The Jordan Harbinger Show - 212: How to Live with Unwashed Loved Ones | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: June 14, 2019

Are you a germaphobe if it creeps you out when your spouse and in-laws don't wash their hands after using the bathroom, or is your disgust actually reasonable and justified? If getting divorced and burning down the house aren't options, we'll tell you how to live with unwashed loved ones on this Feedback Friday! 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/212. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Thanks to an accidental glance at their phone, you suspect one of your parents might be cheating on your other parent. What do you do now? You've noticed your significant other and in-laws don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. As a germaphobe, how do you reconcile love with the disgust you're feeling? Though your trustworthy significant other insists the condoms you found in their car were bought before you agreed to stop using them, it's bothering you. Should you let the issue go? How can you deal with the anxiety of starting your own business and accepting the risks and potential setbacks while giving it your all? How do you intentionally work your way toward connecting with super influential people like Reid Hoffman when you're just getting started in your networking efforts? Your stay-home spouse admitted recently that they are lonely. How do you foster friendships as an adult -- especially when you have infants to take care of? The VP of your company wants to advance you, yet worries you may be too young or inexperienced for a higher-up position. What can you do to convince them you're ready for the position? You have a somewhat manipulative boss who is taking a new job and wants to bring you along. Should you take this as an opportunity to continue your professional relationship, or is it just time to move on from his erratic reign? Life Pro Tip: If you can't decide between two items of clothing (like two different jackets), have someone take photos of you with them on (front and back), and then look at the photos. Recommendation of the Week: The Black Godfather A quick shoutout to Jodie! 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,... 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 Howie Mandel talking about a lot from comedy to mental health. This was actually one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done and is probably one of my top recommendations for people new to the show. We also had Arthur Brooks here in studio talking about how something called the outrage industrial complex is designed to divide America so that thought leaders and partisan political personalities and pundits gets a lot of peas can make money and arthur's a great thinker he's a really good writer he's an even better talker as you will hear in that episode so this week is just loaded up nicely i also write every so often

on the blog the latest post is a deep dive on confidence it's a bit of a throwback in terms of the topic but we did a huge piece on confidence building it maintaining it and that's at jordan harbinger dot com slash articles so make sure that you have a look and a listen to all that stuff that we created for you the year this week of course our primary mission is to pass along our guest experiences and our experiences and insights along to you in other words the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you and that's what we're going to do today here on feedback friday you can reach us friday at jordan harbinger dot com and jason it's hot as hell outside it's a great week to just sit inside reading it's over a hundred each day up here which is

crazy. Yeah, it's ridiculous down here, too. I'm so glad that I spent the spring redoing my studio with insulation and drywall, so it's actually like a place where I can actually work. Because I walk out the door and it feels like somebody's hitting me with like a heat gun. It's crazy. It is crazy. It's, it's, it's, I bring this up because when I sit inside, I often do things like read or make phone calls. And speaking of phone calls, I heard the FCC is finally going to fricking ban or allow carriers, I should say, to ban robocalls. It's like the one thing the FCC has done recently with that weirdo Ajit Pi at the helm that seems to be working, although I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it's like, now you have to,

now it blows up in your face and it's actually bad for you. But he's allowing Verizon 18T and your cell phone carrier to ban robocalls, which before I didn't realize they couldn't do that. Yeah, it sounds like you listen to Grumpy Old Geeks, my podcast, because you're waiting for the other shoe to drop because there's always a catch. There's always a gotcha with these things. And yeah, they're letting the carriers determine what is a robocall and what isn't a robocall because all the corporations are saying that, hey, we still need to be able to do robocalls for like, you know, debt collection and things like that. They're going to let through all of the ones that we really hate. But they're still going to, you know, try and ban the ones that are just completely spammerific and coming from India and places like that who just buy up a bunch of numbers or rent them, technically. They rent the numbers for a couple hours, send a huge amount of traffic through and do the calls and then disappear. And fortunately, the FCC has given the carriers this at least little bit of, you know, leeway to get rid of this. So any, any little bit of respite that we can

get in the storm, I think is good. I agree. Yeah. Look, if you owe somebody money, that's a problem. But if you're just calling me to be like, hey, you need to, the IRS is investigating you. I mean, that, how is that legal? I mean, it's obviously not, but you need to empower us. It's funny because I have a 415 area code for my phone because I got it in San Francisco 12 years ago. So all of my robocalls come in Chinese because what they're doing is doing immigration scams. I'll tell you, I get those two with my Michigan area code it's not just you yeah the immigration scam is huge okay yeah because it's people who have no idea what's going on they're like we're going to deport you and you need to call us back and you need to give us money

and we'll fix this problem for you and it's a terrible scourge on the phone industry because i mean nobody wants to talk on the phone anyway anymore and when you get these calls and people who don't know any better who are getting fleeced it's just it's so just disgusting so disgusting right so my point is here, by the way, if you know anybody who is from another country, especially if they're Chinese speaking, tell them about this Chinese immigration scam. Apparently, they've netted just tens of millions of dollars with this scam. It's convincing enough to call from the embassy. It's in Chinese. But like, even my wife's parents were like, oh, something with their visas. And I was like, hold on, this is a scam. And they're like, oh, okay. I'm like, you're American

citizens, you're not going to get a call from the Chinese or U.S. Embassy in Chinese telling you that you're going to, they can't deport you. You're American now. Like, you're safe. It's good. You're good now. Yeah, you're all safe. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. You're safe. And frankly, in my area, you outnumber anybody who would try to deport you. So you're good. You're fine. All right. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Dear JJ and Jay, a few years ago, my dad asked me to respond to my mother on his phone, and he had a number with no name that he'd recently been texting just below it. When he was out of the car, I went on his phone and was not positive, but was pretty sure it

was someone else he was seeing. I tried to get this out of my head and forgot about it until this year when I was home helping my father do projects around the house, and he opened his phone and it opened a kick, which is a messaging app, with multiple chats and explicit photos. He rushed to close his phone, and I acted like I didn't see anything. I don't know if I should tell someone or not. My biggest concern is my little sister who just started middle school and my other sister who just started high school. Do I bring it up with my dad and try and talk it out, which will be awkward?

Or do I tell my mom? Do I tell my sisters? Or do I just forget it again? Thanks for your advice. I'm honestly clueless as of now. Sincerely, am I being overprotective? Well, it's your choice, really. But if it were me, I'd talk it out with my dad first, and I'd give him a chance to come clean to your mom himself.

because if you talk to her directly and she finds out from you, there's the whole shooting the messenger thing that may or may not happen, but also she's not necessarily going to know how to react. So she's got to then figure out how to confront your dad about it. It's a whole thing. And she might know already, too. She might know already. Yeah, that was my other thought.

I was going to get to that in a second. She may actually know already, and now she's got to handle that with you. So you're kind of just passing the ball of stress onto your mom, if you'd tell her first, you know. And also she could chick, out and it could go on forever and it's just the whole thing but give him a deadline don't say you got to confront mom on this and he'll be like cool and then he's like I was going to do it at Christmas and you're like it's February what are you talking about what are you talking about February do it now so give

him like a week or something or a week or two whatever to do it if he doesn't do it himself then you go to your mom and you just say look if you don't if you don't tell mom this week I'm going to tell her because I shouldn't have to keep this secret leave your sisters out of it they're too young, it's just going to traumatize them. It's going to be a huge thing. It's going to be a problem anyway. And frankly, like Jason said, she might already know. It's not like everything is perfect in your parents' life right now and you're the one

ruining it. He's ruined it already. So you don't have to keep other people's secrets thinking you're keeping everybody happy. Because your mom, even if she doesn't know, she's probably got a clue that something's going on or the marriage spark is gone or all this stuff. Your parents have to settle this even with kids in school. She could be stressed. She could be holding a secret.

Your sisters, the whole family is going to feel a reverb of what's happening here. So it's already happening. You're ripping off the band-aid. It's not like everybody thinks everything is perfect. Think about this. Your mom probably knows something is going on if she doesn't know about this already. Your dad's hiding a terrible secret. You now know about this.

The only people who probably don't know are your little sisters. Yes, you've got to protect them, but I don't think that keeping this, sweeping this under the rug is really protecting them. because it's going to affect your mental health, your dad's mental health, your mom's mental health. How good is that going to be? What home life is that going to be for these two little girls? Yeah, they don't know about the cheating, but aren't they going to then see that their whole family is acting like a bunch of crazy, stressed out weirdos? That's not good either. So this has to get handled, and it's not your fault.

Yeah, it's not his fault, but here's what I think. Here's my gut reaction on this. I think the mom knows. I think the dad has like, you know, he's got a whole pass to go do what he does. And they're both doing what they have to do to get the kids through school. I've seen this happen so many times. And what I think really is going on, it's just like they have an unhappy marriage. Everybody's doing what they're going to do.

Go check your mom's phone if you want. She might have a little bit on the side too. And they're just sticking together to get the kids out of the house into college. And then at that point, they have a divorce, they go their separate ways, everybody lives their lives like they normally would. Because that makes your dad and your mom, by the way, very stand-up people because they don't want this to be out to the family. You just stumbled on this and you weren't meant to stumble upon this.

And I think that they may have an agreement that just says, hey, look, we haven't, you know, the fire's gone. and we're going to be our people soon enough once these kids get out of the house. So let's just put on the front. Let's be happy and marry and keep the whole family together. And then when everybody has grown up enough to handle it, we go our separate ways. We live our lives and we become the people that we want to be. That really, I've seen that over and over again.

And I think that's what's happening here. Yeah, I tend to agree. I say 50-50 chance, maybe even great. than that your mom already knows. I think adults think they're really good at keeping secrets from kids and they're really not. That's what I think.

And you're not, I don't think this person is a child. I think she's, oldest she's in school. We don't really know. But adults are, nobody's really good at keeping secrets like this over a prolonged period of time.

Everybody kind of sort of maybe sort of knows, right? Like you just kind of know. Every time I've dated a girl who had a, a parent who was doing some stepping out, even when I was in high school, or even middle school, we just kind of, like, knew something was going on. I remember one of my buddies in high school, his mom was cheating with somebody, but she, like, wanted to get caught because it was a whole divorce.

It was just a whole mess. It was terrible. But the school knew, and we were in ninth grade. So, because these rumors, they get out, right? Like, that kid finds out through overhearing his parents fighting and then tells, like, a friend who then or tells the sister, who then tells her friend, who then tells her brother,

and then the whole school knows. Like, people know this stuff. So it's better to rip off the band-aid on this and just get it out there. Get it done, have it handled. Your dad needs to step up to the plate on this one. If that conversation means he has to go and protect your mom by being like,

by the way, you know, because he's not going to come out and say your mom already knows, right? He might. He might. He might, yeah, it's possible. Yeah, who knows? And also, give him that out.

And don't box him into a corner and say, you know, hey, what are you doing? You bastard, you're cheating on mom and whatever. Just say, hey, you're adults. If this is consensual, that's fine. And I want to make sure my sisters are protected from all this so it doesn't, like, screw up their school life until they go off to college. You know, give him an out. True. Yeah, there's a good point here, right?

Because he might say, oh, yeah, your mom knows. And you're like, cool. I want to have a conversation with both of you then. Don't just take his word for it. because if she doesn't know and he's lying, then he needs to handle it. But either way, you need to take the monkey off your back and hand it back to your parents. All right, next up. Hey, Triple J.

My husband and I have been happily married for five years, and I consider myself one of the luckiest people for having such a loving and supportive husband and sweet in-laws. Our fights were usually about cooking and his handling of raw chicken very poorly and contaminating the entire kitchen. We also had a phase where we fought because I noticed he didn't wash his hands after using the bathroom. My husband working on being conscious and we found compromises. I'm happy to report he regularly washes his hands after bathroom breaks and we now purchase cooked chicken from our local market and all has been well.

His parents are visiting from Spain for the month and at first I was ecstatic to have them here. I'm transitioning work positions and was happy to spend time together and take them sightseeing. The trouble started day two when his mother began taking over in wanting to buy three times the groceries we usually get, including uncooked chicken. Later I mentioned that I was particular when it came to cooking chicken and that we needed to pick up our cooked chicken for the week. She got frustrated and later made comments like, I don't need anyone telling me how to peel garlic, and I'm very hygienic. And to smooth the tension, I told her, I knew that, and I went to bed. Since then, though, not only does she not stop, she's cooking from seven in the morning to three in the afternoon and going around the house finding things to do that aren't necessary,

but I heard her mumbling under her breath or to his dad things like, that's a sickness, which I'm pretty sure refers to me wanting hands washed since she told me the day before that anyone that uses paper towels to open public restroom doors has a sickness. To top it off, I've been sick for a few days and sleeping in the guest room next to the bathroom and started noticing that neither of my in-laws washed their hands after using the bathroom. I'm pretty sure number one and number two. Quite frankly, I'm trying to avoid having a torretic attack and yelling out, wash your freaking hands! Especially when I hear commentary about our home, along with her unsolicited advice.

At this point, I feel detached from my husband because he put me in an awkward position with his mom. I feel like a prisoner in the guest room because I'm hesitant to make any comments about the topic and I'm completely grossed out at seeing this lack of hygiene and action. I usually don't have any trouble speaking my mind, but in this situation, I feel bad calling someone out and want them to feel at home during their stay. We're only on day five, and we have 30 more days to go. I love my husband dearly and don't want this to get in the way of our relationship. I've got a huge place in my heart for my in-laws, but now with her behavior and the obvious lack of

hand-washing skills, I find that I'm grossed out and keeping to myself because I just don't want to see it. I recognize that my germophobic tendencies are on the other extreme of the spectrum, but I'm not sure where the middle ground is on this. How do I continue the loving relationship with my husband and in-laws without being on constant you factor every time they grab my face in their hands or offer me food? How do I accept that my mother-in-law is riddled with anxiety and can't sit still, while still honoring my own boundaries. Lost and hygienically confused, germaphobe in law.

Okay, so what you have to do in this situation is get a divorce and burn the house down. I mean, Siri, like, I'm looking at this and I'm going, okay, if you have a disorder, then I have a disorder. This reminds me of Howie Mandel, because he won't shake hands. If you heard that episode earlier this week, I mean, he won't shake hands, he won't touch people. His book is called Here's the Deal, Don't Touch Me, because he's got the OCD, you know, he's washing himself with, scalding water and using Purell all over the place. But this is legit gross. Like this crosses the line from, oh, it's a sickness.

Oh, you have some sort of weird disease to, no, you're touching raw chicken, which has Listeria, among other things, and then you're touching cabinets. It is a great way to make everybody horribly ill or possibly kill older people and small children, literally. It's chicken bacteria, Listeria, things like that. It can kill people. Honestly, you don't mess around with that. No, Jen's pregnant, as you all know, and one of the things that they said is you can't eat, and there's this list of stuff, and it's because of Listeria, which is one of the bacteria that is just everywhere on raw chicken.

So you're not even supposed to wash raw chicken in the sink unless you can make sure the water doesn't splash elsewhere in the sink, which you can't do. And by the way, you should never wash raw chicken because you're washing the flavor off. Right, you're not supposed to wash it anyway. So the fact that he's doing that. And then look, number, as a guy, I can say sometimes if I'm just hanging out, doing something and I'm at the airport, yeah, my hands are going to get dirty or touching the faucet, right? I'm going to use a wipe or Purell later. But number two, you'll wash your freaking hands. Do it.

Especially, ugh, it's just, it's gross. These people are dirty. I'm sorry. I know they're your in-laws. I'm siding with you. You got to sneak up with them with Purell wipes or shake. wipe your hands down with so much Purell that you're dripping and then go to shake their hands. I just want to say good morning to you.

Here you go. Yeah. I think you can use that trick once because they're never going to want to shake your hand again. Because if you come with a sopping hand, you grab both of them and you just wipe back and forth. Yeah, I think that'll work once. But yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man.

Every time, if someone is going to not, ugh, they're just. They're wiping the hand towel. First of all, you have to use your own hand towel. I don't need to tell you how to stay clean here. What I need to do is tell you how to stay sane. And I think going to the gym and burning off some steam, I know that sounds like really simple advice, but whenever other people's anxiety is contagious,

then going to the gym, burning off some steam, going on walks, because you kind of have to forget about this. And if I were you, frankly, you're going to look crazy if they catch you, but I would not blame you for taking Purell wipes and wiping down all of the handles in the fridge and everything, because they don't care about spreading germs. And you will, it's no coincidence that she's sick in the guest room.

Yeah. Right now. Definitely. Because they're all used to their disgusting germs because they've lived with each other for so long. They're probably built up antibodies. You're sitting there touching all their poop doorknobs and their gross Listeria chicken handles on your own fridge. It's just nasty.

It's nasty. I have a six-pestown. of chlorox wipes that I use every time I touch anything that is dead or raw. And I just wipe the entire kitchen down every time because you just, you don't want to play around with that. That's dangerous stuff. Yeah, we've had people get sick. Back at the old company, we had people getting sick sometimes.

And, you know, they would cook their own food. They'd cook chicken. It would be undercooked, whatever it was. They didn't thaw it outright, yada, yada. Some of these guys were so sick they had to go to the hospital. And it can, not good. Not good. No.

No, I mean, you, and I remember one guy said, I've never been that sick in my whole life. I mean, he had an IV because he couldn't even drink water. I mean, he was expelling like, and that's just, that's raw chicken. And it's real easy to get that sick from raw chicken. So the fact that he's touching it and then touching handles and wiping his hands off on a towel, I mean, you are just, not only is he asking for it, somebody who's not used to that stuff, like you, you could get extremely.

extremely, extremely sick. The fact that they're saying that you have a sickness is, is disrespectful because I get that it might look like you're being extra clean, but they're actually being disgusting. Yeah, gross A.F. Yeah, what universe can you be in where you take a dump and you don't wash your hands after? Like, where, what, and that's not Spain. I know your in-laws are from Spain. I'm pretty sure that Spanish people still wash their hands. I think you just have disgusting in-laws. I think you need to burn off steam. Your mother-in-law clearly has anxiety of her own.

She just also has bad hygiene. It's not a good combination. So you need to burn off steam. Seriously, go to better help and just get a therapist that you can text and say, oh my gosh, they're doing it again. What do I do? Maybe they've got some drills or breathing exercises or something. But truth be told, you're not the weird one here.

You might, you're being outnumbered by them, but that is objectively disgusting that they don't wash their hands that they touch rat chicken and everything and then touch everything else after the bathroom. It's just, you're not the weird one. Let me just reassure you. 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, just head on over to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, next.

Hi, Triple J. I'm 29 years old. My boyfriend and I will be dating for a year in July. And just yesterday on our way home from the park, I was looking for a napkin in his car when I opened his center console. And to my surprise was a box of condoms. We stopped using condoms about six months ago. Trying not to overreact, I calmly asked him about them. He said he bought them when we first started dating and completely forget. I know he's cleaned out his car a few times in the last several months, and I'm worried he's lying.

Or he's keeping them in case we break up. I'm so confused. This doesn't seem like something you would just forget about, but he tends to be a forgetful guy. Is this a huge red flag? Or is this something he really could have forgotten about? We both have been cheated on in past relationships, so this doesn't seem like something he would do. Other than this situation, I've never had any reason to question his loyalty.

Should I let this go? I don't want my past insecurities messing up a good thing. because I am beyond in love with them. And I must admit, I feel like if this were the other way around and he found them in my car, he wouldn't be okay with it at all. He tends to be a jealous guy. I will admit yesterday I told myself to let it go while we were driving home, and when I went to bed last night, I couldn't sleep at all.

All I could think about were those damn condoms in his car. Please help me. I don't know what to do. I really want to believe him. Please, please, please help. Signed, should the rubber hit the road. What strikes me in this one is that you're both insecure. because of the past. You've both been cheated on, so you've got your sensitivities on 11.

And I understand that. That's why you said, oh, he's jealous. He's jealous because he's worried about being cheated on again. Slash, he's insecure, slash that caused maybe some of the cheating to be more likely. It's hard to say. But there's clear insecurity on both sides. That said, if this is me, I would forget about the condoms too. I would check the date on them, the expiration date. Maybe there's a manufacturer date. See when they were made. If they were made three months go he's lying he didn't buy them before and keep them right so that's that's the one thing you can sort of do to check the story but if they're old they could just be old and i know you say oh they're in his car and he said he forgot i can totally see that i can totally see getting a bag of a box of

condoms leaving them in the console of the car for getting to there that's something i would do i think if you live together it's weird that they're in his car but if you don't live together and he's driving to you and all that stuff yeah he probably just left him in his car and in the absence of other evidence, I would say that you're probably, there's no reason for you to suspect anything. What I will say is that one thing she says in this letter, Jason, that came out to me was says, oh, well, since we'd both been cheated on, I don't think he would do that. There is no evidence that's a coin flip. Yeah, that's a coin flip. Yeah, somebody who's been cheated on. I know it logically seems like, well, if they've been cheated on, they know how much it hurt the other person, so they would

never do that to me. No, no, no, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. No. No. No. No. No. Absolutely not. Nope. There's all kinds of stuff. I mean, look, humans are really good at rationalizing behavior. So you can forget about him going, well, you know, that hurt my feelings. And I'd never want to do that to someone so and so I'm not going to do it. No way.

If anything, I would say that there's maybe even, yeah, it's probably equally likely, if not even more likely, because I think sometimes people want to feel powerful or want to reenact things that traumatize them. So, yeah, I wouldn't rely on that. Yeah, I mean, my gut feeling is he bought him, left him in the glove compartment, and completely forgot about him. That's my gut feeling because guys do that. Oh, man, I, yeah. I've had so many things that look suspicious. The other thing is, a lot of times, things that look suspicious in the absence of other signs really aren't.

Like, I found a ring, like, I don't know if it was expensive or not. I couldn't tell. when I was in law school. I found it in the dirt. And I was like, oh, I better send an email to the law student list and ask if anybody lost a ring. Because it looks like it might be like an engagement ring or something. So I better post about it. Well, I forgot to post about it.

And I had my girlfriend over and it was on the table next to my bed so that I would remember it. Nope. Yeah. And she goes, she later on, like months later, it was like, so were you cheating on me? And I was like, what are you talking about? She's like, well, you had that ring next to your bed. that somebody probably took off. And I was like, no, I found it in the dirt.

And she's like, but there's no dirt on it. I'm like, well, I washed it off. And she's like, well, and then when we broke up, she's like, so tell me the truth. Were you cheating? I mean, I was like, no. And she was like, no, you can tell me the truth now. And I was like, no, I wasn't. I found it in the dirt.

Yeah. And she like wouldn't believe me. But I realized. You know what that reminds me of? It's like when you're dating someone and they have a dream that you cheated on them. and then they hate you for the next like two, three weeks because in their dream you cheated on them, but you did nothing wrong. Right. And you're like, yo, your dreams are based on your insecurities. This is not evidence for my issues. Exactly.

Like it literally exists only in your mind. Yeah. That's it. So look, in the absence of other signs, forget it for now. Keep your eyes peeled, I suppose, but don't let it ruin your relationship because I can totally see myself doing something like this. that said, ask him about this, see how he reacts. Because if he's like, oh, I mean, you know, because I know you already asked him about it. He's like, oh, I left him in the car. I would say again, you know, when there's nothing to distract, go, look, if there's something going on, please tell me. And if he's like, no, seriously, I left him in the car, like, da-da-da-da. Are they the same brand that you guys were using? Maybe you don't remember. Condoms do look a lot of like a lot of the

time. By the way, don't store condoms in the car. Heat destroys latex. So, Your car heats up. Also, you can't keep them in your wallet either. I think people know that, right? You can't keep... The body heat will break down the latex. You'll end up with tons of broken, weak condoms. All right, next up.

This question is also sponsored by the Hartford. Good day, Triple J. Lately, my initiatives and motivations to be a professional photographer have been getting crushed by fear of not being able to support myself financially in ultimately wasting my time. The idea of not having the luxuries

of a consistent paycheck, schedule, and health benefits that come with most nine to five jobs gives me anxiety that I may end up being high and dry if I choose to go out on my own. What happens if I get injured and don't have insurance to pay for any medical expenses? Logically, getting a solid job where I can climb the ladder and work towards being successful in a career is a much safer and seemingly better use of my time and energy. I'm only in my mid-20s, have no debt and no big responsibilities to anyone other than myself, so I have a ton of freedom to pursue freelancing. Seems like the perfect time to go for it. I worked a photo

internship for six months and learned quite a bit. I even had a mentor show me a ton about the industry that I would have never figured out on my own. I've done a pretty good job at networking and have made a few friends in this industry along the way. To be honest, I do have a talent and my clients have all been very happy with my photos, but I'm not the best at marketing myself, which is something I'm actively working on improving. I'm taking the right steps, but I'm just totally half-assing these steps and not giving this 100%, and it's my fear that's making me second guess and not commit all the way. So what is your advice when it comes to dealing with the anxiety of starting your own business? How can I accept these risks and potential setbacks yet still give this everything I've got? Thanks, the alarmed artist. Well, it's tough because when I started the show and the first business, well, one of the first businesses, I mean, we did this show for like six years, made less than 50 grand a year, everywhere that I think a lot less, actually. I think there were the first few years I made like 25 grand a year and I lived in Manhattan. Think about that. That was poverty level.

You know, there were people probably on public assistance that made more money than me. This is when you were like living in a tent in the room with a bunch of sweaty dudes, right? Yeah, we had, I wasn't in the tent, but we had employees that lived in the living room of my apartment and they pitched a tent in the living room because they didn't have any privacy. and they wanted to like hook up and you know chill and have people not bug them they would go into a tent in my living room anyway so that's that's insane it's insane anyway so you have to really love what you're doing and you have to have the guts to go through the hard time scott galloway episode 204 of the show he said some people are just not cut out to be entrepreneurs and of course we asked him what that was and he said that you have to be comfortable with public failure

and that doesn't mean you're going to be in the news media. What it means is your mom, your friends, they're all going to go, huh, you tried to make it as a photographer, now you work at Coles. You have to be comfortable with that. You have to be okay with that. Or how's photography going

while you're bartending somewhere to pay the rent? You have to be fine with that. You don't have to be happy about it. Those people are being dicks, but you have to be fine with doing that or with feeling that, with having that happen to you and having those people, quote, unquote, be right.

They're not right. but they're cutting to the core of the issue, which is you're not making a living, doing what you're doing. And that leads to all kinds of bad decisions, by the way, where people go, well, I saw on YouTube, so-and-so, or Instagram said, go all in. That sounds appealing because then you get to go,

yeah, I don't work at Coles anymore. I'm a full-time photographer, but really you're borderline homeless because you're not making any money. Don't be stupid. Do what you need to do to get by. Don't try to cover up the fear of public failure with going all in

or trying to keep up appearances. There's going to be times. I was just talking to Chelsea Handler on the show, which is coming out soon, and she said she waited tables for a while. Why? So she had money. Do you think people said, oh, you're going to be a comedian? You're a waitress now.

Of course they did. She didn't give a crap. You have to be cool with that. The other thing Scott said is you have to be able to sign the front, not the back of checks. And what he means by that is you're not getting paid. You're paying other people. And there's a lot of times in a lot of companies where you might not take. take an income, but you've got to pay all your employees, you got to pay rent, you got to pay

expenses, you might not be taking an income. Everybody else around you might be. You can't be a leader in a business and get paid X number of dollars a year and then ask your assistant to work for free. It doesn't work. Doesn't work. Even now, I'm not taking much of an income at all because we're still ramping up and I'm reinvesting everything in the business. So you have to be comfortable with that. A lot of people aren't willing to do that. They're not willing to sign the front, not the back of the check. Scott's third question is how risk aggressive are you? I think he means almost risk tolerant because, and we'll link to an article where he explains this. We'll link to it in the show notes. What he means is, look, are you able to go, all right, I'm going to try this photography

thing and I'm going to bartend. Oh, I have to quit this bartending job because I've got to go away for a week on a photography job. Okay, that means when I get back, I've got to take another job. Well, I might not get one right away. So that means that I might have to get three roommates so that I can afford to live here. And I might not be able to afford to go out at all this year. I might not be able to afford to go back home and visit my family. I might not be able to take a vacation. I can't buy all the stuff that I want. I can't upgrade my car. I need to save that money in case I hit hard times doing what I'm doing. You have to be tolerant of that. And what I will say is risk never goes down as we get older. Risk tolerance anyway. It doesn't really go

down as we get older. Maybe once kids leave the house or something, but when you're younger, it's always better and easier to take big risks. Like you said in your letter here, you don't have kids, you're not responsible to anyone. That's a big deal. I didn't realize how much my life would change, even when I got married. It's a big deal.

You go, ooh, I own a house now. I'm married now. I can't do this. When I was in my 20s and early 30s, it was like go on vacation or go backpacking for two years, fine, whatever. I'm just going to go do that. Oh, I have to get a job.

Well, I'll do it later. Oh, you have student loan debt piling up. Screw it. I'll pay it later. I'm deferring on the interest for the maximum period of time and I'm making minimum payments and da-da-da-da-da. You can't do that when you're 40 and you have two young kids. You just can't.

So you, right now in your 20s, you can live on 30K a year if you need to. You can make 30K doing photos for sure, especially if you have a 9 to 5 or part-time job. You freelance on the side. I would definitely try to get a job doing photography, being an assistant, whatever it and then freelancing on the side. I'd work with somebody who's killing it and shadow them working for free or for minimum wage, even if you deserve more, until you know that you can go off on your own if you're not there already. That way you're getting practice, your skill building, your skill stacking, then you can work out the kinks. That's how you build confidence. You don't

build confidence by looking in the mirror and saying something that you saw on Instagram feed. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, doggone it people like me. That's not going to build real confidence. What builds confidence is going, all right, I've worked with this other guy for three years. I see how he generates leads. I've run his online marketing on his website. I've set up his merchant accounts. I know how he generates business. I know how he shows off his photos and I know how he sets up his lighting. That stuff is how you build confidence, not by attending a self-help seminar. I was just talking with Mark Manson and Jeff Goins about this. Jeff Goines, amazing writer, Mark Manson, been on the show, also an amazing writer. Super, super smart. And one of the things that

Jeff had mentioned was he said that him and Mark had been talking about this concept of, if you want to do something for a living, you have to love the craft and the business of it. So their example is the business of being a writer involves a lot of non-writing things. Same with speaking. Lots of travel and BS to spend 45 minutes doing the thing, which is with speaking. You have to love it all. And he said, same with podcasting, I'd imagine. You're not just sitting in front of a mic having a conversation you have to book the guests you have to prep the guest you have to ask for the guest to link to your show in other areas so that you build the listener base all of those things are part of it there's no such thing anymore if there ever was and i'm not i'm not convinced

of you're doing such good work it stands on its own that just isn't real it doesn't exist it doesn't exist there are always does not exist like think about this is there anyone funnier than Steve Martin, and it's not a rhetorical question. The answer is, yeah, of course. There's somebody funnier than Steve Martin. Why is he one of the most famous comedians? Well, he went out every night and went to comedy clubs and worked his ass off on the material, and then he went on Saturday Night Live. And yes, some of that's going to be networking and relationships, and a lot of it's going to be luck. But there's somewhere, there's a comic, an actual person who is not just someone's uncle who was hilarious, another comic who was funnier than Steve Martin,

times funnier. But he didn't go out and press. practice the stuff enough, didn't get seen in the right places or lived in a small town and went to those comedy clubs in the city and only went every other week because he had a job. And Steve Martin dedicated his whole life to marketing himself, getting better at it, creating the right relationships and got a bigger platform. And trust me, nobody's more sad about this than me, right? Because I would love to just be like, I'm going to do a good show and that's what's going to stand on its own. And people are going to find us. It's not the way that I'm going to be able to make a living doing this. There are tons of people.

I'm sure that are more funny and smarter than I am and better at guiding a conversation and would be able to be a better host than me. Easily. The problem is they have other things going on. They're working on something else. They're not marketing. They're not creating a podcast.

They're not going through the process of prepping the guest. They don't have someone like Jason handling all the tech, right? There's all kinds of things that are in their way. But naturally, they would have been a better host than me just by pure talent or even by talent plus effort. It's just that they don't have the chops to market it or they're not doing that. And you have to remember that.

There's never going to be a time at which your work is so good. It stands on its own. Think about something that is so good that it goes viral is very tough to do. And if it does, how many people are going viral and then turning that into a career, right? Not many. Yeah.

Not many. Even Mark Manson, right? book went viral, seven and a half million copies, one of the best selling books of the decade, the subtle art of not giving a fuck, one of the best selling books of the decade. I knew him, I've known him for years and years and years, and I mean like 10 plus years. That book is only a few years old. He was writing blog posts and trying to get those to go viral for half a decade or more before he even wrote a book.

And some of them did. He had a couple of pieces that went really viral and he had a bunch that never did anything. So even him, he was trying to do marketing, viral marketing, before anybody even knew what viral marketing was. People were emailing each other his blog posts. So he didn't just get lucky and turn that book into a career. He had been working on what's going to go viral and what's going to get shared a lot for a half decade before coming up with a book title and the content for that book. And even going from not even a book writer, I mean, this guy is looking for photography, which is something that is ubiquitous. The slate of people that he has to go up against right now is insane.

Everybody has a camera. You know, the Chicago Sun-Times fired their entire photography staff and just gave everybody an iPhone. It is ridiculous. Photography is the hardest thing to break into, and that's why I quit. That's why I quit, and I'm like, ah, screw this, I'm going to be a photographer. I have a degree in photography. I can take the best pictures you ever want to take, but if you want to be a photographer nowadays, it's you have to know social media.

You have to know marketing. You have to know personal relationships. You have to also know your craft. You have to know your craft better than anybody in the business. You're going up against David La Chappelle. You're going up against Clayton Cupid. You're going up against these guys, Seth Miranda, all these guys who are out there really kicking ass and taking names.

And there's so many skills that you have to do. So just be cognizance. of that. I know it sounds like we're talking out of actually doing this, but I think the point is people who are going to go and make a living off of something that's artistic in nature, they go, yeah, I'm probably not going to be able to ever do that, or yeah, maybe I'll get there someday, but in the meantime, I just love doing it, and they're going to do it anyway. And yes, there's going to be anxiety surrounding it, and there's going to be a lot of uncertainty, but you just have to do it anyway. There's no kind of mantra that you can say in the mirror each morning

that's going to get you past that. Like I said, try to get close to the crown by working with somebody who's really amazing. Learn what they're doing. Learn the business side and the artistic side, creative side of photography. And then eventually you'll realize that you can start small and do it yourself. But anybody who's starting a podcast right now who says, I want to be like Mark Merrin. I'm going to be Dax Shepard. It's, that's not the right outlook to have. No, it's not. It's not. But if you wake up in the morning and say, I want to create great art, then that's the mindset that is going to get you to the next level. Because that's honestly, between me and you, Jordan, when we wake up in the morden,

I'm just like, let's make some good podcast. Yeah, I go to bed at night thinking about this. I routinely wake up at 3 a.m. going, oh, you know what? I got to ask Jason if we should change this thing in the intro. Oh, I got to turn off my slack notifications. You're such an asshole at night. Yeah, you should turn those off. I started putting him in to do-ist because I was like, ooh, I don't want him to wake up at 4 a.m.

see this. Except I get up at 4 a.m. because I love Jocka. Willing. Get some. There you go. Yeah, you wake up at 4 a.m. for many reasons. I would say that you kind of have to live, eat, and breed this stuff, but it doesn't mean you have to go all in. Like, if I had to redo it, yeah, I wouldn't go to law school, most likely. I don't regret going, but, you know, the ideal path would have been for me to work in a newsroom somewhere. It would have been crap pay, and I would have learned a ton. 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 when you check them out. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Hi, guys.

You talked with Reed Hoffman about how do we work our way up to talking with people like him. How do you work your way up to those people intentionally? I know a good number of really cool high-level people that I've met through my work, but I don't know how I would go about intentionally trying to get in contact with a specific person. Do I make a list of people that I would need to get connected with in order to reach someone like Reed Hoffman? Thanks. Signed, leveling up. Do six-minute networking. Jeez, people, this is what the course is about. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. That's where it is. Look, what you do is create connections in specific niches, specific areas, as well as general

connections. So you look for connections in the target area as well, such as tech for Reed Hoffman and other Silicon Valley types. Jason, you have a ton of tech connections, so that's really good for us because you have a kind of hub of knowledge that goes way back. I have a hub. Oh my God, I have a hub. You have a hub. And you literally ask for the intro after spending time providing value to those mutual connections. So in this case, Jason got Joey Ito on the show from the MIT Media Lab. Jason, you knew Joey from your tech date. with your startup and I know Joey was in that scene as well back then. Yeah, Joey invested in my early first startup called blogrolling.com and we became friends.

And then from there I got to get introduced to his network and we moved from there. Joey then came on the show, did a great interview. We helped him spread his message, whatever he was doing at the time. I think he'd a book probably, right, Jason? He did have a book. And we kept in touch with Joey using, of course, the stuff that we talk about in six-minute networking, the drills, and the contactually CRM, as we explain in the course. And then when I wanted to interview Reed, I mentioned it to Jason in production meeting,

I assume. Exactly. I knew Reed from one of the times when Joey invited me to a conference and we hung out and Reed was there and Reed actually gave me some advice on my company. So when you asked me about, hey, do you know Reed Hoffman? I'm like, yeah, I haven't talked to him in 15 years, but, you know, I'm guessing you probably remembers me. And then I reached out and he said yes.

And then when Reed Hoffman was doing the interview, he totally remembered you as well, Jason. So there are a lot of harder connections to get. This is a numbers game in a lot of ways because some stuff will just sort of fall from the sky. For example, some of my security contacts that I have from teaching and consulting, because we're doing, I guess,

and for lack of a better word, training bodyguards here in Silicon Valley. They've also got high-level clients that they protect. And those clients are the ones that we're asking about in terms of interviews. So it's a back channel,

which is actually better than knocking on the front door of a billionaire who's not going to have time for a podcast, generally. So you have to make a lot of connections. You can't just go for the ones that you want because if you're just like,

I need to meet Jeff Bezos, you're going to run into every wall. But if you meet a bunch of people in circles that are adjacent to his circles, eventually your circles will overlap. And you can be deliberate about that. You just can't be laser-focused on one person. So yes, work your way up to those people,

people intentionally, but don't exclude other people in those circles while you're doing it, or you will piss everyone off. So just go through six-minute networking. That's what this whole course is about. There are plenty of ideas in there about how to reach out to specific people and ask for introductions. So when I get questions like this, I often go, hmm, are you even doing the course? If so, and you still don't get it, then we need to clarify it, but I think it's pretty clear in six-minute networking, again, which is free and at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. All right, next up. Dear Jordan and Jason, my wife admitted to me that she's very lonely. My wife and I are both in our early 30s and live in the ex-burbs of Milwaukee.

We're both from small families. We're both only children and both have one living parent. My wife lost her mom to Alzheimer's. She can't open up to her dad the way a daughter can to a mom. And her mother-in-law, my mom, is not someone she can build a relationship with. Which is okay to me. Admittedly, we both lost the wrong parent. We have no close aunt, uncle, or grandparent to fill that special family role.

My wife lacks close friends that she can open up to to vent and to receive advice. The relationships with her best friends from college and her 20s are eroding, and we know that happens over time. I've also heard that half of one's friendships are replaced every seven years. Growing families, distance, and life happen. People lose touch. It's not for lack of effort on her part, though. She calls, texts, and sends cards to those friends often. Our family is growing as well. We have two under two.

That means most of our free time is spent trying to keep a time. a toddler and infant alive and getting whatever sleep we can. Unfortunately, we can't devote a lot of our energy to other activities. She also works from home, so she has limited interaction with any work colleagues and sometimes spends the workday plugged into her laptop without social interaction. Plus, she's on maternity leave until September and can't do any work during that time. We're trying to find friends, though. We try to fill our weekends with group activities and run down a list of friends we invite to join us or come over. If one can't, we look up the next one. We're involved in our community. volunteer with a few groups, but they're mostly populated by older retirement-aged individuals.

She's also involved with a woman's social club and has had mixed results, but it did lay the foundation for some early stage friends. However, her pregnancy with our second was a difficult one that caused her to withdraw from social events, which caused that friendship building to stall. She hasn't fully recovered from this pregnancy, so she can't get back into her hobbies yet. Furthermore, not having her mom around makes watching other women interact with their moms and family more difficult. The gutshot moment for me came when she said, we can afford to buy whatever we like, but we can't buy a new family or any friends. Here's why this is extra challenging to me. I'm not lonely. I have a variety of friendships through my job, from high school and college, and I've got guys I can

text every day. They aren't all deep and meaningful, but I have interactions. We have friends over or visit them frequently. I can participate in most of my hobbies without needing a companion, and of course, I have my wife for social interaction. This is good enough for me, so I don't know how to help. Have we just hit a valley when it comes to friendships? Losing some while not replacing them? Are we doing enough by joining young professional, young women's groups, and other volunteer organizations?

Is there a Tinder for moms and baby playdates? Will this improve as our kids get older, have activities of their own, and can use their friends' parents as social opportunities? What advice do you have? For what it's worth, she said she could try therapy, but that won't get us any new friends. Any advice is welcome.

Signed, a helping husband. I know you have two kids under two, so I'm going to lean away from postpartum depression. I don't think it lasts that long, although what do I know? There could be residual effects. So just make sure that there's not something deeper going on. I know she's on maternity leave and works from home, which is it can be very common postpartum depression. It can last for a while and people rarely are open about it.

I wonder, does she go work at a coffee shop or does she only work in the same room at home all day? I know that maybe she's got to keep an eye on the kids while she's working, but maybe even like a couple hours a day or a couple days a week, you get some child care and she just gets to not be changing diapers the whole time or trying to do work and keeping an eye on kids. Maybe she has some adult interaction. It helps if she becomes a regular at a specific place. People would get to know her and she would get to know them. Also, is she taking any classes on kid stuff, childbirth, parenting, whatever? I would ask one of the other moms to meet before class or stay after for tea or pickles or whatever. In Jenny's case, some weird, you know, fruits. And, of course, once you have kids, you can make friends with people that you're around naturally. I say that like I know, but I did ask a lot of new parents' advice on this subject for myself and for the asker here. Other kids' parents, they're going through the same challenges that you are, and you have something in common right off the bat. And that makes for an easier transition into friends.

There's playdates that go on and all that. A lot of my friends who have young kids, their friend circle is, of course, their usual friend circle, but the new friends are all parents. They're all parents with kids the same age. And it actually works out pretty well. Yeah, it's a smaller pool to choose from, but it actually tends to be pretty strong relationships because from what I understand and what I will find out very soon is parenting really encompasses.

It just, you go whole hog on that, right? This is what you do. It's your main hobby. It's your main thing. and a lot of other people are the same way. So if you've got something that you do with your kids, you can really get to know those other parents. The real truth is that it's hard to make friends as an adult,

especially for men. Priorities shift. We no longer live and take a bunch of classes with our friends and have a ton of free time. There's a lot of data on why friendships matter for our health, not just for sanity's sake, but there's an outlet for fun. We actually live longer when we have active social lives.

I go into the data in the article that I wrote on Jordan Harbinger website, how to make friends as an adult. That's at Jordanharbinger.com slash article. It's called How to Make Friends as an Adult. It goes into much depth and scientific data on adult friendships. First, design the type of life that you're after, this type of social life. As you begin the process, figure out what you want as an adult. Some helpful questions to ask yourself here.

Do you want a vast constellation of moderate friendships or a smaller tribe? of deep ones. And the smaller tribe of deep ones tends to be the healthiest, but I'm not going to put judgment on this. Do you want to have someone to drink with six nights a week, or do you want people you can call when you need guidance? I'll let you guess which one of those is healthier, of course. Do you want to find people who will help you meet other people? You know, you can make a friend who's a super social super connector, and then you can just lean on them. That's a really good hack. Maybe you know somebody who is single and hangs out a lot and doesn't necessarily stay out late but is very active. Maybe you want that person to be your friend and they're always

having parties and calling you and inviting you and connecting with other people and maybe you have to say no 80% 90% of the time but you say look I really appreciate the invites because one day I'll be able to make it and I really like that. That's fine. Or do you want to find people who will make you want to get to know them? How much contact, frequency, mode, depth, would your friendships be if they're significant in your eyes? What topics, issues, values, challenges are you going to be able to explore through those friendships and what activities and experiences would you like to enjoy through those friendship? There are no correct answers here. Some are healthier than others like I mentioned, but each person is different. Each phase of life requires different types of connection.

And of course, quality of the relationship is better than quantity, especially as we get older. The best way to make new friends is to actively engage with life by investing more deeply in your own experiences while also pursuing new ones. So many people assume that once they have new friends, then they'll be able to participate more fully in life. They'll have stuff to do. In fact, the exact opposite is true. We need to participate more fully in life in order to attract new friends. We can't depend on other people to broaden our world. We need to broaden our own world, which in turn will bring new people into our lives. This means consciously choosing to take on new activities, goals, new projects first for ourselves. Then we use them secondarily as a way to

filter new people into our lives. That means investing more in our current lives as well as taking on new experiences. Doing both of these things will work wonders, right? Don't think like, oh, I'm going to wait to make friends and then I'll have stuff to do. That's the wrong way to look at this. We have to become interesting people in order to meet interesting people, not the other way around. And if you're looking at what activities to pursue, to get super tactical here for a moment, some of the best activities include volunteering, like nonprofits, conferences, other events, taking classes either at college adult education center vocational school something like that picking up a hobby especially at a space that forms around that hobby rock climbing at a gym a knitting

class a maker space storytelling workshop comedy whatever taking on new roles and responsibilities at work too office committees adjacent projects organizational networking informal socializing deepening or formalizing your professional experience maybe you can get another license pursue a degree Now I get it, you have kids. This makes it more challenging. But this stuff applies to people who do and don't have kids. And so I'll let you sort of work out the balance for yourself. But traveling is also a good one.

I know that might be off the table for a while. The options here are, of course, endless. There's no correct way to expand your world. There are only more or less meaningful ways to do this. So how do you know which activities or projects to pursue? Well, a few principles are going to guide you here. And I go into, again, more depth in this. the article but if you had to choose an activity or hobby only do it if you find it enjoyable

don't do something that you don't like because you're going to filter in the wrong kind of people and you won't get anything out of the experience and also cultivate your core values all relationships are built on values every word gesture every communication communicates what we feel is important and what we believe is important so if we put up with a friend who subtly mocks us we communicate that we don't hold ourselves in high esteem when we stick with a friend who regularly bails on us because, oh, we're a mom and we don't have that many friends. Well, then we communicate that we don't find ourselves worthy of respect and commitment. On the flip side, when we help a friend prepare for a job interview, we communicate that they

are worth our time and deserve new opportunities. And when we cultivate a friend who listens to us empathically, we communicate that our experiences matter. So the quality of our values and the quality of our relationships are deeply connected. And some ways in which I offer value and experience to those around me is everything in six minute networking. That's the whole point of the course. If you're not in six minute networking, go check it out at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. It's free. It's about helping other people get what they want and creating relationships based on that. Also, I pick a conference or event

that I actually want to go to every three or four months. And I do those, I pick them in January when I plan out the year. And very rarely do I add anything. So I'm going to Bhutan in November. I do guys trips or mancations, not as much. I haven't done one for a while, but some of those turn into it. I go to a thing called Mastermind Talks. And Jason, we kept trying to do one a while ago. We kept trying to go to North Korea, but your world kept turning over and over and over. I think you missed like three rounds of that.

I know. I've got all of those stamps in visas for China in my passport. And every time I look at it, I'm just like, oh, man. But yeah, that's what happens when you work for a major South Korean company, and they find out you're going to North Korea, they just kind of don't want to let you go. Oh, is that what happened? I didn't even know that.

I was working for Kia. And they're like, if you go, you're not going to have a job when you come back. I'm like, oh, man, I really want to go. I already paid. Let's make this thing happen. So, yeah, I should have just said I was going to Boise for a couple days, and that would have been fine.

But nope, had to open my big mouth. Well, the good news is that tour company runs tours to Tajikistan and Siberia, literally. And I bet you they would credit you. at your deposit, and they still have it. Okay. So if you ever want to go to Tajikistan or Siberia, let me know. I honestly, I would go to do the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Oh, yeah.

Somebody listening has for sure done this. Yeah. Doesn't that sound awesome? That would be one hell of a trip. I would be so down for that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's photograph heaven.

The food is supposed to be amazing. Obviously, there's tons of, like, really good drinks. on board that because it's a it's a fancy experience it's not like you're getting on some soviet era train that has no heat and they're like we arrive at three weeks when they just slam the door shut right this is like fancy live music playing and like fancy events and there's i think they require you to bring formalware for evening cocktail parties on this train because this thing is rolling for literally like 10 straight days or something crazy through Siberia. It's nuts. It's really, really cool. I definitely have this on my bucket list.

No, let's make that one happen at some point. Maybe when the kid gets in high school and I can find a dog sitter. We'll head over to Russia for that one. I'm down. Yeah, I think it would be really fun. And look, there's a lot more to creating, maintaining friends as an adult. There's a lot more by way of principles and tactics in the article. I highly recommend checking out that article. We'll link it in the show notes. If you're wanting to strengthen your connections as an adult, that article has a lot of gold in it.

And we will link to that in the show notes. You can also go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles and just scroll down and find how to make friends as an adult. And it'll be there. All right. Next up. Jordan, I graduated college at 20. I'm currently 22 and have two and a half years of full-time experience in my field.

Throughout my career, I've encountered the argument that I'm too young for my position. I've been able to tackle the argument by using my youth and passion to my advantage. I've been told by multiple bosses that I do an excellent job, and I'm headed in the right direction and should be promoted soon. I've run into the conundrum that the VP of my company wants to advance me, yet has the worry I may be too young or inexperienced for a higher-up position. Other than my performance, what do you think I should do to convince higher-ups that I'm ready for the position they want to put me in? Thanks, young but not green. First, very impressive that you've gotten so far so quickly. You should be proud of that.

It's cool. It's exciting. Certainly not something I would have been able to do at your age. So props to you, proud of you. The flip side, you're younger than most people at this stage, as you know. You're probably younger than most people in these positions, as you also know. So this is a champagne problem. It's a high quality problem to have, but it's still a problem.

That's why it's called a champagne problem. Now, basically, it seems like there are two possibilities. either the VP is right and you are too young or inexperienced for this new position or the VP is wrong and you can fight for the role you might ask how would you decide which one of these it is well I'm glad that you did ask it's I think it's a combination here of introspection and empathy introspection figure out what gaps you have in your experience what you need to learn as a leader as an employee etc study yourself basically on the other side of the equation, use empathy to round that out. Talk to your VP about what they think you need to learn.

Study your clients, your customers, your vendors, your stakeholders, and ask yourself what they would need from you as a leader in that position. And if possible, just ask them directly. You don't have to read any minds here. Where do you think I can grow? What do you need for me to make this successful? What do you think that you or they need from you and what should you be doing to become the best possible colleague, et cetera, et cetera. Essentially, you want to consider the full range of data beyond your own desires and ambition. In other words, you don't get to have this role

just because you want it. You don't get to have this role just because you've earned it because you want it. It can be hard for a smart young person who's used to getting what they want because you're working hard and because you want it. Trust me, I understand this. There are so many things even now as an adult

where I go, but I want this to be a thing. And then I have to go, well, wait, did I earn that? Or am I just feeling entitled to that? How long have I wanted this? Because in your mind, you might go, I've wanted this for 12 years. But then in reality, you go, well, I kind of just saw it two months ago and now I want it. But it feels like I've wanted it for 12 years because I'm sort of working towards it. But that's just hindsight bias.

Really, I just thought of this. And now it's like I want that job or I want that honor. So you have to be careful here. As impressive as it is to be smart or ambitious or talented or driven. It's also important to realize that there is a role for age and experience, especially when it comes to leading and managing other people. Do you know how to manage difficult conversations? Do you have the authority, not just the authority given to you in the position, but the actual authority given to you by life experience? Do you have that authority you need to solve hard problems?

Are you respected by your employees, peers, higher-ups? Think about this. There could be somebody that comes into your office to help. help or ask for help with a problem, and they might have kids that are almost as old or as old as you. You know, how are they going to feel? Is that going to work?

These are all legit questions for this VP to have. It's not a personal failure if you don't have that life experience yet. It just means that you should appreciate how important it is and you should work on this. And if it's a skill you can develop, great. If it's just a matter of being old enough, well, that's another issue.

In that sense, the VP could be doing you a huge favor by saying, hang on, you got a few things to learn. I want to set you up for success. They might not just be saying, hey, you're too green, buddy. They might be saying, well, you know, you're really good at being a workhorse, but you're not really that good at managing. And your new role is going to be largely managing projects and people. And you're just not there yet. They don't want you to go in and struggle, and then everyone else struggles and the company runs into problems. that could be a nice reframe of this challenge that the VP is actually looking out for your

well-being not just getting in the way of your ambition but then it could be the latter you could be ready and the VP could be blocking you in which case you got to prove to the VP and the company that you're ready for this role the most obvious way is to advocate by telling the VP your boss or your boss's boss why you want the job how you're going to perform it and if you still don't get the role then a smart move in my opinion would be to take on a few of the responsibilities or duties of that role anyway and just show how you do it. Don't step on the toes of the person already doing the job, but maybe you can briefcase technique this and just sort of outline, here's what I would do.

And you can even just do sort of a test run. Like, look, I didn't execute this project for the company, but here's what I would have done. Here's a slide deck on what I would have done. You do this. You take the initiative. You get creative. You invest some of your time, which it sounds like you're already doing. Then you go back to that VP and you say, hey, look, I've been doing some of that work.

Here are the results. It's going really well, and I want to do more of it. Can we talk about that role again? Now, if you're still, if you are ready and you still can't get the role that you want, then two things come to mind. First, you need to decide if this is the right place for you. Maybe it's too corporate. Maybe it's too traditional.

Maybe it's just not the right company at the right time. Or maybe it's just the sort of place that needs to be managed differently. So you can go and get an offer somewhere else and come back to the company and say, hey, I got a great offer from this other place. I really want to stay here, but if I stay, I got to rise up. Use the offer as leverage. It's a political move, so it can be a little risky, but sometimes that's how it's got to be. It's also very possible that this is not the right place for you.

Maybe someone like you would thrive in a different environment, like a startup, a place where you can take on all the responsibility that you want and you can rise up and grow without being blocked or managed too much, if at all, especially at some startups. your age and experience might actually be an asset or at least irrelevant because they just need warm bodies and they need people who are going to go attack everything aggressively. So the bottom line is keep up the great work, recognize that being driven and smart isn't everything and that maybe you still have room to develop in these other areas like EQ, maturity, management, etc. And that if you continue to cultivate those qualities, you can probably get everything that you want. It might just not be tomorrow, which is also. a good lesson to learn and maybe the best thing for you right now. But if you do need to rise up

immediately, you can either maneuver with politics and counteroffers or you can go somewhere else. Either way, this is a learning opportunity. The question is, other than my performance, what do you think I should do to convince higher-ups that I'm ready for the position that they want to put me in? And my answer is always, learn to become the person they say that you need to be, not just as a performer at work, but as a human being. I hope that helps. Let us know how this shakes out. All right, last but not least. Hey, Triple J. I've been with my company for four years, and my boss of two years has been a roller coaster to work for. Since he joined our team, he's advanced my career with two big promotions.

I've learned a lot in a very short amount of time, and I'm a huge asset to my team. My company is global and has opportunities throughout the world, but I don't plan on leaving the city I'm from. Even though my boss has excelled my career, he uses my youth and inexperience on a global scale as a way to keep me from advancing any further at my current branch, and tries to manipulate me in an effort to control outcomes in his favor. This plays a huge factor when I want more FaceTime with certain clients or when I ask for more balance in my current role. He also uses this to his advantage by keeping my pay to the lower side of the industry standard.

Recently, he's expressed how the next branch he moves to, which is also in the same city. He would like to take me with him as he likes my overall work ethic and performance. Given the ups and downs he's put me through and the constant manipulation, is it time to move on from his reign or take the amazing opportunity and follow him to the next branch. Warmest regards, stuck in the middle. For this one, I asked my friend Ricky Hansen. She's a great friend of mine. And she spent years in recruiting in HR.

She's now an amazing career counselor who I would happily refer. Most of her clients are in similar situations here with their career and then trying to move up the ladder. She is just a freaking genius when it comes to this. So her advice in my voice here, with careers, it always. takes two to tango. So the manager here, it sounds like he's taking advantage of you. He's psychologically manipulating you. I don't mean in some sort of crazy predatory fashion, but you've also stayed because you're getting benefits, right? You're getting promotions, et cetera.

And so far it's been a two-way street. So that makes it more equitable. It's kind of palatable at this. But often a career path can become a one-way street and benefits start to accrue more to one side. And that sounds like what might be happening here. So of course they don't want to let you go. Of course, he doesn't want to let you go do something else. Unless you get more benefits and make it a two-way street again, you need to leave because it'll become toxic and dangerous. So if you're being used by an employer, they're not outright mistreating you, but you know, they're getting maybe a better end of the deal, but you're also getting a lot of great experience and you're getting compensated. There's a reason they call it compensation, okay? They are

paying you back for something that you are giving to them. And if it's not the money that you're after, it's got to be something else. So if you can negotiate different benefits, now you're on something, right? If you want to take this opportunity and go with him, you need to negotiate the two-way street. So, yeah, I'll go with you, but here's the thing. I need a promotion and a raise, and I need more client time. And you've got to be very specific here. Don't say, and I want all those personal interaction with the clients that I mentioned. He just goes, great, yeah, sure. You need to say, I want to be at all client meetings that you go to. Oh. okay, I can't bring you to all of them, but I can bring you to the vast majority of them.

And you say, great, I want to be at the clients, at our biggest client meetings. I don't have to be at the small ones. I've got to be at the ones with our key clients, Revlon and L'Oreal or whatever. You want to be in the room because you want to get to know those people. And if he goes, why, you've got to say, I want to get used to client interaction so that I can move up in a different role. And you have to get that in writing, right? You don't want to take a job. And then he goes, I never said that.

Or, oh, I said I'd bring you to a meeting, not the client meetings. So you have to get very specific about what you want, put it in writing, negotiate it, and then and only then take the offer. Don't take the offer and then go, I sure hope this works out. And don't say, well, we talked in the car on the way to a meeting and he said all that sounds pretty good. And then I took the job and none of it's coming through. Get it in writing as much as you can't. Yeah, being manipulated as a negative in general.

But here, you're learning a bunch. You're getting access to some great client and corporate benefits. And you're learning what type of boss to maybe avoid in the future, the type of boss, don't want to be. The rope around your neck is that you want to stay in the same town. That's what you wrote at the top here. You want to stay in the same town. That might be why you're staying in this position as well. And your boss and company, they know this. And I get it. It's a really good idea to stay in a big town. Maybe you live in a small town or the other opportunities are not as good. Scott Galloway last week, he mentioned in his episode that you go

to a school and get credentialed and then get to a city because I, can predict your income using your credentials and your zip code with a pretty high degree of certainty. That statement from Scott Galloway says it all. If he knows where you're living and what you've studied, he can predict your income. That means that staying in that opportunity might be very important to you. So if you now know that your boss and your company want something from you, now is the time to negotiate what it is that you want in return. Not later. Don't hope it all falls into place. Negotiate now. This is fair. This is how this should work. Life Pro Tip of the week here.

If you can't decide between two items of clothing, like two different jackets and you're at the store, have someone take photos of you with them on, front and back, inside, and then look at the photos. So I did this recently. I couldn't decide between two leather jackets, and you know I have a leather jacket addiction. And I took the photo, or Jen took the photos,

and I looked at them and I went, wow, this one, this looks ridiculous, this one. It absolutely does not look good. It felt good. It looked awesome in the mirror, kind of, but it looked so silly in photographs. And the other one looked great in photos. So it just looks different when you're looking at it in the mirror because you have a feeling associated with it, which could be fine.

But if you're really on the fence, you might as well go with the one that both looks good in photos and in person. So that was a pretty cool trick. All right. I will try that next time. I'm at the stow. That's right. And recommendation of the week, the Black Godfather.

Jason, you saw this. Tell us about this. The Black Godfather is the story of Clarence Avon, who is a super connector in the music business. And it is a fantastic story of his life and all of the people that he's helped along the way by just putting people together. It is such a cool movie. And anybody that's interested in networking or just how to live a really cool life and be out there and do good things, I can't recommend this enough. Highly recommend it. And your jaw is going to hit the floor when you see who this guy has put together in

all of the great collaborations that have come out of him just putting people together. It really is a fantastic story. So I highly recommend you check it out. It is The Black Godfather on Netflix. All right. We'll link to that in the show notes. I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. We're going to be doing live events probably next year right now. We're doing some corporate training, which is really fun. If you're on the email list, you'll get notified of whatever events we do. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Quick shout out to Jody, who wrote in to thank us all for the efforts that we've put in to being who we are, Jason, our education, the people we surround ourselves with, and other magic ingredients.

She says improv, especially, since that's such an important part of the show. She found us on Adam Carolla, and she said, look, I'm a psychiatric nurse. I don't know how I can offer help, but here it is. And I would say, look, I'm having a kid soon, so I will need psychiatric care soon enough. Thanks for the offer. Go back and check out the guests, Howie Mandel and Arthur Brooks, if you haven't yet. And if you want to know how we managed to book great people and develop our network, well, we mentioned it before with Reed Hoffman.

Jason alluded to it with the Black Godfather on Netflix. We've got systems, tiny habits, and a whole lot of hustle that we're teaching you, specifically how to systemize in our course six-minute networking. It's free, and that's at jordanharbinger.com slash course. So listen and listen good. And go find all that at Jordanharpenter.com slash course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger, which is a great place to reach out and say hello. And there are videos of our interviews at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube.

Jason? My personal website is at jpd.me, and you can check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks at gog. Show or your podcast player of choice. And like I've mentioned before, keep the kids out of the room because it is a bit salty. This show is produced in association with Podcast 1, and this episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger. And show notes are always by Robert Fogarty. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. By writing in, by the way, you give us non-exclusive perpetual license

to use your communication without compensation as we see fit, including here on the show. We'll always keep you anonymous. Remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline and we're 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. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested,

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