The Jordan Harbinger Show - 32: How to Inspire Kids to Excel | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: April 20, 2018

Jordan (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason (@jpdef) are back to banter every week and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday on The Jordan Harbinger Show! 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! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Our episode with Vanessa Van Edwards should have video by the time you hear this. Sorry for the delay! Andrew Warner is hiring a second in command to run Mixergy, his Silicon Valley-based podcast business. Are you someone who can't stop thinking of podcast marketing ideas? Think you'd be good at recruiting top guests? To apply, go to AndrewWarner.com/hiring The roommate switch? It can't be done. How might an obliger (Gretchen Rubin, episode 18) self-motivate to learn a new language? How do you take notes like a pro -- and put them to good use afterward? Remember: anything "free" comes with a price. What chakras are to blame for someone's lack of personal responsibility? What can you do to tactfully reintroduce yourself to the world when you've effectively been away due to health issues, personal misfortunes, and downright bad luck? How can a teacher really inspire an underprivileged 11 to 13-year-old to excel? Recommendation of the Week: Wild Wild Country Giveaway winners: Kelvin S. and Nikki F. Quick shoutouts to Andrew McDougal and James Jordan! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger, and check out Jason's (@jpdef) other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. You can also find him on Instagram at JPD. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider leaving your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Have you ever had a moment where you think, man, someone should really do something about this? Then you realize, maybe that someone is you. Well, with the help of GoFundMe, you can change someone's life. You could start a GoFund me to help a friend pay for school, fund that new community space, or help a local kid finally get to that national competition. I've seen this myself. Last year, a friend of mine launched a GoFund me to help with medical bills after an unexpected surgery. It was incredible how fast the support rolled in.

People want to help. They just need a way to do it. And GoFundMe makes it easy. So do you have a dream, a person, or a cause in your life that could use some support? Don't wait for someone else to bring change. You can be the one who makes a difference. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo,

who just moved to Los Angeles like five minutes ago. Yeah, really? Just I still have like road grime on me at this point. Yeah, well, that might take a few days to come off. But in the meantime, let's have some conversations with our fascinating guests as usual. But today, of course,

we're going to have conversations directly with our audience. That's what we do on Feedback Friday. You can reach us, you audience at large. Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. This is, today is 420. Oh. That means something to some people. Not me.

Some people. Not me personally either. You know, I don't go in for those kinds of shenanigans, but some people do. So happy 420. I'm getting too old for this. That's what I say about that. Housekeeping stuff. Look, Vanessa Van Edwards, we did a video.

Many of you were kind enough to remind me, hey, there's no video embedded in the show notes, like you said. And I went, oh, yeah. because I was traveling in L.A. doing some really good interviews for you guys. I promise it was worth it. But that video is up now, and I'm sorry about that. How's that? Second, my friend Andrew Warner from Mixergy, he's hiring a second-in-command to run Mixergy, which is his Silicon Valley-based podcast business. So if you're someone who can't stop thinking of podcast marketing ideas and you think you'd be good at recruiting top guests, you should apply.

go to Andrew Warner.com slash hiring, and you might be the lieutenant over at Mixergy, which would be pretty cool if you came from our show. All right, of course, here on Feedback Friday, we've got some fun ones, and we've got some doozies as usual. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, Jordan, the names in this story have been changed

to protect the innocent. I'm a 22-year-old guy from Canada and recently started talking to this girl, Lauren, who lives in my building. We hang out almost daily, and we've been talking and hanging out for a few months now. Last week, I went out with her and her roommates Mike and Stephanie to the bar for a drink. Can I just pause you?

Lauren, Mike, and Stephanie are really good, like, fake white people names because that could be anyone. I left the bar early that night and went back to our building. Stephanie started sending me messages after she'd started drinking and asked me why I never tried anything with her, asking what I see in Lauren and later begs me not to talk about what happened. Oops. I've never been put into a situation where two girls are both interested, much less two that live together. Since that night, I've gotten into my own head about who to talk to and what to do. Should I risk throwing away the last month with this girl or tell her friend to back off?

As I spend more time with them, I find myself more attracted to her roommate's personality, but I still have a better bond with Lorne as we have previous history. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for all the hard work you guys do with the show, signed, stuck between a rock and a hard place. So this is, he's looking at kind of the wrong things here. First of all, he's letting them kind of dictate the choice here. He said, oh, no, they're both interested now. Well, all right, fine, but you were interested in one before and now you're interested in the other one because she says she likes you. What's going on here? That doesn't make any sense. That's a bad way to let this

relationship thing happen because you want to pick the person that you want to pick, not be a go, oh, I could get this other person that I'm also interested in. Shoot, I remember when I was in high school. I had this crush on this gal Anna Kiefer, and that is not a fake name. I don't care. She knows. And it's so long ago. And I thought, oh, this girl's really pretty and we became friends. And then I started dating this other girl named Jill. And I kind of forgot about Anna Kiefer. And then one day, she was like, oh, you know, I have a crush on you. And I was like, oh, crap. I was dating this other girl, Jill. Oh, I wish I'd know. And I would have jumped shit. And then I thought, well, this is really crappy. I really like Jill, too. And what am I doing here? I'm not just going to react

to the people that like me, that was really bad. I learned that lesson that way because I really just destroyed the relationship with both of them, which was really stupid. It didn't make any sense. And that's exactly what's going to happen here. But aside from that, what I should have said first probably is do not date your roommate or anyone else's roommate or anyone who lives in your building. The same rule applies whether they live with you or they live with each other.

Don't you think, Jason? Oh, yeah. No, I've dated girls who lived in the same building as I have, and it didn't end well. And then, you know, you're always like peeking around the corner when you're going to the laundry room to make sure they're not there. And it just makes things uncomfortable. You know, don't crap where you eat is the old saying. And it kind of goes with don't date anybody at work most of the time. Don't date somebody that you live with it unless you're willing to move when the relationship goes sour. Because if it does, then, man, it just makes it uncomfortable. Yeah, don't date people at the gym. Don't date people in the office. Don't date people in your building. I know that's hard because those are the people you see the most. But the problem is those are the people you see. the most. So if something goes wrong, you're in trouble. And you know what the problem is here, Jason? This 22-year-old guy from Canada, he's too young to have seen Seinfeld, the roommate switch. It doesn't work. You can't do it. It can't be done. This experiment's been run.

I also worried that Lauren might be using Stephanie to test him to see if he's willing to jump ship because, you know, they do live together, so you never know. It might be a, it might be a, it's a trap. It's a trap. It's a trap. Yeah, you know what? Also, what would not surprise me at all is if one person, if you break up with one, or I guess they're not really dating, but you ditch one and you go, fine, I'm jumping ship, I'm going with Stephanie. And then Stephanie's like, oh, you're available now. Nah, I'm good. I'll pass. And you ruin this and you realize, oh, she really just liked me because she was pissed off at a roommate or they compete for guys. So since she won that one, she's not into you anymore. I just see so many things going wrong with this. That said, I don't expect you to listen,

a 22-year-old guy from Canada, stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wouldn't. not listen if I were in your shoes, I would probably make a huge mistake and then be like, I should have listened. So I would say make alternate arrangements because this is going to get catty. This is going to turn into a bad situation for you. I understand if you don't listen, but what I would do really is make them both your friends and say, look, I'm worried that we all live in the same building and this is going to turn into a huge mess and I really like you guys and I just want to keep it that way. And I don't think that they'll get mad about that. They might actually respect it. And if they feel rejected, they'll be over it sooner than if you date one or both.

And then it turns into a huge explosion. Because I'll tell you what, since their roommates, they might get catty with each other. But the way to solve that problem is to make you the bad guy at the end. Right. So, you know what I mean, Jason? Like they can get mad at each other and be like, or they can go, you know what? Screw him. And they're like, yeah, girl.

And then they get a bottle of wine and then you are the devil. Yeah. Right. So they'll make you the common enemy because that's, the easiest solution unless both of them or one of them moves out. So just don't do it. And then we'll get another email from him and his new name will be suddenly scapegoat because that's what he is for their problems. Exactly. Exactly. Nothing good can come of this. No. No. All right, next up. Hey, Jordan and Jason. I've been an avid listener to the Jordan Harbinger show and that

quote unquote other podcast for a couple months now. Jordan, I remember hearing you mentioned that you now speak five languages. I've always been interested in language and how it brings different people together and would love to be able to communicate with people from all over the world in order to help bridge societal gaps we often see in different countries. I believe the pursuit of learning a new language adds new perspective to problems and, all in all, encourages new growth globally. I've tried before to learn a new language, but often reach a plateau and stop. This is often because as an excelling college student involved in research and academics, I find myself simply too busy to devote time each day to fostering growth in learning a language. At the same time, I know that this

is probably just an excuse I'm telling myself because I'm sure you were very busy as well when you learned languages. I find myself to be an obligor, as Gretchen Rubin would put it, and I'm sure this contributes in some way to my lack of being able to sit down on my own and learn something without meeting someone else's expectations of me. I've taken language classes before and learn a lot because of my teacher's expectations of me to get a good grade. However, as I'm nearing my upper-level engineering course, I simply don't have time to take any more courses. Could you tell me the process of you learning the languages and implementing this learning into your everyday life as well as possibly some tips for an obligor like me to hold myself accountable

during this learning. Sincerely, it's Greek to me. Nice. I hope you're not learning Greek. That's really hard and not that useful, unless you're going to do something in Greece or with Greek people. I got no problem with that. Greek, yeah, wow, not an easy one to learn. I use a couple, so I'll go through Chinese because the other ways that I've learned German, Spanish, and Serbian were all pack up, move to those countries for a year or longer, get a job in those countries, or go to school there. That's not going to be an option for everyone. That's just flat out immersion.

Yeah, flat out immersion. That's the best way to learn. Obviously, everything else is a distant second. But let's talk about the distant second here because that's what's actually going to be available to 99.9% of people listening here are going to be able to. able to do that. If you're young enough to go and do immersion stuff, man, go for it. It's going to just change your whole life. Language aside. But what I use for Chinese, I have an app here, and we'll link this in the show notes. I got to move away from the mic because face ID won't let me. Face ID doesn't

recognize me with a microphone in front of my face. Maybe I should just take a picture with a mic in front of my face. That's how I am all day. Anyway, I've got Skritter, and I'll link that up on the show on. Scritter is an app that takes Chinese vocabulary. It will show you how to read it. It'll show you how to write it, and it follows any textbook that you have. It's got hundreds or dozens, anyway, of textbooks built into the software. All the vocabulary is in there. So it will follow your unit of your book, whatever you're using, and you can just manually

add words in there, and it will quiz you. And it uses, I forget the name of this stuff, Jason, but it's a certain kind of flash card system where if you know it, it quizzes you on that less, and if you don't know it, it quizzes you on those more. So Scritter is a flash card system. Like I said, it'll follow your book and it'll chart your progress. But it uses, and I think this is a brand name, but I don't care. It uses Anki sort of intelligent flash card system.

So if you know it, it will quiz you on it less. You tell the app, yeah, this one was really easy for me or this one was really, I really struggled with it. And I got it or I really struggled with it and I didn't get it. And it will quiz you on those more. So it's really an intelligent way to learn vocabulary. And in 10 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day, you can learn dozens of, and dozens of vocabulary words each week. And right now, if I click on progress,

I've been using this for years now, and the max it'll chart on the app is one year. But I've learned thousands of characters in Chinese, something like, I am, yep, I'm just shy of 3,000 Chinese characters that I know more or less off the top of my head. Congrats. Wow, that's amazing. I'm actually surprised. I never look at that.

So I'm glad I checked that. I feel pretty good about that. I'm going to try to hit 3,000 by the end of the week, or by next week, I should say. And I think it's possible, although 60s more than it sounds like, I'll tell you that. So maybe it'll be more like the end of the month here. But I take that vocab app, Skritter, I use that study session. Since it's on my phone, I can do this at airport gates while I'm sitting on the plane. You know that downtime, Jason, where you're on the plane, you have to have your seatbelt,

everyone else is boarding. You can't really do anything because there's no point pulling out your laptop because they're going to tell you to put away in five minutes. So you're checking Instagram, but you just checked Instagram because you were at the gate for an hour. So I do the vocab there, and it doesn't require you to be online. So you can use that on the plane, and then I'll just run it down, and it'll quiz you on a certain number of vocab each day, and I just run it down to zero. And otherwise, if I'm not traveling, which seems to be all the time right now, I'll run it in the morning.

I can do it in my bed. I mean, it's really easy to quiz yourself on that. You just knock it out. You'll keep all of these words top of mind, and it will quiz you on old, to make sure you still have it. So use Skritter, if you're using Chinese, Japanese, or a similar Anki. I'll link to that in the show notes, A-N-K-I, those intelligent flashcard systems, that's all open source.

So you can find it for any language you want. Also, find meetups with other people, friends who speak that language. Easier if you're in California and you want to learn Spanish, that's really easy. You can find people everywhere who will do that. You can hire somebody who cleans houses in the morning if you want to to come over, in the evening and literally sit with you for a cup of coffee for an hour for 10 bucks or something like that, 20 bucks, and they will talk to you and teach you Spanish. If you're trying to learn Georgian or something, you're going to have a harder time. So I recommend lessons on Skype.

And if you need a referral to my Skype teachers, they teach, there's a company I use, name escapes me, but I'll have Jen write a referral for you. They teach everything. I mean, they've got it's German, Spanish, French, of course, but there's every language that you could pretty much imagine is in there. And I've even written them for specialty stuff and they say, hold on, let me see if we can find someone because they outsource the teaching to these different teachers in different countries. So you get a native speaker of the language, and I think it ends up being like 15 to 20 bucks an hour, which is dirt cheap for Skype lessons with a native speaker. These are all one-on-one at your leisure. So if you're only free at 10 p.m. at night and you want one-on-one lessons,

to learn Russian, you can get that for a very, very reasonable price. So I'm happy to refer people there as well. And last but not least, treat these, schedule it into your day and treat it like going to the gym, treat it like a business meeting, because otherwise you'll say, well, I'm never going to use this Chinese stuff

or I'm never really going to use Russian. I'm just trying to keep my brain sharp or healthy. So you'll deprioritize it. And the problem with that is that when you deprioritize the language, you just don't use it. and then when you go back to taking lessons three months later, you end up going, oh, crap, I thought I learned this. And it's very demotivating to have to reactivate the language every time.

So I would say a couple hours a week. You don't have to do this an hour a day. You can do, for me, I take my Skype lessons on the weekend. I do two hours on Saturday and an hour on Sunday. A lot of it is just me reading books. And the teacher going, you said that wrong, you said that wrong, you said that wrong, you said that wrong, you know. Because I'm reading these dumb characters. I can't freaking remember all of them where I pronounce it weird.

So that's most of what I'm doing and it's fun. It's really easy. And you can even do the Skype lessons. If you're getting to the point where you're conversational, I can just tell the teacher, look, shut off the video, we're not using the blackboard. I can go for a walk outside or even driving in my car and I can just have a conversation with my Chinese teacher in Chinese on Skype using my phone. And that's the practice.

So there's really no excuse for this. Oh, I don't have time. you can just easily create the time. You can do this on your commute with a Skype teacher and with these apps. So it's really, really easy to learn and retain any language that you want to learn. So if you want a referral to that

or you're looking for those flashcard apps, hit the show notes or email me, Jordan atjurbaner.com will get you the referral to the teachers. But I love it. I love that people are looking at learning languages and I'm happy to help. All right, next up.

Hey, Jordan and Jason. Thank you for the great knowledge you share with your audience. My highlight of the week is always Feedback Friday. Since listening to your show, I've taken on board some of the shared wisdom and have now managed to find a new career in sales. This was based on your tip that everybody should learn the art of sales and selling. Thank you. I will be attending training with my new company and want to ensure I'm committing the ideas they teach to memory.

This will then give me the cognitive space to make these ideas my own and meld with my personality and eventually lead to a fulfilling career. With this in mind, I'll be attending lectures supplemented by reading and online videos. All of this will involve note-taking. Do you have any tips on how to take notes like a pro? I prefer writing down ideas using traditional pen and paper. After taking notes, I find I don't do much with them and forget some, okay, a lot, of the good content provided. So I guess my question is two parts. A, how do you take good notes to begin with?

B, and what should I do to synthesize the content afterwards when reviewing notes? When reviewing notes afterwards, I'm not opposed to the idea of using electronic devices, apps, etc. Thanks, not sure how to take notes. So this is going to surprise some people, maybe not surprise other people who have known me for a while. I am a terrible note taker. I took terrible notes in high school. I took terrible notes in college. I took terrible notes in law school.

I actually gave up on taking notes in law school. I would just copy other people's notes. I would get outlines from really organized people. And I would find the people who made the outline. And I would not trick but persuade them into teaching me the content of the outline. sort of selling them in the idea that if they taught me the content of the outline, that they would learn it better, which was 100% true. And so I ended up making friends with some really, really smart people

who taught me all of the content from the outline. I was just not a good note taker. Now, I plow through books and I take notes using quotes. I take quotes and then explain what those quotes are at the bottom of it. So I'll make an outline like someone will say electronics are analog in the future AI will be completely in the blockchain or something like that. And I'll just put a little bullet below that and I'll say, ask them to explain this. So bear in mind, this entire show that you're listening to is essentially an offshoot of how I studied for the bar exam, how I studied for law

school. I write something down that is interesting or that I don't understand. And then I simply have the author of the book or whatever guests are having on the show, explain it to me. Right? I have not developed that much in this area because actually my terror, style of or lack of taking notes has turned into coincidentally a really good way to prepare for a show where you're going to interview the person who's created the content. Does that make sense, Jason? Yeah, totally makes sense. But it's it's, I think it's kind of cheating compared to what he's looking for. It is. That's totally not what he's looking for, right? He wants to learn how to commit ideas to memory and stuff like that. So what I would say, what I would suggest if possible, and this is

what worked for me because I am just not the guy. If you can get ready made notes or notes for from other people and then you can discuss those with other people, you're gonna end up learning a lot more if you're anything like me. But I don't have a very good sort of real time, this is how you see what's important unless you're looking for concepts that are repeated and then writing those down.

I'm always a conversational listener and I had so much trouble listening to lectures that I almost can't even do it. And when I think back to law school, I really don't, there are a whole, classes where I remember going, I don't remember listening to this guy for one minute in the entire semester. You know, and it's kind of a shame because I had a chance to learn from some brilliant people, but I am just not able to sit there and listen to a lecture. It's impossible for me,

and it always has been. So when I was in school and having to do lectures, this was a long time ago. So, you know, I'll update this for modern technology, but I had a micro-cassette recorded that I would take with me and record the lectures and then go back later and pull out the salient points and write those down because I'm like, I cannot listen and take notes during a lecture because I just get into it and I want to, you know, absorb it while I'm listening to it. And I miss most of the important points that are going to come up on a test later. Nowadays, I'd say get a Zoom H1 to record lectures because they're cheap. And then you can go back in an MP3 and scrub through and then write them down and then go back over them that way.

If you need to like do it over and over again to memorize it. But yeah, that's the only way that I took notes in class. I was in photography school. So it was more hands-on and not so brainy as your legal stuff, the lawyer, man. Yeah, I was just unable to pay attention to that stuff. And even when studying for the bar exam, I sort of hacked that process as well. And the way that, and I'll just, this is a little freebie bonus for anybody thinking about taking the bar exam. I don't even know if they still do this, but they used to force you to go to a live class. And of course, their idea was, look, you'll learn better in a live class. But here's, here's the rub, Jason. And this is such a load of shite. You'd show up to the live class. And unless you were in New York or something like that where they would teach, normally they would only teach it in the state where you were going to take the bar. So if you were taking the New York bar exam, but you were living in Michigan like we were,

you had to go to New York to take the class. And so they decided to expand on the California and New York and I think maybe the Chicago, like the big bars. And they would send video to you of old lectures where they would teach the prep for the exam. So you'd show up to a live class and you'd watch a videotape for like three or, or whatever hours every single day. Oh, that's painful. It was brutal.

So what I did is I said, oh, my God, I know I can't learn that way. This is going to be a waste of time. And I want to travel. You had to stay in Michigan the whole summer to watch these VHS tapes of these lectures so you could prepare for the bar. And everyone's like, well, it's a worthwhile sacrifice at the bar exam. And I was like, look, I'm following your logic, but F you, right? So I called them and I said, is there any way that I can learn not going to a live class?

I'm unable to attend the live class. And they said, you have to attend. And I said, what if I live in Africa? And they went, well, if you live in Africa and you went to Michigan law, then I would need to see a reason that you're going to be in Africa. And I would go, okay, so what you want is proof that I'm going to be gone. And they said, yeah, but you have to leave the country. You can't just go home and spend the summer your home residence and not take the class. You have to leave the country and you have to have a good reason to leave the country.

So I booked a law school class in another country that was a Caribbean island, and I showed them the itinerary, and they sent me all of the classes on an iPod. Oh, my God. Did you then, like, cancel the plane trip and get your money back? No, I went to the Caribbean, man. They said on the beach, listen to your iPod? Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

And the iPod was they had claimed if you try to plug it into the computer, it will, automatically erase itself and then somehow notify them. I mean, it's probably just BS. Yeah, back then there's no way that that's a hand in the tech for that. They're so paranoid that you're going to pirate the stuff that they won't let you have access to it. That was the reason they made you go to the class and then they would send the VHS tapes, but there was a person who was in control of the tapes and that person, you know,

wouldn't let anyone else touch them and all this stuff. So you get this iPod and they're like, we have watermarked everything on here. If it's shared, we're going to find you, you know, it was like very intimidating. anti-piracy stuff. But yeah, it was awesome to be able to learn that. So anytime someone says you have to be somewhere to do something, always ask about the exceptions. And if they say there's no exception, try the Africa thing because Africa is so neglected by

businesses that there's usually they'll say, well, fine. In that case, we would do this totally crazy thing that's going to cost you an extra $600 bucks. I think it cost me an extra $600. But it was worth it. I saved like 100 plus hours of sitting in a crappy, air-conditioned classroom in Michigan during the summer and I was able to go to Caribbean instead. Nice.

Yeah. Love that. Or is the winter. Sorry, it's the winter. I was able to go to the Caribbean instead. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan.

I am at a turning point in my life. I'm 18 and will be finishing high school in a few months. I need to decide what to study after school. I live in the UK and I'm currently studying maths, physics, and chemistry. I'm very good at these and work hard to get top grades. I've got two options on the table after high school. to study sports science at a top UK university or study engineering with a local company that will sponsor me on the whole degree while I work for them and get paid.

I know which option looks much better on paper, but I don't like the thought of being office-bound all my life. Also, although I'm great at maths and science, my love is for exercise, nutrition, and psychology, hence the sports science option. I want to do sports science, but feel like I should take the apprenticeship option due to the range of benefits it has. Do you have any advice on how to stop procrastinating on this decision and take a confident step forward into the next stage of my life.

All the different ideas about skill acquisition, mastery, and passion make it hard to get beyond all the noise. I love your show and thank you for all the wisdom you share on the podcast. Keep up the good work. Thanks. Office or locker room. All right. So my mentality behind this is never pay for school if you don't have to.

Anything free comes with a price is something you should also remember. So yeah, they're going to pay for it and then I wouldn't have student loans. I totally, I am behind that. But here's the problem. If you're passionate about one but not the other, you have to go for the one you like. And I don't, I'm not saying follow your passion because I hate that, but you are given a choice right now about a career path. You have both of these options are on the table. You're not like, should I move to L.A. and become a famous rock musician or should I get a job as an engineer?

That would be a very easy choice for me to explain to you, right? But right now you have both options on the table. Sports science might not be something that you end up loving, but that's okay. You're going to always regret it if you don't give it a shot, especially since you got into a top UK university. And that seems really exciting to you. It would be one thing if you're on the fence. But if you know you love one thing and you have just no interest in the other except that it's free, I don't think it's worth the time and money going down a path you already know you don't want to go down. And I know that they say you don't have to pay.

but you're paying with your time, which is kind of worse, right? Because you're not going to leave that college and then go, you know what, I don't like engineering. Peace. They're going to say, whoa, you signed a contract. You either have to give us, you know, 60 grand or whatever your education costs over there in Europe, or you've got to work for us for six years or five years or however long it is. That's a long time, man, to do something that you kind of already know you don't like. That's not, I don't know.

I, you only live once. I did this with law, right? I'm going to go to law school because more education is better. I liked law school, but if I had a choice to do it again, I definitely wouldn't. I knew I wasn't going to be a lawyer. I knew I wasn't interested in it. I only did it because I had nothing else to do and I was afraid I couldn't get a job with just a four-year degree, which might have been true.

But I don't think that's a reason to go and get an education in a system or in a profession that you're not really interested in. So I say sports science, man. At the end, no one can make this decision for you, but it's really tough for me to say go do engineering just because it's free, even though you don't necessarily like it, when you have another opportunity on the table. You don't have to sell a kidney to go to that university, especially in the UK. So I would say go with the subject that you are interested in and you probably won't regret it versus going with the engineering thing and almost certainly. regretting that. So this is sort of a choice between lesser than. And for you, I hope that you're really happy at that top UK university and that you have the time of your life. And I hope I'm

leading you down the right path. I would just be very, very careful about getting an education and a job and a profession just because it's quote unquote free. All right. Next up. Hey, Jordan and Jason. I've been a fan for years and I'm super grateful for the wisdom you guys share. Also, really digging grumpy old geeks, a ride. The last episode had me giggling to myself like a crazy person at work. good stuff. I have a bit of a dilemma that I need help with. Over the last month or so, I learned that one of my close friends who I've known for about three years is a compulsive liar. She's a colorful character. What you guys would call a woo-woo type and blames the chakras for things that are clearly the result of a lack of personal responsibility. To be fair, I'm okay with a little

woo-woo. I like the occasional tarot reading as a tool for reflection only. I dig crystals. I'm heavy into yoga and meditation, but I also have a deep respect for good old-fashioned science in handling shit like an adult. Anyway, I always sort of knew she embellished to make herself look better, especially when meeting new people. For example, I'm a life coach is something I've heard her say several times. Grown. Yeah.

But since introducing her to a few of my other friends, we started noticing that she lies about damn near everything. For example, she just started working part-time for a good friend of mine, who have known for over 15 years and is stable as hell so I know she's not BSing. I asked her how the new job was going and she said she got a promotion on her second day. I knew right away that that was a lie because I had wine with my stable friend the night before and she told me how things were actually going so far. This week she, the liar, said they offered her a full-time job to which she replied,

I can't work full-time because then I won't have time to garden. What? Oh, my God. Time to garden? Okay. I thought it was great she was offered full time. And when I told my other friend that I thought it was awesome, she said that never happened. What the actual F?

I feel like I can't trust this friend anymore. Well, she's a professional gardener, obviously, so never trust. Never trust a pro gardener. Seriously. Here's a side note. She always talks about how she used to be a hairdresser and she wants to start cutting hair again. I was stoked about having her do my hair and got my first and last haircut from her a month ago. Worst haircut ever.

I'm pretty sure she was never a hairdresser. and she charged me a ridiculous amount of money for it. I love this woman and I think she's a good person, albeit a little crazy, but am I better off without this friendship? Do I call her on her bullshit or just move on? I value my spare time because I have a very busy schedule. I work a ton of a job I love and I spend a lot of my off time at the gym and at yoga. I read a lot, listen to your podcasts and travel.

I don't have a ton of friends and I really believe that we become the company we keep. What's your take on this, Jordan and Jason? Sincerely stuck in a web of lies. Look, I know that you like her and that she's fun, but I am a firm believer. You only go as high as her five closest friends. That said, you're not going to become a crazy person from staying around her. But this is a crazy person, make no mistake. This is a very insecure person, possibly delusional, most likely just very, very, very insecure

and wants other people to like her. You can try saying something about this, but I don't think you going, hey, look, we kind of suspect you've been lying about a bunch of stuff is going to result in her going, yeah, you're right. I just want people to like me, so I make up all this crap and, you know, you caught me. I guess I'll stop doing that. This is a habit she's developed over years. She thinks she's getting away with it. A lot of other people are probably humoring her.

She's probably built and burned a ton of relationships just like the one you have with her. So you could say something to her about it, but I don't think it's going to fix the problem. In fact, I don't even think she's going to admit that you're right. I think she's going to laugh and go, what? what are you talking about? Of course I was a hairdresser. No, you're just being mean about the haircut. You know, I don't think she's going to say anything that's going to fix this or even maybe make an effort to fix it. You guys are adults. I just, I think she's nuts, man.

Jason, I hate, I'm sorry, but you probably know people like this, right? Yeah, after a long time living in San Francisco and L.A., this could be like three of my recent exes, I think. And yeah, if you do confront her on it, she's going to withdraw and maybe not even speak to you again, and it's not going to fix anything. You know, it's one of those things where you can still remain friends, but keep her at an arm's distance, not really bring her into your circles because she's going to embarrass you, like she probably already is with your friend with the new job. And, you know, I would just, you know, be cocktail buddies on the weekends if you still want

to keep her in your life, but don't really include her in a lot of your other circles, because that's what I did with some of my exes and it really kind of bit me in the butt because They, a couple of them were crazy. They were just flat out crazy. And it was the same thing. Very woo-woo. Very into the chakras, I have to say. And you can't fix it.

They're on their own path. They're in their own reality most of the time. And there's nothing that you can say or do. If you try and bring them out of it, it's just going to shatter their reality. They're going to get more depressed and pull away from you. And you may never even talk to them again. And I'm not, I don't want to give the impression that we're calling people who believe in the chakra crystal things insane people. I don't believe in that stuff, but I don't think people who believe in it are literally insane.

But I want to highlight the reason that a lot of people believe in this stuff, and if you're listening to this and you think I'm talking about you, I'm probably not. So relax. But the reason that a lot of people will believe and blame things like this is because they can say, oh, well, the universe wanted this to happen. It's like, or I manifested this or this happened because everything happens for a reason. It's like, no, it happened because you didn't pay your rent, you know? And oh, well, you know, this is that. I should have lit a red candle in the wind. No, this happened because you didn't pay your friends back, the money that you owed them.

Or this happened because you cheated on him. You know, that kind of thing. They're outsourcing. It's called, I think it's called spiritual bypassing. Although I could be, that could be something else. Don't quote me on that. I think that it might be called spiritual bypassing. In fact, there's a book by that title that I've got on my audible.

And I kind of wanted to have the author come by and talk about this subject. but you've got to be very careful with people like this. Because not only is she lying, but she's figured out a way to somehow turn that into, well, this is part of my system of beliefs. Yeah. And it's like, no, this, we all exist in a common reality. We have differences in how we experience that reality, but we all exist in this common reality. And so if this person is using that, it's only a matter of time until this becomes something

bad for you. Like right now it's a bad haircut, but this could result in something really, really bad happening and you can never rely on her for anything important ever yeah you really want friends like that i don't want friends like that personally yeah and it wasn't just the chakras that i was talking about with the woo it's the coupling of the two the two problems with the lying and the the other and those together are what it for me causes the red flag because it's a way to shirk responsibility like you call it spiritual bypassing i call it just shirking responsibility and saying it wasn't my fault because the universe.

Go enjoy your crystals and your chakra. Have fun. I don't care. But the lying is really the problem. And using that kind of mentality to bypass reality is the issue that I see. All right. So spiritual bypassing, not exactly the same thing. Spiritual bypassing is when you use spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with

painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs. In other words, you know, you have a personal issue like somebody close to you passes away, but you're like, no, I've got to think positive, and you just completely avoid that whole thing because positivity, things like that. That's, or you're going through depression, so you go to an ashram to learn meditation because you need to focus and be Zen. And it's like, no, no, no, there's something else going on here. So that's kind of what that, that's spiritual bypassing. Still really interesting. I'm still keen on that topic, but I think I just mislabeled it here, FYI, so don't be confused.

But, yeah, the moral here is run. All right, next up. Jordan, after listening to your interview on the art of manliness, and following up with quite a few of your own podcasts through Spotify, you sound like the right person to ask. I've lived quite the Rocky Road. Woke up from a coma 12 years ago. Four years ago, a doctor botched a procedure on my leg,

and I've been fighting since then to not amputate the thing. Many other challenges I'm leaving out for brevity, i.e. homelessness, losing a high-end job, theft, etc., etc. Since my head injury, I've had a difficult time wrapping my head around this social media thing, be it Facebook or even phones. I have bags and bags of people's business cards, a ton of contacts in my phone, all these people that I've lost contact with while working to build my foundation in life. While I've been working in my cave and designing things, I'm realizing that these designs are to be shared with people.

I'm looking for a tactful way to reintroduce myself to the world as I crawl out of the Merck. Signed, home, but not hiding. Wow, this is some genuinely terrible luck. Coma, bad, leg possibly getting amputated. losing your job, homelessness. I mean, I don't know the whole story, and I guess we don't really need to, but genuinely, sorry to hear that. There's just no, that's really getting piled on.

Yeah. So here, let's give you some real strategies here. Grab the cards, the business cards, the stack of business cards, add the contacts to your phone. Go get a LinkedIn account. Forget all of the other social media for now. When you're just starting social media, LinkedIn's really easy to manage. It doesn't bug you as much as things like Facebook, Instagram. You don't have to be an artist and a photographer to engage on it.

You don't even have to post on there in order to get people to see your content and things like that. You can really just use it like a Rolodex in the beginning. So once you're in LinkedIn, add all of the people whose cards you have. LinkedIn will ask you to add your contacts from your phone, most likely anyway, which is why I told you to add them to your phone. Then send these people if you have their mobile number, send them a text message to reengage. You can also email them if you don't have that or if you feel like that's more appropriate. it. This is called the text reengagement or Gmail roulette. In fact, I actually made some videos about this. They're not up yet, but they'll be up next week at the last week of April at advancedhuman dynamics.com.

We'll link that in the show notes. Right now, it's just a placeholder. But I've got a bunch of missions for networking, reengaging contacts, things like that. And you'll ask these people how you can help them get what they want. Don't worry about your designs for now. Connect people in your network that you have to each other as it makes sense. sense for them to know each other. And that's going to be using something called the double opt-in intro. So by the time you hear this, go ahead and bookmark advancedhumanidynamics.com, the challenges and missions will be up the last week of April, if not sooner. And you can run through those, and this will help with this exact problem that you're dealing with. Can't do much about the

leg, can't do much about the head injury. But I do want to help you get back into this. Don't worry about, don't have phomo about social media. It's mostly a waste of your time. in is really, really great for networking, especially if you're just getting started, it's not going to overwhelm you. So use those techniques, and then go to advancedhumandynamics.com, and you'll see those missions there, and that will help you go through step by step on how to get this done. And I wish you all the best of luck, because I know that learning this from scratch can be really tough, especially if you've been in your so-called cave working on designs, this might not be second nature for you. So you're exactly the type of person I've made these challenges

and missions for in the first place. All right, next up. Jason, I started writing this before your switch, and I'm glad I waited to email you guys. I'm a middle school counselor, and I've found a lot of value in the content you put out, both on a personal and professional level. So many of the kids I work with have similar stories to the successful guests you have on the show. They give me hope that one day the kids I serve now will be giving interviews, telling their stories of the highs and lows that were on their journey in what led them to success. The interviews from Ed Latimore and Eric Thomas, from your old show, were especially in Lightning.

My question is what, if anything, could someone in my position say to the 11 to 13 year old version of yourself that would have a meaningful impact? I do my best to be supportive, empathetic, and meet my students where they are, but I always question whether my conversations go in one ear and out the other, or if I'm planting seeds that will eventually take root and grow, leading them on a successful path. I'm sure it's a little of both depending on the student and the situation. I love the work I do with my students and am always trying to gain insight on how to better serve my kids. any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for all your hard work and best of luck with the new show. Sincerely, middle school mayhem.

So first of all, I'm so glad to hear this kind of question. I think most counselors and teachers do think about this, but I also think that y'all are just overwhelmed with everything else you have to do, including like paying your own bills and getting your own insurance. I'm watching this teacher strike. My mom was a public school teacher, and I remember seeing some of the horrific ways in which teachers are treated. and it's really a shame.

And a lot of people in my family are teachers. So that whole thing about teachers just being selfish and being overpaid is just such complete BS. Teachers don't make nearly enough. And most teachers that I know end up spending their own money on their classroom so that they can have books and stuff like that. It's just really aggravating and it angers me to see. And I donate a lot to teachers and try to supply things like that for kids because I think

it's important. So go to donors choose.org. link to that in the show notes. You can actually pick individual classrooms. You could find a school in your area that probably needs like 200 bucks to buy colored pencils for their art class for the whole damn school and they don't have it. You know, it's really, you can make a huge difference with a little bit of money. It's something like that for school kids. Anyway, what you're asking me, middle school mayhem, it's not what you say, but it's how you treat them. So I would say give kids extra responsibility. Tell kids things in private because you know

they can handle it. And you can even say, look, I know you can handle this. So I'm going to give you this little assignment. I know you're a counselor, not a teacher, so maybe you don't have the right to assign homework, but you can give kids something to do. You can make it really lax, really easy. Say, hey, just do this at some point this week or do this at some point this month, this week or next. Tell the kids they can handle more than they've got because kids can handle more than they've got. You can even say, look, you're smarter, you're hardworking, and you want to compliment, this is important. You want to compliment work ethic over smarts because that increases resilience. People who fail but are told they're smart, they often give up when they fail. While resilient

people who've built resilience and think of themselves as hard workers, those people often do not give up when they fail. So this is actually really, really important this distinction. A lot of people don't realize this. If you tell a kid they're smart, then when they hit resistance, they'll think, oh, well, I've reached the limits of my smart. If you tell them, them they're a hard worker, they'll work through pretty much anything that they can. And they'll ask for help to do it. There's studies that show this. I want to say this is in Carol Dweck's book. Jason, do you remember this? This sound familiar? Yeah, this is in the book mindset. I was going to say, check out the old interview we did on the old show with Carol. She was fantastic. And she goes

over a lot of this stuff, but definitely read the book mindset because this is this is directly applicable to how you should be talking to these kids and what you can do to motivate them and keep them on the right path. This might also be Angela Duckworth, too. I get the, the, the concepts confused. Angela Duckworth, also a teacher. And I remember this. I found that out,

of course, reading her bio when we did the old show with her, but my wife's cousin was like, hey, Jordan, you interviewed Ms. Duckworth. Isn't that crazy? And I went,

why are you calling her Miss Duckworth? And he's like, oh, yeah, I was the class clown in one of her classes. Oh, wow. That's crazy. Small world, right? Yeah.

So she taught like this as well. So you want to frame this like, look, I'm giving you this because you're smart and you're a hard worker, and I know you have this potential. Then ask the kids, why they think you are giving them more responsibility and more work.

You don't have to do it the next sentence because they'll go, you just told me, weirdo. You can ask them why you think that you're giving them more responsibility. And make them answer this and make sure that they know, look, I'm a hard worker. I see great. Let them know. You see greatness. You see potential in them.

I remember teachers like this from my past, even as far back as third grade. This stuff is huge. I remember the first time a teacher said, you know you're really good at writing and i went whoa i am yeah you're really good at reading really well i kind of knew that i mean my mom said that and i know i can read better than everyone else but nobody seems to have noticed those are really important things for kids to hear because even though they might know it already they don't hear it nearly enough they hear general praise if if that and sometimes kids who don't come from great homes they don't get that also encourage hobbies if you see a good writer

give them an added project of writing you something extra you don't have to make a it too hard. You know, you can tell them, hey, look, you're pretty good at that. Why don't you write me a story about what you do this weekend? You know, one page is fine. Okay. If you see a good artist, have them draw you something. And you don't have to say, I want you to draw me your picture of your pet. Give it to me on Monday. You can say, hey, my office needs some pictures. You want to draw me a picture of your new pet? Great, sure. You want to encourage things like that. They're going to appreciate that. And then, yes, put it up in your office. If you request drawings of kids' pets or kids' families and you put those up in your office,

I know it's middle school, but there's a sense of pride that goes with things like that. And I know that you're thinking, oh, their parents put stuff on the fridge. You don't know that. Some of these kids have parents that could not care less that they made a drawing. I know plenty of kids like that growing out, you know, and they just didn't have anybody that seemed to pay any attention to them at all. Most kids never really get more than basic recognition for things or they get grades. Seldom is there a moment like Dan Heath, that interview we did with Dan Heath. Seldom is there a moment that really sticks out for people?

And I emailed Dan Heath this question. Dan Heath was kind enough to reply. He sent a book chapter from one of his books that focuses on things like this. I sent this to middle school mayhem. But you can find that in the book with Dan Heath, if you're a teacher or a counselor and you're interested in this, the book of moments. There's things that really stick out for people in there. And I think this is really important.

I'm really glad you asked me this question because I've been thinking about this. There are a lot of kids that really do need just a little bit of encouragement and they'll remember it for decades and it'll make all the difference, even though you think, well, they don't care, they won't care, they don't listen or their parents are giving it to them, you just don't know that. You could be the only person in their life that's telling them things like this or that notices that they're good artists or that notices that they can write. You could be the only person.

It is important. All right, recommendation of the week. Jason, you're up, man. I was traveling all week, filming some awesome interviews for the show, by the way. I was traveling too, but I snuck in Wild Wild Country, which is a Netflix documentary. series. Oh my God. This is amazing. It's about this Indian guru, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh. It was a thing back in the 80s in Oregon, and they basically built a town

for his cult. Wait, they built a town for his cult? Yes, his cult built a town called Rajneesh Param. And it's the story of the town of the cult, Rajneesh Param, and the locals and the fights that they got into and the cult itself. It's an amazing. It's an amazing story. It blew my mind that this thing happened here in the States, and I'd never known about it. It is a full-blown city that these guys built just for the members of the cult, and they, you know, went to war with the town who was right next door, and then eventually the state of Oregon and then the government. It's crazy. And this just happened to the 80s. That was the 80s?

Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's a lot more recent than you'd think. Yeah, because I feel like whenever I hear creepy stuff like that it's always some 60s-ish like oh we have a love cults and you know we do all this weird psychedelic stuff or not so weird psychedelic stuff and then we we did it one too many times and now we're in peru or like you know south or central america and we have a cult and you know are getting attacked or attacking other people this man the cult stuff is so fascinating i you know we tried to get a cult researcher on the show and we couldn't because she just couldn't talk about it anymore. She just could not do it.

She just mentally couldn't do it. She used to infiltrate cults. And she's like, no, I just, I never want to talk about it again. I never want to do it again. I just can't do it. She used to go into cults and rescue people. So her thing was parents or family members would send her into the cult and say, my son or daughter's trapped in here, and she would go try to rescue them from the cult.

And it's, the stories that she has are insane, but she wouldn't do an interview. She just says, I can't. I just can't deal. I can't blame her after watching this. And the crazy thing about this one is the main guy, Rajneesh, had a personal assistant named Ma Nan Sheila. And Sheila basically ran everything. She had like a power of attorney and put everything together.

And I mean, her power trip was incredible. Her whole story is incredible. But the great thing about the documentary is she's in it, like present day. and talking about everything that happened, it's a lot of historical footage, a lot of interviews with everybody that was there. It's really deep and really well done. It's like 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Highly recommended. Everybody I know that started watching it has binged it like within two days. Wild Wild Country on Netflix. I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget you can email us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. That'll get your questions answered on the air.

We're happy to keep you anonymous, of course. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Did a little giveaway. I've got these blue blockers. Everyone loves these things. They're called Swanis from Swanwick Sleep. We'll link to that in the show notes. I'm giving away a few pairs of these.

The first couple winners, Kelvin S and Nikki F. I didn't ask permission to use their last name. They just asked me some sleep-related questions, and so I decided to have these sent out to them. If you're interested in a pair of blue light blocking sunglasses, well, they're not really these sunglasses, they're blue light blockers. And what they do is they, if you work late on your computer, they help condition your, I don't even know how to explain this. Basically, they block the blue light.

So if you have trouble going to bed because you're on your computer and your devices or watching stuff till late, then that's a problem. Try to break that habit. But if you don't have a choice, then let me know. Tell me why you deserve a pair of swanies. Email me, Jordan atjurbinger.com, and I'll have a pair sign out to you. I've got a dozen or so that I can give away here. And they're stylish as well.

They're the best blue blockers around there. Dunbam, my friend James Swenwick. Quick shout out to Andrew McDougal in Australia. He's a former Blackhawk pilot, forging his own path now, urging me to take my own advice sometimes. Amen to that, brother. And James Jordan also reminding us, hey, man, you got this far. You can do it again. I really appreciate the support from everybody that's been pouring in.

Jason and I all do. The whole team does. We share that stuff in our team base camp, and we share the praise, and we share the feedback. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger, which is also a great way to engage with the show. Jason, tell them where to find you. I'm on Instagram at JPD, and Twitter is JP. Def. That's JPDF. And you can check out my other podcast, Grumpy Old Geeks. All right. Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com.

Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. I'm 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. sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what, that actually happened? You got to subscribe to What Was That Like?

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