The Jordan Harbinger Show - 298: My Dad Is a Pedophile | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: January 10, 2020

Your dad is a pedophile. He's taken naked pictures of kids, including one of your cousins on your mom's side, and posted them online. He's been caught by the police, but he's been let go on some kind of probation. You don't know how to handle the situation. For some context, You're a high functioning autistic person. You're able to live on your own, take care of yourself, and hold down a full time job, but you have a lot of problems making and maintaining friendships and you have enough sensory issues that you don't like to leave your house any more than you need to. On the one hand, it would be a great relief to you if you never had to see or hear from your parents again. On the other hand, the number of people in your support network is already quite small, and you wouldn't want to lose contact with your sister, who has very severe mental health problems and is still living at home. What should you do? This is pretty dark and heavy territory, but we'll do our best to offer some real advice on this and much more in this Feedback Friday. And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason DeFillippo (@jpdef) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/298. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Interested in doing some prison time with Jordan for his birthday this February? It'll be here sooner than you know it! Reach out to [e-mail] for details if you want to go! Your significant other paid for you to attend college and supported you financially as you started out in your career. Now that you're on track financially, you're having relationship issues. How should money factor into a situation like this? Years ago, your mother and sister found out your father was having affairs with multiple women. It was devastating at the time, but you all eventually moved on when he agreed to stop. Today, you saw him with one of those women. How do you handle this? Your dad is a convicted pedophile on probation. You're a high-functioning autistic person living on your own who would love to never see your parents again, but you don't want to lose contact with your sister who still lives at home. What can you do? Do the potential networking, career, and social benefits of living in a big, expensive city outweigh the increased cost of living? Your girlfriend has been getting therapy to improve in academia from an unlicensed "life coach" who sells her expensive (and ultimately useless) gadgets, and now has the gall to tell her you're manipulative, controlling, and patronizing for not being supportive. How can you lovingly steer your girlfriend away from this shameless shyster? How you can communicate a barter proposal in an attractive... 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, 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 Tasha Urick on self-awareness and how we can generate more of it, what to do if we're not self-aware and the consequences of being less self-aware in our careers and home life. Of course, how to get other people to be more self-aware. That's a big one from that episode, and I think a lot of us are into that. We also had Eric Thomas, the hip-hop preacher. He went from homeless to PhD to become one of the world's top motivational speakers. And normally I'm not into motivational speakers.

You all know that, but this guy, he's got great energy. It's a fun conversation to start off the year. I also write every so often on the blog. The latest post is about how to ask for advice in the right way. I get a lot of bad advice requests, and that's what spurred the creation. of this piece. So if you want to learn how to ask for, implement advice, or what to do if you get asked for advice in a way that's not very constructive, you can point people to this piece. That's one of the reasons that I created it. Make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything we created this week.

The articles are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles. Of course, our primary mission here on the Jordan Harbinger Show is to pass along our guests and our own insights and experiences along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you. That's what we do today and every Friday here on Feedback Friday. I want to place one brick in the structure that makes up your life. That's really what the whole show is about. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. I'm going to prison for my birthday.

A lot of you know that already. February 26, well, 25 and 26 in Reno. The experience is an educational program for inmates, and this is their graduation. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to help people who are incarcerated and ready to get out of that situation, some who are not getting out candidly. but it's a lot of fun, it's really rewarding, it's life-changing, you will laugh, well, you'll laugh a lot, you'll cry, I guarantee you that in a way that's not sort of self-helpy and weird and awkward,

and it's just a great way to interact with people that are, frankly, segregated from the rest of society, and it's fascinating. We've got a group of about 60 so far, so it's a big group, there's a few spots left, we're going to cut it off soon, but I wanted to give people who didn't know if they were going to be able to go until this year time to book. And if you you are interested, email me, prison at jordanharbinger.com. Again, $900 plus travel, but the hotel's like, it's literally 50 bucks. Reno's not expensive. The flight, that's, of course, on you as well. The hotel is cheap. And by the way, that 900, that is for the educational program. I'm not making any money on this. The prison's not taking it and putting it in their coffers. It's for the educational

organization that we're partnered with, which is called Hustle 2.0. So if you want to go, if you heard about this on our show or on Tim Ferriss's show. This is that program. I'd love to bring you, email me, prison at jordanharbinger.com, and come join us for my 40th birthday behind bars February 25th, 26 in Reno, Nevada. That's 2020, by the way. So if you're listening to this in 2021, you've missed it. All right, Jason, interesting feedback Friday, as always, some doozies in here, but some fun ones. I'm excited. What's the first thing that we got? Dear Jordan and crew, my significant other paid for me to attend college and supported me financially as I started out in my career. I'm finally starting to get on track financially,

but we're having relationship issues. Truth be told, the issues have probably been brewing for a while, but have been more in the forefront lately. The issues are unrelated to money, but part of me feels like I owe it to my partner to make things work because of all the money I've accepted over the years. How should money factor into things in a situation like this? Signed, not sure if I'm in debt. I assume by relationship problems, you mean you're thinking of breaking. up with your partner. Yikes. Okay. Well, first things first, do not stay with someone out of obligation. It breeds resentment. It wastes both of your time. If you're going to break up, just break up. But if you're going to do that, you have to pay them back. Even if you don't, you should probably

pay back your partner. I mean, if you get married, it doesn't really matter. But there's an implied or explicit promise here to pay that person back. I don't know if you have a formal agreement, I assume, it's just kind of implied. That's legit. You still have to. do that. It's not your fault that relationship issues cropped up, but that doesn't change the person that you are. So you could probably get away with not paying them back, but that would make you a crappy person. That would make you a bad person. For real, I think that's dishonest. I think that's a way to burn a bridge if it's not already burned. And even if you guys are fighting and you guys don't get along, I don't think you should say, well, screw it. They already hate me. I'm not going to pay

them back. Defaulting on obligations like this, or not defaulting, but blatantly screwing someone over like this, it's bad for you. It's not just bad for them. I know this sounds like something your grandma would say, but it's actually bad for your psychology to screw someone over. It changes who you think you are. It changes your identity in a negative way. So don't do that.

Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to them. Set up automatic payments to take money out of every paycheck. So if you're getting paid $1,000 every two weeks, set up automatic payments with your bank, with Chase or whoever, it'll take $100 out every paycheck, put it in a separate checking account. The checking account should be free. and then you don't have to even think about it.

You never see the money. This should start ASAP. Don't wait. Don't do it later because you got something going right now. Start doing it immediately. And you don't keep the money. You send them checks regularly. You don't say, as soon as it's all there, I'll give it to you.

They're never going to see it and they're going to think you're screwing them over. Give them a regular payment. And before paying them back, though, get a firm number on the amount owed. This is going to be tricky. It'll be tuition at least plus living expenses. If they didn't track it, you're going to have to do some math. It doesn't really matter, though you have to agree on this. It won't be cheap.

It'll take a long time to repay. Round up and be more generous with the amount that you owe. Don't get taken advantage of, of course, but round up, make sure you agree on the amount. Because if you send them $100 and you're like, yeah, it's going to take me a year to pay this off at this rate. They're going to go, what are you talking about? You owe me twice as much. So then they're going to still be mad, even though you paid them back.

You need to agree on the amount. That way you have a clean bill. You have a clear conscience. If you don't have an agreement in place, they're going to be pissed no matter what you pay them. And you're then going to have wasted your time and your money. Make sure you know both the total and the monthly payment amount and stick to it. Pretend this is your student loans. You just have a great interest rate of approximately zero.

If you're really uncomfortable with this, you can take loans from friends and family, repay your ex right away, and then repay your friends and family instead. You can just explain the situation to them. People will be understanding. That way, they're paid off. You don't have to deal with them. it rips off the band-aid, you can limit contacts, whatever you need to do. Don't take a bank loan, though, if you can avoid it.

If you really don't get along with them, friends and family aren't an option, you can take a bank loan, but I would avoid this because bank loans have far less flexibility. They're harder to get. If you say, hey, I can't pay this month, they're going to bring the hammer down on you. They're also going to charge you interest because of the risk. It's more expensive. It's less convenient. It's less flexible.

So avoid that, if at all possible. Make sure you calculate properly, and you have the ability to service other. debts with high interest rates. So if you've got, let's see you've got a car payment or a credit card bill and you're paying that down as well, you should not agree to paying them $250 a month and you've also got to pay your credit card $250 a month and now you can't eat or you can't pay your rent. You've got to take everything into consideration. And if they say, oh, you're only going to pay me $100 every two weeks. This is garbage. It's going to take you three years. Then you can show them, hey, look, I've got this credit card, I've got this car, I've got this rent. This is all I can

afford. I'm not just being a cheap a-hole who's dragging you through the mud. This is all I got. Paying debts back is a basic expectation of a functional adult. I'm glad you realize this. I'm not saying you don't. I think it's great that you're thinking about this. It doesn't matter who the person is. Your ex, somebody you don't like, somebody who screwed you over in some other way. The only people who screw over other people like this and just take off with the money because they don't care and they're not together anymore, those are people that have no self-respect to maintain. In the end, yeah, they might keep the money, but as Pollyanna as this might sound, they're only cheating themselves. You will feel worse if you treat people poorly.

And I don't think you can rationalize your way out of this one. Look, if your ex stole your car and embezzled a bunch of money from your business, okay, they owe you. Don't pay them back for college. But if they were nice enough to do this, don't sit there and go, oh, well, you know what? She never gave me a birthday present. So it's like a birthday present for the last three years. I'm keeping it. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to them. It's just bad. I hate this word. It's just bad karma, but it's bad for your psychology. Trust me, you will feel terrible doing this. Congrats on graduating and make sure you get that paid back. I don't think it'll be any skin off your nose. And by the way, when you're done, you're going to feel like a million bucks. All right, what's next?

Hi, Jordan and team. Back when I was a teenager, my mother and sister found out that my father was having an affair with multiple women. This devastated my family. We felt hurt, angry, and lost trust in him. Eventually, it all came to an explosive fight the night we confronted my dad by showing him the text and call history we had as evidence. All I can remember at that point was a lot of yelling from my mother and sister about his betrayal. My reaction was also to get angry and yell at him. I even got physical and threw a few punches at him. After that, he didn't stay at the house for a bit, but eventually came back home. We all moved on, and he agreed to stop what he was doing. Fast forward to today. While I was doing errands in town, I saw my dad driving with one of the women he hadn't. affair with. I don't know how long this has been going on, and whether I was trying to ignore my

suspicions, like him taking phone calls in his car in secret. I don't know how to handle this. I'm in my mid-20s, living at home while working a full-time job. I feel like it's not right for my dad to keep this affair going, spending time and resources on this other woman, and acting like it's okay for him to come back home to mom. My parents' relationship isn't perfect. My father gets verbally abusive with my mom, and I'd say, sadly, that he's an alcoholic. I'm not sure how I should go about discussing this with my sister and my mom. Both of them can get easily reactive, but even they've been noticing how my dad's been out of the house more often. Any advice on how I should handle this rough situation? Hell, do I need therapy? Thanks. Dealing with a dumbass dad.

Yuck, this is heavy. I feel bad that you have to deal with this. It's just a mess. You're right, but you have to extricate everyone from this situation. Man, it seems like it's a long time coming, and it's done a lot of damage. You should get a therapist, first and dive into your own stuff before trying to solve family issues like this. I don't mean, wow, look at you, you're a giant mess, you can't help anyone else. What I mean is you can't really go into this thinking, oh, this hasn't really affected me. I mean, I'm a little annoyed, but it's mostly my mom. No, no, no.

Your dad's been having an affair. He's an alcoholic. You've got stuff you probably don't even realize that you need to deal with. Deal with that stuff while you're doing this. Get a therapist and start doing that. trust me, this will help you maintain sanity. Also, you'll have an outlet of a trusted therapist if things get crazy at home.

Because you don't know. He might not be like, you're right, I'm an alcoholic and I've been having an affair. I'll just move out. It's fine. Ish is going to get heated, right? If they're already fighting and he's emotionally abusive

and all this other stuff, why is he going to take this lying down? And then what are you going to do? Lean on your mom, lean on your siblings. I don't know, right? You should have a therapist who has seen this before, knows what to do,

can give you some self-care, ideas and help you maintain your sanity. Your call on bringing this up to mom and sister, I would, if you do it, do so individually and test the waters so that one's reaction doesn't incite the other. You don't want to bring this up to them both. They're sitting on the couch and then the mom freaks out and then your sister's like, oh, guess I'm just going to freak out too. You want to ideally get your sister on your side or your mom on your side first. Get on the same page and then bring this to the attention of the other party. That way, everyone's on the same page. It's not a three-way argument where everyone's getting pissed off or worse, they gang up on you. Your dad sounds miserable and

lost. He's not a great example, but you knew that. You can't control how your parents' relationship goes. You can't control how other people react to what you do. What you can do is make sure that you're taking care of yourself and your sanity before addressing stuff like this. So you need to have a base, right? Of course, it's like a cliche. Can't control how other people react. What you need is a base, though. Because if everybody else goes haywire and goes crazy and you're like, I need to move out, at least you have a therapist who's telling you, hey, you should move out. I was in a gnarly situation, I don't even know now, years and years ago. And my therapist at the time was like, hey, you should move out. And I went, oh, I can't because ABC, DFG. And she's like, yeah, I mean,

are you sure you're not just staying comfortable? And I was like, oh, crap. She got me on that one. I'm just staying in a mess because moving out sounds complex. I moved out overnight. I was like a different person. It was within two weeks. I went back to my therapist and she goes, you're a completely different person sitting across from me. I can't believe it.

How long have you been moved out? Two weeks? And it was like just sleeping better, eating better, went back to the gym. It was night and day getting out of that environment. And that's probably not going to be shocking for most of you. But I'm sure right now you've got a million reasons. oh, I just have this job and I have dead and I have student loans.

A million reasons why I can't move out. My mom needs me, my sister needs me. You're doing this in your head right now. I'm not advising you to move out. I think your therapist might, but you need somebody who is a neutral third party who sees what's going on and can give you quality advice that you trust

and that you'll listen to. Last but not least, have a concrete-ish plan. So it doesn't have to be in stone, but it should be stone-ish. Even if it's just a long-term, get-me-the-heck-out-here type plan, you can't force them. you won't force them to fix the issues if they don't want to.

But at least you don't have to be stewing in the same pot of stress as everyone else. It may be several months in the future before you can leave, move into another place. But if you have a plan and you have a timeline, that at least will help you feel better. You'll feel less trapped by your circumstances. So even if you're like, I'm flat broke, there's no way I can move out. If you say, well, if I save this and I get another job here and sleep on Tom's couch for three months, I can have my own place in October. You need to have that plan because if you just go, I'm going to work my butt off and eventually I'll move out,

eventually sounds like forever to your brain. It sounds like never. But if you've got a timeline and you're working towards it, you'll have the keys to the prison and you'll feel better. And you'll notice I didn't teach you how to solve this problem. I'm teaching you how to take care of yourself because, again, you cannot force people to solve their issues. There's a good chance your mom and dad are just going to argue and have this problem until they're gone. And you should not be in that environment. And you have a choice. It might be a tough choice, but it's a choice you have to make for your own sanity. I'm glad I'm not in that

situation. I feel bad for you, man. Yeah, me too. And definitely changing your environment is going to change you probably overnight because you're not stewing in that, like you said, Jordan, that pot of stress. Yeah. I mean, look, they might call you every day and complain, but you take the call, you go for a walk, you shake it off, you hit the gym, and you're back to normal. Not, okay, guess I'll just listen to my mom cry and scream and yell at my dad for five hours instead of sleeping. You know, that's what you're dealing with now. That's not good. Oof. 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, visitjordanharpenter.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. helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right. Next up. Hey Jordan and crew. My dad is a pedophile. Oh wow. That's, yeah, this is a, this is a deep one. He's taking naked pictures of kids, including one of my cousins on my mom's side and posted them online. He's been caught by the police, but he's been let go on some

kind of probation. I don't know how to handle the situation. For some context, I'm a high-functioning autistic person. I'm able to live on my own, take care of myself, and hold down a full-time job. But I have a lot of problems making and maintaining friendships, and I have enough sensory issues that I don't like to leave my house any more than I need to. On the one hand, it would be a great relief to me if I never had to see or hear from my parents again. On the other hand, the number of people in my support network is already quite small, and I wouldn't want to lose contact with my sister who has very severe mental health problems and who is still living at home. What's your take on my situation? Best regards, my dad's a creep. Wow. Okay, well, thanks for

trusting me with this. It is an honor, but wow, this is such a heavy situation. Holy smokes. I was going to say that you need to report your dad to the police, but it sounds like he's already on probation. I'm confused by that. I don't want to ask for more details on this because it doesn't really matter, but how do you get probation being a pedophile? Maybe they just didn't have enough evidence to, I don't understand that. Or turned in some of his network. Yeah, and he only had like a few things and it wasn't maybe like that, I don't know, that's strange, whatever. Okay, well, that's icky, of course. I definitely understand not wanting to be around that. I have to ask, though, did anything ever happen to you as a kid? You don't have to actually answer this in an email to me,

But if so, please consider therapy, because trauma has very strange ways of manifesting itself. You know, it can come out in your relationships. It can come out in things at work. It can come out with your friends. It can just keep you up at night and you think, you know, stressed out at work. All this stuff can bubble up later because your brain has ways of protecting itself from it. But it's kind of like it's still bad for you to have it in there unaddressed. It's better to address it rather than simply it.

avoid it. I don't blame you for wanting to limit or eliminate contact with your parents. You can absolutely do this, but you don't have to make a big deal out of it. You don't have to call them up and claim that you're never going to talk to them again. If I were in your shoes, I would just not attend as many family functions if I didn't want to. I'd pick up the phone a little bit less if they're calling me and then call them back a few days later. You don't have to make some declaration that you never want to see them again and they're horrible people. There's nothing you really have to do here, in my opinion. You can keep contact with your sister, especially if she's able to use a mobile phone. You don't have to call the house to reach her. You don't have to go through

your mom or your dad to reach her. You don't have to pick up the phone from them, your parents, or ever see them again. If they confront you and ask, hey, why aren't you around anymore? Calmly state your case. Just say, look, it's a little toxic with dad and, you know, you guys are sweeping that out of the rug, and it's very stressful for me. And you can lean on the high-functioning autism thing. You can say, look, I don't want to have to deal with that, too. It's really stressful. Living on my own is hard enough. If you do end up seeing a therapist, you can work out a more comprehensive strategy with the therapist to handle the issue of your parents. You can say, what do I say to them? How do I say it? How do I deliver the message? You can practice with a therapist

if you need to. A good counselor or therapist should be able to help you work through this much better and with far more detail than I can. And best of luck, you know, it sounds like you've just drawn a few unlucky cards here and I wish you the best with it. I'm very proud of you for being high functioning, autistic, and living on your own and doing all that stuff. That sounds hard. I mean, look, being an adult is tough for everybody. I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but I understand that if it's tough for you, you're thinking maybe you were never going to be able to do this. So I think that's amazing, honestly. Adulting is tough. You know, when you're living on your own, you think it's great for a while, and then you're like, crap, bills. Bills. What the hell?

You know, responsibility, no, thanks. So you're doing pretty well. I wish you the best with this. Of course, this is weighing you down. I do strongly, strongly encourage you to get a therapist if you don't already have one to work through this in detail. If you have a social worker or somebody that you're already working with, that's fine. You'll be better off for it. And we do have better help as a sponsor. That's not why I always recommend therapy. We went after them because I'm always recommending therapy, just to be clear. But if you get to BetterHelp.com slash Jordan, there's a discount in the first month. Any therapist will do.

I just think BetterHelp is extremely convenient, and I don't want, I don't have time, or I can't get there, to be the reason that people don't get the help that they need. BetterHelp.com slash Jordan. And do address this issue either way, because if something happened to you as a kid from your dad and if your parents are stressing you out, you just don't need that. Life's hard enough. And they're going to try and use guilt to control you or make you feel bad. Don't do that.

And don't let them use access to your sister to control you either. That's unfair. And if that starts happening, then you need to call that out. And you need to work on that as well. That's why I think you need somebody in your corner. All right. What's next? Something a little lighter.

Thank God. Yes. Dear Jordan, Jason, and Jen. I'm looking for my first job in a new field as I'm graduating with a master's degree in epidemiology from the University of Michigan this spring. In previous episodes, you and your guests have discussed how moving to a big city can dramatically increase your opportunities for professional success and lead to higher lifetime income. This seems especially true in the healthcare data analytics and research industry, as many

companies are based in or near tech hubs like San Francisco. However, I'm concerned that the benefits of being in a major city may be offset by the higher cost of living, which will make it harder for me to pay off my student loans, start saving for a retirement, buy a house, etc. Do you have any advice for how to weigh these initial financial setbacks with the possibility of future promotions, pay increases, or other big city opportunities? Thanks for all that you do. Signed, they didn't teach this in school.

This is an excellent question. Do the potential benefits of living in a big city outweigh the increased cost of living? I'm going to simplify it a little bit. There's more to it, but that's the nutshell version. The biggest pushback I get and I see like, oh, well, follow the money as per Scott Galloway. Follow the money. It's in big cities. Big cities are really expensive. Yes, it's crazy that the median rent in San Francisco is like $4,000 a month, give or take. The only reason why rent is $4,000 a month, though, is because incomes are generally high enough to afford this. If that wasn't the case,

the rent market would fall. It would be cheaper. The market is more or less efficient. It's rational in some way. Only a knucklehead with an online business would not try and geo-arbitrage his way and live in a lower cost area of the world. And yes, that's me. I live in Silicon Valley, even though I could work from China if I needed to. So I'm guilty of that. You live in the most expensive place in the world, or at least in the United States to live. Yeah. And it's because Jen's family lives around here. Otherwise, yeah, I would live pretty much anywhere else and have a hell of a lot more disposable income and pay lower taxes. But this isn't about my dumb decisions. This is about your dumb decisions. All right. So my advice is go to the city, but get a job off

first because if you're going to the city and you're just working at the city target, you're going to have a tough time. You're going to have a huge commute. You're going to live like a broke-ass college student. You'll be making enough when you get a job in the city to support living there. That's kind of the name of the game. You don't have to live in a fancy spot, especially since your hours at any job in the city are going to be insane at first anyway and get roommates. That will help a lot and it'll be fun. Once you're here or there, depending on which city you choose, you'll be around a ton of other young professionals. That brings opportunities for getting jobs, making money,

dating and pairing up with a partner who's also making some good, solid, steady income. Also networking for the future, because everybody else is going to move on to better jobs and you want to know those people as you grow in your career. Exactly. That's the opportunities that people find in cities. Oh, I used to work with that guy back at the movie poster

of graphics place. Like, oh, now he's working here. Sure, I'll move over there. Oh, this person found another company and he's hiring. That's the opportunities people are talking about. and oh yeah those are all online not really you hire people you know like and trust do you know like and trust the person who hit happy hour with you every week for two years or do you trust the person that had a really wicked resume on lincoln right it's an easy choice all the data shows that people

in cities especially professionals like you or future professionals like you are wealthier they're happier in a few years you'll probably have enough clout and experience to work from home on some days meaning you can live farther away if you want you can commute on some some Wi-Fi-enabled train or bus so that you're able to work on the way to and from work, if you want to zero out your inbox and not spend it sitting in front of your office computer, and you can save money from your job. There's a blogger when I was researching this question. He said, one reason baseball players swing two bats at a time before going up to the plate

is because it makes swinging with one bat seem easier. They'll be able to swing faster and with more force. If you start life or live your life in an expensive city, out of necessity, you learn how to manage money, become frugal. People in New York who make less than six figures a year, they're scrimping and saving, and they're going to this place because it's cheaper, and they rent over there because it's a new neighborhood. Resourcefulness is actually a pretty valuable life skill as well. Living in an expensive city might even propel you to start a side business, moonlight, side hustle, generate more income. From this extra activity will come a stronger work ethic

and a lot more knowledge and experience that could very well open doors to some exciting new things. So I'm not going to do any more of the math here because it's largely been done by people smarter than me already. Unless you really hate the city, it's more economical in wealth building in the long term to live there, especially at the start of your career before you settle down. You don't have to live in the city forever to gain the economic benefits. In fact, living in the city in your 20s, maybe early 30s, that's where you get the core of the economic benefit. If you start your career there before you settle down, you've got your network, you've got your experiences, you've got all these connections.

And besides, it's a hell of a lot of fun. You only live once. Going and moving to a city after you have kids or in your mid to late 30s, that gets trickier. So do it now, and if you hate it, bounce. But I think if you're cut out for the city life, you're going to get a lot of benefits. And yes, it will cost you more up front,

but you will gain much, much more economically and otherwise in the long term. So congrats on graduating, and we'll see you in the city. All right, what else you got? Dearest Triple J, within the past year, my girlfriend has been getting therapy from a life coach who will call Barbara to help my girlfriend improve in academia. Despite Barbara not holding a current license in anything, my girlfriend has already expressed that the therapy seemed beneficial to her. Barbara has even sold my girlfriend a thousand

dollar audio gizmo with verbal promises that listening to this nightly would tremendously improve her performance in academics. Needless to say, these multi-sensory bone conductions have yet to have any effect. Here we are now with a few months of barren results from this listening contraption. Barbara is suggesting that my girlfriend's academic success is not dramatically increasing, as expected due to other stressful factors in her life, her relationship with me, apparently. At first, I didn't see this as completely negative because there's always a possibility of improving and growing in a relationship, and I can always become a better boyfriend. However, what has absolutely ticked me off is that Barbara is masquerading as a marriage and

family therapist, and has suggested to my girlfriend that I am manipulative, controlling, and patronizing. Considering the potential truth in these accusations, I asked our mutual friends, mixed male and female, and even a few ex-girlfriends, whether I have exhibited any signs of these three characteristics. From their perspective, it seems they are actually on my side. We're going to do better help once she gets back from a trip she's on, and we've already matched with a licensed LMFT here in SoCal. But in the meantime, how do I lovingly point out to my girlfriend that this life coach is bleeding us dry and has no business in therapy and absolutely no business in our relationship? Signed, powerless boyfriend.

Well, this kind of thing really grinds my gears. I cannot stand this sort of, it's a scam. It really is. I'll just come out and be blunt. Where do I even start here? The problem I have with a lot of life coaches, not everybody, stop warming up your email keyboard. all your life coaches or coaches. The problem I have with a lot of these life coach people is not just their lack of certification and qualification. I have many friends who lack formal training,

yet they're excellent coaches. To be clear, they're not necessarily life coaches, but I'm not sure anybody can be certified in something as broad as life coaching, certified in a legit way. I'm sure there's companies out there that will gladly take your money and supposedly train you on this. The problem I have with a lot of these coaches, they sell their lifestyle disguised as a coaching product. Perhaps this is the lifestyle design, so this is Instagram influence here. A lot of these life coaches spend a hell of a lot more time trying to live and sell the lifestyle dream that suits them rather than investing in the service that they are allegedly supposedly providing to other people.

That doesn't necessarily sound like the case here. That's a rant for another day. but the bigger problem is someone, someone's diagnosing your behavior and your relationship in a totally unqualified way. First of all, let's say I'm a surgeon and your girlfriend comes to me and says, yeah, my boyfriend's arm clicks when he does push-ups, it's so weird. Would I then be justified in saying, well, it sounds like he needs rotator cuff surgery. That's awful.

Clearly, he's got a fourth degree separation and probably some nerve damage too. Does that make any sense? or maybe it makes more sense for me to say, that could be something or it could be nothing. Maybe he can come in, and I, a qualified surgeon doctor in this specialty, should take a look at it firsthand. So you see where I'm going with this.

Not only is this not happening, this firsthand experience, in that she hasn't even met you and is diagnosing problems in a relationship, supposedly, she's also totally unqualified to diagnose anything, Even if you two were sitting right in front of her, she doesn't know you from Adam. This is so irresponsible. So in this metaphor, it's not even a surgeon or a doctor diagnosing without having seen the patient.

It's the guy who folds towels at Planet Fitness diagnosing the problem. Yes, what I'm saying is that the guy who folds towels at Planet Fitness is as qualified as the BS life coach that your girlfriend has hired and who is now meddling in your life, your girlfriend's life, and in your relationship. Tell me how you really feel, Jordan. I know, right? No offense to guys who fold towels at Planet Fitness. I mean, everybody's got to start somewhere. It might be different if this coach has great rapport with your girlfriend and a great track

record of advice in her life so far and knew the both of you really well over a period of years. That's not what this is. This coach has already shown that she's just a crank who believes in bullcrap with her scammie listening device that's supposed to make your girlfriend better in college. school? What? Makes no sense. There's pseudoscience garbage. Oh, and by the way, I may also be as qualified as the guy who folds towels at Planet Fitness to give advice. The difference here is that I am proving, well, hopefully proving, my track record by helping tens of thousands of you with practical

solutions that I also encourage you to try for yourself. You'll also notice that I place responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the question asker almost every time. This is part of the reason that I'm not a therapist, but I'm a guy who doles out advice. in public, that's also very key, for all to hear. I also refer people to therapy or another qualified professional about 99% of the time. You've heard me bump betterhelp.com slash Jordan. You hear me tell people to get a real attorney in a specialty in their state. This is a very important difference here. I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, and by the way, I am a licensed attorney who went to seven years of school and has also been granted a license by the state of New York to advise people in matters

that could land them in prison, destroy their business, destroy their entire life, because I'm still a licensed attorney and I pass the bar and I practiced. But other than that, and basically the towel guy. All right. So, anyway, we also don't charge people $1,000 a week to listen to feedback Friday. That's true. Yeah. So there's that. Hence the disclaimer, but also I'm giving you things to try on your own, not saying, hey, by the way, your partner? Horrible person. Right. I'm only getting one side of the story, but I'm encouraging you to get professional help. That's not what's happening here. In this scenario, I see that either this coach has missed the ball entirely talking out of her arse, or there's something more nefarious going on. And we know from the Stephen Hassan episodes on

cult behavior that self-help cults often follow this same sort of practice. Yes, this might just be a life coach, whatever. These fake coaches love to blame other people for their client's problems. One, it's great to believe that your issues are potentially someone else's fault. Two, well, that problem's a lot easier to solve. All you have to do is cut that person out of your life, right? Simple enough. But three, and this is where it gets really sketchy, the coach can isolate her client. That's your girlfriend in this case. She can isolate her from those close to her. So this makes the coach more valuable and thereby more in control of the relationship. This allows scammy con artists to take control of the relationship that they have with their clients

and ultimately exploit the client economically, and in other ways for that matter. In other words, this type of power play might actually be designed to get your girlfriend to either cause conflict with you and rely on the coach more or break up with you and rely on the coach more. Either way, the coach is getting paid. This is irresponsible, it's unethical, and it's all too common. I have to say, I applaud you being open-minded about this and asking those close to you, including X's, whether you actually exhibited these sorts of red flag behaviors before just dismissing it out of hand. Oh, she said something negative about me.

She's a quack. She's a crank. That was a great move because now you know that it's not just your own cognitive bias showing up or your own ego trying to protect you. I would also ask your girlfriend if she thinks you're that way. You never know. It would help to know if maybe your girlfriend is saying something to her coach about this. Maybe it's like, oh, yeah, Barbara said you're a little controlling.

Oh, that came out of nowhere. And meanwhile, she's like, no, it didn't. I've been complaining about that a lot recently. You've got to find out where the idea came from. Maybe she did say something about that. Maybe there is an issue in your relationship. But if she only came up with the idea after Barbara planted the idea in her head, you've got a problem.

If that's not where the idea came from and this whole thing is just a Hail Mary type of guess on the part of the coach about what might be stressing out your girlfriend and maybe the coach is projecting and she doesn't have anything against you personally. Maybe that is affecting her academically, possibly sort of maybe. Then we can be pretty sure the coach is full of crap, right? If she's just guessing, but she's guessing and saying, oh, look at all these problems that might be happening in your relationship. Are those the problems? Otherwise, it's all your fault. You're not doing well in school. If that's what she's doing and she's just throwing out random guesses and it's damaging your relationship and your life with your girlfriend.

It is time to run. Don't walk away from this con artist who is manipulating or trying to manipulate your girlfriend. And frankly, already has. A thousand dollar listening gizmo that doesn't even do anything. And that's not based in science. Get out of here. Look, you and your girlfriend sound like smart people. You're seeking advice.

I applaud you looking for help. There are just too many red flags here for me to ignore. Seek qualified expertise and therapy. Not fake coaching schemes. that stuff causes more harm than good. And you're seeing it right now. It sounds like the most value she's gotten from this life coach is a lighter wallet, which is not good. So go try BetterHelp, BetterHelp.com slash Jordan, have them work with both you and your girlfriend

or go to a therapist that's local to you. Go to a real professional. Once you have a qualified therapist helping you, you'll see the difference. This is actually, I didn't even think of this before, but you'll see the difference between the types of interactions you're having and the type of advice. you're getting. Life coaches will be like, do this, do that, scammy ones. Do this, do that, buy this gizmo, buy my program, come in for more sessions. A therapist isn't going to be like, oh, the solution to this problem is giving me a bunch of extra money. That's not how therapy works. Seeing that

side by side, having a therapist and then with you and your girlfriend, and then your girlfriend talking to this life coach that's pumping her full of crap, that will magnify the deficiencies that this so-called life coach has in her interactions with your girlfriend. That could lose and the coach's grip on her as well, because she'll have a rational voice that's not just yours in her other ear. She's not getting all her info from this life coach. I'm sorry to hear about this. The good news is catching stuff like this early enough helps ensure that this type of toxic crap doesn't take hold over your girlfriend. I assume she's fairly sharp. She's in college. She's studying advanced degree. She can probably see it for what it is, but there's a little

doubt in her mind. That's probably how you found out about this in the first place. She was second-guessing it and came to you to see what you thought, while also maybe accusing you a little bit of being controlling and manipulative? I don't know. Oh, and if Barbara is really calling herself a marriage and family therapist, that might actually be illegal if she's not licensed. I would check legality. Google wiretapping laws in your state. If you live in Nevada, you know, can I record the call or do I need to let them know? If it's a one-party state, go ahead and record the communication and take screenshots of her emails and her website. In fact, you can record the session anyway,

even if you have to tell her, just tell her you're recording it. If it changes her behavior, or she says, oh, you can't record my sessions with you, they're secret. That's a massive red flag. Take screenshots of her emails, take screenshots of the website. If she's really lying about her qualifications and saying she's a licensed marriage and family therapist, you may actually be dealing with a real con artist

and not just a crappy wannabe life coach. Keep us posted. I find this interesting, and I hope you find a way out of this mess. It sounds like you're being actively scammed right now, and it sounds like she might be in dangerous hands. 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. Last but not least. Hey Jordan, just started six-minute networking, and it's been very helpful so far. I'm curious what your approach to barters is and your advice for how one can communicate a barter proposal in an attractive way. For example, I'm a professional interior house painter and would like to barter those skills in exchange for studio time at a local recording studio.

Thanks in advance, the budding barterer. Well, I normally don't like barter. usually both parties leave unsatisfied. And I'm not saying this is in every case, but I've done it a ton in the past. I've regretted it almost every single time. Now I prefer to pay for services, but, and I'll be honest here, that's often because now I'm either, one, dealing with a vendor, I want to hold them accountable and having a sort of formal relationship really is the best way, because I can point to their scope of work, the contract, the money I paid, and be like, we're good. Or two, I prefer doing business with friends, in which case we do everything by the book, and everything is just like I would

be doing, even if it was a stranger. Maybe I just don't put things in escrow or something, but still. Or it's a favor that is so small that there's no real payment nor trade required. It's just kind of like, hey, I'll get you back later. Cool, I'm not going to put that in a written agreement. Or, hey, I'll take you out for dinner sometime. Cool, I'm not going to get a contract that says that. If it's so small, it doesn't matter. It has to be so small that it won't affect the relationship, even if something doesn't get done or gets broken somehow. And it's like, oh, yeah, he was going to install that website plug in, but he just, you know, his dog got sick and he forgot.

It's not something that I'm going to stress out about it. It's not going to affect the relationship. If you're going to barter, treat everything just like a real business deal. Write the contract. Write the term. Be very specific. Contracts don't need to have magical language. Non-lawyers can do this.

Don't just email them, hey, I'll paint your studio if you'll let you. let me use it afterwards, like two or three times. Write something down in electronic communication and then print it out and get it signed. Write something like, I will paint X square feet, namely this studio at this address, using ABC paint, two coats, over an period of time, two weeks, whatever, to be completed by D-date, no later than February 2020. In return, you will let me use the studio on these three dates for two hours each time during Q2 of 2020, namely March through June of 2020.

Not before and not after. And this also includes your skills as sound engineer during the time I'm in the studio and a copy of the file on a flash drive given to me afterwards. Really specific. The more specific you get, the less likely there's going to be a misunderstanding.

Also, everyone knows what they're getting. And so nobody's left hanging or holding the ball. It's not like, oh, I thought you were just going to let yourself into the studio and turn on the equipment. or I thought you were going to bring your own recorder. Oh, I can't sit there while you're singing into the microphone. That's not what we agreed upon. Or, oh, yeah, you know, I was only going to paint the studio, but I wasn't going to use, I wasn't going to give you a color. I was just going to paint over the old color with white. I'm not going to do a mural for you. I didn't know that's

what you wanted. You have to be specific. Otherwise, everybody's pissed. Or you perform first, and then they don't want to perform, and then you're angry at them and you've ruined the whole thing, and you wasted all the effort. Bear in mind, actually write this down and get it signed. Don't just say you're replied to this email signals that you understand. Get it signed. It's not a magic legal thing, but it makes it real for them. They're not going to go, oh, I didn't see that in the email. I just replied, cool, bro. Get a valid legal contract. Emails are valid, but a printoff with a signature page is much better. It can be enforced as a valid legal contract. There's no ambiguity. Everyone should know what's going on going into this. And if you want to make it more attractive to the second part of your

question, if you want to make this more attractive, offer to perform your side of a contract first. so they can make sure they're satisfied. Cool, I'm done, I painted two coats, it's dry, looks good, and they say, yeah, you forgot the closet. I want the closet repainted because it looks weird. Oh, okay, sure. Then you make sure they're satisfied. You risk getting screwed over.

Of course, they can always screw you over. That's why this should all be in writing. You're never going to take them to court for this, but at least you'll be able to know that you're in the right. Now maybe you see why I prefer to just pay and be done with it. But you risk getting screwed over, but if you perform first, it's more attractive because they're not taking the risk.

You're shouldering the risk. You're shifting it to you by performing your end first. Now, this is a useful and good skill set. Barter, contracts, if you get it done right. Best of luck, let me know when your new album drops. Life Pro Tip of the Week, get a physical every year

and have blood work done at least every year. No matter what age you are, I don't care if you're 27, no matter how outwardly healthy you are, I just ran four marathons last year. There are things that can affect your well-being that are genetic. They are not determined by lifestyle.

Jason, you and I were just talking about Nitro from American Gladius, Jan Clark, our mutual friend. He had a heart attack. How old was he when he had his heart attack? He was 52 or 53. Yeah. Okay, so he was no spring chicken, but he was no old dude, and he was a super fit professional athlete for what, his entire life before that? Yeah. Yeah, from like when he was 12.

And so, yeah, he probably had some lifestyle factors that contributed to that, and we'll get into that when we interview him. but a lot of that's genetic. High cholesterol, a lot of that's genetic. Sure, some is probably lifestyle choices, but a lot of that stuff, especially when you're young, it's genetic. You've got to get ahead of it. Blood work is not that expensive.

In fact, if you have good insurance, it should cover this. A lot of doctors won't order it because they're like, ah, you don't want to get picked, you're only 29. You don't need to sit here and do that. Just ask. A lot of doctors will just order it because it's good practice. It's a good general practice. They just figure you didn't want to spend the time.

Ask for it. Worst thing they can say is no or, yeah, you can do it, but it's going to cost you $100. Sure is better than dying young. Tell you that. I just got my insurance card for the first time in a couple of years now, and I have a doctor's appointment coming up in the next week to get my blood work done because, yeah, I'm a man of a certain age where it's time to take those things seriously. But I wish I'd have done it in my whole life because I could have probably been in better

health at this point. Plausible deniability is not a way to go about taking care of your health. Not good. No, definitely not good. I don't think saying, gee, my doctor never asked me to do that is a good strategy at all. Recommendation of the week, Ukraine from democracy to chaos. Yes, it's political in nature. It's not about politicians, but I started watching Amazon Prime video because we were watching some thing that Jen and I kind of like that's dumb. I'll just leave it there. It's a waste of everyone's time. But we were looking for other things, and we noticed there's a ton of documentaries way more than Netflix. The reason is, candidly, some of these are made really

cheaply and you can totally tell. But you end up with kind of weird fringe or low budget stuff that is just as interesting as anything on Netflix. And Netflix has its own stinkers, let's be real. But Amazon Prime Video has a ton, like hundreds at least so far and more. It's all included with Prime if you have Prime. Anyway, this Ukraine from Democracy to Chaos talks about the Orange revolution and how they peacefully got rid of their crappy Soviet, well, not Soviet, Russian puppet leader and how we end up coming back in this revolution and how Russia influences Ukraine's politics and now they're in a war. It's just, it's interesting, a lot of front line video. And we don't hear a lot about Ukraine's war that's still going on, by the way, and all of the

crazy propaganda going on from Russia and Russian news and stuff that's disseminated inside Ukraine. It's disturbing. And if you remember my old, old interview with Timothy Snyder, he's in the documentary as well. He's a really interesting guy. He talks about authoritarian regimes and how we're kind of looking pre-World War II, but maybe not in a super alarmist kind of way. You know, we're looking at some world leaders that are got a little bit of Hitler on your chin

there, you know, some of these guys, not doing well for the whole international order. I think this is an interesting documentary. Again, I'm not alarmist, but I highly recommend checking this stuff out. Ukraine from democracy to chaos. It will be linked in the show notes, and it's on Amazon Prime video if you just search for Ukraine. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Remember, we're going to prison, February 25, we'll be in the prison on the 26th. So you come in late on the 25th. That's February 26, 2020. Email me if you want to go. 900 bucks, you pay for the hotel and the flight. It should be pretty affordable. Educational

program for the inmates will be life-changing. Email me, prison at Jordan Harbinger.com. A couple of spots left. I want to fill the whole thing up till they cut me off. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Quick shout out to Brad Floyd, who said he likes that we don't just randomly chit-chat at the end of every show. A lot of shows do that. I know. I can't stand that either. There's banter that puts forth the story and advances the narrative and helps, or is at least in some way entertaining. And then there's banter that's just, we don't know how to close the show, so we're going to chat about nothing and keep it irrelevant. We don't like to do that. On that note, that's enough for me. Thanks, Brad Floyd. Appreciate you listening to the show.

Go back and check out Tasha Urick and Eric Thomas, the hip-hop preacher, and the article on how to ask for advice. That's all we created for you this week. And if you want to know how we managed to book all these amazing guests on the show, Systems and Tiny Habits, baby, six-minute networking. It's our free at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig the well before you get thirsty. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. That's why I made the course. I'm giving it to you for free. Jordan Harbinger.com course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with the show. Videos of our interviews are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason? You can check out my tech podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks, where we discuss what went wrong on the

internet and who's to blame along with cybersecurity apps, gadgets, books, and more. That is grumpy old geeks.com. This show is created in association with podcast one. This episode was produced by Jen Harbinger, edited by J. Sanderson, show notes for the episode by Robert Fogarty, music by Evan Viola. 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 am not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. It really does help when you share. That's how we grow. I'm not spending money on advertising. I really don't want to if I don't have to. It helps us grow and it helps us make more great stuff. Lots more in the pipeline for 2020.

in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask,

and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love,

and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that, I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening.

You can thank me later.