this information to somebody like the police, first of all, and file a report.

and then also document this with your attorney. And this is better to do, not just to save it all, because if you document with an attorney, then if you ever need to go in for a restraining order, your attorney can say, yeah, for five months or four months or whatever, my client has come to my office. We've had 17 phone calls about this. Here's what she's sent me each time.

That way it's not like one day I got a pile of documents and all of it was crazy. And she just suddenly thought to send all of this to the police in one swoop. it just sort of looks a little bit less credible. Like maybe you fabricated some of it, the other side might claim. So if you're documenting this, then it's going to help your case. Also, I know what you're thinking, oh, why pay a lawyer? I'll just save it with my so-and-so cousin, whatever.

Do not save this stuff with family. Because if you're sending your cousin, mom, sister, friend, a bunch of stuff about you getting stalked, they're just going to worry day and night about you and or do something without your permission. An attorney can't do that. and will be less emotional about this situation and we'll be able to strategize. So get a lawyer, even just a sort of reasonably priced

general practicing attorney, will be able to help you with this and file a police report. But talk to the lawyer first. Maybe they'll help you, but I have a feeling his advice is going to be file a police report. And by the way, Joe Navarro, when it comes to this, as well as Gavin DeBecker,

says really the best thing you can do is stop all communications, all of them, nothing from you, Nothing direct, nothing indirect, just silence. I like when he texted her, she replied, hey, it's not so-and-so. That was probably a good idea, but I would then just make sure he's not hearing anything from you.

Not like, oh, she's getting my text, they're being marked as delivered. Oh, this is marked as seen on Instagram. None of that stuff. Just dead silence. All your friends should also just ghost this person. Don't feel bad for him. And if they have a problem with this, you can let them know, look, this is a serious situation.

I'm not just avoiding somebody who has a crush on me. This is a serious situation. You might need to get some sort of restraining order because he is clearly mentally ill. And you never really know if someone is dangerous to you or to themselves. But typically when people make threats against themselves or others, you should just believe them. So if he's saying, I need to kill myself, you need to go, uh-oh, this person's suicidal, and report that. He sounds depressed. He sounds delusional.

He sounds unstable. file that police report never respond to anything I know it's really really tempting to be I'm gonna let him down easy I'm gonna explain it rationally just complete silence is the only thing that you should be doing and that comes from Joe Navarro and Gavin DeBecker I'm really sorry to hear about this this is very very scary and keep us posted but make sure that you document everything and make sure you file this report act as if this is a stranger and not somebody that you knew

because you don't want your brain to trick you well this was a friend of a cousin and did it just forget all that. Act as if this is a complete stranger because you don't really know this person and this is very disturbing. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan, Jen and Jason. I live in downtown Chicago with my girlfriend and our two beautiful dogs. I have a decent job, although I'd love to advance, and we live in a great condo in River North. My significant other and I have been together for almost five years now. She's intelligent, loving, and we truly have a special connection. However, there is one major issue. She's an alcoholic and incomplete and total denial of it.

Her alcoholism is episodic. She typically goes one to three days without drinking, and this time is bliss. Then the following day, I'll call from work, and I'll hear it in her voice. Immediately, my heart will sink and I'll know that I'm in for a roller coaster ride for the next one to two days, while she goes on an extreme bender. During this time, she becomes a different person. She'll often stay up the whole night getting drunk with the TV on while I'm trying to sleep before work. I've tried talking to her about this. However, she completely shuts down and the conversation ends right where it started. Many people have recommended that I should leave. However, up to this point, I've not been able to, nor am I sure I want to. I feel torn and don't know how to handle the situation.

How can I manage this situation so that we both live a happy, sane, and sober life? Signed, can't stay, can't leave. Wow. This is a hard question. because I really feel sympathy for both parties here. She's clearly a binge drinker, alcoholic, and he's really trying to remedy this, but he's also kind of stuck. But I have to call a spade of spade here, and the question is based on a rather wishful premise,

which is, how can I manage the situation instead of what should I do? There's a key difference in the language here, and I don't want to get too into the semantics because that can always be misleading, but how can I manage the situation instead of what should I do? Because the answer to your question about how do I manage the situation?

Nothing. There's nothing you can do to manage the situation so that you can both live a happy, sane, and sober life, like you said. You really didn't even indicate here that she wants sobriety. In fact, everything I'm reading about here indicates that she does not really want that. She may be trying to stay sober, but still falls off the wagon regularly. But your email here makes no suggestion that she's really interested in sobriety. And that's the real question here. Does she actually want to change? If she wants to find some sort of recovery, there are ways that you can support her with that. You know, take her to AA meetings, make sure she's on the wagon, make sure there's no booze in the house, like support her with all these different things and make sure she gets to the meetings and encourage that. But if she has no interest in changing, then there's no pleading, there's no reasoning. There's nothing you can do that's going to force her hand. And to me, this email, it's all about you, man. It's not about her. And I understand. why it's about both but this question is just so telling you want to control the

situation by controlling her behavior and so this leads me to point back at you not that you're at full for her drinking of course but it leads me to point back at you and say look you need to get help for yourself here because if you need to go get therapy you need to find someone ASAP go to BetterHelp you know but go to betterhelp.com slash Jordan get a discount on that or call the number on the back of your health insurance card, get a talk therapist. You might even want to get a marriage and family therapist. You'd see them by yourself, but that person might have more insight into the whole thing.

The second choice is a 12-step program for the loved ones of alcoholics. It's called Al-Anon, and it's not AA. It's Al-Anon. It's for loved ones of alcoholics. And it will give you some tools to deal with this. That said, you're not married. You're not responsible for someone else's behavior. This isn't like your kid.

I know it's your girlfriend, but like you're not married for 20 years with children. You don't have to deal with this. And I'm not saying, oh, she's got a problem. You better dump her. What I am saying is you shouldn't live in this situation. You might need to take a break from her while she gets sober. You can't have your life on pause because of this. I recommend you start therapy or go to Al-Anon immediately.

I mean, run, don't walk. And this will help you find peace in the situation regardless of the outcome. but the outcome is going to be messy here. Look, she either doesn't want to get sober and stays drunk, or she wants to get sober and struggles, or she goes away to rehab, or she wants to get sober and it works, but she's really got to want it, man,

and it doesn't sound like she does. It's unlikely to all snap into place perfectly. If she wants to get sober, you know, since she's more of a binge drinker than a daily drunk, she probably won't need a medically supervised detox. Daily drinkers often risk seizures is when they stop drinking just because of the DTs and things like that. But if she's more of a binge drinker, I mean, look, this isn't medical advice.

You're going to want a real advice here, but you probably doesn't need that kind of detox. Your best bet then is to see a doctor, rehab, sober living, AA, therapy, all those are great starts. And I think that about covers it. But you need to work on your stuff right now. You cannot manage and control her stuff. You need to get your stuff going. And then if there's room for this later, you can work on her stuff. support her, but you are not responsible for this, and you cannot, as you say, manage the situation

so that you can all live a happy, sane, and sober life. It doesn't sound like the other half of your relationship is on board with that. I'm sorry to hear about all that. That is a tough situation. I know you feel loyalty, but your ultimate loyalty at the end here, you have to take care of yourself. You're not being disloyal to her. This is a relationship truth that I think a lot of people either never learn or it takes a long time. You are not being disloyalty. You are not being loyal to someone else in a relationship if you are taking care of yourself. I'll repeat that. You're not being disloyal to your partner in a relationship if you're taking care of yourself. That is actually something that you need to do to be a good partner for anyone.

So do not sacrifice yourself for someone else in this way, especially if they're not trying to take care of themselves. Then you're both going down the toilet. And it's going to be an even longer and harder process. This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice.

It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan. I recently ended my relationship with my girlfriend. I'm 31 and she's 34. three and a half years difference. We dated for two and a half years total. The relationship started a bit confused due to her lack of English and cultural differences in my immaturity at the time,

but it evolved into a very loving relationship. I'm American and she's Brazilian. She set an ultimatum for me back in December for March 1st. I really hadn't thought deeply about marriage, so this brought out my fear of commitment. I was doing a poor job of leading and planning ahead due to this fear. This led to her being more anxious, which led to both of us being a bit more stress than usual. Everything else was great. We played sports and had date nights often. March came around and I hadn't made plans to get engaged, so we broke up. I told her I was now working on myself to get to 100%. After two weeks, we decided to get back together with my word that I would improve myself within the next two months. These two months were really positive, except for moments

when she had anxiety about my lack of commitment. Two and a half years is a long time, and I understand this. I love her very much, and she's been a wonderful partner, but I broke it off May 1st because I didn't want her to wait for me any longer. I have fears of marriage and deep-seated childhood issues that led me to being negative quite often, in that I was not sure I could overcome these issues in such a short time. I realize now that I have to remind myself every morning that I love my partner to ensure my actions always follow my true beliefs. One example is checking out other women, which is very disrespectful. It stems from my seeking approval from women and lack of telling myself that I'm committed to this one woman each day.

Now, three weeks later, she's dating other people and I'm really struggling, despite improving myself in waves. I let her know this, and that I will reach out to her when I feel 100% to see where both of us are. I still want to go to therapy to ensure I'm my best self, and that I can commit 100% of my heart to a woman and being confident that I will keep my word for our entire life. Do you have any suggestions for me? I know this is a complicated one. If I decide to ask her to get engaged or move in with me, how do I do this while also respecting her boundaries with her other potential dates? Regards, watching the woman of my dreams leave my life.

Whoa. Yikes. Okay. Well, look, the bottom line here is, if you're not ready to get married, you're not ready to get married. And you know that you're not ready to get married when you don't feel like you really freaking want to get married. And I know that that sounds simple, but I'm not ready to get married.

that sounds simple, but also kind of maybe almost too simple. Here's my personal experience, and I've reflected on this with a lot of other men, my age and older. And it's essentially like this. A lot of guys, and I won't speak for women here, I do see a fundamental difference in the way that men and women think about this typically, but for a lot of guys, we're ready when we're ready, and it almost happens pretty suddenly. It's like one summer you're dating, you're going out to the bar, you're bringing home different girls, you're having tons of parties at your place, you're living that bachelor life,

and then suddenly you meet somebody and you settle down. And from the outside, it looks like, oh, he finally met the right girl and now he's not interested in partying and going out and having all those things happen and having all those pool parties and stuff like that. I think, and this is my personal experience compared with a lot of my other friends as well, it's not that you meet someone and then you settle down. It's that you basically consciously or subconsciously, get sick of all of the other stuff, and then you go, huh, what's the next thing I need to do? And then you meet somebody that sort of fits the bill and you're getting along really well and you're attracted to them and you have a really good friendship and you get married and you settle down.

And that's okay because it looks like you just met the right person and you're no longer interested, but really your timing changed and then you met a great fit. And that was it. So if you're feeling like she's a great fit but your timing is wrong, then your timing is is wrong and you shouldn't get married, period. And, you know, look, you're, you're worried that you're never going to meet anyone like her again. It's just not true. Everyone feels that way. I know you, I'm struggling to improve myself. You know, I'm trying to work hard at this. You can't speed up the timing in my experience. Yeah, you can go to therapy. You can work on yourself. You can commit 100%.

If you don't feel like committing, you won't do it. There's no reason to do it. You're not, You're not doing anything wrong. I think that's the key here. You're not doing anything wrong by being 31 and deciding that you want to be a bachelor for a while. You're not doing anything wrong by not being able to commit 100% and then thinking I can keep my word for the rest of my life. That is not realistic for you right now. You should not do it. I don't get the rush to get married.

It sounds like she's trying to rush your timeline and or you're trying to rush yourself because you feel like, oh, I'm going to lose her. she's going to go off of someone else. This is not something that she can rush, and you shouldn't rush yourself. I'm guessing it has something to do if she wants to have kids. Is this something you've talked about? Because think about this.

You could wake up one day, married with kids, and feeling this exact same way about the commitment, but now you're married and you have kids. And I know everyone's like, oh, well, you'll never regret having kids. No, but you might regret the situation that you're in.

You have time. You know, if your timing doesn't mesh with hers, that's the way that it is. She could be a great person. You can break up because of this timing. This timing is going to be a problem for you for a while. And I just, I really think you should not marry this person. I don't think you should rush your timeline. And the whole checking out other women thing, look, I don't, I don't really see how this is approval seeking that much. I mean, I get that it might look that way, but I think it's also natural. I wouldn't make it super obvious when she's around, maybe she's sensitive to this because she feels that you're not committed,

so she thinks that you're more likely to cheat. Because I think in many normal, healthy relationships, when the other partner feels secure, they don't worry about this. They just don't. I mean, if I look at another girl in Jen's there, she's usually like, oh, yeah, I really like, you know, I saw you looking at the hostess. Yeah, she's dressed really well. It's not a whole, it's not like, you're going to go cheat on me, you prick. You know, we don't have that because she doesn't feel and secure about it. So that's all canary in another coal mine about this. And yeah, she's dating other people. You're struggling despite improving yourself. You need to work on yourself and grow. You really cannot be on her timeline. You will make yourself miserable. You'll regret this long term.

It will cause a problem. It's just that right now it's a problem and you don't have kids and you're not married. It's not going to go away because you take action on this with her. It's not going to get better because you commit by force. It's just not. That's a horrible, horrible idea. And don't ask her to get engaged. Don't ask her to move in with you while she's dating other people.

Like this is all bonkers. You're trying to retain her while also not committing to her, which is what she doesn't want. So now she's going to do things to get your timeline sped up like date other people and show, you know, rub it in your face

to make you feel bad. You're going to make each other miserable. And then if she, quote, unquote, wins, you're married to somebody and you don't want to necessarily be committed. and then if you win, she's miserable because she feels insecure because you're not committed to her. This is a lose-lose for both of you right now. It's horrible. So I would say just do not. Do not do this. Break up. I normally don't recommend this,

but I think for the good of both of you, you need to work on yourself and you need to let her go for now. I am in 100,000 percent agreement with you on that. He's just not in the right space for it at all. Yeah. And also, I just want to say, you know, perfect is the enemy of the good. he wants to be 100%. Nobody's ever going to be 100%. Just keep working on yourself. You're going to be good enough at some point, and you're going to find the right person

and the timing is going to match. So just don't beat yourself up about it. Just keep going on, you know, keep on keeping on. But don't let her timeline influence your life by any stretch. Yeah, I agree. All right, next up. Dear Triple J team, this one's for Jason. Ooh, I got one for me.

Yeah. So you're down in SoCal and Jordans in Silicon Valley. How do you make these feedback Fridays sound so darn good? Are you recording both sides of a Skype call or something? Also, your company seems so fluid and mobile. LOL. How do you manage to keep the company team operating so tightly and meeting deadlines when Jordan's going all over the place? Cheers.

Small winery, big dreams. Jason, why don't you answer this? I mean, our tech, I don't want to get into two technical weeds because most of the listeners won't care, but I think some people are curious how we do these shows with just you and I. Because my interviews are all in person now. So that's a whole tech thing that we can go over some other time, not on a feedback Friday. But for doing these that they sound so crisp and clean, it's really not complicated. I think we should just tell people how we do it.

Sure thing. It's very simple. We do record each side of the Skype conversation. So we have local recordings. I get sent both. Well, I get my local recording that I saved. Jordan sends me his. I run everything through a program called isotope RX7 advance to clean it up, put them all together in Logic Pro 10.

and edit it that way. We also use another program called Zencaster sometimes when we do do remote shows. Like Professor Scott Galloway's episode was done on Zencaster, he was not in the room with us, and we still did that show. But mainly it is getting clean local recordings that we can then splice together.

It's called a double-ender in the podcaster tech speak. So that's how I do that, and then I clean it up, tighten it up, and make it sound good. And as far as the team operating so tightly, we use Slack, We use Google Docs. We have many, many, many spreadsheets and many, many folders and a lot of processes to really kind of keep things on the rails since everybody is somewhere different. And that's, you know, kind of my job as a producer to keep all of the scheduling and things going like that in the spreadsheets and making sure everybody's got to be where they got to be.

And also, Jen works her magic on just about everything else with when it comes down to scheduling guests, making travel plans, getting all of the equipment for the live shows where they need to go. runs all of that. She runs the cameras. She runs the microphones. All of that is all Jen for the live show. So if you ever want to know about that, send Jen a note. We can maybe get her on a feedback Friday someday. Yeah, right. We've been trying. We've been trying. But she's just, she's shy. You know, the more I think about it, Jen's email signature right now says aid de camp, you know, for Jordan Harbinger, Jordan Harbinger show. In truth, just given all the things you've just said, she really is our C-O, honestly. Absolutely. Yeah. She's like she, she, she, she, she, she, she, She left the assistant train a whole long time ago.

And because I'm not telling her, hey, you need to do this, you need to do that. She's thinking for herself. She's taking on initiative. She's managing projects, you know, so she's really no aid to camp. That's somebody, I mean, I can hire somebody like that anytime if I'm willing to pay. But hiring another Jen would be basically impossible. So I think Jen just got promoted. I think she just did right here, live on Feedback Friday.

That's right. All right, next step. Hi, Triple J. I'm looking for some help and guidance on how to approach and recover from a tough breakup. My ex was officially diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. For years, we tried to work things out, but things were only getting worse. And no matter how much care, compassion, and empathy I approached the situation with, we were fighting every weekend. And the relationship was making both of us miserable. Now that we broke up after five or six attempts, I feel lost.

I'm constantly getting bombarded by classic worries and concerns like, I will never find anyone else and will be alone forever. And what if we give it one last chance? And this time it would be different. What practical steps and measures should I take and how can I work on my mindset to recover and move on? Thanks for all the work that you do. Signed, need help getting back on the horse.

Whenever you go through a breakup, the key element of recovery is working on yourself. I feel like I've said that four or five times in this episode. I feel like there's a lot of people in transitioning. year. My breakups in the past, I had this ritual of, okay, I broke up with somebody now. What do I do? All right. I'm making sure that I'm going to the gym and all that stuff, staying physically and emotionally healthy. But I always pick up a new skill and I really focus on that. I don't focus on dating. I don't focus on going out and trying to replace that relationship. I don't focus on going out and trying to feel like I'm still desired by the opposite sex. I focus on a skill

because what happens is whenever you start thinking about that person or you start getting upset about it or you start to feel less than, just study a little Chinese or work on another cooking recipe or do a fitness thing, make a video, edit some music, whatever it is, that will be a good distraction. But also, whenever you focus on a skill and you build capability, you build a little bit of confidence too. So when you lose relationships and you lose a little confidence, learning a skill and realizing, oh, I can really change my behavior. I can really pick up new habits. It has helped me in the past, and I think it'll do the same for you, to realize like, oh, okay, you're really in charge of your future. You're in charge of your capabilities.

And it's very, very helpful to make sure that you've got a lot of different skills and talents. And then, of course, now that you're like, oh, now I can cook and I do video editing. When you go out, you've worked on yourself. You feel like you have your stuff together. You don't have to go out and go, Nancy doesn't love me. I need to find another girl that looks like her and try to get laid. Like that's what a lot of us do in breakups, and it's not good. It doesn't replace or help at all, and it just delays the healing, whereas I think skill acquisition

is a really good way to kick off that process. Also, realize that your delusions here, I'll never find anyone else, I'm going to die alone. They are delusions, and they're based on cognitive bias. We idealize our past partners, right? We think of all the great things, but we don't think of all the crap. Emotional thinking. Oh, I'm lonely right now, so it must be because of this. Wham, lonely, I'm going to be alone for.

whatever. What you need to do in this case, examine the triggers. So something like, hey, watching Netflix alone at night makes me feel lonely and pathetic. Label that so that when it happens the next time, you can say to yourself, yeah, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with this. This is the feeling, this is just a feeling that I get. And it's okay. It's okay to watch Netflix alone. It doesn't mean you're pathetic. Doesn't mean you're alone. Like you've already kind of answered and handled that question. So every time that that happens, you can sort of document that and go, yes, okay, I knew this was going to happen. It's just a feeling it's going to pass. Also, every time you idealize her, think of times when you fought and all the problems that you had

and how miserable that was and then write these narratives down. I'm not saying dwell in all the negativity, but write the narratives down so that when you're like, oh, I miss Nancy, she was so great, why did we ever break up? Oh, right, narcissistic personality disorder. Then you pick up the little journal and it's like 6 a.m. She threw a glass at me while I was sleeping, you know, had been up for three days and you know, it's gotten a fight at Chipotle. Like you need to realize, oh yeah, I'm not with this person for a damn good reason. And you can even do a voice recording of that stuff too. It's not going to just be like, oh, good, I broke up with her. I feel good about that. You're still going to feel bad, but you won't idealize her as much. You'll have a more

balanced view and it will stop some of the emotional thinking and you'll realize, okay, you made the right move. So, no, what if we give it one last chance and this time it'll be different? No, you won't. And then when you do that recording, you'll be like, I'm never giving that another chance. No. Again, take the time to work on yourself. You'll pick up something new, you'll be better for it,

and new skills increase confidence, which increase the odds that you're going to get back on your feet in terms of dating. Plus, if you're learning new skills, chances are you're in a class, you're going to meet people there, you'll increase your social circle. All of these things you need to be doing right now. Platonic friends, hanging out with people that love you, not dating. Right now, you really need a break. You need to live without focusing on someone else's needs, especially someone with narcissistic

personality disorder who often those people can be bottomless pits of energy and needs and negativity and, I mean, narcissism by definition. You can give them all of your energy and it's still not enough. You can really get sucked into like a black hole here. So you need to work on yourself, take that break, and live for yourself for a few months before you even get back in the dating pool because you need to reset your meter here, man. 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, so we appreciate it when you check them out. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visitjordanharbinger.com slash deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right, next. This question is brought to you by The Hartford. To learn more, visit Thehartford.com slash small business. Hey, Jordan, Jason, and Jen. Congrats on the child. I look forward to hearing about your experiences as a parent.

I've been looking to start a product-based business and was wondering what I need to do marketing-wise to get started. It seems like social media is mostly a waste of time. I was also wondering if I should start an LLC and create a separate bank account for business purposes, or should I worry about that later? I've also been ghosted by a lot of the businesses I've reached out to when it comes to developing my product. I also have a domain name and started screwing with WordPress, but that's about it. Thanks, analysis paralysis. Definitely get a bank account separate. I would say that that's something that can always be a pain in the butt. Worry about the LLC later once you actually start making money.

Right now, you can be a sole proprietor. It's not going to be a big deal. Don't spend $400 bucks incorporating when you're not even sure what's going to happen. Social media marketing is actually legit. But social media marketing is largely about ads and or influencer marketing. It's not about posting crap on a brand new, two-day-old, Twitter and Instagram so that people see your product. You put an ads budget together and you get that going with a professional. You can do that later on. For now, if it's a product, it's a physical

product. Don't worry about the website. Don't worry about the legal entity. Like I said, get that separate bank account for transactions just to keep things separate. Keep it legal. Keep it easy to calculate. Don't worry about bells and whistles. Don't get a logo design. Don't get friggin e-commerce or whatever set up yet. You know, get the product together. get a prototype of the product, start selling it. In fact, sell it before you have a prototype. If you can't sell it, nobody can sell it. So that's the skill set you should focus on.

Not marketing, sales. Knowing how to sell the product is even more important than the product itself. And I know you might be hoping, oh, it's going to be so good, it's going to sell itself, it's going to be so good, people are just going to want it. Unless the product is cocaine, that ain't happening. Stuff like this doesn't sell itself. Your new supplement, your new fitness thing, your new gadget does not. not sell itself. Anyone, by the way, ghosting you, other companies that were going to partner up,

but they, you lost track of them. This is part of the process. This is, this is the sales cycle, right? You have to sell those companies on your ideas too. So learn to sell, work on the product. That is all that matters right now. Sales, not marketing, selling in general, getting people behind you, and then create that prototype. Everything else is a freaking distraction until this is done and ready. All right, next. Dear J. Crew, I don't know if I like J. Crew. That's, that's, I like Triple J, J,

J crew. I would never shop there. First, I want to say that I'm grateful to you for creating the six-minute networking course. Since January, my life has gotten so much richer with stepping up my game on digging the well. Where I'm having difficulty is text engage. I reach out by text, LinkedIn, DM, or WhatsApp,

and I've rekindled some old relationships. However, due to the asynchronous nature of this type of conversation, it's hard to know when the conversation is technically over. After a volley, I might be waiting a while for a response, and I can't know if it's just because he or she is busy or just didn't see it or if the specific exchange has run its course at the moment. How do you know when it's time to gracefully end it?

Do you have a limit on how many volleys you serve before you end it or invite a call or meeting? Thanks, sincerely, playing tennis on time lapse. Thanks for taking the drills at six-minute networking. I literally just let things go after a while. while. No need for a formal end to a conversation. You can also end it by using forward projection. So you can say something like, great to hear from you. Keep in touch. That's not quite goodbye. And it allows them to keep talking if they want to, but it also sort of lets things go.

Or thanks for the chat. Don't be a stranger. Or let me know how I can be of help to you or something like that. It's good enough. Don't overthink this stuff. That's the beauty of texting. It's really informal. It's no big deal. If this just kind of fizzle, it's just kind of fizzle. out. That's why we do the drills every day. Consistency matters far more than anything for these weaker or dormant network ties. You don't have to do a call. You don't have to do a meeting. In fact, that's what most people dread about these drills. They don't want to do a call or do a meeting. They want to keep their network up. They want to keep the plate spinning, but they don't want to end up going out for coffee. And that's the thing. Most of the time, nobody else wants that either. So you're just

staying top of mind. Hey, I saw a funny ad today, and it reminded me of that old job you had back in college, you know, where you used to serve things on roller skates, like, LOL, that's it. And they go, oh, right, I saw that too. How are you? Oh, I just had a kid. Oh, man, that's great. What a journey. Hey, man, don't be a stranger. Like, you don't have to have a five-hour phone conversation with everybody. You shouldn't. Most people don't want to. You're literally just popping in. That's it. And for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, go to six-minute networking. That's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. It's all free. It's about creating and maintaining network connections for personal, professional reasons. All it takes is a few

minutes a day. And I know a lot of you have questions on that and we answer them in the course, but also occasionally here on Feedback Friday. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. All right, last but not least. Triple J. Listen to your podcast with Remete about how you can get a coach for anything. I wanted your advice on how to go about finding a good coach. I've always been hesitant to find a coach for several reasons. It takes a lot of time to find someone good. What if this person doesn't actually help and it takes a while to figure that out? What will the price be? Will I be able to get a better deal? Will it be worth the money? Why don't I use the alternatives like YouTube, reading, focusing on my own, etc.? After I learn all this

stuff, maybe it's not what I think it is. Not completely sure I can identify exactly if it is what I want to learn. And after thinking about it more, I really think it comes down to a few of them. But just as an example of some things I'm trying to learn or increase my knowledge or get someone to show me are programming. Should I take Python or Java? 3D printing? Developing business processes. Google Sheets, which is a specific thing I want to learn and getting things done. Any advice on quickly finding a good coach would be appreciated. Sincerely, Grasshopper. Hey, Grasshopper. Coaching is great for absolute beginners in something because you avoid mistakes. I know a lot of people go, oh, I don't need a coach yet. You know, I'm just starting off. That's fine, but get a coach, literally any decent coach.

It could be remote. You could do it over friggin' face time. Doesn't matter. You don't have to get the best person. You don't need to learn how to hold a golf club from Tiger Woods. You don't need to learn how to dribble a basketball from Michael Jordan, right? You just don't. Coaches are also good on the top end of the learning spectrum as well. For example, I can't read books in articles about interviewing and expect to get better. I've read everything I can find a lot of the info in there is basic, which makes sense because it's for people new to interviewing. Right now, I need someone at the top of their game to show me what I might have missed

or how to get better in a very specific small niche area. And I even ask other interviewers and often who are professionals and they'll even say, I don't know, I'd have to think about this. So then I have to pay them to listen to episodes of the show and see if they have useful feedback and a lot of it is very hard to articulate because it's personality based. But this is why pros like Tiger Woods have coaches for everything. Tiger Woods, I think, and I'm going off memory here, he has like a swing for just the golf swing. He's got a strategy coach for how to play the course in a certain way. He has numerous fitness coaches. He has a mobility coach. There's all kinds of stuff

going on here because he wants to get very high level performance in very specific niches. So when you get a coach from the beginning of any activity, you're spending money to save time in the short term and in the long term. You know, you're not going to hit these same beginner mistakes. You're going to learn good habits. You're not going to have to unlearn anything. And look, later on, if you don't want the skill afterward, fine, who cares. Learning what you do not want is just as good as finding something that you do want. Years ago, as I mentioned before, I was in a breakup and I started taking Korean.

And I was like, oh, this is really cool. And one day the teacher goes, yeah, why are you taking Korean? We talked about going to North Korea and all this stuff. And she goes, oh, yeah. You know, Korean, I'm always just surprised when people who aren't Korean are learning it because it's just there's 25 million people in North Korea and there's 42 and South. And so you're really only talking to South Korea. 42 million people.

It just seems like you should have a connection to the country. And then I went, oh, well, whatever. And she goes, yeah, it's strange because it's just as hard as Chinese to learn. And I went, wait a minute. Koreans just as hard as Chinese, which actually I don't believe now, but whatever. Koreans just as hard as Chinese. I should just learn Chinese. and talk to 1.4 billion people instead of 42 million.

So I switched. Now, do I regret getting Korean lessons and coaching? Not really. I mean, did I need it? Not really, but I at least knew I didn't want to do that, and it helped me get to the point where I wanted to learn Chinese. I also took courses on audiobook narration. Man, that was something where I went, I'm never doing this.

I hate this. It's hard, it's long, it's a slog, it's boring, it's not as fun as commercials and video games. I am not doing this. So I am so glad I took those courses because I would have had FOMO, I would have gone for, here's how I would have found out I don't like audiobook narration without that class.

I would have taken a gig from a publisher and hated every second of it and hopefully not done a terrible job and burned a bridge, but I would have hated every second of it and I would have got paid and been really annoyed. Instead, I paid for a class, found out right away, no thanks, and now I'm never going to do it. So with coaching, I'm basically finding a coach now for everything

so that I don't have to self-study. Self-study is less effective. It does waste time. So I'm optimizing personally for time and skill development. Nothing beats coaching for that. If you're really on a budget or you're just like, I want to learn something, but I have no idea what, then just do self-study.

I would say go to Skillshare and just look at what you're interested in and take a few Skillshare classes. You go to Skillshare.com slash Harbinger for two free months of Skillshare premium. and he mentioned Python, Java, 3D printing, Google Sheets, business process, literally everything on your list is in Skillshare. And Jen took a 3D printing class by joining a local maker space. And they had machines, they had a 3D printing class. She befriended other makers in the space, got a lot of tips.

Most of what she's learned is through trial and error in practice and making stuff for fun, but she had to start with the coaching. So you definitely want to make sure that you are getting this stuff. you dip your toes in water, you get a little bit of experience, and then stop if you like the skill. Don't try to think like I'm going to master this stuff. Stop as soon as you decide you're interested and get a coach right then because then you won't learn bad habits. You want to unlearn stuff and you'll excel so much faster than everyone else. And a quick tip on the Java versus Python. Take Python. Everybody uses Python nowadays. Java is good if you want to build

Android apps, which I would say I'd rather tear my eyes out. But Python is a utility language that everybody's using for everything. So there's my pro tip for you right there. Take Python. Life pro tip. Budget 20 to 50 bucks, whatever you can afford each month. Start with 20 bucks.

I think a lot of you can probably manage this. I do it just because gift with Jen. And we pick someone has nothing to do with business. It's just somebody that we know, even tangentially, and we know they're going to be into something. And so an example might be somebody really liked something that I was wearing or somebody really liked.

like some item or was looking for a solution to a certain problem that I happen to know the gadget for and I'll just send it. You know, I'll send somebody a microphone if I know they're starting a podcast and they're probably going to need it. And it's really nice to just reach out and send it with no, absolutely no sort of expectation attached to it. And it's been really fun because people are stoked to get it. They're really surprised. And very rarely do we get gifts from somebody just randomly. It almost never happens. So these just because, guess, we've been doing them each month, and it's just been a great reaction. We've just felt really good doing it. People have really felt closer to us. We feel we're closer to a lot of people doing it. 20 to 50 bucks. It's really

easy. And just sort of when inspiration strikes you. You know, someone says, oh, I'm starting a podcast too. I've got to figure out how to do all the stuff and go get the equipment. Maybe I can peek your brain about that sometime. And then you just shoot them a microphone. There's like, wow, Thank you. Or I have to record on the road. What should I get? And you just send him the mic. It's not that expensive.

And it's just such a nice gesture. And it can be anything that you want. Just don't make it only about business. You know, don't send the gift to a potential client hoping they buy something. That's not what this is. This is just because.

And the point is, you know, you saw your neighbor doing some jump rope in the driveway and then the handle was broken on the jump rope. Send him a new jump rope. It's literally just that kind of thing. And it's been really a lot of fun the last few months. I highly recommend doing that.

Recommendation of the week, Black Klansman. I just finally saw this. Jason, did this win awards? I can't even remember. Yeah, I think it won best screenplay. I know Spike Lee did get his Oscar this time around. He didn't get best movie or best director, but I'm pretty sure he got best screenplay. Yeah, it looks like it won a bunch of stuff.

Bafto Awards, Can Grand Prix, Satellite Award, Academy Awards. So it's worth seeing. And I thought it was well done. I mean, Spike Lee, you know, not everyone's cup of tea, but it's about an African-American police officer who manages to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan, and it is based on a true story. So it's a trip. The acting's great. The film is just a lot of fun. So I really like this Black Klansman.

I think it's a good, it's a good watch. It's always good to watch the ones that win awards and see if you agree with any of the critics. I usually don't, for the record. 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. Get your questions answered on the air. We'll always keep you anonymous. We're doing some live events. Right now, we're doing corporate stuff, but we're going to be doing live events. Well, I'm having a kid soon. So maybe after that we'll have to see. That's why I'm not announcing anything just yet.

In 2022, we'll be back with live events. That's right. That's right. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Quick shout out to John Renov for bringing over DIY pizza making supplies from Pizza My Heart over for our Game of Thrones finale the other night. He's moving to Portland in June. We will miss him. And Jason, you got a shout out of your own today. I got a big shout out to my dad because it's his birthday today. Woohoo! Nice.

Happy birthday. I think he's probably going to be working because he never stops working. So if you're hanging around Water Tower Place in Chicago, feel free to stop by the Dr. Seuss Art Gallery and buy something from him. That would be a nice birthday present. All right. Go back and check out the guests from this week, Scott Galloway and the deep dive that we did on what to do if your purpose or what you think is your purpose starts to suck. so go back and check out those if you haven't yet.

And if you want to know how we managed to book all these great people and manage to have this network full of awesome, level up, fantastic people, we'll check out our six-minute networking course. It's free. It's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And this course replaces the old level one course and has a bunch of upgraded drills and tech and systems in there. It's really, really amazing results that I'm seeing from people.

And I know you're going to do it later, right? But the problem is you can't make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. The number one mistake people make with this is postponing this, not digging the well before they get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you're just way too late. These drills are designed to take a few minutes a day, and it's really, it's the type of habit we ignore only at our own peril.

It's the stuff I wish I knew a decade ago. It's not fluff. It is crucial. You can find all that for free at jordanharbinger.com slash course. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's greatly to engage with the show. videos of our interviews are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. My personal website's over at jpd.m. me, and I got a bunch of videos in the can that are

going to be coming out soon as soon as I can finish my Skillshare courses on Final Cut Pro, which I'm going through right now. So definitely go to Skillshare.com slash Harbinger to get your two months free. And you can also check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks at gog. Show or your podcast player of choice, and make sure the kids aren't in the room because we do get a bit salty. This show was produced in association with Podcast One. This episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger,

and show notes for the website are by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordanharbinger.com. And remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. 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.

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