The Jordan Harbinger Show - 242: How to Make Your Mark on the World at 50 | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

You've made it to what some would consider middle age -- in spite of stumbling over every possible mistake along the way. But instead of enjoying your triumph over the odds, you can't shake the feeling that it's past time to get off the hamster wheel and make a difference. You're frustrated and fearful of disappearing from the world without leaving your mark on it or handing down a legacy, some security, and a vision of what's achievable to your kids, so we'll do our best to help you figure out how 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/242. On This Week’s Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Interested in doing some prison time with Jordan next February? Reach out to [e-mail] for details! Does a 32-year-old need to tell Mom before getting tattoos? How do you say no to an insurance pyramid scheme? Should you begin with your professional or personal life when overhauling for a fresh start? What steps could you possibly take to get both of your bickering siblings to grow up? How do you get your employer to see the value in letting you work from home once the baby you’re expecting is due? Is it a mean-spirited, drama-loving academic advisor who is holding up your thesis progress, or is it secretly you? You’ve made it to age 50 and feel like a frustrated nobody, fearful of never leaving your mark on the world. How can you turn things around? Your spouse of three years is just now telling you about their massive debt. How can you be supportive without ransacking your own savings? Life Pro Tip: When starting your day at an amusement park with kids, take a full body pic of each person individually so that if anyone gets lost, you can show security exactly what they look like that day. Recommendation of the Week: The Family A quick shoutout to Brett Jesperson! 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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to checkout is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant and interesting people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. This week, we had Richard Clark, former advisor to the president, and cyber warfare expert. Basically, anyone can hack our power grid and key infrastructure, China, Iran, and all those lovely folks are trying to do this all the time now. And you can see how this could escalate into a real conventional war.

Richard Clark explains all of that and what we as business owners, individuals might be able to do about it. We spoke also to my friend Scott Young, who learned four languages in one year and in another year took the entire four-year MIT computer science curriculum. He did that. He killed it in like 12 months. He sounds like a genius, but has really just mastered some ultra-learning strategies, which he shares with us here on the show. I also write every so often. and on the blog. The latest post is about how we can help other people change, right? We all want to get somebody in our lives to change.

We all have someone in our lives who we wish we could fix or somebody we just wish was a little different, right? This latest piece will help you help them, and that's at jordanharbinger.com slash articles. So make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything we created for you here this week. Of course, our primary mission on the Jordan Harbinger show is to pass along experiences and insights 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.com to throw your question in the hat. And by the way, we talked a little bit about my prison trip last time. This is going to be, I'm doing my birthday. My 40th birthday, early 2020, February 26. We have dozens of people signed up for this already, but we are going to prison. I am going to prison and I've invited you along with me. The trip is with Kat Hoke.

She's been interviewed on a few different podcasts as well. She runs a charity. This is an amazing opportunity for inmates to prepare for the outside world. This is not some trashy volunteerism thing where we're exploiting inmates for our own entertainment or experience. This is a, this was her idea. It's a graduation program for the guys at the end of a lot of hard work that these guys have done behind bars. And if you're interested in coming with me, email prison atjordanharbinger.com. and I'll put you on the list. We only announced it last Friday and we're already at like 25% capacity. So if you're thinking about it, hit me up. I also threw it in the newsletter just today and I see a lot of replies in there and it just went out like an hour ago. So if you're interested, hit me up. We'd love to have you. It's going to be donation based. It's going to be 1,500 or 1,500. We're not sure yet. Plus you've got to get yourself out there. But it's a donation for the educational program. So it's going to be kind of a fundraiser. But it's going to be amazing. I went to this, this prison.

A couple months ago, I talked about here on the show, and it was just, really, it was life-changing to see what's going on in there, to have FaceTime during the day with all these guys, which is absolutely incredible. Both men and women are allowed. Don't worry. Yes, it's safe. It's all secure.

These are guys who are in this program for good behavior because they are going to be getting out and getting jobs. So that's what this is designed for. So you don't have to worry about that. We're going to take good care of you, and it will be a life-changing experience. I promise. It'll be out near Reno. That's what we think. It's going to be outside Reno, Nevada.

And if not, it'll be somewhere in California. But that's what we're aiming at. And you'll get yourself there and we'll go in a big group and it'll be a crazy 40th birthday for me. That's for sure. So email me if you're into it, prison at jordanharbinger.com and we'll put you on the list. Again, that's February 26 at or around. That's when my birthday is. And you don't have to pay right now or anything.

It's just an interest list. So if you're interested, email me prison at jordanharbinger. com and we'll put you on that interest list. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Team Jay. I'm 32 and moved out when I was 22. I've been slowly acquiring tattoos, and I like when people notice them, but I don't make a big thing about it. They're for me and make me feel great. After my most recent tattoo, which my mom found out about on Instagram, she requested that I give her a heads up before getting any new ones.

She insists that it's not for permission because she acknowledges that it's my body and I'm an adult, but says it helps her feel less shocked. I feel annoyed and kind of violated having to do that. We're close, but I've struggled with setting boundaries with her for many years. I told my mom I would change the settings on my Instagram, so that wouldn't happen again. What I meant by that was, I blocked her. Over the years, my mom has gone from being very angry about my first tattoo to fine with me getting them, even saying that they're beautiful.

The first tattoo I got was when I was still living at home. It was done in secret after she and my dad told me that I couldn't get one. I'm not sure if after that she just doesn't want to feel that surprise again. I'm a very independent person and hate having to report to people. I get triggered when I see people who are not independent because it makes me feel so stuck for them. I don't care how she feels about me getting tattoos, but I don't like when she's mad at me. It may seem like no big deal to give her a heads up each time I'm getting a tattoo, but every time I imagine doing that, I feel anger boiling up inside of me.

I'd love to hear your take on this. Should I use this as an opportunity to practice? doing something that feels hard for me, or is my mom asking for something unreasonable? Signed, to tell, or not to tell? I love that you're asking if you should step outside your comfort zone here, or if it's your mother that's being unreasonable. The idea that you could just suck it up and do as she requests shows a level of maturity and self-awareness that is, frankly, admirable.

That said, hell no, you do not owe your mom a heads up every time you want to do something that might surprise her. That's ridiculous. You're 32. I get it. She was surprised to see something like that on Instagram. I think you solved the problem. You blocked her, so now she can't be surprised by that anymore.

You really don't owe her anything else, in my opinion. It sounds like boundaries are a thing between you guys. And the fact that you've had issues with her in the past about this reinforces the idea that she doesn't really understand where her place is in your life right now with respect to decision making, tattoos, whatever. even if her request was reasonable, and it's not, by the way, you're not under any obligation to report to her if it makes you feel uncomfortable. This doesn't affect her. This is an attention thing. It's a boundaries thing. It's her trying to get attention from you or other people.

It's her meddling a little bit in a way that doesn't quite make sense to me. It sounds to me like you've already been plenty considerate now that you've ensured that she can't see your tattoos anymore. In my opinion, this problem is solved. That said, be aware that this same is could crop up elsewhere. The problem itself is solved. This issue, though, is not, right? The boundaries issue is not. The fact that your mom doesn't seem to respect your boundaries is not yet solved. There's probably not much you can do about this up and until it becomes a bigger problem. I wouldn't worry too much about it. But in my opinion, this same boundaries issue is going to crop up later on down the road. Just be ready for that. Yes, she can't see your tattoos. She's

going to find some other reason to be disapproving or vocal about that. I had something similar with my mom and the same thing with tattoos. Seriously, like same thing. So from my experience, it's a control play. It's a compliance test. She wants you to say yes to this, which means you give away a little bit more control. And I'm sure there are other ones that have happened over your lifetime because it sounds like it. So stick to your guns.

Keep her blocked. Don't let her win that battle because I'm sure it's just a skirmish in a much bigger war. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I hadn't thought about this, but it did occur to me that there might be some control issue. here. I wonder what the boundaries issues were that she said she had in the past. I wonder if it was like, you have to show me things that are on your phone or if you're going to go out, I have to know who you're going out with. And it's like, mom, I'm 30. What are you talking about? Yeah. That kind of stuff. I wonder, you know, what other sort of control elements are in place here. She wasn't really detailed about that, but that did occur to me that this was a control issue and not just a, I was surprised to see this. Like, who cares? So what? that's not about you. All right, next up. Hello, Triple J. Many congratulations on the baby. I know you will be wonderful parents. I really liked your response and ideas about saying no to a multi-level marketing scheme.

I'd like to ask a question about saying no to a different sort of pyramid scheme. I have a coworker who's tried to start a conversation about selling me life insurance several times. I've always shut it down with, I don't want to buy life insurance right now. In the seven months we've worked together, I've learned that she thinks she owns a business doing this, but seems to be very broke because of it. She says buying a policy through her would let me start my own business. Her daughter's work for her business selling life insurance. And she's guilted her brother into buying insurance from her daughter's business,

and now he's opening his own business selling insurance policies. She mentioned the insurance company's name last time. I searched the internet and found that name plus the words pyramid scheme. I found out that there's even a class action lawsuit against the company, saying it's marketing as a pyramid scheme and really targeting immigrants in three Asian American communities. My co-worker belongs to one of those communities. I believe the pyramid scheme is some sort of advance,

but then they have to commit to selling a bunch of policies and they quickly run out of friends trying to repay their advanced commission until they must convince customers to get insurance licenses and take the same advance. It seems bananas to me because I wouldn't put any other insurance agent I know in the same category as MLM. If or when she tries to bring it up again, should I continue to say I don't want to buy life insurance,

or should I say I've read about the class action lawsuit and want to avoid any dealings with that company? I'm a nice guy that wouldn't usually respond that harshly, but I think it would be better than hearing it forever. We're independent contractors on an IT project, so we'll probably only work together for another three or four months, so I could also just ignore it and possibly never see her again. She's actually a smart, fun person, and I need her technical skills and expertise to complete our current project. She's also really drunk the Kool-Aid on this company. It resembles things from your interview with Steve Hassan. Sincerely, pyramids are for pharaohs.

Oh, so this would be super annoying. This would trigger me for sure. Really? You don't think so. I mean, you heard my MLM rent last week. You heard it. For seven years, I've heard it. Right, exactly.

Multi-level marketing companies do target specific groups. They also try to be like, we're direct marketing. We're network marketing. They try to add a euphemism onto it. It's, we're on to you. They try to target specific groups. Often these groups are minorities. or other disadvantaged groups.

And the reason they do this is because a lot of minorities have really tight social networks. And these companies specifically prey on groups with strong cultural ties because they know it'll be easier to recruit lots of people there and those people have large networks built on trust

and often they're in need of any extra cash that they can get. That's what makes this even more despicable. Some of these big companies, their biggest recruiting areas are immigrant, Hispanic immigrant communities, Vietnamese immigrant or Filipino immigrant communities because they have strong social networks

and they need money. And a lot of times the people might not have a work visa, but they can go ahead and recruit and do all this other stuff sort of under the table because it's not really a job, right? It's all sort of wink, wink, nudge, but the real wink, wink, nudge is they know that 99.6% of people lose money doing this.

They don't tell you that, though. So whenever multi-level marketing stuff comes up, dealing with them and the person trying to deal with this and get you into it, we call them Huns because they say like, all right, hon, all the time. We call them Huns on the anti-MLM community. Dealing with them depends on how close you are with the person and your desired results. So, for example, if you're super close with somebody and you want to get them out of the MLM or any other cult, you ask clarifying questions. Stephen Hassan outlines these in his book, Combating Cult Mind Control. But in short, this would be things like, oh, how much profit have you been able to make? Not revenue, profit, you know, above what you've paid, that kind of thing.

How long have you been doing this? What does that work out to per hour? You know, not all at once, not in an accusatory way. You can really help them do the math. A lot of people will gladly sit there and let you do that and find out, oh, if you're close to them. They'll go, oh, it looks like I've lost money. They might not even know. or they'll come up with, they'll move the goalpost.

Well, you know, I haven't really been giving it 110%. And they'll start repeating the line that they heard at the seminar. If it's someone annoying you like it is here, that's all they're doing. It's not somebody you actually care to extract from this situation. What you can do is tell her that you're not on the market for life insurance and you're not interested in starting another business because you already have your own line or lines of work. Then you can reiterate that you like working with her, you think she's skilled, etc. if you're worried about hurting her feelings.

And you're a nice guy. That's great. The reason she's not taking no for an answer here, though, is that she's likely very desperate and in financial trouble. Most people who are involved with an MLM have financial distress already. That's why they're going for the get rich working from home, side hustle, get rich while you sleep, type of BS. Remember, though, her financial well-being is not your responsibility.

And in addition, this is somebody trying to victim, you. They are trying to recruit you into a money losing scheme that is potentially illegal. Whether they know this consciously or not, they are trying to victimize you. Even if it's unconscious, they're trying to victimize you. So there's a difference, right? Maybe it's a difference between first degree something, something, and manslaughter in the murder analogy here, but they are trying to get your money and sell you an opportunity that they know or should know with some certainty is likely to be a losing investment for you, because it's probably a losing investment for them.

So bear that in mind. That will give you enough sympathy to maybe be polite when you brush them off, but not enough sympathy where you feel tempted to take any sort of offer. And yes, you can also bring up the fact that you looked into the company and that they're being sued by a lot of people.

Ask her if she do about that. Innocently enough, there's a good chance she has no idea. Turns out they don't tell you at the recruiting Get Rich Overnight seminar that they're being sued by 3,000 people in a class action lawsuit. Additionally, you can go to a place like Reddit, search for the name of the MLM

and find a ton of experiences of people who are in it and who have since left and have some very choice bits of information your colleague might be interested in. Often people trapped in an MLM, they don't realize that everyone is losing money. It's not just them, and they're not losing money

because they're not working hard enough or whatever other BS the MLM people are telling her, but because the design of any, pyramid scheme is inherently flawed, or at least the design isn't to enrich the people that are anywhere but the top of the pyramid. So there's a good chance she's selling hard because she's under the impression everyone's doing so great. Go on Reddit.

You'll find a lot of really honest commentary about people who lied to all their friends, lied to all their family, ruined all their relationships, and then finally just ran out of money and found out that all of their cool people on their team didn't give a crap about them as soon as they couldn't afford the monthly nut to maintain the way. their status. Now, it's a slow road and she needs to leave you alone. Ideally, though, you can get her to stop bothering you and help her see that she's involved in a scam designed to drain her finances. This is so sad. But as you can tell, this is a pet peeve of mine. These types of things. I wish they were gone. This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening

and supporting the show. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard from our amazing sponsors, and to help keep this show on the air, visit jordanharbinger.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 and team. I find myself in a situation where I don't know what to do. I'm currently 38 and work as a retail and pharmacy operations district manager, and I find myself not wanting to go to work each day. I've been in this

position for two years and have been with the company working my way up for almost 13 years. I love working with people and seeing them grow, but I can't work with my immediate leadership. I feel like it will never be enough for them, no matter what I do. I'm not aligned with what the company is doing and feel I'm restricted from day to day to make my team better. My wife and I have been married for 10 years and lived together with our two boys who are 8 and 4. Our plan is when she can find a stable job, we'll separate and split custody with our boys each week. I feel we've grown apart over the years and don't have the same interest for each other that we once had. I've spoken with a therapist one time in the last two months when I started getting panic attacks,

and we feel I have a feeling of fear altogether. The fear of losing my job, wife, children, and financials. I fear my boys will not have a dad that I never had growing up and it hurts me to think about it. I don't know what to change first, my job or my personal life. Thanks for everything you do. A confused dad. Yikes, a lot going on here. Stable job, always a good place to begin. Since you have one and your wife doesn't, it's risky to try and get over to do something else.

I realize you don't enjoy your work. That is no good, but let's solve one problem at a time here. Here's what I worry about. You jump and try to find another job, and now you're financially unstable, and your wife is financially unstable, and now you're in the middle of this stressful situation, and all of the other problems are still there,

except you don't have income. That's just, that's not good. So first, start looking for other jobs. You don't have to take one or anything, but start seeing what's out there. Also, having people want to interview and hire you, this is a good way to build confidence in yourself in terms of finding another job

and the idea that after 13 years in one place, finding a new job is even possible. I know it's in the back of your head. Do I still got it? And the interview process is slow. So get it going now, find out what, of qualifications you might need to get something else and slowly build any gaps. So if they're like, ooh, we really wish we had somebody who was good with this kind of CRM

software. You can start taking freaking Skillshare classes on that CRM software or classes online and you can start to master that stuff without having used it at work, for example. And yes, you'll still have to show up to this bummer of a gig in the meantime. But you might actually start to feel less pressure there once you have the keys to the prison, so to speak. Like if you're getting offers, you're interviewing elsewhere and they're telling you, hey, look, come back when you're ready. That feels better going into a job because you don't feel like you have no way out. You have a way out now. Right? It's just a matter of your timing. And once

the process is rolling, you'll get some momentum here, but that's not going to solve the issue. Getting a new job to solve your other personal problems is kind of like getting into a relationship to solve your personal problems. It doesn't work. Right. If you think getting, ah, I just need a girlfriend, that'll cure everything. I remember that feeling back in college. That doesn't work. Getting a new job hoping, well, now I'll have purpose and everything will be great and I'll rekindle things with my, that's not going to work either. So if you've got a new job, you might be a lot happier at work, but it won't rekindle things with your wife. It won't solve your anxiety issues necessarily. Only a therapist can help you with the anxiety while you rebuild. But my two sense on

the issue is that you're feeling a massive amount of insecurity because both your personal and professional your family vectors of your life, they're all unstable at the same time right now. That's not a good feeling and I feel your pain here. While you're looking for something new, you can also get an attorney to discuss what this split might look like with your wife. Having a qualified legal professional on your side, even just as a consult before an amicable split, this will help keep things amicable and your attorney can help reassure you that you're not suddenly going to lose your kids for no reason. An experienced family lawyer should be a voice of reason and compassion. So don't be afraid to find somebody who jibes with and understands your issues,

not just a gruff shark who says he's going to nail her to the cross. You know, you don't want that. You want somebody who's going to help you work all this out and keep things amicable. Someone who is just as keen on keeping this is this thing amicable, that's the right person to work with on this. I can't tell you which job to take. And I can't tell you how to split up with your wife or when to do that. But what I can tell you is to start looking for a new career and get some good legal advice. Both of these things will shoulder some of your burden and alleviate some of your fear. And make darn sure you're seeing a therapist during this time as well, even if it's just every other week or something, you need to stay sane during this process. Investing in your sanity

is priceless, especially since you know you're headed towards a high pressure situation. Prepare for that situation. Don't be reactive to it. Jason, what's our better help link? Betterhelp.com slash Jordan. That's online therapy and counseling. I highly recommend getting somebody to bounce things off of. You can schedule by phone and whatever. You need an outlet for this because you're splitting up with your wife and changing jobs and you can't just go and vent to your kids. You can't go and vent to your wife. You can't go invent to your boss. You need somebody else who's on your side. So go get some better help. And look, best of luck with this, my friend. This is everything at once. So I understand this is heavy duty, but you've got this. All right. What's next?

Hi, Jordan, Jason, and Jen. I have issues with two older siblings still holding childish grudges against each other. While they both are getting older, they still seem to resent each other. The most recent issue involves my parents and the sibling closer to me. My parents are taking her on a trip across the country in a few months, and when the oldest sibling heard about this, she had a meltdown with my dad and wouldn't talk to him or my mom for a month. This is unusual, by the way.

I could understand not being invited to a trip, but she'd gone on a trip with my parents a few months ago without the other sibling. This is just the most recent issue as they still verbally fight about the most ridiculous things whenever the family gets together. My oldest sister is in her early 30s and the younger one is in her late 20s. I wish this whole thing would stop. After all, I thought sibling rivalry should be a thing of the past by now, but they both seem to live rent-free in each other's heads. Both of them have always had completely different personalities, which I know is a factor, but I'm tired of having to play peacemaker along with my parents.

I'm in my early 20s and I'm living on my own now, but I'm sick of having to hear about this from my parents. What steps could I possibly take to get both of them to grow up? Regards, one of the few boys who matured faster than the girls. Oh, gosh, this sounds so annoying. I definitely feel for you here. This would grind my freaking gears so bad. Getting people to change is almost impossible.

In fact, I just did an article about this. You can find it. It'll be linked in the show notes. but if you go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles, it's about how to help people change for the right reasons. The basic gist, though, is this. Can we change people? Should we change people?

Your desire to help people, to change these people, help them change, whatever, comes from a good place. I understand. You want peace in the family. You want them to get along and realize they're so lucky to have each other. You want them to shut the hell up and stop ruining every family dinner. I get it. Your heart's in the right place.

but wanting to change people isn't an inherently bad desire. In many cases, it's understandable. In some cases like this one, I think it's absolutely necessary. After all, though, if we're willing to do the work to change ourselves like you all are by listening to the show and putting these things into play, shouldn't other people also be willing to change? Yes, I would assume that yes, they should be. If we can change our own characters, then can't we inspire other people to do the same?

And don't people have to change as time goes on, especially if they're to blame for causing dysfunction. The simple answer is yes, and I'm sure it's cliche by now that we can't get anyone to change unless they actually want to change. We've all heard that. But as long as we cling to the illusion that we can change people on our own, we're going to be stuck in the same dysfunctional dynamic over and over again. We often believe that we're making someone change for their benefit.

And in reality, we're usually making them change for our benefit. We're uncomfortable. We're angry. We're frustrated. The other person isn't behaving in a way that satisfies it. us. That doesn't seem to be totally the case here. Yeah, in a way it is because you want them to stop stressing out your parents, so your parents stop stressing you out. But I also understand where you're coming from. You're trying to keep the family on track. You're trying to keep your

parents from going crazy. It might be time for an intervention. And I'm wondering if they've ever been to therapy. Can your sisters go with your parents? Because I think your parents, they might play a little bit more of a role here than you let on in the message. I'm not saying you're hiding ball but what I am saying is I think there's probably more to the story here than we might we might think your parents are probably either not masterminding this but they're unwittingly contributing to a lot of this and probably have for a long time there's a reason there's a rivalry between your sisters and it's not just because of the way they were born okay so you need a set some boundaries if they won't go to therapy they're not allowed to pull this BS anymore

Your parents have to be on board refusing to entertain it. Your parents are not allowed to come call and stress you out and make every phone call about your sisters if they won't solve the problem. Enforcing boundaries with your parents is tough, but it is required to keep you sane. You didn't include any of this, but my gut, again, says your parents are not putting their foot down about this at all, and some of their actions probably encourage this. I have a real hunch here that this behavior has been going on for decades. it achieves some result, namely the parents put up with it, they entertain this crap, that's why it's continued, or they stoke the fires somehow, consciously or unconsciously, and that's why it keeps on going. So when you're trying to figure out whether to change somebody, take a moment and understand where the

problem really lies. You need to find out whether your parents actually want to change, and if they're on your team here, without them, this is literally impossible. If they're willing to go for it, great family therapy time. If not, or they're making excuses, or they think, oh, we'll handle this on our own. You need to set your own boundaries so that you can stay sane. You should not be should not be shouldering this drama. This might mean not letting your sisters use you in arguments and excusing yourself from dinner tables or events when they create drama near you.

It may also mean not letting your parents vent to you. This will be really hard, but for your own sanity, you have to do it. If they're not willing to help fix the problem, then they are part of this problem. and they're making it your problem until you put your foot down. So best of luck here, this is not an easy one. Remember, you have to look out for your own sanity here because nobody else is going to do that. You can guide them to help and you can encourage them to get it and you can try to support it, but you can't force them to do it.

And the only person that's going to look out for your mental well-being is you. So lead those horses to water, but if they won't drink, set up a boundary and start walking in the other direction because you deserve better. We'll be back with more Feedback Friday right after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard so you can check out our amazing sponsors. Visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Greetings, Triple J and Baby J. Congratulations on the birth of your healthy baby. I'm expecting my very own first child also. and I find myself in a work situation that has me questioning my next move in honestly leaving me feeling guilty. I have an operations and clerical position in private aviation. I haven't told my employer that I'm pregnant.

I'll need to work from home once I give birth. I only started two months ago and I'm six months pregnant. When I was hired, I was told that working from home is very common, but now they're trying to make all daily work in office, mostly due to past employees being unaccountable. I believe in Mississippi, all companies are required to give 12. 12 weeks maternity leave, but I would like to take half that and then transition to a work from home position. To make things more complicated, I have a job offer from another company that pays better but doesn't offer work from home. Should I use the other job offer as leverage in

negotiating my new work situation postpartum? I don't want to leave my current employer, but I also don't want to work in office and miss out on the first few months of my child's life. Help, maternity, mountain, or molehill? In this case, I got to start out. off by saying, speak to a lawyer, an employment attorney about this, and speak to somebody in your state. Mississippi doesn't have the most labor-forward laws if memory serves. In fact, Jason, you did a little research here, and they do not in Mississippi have a state law that specifically requires private employers to offer any maternity or pregnancy, disability, leave, or accommodation. So that might vary depending on the type of employer you have, et cetera, but, man, you are, if they

don't offer that to you, you have very little recourse. Now, your recourse here is you're a good employee and they want to keep you, hopefully. So you're going to want to make sure that you don't get canned advice from Google or that you don't get canned by following advice that you found on Google or through somebody who shouldn't be advising you. Remember, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, and I know nothing about Mississippi State employment law. The best time to negotiate a job is when you have another job offer on the table. The first step is to get a lawyer. That's, said, my advice here after that is tell them you're pregnant soon because they're going to need to plan for your absence. Also, let them know you don't need the full amount of maternity leave

if they do offer it. They'll be thrilled about this. Of course, that's conditioned on the idea that you're going to work from home afterward for a while and you can negotiate with them on this too. For example, maybe you come in every Monday and Friday and this way you start the week off with a bang, you end with a bang, so you're in the office Monday and Friday, and you show them I'm not just taking long weekends all the time because if the problem was accountability, I have a feeling people were just like, oh, I'm going to be out of the office on from Friday all day or Thursday afternoon. We'll take off and I'll pretend them at work. I mean, that happens a lot with people that work from home where they just hang out all day and then they check their email

at 7 p.m. for five minutes. That's not working from home. Ask them how you can prove or measure accountability. If this is the reason they have a policy against working from home, then solve that problem. Don't argue with them about the policy or promise you're not going to leave them hanging. That's not going to do anything. Put your money where your mouth is. For example, maybe you have to stay logged into the company Slack or jabber chat, whatever you guys have during the workday from 9 to 5. Maybe you have to be available by phone during the day. Maybe you have to promise a certain response time on emails or be logged into some specific time tracking software. This way, they can hold you to that. And once you show them that you're responsible and you're the

exception to the rule that workers from home might be less productive, you're going to earn their trust and they won't worry as much. Remember, you need to reiterate that you like working there, you don't want to leave, and you also don't need to work from home forever. Earn their trust, and you are golden. Just expect them to push back a little on this since they don't know you're pregnant, and they might assume you sort of, candidly, you might have set them up coming in four months pregnant and then taking maternity leave. As an employer, I think I would be a little skeptical of somebody who said, hey, my intentions are great, but I came in four months pregnant

and now I need maternity leave, just candidly. They can't fire you for being pregnant or wanting leave, most likely, but just to be safe, get an employment lawyer in your area and make damn sure. As an employer, I totally understand not wanting to hire someone who came in four months pregnant.

That said, it's usually illegal to discriminate on that sort of thing, of course. And I also understand your position and you should feel justified in trying to work from home, even if you have to leverage, the other offer. Just work your butt off for them if they do you right and do right by them down the line so that they don't regret it. Congrats on the incoming kiddo by the way. All right,

next up. Hello, four J's. Congratulations on the growing team. I'm a grad student that recently took a full-time job in engineering before finishing school. My plate is full trying to balance school while keeping up with the learning curve of a fast-paced consulting firm. In the first six months of the job, my thesis fell to the back burner. I got a slap on the wrist on my performance from my academic advisor at the start of the summer, but our working relationship has disintegrated ever since. She's been MIA in the engagement, and I need to finish, and she's blaming me for not being more responsible with being accommodating to her absence. Any feedback I get from her on my work is months delayed and is all negative feedback. I feel discouraged to finish. I hate the idea

of quitting and fear I might regret the future career consequences, but it doesn't seem worth the compromise if I have debilitating anxiety and depression now. How do I quit in a way that doesn't cause more drama with my advisor? She takes things personally and she's unafraid to have bad blood with colleagues for my observations. And I'm seeking therapy. My therapist insists I fight back for what I deserve from a boss and get the degree I deserve for my future happiness.

But I still feel stuck. This stress is now affecting my energy at my consulting job, which I love. Sincerely, a student managing a bad manager. I'd ask for a little backup on this one. I ask people with PhDs and a bunch of grad degrees. A couple of things that we noticed just reading the question here is it feels a little bit victim mentality-ish, and it could just be the way it's written. Not sure this is a healthy place to be, though. If you feel like you're being picked on, maybe you are, but it's just not a good place to sort of be at effect in this behavior, right?

that this person is picking on you and it's unfair. Maybe it is, but it's usually not that constructive to come from that angle. It does seem very clear that you checked out of academia a while ago. It's really not common to take a full-time job like you did in the middle of an advanced degree like that. You're also nodding to the fact that you maybe didn't do all the work on time. It appears that you want to finish the degree because of sunk cost more than any desire to continue on with it. maybe you're looking for me to tell you it's okay to quit the degree. I don't know.

That said, everyone I spoke to who had a PhD went through some serious, tough mental times, emotional times. They got jobs. Some of the time gave them a boost of motivation to finish up, jobs that were going to start after they finished their degree. Everyone was very glad that their job and their degree didn't overlap because it would have just been impossible to complete. What you need to do is have a candid conversation with your advisor and set expectations. What does your advisor want to see as degree worthy work?

What timeline to graduation is acceptable to you as a student? And what type of feedback or support do you need from the advisor to accomplish that timeline? Those are the important pieces. Right? And maybe your advisor is a stick in the mud. That's possible. Maybe they're really tough on purpose. I don't know.

It does sound a little bit like that. But when you're choosing to quit or continue with your degree, this is obviously your choice. Carefully weigh the pros and cons of such a decision. how much time's been invested, how much more time and effort is required, which is actually more important than the sunk cost, what career advantages you might gain from an advanced degree? Do you really need this to be successful in engineering, for example? And how will you feel about the decision many years down the line? Presumably, you pursued this degree because of a passion for the subject.

Is that enough to keep you going for a little while longer? Or is it a really long time longer? Going to grad school is one of those mentally and emotionally taxing things one can choose to do. I know for first-hand experience, nobody's path is the same, so it's really hard to give advice without understanding the full situation. Just remember that it takes more than just a student and advisor to get to the end goal. Make sure you've got other mentors, committee members, if you have them, and faculty in your program to help figure out a plan that will make everybody happy.

I'm so sorry you're going through this tough time, but it sounds like mismatched expectations. You've got a job. Your advisor thinks you've checked out. Who's right, who's wrong? I don't know, but you all need to have a heart to heart about it and see if you're supposed to stay in this program. And if so, what does success look like? Because otherwise, hit the ejection button and go work on your job and stop worrying about this degree. Nobody can make that choice but you. Next, out of the mailbag. Hi, Jordan. As a 50-year-old man who's probably made every mistake a middle-aged man can make,

I've been waking up and trying to find a way off the hamster wheel and into making a difference. Now, I'm not an academic or particularly smart, but I know that I'm not a regular guy either and have had microsecond experiences or visions of what is possible for me. However, all that is BS if I don't act on it. So I've looked into the self-help industry, Tony Robbins, Lisa Nichols, Jay Shetty, and on and on and on. But it's both expensive and not very personal. Lots of them talk about how someone gave them a shot when they were, or younger and mentored them or introduced them to influential people in situations, but none of them

seem interested in doing this for someone else. Yes, they have products that you can buy or seminars to attend, but how the hell do you get in front of the right people? I see opportunities to help make a difference in the world, but how can a nobody working in the manufacturing industry for 30 years realistically do this? Sorry to whine, but I'm so frustrated and so fearful of disappearing from the world and having nobody notice. I have to leave my mark on the world and leave my kids some legacy, some security, and vision of what's achievable. Thank you for reading, just trying to make a mark. Man, I feel for you.

I'm not your age, of course, but I understand the feelings that you're having. At least I think I do. Let me clear the slate a little here. The mentorship thing, the whole idea that you need a mentor to succeed in certain areas, the way that you're explaining, this is usually a farce. The guys who say, oh, someone mentored me and introduced me to all these people, they make up this story about how someone mentored them. This is not really the case most of the time.

This is, unfortunately, for a lot of the people that you're thinking of when you think mentorship and people that sell mentorship programs, it's a setup. They tell a story like this to get you primed to purchase their seminars and products because you supposedly need them to mentor you now. It's just marketing, man.

I've been keeping my mouth shut about this for a while because I'm not here to make enemies and a lot of you don't even know what I'm talking about, but when you're looking for coaching and stuff and you see like mentorship packaging, I see this is damaging. This is the sort of thing people think they can't get where they want to be without some sort of magical, mystical mentor who just happens to be available from your favorite Instagram or podcast or YouTube goofball.

You can find mentorship. It's just a few thousand dollars or many thousand dollars, in fact. I know one person I talked to recently, she's in some sort of like $40,000 a year, two-year business mastermind and she's like, I hate it. It's such a waste of time. Nobody's doing anything. All it is is a bunch of people upselling their product or their coaching and all of the advice we're getting is just stuff straight out of blogs. Like be consistent. Make sure you show up every day 110%. I mean, they're just getting hosed and there's no refund. The whole point is there's no refunds. You aren't financing some wannabe guru's lifestyle, period. All right, now that I've got my

obligatory weekly rant out of the way. I got to say I empathize here. I also want to leave a mark on the world. It's not easy. And a lot of us spend the first half of our lives chasing currency and the latter half of our lives chasing legacy. Young people, hear me now. Legacy is greater than currency. If you're not young, you're never too late to make a difference. You've got plenty of life experience. You have plenty to offer. If you don't know where to start, whenever I feel sort of lost, I volunteer someplace. Even if I don't feel lost, I love giving back. There are loads of kids that need sports coaches at youth centers.

There are loads of homeless and needy folks that need help at their shelters. There are charities galore. And there's nothing quite like spending a day each week doing work that matters. And don't be afraid to spend time with different charities until you find a good fit and you're doing something that you're enjoying. Don't feel guilty shopping around a bit. It's like dating. You have to be happy in the relationship you've got with the charity or cause.

otherwise it's bad for everyone involved. This is all to say, you don't need a mentor. You can be a mentor. And not the kind that charges $10,000 for a day-long supercharge your life session. Start by being a mentor to people that really need you and can't avoid you. Start there. And I absolutely guarantee you'll have a renewed sense of value and purpose like never before. Last but not least, Jason.

Hello, Triple Jays. I've been married to my wife for three years now and we've been dating each other since 2006. So we really got to know each other, or so I thought. Prior to getting married, we'd been renting our own little duplex in the East Bay since 2011. We were thinking about purchasing a home, and that's when her financial situation came out. It turns out she's drowning in debt, 75% of that is student loans, and the rest are credit cards, personal loans and a car loan. I can't say that it blindsided me since I did see the signs in the past. after asking her why she never told me, she said that she didn't want to drag me into her problem.

I explained to her that it's kind of my problem now, too, as we can't get approval to buy a home or build a savings together. However, what really pains me is seeing her work so hard and get so stressed just to see the majority of her pay go into paying off her debts. Also, I'm concerned that if I do help her pay some of her debts, that there's an underlying issue, i.e. going behind my back and buying unnecessary stuff. Also, part of me is hesitant on using my own savings to bail her out because I worked hard for my money. Our spare room closet is filled with her shoes, purses, clothes. Most of it she rarely wears. She says that she's willing to get help, but when I look at the options for her, it looks like it'll be bankruptcy or keep paying off her

debt for the next 10 plus years. She's open to exploring other options, but she easily gets overwhelmed and she starts giving me attitude, which in turn frustrates me and in the end goes nowhere. I want to help, but I don't know how to be supportive while drawing the line in the sand. Any suggestions on the situation? Regards, moans, groans, and loans. Oof, this is a gut punch. All righty. Well, first of all, find a debt counselor to help fix her issues. Ideally, somebody who is a fiduciary, and what that means is they're not just going to upsell you to a bunch of other stuff. They're going to be fee-based and help you get through this. You might also need a lawyer and see if you can put your house and other things that you buy in your name alone. I'm not totally sure how this works

in your state because I don't know where you are, but you're going to want to make sure that if she goes bankrupt, it doesn't affect you at all in terms of you owing part of the debt, right? You don't want her name on the house. She declares bankruptcy and suddenly you're getting your house confiscated. You've got to be careful that this doesn't trigger liability on your part if she goes bankrupt or if you, that might also, of course, be something you don't want to do because you're married. It really depends on things you've co-signed, what state you're in. The lawyer can help here, especially a bankruptcy lawyer. Just be careful they don't try to immediately sell you a bankruptcy package.

Make sure they're trying to help you avoid the bankruptcy package. This, however, does not fix the underlying communication issues with you and the wife. You're going to need some therapy to fix those. This is just not okay. These issues are, in my opinion, lies by omission. The fact that she didn't tell you any of this, knowing that it would come later and affect your relationship negatively, this is bad. This is a lie by omission.

She should have told you she decided not to. There might be other things that you need to know. You're going to have to get real, real clear on her financial situation and make sure there are no other skeletons in that wallet. She has issues with spending, clearly. This could be a self-esteem issue, a self-worth issue. Couples in marriage therapy will help you and her enforce boundaries both financially and personally.

there's something going on here and you need to uncover the root cause but in the meantime you need to protect yourself and your finances like you said you've worked too hard to let anything take you down at this point you setting boundaries protects you and protects your marriage and relationship with your wife because you will still have stability while she recovers so you're saying look i can't just bail you out with my savings it's not just well this is you're screw up and you're on the hook for it what you say is look this is this savings is what keeps us close both fed and housed while we work out your stuff. Because if you just say, well, you know, this is my money and that's your money and you spend all your money, that's going to make her feel abandoned. It's going to damage your relationship. But what you don't want to do is just fork over a bunch of cash because that's going to not solve the problem. And then you're putting your actual lifestyle at risk. Your finances, those of, you know, if you end up having kids and stuff like that, this is going to set you back years. I'm really sorry to hear about this.

I know you must feel really blindsided by all of this. and it's going to rock your relationship, your trust, everything you thought you knew about your wife to the core. I know how I would feel, and so I do have a lot of sympathy for you. And I think that this is something you can get through, but you need proper professional help, and you and your wife both need to be on the same page

with laying all your cards out on the table. Life pro tip of the week, when you start your day at an amusement park with kids, take a full body picture of each person individually so that if anyone gets lost, you can show security exactly what your kids look like that day. I was just in Orlando, and I saw a family doing that. And I was like taking photos even before Disneyland.

And they were like, actually, what we're doing is we just take a photo and, you know, I keep it on my phone. And that way, if I lose one of them, they can forward this photo. And they don't have to say, oh, it's this photo. But, you know, you can't see her pants and she's wearing blue pants. And also she's three years older. And also, it's not the kid on the left. It's the kid on the right.

You know, you just have a, this is what they looked like this morning. this is what they were wearing today and there's no one else in the photo. So much easier for security to help find your kid if they get lost at an amusement park or anywhere for that matter. So try that when you go to a busy place like Disneyland or Disney World or anywhere for that matter. The other option is you can all dress exactly the same. So when the security guy comes up and says, what's your kid look like? He goes, he looks just like me. If you're wearing exactly the same thing, yes.

But shorter and a girl, because it's my daughter. Yeah, right. I would just go with the photo idea. Probably easier. Yeah. Yeah. And less creepy. I'm just going to throw that out there.

Yes. Easier and less creepy. Recommendation of the week, the family on Netflix. Have you checked any of this out, Jason? Oh, bingeed it in two days. Nice. So you're further along than me. I'm only like midway through, but how creepy is this?

Oh, it's pretty creepy. This is one of the old boys clubs in D.C. There are a couple of them, but this is definitely one of the big ones because these are the people that organize the National Prayer Breakfast. Yeah, so this enigmatic conservative Christian group known as the family. They have huge influence in Washington, D.C. And they have, there's global ambition. They want to have one in Russia.

They want to have one in every country in the world. And they have massive influence. They have a ton of money. And look, there's nothing wrong with religious groups per se. But this group is designed. I mean, there is video of the founders saying, we want to maintain secrecy. The more secret we are, the more influence we can. wield. I mean, that is not something you say when you're like, look, all we want is to make sure

that X, Y, Z is at the forefront of people's minds. I mean, that's beyond lobbying. That's, that's low-key sort of influence in puppet string pulling. And they believe that there are certain leaders that are chosen by God, not voted in, but that God made that happen. And it's like, look, whatever your beliefs, these types of groups with disproportionate levels of influence and secrecy and that kind of stuff, they're creepy. They're creepy. Even if you agree with their Ames, it's still creepy. So check out The Family on Netflix, especially if you enjoyed our two-part series on Cults with Stephen Hassan. He's the one that turned me onto this as well. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. A link to the show

notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Quick shout out to Brett Jesperson, who gave us an awesome suggestion for new parents. He said, every time your kid does something really funny or memorable, throw it on your calendar and make it a recurring annual event. So in a year, two years, five years, ten years, you'll see a little alarm or a little note on your calendar that's like, on this day, 10 years ago, you pulled your pants down in the middle of a Walmart and took a poop on the floor or something ridiculous like that, because that was the, actually, that was the example he gave, because I guess one of his kids did that. Nice.

And I'm thinking, that's really funny because we had a photo shoot with Jaden yesterday, and he pooped four times on the floor, because they have naked babies. That's the thing at photoshoots. Pooped four times on the floor and five peas. And the woman who was shooting who was just a patient angel was like, that is definitely a record. Your kid is super healthy. He's definitely eating enough food. He's a poop influencer.

Yes, he certainly is. So I love that idea, though, marketing it in your calendar so that you remember it each year. Because if you just put it in a journal, you've got to look back on it. But if it's in your calendar, it's like, oh, yeah, on this day five years ago, we were at a baby photo shoot and he pooped on me twice, four times, whatever. Yeah, bam, bam, me at the couch two years ago today. There you go. Go back and check out the guests we had this week, Richard Clark and Scott Young, if you haven't yet.

And if you want to know how we manage our networking and relationships, it's all about systems and tiny habits. Check out six-minute networking. It's our free course over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I know you want to do it later, but that whole procrastinating thing that leads to failure. The number one mistake I see people making, entrepreneur, student, whatever.

You got to dig that well before you get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you are too late. these drills take a few minutes a day. It's free. It's not put in your credit card and charge you later free. It's just free free. I got nothing else to sell you, all right? I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. And videos of our interviews are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason? My personal website's over at JPD.me. I'm on Twitter at JPDF. That's JPDF. And check out my tech podcast. Grumpy old geeks at G. show or your podcast player of choice. This show is produced in association with podcast one and this episode was co-produced by Jen Harbinger.

Show notes for the episode are by Robert Fogarty, music by Evan Viola. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. And yes, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

And 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 very excited to bring it to you. And 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 What Was That Like Podcast.

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