The Jordan Harbinger Show - 275: The Case of the Mysterious Hotel Panties | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

Your fiance travels and stays in hotels at different locations every week for work. The other day, you found black Victoria's Secret panties in your laundry. The thing it, you don't wear Victoria's Secret. So you approached him and said, "I need help understanding how this is in our belongings." He said this is a truly unfortunate situation because he doesn't know how it got there. You closely watched him for any signs that would alarm you as hints of lying. You found none. Is there any surefire way to know if a significant other is cheating beyond what amounts to circumstantial evidence? We'll try to unlock this and more on the latest 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/275. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Interested in doing some prison time with Jordan next February? It's filling up fast; reach out to [e-mail] for details! A mysterious pair of panties that don't belong to you showed up in your laundry after your fiance returned from a business trip. He says he has no idea how they got there. Is there a surefire way to tell if he's been cheating and lying? You're a single dad who shares equal custody of a five-year-old son. His mom and new husband have offered the option to stay in a trailer on their property. You all get along great and this would be convenient for everyone, but is it an appropriate arrangement? As a leader in the workplace, you helped someone you thought was an amazing employee get promoted. Now you find that this person is mocking you behind your back and taking sick days once a month. You went to bat for this person and you feel betrayed. What now? You've been using techniques in Six-Minute Networking for talking to strangers, but what can you do when people aggressively try to shut down a conversation? Should you just call it a loss, cut bait, and move on, or try to break the dam a different way? You broke up with your girlfriend of four years because she started having feelings for another woman. Neither of you want this, but you're not able to continue loving her and only her knowing that she doesn't love you and only you back. Where do you go from here? You're worried that your significant other's negativity is rubbing off on you; your social life is suffering and you haven't felt like yourself lately. Even though you still care about them, you feel breaking up is the best way to give them the time and space they need. But how? You just started a new career. You want to start off strongly, but you already feel intimidated and think perhaps you have a little imposter syndrome. What can... 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. 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. And this week, we had Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, and now I don't even know what you would call him. He's not a political pundit, but he's certainly a thinker. We're discussing mental models in ways we get stuck in poor logic and reasoning, what he calls loser think. We also spoke with Super Agent Darren Prince and his Forrest Gump-like story of sobriety in his crazy career as a sports agent to some of the biggest names in the game. I also write every so often on the blog. The latest post is about why you should not trust your intuition much of the time. You can find out why, backed by science, not just

my ridiculous self-help dork claims. That's at Jordanharbinger.com slash articles. I'd love to hear what you think about that. Make sure you've had a look and listen to everything we created for you week. Of course, our primary mission here on the Jordan Harbinger show is to pass along our guests and our own 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 and every Friday here on Feedback Friday. I just want to place one brick in the structure that makes up your life. That's really what this podcast is about. You can always reach us Friday atjordanharbinger.com. By the way, apologies to the 34,000 or so of you who accidentally

got a bonus episode. I put that in air quotes with the founder of NetSuite. That was supposed to go someplace else. Some of you said you enjoyed it for what it's worth, but if you saw that and you wondered what the hell that was, that's what that was. It was nothing. This is not the episode you're looking for.

We're going to prison. February 26, 2020, my 40th birthday, I'm going to spend it behind bars, and I'm inviting you to join me. We're going to be doing part of an educational program for the inmates, and it's a lot of fun. It's life-changing. Fun might not be quite the right word.

It is fun, but it's a life-changing experience. There's a lot that we can learn from these guys, and there's certainly a lot to do to make that place better, and to make it easier for them to come out and be productive members of society. So that'll be fun. Email me if you're interested in going. Prison at Jordan Harbinger.com. That's how you get, well, not tickets,

but that's how you get information about the trip. I personally can't wait. It's going to be outside Reno. It's going to cost about $1,000 plus travel, and I'm bringing like 50 to 100 people. I'm excited about this. I think it's going to be a blast. I'd love for you to join me, Prison at Jordan Harbinger.com. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag this week? Hey, JJ and Jay. My fiancé and I have been engaged for a year and our wedding is set for next

October. We've gone through premarital counseling and personal counseling. Also, I'm a clinical psych graduate student. The other day, I found a black Victoria's Secret panty in our laundry. I don't wear Victoria's Secret. My fiancé travels and stays in hotels at different locations every week for work. He was traveling like this when we first met, so I'm very used to it. I approached him and said, I need help understanding how this is in our belongings. He said, this is a truly unfortunate situation because he doesn't know how it got there. That same night, we mined through potential leads. I asked my girlfriends who recently came over, and if they had underwear in their purse that maybe our puppy may have gotten into. I asked him to download online dating apps to

see if there was anything suspicious. And he had the idea to call his best friend and pretend I wasn't there so I can hear if he ever cheated, his best friend would have unknowingly outed him. Okay, so this is actually kind of genius, getting him to call his buddy on speaker to chat, and he doesn't know you're there. That's really funny and good thinking, because I can imagine that would actually work. The problem is, I think she said it was his idea, so he could have just texted his buddy and been like, I'm going to call you and ask about cheating. Act normal. She's in the room, but she's not going to say anything. You're on speaker. Yeah, let me call my buddy, but just let me go to the bathroom real. quick. Yeah, I need to go to the bathroom real quick first. Good thing we installed signal for that back channel communication.

Exactly. Never know when you're going to need it. My fiancé also acknowledges that if there were a job that was opportune for cheating, it would be his job. He travels and is on the phone all the time. I closely watched him for any signs that would alarm me as hints of lying. I found none. It's important to know that our puppy and I travel with him whenever we can. During a stay, months ago, our puppy found a pair of socks in the hotel room that didn't belong to either of us. So it's plausible that our puppy found this panty, and my fiancé may have picked it up and threw it in the luggage thinking it was mine. I've only seen cheating play out in movies. When there is smoke like the panty, there's typically a smoking gun, aka cheating. I know movies in real life are not the same, but I can't get this lingering thought of, he's cheating and I'm just too ignorant to see it out of my head. Do you think I'm missing something? Any thoughts would be great.

Sincerely, the case of the mysterious underwear. Well, first off, the idea that we can or cannot tell if someone is lying is pretty much bunk. So the whole like, oh, I got nothing from his face or anything, it's pretty tough to tell. I mean, I guess if you really know someone well and you've got a really good baseline for them, you have a better chance, but that sort of remains to be seen. Even the sharpest interrogators and cops are no better than a coin flip when it comes to lie detection. So anyone who doubts that, by the way, can talk to show games. in retired FBI agent Joe Navarro,

who will tell you that the human lie detection skills are a complete myth. So we've actually turned down a couple of recent guests who claim to be able to read your face and tell if you're lying and all this other stuff. Right now, we really don't have enough evidence to see what's going on here. Sure, there's the underwear,

and he may or may not be careless when it comes to covering his tracks if he is cheating. The biggest indicator of future behavior is always past behavior. So has he cheated before? I assume you haven't caught him cheating before, or we would have heard about it. We also know from our Malcolm Gladwell episode that we tend to default to truth.

In other words, we believe others until we have so much doubt that the switch flips because we default to trust other people. It's just a way that society functions. So what I would do in your situation is to try to spend some time viewing things from a different angle. Instead of truth default, look at recent actions as if you know he is cheating and you're looking for evidence. Remember, this is just an exercise.

you don't have any concrete evidence here, so don't be too hard on him. But view his actions, all of them, as if you know he is cheating. Now, with this lens on things, what else do you see? Is it still unclear? Is it unlikely? Or do you see more and more evidence that something fishy is or could be going on? In the end, you might never get any evidence that something is wrong here. You have to work on your relationship and your level of trust, especially since you're

getting married. I totally understand why this is dismiss. but it could also be a misunderstanding. The issue isn't the panties, though. The issue is that you're not sure what they mean, and you have to get there as much as you can, especially before you tie the knot. I'd like to think that if I had some pair of random panties

in my laundry coming back from a trip, Jen would probably be like, what the hell are these? But then I think she would probably stop thinking about them because she'd be like, well, you don't even have the energy for that. So there's a good chance. But yeah, I can see why this is suspicious, especially since you're about to get married, you know, the stakes are pretty high.

If he's messing around on these trips, especially given all the opportunity to do so. So, yeah, I would hammer that down and see if anything else pops up, especially any sort of suspicious past actions that go unexplained or like, hmm, that's weird, his phone rang at night. At 3 a.m., that's really unusual.

Or you got these weird texts. I mean, start looking at things like that. And talk about it with the therapist, because it helps to build trust when you lay out all the cards on the table with stuff like this. So hopefully this turns out to be nothing. Congrats on the engagement and on your future. All right, Jason, what's next?

Dear Jay Squad, I'm a single dad in the Bay Area who shares equal custody with a five-year-old son. In the past, we've celebrated birthdays and the like together, and as consideration, his mom and a new husband have offered the option to stay in a trailer that's on their property. I've done it a few times. Some people think I'm crazy, and others say no big deal. We get along great, and my mom. son likes having me there. We all really do get along, so it seems legit. I've tried Airbnb,

etc., but this is a great cheap option. Recently, she offered again, due to the fires, and I declined. I felt it was weird this time in sending mixed messages. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Is it okay or inappropriate? Sincerely, sharing space with the X. All right. Well, this kind of reminds me of my best friend growing up. He's still a very close friend to mine. The parents got divorced when the kids were really little, and the family all got along. Mom, stepdad, stepkids, everybody, dad, everybody. They all lived in the neighborhood. And it's like the kids have two dads, and it was and still is pretty awesome. So I think it's not that big of a deal. It's a functional, healthy relationship. Plus, if you stay on the property, the wife and new husband

have the benefit of free slash convenient babysitting too. So I see this as a win-win. I don't really see a big downside here. It might be good to sit down and talk boundaries. For example, if you want to bring your girlfriend over or something sometime, is your wife or the husband going to get annoyed or angry and all of these sort of what ifs. I would write the agreement down on paper. What are they comfortable with? What are you comfortable with? Try it out for a month or whatever and see. It just doesn't seem inappropriate or weird to me because it sounds like the kids are old enough where they're not like daddy moves back in or dad lives here forever now. Like they understand you're visiting, right? That's the only danger I see here. You're also not staying in the house.

That might be a little strange. Also, it seems like nobody has any hangups about the divorce. So honestly, it just strikes me as a mature and healthy way to handle something like this. Now would you want to live there forever? Probably not. But I don't see why you need to shell out for a hotel that's more expensive and less convenient because of some vague idea that you should feel more awkward about something that's not even a big deal seemingly to anybody else. If it doesn't bug you, it doesn't bug her, and maybe talk directly with the new husband because maybe he's afraid to tell his wife that he feels weird about it and she's like, you should be fine with this. It's not a big deal. Maybe she's dictating his feelings. So if you

just check in with him and be like, hey man, you know, let me know how this is because if this is weird for you, I can bail. He might be like, no, it's all good. You're only here for a week, right? And then you go, okay, got it. My time limits a week. You know, if it doesn't bug you, it doesn't bug her, it doesn't bug him, and it's good for the kid. Go for it. I mean, just make sure your child knows you're not moving there permanently so he's not disappointed and sad when you eventually leave.

I think that's the key. Look out for his feeling. He's the one who may not understand exactly what's going on. Everybody else seems to be an adult who has their head wrapped around this and, like I said, is handling this in a pretty healthy way. Okay, what's next? Hi, J-Team. I started in a leadership role about nine months ago.

I did everything I could to get what I thought was an amazing employee promoted. Not only did I get them promoted, but I also nominated them for an award as they really came across as an outstanding member of my team. Lately, however, this person has been mocking me to colleagues for my outgoing and friendly nature. Plus, they've been taking sick leave once a month during the week where a medical certificate from a doctor is not required. I feel that this person has abused my good nature, and their attitude is starting to rub off on others in my team that report to me, and even others who are in different teams. Feeling betrayed, I want to confront this person, but I want to know what the best strategy would be.

Any tips for a boss who may have been too nice? Thank you. Backstabbed by a subordinate. This is a messy one. Maybe not that messy, but irritating. You know, you go to bat for someone and they turn out to be an internal enemy. Why? Rather than direct confrontation, maybe ask earnestly what is going on. Tell them you've been on their side, you've gone to bat for them for the promotion and for the award, and you're wondering

where you might have gotten under their skin because you've heard about them mocking you and saying negative things about you. Now, it might sound like direct confrontation, but it's not angry. You're just saying, hey, maybe not this way, but hey, did I poop in your Cheerios? What's going on here, buddy? The person is probably a coward like most smack talkers actually are, gossipy people. he's going to be super embarrassed once he knows he's been caught on his bad behavior. And that alone might get them to stop. That said, now they've shown their true colors and that's something to keep in mind. If he denies it, just keep asking him to clear up why this keeps getting back to you.

You can also tell him to knock it off because it's against the company's values. You can also go to his other supervisors or whatever, depending on how the company is structured. And that may be appropriate or maybe you do that after you fire a shot across the bow. Like, hey, I know what you're doing and it's not cool. and I went to bat for you, and then you hear about it again, and you're like, okay, now I'm reporting it. You know, you can always sort of do this in a tiered way.

I would also document all their sick leave days and note any patterns. You can bring these up to HR because something like this is an abuse of a company policy and should be monitored by somebody who isn't in their direct chain of command and can't be said to have a bone to pick with them like you do.

You also might wanna check with the person first. Maybe they've gotta, I know this is kind of hard to believe, but maybe they've got a good reason for missing work, Maybe their brother is sick or something, or they've got a mental health issue, which, who knows, maybe even that's tied into their attitude issues. You don't have to do this, but if it were me, I think I would want to just to make sure I'm not kicking someone while they're down. You know, maybe his brother's sick and he's going through depression. So yeah, he's saying some negative things about a lot of people who aren't in the room, which is not a healthy weight event. But maybe he actually doesn't mean, basically, it'd be a real shame if you're going and making this guy's life harder and then you find out he does like you.

he's just miserable because his brother's got cancer and his dog is sick and he's dealing with depression and now you're getting him fired. I mean, that would just, there are worse things than having somebody say nasty things behind your back at work and sometimes people have reasons for bad behavior even if there's no excuse for the bad behavior. You should also know that this sort of thing happens all the time, just in life. And the best way I've found to handle this, and I've also asked a lot of friends of mine in corporate and with their own companies about this as well because, um,

I don't have a real job, as you all know. The best way, according to them, is to be straightforward and blunt about this, but never accuse. Just ask questions and explain feelings. So you might say, I've heard that you've been saying some not so nice things behind my back. Am I wrong? How so?

Why has this been happening? How can we fix it? Can you clarify why this has been happening? He'll probably backpedal, downplay what he said, say that he was just joking or that something was taken out of context. He'll likely realize that all this backroom talk is actually getting back to the boss, it's you, and maybe he should behave himself. Keep calm, get to the point when you talk, and he'll realize you're not so nice that you don't have any backbone, and perhaps he'll find

another way to elevate himself instead of stepping on others. And you might even be a favorite target of his just because you're not around. Maybe he does it to other people who aren't around. Maybe that's just a bad habit that he needs to break, too. Honestly, he sounds insecure, and that's too bad, because that type of thing can be career limiting. So by confronting him, and getting him to stop, you're doing him another favor, and you also might get your old all-star high-performer teammate back. I mean, I've definitely, who hasn't said something negative about somebody that they actually like and then regretted it?

You know, it would suck to get caught for that. It'd be super embarrassing. I'm sure it's happened to me. Well, Jason, you and I did this once. We were talking about the audio engineer, and we blew a problem out of proportion because we were just venting on here, and it was like not a big deal. And he heard it, and he felt so bad. Remember that?

Oh, yeah. It made me feel like crap, that's for sure. Well, that was years ago. He still works with us, and I still think about how awful that was and how unnecessary that was of us to do and how neither of us really meant it. I mean, we were just sort of like venting and going on and on. I was probably checking my email at the time, you know, half paying attention to the conversation.

We go on for five minutes, and then we left the damn thing in the edit that we sent to him like two idiots. So it just goes to show like, You know, sometimes you just say stuff about people. I mean, hell, who hasn't said anything about their best friend in the whole world once? Imagine getting caught for that. And you're just thinking, crap, I would just had a headache, you know? Like, damn it.

It happens. It's not a healthy way to vent. That's why I kind of don't do that stuff about people that I like. I just, it's not healthy. It programs you poorly. But not everybody's gotten there and thought about that and broken that habit. It's a tough one to break. Yeah, sometimes you're not your best self.

It happens to everybody. Just learn from it for sure. It sort of depends on how. how pervasive the pattern is. Like, if you hear about it every other day, the person hates you and is talking smack about you and it's awkward, you got a problem. But if some weird thing got back to you once or twice over the last six months, maybe the guy's just having a rough day and you're not in the room, you know? Who knows? This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this. Have you ever had a moment where you think, man, someone should really do something

about this? Then you realize, maybe that someone is you. Well, with the help of GoFund you can change someone's life. You could start a GoFund me to help a friend pay for school, fund that new community space, or help a local kid finally get to that national competition. I've seen this myself. Last year, a friend of mine launched a go fund me to help with medical bills after an unexpected surgery. It was incredible how fast the support rolled in. People want to help. They just need a way to do it. And GoFundMe makes it easy. So do you have a dream, a person, or a cause in your life that could use some support, don't wait for someone else to bring change. You can be the one who makes a difference. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million

people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. 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 to 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, what's next?

Hi, Jordan. I've enjoyed listening to your podcast recently and just took a swing at the networking course. I like the few idea. But what are some methods to use when people shut down more aggressively in conversation? Cut bait and move on? Or try to break the dam a different way? Thanks, future smooth talker. Well, I'm glad you're enjoying six-minute networking.

If people in conversation are giving you one-word answers, it's often because they're shy and less skilled in conversation, or because they don't like you, or possibly because they're not in the mood to talk. There's probably other reasons. Those are the main three. You can figure out which one it is by asking an open-ended question that's not a yes or no question.

If you do this, and they give you the shortest answer possible and then disengage, they probably don't want to talk for some reason. There's no point in figuring out why. If they don't like you, who cares? Not relevant most of the time. If they don't want to talk, fine. Not really your problem most of the time.

Obviously, if this is family, work colleagues, you might want to investigate further another time, not in the moment. That's just annoying. But if it's a stranger or someone at some mixer or party, just cut bait and move on. Zero point trying to get blood from a stone. If they're just shy,

asking open-ended questions will help them open up and keep the conversation going. And also, instead of asking questions, use the question answer statement formula. This is also in six-minute networking. You can find that, by the way, at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. But to refresh your memory,

the short version here is that instead of asking a question, getting an answer, and then asking another question, which just starts to feel like an interrogation, you ask a question, get the answer, then make a statement that relates to that answer before asking another question. This makes things more conversational.

For example, the usual way people have these stilted conversations is like this. Hey, where are you from? Detroit. What do you do there? I'm a teacher. How long have you been teaching? Five years. And so on and so on.

Now the question answer statement formula turns that into this. Where are you from? Detroit. Oh, wow. My parents grew up there, actually. Is your whole family from out there? Yes, they are. What do you do out there?

I'm a teacher. My mom was a teacher in Detroit too. What district? What subject do you teach? So you end up with a statement in between the next question. It's different because you're both sharing information both ways, even if the other person isn't asking you anything. So there's more of a share, and the conversation tends to get deeper and more rapport gets generated because of this.

It's a great way to make someone who isn't a skilled conversationalist more at ease and get them to open up a bit more and do so earlier in the conversation. And I do this with interviews sometimes as well. You know, it doesn't happen often because the guests on the show, as you've heard, a very dynamic and skilled conversationalist. But occasionally you'll get some scientist

or spy who just isn't used to telling their story and you have to throw in statements, you have to throw in a share. And then often, you know it's working. On a show, I know it's working because they go, oh, are we starting? Right? Because they couldn't tell.

It was just a conversation. In a regular conversation, you'll know it's working because they slowly start to open up, and they start to add more to their answer, or they might even get the guts to ask you a question as well. So in the example, in the last example, where you from Detroit, oh, wow, my parents grew up there is your whole family from there.

Yes, they are. They're from outside Detroit. Oh, what do you do out there? I'm a teacher. Well, my mom was a teacher in Detroit, too. What subject? What district? They might give you the answer to that and then say,

do you remember what district your mom taught in? What did she teach? They'll throw it back to you because they'll actually have the material. you're giving them the same questions. They can just ask those same questions back without it sounding stilted because you've gotten a share in. It sounds really stilted

if they just ask you the exact same question back. So a lot of people who are shy or unskilled conversationalists, they won't do it. They'll just sort of give you the answer and then internally panic and then just pray that the conversation ends soon and then regret ever coming to the party.

I know this from first-hand experience. I'm not making fun of anybody. I know why this happens because I remember being in the situation, situations and being like, please let this conversation end, even though this person is really nice and I'm having kind of a good time, I need to get out of here because I'm so nervous. I don't want to have this conversation, but this person's really nice. Damn it, what were they just saying? I was in my head. I wasn't listening. What were they talking about? That's an internal dialogue I would have

had with myself, I don't know, 10, 13 years ago. Not fun. And those of you who have that going on in your head, you know what I mean. All right, Jason, what else we got? Hey team, my 26-year-old girlfriend and I, college sweethearts and partners of four and a half years, broke up a few weeks ago. Neither of us wanted this. My ex-girlfriend and I are cut from the same cloth. We're both above-average successful for our age.

We both see our own therapists, and we have healthy lifestyles. We openly acknowledged how in love we were, how great of a team we made, and how we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Two and a half years into our relationship, unknown to me at the time, my girlfriend started getting along really well with a woman at work. Office chatter turned into flirtatious banter, which turned into snuggling in the back of her car during

lunch, which turned into borderline sexting each other at work. In January of 2019, my girlfriend opened up to me that she was having bisexual curiosities towards women that she could no longer ignore. After a lot of open communication, we agreed to open up the relationship for physical connection only to allow her to experience being with a woman. She was extremely clear that I wasn't lacking and that we were still madly in love. She just couldn't move forward with us until she got this part of herself figured out. The next month, she first explained that she really only felt this curiosity for one woman.

A month later, she said she loved this person. That broke me down and was really hard to hear. Before I could discuss it with my therapist, my girlfriend came back to me two days later, extremely apologetic, said that there was definitely no love there. Chemistry, flirting, and attraction, sure, but absolutely no love. During our open relationship, they've also very lightly experimented. sexually. So we continued to date in an open relationship for six months, bringing this story to the end of September 2019. Three weeks ago, my girlfriend told me she does indeed love this woman.

She explained that it was a different kind of love, rooted in friendship with a little extra. I was in shock and pain. I kept asking myself how I could continue to love her and only her, knowing full well that she doesn't love me and only me. Because I couldn't find the answer, the answer became, I can't. So I ended the relationship. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. When breaking up with her, I explained that I didn't want to be doing this. I didn't want to lose our relationship because of how genuinely great we were together. I also explained that I literally was not able to continue loving her and only her, knowing that she didn't love me and only me back.

It was a very emotional conversation for the both of us. She openly acknowledged that she didn't want to lose me and that she's letting the best thing that's ever happened to her walk out the door. I explained to her that in an imaginary fairy tale world, I would cut my ties with her, step back, and let her do her thing. In a perfect world, she would call me when she was done and we would pick up the pieces and move on. I also told her that I'm absolutely not expecting that call. I'm not going to wait around and I'm not holding my breath.

I deserve better, and that's no way to live. She's made it very clear that she knows what she has to do, and not so subtly hinted that she does still want to spend her life with me and wants to come back. This is relatively new territory for her. She's only dated guys her entire life. My gay friend explained that while she's in her late 20s, this underdeveloped part of her might really only be the maturity of a 16-year-old. So, of course, she's going to fall in love the first time she feels like this.

My gay friend also explained that this might actually be lust and not love, but because this is also new, she doesn't really know what true love in this form is yet. This is still so fresh. I honestly feel like a lonely, fragile, broken, sad shell of myself. I have a list of skills and classes that I'm going to start soon, but honestly, I'm in emotional pain almost every waking moment. My stomach is in knots most of the time. I'm not really sure what to do here or how to help myself heal.

I'm doing well at work, staying mostly healthy and keeping active, working out most mornings before work, etc. I'm kindly asking you to point me in the right direction. Sincerely, lost my love to a lady. Oh, man, sorry to hear this. You've really answered your own question here, though. You're working out, you're keeping healthy, you're keeping your mind occupied, and you're seeing a therapist.

There's not much more than that as far as healing from a breakup like this. It just takes time. I wish I had more for you here. You're right about a few things. One, this might be about lust and not love. And two, this might be an emotionally immature side of her coming out. Not that it's emotionally immature to be attracted to the same sex. What I mean is if you've been repressing that for your whole life, not noticing it or something,

then when it finally comes out, yeah, it might be like your gay friend said, she's basically a teenager in that respect. That's an interesting angle. That said, she has to figure out what she wants from life, what kind of relationships and partners she wants, and she's just not there yet. You can tell by what's going on here. Also, she's made a choice to let you walk out. I don't want to rub salt in this wound here, but I want to highlight this. She made a choice to let you walk out.

She said she's sad that the best thing it's ever happened to her is walking out the door. She also could have stopped this by not cheating on you with a woman at work. So she obviously wants to slash needs to explore this. And I kind of think that she should. I'm not advocating cheating, but I think, look, if you're being pulled by somebody of the same sex or just somebody else in a very strong way and you're in your 20s and you've been with the same person for a long time, you've got to get stuff like this out to see if the grass really is greener and you're just a creature of habit. What you don't want is for this to happen when she's 35 and you have a house and

two kids. That's what you don't want. So now's, I know it doesn't feel this way, now's a good time for this to happen if it's going to happen at all. And this is what makes me think that the pull of this relationship with the other woman at work is really strong and that she obviously needs to exploit this because otherwise it will damage any relationship that she is in in the future. And you're right, you deserve better. I think you need to recover and move on as best you can and not wait for her to figure this out and maybe never come back. If she does come back, she's surely going to still be pulled towards other women as well. It's unlikely this is just a random phase.

That stuff might happen earlier or be something that is clearly not a pull, but just fun. If it's not serious, if this is this serious that she's risking the relationship, it's a serious pull. And so you're going to have to deal with that in one way or another if you are in a relationship with her again. And that might not be what you want. And if you want a partner that only wants to be with you

and not with Janice from accounting as well, then you need to find someone else and not wait around. That's my opinion here. I know this is super painful, man, and I feel really bad for you. The good news is you sound like you've got yourself together, more or less here. There's a big world out there. Being single for a while after being in a relationship for so long at such a young age, this might actually be good for you.

Although I know that that's cold comfort right now. I think you already know you're on the right path, and I just want to confirm that that's the case, in my opinion as well. But again, sorry that this happened to you. There's nothing I can say that's going to make this all better. And I think you know that too, but what a crap sandwich that you didn't really volunteer to eat. So you do have my sympathy there.

All right, Jason, what else we got? Hello, Jay Crewe. I'm an early 30s guy living downtown in my state's capital. I love my weekday IT career and do the occasional DJ gig some weekends. I have a ton to be grateful for and live a pretty good life. My girlfriend of two years is in her late 20s, teaches preschool, and lives in a smallish town two hours away where we both grew up. She has two awesome daughters. I've never played the stepdad card, but we get along great. Things started off great, and we've made seeing each other on

weekends work. In hindsight, though, maybe we shouldn't have gotten too serious. I wasn't against the idea of eventually settling down until recent months, as I think we're both realizing how different and incompatible we are. I was raised by a single mother, so I can totally respect how difficult this is. I've always been encouraging and understanding of the situation. Lately, though, it seems she's incapable and even unwilling to be happy. She thinks people at work her against her, has shut out the few close friends she has, and on the weekends, she's here. It's a cycle of stress, sadness, and constant scrolling through the bottomless pits of social media.

Don't mean to speak bad of her. She's really a kind-hearted person. I just think she's let her stresses take over her life, and the negativity is spilling into mine. I used to brush this stuff off, but it's become far too often, and it's affecting my happiness. My social life is suffering, and I haven't been myself lately. I guess the old saying about who you spend the most time with has some truth to it.

So my question is not if, but how to break up with someone you still care about and wish the best for. I dread the thought of hurting her or her kids or making things even worse, but I think she needs some time of her own to find joy in her life. Any advice on how to approach this? How to make it easier on her? Do I talk to the kids too? Ease into it, lay it out bluntly. Probably tough to answer, but thanks in advance for any way.

20-pointers. Thanks. Time to cut and run. Yikes, yeah. Well, she sounds a little depressed, and it doesn't sound like you two are compatible for other reasons here. Of course, helping someone get out of a rut like this is always nice, but you're not really in a position to do much here. She needs to see someone about this, in my opinion. I would encourage therapy. I would tell her maybe about better help if you want to, because being a single mom, she's probably super busy and stressed. BetterHelp.com slash Jordan is our deal there for you. But I would encourage her to go see somebody about this.

The self-isolation being a single mom of two with a full-time job, I mean, that is just not easy at all. And I hope she has help from her family over there, too. I assume she does if she's coming to see you every weekend. As for the breakup logistics, I'd go see her. Go to her place. Don't have her come over for the weekend. This way, she's not getting a babysitter.

She's not coming to your place two hours and then having to go back home two hours after you tell her what's up. That's just kind of a horrible thing to do. Plan out what you're going to say, write notes if you have to. I wouldn't beat around the bush. Don't do it at a freaking restaurant.

I mean, I probably don't have to say this type of stuff, right? She's going to know something is going on anyway since you're going all the way out there. As for the kids, it's not your job to talk to them. Let her decide what to do. If you're not that close to them, then she could simply explain that you're not mommy's special friend anymore,

however you're sort of in the mix there. That's entirely up to her. The kids shouldn't really factor in here. Hopefully, she's not the type to make you feel guilty because of that either. It's a shame, but you can't feel guilty about doing what you need to do to keep yourself sane, healthy, and moving forward.

What you can do is make sure that she knows that she has the power to change her emotional situation and get some help for that. So that way she doesn't feel trapped and discarded. You know, she needs to feel empowered and have an outlet for this, not just be like, hey, you're not very fun to be around and I want somebody better. So buy.

More like, hey, look, you know, I notice you're going through this. I am going through this, this, this, and this, and I'm looking for something else. And I think you should look into maybe the idea that you're a little down or depressed or something like that. I understand it. It's probably because of stress. I mean, she's got a stressful life. She's in a tough spot. And I am sorry to hear that, but somebody else's emotional health and life are ultimately not your responsibility.

I'll say that again. Someone else's emotional health and their life are ultimately not your responsibility. If they're young children, it is. Otherwise, it's never the case. You can only help somebody so much, but beyond that, it becomes self-sacrifice, which is actually not good for anybody. I hope this goes as smoothly for you as it can, and I don't envy your position here,

but I think you do need to move on, and you need to encourage her to get some help to fix the situation that she's in as well. For her sake and for the sake of her kids. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after this. Thank you for supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers helps keep us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. Okay, Jason, what's next? Hey, QuadrupleJ. I just started a new career in the insurance industry. What advice do you have to get past the initial nerves and how to build confidence straight off the bat? I want to start off strongly, but I already feel intimidated, and I think maybe perhaps I have a little imposter syndrome.

I had to pass an exam to get started, and I passed the first time. However, it's only my first week in the office, and I already feel a little down on myself. I just had a great conversation with my boss about the learning curves and mentioned how I'm excited to move past this initial stage and really show what I'm made of. I'm a textbook overthinker, and I don't want to shoot myself in the foot before I get started, as it's a great job that I would love to be able to stick with for a while. Best wishes, craving confidence. Well, the good news is this is normal.

So congrats on the job. I think you know that because you kind of said as much here. There are different strategies you can take here. Pick the one that scares you the most. That's my opinion. So strategy number one, you go bit by bit, you dip your toes in the water, you build a little confidence. You're probably going to overthink every step,

and that will hamper you a bit. But eventually you're going to get the hang of it. If you're an overthinker, this is probably how you handle most challenges in your life already. The second option, and the one that I prefer for you especially, is jump in with both feet and drink from the fire hose, go on every sales call, every learning session, join on random conference calls if they make sense and are relevant to you, get as much experience as you can, as early as you can. You're still going to overthink everything, but there's going to be so much material and experience that you actually won't be able to focus on

stressing out about every detail, which is actually a good thing. It'll force you to let something go and then see that those things don't turn into career-ending issues and you'll also notice that the speed at which you're learning goes through the roof. This, for me, is the quickest way to get comfortable in a new role or situation. And if you pass the exam on the first try, then obviously the work is not over your head. I'd say dive in and start learning and you won't have time to doubt yourself because you're going to be too busy working and learning. So again, congrats on the new job. I think it's normal to feel a little bit of imposter syndrome feel like you're in over your head.

The idea is to just drink from that fire hose is really the best way to do it. It's really the best way to put it. Get as much experience as fast as you can. If you dabble and you go slowly, you might feel like you're getting the hang of it slowly but surely, but it's going to look to your supervisors like you're progressing slowly and tentatively.

But if you jump in and you make some mistakes because you're new, well, it's fine, you're new and you're drinking from that fire hose. You're really going after it. And I think it's more forgivable and your learning curve will be a lot steeper. it'll be faster. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes, and that's why you asked me for my opinion, I assume. So good luck with that and let us know how it goes. Okay, Jason, last but not least.

Hey, Jordan and Jason. Last year, I triumphantly left my old company for an awesome opportunity with a better title and better pay. Well, shit hit the fan. My new company's office closed and relocated our jobs to another city. Through my existing network, shout out to the six-minute networking course, I've landed on my feet at my old company's parent company residing in the same building. My old team and colleagues have an amazing new boss who would be great to learn under. However, mentally, I've already closed the door on going back there, but I'm still envious. I find myself wanting this new boss's approval for some reason, even though I don't want to go back and work there. Since the job I'm doing is sort of a downgrade from what I was doing before, I'm having a hard time with it.

I feel like my identity and self-worth is shaped by having the approval of other people, and these other people thinking that I'm great. I find myself optimizing for results in taking on work to not only make myself look more employable on paper, but to ensure other people think highly of me. When I stop and think about it, it seems crazy, but this seems like my default subconscious operating procedures. Have you run across this before?

Is it a normal part of the human condition? And do you have any strategies to combat it? Cheers, signed. Who am I? Well, you're supposed to want your boss's approval, I've come across this before, and yes, this is a normal part of the human condition. It's actually called ego, and it's not always unhealthy. Man, it is completely normal for you to want other people to think highly of you. There's nothing wrong with it unless it starts to dictate your behavior,

and you're building your entire life around it to the detriment of other things in your life, such as happiness, relationships, et cetera. It seems like you feel you're moving backwards, having taken a downgraded position, You want to get back to where you were before, and this is the same feeling I had when I left my old company, and I had to start the show over again. I felt like I was in a huge rush to get back to where I was before.

It's natural, and you can use it to motivate yourself. Don't, however, confuse achievement or regaining your status or identity as needing approval from others. That's the key here. You won't regain your position or identity by having others give you their approval. You won't.

You can only get that from yourself. I know that's a clear. cliche, but it's true. Instead of focusing on what others have, because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, I'm sure you've heard that before, ask yourself what you can do or build in your own career. When you're between gigs or having a little crisis of meaning like this, it's actually a perfect time to step back, sit down, plan what you want out of your life and your career. A lot of times when we lose something, we scramble and we try to chase after it. And then if you don't pause, you realize, wait a minute, I didn't want that. When I first started

it over, I was like, we need a product business and we need a coaching business and we need to rebuild the show. And then I thought about it and I was like, I don't want to do as much coaching and training. I don't want to do as many products. So I put those on the back burner and focused on rebuilding the show and it's been one of the best decisions ever. It would have been a nightmare to try to rebuild all of those vectors of the business. And then I would have gone, great, we rebuilt those. Oh, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to have events all the time and be filming products all the time. I just don't enjoy it as much and it's more of a hassle. and my wife was greatly relieved

that we didn't want to turn this into a training business as well. So it actually helped a lot to sit down and figure out what we wanted. So it's nice to know what your goal is and be going after that rather than just scrambling for what you had before thinking that that's what you want or need.

I knew that I didn't want to coach. I knew that I didn't want to shill coaching, shill products I didn't believe in. I knew that I did want to have amazing conversations, continue answering mail and letters like this one, grow the show, grow the platform, that's what we focused on. Massive, massive relief. And it took a little bit of a pause in the beginning to find out which direction we wanted to run in. I highly suggest you take this little identity crisis you're dealing with right now,

take it as a signal that it's time to figure out your values and what you want out of your career and then make a plan to get there. When we don't have clarity on that sort of stuff, we grasp at everything, especially what we've had before, because it seems like it was better than what we have now, even if that's not really the case. It's a classic case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, and it's a bunch of cognitive bias. You could start a job there at the old company tomorrow, and in a few weeks you'd be plotting your escape again. Promise me, trust me, been there, done that. Step back and get clarity on what you do want, and you'll be much better off for it in the long run. Life Pro tip of the week, be skeptical of products that's a clinically

proven, that's actually a marketing term. It only says they've done their own private study that is designed to show the result the company wants. It is not the same thing as scientifically proven. A scientifically proven study is published and open for peer review. And you've got to be careful even about peer reviewed studies, but they're certainly more reliable than clinically proven studies, which just means the company literally hired some small study place. And they said, this result based on messing with the data. So clinically proven is, well, it's meaningless, really, in many ways.

Recommendation of the week, the game changers. This is so good. A lot of people recommended this. It is a documentary about health, mostly about eating meat and not eating meat, and it shows that guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and all these strength coaches, a lot of these athletes,

they're no longer eating meat. They're plant-based, and they go through a lot of the science. It's not just like, look at all the animals, whey. It's like, look, here's the science of what meat and animal products do inside your body. Here's what plant-based diets do. You're not going to suffer a loss of performance.

Animals are middlemen for calories, protein, things like that. And, of course, the ecological impacts and all that. It was quite interesting, and it got me thinking, okay, I guess I don't need as much protein. I certainly don't need as much animal products. And I already sort of slowed down on the meat a long time ago, and this really hammered it in. So, of course, the rest of the week, Jen was like, we're vegetarian now. Take it slow, man. Take it slow. Don't jump in full, whole hog, as it were. Whole hog.

Yeah. No, I used to do that. I'd get, I'm like, I'm going to go vegan or I'm going to go vegetarian. And then turns out that if you do things really quick, sometimes it has like a snapback effect. I would always get sick after a couple months of doing it. But they had some good tips in here. It's like, start slow. Start with one meal a week if you're eating meat every week and just kind of ease into it. This was a fantastic documentary. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I thought it was great. I ended up watching the whole thing. I was enthralled by it. A lot of you recommended this to us. So thank you for that. The Game Changers on Netflix. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. We're going to

prison. Don't forget. If you're interested in coming with me, prison at jordanharbinger.com, February 26, outside of Reno, $1,000 or so plus travel. We'll send you more info, prison at jordanharbinger.com. A quick link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Quick shout out to the California firefighters that saved everybody's bacon. What do they make fake bacon out of? Tempe. Yeah, it's something like that. Saved her Tempe bacon.

A lot of you guys have been listening to the show. I guess if you're in the middle of a forest, spraying water, you're either listening to Top 40 on the radio or you are listening to podcasts with one earpiece in from your command center and the other earpiece piping in whatever we're spouting. So that's cool. Thank you for doing that. These guys are so important, Jason. It's really funny.

I mean, we would be totally, totally screwed without all these firefighters in California, especially. Oh, yeah, I had fires on both sides of me, and we were glued to the TV for days because we were right on the edge of an evacuation zone. And just watching, especially the pilots, flying through these canyons and dropping all the Foschak and the helicopter pilots with the water dumps. These are some amazing pilots. And you know they had to be having a blast up there, like blasting through these canyons. Yeah, it's got to be a little bit like Star Wars. Is that you who said that before? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. flying through the canyon. Go back and check out the guest, Scott Adams and Darren Prince, if you haven't yet. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people, I've got systems and tiny habits that allow me to keep in touch with hundreds slash thousand plus people using systems and tiny habits to take a few minutes a day. The course is called six minute networking. It is free. It's over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Don't try to do it later. You procrastinate. You stagnate. Once you need relationships, you're too late. You're way

too late, actually. They just really are crucial. I wish I knew this stuff 20, 30 years ago, instead of 15 years ago. It would have made a world of difference in my life, and it already has. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with me and the show, and videos of our interviews are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason. If Tech News is your thing, then be sure to subscribe to my podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks. It's a fun poke at what went wrong on the internet and who's the blame. Just search for Grumpy Old Geeks and your podcast player or visit us on the web at gog. Dot show for all the popular subscribe links.

This show is created in association with podcast one, and this episode was produced by Jen Harbinger, edited by Jace Sanderson, show notes for the episode by Robert Fogarty, music by Evan Viola. Keep sending in those questions to Friday atjordanharbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own, and yes, I'm a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.

So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. And remember, We Rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.

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