The Jordan Harbinger Show - 290: He's Wasting Inheritance on Pyramid Scheme | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

When a family inheritance is split between two siblings, only one of them is given control over how the money is spent due to the other's penchant for get-rich-quick scams and bad investments. What can the family do to close the rift this power dynamic is causing while ensuring half of the inheritance isn't wasted on a pyramid scheme? 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/290. 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! Suggestions are in for how we should refer to our listener base! How can you keep your relative from wasting his inheritance on a pyramid scheme? Your current employer is ghosting your requests for owed vacation days and paperwork needed to transfer to a new job. How should you proceed? How can you renegotiate for a better salary when you gladly accepted an offer without negotiating in the first place? As a healthcare worker who sees death more often than most, how can you healthily deal with the spiritual void you feel thanks to a bad relationship with organized religion? When is it okay to stop banging your head against the system and just relax? What should you make of it when your wife of almost a decade out of the blue suggests that she wants you to get a girlfriend? How do you find a trustworthy guardian or fiduciary for the kids when the parents pass? [Thanks to Corbin Payne, Esq. for helping with this one!] You're a female personal trainer with a dream to help gamers -- who are predominantly male -- live healthier lifestyles. How can you assure your husband of your safety? Life Pro Tip: When you replace "Why is this happening to me?" with "What do I need to do now?" everything shifts. Action ends suffering. Recommendation of the Week: Tell Me Who I Am Quick shout outs to Dave Olverson and Melody Wilding for recommending FollowUpThen -- and James Gibbins for recommending Tinyblu -- to the person who asked for a free CRM in See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Start your free trial today. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason. to Philipo. 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 Eric Weinmair. He's just an incredible individual. He climbed Mount Everest and the Seven Summits. Oh, and he's blind. He's completely blind. He had to train for this and go with other people who could see,

but imagine this is such a treacherous thing. And basically, people are telling him, Okay, you're clipping it in, all right, this is where you're walking. I mean, just unreal amount of training and focus and dedication. And then, of course, as if that weren't enough, he kayaked the Grand Canyon, which is one of the most treacherous whitewater environments on Earth. And then he brings a bunch of blind teenagers up Everest as well, which is just freaking phenomenal. I mean, it's just an amazing guy.

I love the conversation. We also had my friend Akshay Nanavati, who this guy, speaking of punishing yourself, Akshay literally is just punishing himself. He runs across Africa, sends me voice messages on WhatsApp while he's huffing across Liberia in the middle of a desert, jogging 100 miles in the heat. He spent a week in complete darkness and complete silence, which is literal torture.

Him and I had a very interesting conversation about how we shouldn't run from our demons, but face them as directly as possible. And that's a, he's just on another level. I also write every so often on the blog, the latest post is about flakiness, why you should do what you say you will, why it's actually bad for you and bad for your psyche to be flaky.

It's a little counterintuitive. Something in here for those of us who are guilty of flaking on plans and for those of us who would never do such a thing, of course. That's at jordanharbinger.com slash articles. Of course, our primary mission here on the show is to pass along our insights and our guests' insights and experiences along to you.

We want to have conversations directly with you. That's what we're going to do today and every Friday here on feedback, Friday. You just want to place one brick in the structure that makes up your life. That's what this podcast is really about. You can always reach us at Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. If you want to come to prison with us, February 26, 2020, the prison trip is almost full. Let me know if you're interested in the details on that. It's going to be around 900 bucks, which is a donation to this prisoner inmate education program that we're helping with. Plus a little bit of travel. You got to get to Reno,

Nevada. The hotel, by the way, is 50 bucks a night. So we're not talking about. major expenditure on the travel here. Food, hotel, and a flight. I realize it adds up, but if you want a life-changing day in a maximum security facility, come with us. It's not something you can arrange on your own, I would imagine, unless you're willing to, of course, commit a crime, and then you just can't come out after the day is over. That's how that works. If you're interested in that email me, prison at jordanharbinger.com, there's some spots left, but again, it's almost full. Also, I asked what name I should call you guys as an audience. Had a lot of feedback. I'm very open to more than number one most common Jason can you guess what the most common

name people suggested would be you know and by that I mean you know Dax Shepherd calls his audience the cherries and I think Lady Gaga calls her audience her fans little monsters things like that what do you think people chose for this show I am at a total loss I was trying to think of something after you put the call out and I could not come up with anything so hit me what have what does the audience come up with well you know me I'm not crapping on this idea at all because I have zero creativity when it comes to this, but the most common one by far was bingers. The binger, like,

Harbinger, but also binge listening, I think is the idea that people are kind of going with here. I got to say, it's creative. Do I love it, love it? I don't know. On the fence. I may use it. I'm still open to ideas. The second most common was perhaps unoriginally, but I understand where people are going with this. Harbingers. I'm open to that one too, but it might get confusing slash be super egotistical, not sure. Just a little bit. But the idea is that, you know, Harbinger means It's forerunner, someone who's trying to pave the way for others, you know, that kind of thing. So it has a whole connotation there. And there's a comic book called Harbinger, which I, of course, am aware of.

And it's about these teenagers who have superpowers and they're working on improving themselves while dealing with the fact that they have this superpower kind of situation. Kind of like X-Men. And so I dig that, but I'm not sure how many people are going to kind of reach back and grasp all that. But I'm open to ideas. It doesn't have to use the name of the show. It could be anything.

I know that armchair expert uses cherries that's very convenient. I wish I had a better name for the show, but now we've come full circle, right? The show's named after me because I couldn't think of anything. Now, the audience, we don't necessarily have to follow that tradition. I'm open to ideas is what I'm trying to say here. But I love the fact that people are willing to contribute to this. Anyway, great feedback Friday we've got for you. Let's stop dicking around.

Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, all the Jays. My wife is stuck in the middle of a sticky situation, and I wondered what you guys make of it. My wife's grandfather passed away a few years ago and left a lot of money to his son and daughter, my wife's father and aunt. However, my wife's father, let's call him Peter, has a history of investing in various schemes that have lost him a lot of money over time. He's always trying to get us to buy into this new, wonderful thing that will make you rich,

only to move on to the next special thing the next time you see him. Peter's father didn't want this to continue with his money when he passed away and expressed this to both Peter and his sister, let's call her Katie. Katie is refusing to give Peter his share of the money outright and will only pay for his rent or buying something when he needs it, but only if she approves first. Peter is furious with this and wants to fight legally to get hold of all his money. Katie is livid and will not give up without a fight. We're almost certain that Peter wants to invest money into another pyramid scheme,

something Peter's father was very much against. But at the same time, Katie hasn't always been transparent about the finances, according to Peter, so this is causing a big divide in the family. I'd be interested to hear your take on this. Who's in the right? Should Peter be prohibited from wasting his father's hard-earned money? Or is it up to Peter to use the money as he pleases until he's gone? Regards, mo money, mo problems.

Well, Jason, let's talk about what happens if he's allowed to waste it. He gets a bunch of family money. He gets scammed out of it and wastes all of it. And then is, in my opinion, probably still mad at the family for trying to control it, or for looking down on him or for being mad at him for wasting it. That's kind of how I see that playing out. Family conflict is happening right now because the sister has control of the money and is respecting the grandfather's wishes, which I think is kind of important there,

not because you have to respect the wishes of the dead or something like that, but it just seems there's some bad juju wasting a bunch of money that somebody else earned and left to you and said, don't let your brother waste it. By doing that, you're going to feel bad about it. I don't think dead grandfather's going to feel too bad about it. But you're going to feel bad. The whole family's going to feel bad knowing that this guy's a moron. I'm sorry.

If he's been investing in pyramid schemes for decades and he's not learning, he's got some issues. It's not just a dumbass. He's actually got some pathology here because he clearly knows it's all BS. He wants to believe that there's a shortcut because he doesn't want to do the work. I'm guessing he's failed in other areas of life. Not having family conflict, though, is also important, right? You don't want somebody who's pissed off at the whole family. I think, though, that's probably too late, right?

There's a reason Grandpa felt comfortable saying, don't let your dumbass brother waste all this money, right? That's got to be a thing. Grandpa dropped a time bomb, though, by giving them both money, but then letting the sister control the money. Something doesn't make sense, though. He must have only given the money to the sister legally, but not to Peter, the pyramid scheme money waster,

because otherwise he would have some control over the money. So I'm guessing it was left to her in the will and said something along the lines of, share some of this for your brother, but not for any of his dumb-ass pyramid schemes. Yeah, how would that be worded? Is she the executor of the will? I was confused about that myself. Basically, what happened is from the sound of it, he left all the money to her and then said, for benefit of her and of the brother, but under control of this sister.

There's got to be something like that, right, at her discretion, et cetera, et cetera. So it sounds like she's actually doing it right. She's paying for his rent and paying for other things, which frankly makes him sound like a child, so I see why he's offended there, but I also get why this has been done because something tells me, Jason, and we don't have details here. Something tells me grandpa was paying for his kid, Peter, for years and years and years before he died and wanted to ensure that the kid wouldn't be home. He's a full-grown adult now, but he's the wife's, I think, father, right?

He's not the situation. So he's a grown-ass man. He's just not acting maturely. I think he's probably been on the doll his whole life. And it's kind of a miracle your wife ended up normal, which I assume is the case here, given that her father sounds kind of like a deadbeat. I will add my mom went through this with her brother, technically my uncle, but he's such a frickin turd.

I don't even use that word. It was such a pain. She just eventually gave up trying to control my grandmother's inheritance, even though it was left to her. And then there was a trust fund for him. It was just such a pain. He sued her and she had to spend her own money going to court. And then, of course, she just was like, you know what, screw it.

Take the money. I'm not going to fight you for this. And then he got screwed over immediately and then wasted all of it. So now he's basically homeless. My mom feels bad, but I just could not care less. Because this guy was such a piece of crap to her about this, even though she worked tirelessly to make sure that he was taken care of. It's just some people have issues and whether or not it's mental illness and blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If someone's fighting you tooth and nail, sometimes you just got, to let it go. You have your own life to worry about. You know, this is not something that the whole family can get wrapped up in. It's a choice that can be made by no one other than the aunt who controls the money. To be honest, nobody, including you slash us, should be budding their nose into this one. It's between the aunt and the brother and the dead father and no one else. I know you're just asking my personal opinion. And if you're asking my personal personal opinion here, some people like Peter need to be protected from themselves. It might not be

possible to do this, and it might be more of a pain, especially if he decides to sue everyone. But it's certainly possible to keep Grandpa's hard-earned money from going to some pyramid scheme. Anyone who's investing in those things over and over again has proven that they cannot be trusted with money, even their own money, nor someone else's hard-earned money. This person is, in my opinion, mentally unfit to manage those resources. If they're constantly doing this, they've got some pathology, they know it doesn't work. They just want to believe that it will. We don't have the luxury of letting him waste everyone's money based on hope because he's not smart enough slash

doesn't want to go to therapy and realize he actually has failed at life and has to work to survive. Your wife's aunt has to weigh this against the chances that he will drive her frickin' crazy for the next 20 years and damage the relationship. Something tells me the relationship's already been damaged. I think it's already a situation of my mom and my quote unquote uncle type scenario, and that's why she is controlling it. The best thing you can do is honestly support your aunt privately so that she knows that she's not just the only one who's an isolated island here. That's the problem. My mom was getting support from me and my father emotionally, but everyone else in the family was, why are you trying to take his money? And it's like, shut up, you don't know what's going on.

The guy's a complete a hole. And everyone, oh, why won't you let him, oh, she's controlling the money. Look, we don't need the money. We're the only functional human beings in the family. Take the money and go F yourself. Oh, okay, now you're homeless. Cry me a river, Uncle Tom. Sorry, I'm putting my own issues in here.

I'm not sorry. This is what happens when people like this dump their problems on everyone else. So you should actually, actually, 2020 hindsight, support your aunt here. And whatever she wants to do, because she's on the front lines for all this stress and all this BS. And if she gives the money to Peter and he wastes it, no one should throw him a freaking bone. The only thing he should be doing is getting therapy. That's what he should be doing. And if he wastes the money, offer to pay for his therapy, but nobody should be chipping in for his dumbassery.

These people are so annoying in families. They really are. I realize they have issues, but if they're not going to treat the issues, people need to stop enabling their bullshit. That's the truth, in my opinion. My personal, obviously still sensitive, personal opinion on the matter. I see what this does to families, though. It drives the whole family insane because somebody, because of one jackoff who can't get their shit together. And I just don't have room for that.

You shouldn't either. Your wife shouldn't either. All right, next step. Dear Triple J, I've been in my current job for coming up on five years now. I'm the only full-stack programmer in my department and have been doing a two-person job since the other programmer left over a year ago. I've been pushing for another programmer, but they've given me every excuse as to why it's being delayed.

I tried to be helpful and wrote a business case, and my manager said that they don't need it, as it's not a funding issue. He also promised me a promotion that I didn't ask for, as I've already reached the top pay level of my grade. We do get a yearly salary increase, though. But this also is not progressing. They even used that as an excuse as to why there are delays in recruitment, stating that they wanted to promote me first before hiring another person.

I took this as a sign that they don't want to keep me and started looking for a new job. At the end of November, I received a job offer from another company. I received and signed my contract and handed in my notice one month in advance. I still have about eight and a half days of vacation left, which I wanted to take to prep for the new job, but everyone is being difficult about it. The problem is that the company will be in a bad position because it also closes for a few days for Christmas,

bank holidays, and New Year's. If I took those days off, my last working day in the office will be on December 16th, which doesn't give them enough time to find a replacement and for me to give a proper handover. The management team is refusing to grant my vacation request. The HR team have stopped responding to me, and I need to get my job history reference from them for the new company.

I know it looks bad, but it wasn't my intention to do this. It's just that the opportunity came at this particular moment. I just want to make sure that I have a good rest, see my parents, and prepare to start my new job. Am I being unreasonable? Should I just stay for the remaining working days, even if I don't want to?

Should I get legal advice since I'm entitled to this? I don't want to leave my job and burn bridges with my soon-to-be ex-colleges. Kind regards, stuck in HR purgatory. Wow, well, first of all, congrats on the new job. That's great and you deserve it, even though I'm coming in unlimited information. First, let me just say that you are fully within your rights to have found another job as you were

not being promoted and they had you at a salary cap. And it also seems like this delay, this not being responsive to you, they're not playing fair. Also, they're not negotiating in good faith. Good faith is, look, we've looked into this, this, that, and the other thing, it's either going to happen or it's not going to happen. But this whole like, oh, yeah, we might hire someone. Oh, but we want to promote you first.

oh, but we're not going to promote you yet because blah, blah, blah. They're just buying time. They don't respect you. They're just trying to get you to work as much as possible and jerk you around as much as possible until you figure out that you don't belong there. And then they're going to try and dangle a little carrot. Like, oh, good news, it's time to promote you.

Don't believe the hype. They're just trying to keep you around paid as low as possible until they can replace you or something like that. You're doing the right thing here. Now, they are being 100% unreasonable in not replying to you any long. And I think they probably really need you to ensure the transition, but ghosting you is not the way to do this. This is an unprofessional way to handle this.

Now, it would be nice for you to take a vacation in between jobs. However, it's up to you to decide what you value more. Vacation or ensure a smooth transition for the company. Yes, they are clearly not that respectful of you, and that's a bummer. But I also think that there's a difference between HR and your boss being kind of a stickler about this. and you leaving them in the lurch for a transition. Are they being crummy not letting you take vacation? Maybe.

Is HR being jerks for not responding to you at all? Yes. Are you entitled to those vacation days legally? Maybe slash probably. I don't know, UK law. I assume that, yeah, they probably have to pay you for them if you don't use them. I don't know. But the real outcome here is what matters.

The real actual outcome. You could go through the legal hassle. You might be able to win and you burn the bridge or you can do what the company needs done before you start your new job. And yeah, it's a bummer because you're not going to get your extra vacation if that happens. But it may matter long term for your relationship within the company itself, with your colleagues. It really depends on who you're screwing over and how it's going to look.

And in the end, you are not being unreasonable at all. But sometimes we have to cater to unreasonable people in order to do the right thing for a larger group, or a company or a situation, circumstances. is I think this might be one of those times. Again, I have limited information, but take this as a strong indication that leaving the company was the right thing to do. People show, in companies,

show their true colors when you need them to do something or when the cards are not in their favor. This is one of those times where they should have had it together. This shouldn't be a surprise. They should have procedures in place. They don't, and they don't care about you.

So, yeah, leaving was a good thing. When I left a company, and I can't say which one now because of a legal settlement as a result of a lawsuit. But when I left a company in the past, one of the remaining partners did his best to screw me over and try to stop me from leaving and stop me from being successful,

including filing the lawsuit. It didn't work, obviously. But he did succeed in proving that I am much better off without being anywhere near him, fit personally, professionally, physically, just showed how small of a person he really was and his true color is really shown. And that was good for me to know

because any second guess that I had was immediately wiped away with this BS. And it sounds like you're really upgrading in terms of the job. And once you're done with this company, you can leave, you can never look back. And I promise you, from personal experience, that feels pretty damn good. 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, please visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, Jason, what else we got? Hello, gang, new listener here. I've binged every Feedback Friday in a row, then dove straight into the negotiation episodes with Alex Kutz. I'm a 22-year-old that used to be a marketing intern. Upon graduation, I was offered a full-time

marketing manager position created specifically for me. I've been given way more responsibilities as well as my intern duties. I've been at this position for eight months now, learned tons and done well for the company. My problem is that when I was offered the job, I cracked a huge smile, immediately accepted, shook my boss's hand and walked out of his office in that exact order. No negotiating whatsoever. Coming up on my one-year anniversary with the company, I'm looking to ask for a raise using the company's data, e-commerce and email marketing revenues, since the time I came on as full-time. I was wondering how I should go about this. Given that this is a small private and family business, I'll be dealing with my direct boss when it comes to asking for a raise

and negotiating for a better one. Does the fact that this position was created, especially for me, make a difference here? I'm worried that I was never needed in the beginning and that even asking for a raise would be out of pocket, even though I see the positive difference I'm making for the company. Might be helpful to know that I'm also starting my MBA program the following fall and plan to rack up at least two full-time years experience with the company before jumping ship. My boss has been amazing with the support and recommendation letters for the program, and I wouldn't feel right to get another offer somewhere else to use as leverage. Thank you for all that you provide this world. Signed, negotiating newbie. The negotiation episodes with Alex Coots, by the way, that is episode 70, 73, and 76.

We'll link to them in the show notes here. And yesterday, I just filmed part of our negotiation course that I'm doing with Alex, which should be out sometime this year, inshallah. We're going to have somebody create that, and it's going to be full of the basics, the advance. There's going to be worksheets and practice rounds for everything negotiation.

And, man, he's such a good teacher. But I'm glad to hear that you've been practicing the negotiation techniques and got yourself a great job. Bummer that you didn't negotiate the salary, but I get it, man. if you're not able to get another job as leverage, then you can use a few other factors and levers to ask for a raise, but none are as powerful as another offer.

That said, there's something to be said for loyalty, of course. So here are a couple options. One, ask for the cost of living increase. You should always get this no matter what. In fact, if you're not, and I've said this on the show before, if you're not getting a cost of living increase every year, you are getting a pay cut because of inflation, cost of living in the area that you're in is likely going up,

you're getting a pay cut if you're not getting a raise of at least, let's say, a few percent each year for inflation, cost of living. Two, I would compare your salary to other positions in the same industry. This requires some research and even calling your colleagues, compatriots, at other companies, but it is time well spent, especially as you research future opportunities, you're networking with people, getting to know people, et cetera, and it allows you to say things in the room like,

well, the market dictates XYZ, or according to other opportunities that I've found, it says subtly, I have other options, but I'm not thinking really strongly about taking them. I just want you to give me what's fair. That's powerful in negotiation, because it's not, I have another offer, what are you going to give me?

It's, I know that I have the ability to earn more theoretically outside the company, but I really want to stay here. And you can even say that. Just don't say it in so many words. you get a sugarcoat it. Because the idea here is we want to be on the same side of the table when we're negotiating. We're not saying, give me this or I'm out.

You're saying, hey, I love working here. You guys are great. I just want to make sure that everyone's on the same page and feels good about what we got going on here. That's fair. And the companies should want that. Because companies that don't want that, they're basically saying, I don't value you enough and eventually you're going to smarten up and leave. That's not how good employees are treated.

Also, go to your performance review armed with data about the wins. you've brought to the company so that you can prove your value to the organization in the room. In other words, so this project I worked on that got X number of new Facebook viewers on all of our videos is very successful. Also, I founded our YouTube channel

and that's grown to 10,000 subscribers over the last three quarters. That's really powerful for lead generation and we've tracked seven sales to the YouTube channel. So extrapolating that data, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Plus, you're going to want to plant the seeds early for any raise you're asking for. So you're coming in with data so that you can justify the raise beyond the cost of living increase. And don't let them go, well, we're giving you a 5% raise.

It's like, no, you're giving me a 3% raise because 2% of this is a cost of living increase. You're giving me a 3% raise, but I've increased sales by 8%. Not exactly equitable. What are we looking at here? You want to plant those seeds early, as I just mentioned here. You've got to make it impossible for them to be surprised by this. If you send your boss an email outlining the above. So what I talked about with the wins and everything, and then you go over that again in your review, it won't be the first time they're hearing about the raise, and they have even fewer excuses in terms of blowing you off and that they got to run it up the flagpole and all this stuff. If you ask for a raise in the room the first time, they're going to be like, oh, yeah,

I got to run up the flagpole. You're never going to get commitment. You need to be planning this like six months in advance. And if you do get a, I'll be thinking about it, I've run it up the flagpole, get a firm deadline. Oh, good. Do you think you can know in two, weeks, if you get no firm deadline, they're going to kick the can down the road as long as you tolerate it, and that's not good. Because you go, oh yeah, you got to run up the flagpole, cool. They're going to then think, I'm off the hook until the next performance review next year. They're not thinking three weeks. They're thinking three months, nine months. They're not running it up the flagpole. They just bought time. They're not going to even ask about this for you.

And you don't have to be agro about this, but you do need to be fair to yourself. And deadlines are the way to show that you mean business without being pushy. So if you don't get deadlines, the answer is no, and the answer is also never. And if you get a deadline and they say, look, it'll take me about six weeks, most likely, maybe a little more, then you can agree to that, but agree to it in the room and then put it in the follow-up email that you sent to your boss. Great performance review. Really learned a lot. I'm going to work on this, this, this, and I'm going to keep this project and that project going. And you'd said six to eight weeks max for knowing whether or not I can get a X percent raise, but in the meantime, I'm going to get an immediate raise for the cost of living of X percent.

You need to finalize that because otherwise you're going to be surprised when you get your next paycheck and you don't have squat. And then you say, what about the raise? And they say, running it up the flagpole. And then you say, what about the cost of living? And they say, uh, I figured we'd do it at the same time, aka we're not doing it. So you've got to stick to your guns. Yes, loyalty means a lot here.

Yes, it's your first job. They are going to underpay you as long as you will let them. And that's up to you. And look, Alex Kutz, he's got a document and we'll put this in. our negotiation course, but in the meantime, it's basically like compound interest. People who negotiate their salary regularly, they earn millions of dollars more over the career.

Millions. And that's starting at like a $50,000 a year job. This is not, oh, well, people who make $300,000 a year, they make money. No, no, no. This is millions of dollars over the course of your career that you will earn more than somebody who doesn't negotiate effectively.

We'll be talking more about negotiation in the future once the course is done. But best of luck, congrats on the early career success. Do not sell yourself short. You will lose money. And there will be somebody sitting right next to you making $15,000 more per year or more because they negotiated. All right, Jason, next up. Hey, J-Fam.

I'm a 26-year-old respiratory therapist. It's like a nurse, but we specialize in the lungs and the heart, and are used to our fullest potential in an ICU and ER setting. As a result of working with critical care patients, I and many of my coworkers have bridged the gap between this world and the next for more people than I really care to count. One of my patients was only one month old when she died. Death, what happens after we die, and spirituality have all been weighing heavily on me. I have a bad relationship with organized religion due to a traumatic experience I had as a kid. This left a stain on my view of religion, so I have a very difficult time accepting the traditional sense of the afterlife. I know this is probably on the darker side of questions you receive,

but not being able to have a direction with any of this pent-up sadness is beginning to affect my personal life outside of work. I've been to therapy, however, they just seem to want you to work inwardly, and I consider myself a pretty reflective person, so the conversations are oftentimes unproductive. Any help or recourse would be very, very, very much appreciated with love, too young to be so used to the darkness. Well, you may need a spiritual outlet, but I'm not so sure. It sounds truthfully like you need a therapist that actually specializes in trauma as opposed to whatever you're dealing with right now in terms of a therapist. You can try BetterHelp. They do have therapists who specialize in trauma and PTSD.

BetterHelp.com slash Jordan is where you can find that. I'm not as qualified to speak about the spiritual angle. I can just already feel my inbox filling up with organized religion and life coaches as I speak to you here. But one thing I will say about therapy is that often it seems unproductive. but it might be more productive than you think, especially in terms of keeping you sane. That said, if you feel like it's not doing anything, you really feel that way, then that will lead to resentment and you'll stop going to the sessions or stop attending the sessions. So switch therapists. Also, are you taking care of yourself? I know this sounds elementary, but eating right,

sleeping, and working out can actually do a lot for trauma. It's no replacement for therapy, but it is the foundation for good, emotional, and physical health, both of which are closely related, and both of which you need in tip-top shape if you're going to have an emotionally draining job like the one that you have now. If you're really looking for something spiritual to answer the questions about what happens when we die,

you can either read philosophy, religion, et cetera, on your own or talk to someone from an organization. I get not wanting to go anywhere near organized religion, and I think there are other options out there. Just don't fall into some online cult, or other nonsense. There have to be options for this, and there are going to be humanistic religions and things like that. I don't even know if that might even be a contradictory type thing, but they're going to be secular humanists, and I think that might be a great way to go for you,

although the what happens when we die, that's kind of distinctly religions per view. In the meantime, I really do think you need to handle the therapy issue, because it's not just what happens when we die. There's trauma elements here that you may or may not be dealing with. Watching infants die is not easy on your psyche, and you need to handle that, and that is not strictly a spiritual pursuit. All right, what's next? Hey, folks. I'm a 41-year-old graphic designer and video producer.

I've been employed since I was 13 working on a farm, and I've been a creative professional since 2003. I was working at my dream job for a few years until last spring when my employer was bought out and our entire marketing department was axed. I'm at a crossroads and need some advice. My new job is okay at best, but it's low stress and pays more than any job I've had before. Because of this influx of cash, I've stopped my constant search for the next big opportunity, stop taking freelance work, and even stopped creating personal projects to add to my portfolio.

It's only now that I realize just how exhausted and terrified of failure I've become over the past decade. For the first time since 2010, I can eat dinner with my family without my day job, side job, and personal projects gnawing at me. I can enjoy my incredible family and friends and not feel guilty for wasting valuable work time. For the first time in my life, I just want to settle, coasting at this place for a few years, and only leave when another dream job pops up. Am I crazy? Does this make me a bad creative? When is it okay to stop banging your head against the system and just relax? Signed, exhausted Adobe dude. Well, it sounds to me like you want permission for something that's totally fine and probably healthy to do. And my friend David Burkis actually wrote this

thing, this article, about the benefit of sabbaticals. And we'll link to that in the show notes as well. Despite the temptation to be always on, he says, the best leaders have discovered and a growing amount of research is backing this up that the best way to stay productive all the time is to spend a good portion of it being deliberately unproductive. And I'll let that sink in, but I'll also link to the article here in the show notes from Forbes. If you're burned out and you're finally enjoying a well-earned feeling of security, or you're not burned out and you're finally enjoying a well-earned feeling of security, I think you are in the right place. You need rest to maintain creativity and to keep your edge. And I'm the same way. These things gnaw at me. I only

stop working when I'm exhausted and I can't focus anymore. And then I spend the rest of my waking hours feeling guilty about not working. Do not do this. This is not healthy. I realize this. enjoy the opportunities that you've created for yourself. You can work hard and you can rest and you cannot lose your edge. In fact, you're honing the edge by making sure that your brain is functioning optimally here. My gut says that you'll feel re-inspired and you'll get some more energy to work on side projects once you realize that you no longer have to do them out of a feeling of scarcity or insecurity. I would take this as a sign that you're doing everything right and all your hard work is finally paying off.

And I realize that letting that sink in so you can enjoy it is a skill in and of itself. And the key is to not feel guilty about working or not working and to enjoy the fact that for the first time in your life, you actually have a choice. I think you should enjoy the fact that you have that. You have worked hard for that. And this is your reward. And the reason you're feeling a little bit of a gnawing sensation is because you are not used to actually enjoying it.

And I think it's unhealthy to never sit back and sort of smell the roses, right? I think you really do need to enjoy this. I think you need to realize that life isn't always hustle, grind, and where's my next meal coming from? And I think that's important to realize. And the more you do that, the better you're going to feel with your feet kicked up and you're going to be working hard enough and you're going to be in a flow state and then you'll finally go, wait, I want to create this other thing.

That's going to be good for you. That's what's happened to me. And frankly, there's no better replacement. And there's no better way to ensure that you like your job and your career and your path than enjoying where you are now and using it as fuel. for the next endeavor. Yeah, and I think he needs to look at this. Like, he's been working hard for all this time. He's finally got into a place where he can relax. That's the reward. That's what you've been doing it for. So enjoy it. You know, revel in it. And, you know, get back on when you need to

get back on. But, dude, take some time for yourself. You've had a long run. You've earned it. So take the time. 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, Jason, what else we got? Jay to the third power. My wife of almost a decade, quite out of the blue, suggested to me that she wants me to get a girlfriend.

Not to add a third to our sex life, but for me to personally have a woman on the side. Now, I shook off this suggestion the first two times she brought it up, but she's mentioned it again twice more in the last couple of months, with increasing insistence. Her rationale is that life is short and that she doesn't feel like she's enough for me in the bedroom. I've always countered this assertion with reassurance and love and immediately declined her offer to pursue this. I've never suggested that I'm interested in intimacy outside of our relationship ever, and I've never told her that I'm dissatisfied with our love life either. I won't get into the details of our bedroom life, although it has become quite predictable after so long together, again, something I've not complained to her about. I feel like I should

be super stoked by this. It's many a man's dream to get a hall pass like this. But I'm also very suspicious by nature and wonder if this is a setup. The way I see it, her potential reasons for this suggestion could be. One, she's a loving and dream of a wife who just wants me to enjoy my sex life and have fun, which is the best case scenario. Two, she's very insecure with herself herself and her perceived performance in the bedroom and thinks she really isn't enough for me. Three, she's already cheating on me with someone else and wants to make herself feel better. And four, she's a devious genius setting me up for a fall, just waiting for me to sleep with someone else and then use that against me in divorce court. It's hard to get this kind of arrangement

in writing. Presuming this is done in love and is above board, the logistics of dating and hookups are just staggering in a big barrier for me. It's not like I'm in a position to meet anyone, spending all of my time either at work, in traffic, or home with the kids. I can't just put myself on Tinder and have my married face pop up around town as looking for a hookup. What do you guys, and Jen, from the woman's perspective, think of this. Am I looking a sexual gift horse in the mouth here? Is there something deeper I'm missing? How would I go about this if I decided to take her up on it? Thanks, team. Hall pass or handcuff? Well, I was talking about this before with Jen, and Jen says there maybe a fifth reason that's possible here. Maybe it's a turn-on for her, and maybe this is some sort of,

like, fetish where she wants to watch him or hear about this. I think it's called Cuck Queen, which is kind of like cuckold, but for women. It's an interesting phenomenon, I guess you would say. There's a whole lot on it on the internet. I'll tell you that. But I'm curious to know if they've actually had a conversation about this, or maybe you felt awkward and just shook it off, and you've never spoken about this in greater depth. Jen asked me if I secretly wrote that question in myself. Obviously not. I think these are interesting hypotheses.

Maybe she does want you to just go out there and have fun. That's the best case scenario, but I don't know, man. I'm a little skeptical here. Maybe she is very insecure with herself, and she thinks, oh, you know, he's going to leave me if I don't give him any freedom, and that's something you should address inside the marriage for sure. And, of course, if she's already cheating on you as someone else

and she wants to make herself feel better, you better get to the bottom of that before it destroys the whole relationship if it hasn't already. Or maybe she is an evil genius setting you up for the fall and she's going to throw this in divorce court. You might want to address that trust issue.

That's a little bit of a thing there. If you think she's secretly trying to set you up, if you think it's one of those, then you better go to therapy and work that out. I do sense a lack of trust here if some of these options are not just jokes and they really are on your list. If this is really realistic

that maybe she's going to blow the marriage up and then use this against you? That's very sketchy. I suggest, and I would suggest, if I were you, therapy, where you discuss this with someone who can help you work through it with your spouse and get to the bottom of it. Also, if she's trying to set you up, you could subpoena the therapist since you were in the room for that conversation. The confidentiality is not there if you're trying to get her to verify something that she said while you were in the room with the therapist. You can subpoena that information in court if needed. And yeah, a lot of guys would like that hallpatch. past, but there's always another side to this coin. Even if she's not insecure, she's not cheating on

you, and she wants you to be happy, that could all change if you start going out and shagging other ladies and the rules of your marriage will change as well. What if she's like, well, I kind of want to go out there and get some strange. It's like, whoa, wait a minute, we didn't agree to that. Well, you've been doing it. Well, yeah, but you told me too. There's a fight waiting to happen. You really do need to prepare for what that might look like and see if it's worth it for you and for you too as a couple. This is not as simple as going out there with your hall pass, getting some strange and getting away with it. There's a lot more that's going to happen if you open that Pandora's box, and you need to be very aware of what that's going to be if you're going to go out there and

try this. It's not as simple as just giving it a shot and seeing how you like it. There's a lot more at play here. And what do you think about option six? Maybe she's just not into sex anymore and doesn't actually want to do it all the time and is looking for a way out to say, hey, honey, you can go get your rocks off over here. I am not going to judge you. Everything's fine. It's just she wants a break. She's tired of it.

You know, as women get older, some of them go on the side of just not really caring about sex that much anymore. Yeah, it's possible. I mean, who am I to say that that's not the case, right? I have no idea. We really don't know. Obviously, he doesn't. I guess my idea here is just to be very clear that it's not going to be as simple as, I guess I'll go out and find somebody else real quick. and no drama shall ensue.

It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that is not likely to be the outcome, right? Oh, definitely. There will be drama. There will definitely be drama of some form or another. Yeah. It might not be where he thinks it's coming from, but there will be something for sure. And I'm not saying she's doing this to, like, trap him and it's going to be this big mess. She might not even realize that there's going to be jealousy as a result of this situation.

She might just be thinking, oh, this is a good solution. And then you're out running around doing your thing. And she's like, oh, I actually really hate this. This is not what I signed up for. I actually can't stand this. It's making me feel bad. It's messing with the marriage. You don't want that.

That's going to be a mess. I would also see if these requests for a new girlfriend are timed around her hanging out with her girlfriends. Like, does this happen every now and again when she comes home after drinking some wine with her friends? Just something to think about because... That's interesting. I hang out with a bunch of older women and all of them hate sex. I'm like, I'm so glad I'm done with that. I hate it, you know?

That's what made me think of it. I'm like, if they're getting older, they have kids, she just might be tired of it. She just wants to, you know, hang up her knickers and go watch Netflix. Who knows? All right. Next step. Dear Triple J and Little J. How do you find a trustworthy guardian or fiduciary for the kids when the parents pass?

We have a wonderful special needs son with autism who's legally an adult. How do we protect him from people who want to take advantage of him? He's very capable and we trust him, but he could be too kind and trusting. Appreciate any advice in terms of financial matters and someone or an organization to check on him to make sure. he's doing well and that his friends are real friends. Do you have any criteria to vet which friends are real versus people who want to take advantage? How do you vet trustworthy professionals, organizations, attorneys, etc.? Wishing you a most happy holiday season, sincerely want to be prepared? This is extremely important. Yeah, if you're worried about your son being taken advantage

of, which happens, I mean, there are serious scumbags out there. And a lot of this might be overly complicated for somebody who's never seen it, whether they're disabled or not. I would say that a legal guardian and a social worker or both is appropriate here. So under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, the federal government funds a network of nonprofits that are actually geared towards connecting people with disabilities to the resources and services that they need to live as independently as possible

and or with the fullest lives possible. And there's a link here in the show notes to a list of the 10 regional centers in the country in each of these centers, they're going to have a lot of contacts, they're going to have a lot of referrals for the cities and counties and whatever underneath them. They're super passionate about what they do. Also, they've got some pretty stringent requirements about the ratio of people with disabilities that are on their board and working for them.

So it's actually pretty high for a nonprofit type of situation. Thanks to attorney in front of the show, Corbyn Payne, for help with the answer here. The ADA National Network's going to be linked in the show notes. And obviously, it would be great if you had close friends or family that could help your son, but I assume that if you had that, you wouldn't be asking me for recommendations. Additionally, you might want to contact an estate planning attorney. You might want to establish a trust or something like that for him and leave that in the hands of a disinterested third party, who then works in conjunction with the caretaker of the child or the adult. That way,

there's more of a committee involved, and you'll have people more or less looking over each other's shoulders and making sure that there's accountability, right? If you just leave it to the lawyer, it shouldn't be any shenanigans, but you never know, or he could just get busy and not be reachable. If it's just up to the accountant, same situation. So at any rate, there are also some tax-sheltered vehicles out there for people like you to park money that benefits somebody with disabilities. It's going to be something that you don't have to pay taxes on. The estate tax is going to be an exception here, et cetera. And I guess the final point, there are a lot of organizations out there providing services to people now. It's a very competitive industry,

and it's an old enough industry that they're getting reviewed and vetted nowadays, same as any other industry. There's regulation involved. So as far as deciding good options, use the usual consumer tools, Yelp, Google reviews, word of mouth, et cetera. Word of mouth really is your best bet here. And there are incredible networks and support groups for people who are autistic or disabled and their families. And just as a reminder, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, so make sure you retain competent legal advice in your state when it comes to this stuff. And yeah, I would set up a trust or use a tax-sheltered vehicle, grab a social worker, and then you'll have an attorney, you'll have an accountant, most likely, you'll have a social worker or a guardian, and they can

all help with this. And that'll be a good combination for somebody to be set off independent, but with a little bit of oversight, so there are no shenanigans or shady business. Last but not least, Jason. Hey, Triple J, I'm a 28-year-old female personal trainer, and my husband has concerns for my safety when it comes to my job and training men. He insists that I advertise that I only train women now that I don't work in a gym. I understand his concern for my safety, but it doesn't feel right to assume that every man who wants coaching for me

has ulterior motives just because I'm pretty. Complying with his request makes me feel like I'm giving up on my dream to help gamers, who are predominantly male, live healthier lifestyles. The fix for this would be to go to work in a safe gym environment again, but we both prefer that I work from home so that I can assist his grandparents during the day. Should I just give up on my dream and work only with women? Or is there a way that I can increase my safety when working with every person in their homes? Sincerely, don't put a limit on my dreams. Well, this to me sounds like a valid concern as a fellow husband.

And I can see this being the case for female real estate agents as well. We had a question about that earlier in the year from a woman who was in a woman who was in, open houses by herself a lot. If it's possible, set up a workspace from home or close to home with a security camera that live streams. It's easy to get clients from online. It also makes it easy to be scammed. So yeah, ask for a form of ID to make sure they are who they say they are. Make sure someone always knows your location. You can use Find My. If you use iPhone, there's an app called Find My. You can always have your husband be able to see where you are just in case. and make sure there's extra security for the space.

I would say Simplsafe, if you're going to be in a space, like, in your house, you can use something like SimpliSafe. Simplysafe.com slash Jordan will get you a deal on that. That'll be an alarm system with a camera and a panic button and that kind of thing, especially if you're allowing clients to come to your home. That's a good idea. And yeah, look, you can take some self-defense classes, but that's kind of, we don't want to be in that situation. You can also do basic background checks online on incoming clients. Do your first few sessions with new clients, also at a gym or other public space.

So if you meet somebody and they're just not the kind of person you want to work with, at least you found out at the local Equinox, Gold's Gym, whatever, and not while they're alone with you in the basement. You know, that's far less scary. You can get a little bit of a feel for who someone is and then work with them at home. And that's a little bit more of a pain in the butt for onboarding, but I also think that the price, of your safety really is kind of hard to overstate. I do understand where your husband is coming from, but I also agree that you're right. You can't just be told to get rid of the majority of your business because somebody else is going to worry about you all the time, and that's their kind of

hang up. Jason? I'd say get an Apple Watch if you don't already have one and learn to use its emergency call feature, because there's a way that you can dial 911 from your watch pretty quickly. It goes through your phone if you don't have the actual phone built into your watch, but it's just another fallback in case somebody is causing you problems and you need to call the police, it is an easy way to get them quickly with also being semi-discreet. Great. Life pro tip of the week, when you're talking to yourself, you've got a bad situation that's happened to you. When you replace why is this happening to me with what do I need to do now, everything will shift. I had this when I, when the business sort of crumbled a couple years ago

when I found myself out in the cold, so to speak, Jason and I, and the whole team, actually, I was running around like a blender with the top off and I wasn't sleeping and it was really horrible because it was, why is this happening to me? But then once I realized that I could focus and I took the idea, the mantra that action ends suffering. So it was what do I need to do now? What's the next step? I was no longer overwhelmed. I was just putting one foot in front of the other. And that was extremely helpful. So that shift from why is this happening to me to what do I need to do now? What do I need to do next? That is a healthier way to focus your nervous, anxiety, and energy and start getting stuff done, climbing back to the top of the mountain, so to speak.

Recommendation of the week, oh, this is so good. It's called Tell Me Who I Am. It's on Netflix. This is a documentary where there's identical twins. A guy has a motorcycle or a bike accident, and he loses his memory, and he doesn't know who anyone is except he recognizes his twin brother. but the twin brother is telling him all these things about the family, the memory, how they grew up, where everything is in the house, oh my gosh, it turns out that a lot of what he's being fed turned out to not be true. It's just unbelievable this story. So it's like a psychological thriller, but it's actually true. So he loses his memory and his brother's replacing it with the lore of family and growing up. And it comes out decades later that not all is exactly really what he had

said. And I don't want to spoil it, but it's incredible. It's one of the most interesting things that I've watched in a long time. Adding it to the queue right now, that sounds fascinating. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. If you want to come to prison, couple spots left. Email me, prison at Jordan Harbinger.com. February 26, 2020, outside Reno Nevada, maximum security prison. We're going to participate in that educational program with the inmates. It's going to be about 900 bucks plus travel and lodging. And so it's not Free, I wish it were, but it's affordable. Quick shout out to Dave Olverson and Melody Wildling, both of whom recommended a service

called Follow Up Then when people were asking about CRMs on episode 287. Followup Then.com is super easy to use, and it's free. We'll link to it in the show notes. Also, shout out to James Gibbons, who recommended Tiny Blue, T-I-B-L-U.com. That's a free CRM, simple, easy to use, most of all free. Go back and check out the guests, Eric Weinmere and Akshay Nanavati, if you haven't done that yet. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people, manage the relationships, using systems, using tiny habits, check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over

at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And don't wait. Don't do it later. Look, you are going to have a hell of a time trying to develop relationships once you actually need them for something. That's not how it works. Once you need relationships, you're too late. it's possible, but it is really freaking hard. It's a hell of a lot easier to dig the well

before you get thirsty. The drills take a few minutes a day. Ignore it at your own peril. All for free, Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show and videos of our interviews are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason? 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. This show is created in association with podcast one. 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 at Jordan Harbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. And yes, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got lots more in the pipe and 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. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast, focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people

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