The Jordan Harbinger Show - 337: COVID Clearly Crushing Careers | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

While we're trying to avoid talking directly about the current pandemic, there's no doubt COVID-19 is clearly crushing careers. Gretchen Rubin helps us ensure we can still be productive during this time. Also, Dorie Clark joins us to talk a teenager through coming out as gay a non-supportive environment. We have a lot happening here on 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/337. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: If you're wondering how to come out as gay when you're 13 and surrounded by non-supportive family and friends who might distance themselves because of their religious beliefs, Dorie Clark's got some wisdom to impart. As a freelancer, how do you get more remote-work contracts instead of onsite offers during the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis? Is your ADHD to blame for taking on more work than you can possibly handle, and does your imposter syndrome make you try too hard, or is there something else at play here? Your recently graduated girlfriend needs to get a job, move out of her parents' house, and become independent to make progress, but she doesn't seem particularly motivated even when there's not a global pandemic to navigate around. How can you be encouraging without nagging? You had a great job interview lined up, and then COVID-19 struck. How can you stay on the radar to have a leg up when things have calmed down and it's time to meet your prospective employer -- without coming off as too needy? How has fatherhood changed Jordan? Have new curiosities developed, and does he wish he could ask past guests different questions now? Your dementia-suffering mother's caregiver seems to be getting double-paid -- once by you and once by your mother. She does good work, but it's bothering you. What's the least awkward way to clear up the matter? Is COVID-19 crushing careers? Clearly. Outer Order, Inner Calm author Gretchen Rubin can help us remain productive during these weird times. Life Pro Tip: If you have an iPhone, you can set defined times when "do not disturb" mode goes on. Then you only get calls from your favorites and when they call you three times consecutively. It also works when you connect to a car for phone calls and prevents you from getting notifications while driving. Recommendation of the Week: The Tiger King 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 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 DePhilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. If you're new to the show, on Fridays, we give advice to you and answer listener questions. The rest of the week, we have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, to authors, to thinkers and performers. And this week we had Kevin Sistram, founder of Instagram. We had a great chat about futurism, social media, what you do when you've made a billion dollars and you actually want to make a difference in the world.

He's very sharp and accessible. So you'll dig this one, whether you're interested in business, the media landscape, or not at all interested, but just like smart conversations. I also write every so often on the blog. The latest post is about why your network is the best insurance policy that money cannot buy. And I think a lot of people, according to my inbox,

a lot of people have learned that lesson the hard way now that we're in this coronavirus lockdown because a lot of people got laid off right before this, Jason, I'm sure you heard that. A ton of people got laid off like the Friday before everyone was going to work from home. Oh, yeah. And what I found ironic slash sad

was a lot of folks who told me, I don't really need to do six minute networking. I'm naturally good at networking. Are now like, hey, do you know where I can find a job? And I'm like, reach out to all this network that you're so naturally good at making and maintaining. And they're like, uh, I kind of only knew my people at work and in my industry.

Well, they've got lots of time right now to check out six-minute networking. Yeah, I have a lot of time to do the course. Didn't really dig the well before you got thirsty. You dug a hole. It looked like a well, but there was no water in it. Oops. So, of course, our primary mission here on the Jordan Harpenter show

is to pass along our guests and our own insights and experience along to you. In other words, the real purpose of the show is to have conversations directly with you, and that's what we're going to do today and every Friday here on Feedback Friday. I just want to place one brick in the structure that makes up your life.

That's really what this podcast is about. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Now, we're not talking about coronavirus. A lot of people are like, why aren't you talking about this? Or thanks for not talking about this. We're not talking about coronavirus that much, really, because I don't want to spread fear. I don't want to spread drama.

There's plenty of that already. Also, I'd only give you vetted and accurate information, which takes time. I've got a fact check it. I'm no expert. I'm definitely not a doctor. By the time I get into the information and vet it and record it and release it, you've either gotten it somewhere else already,

or it's two weeks old. So you can get that stuff anywhere, but you can only get what we do best from us here. So we're just focusing on what we do best, and breaking news ain't it. And I don't want to be one of those people who's like, oh, you know, there's a cure and it's this random pill?

Oh, it turns out it's untested. I mean, all that stuff is garbage. If you want that, you can literally look at every other website on the internet and half of the podcasts. So to those asking us why we're not talking about this, That's why. It's not to say we won't do a show with an expert or two, but I don't know, Jason, how much of this do we need? You know, that's my question. I feel like I'm getting this 24-7. Maybe people listen to us because they don't want to freaking hear about this stuff anymore. Yeah, you can't turn the TV on without hearing about it 24-7, so let's do something different.

What's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, guys, I have a pretty big problem and I don't know what to do. I'm having conflicting feelings about coming out as a lesbian. I think that I might be gay, but I have a lot of, of close Christian friends that I would lose if I came out as a lesbian. They wouldn't be able to be my friends because of their religious beliefs, and they have told me this multiple times. My parents are also quite traditional, and I'm not sure how they would react either. Despite having one or two close gay friends, I would lose many friendships because of this. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, considering I'm only 13, but I don't know what to do or how to do it. It might sound stupid, but I feel scared and worried a lot of the time because of

this and I'm so confused. I don't know what to do. Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks, confused about coming out. This question is tricky for me. Obviously, I am no expert in this area, so I brought in my friend Dory Clark. Dory, at some point, you had to come out to your friends and family and tell them that you were gay, and I can imagine that was scary and not an easy feat. Well, a few thoughts for your listener. Number one, one advantage that she has that I did not coming out in the early 90s is, of course, the internet. And so it sounds like if she is a Jordan Harbinger show listener, she's probably pretty conversant with all of this.

But there's a couple of really important online resources that are useful for anyone, but especially a teenager coming out. One is the Trevor Project, which focuses on LGBT youth. It's the Trevorproject.org. And they operate a hotline where people who are looking to just talk to someone and get advice can call in and they have a lot of great resources on their site. Another one is It Getsbetter.org, which is especially great. The truth is it sucks in general to be a teenager, but especially being gay and being in an environment where that's not necessarily embraced can feel really

isolating. And so it gets better as a project a few years ago where adults, including many gay celebrities, made videos talking about the fact that, yes, it was hard as a teenager, but things are a lot better as an adult, which is almost universally true. A second thing that I will mention is that I think sometimes the conversation around coming out often kind of evokes to people or implies coming out in a really big way, coming out to everybody, marching in the pride parades, letting everybody know that you're gay. But I think something that gets overlooked sometimes is there are different stages and gradations of coming out. And so for this young woman, it's true. It sounds like she does need to come out to someone because she wants to talk about it and she's feeling

confused and she wants some support. But that doesn't necessarily mean she needs to come out to everybody. So I think something to keep in mind is looking for a trusted friend and it could be, you know, some combination of a friend your own age or an adult. Maybe it is a teacher or a coach or an aunt or uncle that you know would be supportive that you can talk to about this. And the key thing would be to make sure, number one, that that person is really trusted that you know that they will keep your confidence. And number two, that they have your back, that they're someone who's supportive of LGBT issues and that they're going to be nice to you because you need someone to be supportive and be nice to you in this process. A third thing to keep in mind, and this might be hard depending.

I mean, my school, I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, the school that I went to, we had 20 kids in my grade. That was it. So it was a very long. limited social pool. And I'm not sure if that's the case for you. But if it is bigger than that, you know, honestly, see if you can find some new friends. Like, you don't have to come out to start that process. You can actually begin looking around and finding other people in your school or in your community that are a little more open-minded so that before you reach the point, if you do, of wanting to come out more widely, that you will have a supportive base in place of friends that are okay and will be accepting of you. Another element that might be useful here is to begin to try to get a little

bit more of a sense of where your parents stand on this. In your message, you say that your parents are quite traditional and you're not sure how they would react. And it wasn't totally clear from your message whether it says despite having one or two close gay friends. I'm not sure if that means that you do or they do. Certainly it would be a good sign if they had gay friends. friends in their life. There's a lot of parents who, they may not be thrilled if their kid is gay, but if they're accepting enough that they have gay friends, then that's a good sign. You can begin to bring it up in sort of a little bit of a roundabout way without putting yourself out there. For instance, if there's an LGBT story in the news, you can just ask an innocent question, just say,

hey, you know, what do you think about this? Mom and dad, get a take from them so that you just know what you're dealing with, that you have a sense of whether they may potentially be a little more understanding than you think, or conversely, if you need to be really, really careful about what you share with them. And then finally, I would say something to keep in mind or think about, at least, this may or may not be a possibility. Something that I did when I realized I was gay and was not going to have a great reception in my little town in North Carolina is I actually conspired to leave. And so I ended up entering an early college program. They had one at Mary Baldwin University in Virginia that I went to. And I was able to cajole my parents into letting me go because, you know, it's kind of a prestigious thing to go to college early. And I just knew that a college campus would be a more supportive place for me. So that was a possibility. If that hadn't have worked, I would have lobbied to go to boarding school or certain states have public magnet schools, like magnet boarding schools. Any of those are possible. and they may get you into a more supportive environment. If that's not a possibility, though,

I mean, ultimately, online can be a great resource for you because there's a lot of places where you can begin to connect and make friends with people, perhaps on Facebook groups or, you know, different things that are around LGBT issues. So I am rooting for you. This is not easy, but you sound like a really mature and wise person. And even if the people around you are not supportive, it really does get better. They have 70,000 videos that have been sent in. And I think part of the reason for that is that so many LGBT adults feel this way, that growing up, you're often in kind of a powerless situation where you just have to deal with the values,

some of which might be narrow-minded around you, but when you get to set your own agenda, when you get to be an adult and pick your own friends and pick your own circumstances, it is so inordinately satisfying, and you can really build a great life for yourself. So I'm really excited for you. I know it might not be easy now,

but we're all rooting for you and cheering you on. Dory, thank you so much. All right, what's next? Hi, Triple J. Do you have any tips on how to get more remote work contracts instead of on-site offers. I'm a freelance IT consultant specializing in imaging, knowledge management, and tech support in Berlin, Germany. Despite corona restrictions, I keep getting offers for on-site work all over Germany, although I offer remote support on my website for a cheaper

fee using team viewer, and many problems can be solved using VPN and cloud services like Azure, Office 365, Atlassian, etc. Yet I can't seem to change the German mentality about remote work. A lot of advice on the web seems to be geared toward employees who want to convince you. Vince their bosses to let them work remotely, but not a lot for freelancers. I'd appreciate any tips and hope you're all safe and healthy in these strange times. Regards, rather work remote. Well, this is a problem that I think is likely to handle itself, actually. People are now seeing their own teams go remote by law,

and so they're going to eventually realize that this is the new normal, at least for the time being. But in the meantime, until employers literally can't ask you to come in, there are a few options here. One, price your on-site work very high and your remote support much lower. It sounds like you're kind of already doing this. Then, though, have an even lower tier where you'll solve the problem remotely while an on-site employee, quote-unquote, helps you with this.

This person who's on site could be somebody who already works for the company. They won't need to do much. They'll just sit there while you work remotely using TeamViewer. But the manager, the decision-maker, might feel like more work is getting done since one of their people is actually sitting there. This way, you're still remote, but the decision maker feels like something else is getting done. Now, if you don't really want to do that or those people aren't available, you can also make a middle tier, so higher pricing than remote only, where you send your own contractor to the company. So it'd be pretty much the same price as on site, except for

you're hiring someone to go and sit there while you do it remotely. You've got to have someone willing to do on site, but they need to be trained and be personable. They don't necessarily need to know that much about the tech. All they can do then is sit there while you fix things and make sure that the client is happy. So you train somebody who's just really nice and personable and maybe good at sales and that person can go out and do it or good at customer service. This person could be young, friendly, professional. Here you're pricing it higher so you can pay your other team member, but you yourself are still remote. So you're safe from all of the travel and all of the whatever you're afraid of out there. Again, I think eventually this problem will solve itself as people get

used to new ways of doing things because they're forced to do that and everyone is working remotely. And if all else fails, just show up to their office in a full hazmat suit and maybe they'll get the point. All right, what's next? Dear Jordan, how do you manage the sense of doing too much? I think I take on too many tasks because, one, my very real diagnosis of ADHD, I hate when people say, oh, it's my ADD when they haven't been diagnosed, and two, my insecurity slash imposter syndrome. I feel like as a black male I have to always prove myself, and so I say I can do everything to make up for the fact that maybe I'm not as confident as I appear. Sometimes this comes back to bite me in the ass, like overbooking myself, not performing at the top of my game, etc. I used to be able to

handle a lot more volume, but since having two kids, I can't do as much. I wrote out a list of all the roles in my life, husband, father, colleague, podcast host, etc. But that still doesn't help me slow down. I know burnout is real and I feel I'm on the brink of it, but I can't slow down now when all the things I want to accomplish in life are in my sights. I just recently started getting accolades at work for my high performance and it's addicting, but then I look back and I haven't been as present with my wife and kids as I should be. I just want to know how you manage this need to be great and do all the things and slow down at the same time. I need some guidance and advice on this. Sincerely, Mr. Doing way too much. Well, maybe you're taking on too much because

your ADHD, but I know tons of people with ADHD and they don't have this problem. So that's not it. It might be a convenient sort of explanation, but having a temporary lapse in focus happens, happens to more people with ADHD, it happens to people without it. But what you're talking about is a lack of focus at the macro level. You're taking on too much because you don't have a plan of how to succeed in any one area, so you're just attracted to the next thing that gets your attention. I know tons of people that have ADHD that run businesses really well. They need an assistant to make sure they don't forget to call someone back and that they've got someone balancing their books, for example, or not forgetting a delivery and things like that. But that's ADHD or short attention span.

But when you're talking about at a macro level, that's not a short attention span. That's you jumping from branch to branch because you don't know how to put your time in and focus. And also, look, man, the whole, I'm ADHD. If you're an adult, it's long past time to find systems to cope with this. I'm not trying to seem unempathetic or unsympathetic here, but you really do need to find systems to cope with this. I know plenty of people that have ADHD, and look, I'm not trying to compare your version to their version. They use to-do lists. They use calendars. They check those things all the time. They focus on that. They use Pomodoro timers so that they work in 20 minute bursts and they really focus on those and they work on their skills doing that. They change their

job so that they're working outside more or whatever works for them. You really can't just say, oh man, I've never succeeded because of ADHD. It's just not really how you get to do things these days as an adult. It works when you're a kid. It doesn't work when you're an adult with accountability. So it is interesting that overbooking is a self-fulfilling prophecy here. You're finding out that you're not showing up on time, you're not performing well. It sounds to me like you need to work on filtering opportunities. How do you know which opportunities will move a project or move a goal forward? I would say do this. Plan out your entire year in advance. You pick out a small handful of major goals and milestones, maybe three to five. You order them by priority. Now, don't do the bottom

two, disregard them entirely. Focus only on the top two or three priorities. If you get another opportunity that year that does not move these forward, say no, and never think about it again. Don't rearrange, don't remake the list, don't drop what you're doing and jump on this other thing, no matter how shiny the object, no matter how promising the opportunity sounds. Just say no and don't think about it. This isn't about slowing down. It's about getting things done so that you can move on to the next project or goal. It sounds like you're doing 10% of 10 different things quitting and moving on to the next thing.

You need to get 100% done with two or three things and then move on to the next thing. A fox that chases two rabbits catches none. This is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review on iTunes or your podcast player of choice.

It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to, Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, Jay, what's next? Hey, Jay, crew. My girlfriend is graduating college in May. She's done internships required by her school, so she has a few connections who have mostly said that they want her back, but they don't have any openings at the moment. I've suggested applying at several other places, and she says she will, but hasn't followed through. This has been going on for months. She, probably rightfully, complains about living with her parents, but seems unwilling to take this step to

reduce her dependence on them. To make matters worse, not many places are actively interviewing or hiring with the COVID-19 crisis. I'm worried that this is just a sign of a lack of motivation and or dependence. Do you have any tips on how to broach this topic without it seeming like I'm coming from a holier-than-thou place or trying to be antagonistic? I think that getting a job, moving out and becoming independent is a very necessary step to have the relationship grow. Otherwise, we'll be stuck in this limbo. Lastly, do you have any advice on job hunting in the midst of a pandemic? Love the show, sincerely, confused with graduating girlfriend. Hard to say, but you need to get to the root of the issue. Is she just not interested in those other jobs?

Does she fear change? Is she worried about moving out of the house and having to grow up? Does she mourn the loss of her childhood? What's really going on here? We just don't know. Come to her with this out of a place of concern. Ask what she thinks is the biggest change. The thing she's most worried about.

Ask her about that. It's time for a real conversation. This is the type of dialogue that makes relationships stronger because it's really easy to just get frustrated with somebody. In fact, don't expect this to get solved in one go. At this point, it's very possible. It's likely that even she doesn't actually know the answer to what you're asking right now. Me, I couldn't wait to get out of the house and I moved to the former East Germany as an exchange student in high school. Other people I know still lived at home through college all the way through college because they just felt better there.

They weren't ready to leave the nest. not everyone has the same level of readiness to go and be an adult. So a little hesitation for some people is normal as long as it doesn't get out of hand and derail your whole life. You know, maybe it's an uncertain time for her and this whole scare is freaking her out and she feels like the best thing for her to do is stay at home for the time being.

Look, it's okay, but you need to get to the root cause because if this is just something she needs to deal with over time, that's one thing. If she needs therapy to get through it, that's another thing. And if there's something else going on here, well, you want to know sooner rather than later. So time to have a sit down and a real conversation. Thankfully, you've got plenty of time for that right now.

As for advice on job hunting in the midst of a pandemic, your options are going to be few and far between. I wouldn't sit here and wait for a company that's hurting really badly to start hiring again. You could wait a really long time depending on the economy. I would take any job that you can get where you can learn a skill. Or if you really need money, take any job that you can get, period. Amazon is hiring like crazy. Walmart is hiring like crazy. I know those aren't crazy, sexy college

graduate sounding jobs, but this is the economy that we're in. And look, having any experience straight out of school is going to be good for you right now. Jason, who else is hiring? Amazon, Walmart, I know there's a bunch of companies that are hiring as fast as they can. Instacart is really looking for people right now because I think they're trying to hire a couple hundred thousand new drivers. Basically any delivery service is looking for people right now. And look, I know you think, I didn't study four, I didn't take four years of anthropology to become a delivery driver. You know, I don't have an English lit degree in order to do this. It doesn't really matter. Look, work experience is great because it makes you more competitive later on. And in the meantime,

you get to pay your rent, which is always a nice bonus. Besides, you don't necessarily have to be a delivery driver the entire time. You might move up in that organization and then you know how the infrastructure works. But in the meantime, you get a paycheck. So, look, yes, there are probably some other companies that are hiring people from home, but if you have no work experience, if you're straight out of school, you're not competitive with everyone else who just got laid off and is now on the market. So take anything you can get and start busting your butt and learn how to do that job as best you can. That's my advice. All right, Jason, what else we got? Hi, J-Team. I was supposed to have a job interview last week. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, the office where I was interviewing

was shut down. I was notified via email from the person I was supposed to be interviewing with, and she said she'd be in touch when things settle down. I responded promptly, wishing her well, saying I was looking forward to our conversation, and to reach out if she wanted or needed any information for me in the meantime. That was nine days ago. Is there anything else I should be doing to stay on her radar for this position? Should I wait to hear back for my interviewer? I'm worried that if I send the wrongly worded email, I'll come off as too eager, rude, and selfish. What's the right amount of persistence that I need to show during this unique situation? Thanks. Signed, eager to be employed. This is kind of a yucky one because now is not a great time to be like, hey, remember that job?

Because they probably have bigger fish to fry. But I would say after a week or longer, it is perfectly acceptable to email and check in, not even a week. You don't normally have to wait that long. Things are in flux for everyone. And you might just be low priority right now. Also, all of the resumes that they were in the yes pile, they could be on a desk in an office that somebody hasn't gone to for the last two weeks. So who knows? Show organization, but also persistence here. Simply write in to check on how people are doing with the shift to working from home, acknowledge the crazy times we live in with people working from home, and ask about the time frame on the hire or if they've already made a decision. Because unfortunately, a lot of

companies, and this is kind of a dick move, but a lot of companies will make a decision and then only notify the person they're hiring and everyone else just kind of gets ghosted, which is not cool, but a lot of HR people operate like this. It's actually funny because there's a shift now where employees who are highly talented and highly sought after are finding that they're really in high demand, of course, and they're starting to feel it. And you see all these complaints on LinkedIn. I don't know if you've ever look at this, Jason, but there's a lot of complaints on LinkedIn, like, I can't believe how rude employees are and they're doing this and they're not notifying us of that. And it's like, there's somebody wrote back, and I want to say it was Adam Grant or somebody

like that. And he's like, this is a normal response to decades of you in HR at companies treating employees poorly and not notifying them that they weren't hired and not calling them back on time. Like, they're ghosting you now. And this is how it feels. So it's kind of funny that employees are now being more selective. But be polite, be professional, absolutely nothing wrong with checking in on this. This isn't dating, so seeming too eager, kind of not really a thing unless you're emailing them every other day to ask. Just get a timeline or an approximate timeline from them and check in according to that timeline. That's not annoying. That's reasonable. So if they say they'll know more next week, check in the following Monday or Tuesday after that previous week is over. This way you're

staying top of mind without being annoying and not pestering them last thing on Friday or first thing on Monday when they're swamped with other stuff. I get not wanting to be annoying. So you got to toe the line by being persistent, but also polite and professional. Those are the people that get hired. All right, Jason, what's next? Hi, Jordan. How do you find fatherhood has changed you? Have new curiosities developed and do you wish that you could ask past guests different questions now? Thanks, signed just curious.

I personally am changing slowly over here. Jaden is only eight months old right now anyway. And being a father is not changing my interviews as much as it is changing feedback Friday. I'm more compassionate now years ago and up until, I mean, I've changed slowly, but certainly more compassionate now that I've had a kid before I'd get letters and be like, this is stupid and you're a knucklehead. And I still feel like that sometimes, but I am more compassionate. And I think that's going to keep going as my kid makes many mistakes and I'm compassionate with him. I'm also more understanding. Definitely would have been more judgy, even quietly or not so quietly before,

but now I realize that everybody is somebody else's baby. So I think the changes that come about for me are just not going to be overnight, but will probably be mostly visible later down the So when Jaden's, you know, five, 10 years old, there's gonna be people who've been listening for a really long time that are gonna say, oh, you've changed a lot as you've gotten older and had kids, but it's hard to say, what's a result of me having a kid

and what's a result of me just getting older? So I don't notice a whole lot of changes yet. I'm also working less now. I care much less about things like raw numbers and putting myself on Instagram videos, not that I ever enjoyed doing that. I care less about the reach of the show, and I care more about serving

the existing audience, making sure my current sponsors are happy with everything that's going on, especially in the time of COVID-19. It's just, it's nice to have the solid listenership of you all out there and not worry, like, oh, I've got to be doing this on TV in five years. I just don't care about that anymore. All right, Jason, what else we got? Hello, Jordan and Company. My mother is in an independent living facility in Florida and has been since early last year due to memory issues and dementia. I've known, let's call her Verna, who is her circle of friends down there for a few years. Verna is about 20 years younger than my mom and has helped

her and others with various errands like dog sitting that these women have difficulty with because of their age and infirmity, and she does charge money for these services. When my mother was moved into this facility, Verna approached me privately. She said she would help me, and since I live in New York, and visit about four times a year, she would monitor my mom on a daily basis and hold the mail and relay information regarding my mom's condition, etc. Verna said that she charged $20 an hour usually. She said, but she would only ask for $400 a month for doing this. This assumed that she wasn't getting any money from my mother. I verbally agreed, and since then, Verna has been indeed helpful,

communicating my mom's progress in transitioning, helping with relocation issues that came up, taking her out to a store, or a doctor's appointment. I was grateful for this help and raised the amount I was paying her to $550 and then $600 a month. As I'm the power of attorney from my mom's bank account, and I do pay Verna from her account, I noticed checks to Verna in the amount of $100.

I asked Verna about this, and she said that my mom would write a check to her, and she would provide cash to my mom on the spot. I accepted this. However, during one of my visits to my mom, she commented that Verna was helpful, but expected money from her. I explained to my mom then that I was paying Verna and that she should not pay her. However, it came up again, and that my mother told me not to pay Verna that she was paying her. She admitted giving her $80 last time she saw her.

Another time when I was treating Verna and my mom to dinner out, my mom handed me $40 to give to Verna. My husband commented that he believes that paying is my mom's way of exerting control, and she's used to paying Verna from the time before she was in this facility. This is about 15 months into this agreement between Verna and I. Verna has been helpful, especially so early on when my mom had a lot of trouble transitioning into a less independent situation. Verna has good personal skills and is able to handle my mom when she can be difficult. From what I know of my mom, I now believe that she's paying Verna.

I like Verna, but I made an agreement with the understanding that this was the only payment she was getting. It seems clear that my mom is paying her, plus she's getting money wired to her from me. While I appreciate the communication and monitoring that Verna provides, that, frankly, isn't needed as much now that my mom is more settled. I'm frankly uncomfortable with this situation. It does seem like Verna is lying to me and taking money from both me and my mom. If I were to stop Verna from going to my mom, it would cause some difficulties in terms of her helping with the mail,

taking my mom to the doctor, and notifying me of some matter concerning my mom that I should know about. Plus, finding someone else my mom would be comfortable with and that I could trust would be another hurdle. From what I've shared, what do you believe is the best course of action here? Many thanks? Concerned Daughter. This is kind of a messy one because it's very difficult to find a reliable helper that you can trust, especially with somebody in this kind of situation. So there's two sides to this coin. One is that Verna is lying about the money.

And that's problematic, but she's doing everything else right from the sound of it. Taking your mom to the doctor, dealing with some of these surprises that crop up when you're dealing with older people. She's close to your mom. She lives nearby. Your mom probably, or possibly, it sounds like enjoys her company. The problem is that since your mom is experiencing dementia, it's even trickier because you don't really necessarily know what's going on here.

I think in this scenario, I would let your mom continue to write checks since it makes her feel in control. I would, though, monitor that checking account and make sure to only pay Verna the remainder of the agreed upon amount. Because right now, Verna's taking the money. She might need it, which is never an excuse. But you can pay the difference while not taking control away from your mother and making that whole thing into something that she needs to hide or making her feel back. about it, make sure, though, that Verna understands why it's necessary to do this, and make sure that you agree on that beforehand. Because if she's going to continue to deny that she's been paid, you can say, well,

I can see the check made out to you from my mom and da-da-da-da-da. I'm happy to pay you the difference. My mom likes to pay you. It makes her feel good. So I'll just pay you the difference. Anyone who helps you with your mom at this difficult time is probably worth their weight in gold. And my mom, I ask my mom for help with this, and these are her suggestions because when

My grandmother was in the hospital and in the nursing home. My mom said she so appreciated the woman who helped with my grandma that when this woman later found herself in a terrible situation, my mom just gave her a massive amount of extra money. It was like, keep it, considerate a gratuity for all the nice things you did for my mom's mom, my grandma, when she was in that nursing home for like the better part of a decade. So I hope this helps. It's really not easy to find a reliable helper that you can trust. The problem is the trust has been, there's a couple holes poked in it, but if it's just the

money here, then I'd say that's kind of, it's almost the least of your worries. Now, the problem is when somebody lies about one thing, could they be lying about something else, it's hard to say in this situation. If someone's not making that much money, $650 a month and they're taking care of a few older people, they might just need the money and that might just be why this is happening, but you have to monitor the amount of money so she doesn't see it going unchecked. and then either start to take advantage of that situation even more, or decide that she's going to dip her hands in there.

Now, if you see any other irregularities, then you have a major problem. But if it's just $80 or $40 here and there, I'm on the fence, but my gut says to just kind of make sure that you keep an eye on it, make sure you only pay the difference so that she knows you're keeping an eye on it and then let it go. I don't know, Jason, what do you think?

This is kind of a mess because on the one hand, you have somebody who's fibbing about the amount of money they're getting from your aging mother. On the other hand, you have somebody who's taking your aging mother to the doctor and monitoring her care. So you're between a rock and a hard place. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the double dipping here and not disclosing it to the daughter. That really irks me because I know that this is a big problem with elder care and people taking advantage of old people. This was rampant in the nursing home that my grandmother was in.

Fortunately, she didn't have a checking account. And it's just one of those things that really makes me angry. So I'm kind of on the side of fire her immediately. That's my gut reaction. But she is taking care of your mother. So that is, you know, you have to balance that. It's a difficult and uncomfortable situation because Verna really needs to get put in check because she lied. She did flat out lie.

So, and as we know, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So that really just kind of creeps me out a bit. But the amounts are so low now. What happens when your mom writes her a $1,000 check or a $4,000 check or a $5,000? check and it gets through without you noticing it until you check the bank account, then you've got a real problem, you know? Yeah, you know, you're right here. This is really sticky and my gut reaction was also get rid of this person immediately.

However, you don't really have that many options. Now, look, if you can find someone else who's going to help and monitor the care and your mom is not going to pay her, then that's something else. She's not going to ask your mom for money, refuse to take money from your mom. That's something else. But you don't really know. Yeah. And I'm kind of in a situation where it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And what I'm also thinking is maybe split the checking accounts here and only put so much money into your mom's checking account so she can only spend so much on Verna a month. And so you're protected. You know, she can't go in and drain it. That's a good idea. That's a good idea because this person here concerned daughter did say finding someone else

who my mom would like and be comfortable with and that I could trust would be another hurdle. I think that's going to be very, very difficult. But you're right, there can be a check here. You might have to put up with a little bit of, well, she's going to sort of double dip and try to get money from your mom, but you can also make damn sure that your mom is $100 in a checking account.

The problem is she can overdraw a checking account easily, and then you're on the hook for the remainder. Hmm, now we're stuck here because she can make sure there's no money in the account, but then the bank can say, well, look, there's a $5,000 check that got taken out of this account. You're responsible for it. We're going to pull it out of your savings.

So what you can also do is just be very clear with Verna and say, look, my mom only has $200 a month in this checking account. If my mom gives you a check that's over $200 for the month, it's going to bounce, and you're not going to get paid, and that's just the way it is. We split the account for whatever reason, you know, make something up. But just make sure that Verna knows that, oh, she's not going to get a big payday out of this and say, look, this account only has X amount of dollars in it a month. And make that amount, something that you're comfortable with putting on top of what Verna's

getting already. Or, you know, talk to Verna and make sure that she knows that that's coming out of her other pay, but just communicate it with her so she doesn't think that she can like, you know, bilk your mom for a bunch of money just because you're not paying attention to it. Because, you know, Verna might just one day say, hey, I'm going to Montana. Let's try and clean out all these old people that I've been, you know, taken care of. Yeah, I do worry about that. There could be something larger at play here.

There's a lot of elder abuse. So you're between a rock and a hard place. Again, I really don't envy you with this situation. Right now, if it's only money, make sure you limit the damage. And then just make sure that Verna knows that you're checking. Check that dang checking account every day. When you get home from work, log into whatever bank, take a look. And if something happens, you can see, I see my mom paid you $80 today.

You can just let Verna know, like, hey, someone's paying attention to every single transaction on this account. So you don't have to make it something where you're giving her the stink guy for real or you're making it adversarial. All you have to do is just pretend you're on the same team with Verna in making sure your mom feels a little bit in control. like, thanks for your help. I know my mom likes to pay you. Here's the difference. Here's the balance. And then if you're checking that all the time and you say, I noticed my mom paid you 80 bucks today,

hope you're well. I'll make sure to give you the other $220 balance next time I see you, smiley face. Then it's a polite way of letting her know you're paying attention without saying, I know you're stealing from my mom. Yeah. And set up alerts, like email alerts on that account. So any transaction that comes through, you get a notification in your email. So you don't have to like, you know, keep checking it every morning or if something comes through in the middle of the night that you didn't, you know, have eyeballs on, you can call the bank and, you know, have the charges reversed or do whatever you can with your bank. I don't know if it's a small bank or a big bank because I know smaller banks might even work with you and give her like a fake checking account

or a fake checkbook and say, look, my mother has dementia. She needs to feel in control. What can you do to help me out with this? Yeah, I think there's something here because there's got to be, I don't know enough about this particular element, but there has to be a way where you can limit the What happens if someone writes a check for $25,000? The bank holds the check until it clears, right? They don't just cash that. Right, yeah. Yeah, you see it as pending in your account, and it takes a couple days to clear.

So any big amounts are definitely going to cause red flags. Yeah, I wonder if there's a way to flag this with a bank or if there's a certain type of checking account that is not possible to overdraw, or is that just not the way checks work? Yeah, I don't know anymore. I mean, banking has changed so much since I was a kid that, you know, you used to be able to talk to your bankers and have them do fund. cool stuff with you, but nowadays it's also automated, who knows? Yeah, I mean, the problem here is you can't just take your mom's checking account away because then she'll pay her in cash, which you definitely can't monitor her and trace and there's no paper trail. So checks are kind of the least of your worries. You just want to make sure that she's not going to end up with one big con where she

loses 10 grand. Yeah, definitely. Sorry about this. This is a really nasty situation, but it sounds like she's at least taking care of your mom and not like, you know, treating her poorly, which is a plus. So, you know, weigh the difference on that. Is it worth the extra money and the extra hassle? Or like I said, I'm on the fence. It's like half of me wants to say let it go because she's doing really well by your mom and your mom likes her, which is the hardest thing to get there. Because, you know, my grandmother had to mention was in a nursing home for 10 years. And it was so hard to find people that she liked. And when we found those people, we treated them like gold. 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 do just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of

Feedback Friday. All right. Last but not least, we have a segment from Gretchen Rubin here, who's been a guest on the show before. She's going to discuss ways in which we can get ahead in our career and in our lives, even though we feel stuck at home right now in the time of COVID-19. It's kind of ironic because the first thing we started the show with was we're not talking about coronavirus. What I meant was we're talking a lot about coronavirus, but we're not talking about all the updates and the news and all that stuff. I want to help you handle the issues that you're facing because of this, but I don't want to focus on the health concerns because it's not my bag.

And again, you're getting that everywhere else. So let's hear from Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen, thanks for coming on the show. I'm so happy to talk to you. I want to hear about some of your ideas from making this a productive time in your career because I think for a lot of folks, they feel like this is a weird limbo that they're in, or purgatory might be a better sense of what this is for a lot of folks. There's kids that are at home and now you're a teacher,

but you're also still a lawyer, but you're also still a spouse. And people who don't normally work from home are often not set up to work from home, but the family is still kind of, oh, mom's home all day, great, we have a snack chef on duty 24-7. There's a whole lot of adjustments that need to be made,

and there are still people that haven't quite wrapped their mind around the fact that this might be the next six plus months of life, or three months or even longer. We don't really know. Right. I think you're exactly right that we're in this period. We don't know exactly how long it's going to last. And that I think is adding to people's uncertainty. It's like there's no clear deadline. But we know it's going to be weeks or more. And so as you said, most of us weren't set up for this kind of use of our space. So one of the first things to do if you want to use this time to invest in your work future, which I think it's a great way to think about this time is like, okay, I'm going to do what I need to do, but I'm also going to use sort of any extra time to, invest in the future, one thing to do is to evaluate your space and think, you know, it's not going to work for me to work on my laptop in the kitchen, you know?

Yeah, that's pure fantasy. Yeah, you know, I need to figure out, okay, well, where can I set up? And how can everybody who needs a place to work, have a place to work where they can concentrate and they can have their stuff? Maybe you want to re-jigur, reconfigure some spaces. Like maybe you put two children in one bedroom and then the other room becomes a playroom to give sort of a different sense of space. or maybe a walk-in closet becomes an office.

Kind of like Ryan's office in a TV show of The Office, if you remember how Ryan got put in that supply closet. I'm like, that's a nice little office in there. And also to kind of create space also by cleaning out, you know, maybe you have five boxes of files that you move from your last job and they're just piled up in some corner. You can really create a sense of order and clarity and space

by using this time to go through things that you have and, you know, sorting and shredding and tossing. And there's something about outer order that does help people get a sense of creativity and energy. I think that's true, and it's a great time to kill two birds with one stone. So for example, if you're setting up that home office space or your home office space where you're usually

working from home and everyone else has gone has been invaded by kids and spouse, you can do the closet thing or turn one of the bedrooms into an area that maybe is for work only. But then also to say, look, this room is full of boxes. What are we going to do with these? Maybe it's time to spend an hour or two a day going through papers from 1995 and seeing what I actually still need and what can go out in the recycling bin.

Yeah, you know, I wrote this book, Outer Order Intercom, because so many people said that talked about how Outer Order contributes to Intercom. And it's just kind of weird. I mean, it doesn't seem like it makes that much sense that creating outer order, even something as simple as making your bed, people are like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. I feel so energized now that I cleaned off my desk. And I think also in a time of emergency like this, people want to take action. They kind of want to prepare.

And sometimes there's really nothing to do. You've kind of bought your toilet paper and there you are. And so this kind of work over and over people are saying, it's just making me feel better. It's like I'm controlling what I can control. I'm making my own space better. And there's just comfort in that. It's kind of irrational. But that doesn't mean it's not effective.

And so I think it can be a really helpful way. Like you say, you use this time in a productive way. And you're also making it, you're setting yourself up. for the future. You know, we're all worried about the health consequences of COVID-19, but there are also tremendous economic consequences. And one thing that we can do with this time is to really set ourselves up for the future. So perhaps there's like a course or an online certification program that you could take that would give you a new skill or like add to your resume or you could update your resume. You could update your LinkedIn profile. You know, do those things that often in the course of

our everyday life, we don't really have time to be like, oh, I need to learn how to use that new software. It's like, ah, I know I should use it. Everybody's using it, but who's got the time to sit down and do it? Now you've got the time, and then you can be setting yourself up in the future for more opportunities. What about expanding what we're doing? I know a lot of folks are going, finally going to sit down and write that book, which is kind of a joke, but also kind of not. Like, look, some people are homeschool teachers and lawyers and doctors now or whatever. Well, I guess doctors are probably treating patients, but there's people that have more work at home than they did in the office, but there are other folks that are running out of things to do.

A lot of my friends who are professional speakers, for example, maybe not the most relatable job for a lot of folks listening, but the people who speak for living are like, guess I'm going to sit down and write a book because they travel five times a month, and now they're traveling zero times for the next few months, at least. They're able to sit down and do a lot of work. But for a lot of folks, it's a good time to, like you said, expand your offerings. What did you have in mind? Well, like a friend of mine who is a consultant said she'd been meaning for a long time to learn how to do webinars and online courses and she just sort of had never gotten around to figuring it out. Well, now she can and then that's going to be another source of income for her.

Or, you know, starting a newsletter or a side hustle. Maybe there's something that you've always thought about doing in addition to your day job. Well, this might be a good time to invest in it, investigate it, because maybe you need to set up a website. Maybe you need to set up an email address. Maybe you need to get some things together. Well, having that side hustle, having that extra source of income, because we have more security and freedom when we have more diversification of our income and of our work product. And so this is an opportunity to think like, well, maybe there's other, I could write an ebook that I could sell. I could create an audiobook.

I mean, you know, what are the things that I could start a podcast? Yes, please don't do that. I think now is a golden opportunity for a lot of folks to teach. the things that they know to other folks online because someone had written to me last week on the show and said, hey, I'm a teacher and I'm worried because I'm only like one year out. Are they going to lay people off? We don't really know. The teachers union hasn't really told us X, Y, or Z right now. We're not sure if we're going to be back in action. Right now I'm just giving my students a bunch of homework. And then other people who are teachers that don't have full-time jobs, like substitutes,

they're kind of out of luck because there's no sub. The teachers are working from home. And I thought, you're missing out on a major opportunity here. Right now I have an eight month old. But if I had an eight year old, the first thing I would do is go online and be like, who can run my kid through the five freaking hours of homework that he has that I don't know how to do. I don't know fractions anymore.

Like, don't be ridiculous. I forgot that stuff the second I graduated high school. Where is somebody who understands this that can hop on Zoom or whatever and teach these things to my kid for, I don't know how much teachers make, but I'll double it per day and just teach my kid one on one and make sure that he understands this

so he doesn't lose the time. That's a golden opportunity for a lot of educators. And I think even teachers right now that are working that are just assigning things and then grading things remotely, if they have extra time because the parents are running the kids through the drills or the essays, they can actually probably get part-time tutor gigs on the side. They might even be teaching their own students.

I don't know how that works sort of from an ethical standpoint, but they might even be tutoring their own students, or students in their own community on how to do this, all remotely and all online. Because I certainly as a parent would be paying for that because you're basically paying for someone to not waste the time for your kid educationally and also to keep somebody who's old enough

to focus on a Zoom lesson entertained for at least a few hours while I get stuff done at home. Well, any kind of change does bring opportunity to some people. And like I do a high intensity workout every once a week for 20 minutes. And I can't go in, obviously. And so I did it remotely with my trainer, And then I was like, you know, actually I'm so worried about being cooped up and everything and not staying in shape.

I want to do it twice a week. And my husband's also doing it twice a week. And we've referred people who are like, I never have time to go to a gym. But now they're stuck at home and they're like, well, if he can train me with my iPad, I got some stretch bands. I can do some planks. And so this guy, he's managing to train people and to expand his clientele because this is changing things up in a way. And not everybody is that lucky, of course. But for him, he was like on it right away. I think if you think hard enough for many people, there's probably an opportunity. A friend of mine was saying, I can't do anything because I'm actually, he's like a beekeeper and it goes and removes hives and takes hives out of people's houses and stuff like that. That's cool.

Yeah. And I said, you know, there's probably a ton of people who would love to learn this as a skill online and there's probably nobody teaching people how to set up hives. It's a very solitary hobby if you want it to be. Yeah. You know, it's you and the bees. Yeah. So he's teaching people online how to set up hives, maintain hives, harvest the honey from hives.

Now it's a great time to do that. So he's doing that online. Like things you don't think you can do online, carpentry, that can be done online. You're teaching someone else how to do it. So I think that's a great way to expand, like you said. Yeah. And it gives you that feeling of being productive and expanding, and that's the atmosphere of growth. It's so important to happiness.

And I think people are worried about the future. And so anything that makes them feel like they're taking action is reassuring. Gretchen, thank you so much. Thank you. It's great to talk to you. Life Pro Tip of the Week. A lot of people don't know this. I'm surprised, Jason, that they don't, but I guess, you know, these phones do a lot of things these days. On the iPhone, you can set defined times when the Do Not Disturb goes on, and then you only get calls from people in your favorites, and when people call you three times consecutively. This is all something you can set in the preferences. We'll link to how that's done on the Apple iPhone in the show notes.

It also works when you connect to a car for phone calls, and it prevents you from getting notifications while drive. reduces the risk you're going to pick up the phone and be tempted to reply. I'm shocked at how many people don't do this. Now that everyone's working from home, a lot of folks have complained, oh, my phone's bugging me, my phone's bugging me. I leave my phone on Do Not Disturb all day long.

I just check texts when I think of it, not when every little damn thing dings on my phone with the screen lights up. And I also don't want all the random calls. There's a ton of phone salespeople working now. There's a ton of scam calls. There's all kinds of crazy coronavirus scams. There's all kinds of alerts.

I don't want to be getting that. I'm in studio recording, but even if I weren't, and I was just focusing on, let's say, writing something, I wouldn't want my phone dinging all the time. You don't have to put up with that anymore. You can be even more focused. So make sure you're using Do Not Disturb. Make sure you're using the timer.

Make sure you allow calls from people in your favorites so you don't worry about missing things. And you can set people who you work with that call you to a list and they can get through. So easy peasy. I've also got another pro tip for the week. It's basically the same thing. but on the car side of things, you can set that I'm not driving reply and you can customize that.

And then you can also turn that on manually if you set it on your lock screen. So you can set it to say, hey, I'm driving right now. I'll get back to you when I get to my destination. And you can turn that on and pretend you're driving and let people know that, yeah, there's a real reason I can't talk to you right now. I'm actually trying to be safe out there. So it's a fun way to customize that do not disturb message when people try and get a hold of you or text you while you're doing it. And also, there's a feature in the iPhone where you can turn off calls from numbers that are not in your address book. I have that on constantly because I don't want random calls like these COVID scammers out there calling me all day long.

That's an easy fix. That's under the phone menu in the settings. Check that one out. Recommendation of the week, I think it goes without saying that we have to recommend the Tiger King on Netflix. Right. Everybody's pretty much seen this. And if you haven't, then you brace herself. Also, if you watched the trailer or you're seeing the memes and you're like, that just looks dumb.

You're not wrong, but it's just a crazy portrait of humanity. Why don't I leave it there? I think everybody's heard about this. The Tiger King, it's something else. Not really sure how else to explain it. Jason, you haven't even started watching it. I'm, uh, you're in for it, man. It's in the queue.

I am looking forward to it because I see the memes coming around and it's like, what the hell is going on there? Okay, I'm in. I'm in, I'm in. Let's do it. Text me after episode one. I'm so curious what you think. Okay, we'll do.

Yeah, yeah. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that. wrote in this week. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Quick shout out to everybody listening while you're delivering other people's food and packages. You guys are so important right now. You're running the whole country pretty much. So pat yourself on the back if you're out there delivering food packages and we are thankful. We are thankful. I'll say it on behalf of everybody. Without you, we'd all be shriveled up and dead

with no toilet paper, right? So thank you for coming to our house, even though hopefully you've got plenty of hand sanitizer in that truck. Go back and check out Kevin Sistram Part 1 and 2 if you haven't yet. He's the founder of Instagram. And if you're wondering how I've got to network the way that I'm able to book all these guests, I've got a course called Six Minute Networking. It is free, and it's on a new platform now. It should be easier to use and more interesting.

That's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. The drills take a few minutes per day. I know there was some confusion from people that said, oh, it's probably too long. It's called six-minute networking, not only because you can do it in six minutes a day, but because the course only takes five, six minutes a day. So just get to it. You got plenty of time right now. It's more important than ever to reach out to your network and connect.

It's the type of habit you ignore only at your own peril. And again, it's free, Jordan Harbinger.com slash 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 also at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason? And you can check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks. We discuss what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame,

along with cybersecurity apps, gadgets, books, and more. That is grumpy old geeks wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Keep sending in those questions to Friday atjordanharbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. And yeah, I'm a lawyer, but 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 if you found this episode useful, please share it with someone who can use the advice that we gave here today. Lots more in store for 2020. Very excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that

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