The Jordan Harbinger Show - 287: How to Stop Taking Feedback So Personally | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

You find criticism somewhat punishing rather than productive -- especially when it's given by people you love. So how can you stop taking feedback so personally? We'll explore 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/287 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: How should we refer to our listener base? Is there a reason to share your salary with anyone else? Is it your imagination that there's tension between you and the only other woman in the office? As a business owner, how should you respond to competition fishing for pricing? How do you find hangout buddies? What can you do to help your boss step up as the leader you need him or her to be? Are extremely confident people drawn to jobs like teaching? Or is it the job that brings out the best in people? How do you keep contacts in your network from going cold? How should you stop taking feedback so personally -- especially when it's given by the people you love? Life Pro Tip: Compliment people on what you want them to be, even if they may not live up to it yet. Because when people hear themselves referred to in a certain way, they'll be motivated to act more that way. Recommendation of the Week: Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (And advice: Don't believe everything you see in any documentary. Always do some follow-up research before treating it as gospel!) Interested in doing some prison time with Jordan this February? It's filling up fast; reach out to [e-mail] for details! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, join his podcasting club, and check out... 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. This week we had Jack Barski. This is a two-parter. He's a KGB spy who came to America to blend in as an American. He got a job, he got a family, and he was only caught years after the fall of communism. This is one of my favorite episodes of all time. It's from the vault. This is just amazing. I couldn't believe the stories this guy had, and you will not regret listening to this, even if you think you've heard everything. This is just absolutely spectacular. I also write every so often on the blog.

The latest article is Five Signs, you're self-helping the wrong way. It's very apropos, given how much self-help is taken over people's lives. People aren't enjoying the process. They're struggling to apply this stuff to their own lives and, frankly, making everyone around them, including themselves miserable in the process.

that's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles. So make sure you've had a look and to listen to everything we created for you this 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. So 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 want to place one brick, just one, in the structure that makes up your life. And that's what this podcast is really about. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com And, you know, it's occurred to me. A lot of people have asked us, hey, what are we?

You know, Dax Shepherd from Armchair Expert, he calls his audience cherries. Lady Gaga has the little monsters, what are we? And I realize I have no idea, and this is not where my creativity lies. So if you have an idea of what you as an audience should be called, you know, the Harbinger family type moniker, I'm all ears. Shoot me a note, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Ideally, it's creative and not super creepy or weird. But, you know, I'll leave that judgment up to you.

I'm all ears on this, and I would love to finally, after 13 years of doing the show, find something that actually makes sense. All right, we've got some fun ones and some doozies as per use. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, Triple J. I just learned what my starting salary will be for the job I'll be starting after I graduate. I'm super excited, is it was significantly more than I was expecting, and because this will be my first full-time job. Is it a faux-paw to tell my parents what my salary will be?

I don't see any reason not to tell them, but I know you'll have more wisdom about this than I do. Also, who should and shouldn't I tell? Are there any general guidelines to follow, or is it just a case-by-case sort of deal? Thanks, signed new to the workforce. Well, your parents, in theory, should be happy for you. But it depends if they're going to use this info to make your life easier or more difficult. In other words, if they're going to congratulate you, pat you on the back, then great. But if they're going to blab to the entire family, piss off all your siblings, cousins, and extended family, and then encourage random people to bug you for money, well, I would keep it to yourself. You know, that could go horribly wrong.

Also, I would say be cognizant of the jealousy factor. When I got my first high-paying job, I told my dad, and he was mad at me for probably three years because he was making a third of what I was making and was just very grumpy about it any time I would mention my job. So you want to be tactful about that. Your dad was mad at you? Yeah, my dad. He was busted his ass, you know, 60 hours a week and then I get this cush job at a movie studio and he was just like, er. So it happens. I wouldn't have expected that from a parent, but I guess, yeah, it depends on the parent, right?

Yeah. My mom, of course, was really happy. My dad was really surprised, but my dad was a little bit annoyed, but he was also more like happily surprised. He's like, great, then you can pay back your student loans. You know, that kind of thing. I would say, as for telling other people, do not. There's no advantage that I can see to sharing your salary with people who are not

your parents, and as we just heard, maybe not even them. You can tell some friends and they may be happy for you, or more likely, they're going to be a mix of happy and jealous. They might accidentally or deliberately spread the info, and then you've got to deal with that. You know, you tell some other people who work in similar jobs thinking they're getting paid the same as you, and you find out that they're underpaid and they're gunning for your job or they want to sabotage you, or you find out that you're underpaid, and now you're pissed off when you were happy before, and there's nothing you can do about it because it's too early to negotiate. It's great to, to be proud of yourself and you should be, you should be able to share in your accomplishments with

others and enjoy that validation. But, you know, you should also make sure you're not dependent on the wrong kinds of validation in life in general or you're going to run into problems. Congrats on the job. You've graduated to adulthood. You're kicking butt. Now realize that getting your foot in the door, getting the job is just the beginning. Go earn that big salary bump and be the best at what you do. Enjoy the satisfaction of a rewarding career. You've earned it, but you have to keep earning it every single day. Do not forget that. Look, if it makes any difference, I'm proud of you. For as long as I have known you, so the last 38 seconds or so, I just knew there was something very special about you. All right, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Jason. I'm one of two women in my

program at work. I rarely ever see the other woman and have only had one or two conversations with her because she works in a different office. Also, she works part-time. Because of this, we're both used to being the only woman around. I went up to her office a few days ago and everyone was in the common area chatting, including her. There was a noticeable tension in the room between us when I entered. One of my male co-workers even mentioned something to me about it later. My female coworker and I have friendships with all of our male co-workers, but just not with each other. Most people from my office don't know her very well because she does finances and doesn't interact with us day to day. I have nothing against her and think she's a really cool person,

but that interaction really threw me off. I'd coincidentally listen to your episode with Sarah Hill, where she talks about female hormones causing subconscious competition between women. When I encounter these types of situations in the future, especially in a professional setting, what can I do to diffuse the situation? And for the men out there, what can they do when they observe this type of tension in a group? Thanks, keeping the peace. I always like to get ahead of problems, and this is even more important in the workplace. Whenever there's tension in a group, it's always best to address these things privately.

When you try to address things in a group setting, there will always be too much emotion, ego, and other moving parts involved in the mix. So remove those complications and handle this thing in private. The best way is to go to the other woman's office so that there's no time constraint. If you catch her in the elevator or something, it's going to be harder, there's a time constraint, you might get cut off if somebody else steps in the elevator. I'd go to her office and mention that you haven't really had a good chance to get to know her, but you'd like to, especially since there are so few women in the office. You can even add that you've heard good things about her from coworkers and that you're looking forward to connecting a bit better because of that. This helps take any suspicion as to your intent out of the way.

I mean, maybe not any suspicion, but it'll certainly go a long way. It almost sounds like this is a territorial thing, and I've heard of this before, and it's best to nip this in the bud for the sake of the whole office. I don't know about you, Jason, but there's many times in my life where I'm like, ooh, this person's doing this, and I don't like that person's doing this, and I don't like that person, I don't like look at that guy, and then I'll talk to them for five seconds, and I'm like, he's great. what was my problem? I have no idea. Weird insecurity on my part. Or like weird little eyebrow flick that I got

from him that I read into for no reason and good thing I talked to him because he's awesome. Yeah. Like that happens to me all the time. Yeah, that conflict is all in your head and it just, as soon as you actually communicate with somebody, it just all goes away. Yeah. And I'm not saying this is all in your head keeping the piece, but I think that it's very possible there's stuff going on between you two. Maybe she heard, oh yeah, keeping the piece. She's a real gunner and she's like, oh, great. Well, Screw her. I'm used to being the only woman in the office. I like that position. And then she talks to you for 10 minutes and she's like, oh, she's really cool. I don't know what I was worried about. I would ignore any awkwardness about the earlier interaction, unless

it was just really, really obvious to everyone. Even then, I just don't see any benefit to highlighting awkwardness. It's not helpful to anyone here. It might come across as you blaming her for the awkwardness or labeling yourself as awkward in a way that's unfair and not constructive to the situation. For men, for the guys, they can mind their own friggin' business. In the workplace, getting in the middle of other people's conflicts is career suicide or just asking for trouble at the very least, especially if something is emotionally motivated, which could be a conflict between men or women, just to be clear here. So the guys should not do anything here. They shouldn't try to help and solve the issue. They shouldn't meddle or mix with it at all. That's a no-win for everyone.

I'm trying to think of a scenario in which you and the other woman in the office are having an issue, and a guy can do anything that just doesn't blow up in his face or make it worse for everyone. I can't think of a scenario in which the guy's like, well, I like both of you. You're both great. And then it makes the territorial thing even worse. Or, oh, yeah, no, she talks about you and she says mostly good things. Like, what do you mean? I mean, there's no benefit to having someone else stick their nose in this at all.

I can't think of a single reason why that would be beneficial. They'll handle your own stuff. Don't let the guys get in the middle of this. There's very, very few situations in which a bunch of guys in the office are going to be able to help smooth over a problem between two of the only women in the office. And I'm struggling to think of what that example might even be. Okay, Jason, what else we got? Hello, Jordan, Jason, and team.

I started a side business as a caterer in a specific niche of the catering sector, which is coffee. I still have my full-time job, as you recommended, before heading all in into a side business. and fortunately for me, the catering business is starting to pick up. A couple months ago, someone reached out for pricing, which is not public info, from a different side of the catering industry, and so I gave them my pricing, thinking we may work well together. I found out the following day that they'd launched their own branch in my niche with my pricing in hand, presumably to undercut me, but I don't know.

It's starting to get a lot more competitive in my area, and yet another caterer in competition with me reached out for my pricing just this week. This time they aren't being sneaky about it because their catering business is public. They used to display pricing because I've seen their website before and now they've taken it down. How do you respond to competition fishing for pricing? Should I be flattered, annoyed? I still want to be respectful but don't know how to proceed. Anything helps.

All the best, competitor conflicts. Well, you don't have to hide the ball on pricing forever. I'm not saying you have to put it on the website because keeping it under wraps in the beginning allows you to get a chance, to get inquiries, get calls, and then sell to your leads once they call in for pricing. That is going to be where you shine and you outsell your competitors. In fact, a lot of times pricing is the reason that people walk in the door, but it should never be the reason that people make a decision unless you're selling an absolute commodity. And yes, coffee sounds like a commodity, but your job is to make it sound like it's not or to make it something in addition to just

coffee. Great service, better coffee, a better experience, something like that, easier to work with. That's where you're going to outsell the competition. People are willing to pay for a superior product and service in most cases. This isn't a bargain basement wedding. You're talking about corporate catering for the most part, so the budget is the budget. And if somebody's like, you know what, I really like working with competitor conflicts, they're so great, he's such a nice guy. Getting on the phone or getting a quick email, that's going to be a great way to get the dialogue going and you can set yourself apart in that way. As for the competition, fishing for pricing, let them do it. I suppose it's flattering because you're on their radar and I would use the opportunity

to see if you're able to work with them on these things. In fact, when they reach out, you can call it out. Hey, I know you're potentially reaching out to see my pricing and see if you can do better in-house. But I would love to work with you and here's why. We have superior coffee. We have trained staff who can handle it for you. This frees up your staff to handle the food. It also means we can make sure the coffee is always fresh and top grade because of my connections to the suppliers. Also, you don't have to have your insurance for hot beverages, which adds, I don't know, hundreds of dollars in cost to your company each year, et cetera, et cetera. You can find the reason that it's good for them to work with you. And if there's no reason why another caterer should

work with you, then you need to rethink your business model. Because if all you offer is a part of a service, but there's no benefit for them having you be a part of their business, you've got to figure out why that is. Of course, competitors might not care. They might try to get into your business, and that's fine. I've had people doing that a ton when I was in the coaching and consulting business, and many of these competitors became colleagues or ended up referring leads to us once they realized they didn't want to be in my business at all. And now that I'm out of coaching and consulting, almost entirely, not completely, I refer leads to other people all of the time. Treat your competitors' inquiries almost like you treat your sales leads.

They might not be hiring you, but then again, they might be. These are actually as important. or potentially even more important than a regular sales lead, because they may work with you a hundred times instead of just once or twice. So nurture those relationships accordingly. You can't be cagey. It's not going to work. It's not going to last because eventually they're going to get your pricing.

It's not a trade secret. You have to give it to anybody who wants to buy your services. So treat it as such and make sure that you're a gem to work with, whether they're competing with you or not. And I know what you're thinking. What if they undercut me? I get that that's a legit concern. but they were eventually going to get your pricing anyway.

So if you're only competing on price, you've already lost. Same with them. If they think coming in $50 less is going to cinch the business, they're going to be pretty surprised when you're offering superior product, superior service, and you're getting hired over and over by the same companies that hire them to do the food. It's not really going to work. Now, they might want to be a one-stop shop so that they're easier to work with with companies,

right? If, oh, well, we need coffee and food. Great, we offer that. They may not want to do it in-house, and you can offer them a better deal if they bring you on each of their engagements. As usual, your best bet is to make sure your competition is your greatest source of leads and revenue. The smartest competitors will do the same with you. And if you find a couple of relationships that work mutually beneficially for everybody involved, you guys can take over the whole business and you can work together seamlessly,

and you will cut out other competition in other areas. It's really beneficial to you and to everybody else to get along and work together great in the space. You're always going to work with your competitors more than you're going to work with your clients. Almost in every case, are you going to work with somebody who's sort of a competitor more often than you're going to work with one or two of your clients? It's almost certain. So the best thing to do is get along great with them and be as easy to work with with them as you would be to any one of your clients. This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this.

Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, hit on over to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right. What's next?

Hey, Triple J, I'd consider myself pretty social. I'd do a pretty good job listening to and communicating with people. My network is considerably reliable. As you put it, I dig the well long before I get thirsty. People know me as somebody they can reach out to for help on short notice, and likewise, I have many people whom I can rely on to help with a variety of projects and issues at little to no notice. I'm frequently invited to social events. My wife notices the pulse of a party change when I show up. I've had comments before about the party turning up when I show up. I don't mean for this to sound braggy, but rather to illustrate my confusion. Something I've struggled with is having friends that I can count on as just hangout buddies. Sometimes I just want to have a few drinks or a meal with

some friends and to just relax. The same people I can call on in a moment's notice always seem to be busy whenever I just want to hang out and catch up. Contacts of mine often come to me whenever they need somebody to listen or they need that person to hang out with with them. But I really don't have that reciprocity. I just can't understand why they would give up so much time and energy to help with other issues, but seem less willing to just chill. I just don't understand why I may repel people in terms of casual friendships. Thanks for your time, the friendless social butterfly. It's really hard to diagnose this without more of an idea of your personality or what the other people around you are like. There could be a few things going on here. One, you're seen as

competent and people need your help, but they don't feel as comfortable around you. This could be for a variety of reasons, but it's not easy for us to diagnose that here without more information. Two, the people around you are selfish. They want your help, but they have no interest in you or anyone else when there's nothing in it for them. And the world has a ton of these people, so that shouldn't be a surprise. I'm leaning towards the latter. Most people are thinking of themselves. They're not simply intimidated by the other person's lifestyle.

No offense intended here, but that almost sounds like what parents say to their kids when somebody is bullied. oh, they're just jealous because you're so smart. Occasionally it's true, but usually it's just because the other kids are freaking insecure a-holes who will bully anyone that they feel like bullying, even their own friends. In this case, it's more, I think it's more like I don't need him right now, so there's no point in going out for a bite to eat because I'm watching Netflix and I don't really care to make a friendship here.

The key in this case isn't to try and change other people or figure out what you're doing wrong necessarily, unless you really can pinpoint something. The way they interact is not going to change. I would look at what you can change, but I wouldn't harp on it because the answer is probably nothing. The key is to keep filtering people until you find people that value relationships and understand that things aren't always about what's convenient for them in the moment. And that's kind of tricky. It's weird explaining this to full-grown adults. But one reason, one of many reasons why it's hard to

make friends as an adult is because a lot of people are just really selfish and they're only looking at themselves. And it's an epidemic in society that I won't go on a rant about, but a lot of folks are not looking to maintain relationships. They're not givers, they're takers, and that's why filtering in givers and people who really care about others is tough, because it's one in a hundred. And when you do find friends as an adult, that's why it's more important than ever to actually maintain those relationships and keep them close, because as we get older, people will find any excuse to sort of retreat back into their shell and go about their routine. And I find it even now. I've had a kid. I'm married and people are like, oh, let's hang out. And it's all I can do

to be like, what? I got enough friends. Bye. You know, I really have to actively go. It's say yes. I have to go, yeah, I'll go on that trip. Why not? It's a time away from work. It's a risk. I may not like anyone in this group of travelers. I just got back from Bhutan. I only knew one or two people that were going. And it was phenomenal. And I've got a bunch of new friends now. and I'm really interested in their lives and what they're doing in their business, and it was just a blast. But yeah, it's hard to fly across the world,

take a week out of your life. I'm not saying you have to do that, but I am saying it's a matter of filtering in, right? Curation becomes even more important as you get older because we have less time, because we have less discretionary time. When I was a kid, I'd watch anything that came on TV. Now I make an hour or two a night,

and I watch things that I've been planning to watch for weeks. It's the same with friends. You know, you've got a day off. You're not just going to walk down your dorm room hall and see who's around. You're going to call somebody that you haven't seen in forever and make dinner plans. It becomes more difficult as your time gets more scarce and you have to treat it as such and not beat yourself up when some schmuck decides to treat you like an option when you're treating them like a priority.

You have to make sure that you're filtering in the right people who actually give a crap about your relationship. So keep trying, keep filtering. It's a process, but it's one that is very worthwhile in my experience. and people who stick through this and do a good job with it over time, they have very rewarding social lives and very rewarding friendships and connections that last for their whole life. And that, as we now know, keeps you happy, healthy and even helps you live longer.

So it's a worthy pursuit. All right, what's next? Hello, Jordan and team. We're a small team and pretty self-sufficient with getting things done ourselves. Over the past six months, our manager hasn't been in the office a lot. When he's here, he only comes in midday for maybe about four hours. hours on average, but then we'll leave for the day. Our team has the perks of being able to work from home sometimes and adjust our hours within reason, as long as we have coverage for the

customers we support. My manager's recent trend of not being around that much definitely seems to impact the team, and now it's affecting team morale and behavior. And for those of us who are hard workers, it's really putting a strain on us. Another senior team member and myself have mentioned this to him a few times, and he'll reply that he knows things need to change and make other similar comments. And while it may change for a few days, things go back to the same behavior we've seen over the past six months. What suggestions do you have for a boss who isn't present to really lead his team? I like the work I do, but it's hard when you don't have a leader steering the ship as he was hired to do. Sincerely, boss man gone AWOL. This certainly sounds annoying. You've got

your team working hard, it's self-sufficient, and you've got a boss who's taking that as an opportunity to not do his job and not make any attempt to lead the group at all. We're actually asking the wrong question here. You're asking, what suggestions do I have for a boss who isn't present and how can he lead his team? But remember, he's not asking this. So he doesn't friggin' care, right? He's not involved in this at all. The answer to that question is he can't lead and he doesn't want to lead. He wants to be distracted by whatever else is going on, whether that's a personal issue outside the company or something else entirely.

There are a few steps to take here if you're so inclined. And it sounds like you've taken the first step a few times mentioning things to him, getting commitment on making changes, and he's broken that. That's great, though, that you tried. Now, since no real behavior change has been made,

I'd do the following. I would have a personal conversation with the manager and see if there's something going on outside of work. If he's got a kid with a terminal illness, figure out a timeline and see where everyone can rally to step in and help.

your manager needs you and doesn't need further complication in his life. If the answer is that he's been hitting the slopes after work and he wants to night ski every weekday to get the most use out of his lift ticket, now you've got another situation entirely. Two, document everything from here out. If the final warning doesn't seem to register, it's time for more drastic action. And that goes a little something like this. Start documenting your attempts as a team to get your manager back in play. Have a few coworkers sign off on your attempts.

And you can document this by email, or you can do a Google Doc or something else. If you document this, make sure you have the master copy yourself in case you need it for legal reasons later on. Like maybe your manager deletes it from the company network and then starts blaming you for team dysfunction later on. You want to make sure you control the document. Document when he comes into the office, you're going to want to see if he can read your email. If it's only higher ups in IT or HR that can do it, fine.

But, you know, you don't want to be sending email back and forth like, hey, Tom came an hour late again and he can just click and see all of your email, that's not going to be good. You're going to want to get a sign off in some other way because you don't want to make yourself a target here. Document when he comes into the office and when he leaves. Do this every single day. And again, make sure coworkers sign off on it. The reason you want them to sign off on it is you want absolutely no possibility of him saying,

oh, he just made all this up last week. You want to write it down maybe in pencil or pen in a journal and get other people's signatures on it or have an email coming back like, yeah, I saw Tom come in at 10, or you can get other coworkers to help. If they're interested in this as well, you can say, hey, Angela, you're by the door. When Tom comes in, can you shoot me a quick email? Sure. That way, you've got other people working on this. And that way, if your manager tries to say, oh, it's just boss man gone AWOL that has a problem with me. We have a personal beef. It's like, well, Angela sends an email when you come in, and Tom sends an email when you leave. And John has been documenting the whole thing,

and other people have been signing off that it's accurate, you know, that's not going to look too good for him when he tries to make it look like it's just you. After a few weeks of this, again, talk to your manager. Don't bring a whole journal of evidence. Just see what the problem is. If he's still jerking you guys around, go over his head. I'm sure you know how to reach your manager's superiors,

and they'll be very interested in this. It's not just, hey, this guy keeps coming in late. Yeah, we heard something like this. It's like, hey, he keeps coming in late. Here's a journal of the last three weeks, four weeks of his attendance, coming in at 1030 and leaving at three every single day. Be ready for backlash. You know, he's going to turn around and say,

it's you that's causing team dysfunction. Look at this jerk. His work is all subpar. It may not hurt to have a backup plan just in case, right? If you're thinking, well, look, this could really blow up in my face, but I've got another job offer on the table, not a bad place to be. Because your other colleagues, they might not want to stick their neck out too much. This might be the only option they've got.

If you've got options, you've got power, you've got leverage. Once you get the attention of his superiors, they will be compelled to do something. In fact, superiors are going to wonder, hey, well, your performance hasn't gone down. Well, there's other people on the team that are doing a really good job. This schmova manager is never showing up. What's the deal? You've got evidence in hand that he's not around. You've got multiple attempts to handle things in-house, which, by the way, isn't even

really your job, right? You're not supposed to manage your manager. It's good if you do, but this is going to get their attention. And if it doesn't, if this doesn't get your manager's superior's attention, you are working for an inept organization with systemic management problems, and you should leave anyway. So either outcome is going to be workable here. It's not an ideal situation. You know, you'd love to get some managerial change, but if you can't and the boss's boss don't

care, you might as well get out now because this is never going to change in the organization, your work unit anyway is succeeding in spite of the organization itself. and you should, hell, you should all leave and find greener pastures. The key here is to document everything down to the minute and make sure that your coworkers are on your side. The reason you get them to sign off is because you don't want to drag Angela and Tom into a room and they go, oh, well, I don't know. I mean, I think maybe one time or something, maybe we saw it.

I'm not comfortable with this. I want to leave. If their signatures or their emails are in the document, they don't have to come in and testify with the manager glaring at them. The evidence is already there. So you don't want to rely on them to perform in the moment. You want to get their sign off on a daily basis. You want to document everything down to the minute and make sure that they're on your side.

That's how this is done. In other words, they're not going to pretend they don't know what you're talking about when you go to upper management and then throw you under the bus because it's more comfortable and they can't handle social pressure or whatever the hell happens in the moment. There is risk involved here. But if it's time for your manager to go and you're the one who leads the charge and does so in a way that's fair, non-preditary, and beneficial to the organization, now you're demonstrating leadership skills that might make you a successor to his position. And even if you're not the

successor to him, you're increasing the performance of the company, and that probably won't go unnoticed by management or at least by your coworkers. Best of luck here, I do not envy your position, but I will say my inbox is full of stuff like this, so it's no big surprise that it happens so often in every type of organization. All right, Jason, what's next? Hi, guys. I'm an electrician up in Canada. I probably haven't been to as many training courses as some of your listeners, but I've been in several from electric safety to leadership courses. One thing that strikes me about these courses is how confident the teachers are. Do you think people who are extremely confident are drawn to jobs like this? Or is it the job that brings out the best in people? I really look up to people who can go in and command the attention of a room full of people that they don't know. Thanks, Sparky. Well, I think it's a bit of both.

I think sometimes those who teach are drawn to teaching and enjoy being in front of a room. And I think other times people are thrust into teaching and end up becoming comfortable in front of a room. I think some of the people you think are effortlessly commending the room are actually faking it until they make it. And you'd probably be surprised. I think they'd be surprised that your impression of them is actually so favorable. From the sound of it, you'd be well served building confidence in this area as well. And if I were you, I'd start taking public speaking courses or something like Toastmasters

and get used to being in front of groups. It might be nerve-wracking at first, but getting comfortable in front of a group is a skill that most people associate with confidence, competence, and leadership. Even if you're not sure when you might need it, it's always great to know you've got this skill in your back pocket. And it's something that can be done over time.

So going once a week for a couple of hours to the local YMCA or the Learning Annex or whatever at church, something like that can really pay off over the long term and, frankly, in the short term as well as the confidence you've gained spills over into other areas. Crushing obstacles like this and building competence in areas that look difficult to you, that can really have a cumulative effect on your psychology, and it can lead to growth and breakthroughs in other areas that are seemingly unrelated. So if you're admiring this skill set in others, I think that's a pretty good sign that

you should start building that competency yourself. That's actually one reason I started learning Chinese. I saw a foreigner, a guy from the Netherlands, I think, speaking it pretty fluently to somebody in North Korea. I was just blown away. And I said, wow, man, that's really impressive. When did you learn that? He goes, look, man, that was pretty basic. That was not as hard as it seemed.

And so I said, well, shoot, if you say it's not that hard and you're not just being fake, modest, I'll give it a go. I'm so glad that I did because now no skill really seems out of reach for me since I'm now learning something that once actually looked impotions. So I highly recommend finding a weak point like this that you admire and attacking it, whether it's singing, swimming, speaking, running is a good one. I never thought, oh, I thought, oh, I can't run. It's awful. I can never do it. And I am no great runner.

I actually don't run anymore. But I decided I'm going to run a half marathon and I trained for it for a while and I ran it. And I was like, ah, that wasn't that bad. And then I thought, but I don't really like running. So I'm going to stop. And I felt accomplished enough to do it at that point. And I realize, wow, I can pretty much learn and train and do anything. And now I'm not scared of learning new skills.

And I know you think you're not scared, but I think there's a lot that scares us out there. And I think it's important to lean into those things sometimes because the benefits aren't just the skill that you learn. The benefits are the idea that you can crush obstacles. And that translates to pretty much every area of your life in a healthy way. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after this. Thank you for supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps 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. All right, Jay, what else we got? Hey, guys, I'm in the midst of a career transition, so I've been going to a lot of networking events and meeting some great contacts. Let's say I go to one event a week and chatting with 10 people at each, all of whom express interest in continuing the conversation. After the event, I enter the 10 people's names in a Google sheet. In the sheet, I enter their name, date I met them, and the date I sent the introductory email. I even set up formulas for certain cells to turn color if I haven't heard back from them by a certain time,

another if I haven't set a coffee date, a month after the meeting. And also a column for notes and et cetera. I'll email the contacts within the next day or so to try and set up coffee, but I want to remind myself to follow up in a few weeks if I haven't heard back. These are sometimes somewhat senior people who are obviously very busy, but expressed a desire to connect, so would probably appreciate the follow-up. It would be great to have an email sent to me to tell me it's time to follow up or to log in and see the contacts I haven't talked to. All things that I believe most CRM products do, except they're usually expensive enterprise products, and very few are free or low cost. Although these are professional contacts, they aren't for sales leads, and I'm not trying to grow a business, so I don't really want to spend $300 a year. So let's say I've scrolled to the bottom of my phone and reconnected with someone I haven't talked to in a while.

How do I keep from letting that contact or others go cold again? For me, that solution would be to have software where I can set a reminder for that contact that would send me a note to reach out to them after a certain amount of time. But if you have other tips, that would be amazing. Best. Need CRM on the cheap. As I mentioned, and as you mentioned actually, I do use a CRM. I use contactually for this.

It's CRM that's primarily for real estate agents, but, does an amazing job here. Of course, as you also mentioned, it's not free, and you're wanting to do this on the cheap. And there are ways to use Airtable for this. I'm going to link to a video in the show notes that might help with this. I don't use Airtable for this, but other people do and have, and it's actually been really helpful for a lot of people who listen to the show to go and make kind of their own CRM using something really affordable like Airtable. And CRM, by the way, for those of you who are not familiar with that, it's customer relationship management. So think of it is a big, for our purposes here, a big Rolodex that says, hey, you haven't spoken with Tim

in 90 days, you should reach out to Tim. Here's Tim's email. That's what contactually does, and that's what a lot of CRMs do, along with more advanced sales features. But if you don't need a proper CRM because you're not running a company, you're not in sales, then you could use something like boomerang for Gmail, which bounces email back to you if somebody doesn't respond, or after a certain time, even if they do respond. And I used to use this method, and I would have an email thread come back to me in 90 days or 45 days or so from certain people that I deemed important enough to keep in touch with that I wasn't thinking of. And it would remind me to reach back out to that person to check in. And it resulted in a bit more email clutter because

as these boomerang started coming back, I'd have 10 emails on a Monday that was like, hey, reach out to these people. It was worth it, though, especially for the 100 bucks a year or so that the boomerang plug-in was costing. We'll link to Boomerang in the show notes as well. And it's more cost effective, but it only works inside Gmail. It doesn't work with your work email or Outlook or anything like that unless you're using Google Suite and you have Gmail essentially built in. If you're not growing a business or using this professionally, I don't blame you for not wanting to pay, but good on you for still wanting to grow and expand your network. This is always, always a game changer for your personal life and your career, and you will not regret keeping in touch with dozens or even hundreds of

people that might further your personal life or your career as the years go by, especially for investment of just a few minutes a day in a hundred bucks or less than per year. And for those of you who want more systems and small daily habits to consistently grow and expand your network, check out our free course six-minute networking, which is over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. It's 100% free little six-minute habits each day that will keep you maintaining your network, but this CRM or this DIY CRM that we're talking about here will go a long way. All right, last but not least. Hey, Jay's, how do I deal with my insecurities around being called out by those I love?

Oftentimes I'll be caught off guard when someone close to me will passingly remark on something about me that I'm self-conscious about. I know they mean no harm in it, but I have to fight the desire to just close myself off. Later on, when I'm less emotionally charged, I'll think critically about what they said and see if there's something I can do about it, because I always want to make sure I'm improving myself, but it's hard to do so in the moment. I'm normally a very confident person,

and I'm able to shrug off things like this when they come from strangers or people I don't know very well. What are some strategies for how I can better deal with this? Thanks, the self-esteem dream. This is pretty vague, but let me make sure I understand. So when people say something to you that you're already self-conscious about, you ruminate on this for a while, and you want to shut down and you have to fight that desire.

If that's what you're saying, then you're already doing the right thing by waiting until the emotion passes and then evaluating it or trying to evaluate it without that emotional cloud hanging over it. You're fighting the urge to close yourself off or have a negative reaction,

both of which would be non-productive. Then once the emotions settle on your end, you're examining what they said for truth so that you can use that feedback to improve. I mean, congratulations. You're literally doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing in these types of situations.

The more you're able to take in feedback and have a proper response that doesn't result in an emotional or other negative knee-jerk reaction, the better. If you're trying to eliminate feeling bad about something that you're already insecure about and you get feedback about it, well, that's probably never going to happen in your whole life.

I mean, I don't know. I'm sure people get over stuff all the time. Of course, I have, and of course we all have, but if you're waiting to never feel sensitive about any feedback that you get from people, I don't think that's a good goal because I don't think that's ever going to happen. It's normal to feel bad about things that you're sensitive about. It's normal to be sensitive about certain things.

I know you're feeling bad about this because you wish you didn't feel any sort of resistance to feedback, but I'm not sure there's anyone on planet Earth who loves hearing negative feedback and doesn't resist it at all. Sure, some things elicit stronger reactions than others because you're insecure about them already and therefore more sensitive, but this is completely normal. Feeling bad about feeling bad isn't going to get you anywhere. So realize this is the human condition

and that it's your ego protecting itself and trying to protect you. It doesn't mean you have an ego problem. This is what ego is for. If you keep on doing what you're doing, brother, you're already on the right track from the sound of it, and that's pretty great, if you ask me. Life Pro Tip of the Week,

compliment people on what you want them to be even if they may not live up to it yet, because when people hear themselves seen in a certain way, they'll be more motivated to act that way. Now, this is a complicated set of topics here. I'm not going to get too deep into this. We used to call this behavior shaping back in the day when I was teaching people how to do this,

and there's a whole lot of levels to this. But, for example, my wife, Jen, her mom told her that her aunt, who, by the way, comes over every day for a few hours, helps with Jade in five days a week, her aunt commented on how patient of a person, Jenny is. And so hearing that, although Jen doesn't feel like she lives up to that, it makes her want to be more patient. So we can actually help shape people's behavior

by complimenting them on something that we kind of need them to be more. So if they're showing up on time only occasionally, you can say, you know what I love is how punctual you are when it really counts. And it sounds like you might be reinforcing negative behavior. Well, they're never punctual. Why would I compliment them on that?

You want them to live into that. Now, if it doesn't work, then you stop doing it. But you can shape people's behavior by complimenting them and giving them positive reinforcement when they act in a way that you want. And that might seem really obvious. However, most people never actually do this. It's shockingly effective.

So try it out and let us know how it works. And if you have a parenting technique for this, I am all ears because I feel like this works really well with kids especially. Well, kids and adults, but now that I've got a baby in the house, let me know when this will kick in. Recommendation of the week. By the way, a note.

We recommended game changers on Netflix, and I was just enthralled by all the statistics and all these great experiments they presented. But as I started researching and as your letters came in, it came to light that a lot of these statistics and other data were actually false, not just cherry-picked, but straight up, made-up crap. No way.

Made up and deceiving. Yeah. Oh, man. That sucks. I like that movie. I know. I loved the documentary. I was like, oh, my gosh, all these different things.

There's a whole document that was like 87 pages that someone sent me. and it was like, hey, this made up. Hey, this, no real citation. Hey, when they said these studies show this, this, this is this, there were no studies. This is just something they said. Wow. Yeah, I know.

Not to mention conflicts of interest from the producers as well. So it's produced by, I think, Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron, and his wife, and they sell vegan protein. They own vegan schools. They've got vegan pea protein patents and all these different products. What's a vegan school? I guess schools where they serve vegan food and teach a vegan ethos. Okay. It's just how to be a vegan. I guess so. I mean, you know, it's a school, but it's fine. It doesn't

mean veganism is bad or anything. In fact, I love vegan food. I think there's a lot to the vegan idea, but it just means that this particular documentary is extremely biased, which is no big surprise. I just didn't realize how much of the data was actually just not only skewed dramatically, but fabricated for the filmmaker's agenda. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but, man, A lot of the experiments they ran were just kind of stunts. There's no study behind it. The idea that, oh, these people, they went vegan and their performance went up. Well, people circled back with a lot of those athletes and they're back to eating meat because

their performance went way down. One of many examples was, you know how they showed the firefighters? And they're like, look at your blood markers. They're so much better now. Yeah, yeah. The firefighters were eating like cheese hoagie sandwiches three times a day. And then they went into a vegan diet. So somebody else apparently is showing, well, okay, my client's.

they get off junk food too, the standard American diet, and then they go to this normal balanced diet. Their blood markers do the same thing. You don't have to go to a vegan diet from cheese hoagies to show improvement. You just have to stop eating cheese hoagies for three meals a day, and your blood markers improve in similar ways. So it's kind of like, hey, look at this vegan diet. It's like, yeah, but if you just literally eaten pretty much anything

other than what you were eating before, your cholesterol would have gone down. Your serum cholesterol, whatever it is, would have gone down. So it's deliberately misleading in that way. And that was kind of a bummer because nobody likes propaganda, but you kind of want to get excited about something and say, oh, this is really good. And being vegan is much better than eating a standard American diet. However, anything is better than eating a standard American diet.

You don't have to go full vegan to have your blood markers improve if you eat Big Macs three times a week. You just don't. You're basically doing the worst thing you can do for your body, right? So that was kind of a bummer. So the recommendation of the week is, of course, we love teaching critical thinking here on the show. That documentary is interesting,

although when you watch Game Changers, also Google some of the criticism of it. We'll link to some of this stuff in the show notes as well because there are legit criticisms that are done by people who are a little bit more balanced. And of course there are criticisms done by people who are paleo that are not that balanced. And you can read all of those things

and get informed for yourself. In the meantime, if you don't feel like dealing with all that, Check out the Beakrim Yoga documentary on Netflix. That documentary is called Beakram, B-I-K-R-A-M, Yogi Guru Predator. And it's about, well, it's about the guy who founded Beakram Yoga and about how a lot of what he says is kind of not necessarily true slash stolen from other people and how he's actually been abusive to a lot of his students. And it's a creepy watch, but it's really interesting.

Yeah, I found it fairly fascinating, especially the part where he tried to kind of trademark his 26 poses, which are basically stolen from his guru back in India. Right. And people are like, wait a minute, these are not something he invented. These are poses that have been around for a really long time that were published in books in India for a long, long time. And he created something and it went and got trendy and he has got a crazy personality. So that helped get things moving up fast. And man, this guy, he's definitely got several screws loose. And you can tell, just the ensuing trial, I don't want to spoil anything, but there's a lot there where you just go, oh, yeah, this person's not quite right. Not quite right at all. Yeah, Jordan, you and I and also the people who are interviewing him were just not smart enough to realize his genius and how far advanced he actually is. That's right. Yeah, it was basically like, oh, well, if you don't get it, it's because you don't understand how enlightened I am. I mean, that's classic cult narcissism BS right there.

So Beakram Yogi Guru Predator will link to that in the show. I 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 Jordanharbinger.com. If you want to come to prison with us, there's still several spaces left. You can register now, and if you want to do that, email me, prison at Jordanharbinger.com. We're going to be going to a maximum security prison outside Reno, Nevada, February 26, 2020, and helping with an inmate educational program. I've done it before. It's life-changing. Super fun, super interesting, just an absolute Absolutely rare experience, and I'd love to bring a bunch of you with me.

Well, I am bringing a bunch of you with me. And if you want to join, email me, prison at Jordan Harbinger.com. Quick shout out to Kay, who doesn't use her real name on the internet, Pasa, I see what you did there, who recommended the Beakrim documentary. Again, super interesting. We'll link to that in the show notes. Go back and check out Jack Barski, Part 1 and 2, our KGB spy friend, who became an American for real.

Just one of the most amazing stories I've heard on the show ever. If you haven't heard that, that's what we got for you this week. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships using systems, using tiny habits, check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. The number one mistake I see people make is postponing this and not digging the well before you get thirsty.

Oh, I do this, but I've got something, something else first. It's a few minutes a day. Don't wait. You cannot make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and your network. They take a few minutes a day. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. This has absolutely been critical to my success as well, in business and in personal. You can find that all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

I'm 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? You can check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks. We discuss what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame along with cybersecurity apps, gadgets, books, and more. That's grumpy old geeks.

Get it in your podcast player of choice. 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 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 yeah, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. 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 pipe, 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 Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save

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