The Jordan Harbinger Show - 343: Is My Little Brother a Lost Cause? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

You have a family history of addiction, and now your clinically depressed little brother is using drugs and alcohol to a degree that goes well beyond rebellious teenage mischief. With parental guidance being nonexistent, can you do something, or is your brother a lost cause? We'll try to address this and more 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/343. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your father has definite ideas of how your educational future should play out and where your career should be headed, but you've chosen otherwise. How do you break the news without breaking his heart? Every time you find a new interest, you initially obsess over it. But after a few months, you lose interest and move on to something else. How can you stick to something long enough to get results? How do you build your network without some contacts getting the wrong idea about your romantic interest/disinterest? You have a family history of addiction, and now your clinically depressed little brother is using drugs and alcohol to a degree that goes well beyond rebellious teenage mischief. With parental guidance being nonexistent, can you do something, or is your brother a lost cause? How can you obtain mentorship or establish great networks when you're financially incapable of hiring a coach or attending high-value networking events? How do you identify what you have to offer to the person from whom you want mentorship? What should you do if you have nothing to offer for the time being? Self-quarantining, you want to start a podcast as a way to step outside your comfort zone and become more social. Using Six-Minute Networking tips, responses from potential guests have been positive. What further advice do we have for a new podcaster? Life Pro Tip: Go start your car and drive it around for 15-20 minutes if it's been a while! Recommendation of the Week: Operation Toussaint A quick shout out to Igor Pavic from Washington for being the first person to report bugs on our brand new website! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jpdef... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger, and I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant 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. This week we had Julie Gerberting, former director of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. We basically broke the promise that we made last week about not talking about coronavirus and just asked her all of our coronavirus questions because as soon as I got that opportunity and put it up on social media, you guys pounced on it like crazy.

We got hundreds of questions before finally closing it. She's an expert on vaccines, viruses, and planning for pandemic. So she was a great, great guest. So it was a really interesting interview, and there's a lot of questions and myths busted in that episode. We also had David Epstein with us, where we explore why in an age of hyper-specialized education and careers, that generalists and those with broad experience might actually solve the toughest problems. This is great if you're planning your career and or managing the careers of others. I also write every so often on the blog, the latest post is about how to stay productive under quarantine,

working from home and getting things done as taught by those with decades of experience running remote teams and not just some clickbait article from bloggers that we've been seeing online. So make sure you've had a look and a listen to everything we created for you here this week. Of course, our primary mission here on the Jordan Harbinger show

is to pass along our guests and our own experiences and insights along to you. 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 what this podcast is about. You can reach us at Friday atjordanharbinger.com. People have been asking me how I'm staying calm during COVID-19. This is business as usual for me so far. I mean, I don't mean that I don't care or anything like that. Of course, there's a lot going on in the world. But as far as our workflow, Jason, I don't know, is your workflow even changed at all? Yeah, it actually has.

I'm busier than I've ever been because everybody's staying at home and making podcasts now. That's true. I've been working nonstop, so I haven't even had much time to think about anything or relax very much. So I'm just like head to the grindstone or nose to the grindstone. I guess head to the grindstone would be painful. Yeah, that sounds brutal. Well, good. Yeah, I think for me, workflow hasn't changed much either.

And, you know, everyone else is meditating or something like that. I tend to walk six to ten miles a day. That's what I'm doing when I'm listening to audiobooks anyways. So I take my baby's son out and we go for a walk or I bring him back because he's having a crying spell. and then I keep walking, getting plenty of sun, getting plenty of exercise. Not a big deal. Do a little push-up workout here and there.

But other than that, this is really not changed a whole lot. I guess I'm naturally more or less a hermit except for traveling. So I understand people whose routines have been disrupted. That's really traumatic. Routine, routine, routine. That's the name of the game here. If you find that your routine has been disrupted, you need to find a new routine.

And I'm actually going to do a deep dive with Gabriel Mizrahi about how to make this quarantine time not only productive, but something that helps you and doesn't just make you feel like your whole life is on pause. So stay tuned for that. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailback? Dear Jordan and Jason, I'm a 17-year-old student that's been looking at potential futures for myself for quite a while now. My school offers a class that helps with students deciding on career choices. I've been in that class for half a year, and I'm pretty sure I know what I want to be.

The problem is with my dad. He's always hoping that I do well in every subject, assignment, and class I take on, in that I'll be the smartest guy in the room at all times. He's not really strict about how I do things in general, but the one thing he is strict about is what I choose to become. He's never been to college or university because of lack of money, and he says he wishes with all his heart that I don't make the same mistake that he did at my age, which is not choosing a STEM career path and not going to a college or university. The career path I picked for myself thus far has barely anything to do with his ideology of my future,

and I'm scared to think what he'll think of me if I do talk to him about it. Me and my dad have a wonderful relationship, and I'd hate for it to be damaged or even ruined because of my decision. I've tried talking with friends and other family members about it, but their advice isn't the helpful kind I need. I see three options in front of me so far. I could be completely honest about my decision and risk damaging my relationship. I could keep it a secret and hope he doesn't find out about what I do. Or I could switch my career choice for him to a STEM one, but be in a career I don't really enjoy doing. I'm not asking you to pick for me, just to say what you think about my situation and say what

you can to help me. Thank you in advance for all the advice and help you can give, signed, decided, but fearful. This is one of the rare questions which I felt like I could answer just from the subject line. You really do have to choose your own path. And that said, your dad's worry is well-intentioned from the sound of it. I don't really know, but it sounds like he's just looking out for you. He's struggled in his life. if you realize that a career in STEM would have been a more stable and or lucrative career path,

and he doesn't want you to go through the same struggles. I get that. Instead of just telling you to go for whatever you want or follow your dreams or some BS, let's do a real 10,000 foot, 30,000 foot cost benefit here. First of all, let's define STEM career here. So science, technology, engineering, and maths. These are sort of the left-brained academic studies that will later lead in theory to jobs in engineering and science, things like that.

So one, a STEM career will be an easier hire generally. It'll be easier to find jobs. Those jobs might pay more. So with STEM, you'll make decent money in almost every case. But three, with something outside of STEM, you'll potentially be able to find a job and make money all the same, even if finding a job is harder and to pay lower. You're so young right now, you don't need to decide yet.

I think that's an important note. As David Epstein said in his interview this week, At age 17, you're trying to find out what to specialize in, which makes no sense, because you're making decisions for a person who doesn't even exist yet. At age 17, you're so different from who you're going to be in 10 years. You can't possibly decide what a person, what you in 10 years is going to be like. That person doesn't exist yet. The difference between 17-year-old you and 27-year-old you is so different that making career

or life-altering decisions during this time doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It doesn't make sense to pull the ripcourt on something where you can't theoretically go back very easily because you're trying to figure out who you're going to be in a decade or more. It's just not possible. In other words, you can't really even make decisions about this right now. So what you can do is skill stack. Find things that are going to be helpful later on, right? So if you want to learn Mandarin Chinese right now, that's not something that's not going to be useful later, most likely. It's going to be useful forever.

If you learn how to do CAD and computer-aided drawing and advanced mathematics or something like that, that might come in handy later on. If you take science and engineering courses, that might come in handy later on. Anything you do to skill stack, it doesn't have to be STEM-related, will come in handy later on, most likely. It's some skill that you can use or transfer elsewhere. For the time being, in terms of her career, you have to do something that you're at least mildly interested in, or you're going to be unhappy long-term. That will also, of course, affect your career, but will also affect your income long term.

People often fail to realize this. They're like, well, I'm going to become a doctor because doctors make good money, which isn't necessarily universally true anymore. And they say, well, okay, great. Now I'll have an income. I want to have to worry about that. This type of thing is not necessarily going to hold. If you're really uninterested in your career, the money won't make you happier.

And in fact, it might lead to other things that make you, well, less stable, including just mental illness or I would say the lack of sanity that comes with banging your head against the wall in a job you hate, depression, things like that. So you have to do something that you have a little bit of interest in or you're going to negatively affect yourself long term. Life satisfaction is going to be down. Mental health is going to be down. That's kind of the entire point of having a career you find fulfilling in the first place. So the answer is not that you have to decide whether to do STEM related studies or not or a career or not. It's that you don't have to decide anything at all right now other than what skills to stack to get to the next level. You can

always go back to school if needed. If I were you, I'd take some STEM classes and just see what you think. You might actually surprise yourself. Then again, you might have tried this already and hated it, which makes sense. Maybe that's why you're asking in the first place. Also, bear in mind that courses in universities rarely are they reflective of the actual career that you're going to have. You might find STEM courses boring, you might find them fascinating, but you might find that working in an actual corporation is the opposite. You might think, ah, these science and tech classes are terrible, but you might find that the actual work of doing computer-aided drafting is really, really interesting.

Maybe the classes weren't, but working and creating, building car models really is. The best thing you can do to see if you like something is work in the field, even at the entry level. You don't have to spend four, six, seven years getting a degree in it. voice of experience here. Had I worked at a law firm before going to law school, I definitely would not have gone to law school. Stupidly, I went to law school thinking, oh, well, I can always do something else with this degree. It didn't even occur to me to try to work in the field before getting a degree in the field to go work in it. I could have been the coffee guy at a law firm and been like,

nope, no thanks. And that would have saved me four years and 100, I don't know, 200 grand. Also, you should come clean to your dad about this. You stand to lose more by lying or hiding it from him than by explaining that you're just not yet sure what you want to do with your life. Your dad's love is not conditional on your career. He's just worried about you taking a path that makes your life harder. As a parent, I can definitely understand that. Now look, I said your dad's love is not conditional on your career. Probably it's not conditional on your career. I don't know your dad, but it doesn't sound like it is. It sounds like he's really just worried about you taking a path that's going to result in hardship later on. And again, as a dad,

I get it. Have a talk with your dad. Lay it all out on the table. and I think you'll probably both feel better as a result. Also, know that if he does get angry or if he does get disappointed, it's probably because he cares about you, not because he thinks you're some kind of failure. Hope that helps. Let us know what you decide. Jason, what's next? Hi, Triple J.

I'm a 23-year-old from Norway who feels like my life is going nowhere. Ever since I graduated high school, I've been pursuing one interest after another. I've enrolled in computer science, econ, and even game design, in addition to tons of online courses and hobbies. Every time I find a new interest, I'll initially obsess over it, consuming information like a sponge for a period of time. But after a few months at most, I usually lose interest and become unable to focus on it.

This means that I've always dropped out after one semester, sometimes hopelessly clinging on for two. It's like I'm standing in front of a foggy bridge, barely sticking my head into the fog before being unable to go on and then trying the next one. One recurring interest has been self-improvement, and I spend a lot of my time reflecting and consuming this type of content. I've lost count of the techniques I've tried to study and keep myself committed to.

While this has also helped me understand myself better, it isn't really getting me anywhere. I also recently realized, and my doctor agrees, that I match many symptoms for ADHD. I'm waiting to see a psychiatrist, but that's still months out, which is just the price I have to pay for free health care. I just listened to episode 337, and when you said that the whole ADHD thing, was not an excuse in adulthood anymore, I had to pause. I sat down and thought hard about my life. I realized I'd always looked for external excuses and crutches to lean on as to why I was failing and that ADHD was just the newest in the line of many.

Do you have any advice for me in the meantime? How can I stick to something long enough to get results? Should I keep going on like this until I find something? I realized that I, myself, with my excessive pride and arrogance, has been the issue all along. After coming out of high school and realizing the world is actually difficult in that studying actually requires effort, I instead chose to run away and look for excuses. It was easier to tell myself, I didn't really try, than to actually put in the work required. I couldn't bear the thought of failing or not being naturally smart enough, so I chose to quit before I even really got started. This way I could pretend that I could be great anytime or that I was smart.

I just didn't actually bother. Ironically, this led to that exact outcome, but with nothing to show for it. It was all to keep up a stupid facade to myself and others, though to everyone else it likely faded away long ago. I sat down with a pen and paper and found that this had been a repeating pattern in my life. I went through all of them. I felt pathetic, but I think I finally faced reality somewhat. I'm sorry, this email turned out so damn long, and I don't expect you to read it, but it's probably as much an email to myself as it is to you. Thanks, the lost 23-year-old. Well, this one is interesting. This really is seemingly an email to yourself. So the rough outline here, this is skill stacking whether you knew it

or not. It sounds like you're doing deep dives into things you're interested in and then popping back out and moving on. And as we learned from David Epstein this week, that can be very helpful. Generalists are very, very useful and having an assorted set of skills is actually quite useful as well. They really do stack together quite neatly. Now, the problem, The problem is it sounds like you're not doing anything with these skills, but you're 23. So it's not necessarily expected that you're going to apply all of these different things. It does sound like the reason that you're not really diving in or putting your nose to the grindstone hard in any specific area is really a fear of failure. And I know it's cliche, but at age 23, maybe this is your first go round with us.

It's really, really easy to think, well, I didn't really try than to put in the work required, as you said. That said, now the time isn't wasted. It's not like, oh, I've done all these things, but I didn't really try hard enough, and now I have all these assorted skills, but no specialization. Good. I'm glad you're not specialized at age 23. The time is not wasted. You have the skills and understanding of those various areas of study.

That's fine. Now, pride and arrogance, those don't serve you, and you realize that. So do let those things go. That's not going to get you anywhere. The whole, I didn't fail because I didn't try. That's something that takes a while for us to get over, especially, I don't know what it is. Is it just men that have a problem with this?

I doubt it, but I think many men specifically and especially have problems with this. And I think it's because we don't want to look like we've failed because we don't look poor in front of others. I think it affects men and women equally, but I feel like I do hear about this from men much more often because I think we're more afraid of how we look to others. Then again, it could just be sample size. It could just be the demographic of the show, Jason,

and who's writing in to ask for advice. but that pride that arrogance, obviously that doesn't serve you. Don't be afraid to fail. Easier said than done, but realize at age 23, all the way up through the next 10 years or so, you can fail pretty hard at pretty much anything, especially a new area of study or some sort of experiment. And you're good. You're good.

You're obviously smart enough to understand various diverse topics, various areas of studies. You know a lot about a lot, but you're not specialized. David Epstein says that's good. Go get some work experience and go from there. I think that will build real confidence, knowing that you can apply things in a work setting and that you're not just studying things that you learn online or from YouTube,

that's when you're really going to go, ah, okay, I might know a lot about a lot, and I might not necessarily be specialized, but I am useful in the office or in the work environment, and that's going to help you build confidence, and it's going to get you out of this rut where you think, oh, I'm just some pathetic loser who can't focus on things.

I'm ADD, I can't do this. Dude, so many of the most successful people in the world are ADD, learning disabled. It makes school harder, and it makes certain activities harder, especially certain types of studying. That's kind of it. If you know your weaknesses, you can shore them up. I know a lot of CEOs and people who run businesses

and they go, look, man, I'm really ADD, I can't focus. You know what they do? They hire a C.O or an assistant who really is focused and organized, and their weak points are shored up by someone else. You don't have to do everything yourself. You do in school, because that's the way we're taught to learn. But in the real world, you're allowed to have weaknesses and shore them up by hiring the right people, having them around you, creating systems, reminders, to do lists, and things like that, to get around that.

Coping strategies come about. You're 23. You're just starting to figure this out. Don't be so hard on yourself. Jason? Yeah, take it easy on yourself, man. I was like that until, you know, my mid to late 20s just always bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. And I finally found something that stuck for, you know, the next 20 plus years.

and all of the stuff that I got interested in and did deep dives on, all of that stuff paid off in the long run in really random ways, which made me a really good generalist. And people needed generalists, you know, for the stuff that we were doing. So it turned out to be a huge asset for me to have done that stuff. And I think you're going to be like this for the rest of your life. You're always going to say, hey, I'm fine, that interesting. Let me learn everything I possibly can about it until I get bored. And then you've got a new knowledge set. You've got a new skill on top of your stack, you know? And to Jordan's point about skill stacking, I'd say definitely try and just sit down and look at the commonalities of all the things that you are interested in and you keep doing these deep dives on. I'm sure there's got to be some kind of through line there that ties these together. And when you think about that, think about the commonalities that they all have that complement each other. And you'll see those patterns emerge. And that's going to help you at least kind of figure out where you can keep steering the ship. You know, it's like, oh, I like art sometimes. And then sometimes I like video games. Okay, do I like the art and video games? You know, figure out what your threat is. It's going to

be different for everybody. But I think those patterns are going to make you a more creative person, which is going to make you a bigger asset wherever you end up going. And you're probably going to change careers a couple times in your life because if you're anything like me, and I think you are, you do get bored after a couple years and you want to move on and find a new challenge and a new, just a new path in life. And you know what? All of that stuff makes you a very interesting person. So I'd say embrace it and just keep going on. And I think you're going to be in a good place no matter what. I agree. I think people are really too hard on themselves when they switch areas of study. I wish I'd learned more about more when I was in school, but I was really good at keeping focused.

A lot of good that really did. I mean, it didn't make any difference at all. And also, look at what we do now. I read a book from somebody. I read another book from somebody. I research the crap out of a topic. I do an interview, and then I immediately forget 99% of it and move on to the next thing. Yep. and it's tremendously successful so far. So don't sweat it. Now look, you might not be in the business of interviewing people or doing a deep dive on a topic

and then jumping to the next thing. But there have been many occasions in running my own business where I'm like, oh, good thing I know a little bit about HTML from the 90s. Good thing I know a little bit about how networking connections work. Good thing I know a little bit

about how to set up fast Ethernet networks. Good thing I know a little bit about how to write coherent outlines. Good thing I know a little bit about this, that and the other thing. This is all coming in handy. That's how the real world works. In school, you have to be specialized in one specific area. It just really doesn't reflect in the outside world. Even people who look like they're really hyper-specialized, somebody who's a surgeon for a very specific part of the body, a brain surgeon, I guarantee you that the most successful brain surgeons also know a ton about other areas and they bring that in. In fact, most of the people that I know who are high,

hyper successful, they're really successful in multiple areas, as David Epstein mentioned. They might be a brain surgeon, but they also have climbed Mount Everest, and they're a competitive runner or cyclist. It's just the way people are wired. They're able to achieve in very different areas. The fact that you're dabbling in a few areas and you're not specialized in one, again, you're 23. You're not supposed to be a one-trick pony at this age. The fact that you can do multiple things right now Well is actually an advantage, if nothing else. 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, next up.

Hey, gang. I've been digging my well by contacting people and reaching out to a guy that I knew in the past, but haven't actually talked to in a while. I used your script and we caught up and filled each other in in our lives and how things were going. He then said we should go to lunch, and I agreed after the Corona craziness was over. Maybe I gave him the wrong idea because he's continued to contact me a lot. Just to clarify, I never dated this man, nor do I want to. How do I build my network without people getting the wrong idea?

I would like to have an expansive network, but are there times when I need to put a stop on talking to certain people? Thanks for all you do, signed Just Trying to Dig the Well. Well, this happens a lot. Guys tend not to take the hint for some reason. I mean, I wouldn't say it's the majority, but it definitely happens a lot. Don't agree to meetups quickly. That's part of the solution here.

First of all, you don't need to agree to meetups with anyone quickly. both guys and gals can follow this one. They're often a waste of time, meetups, unless it's an informational interview where you're learning, say, about a specific career, a specific opportunity, and you're meeting with somebody who works in that field or in that company that you're aiming for.

Just catching up with random people over lunch. It's not scalable. It can often be a waste of time, especially if it's done one-on-one, which brings me to one possible solution here. If you're going to meet up with other people for the first time in a long time, do so in a group setting.

You can always bring other people of the same or opposite sex, and you can arrange lunches and dinner meetings by industry or commonality. This way, there's almost no chance this gets misconstrued as a date. So instead of going, yeah, let's meet up for lunch later or dinner later, you say, yeah, I'll bring five other people that are in the medical supply industry, and we can all network. That way, the person's not like, yeah, we're pretending we're networking, but really it's kind of like Tinder.

You don't have to worry about them getting misconstrued. Look, if there was a bit of a crossed wire there, then the fact that you showed up with five other people, three other people, that should burst any bubble that's going on there. But for your current situation, I'd say there's an obvious way to get out of this. One, cancel or just never commit to a time. It sounds like you're off the hook

until we're out of quarantine anyway, which could be months. Two, ask if you can bring other people in the same industry to the meeting, just as suggested before. He should get the hint at that point, unless he's truly dense, which is always, again, always on the table. Sometimes networking for women especially can run into this. It's unfortunate.

It can happen to men as well. Keeping things focused on groups as opposed to individual meetings should solve this. And again, most of the time you don't need to meet in person at all. You can do everything through text, email, social media, and you can do your check-ins by phone or online as well. You don't necessarily need to meet up in person. Meeting in person does create stronger connections. I highly recommend scaling it out, though, and having five or six people meeting at once.

You'll get more bang for your buck, and the intent is much more clear. Okay, Jason, next step. Jordan, my 16-year-old brother is currently abusing drugs and alcohol. This isn't the typical mischievous high school drinking and weed smoking. He'll mix over-the-counter pills and drink while taking them to the point of being completely blacked out and disoriented, having no recollection of what happened. At 14, my brother began skipping school, dropped out of all sporting and school activities, and was caught by my mom smoking weed in the basement of her house. At 15, my mom kicked him out, and then he went to live with our dad.

Our family has a long history of addiction and substance abuse problems. Our dad was addicted to methamphetamine for over 13 years and is now clean, but was diagnosed with depression that he leaves untreated. Since moving in with my dad, my brother's habits have only escalated. my dad never quite learned how to properly parent and struggles with punishment or knowing how to handle confrontation with a child acting out. My brother will sneak out of the house and get so messed up that my dad will be driving around town at 4 a.m. searching for him until he finds him stumbling somewhere trying to get home. I've talked to my brother and he claims he could stop whenever he wants. However, over the course of the past month, I'm concerned that this isn't true and he needs professional help with his substance abuse.

It's gotten to the point where my dad has kicked him out and he's living with our grandparents, who are completely unaware of the extent of his behavior. He has diagnosed depression, but won't take his pills because they make him feel cloudy. He's seen several therapists, a psychiatrist, school social worker, and has a juvenile detention officer from the various times over the past two years he's been in trouble with the law. At 14, he was hospitalized for a threatened suicide attempt. He cut himself up until he was 16 and was in a severe car accident. at age 15, leaving him in the hospital for two weeks with several broken bones, mild head trauma,

and a metal femur replacement. The hardest part of all this is the fact that he struggles with severe nihilism. He thinks that there's absolutely no purpose to life. Nobody can help him. There's no point in him stopping, and he lacks all symptoms of remorse for his actions. One would think, given the life-threatening situations he's been in, he would have a desire to live. However, it's the exact opposite. He's an extremely smart kid, who, when he applies to, he applies. He's an lies himself is an absolute genius and an amazing and fun individual to be around. It's gotten to the point now where he lies to both of my parents and will only come to me with the truth about his addiction. My parents had an awful divorce and are incapable of co-parenting, even in a time like this.

My brother absolutely hates my stepfather and refuses to go to my mom for help. He doesn't respect my dad or fear any punishment from him. He isn't worried about hurting anyone or letting anyone down. He has completely opened up to me about his nihilism and struggle to find purpose in life. Now that he's been kicked out of both parents' houses, and neither of them know how to help him, I feel the heavy burden shifting to me. However, I'm only 22 years old. While I have my own home in a stable full-time job, I can't allow myself to take him in and bring this into my own home. I'm the oldest of seven siblings.

My 16-year-old brother, 11-year-old brother, and myself are my mom and dad's kids. My mom has since remarried and has four kids of her own. I'm the oldest and closest to my two brothers. My mom seems to be completely withdrawn from my brother's current situation, while my dad is very concerned and coming to me for help. I'm desperate to help him, especially since he's only 16 years old and has so much potential. However, I have absolutely no idea how to even begin. Both of my parents are totally useless, and it seems like they've totally given up on him.

How do you help a sibling who has no guidance, and doesn't even want to help themselves. Any advice is much appreciated. Signed a scared sister. Oh, well, this is extra, extra ugly, and I'm very sorry to hear what you're going through. There's just no reason whatsoever that this type or amount of pressure

should actually be on you. It actually makes me angry a little bit, that your parents would even expect you to deal with this. I don't know if they expect you to, but the fact that you're doing it and they're allowing it is kind of disgusting. Not trying to throw shade on your parents. just this should not be the case. I called someone else that I know who has a lot of very personal

experience with this same type of situation with very, very similar circumstances. And here's what she had to say. She said, this is awful. I feel her pain, but she's going to hate my answer. I would like to tell her it's not her problem. And no matter how much she cares and how hard she tries, she cannot fix this. It's not just substance abuse, but it's also mental illness and possible brain damage. Having lived a lifetime of this, I would like to tell her to turn her back on him now and save herself. I know it sounds awful, but she could spend her whole life trying to help him, and if he's not willing to do the work, nothing will change. There's also a near certainty that this person will drag her and her new family down through the mud as well,

sewing chaos all over the place and leaving messes for her to clean up. This is the voice of experience here, by the way. The person I asked was actually my own. own mother who's been going through this with her family for decades. The way it finally ended was with one brother who's missing. He's either incarcerated or dead. I don't know what happened to him. And the other finally just went a few steps too far, a few too many times, and now he's not allowed to contact us anymore. Everything my mom did was in vain, and it only served to prolong the situation. And I got to tell you, having viewed this from age, I don't know, 11 to age 20 something when I was dealing with it, it was kind of like my mom was only three quarters there or half there.

because of the stress she was under. She definitely felt dragged down by this. She felt a lot of pressure or stress. She took up a lot of time. I feel in many ways like I was robbed of certain things, certain experiences from my mom, because she was dealing with these A-holes, you know, and this addiction issues

that people had no desire to clean up. They just wanted to get away with it for as long as they could, and they did. And it ended up almost like my mom was enabling it. She wasn't trying to. She was trying to get them help and trying to even get them arrested at a certain point. so that they would get help by force, but she just had one foot in for years and years and years,

and I think it probably took 10 years off of her life, honestly. Now, I'm not saying you have to follow this advice, but if somebody doesn't want to help themselves, the only thing you can do is not enable them by bailing them out of the messes they find themselves in. Honestly, the best thing that can probably happen at this point is for your brother to be incarcerated and forced to get clean as mandated by a judge or inside the walls of a prison. Again, this is just my opinion and, of course, my mother's opinion. And if I were you, I'd find a therapist that you're comfortable with who can help you get through this. You shouldn't have to go through it alone.

And having a sounding board and having an experienced professional on speed dial to anchor you to sanity is not a bad idea here. And also, for those of you cringing that I outed my mom here, I obviously did ask her for permission. And she later said, I think it might have more impact if she knows how up close and personal this is to you. You're more than welcome to tell her it's from me, my mom says. I hope she just doesn't use as much of her life energy to fix her brother as I did mine. More importantly, I hope she does not feel guilty. I spent years beating myself up and all it did was hurt everyone around me and did nothing to help the situation. Her parents have abdicated, but that does not make it her problem.

And I will leave with one final note here. Jason, it strikes me as crazy that this kid is so out of control. The mother's kind of like, well, can't do much about it. ship him off to his dad and the dad was like, I'll ship him with the grandparents who have no idea about what's going on. That to me signals there's a lot more going on in this family. Like the last thing I would do if my kid was in trouble is be like, let me find two old people who are less qualified to deal with this than even me and won't have any idea what kind of train wreck they're getting into and I'll just move him into their basement. Yeah, this is a bad

situation like from the top down. So yeah, well technically from the bottom up, the 16 year old to the parents and now the grandparents. So if you're going an age. But yeah, it's like, okay, your parents suck. This is definitely on the board here. And your mom is right, Jordan. She's absolutely right. I've seen this play out time and time again in dysfunctional families that I've been around over the years. And your mom's spot on.

That's it. You have to cut ties. It's not your problem. It's not even your parents' problem in two years. It's his problem because he's going to be an actual adult. But right now he's a minor, so he's got to have somebody that he can stay with. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know how they can kick him. out at those different ages, especially, I think that's why they have to keep bouncing them to

different family members, because they can't just put them out on the street. They'll go to jail for that. But it's not your problem. It's honestly not your problem. You need to take care of you and not let it ruin your life. Just because he can't get his shit together, it doesn't mean that you have to do it for him. Yeah, and there you have it. Voice of Experience straight from me, Jason, and Mama Harbinger. So I hope that's helpful. I know this is not going to be an easy decision. And I have a feeling that since you're a nice person who's caring and cares about your brother, that you'll resist it for a while. Just bear in mind that when you feel like,

wow, this is really hard, this is really unfair, what am I going to do, that the recommendation is you stop trying. I don't expect you to stop right now because it's going to be very hard, but realize that when it occurs to you to stop trying, that it's not because you're selfish or something like that.

It's because it's the right thing to do. You have to have some self-preservation here. The fact, you know what is disturbing, Jason, is when she said that he doesn't seem to care if he hurts someone else. That's a ticking time bomb. Yeah, that's absolutely a problem. That sounds like the type of person who just, you know, gets an occurrence is screw it, who cares?

Mm-hmm. And starts driving, you know, super inebriated or getting in trouble like that because of the night. Like, I hate to say it because you don't want to assume harmful intent on behalf of anyone, but it's just so tragic when you hear about some family driving with their kids who gets killed by somebody who wanted to kill themselves because they just stopped caring about life. Like, that's terrifying. Yeah. Being able to do something about that upstream might be helpful.

I understand why this could be a problem. That's why I said sometimes the best thing you can do is get that person incarcerated. Because, yeah, it sucks. It feels like you're throwing someone under the bus. But if they're their own worst enemy, then putting them in a place where they can't do that as easily anymore is actually better than the current situation. Right. And since he's still a minor, it's actually easier to get him institutionalized instead of put

him in the prison system. So it sounds like he definitely has severe mental health issues and substance abuse issues, obviously. So, you know, it might be an option to discuss with your parents about. about having him committed, put him on a 72-hour hold so they can at least watch him and find out what the hell's going on. And I'm guessing from what you've told us in this story, they can put him into long-term treatment against his will because that's, I think, the only way that anything's going to happen with this guy. Yeah, as a minor, now might be the time to do this. Because once he's 18,

19, 20, they might start treating him much more like an adult. There might even be fewer resources out there for somebody like that. I don't know. Definitely. Definitely, yeah, yeah. We'll be right back more Feedback Friday right after this. Thank you for supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right. Next up. Hi, Jordan. How can I obtain mentorship or establish great networks when I'm financially incapable of hiring a coach or attending high value networking events? How do I identify what I have to offer to the person from whom I want mentorship. What should I do if I have nothing

to offer for the time being? I find myself surrounded by people who have no perspectives and no ambition. They complain about trivial things. They look for excuses rather than solutions, and they are complacent with mediocrity. Objectively speaking, I'm less well-traveled and experienced compared to many of my friends, and I currently fall into the category of being mediocre in terms of generally agreed upon external measurements such as job and money, but I find myself providing helpful insights to people in my circle far more often than getting them. I'm a 27-year-old student who will start her first full-time job soon. I've worked as an intern and a working student in multiple workplaces in Germany, and I feel more eager than ever to level up my game. I acquire

inspirations, mostly from books, all kinds of online content, and my self-reflection. When I do turn to people for guidance, it is more often than not unhelpful. Like you, I totally buy the theory that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. What would you suggest I do to build my own inspiring team? I've been attending various local meetups and events, which hasn't been fruitful so far. I understand the continuous efforts are required for whatever outcomes we intend to achieve, whereas failures are just one of the default settings. Determined to improve my networks by putting myself out there consistently, I still sometimes wonder what would be the next smart move I can make. I'm not expecting a magic bullet from you that gets me where I want to be overnight.

After all, everything comes down to my own actions. However, I still would like to hear what you have to say since I trust your expertise regarding the matter. Much love. Signed, need a new five. Well, I get this. Boy, do I get this. I wager you're actually in a better place than you think you are. It took me until my early to mid-30s to realize that I was surrounded by people who were hell-bent on screwing up their lives and taking me along with them. People who would do everything wrong if they had the option, and dang did I get sucked into that black hole, so you're not alone. What I would do in your shoes is the following.

This is a rough strategy, but you'll be able to fill in the map here. Instead of trying to go make friends that you feel can elevate you, find a job where you can stack skills and be closer to colleagues who can do this. So ideas for this are sales organizations, something customer-focused or a B-to-B client contact, even customer support at the entry level, if you can find it. Or better, become an assistant to a higher-level manager or C-suite executive. I've mentioned this on the show before, but you're 27. You're at the right age to get that sort of position.

Normally, people who started at the entry level, they got to work their way up, their lower management, middle management, upper management by the time they're in the 30s, 40s, if you can become the assistant to somebody in the C-suite or a high-level manager, you might be 27, but you're working with people in their 40s. So you really skip the line in terms of getting exposure to a bunch of really amazing folks. And that is extremely, extremely helpful. So you essentially get to skip the line and go straight to working with people who have great routines, have good networks, have good habits, the rising stars, or even the stars already in the company in which you work. And that's a much better way to surround yourself with the right people for your

career. And this way, you're also getting paid to learn skills and you're working hard around other people working hard. They'll be able to guide you and your career. So instead of trying to find some random mentor among your friends or on the internet from one of these life coach grifters, you'll find good role models and examples in the workplace. Also, in terms of finding out what people want and then figuring out how to help them. You'll learn all about this in the six-minute networking course, which for all of you know by now is free at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. I hope you're taking that course right now. If you've taken it already, do it again. In the updated version, which we updated a few months back, we do discuss how to assess what others

wants and learn how to make connections to those who can fill the need. That's the way you do it. You don't just magically learn the skills that other people need. You connect people within your network in a scalable way. And I think your new position should be something intense that takes up most of your time. Because if you need to break old habits, get away from negative social circle, throwing yourself into a career, it's a great way to jumpstart that job, your network, your circle of friends. And don't be afraid to move to a new city for the job if you have to as well. That type of hard reset can work wonders. A lot of people who find themselves stuck in the same old routines, they're afraid to move because they think, what, I might not know anyone. It's hard to make

friends in a new town totally true. But if you're working at some startup or corporation that's making you work 60 hour work weeks, you really won't worry too much about the fact that you don't have as many people in your circle. You're going to start meeting people at work. They're going to become your close friends. And you know, you can do the same standard stuff. Start dating online. Find out that those people aren't for you. Make them into friends. Join activity groups. I mean, there are ways to do this. But a hard reset and getting away from negative habits and people, that can really be helpful. Trust me, I've done this multiple times in my life going back to high school when I was an exchange student and then throughout college. And I think it's one of the reasons I was able to get

a jumpstart on my life and make up for what I thought was lost time in high school and university because I just kept moving around and having to start from scratch. It really does pressure you to stand up and make it happen. All right, last but not least. Hi, Jen, Jason, and Jordan. I've been pondering about ways that I can make the most out of my time in isolation. One of my ideas is to start a podcast. I'm not the most naturally gifted when it comes to speaking to an audience, so I'm treating this as a challenge to push myself out of my comfort zone. Also, I'm hoping that this will be a great way to expand my network of interesting people. I would like to invite guests on the show to talk about their most adventurous travel experiences. I started reaching out to some potential guests

using your ABG method from six-minute networking, and I've been amazed by the positive response so far. How can I transition this pleasant chit-chat into booking them as a guest? My concern is that being a completely new channel, there isn't much of an incentive for them to give up their precious time to be a guest on my small-time show. And lastly, I am completely new to podcasting. What podcasting advice would you give to a young Jordan five to ten years ago when you were just starting out? Much appreciated, signed podcasting in isolation. Jason, I don't know. What do you think?

I retweeted something at the beginning of the lockdown. or shelter in place, excuse me, where somebody had tweeted, a government order to stay at home for a month would be the final push we need to make sure that every single American becomes a podcaster. And I mean, I just, look, nothing wrong with starting a podcast, but you don't really have value for other people other than you telling them that you have value, and that doesn't necessarily equate to the same thing. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, right now, he can get some practice in. That's one thing, but you're not going to, get any headway right now because the funny thing is people are listening to less podcasts right now because they lost the commute, they lost the gym time, they're stuck at home with the family, nobody's sitting around the old computer going, hey, honey, let's turn on the Jordan Harbinger show and have a cup of tea. Podcasting is a very personal thing, so we've seen that people have taken a little bit of a break for it. So right now might not be the best time to try and actually sharpen your knife on it to actually get an audience. If you want to do it just to hone your skills

and not publish it, that's an idea. Learn to speak. As you say, you have a problem speaking in front of people, and technically on a podcast, you are speaking in front of people, but you're not. You're at home alone with a microphone and an audio editor. So you can take this time to really kind of dig into learning how to make good audio, get a decent microphone,

get some decent editing software, and practice, practice, practice. And then after this whole thing's over and everybody goes back to their life, then you can actually get into it. And maybe just do some interviews with friends. You know, get your friends on. do some mock interviews, things like that. I think you should take this time to maybe learn some craft before you actually dive in and publishing your own show because that's what this time is actually really good for.

And remember, you don't have to have value for a lot of these people if they're just doing stories. You don't have to have value for them other than them telling the story. As long as they know up front that you are just getting their story out there, you make it painless for them. Also, I wouldn't worry about monetizing this. You're just going to use it to hone skills. Many people will do this especially right now because I think a lot of folks are bored and they haven't been interviewed before. And if you're going for the type of person that just has an interesting story but has never done media, I don't think there's anything wrong with them doing it, getting their reps in and you sharpening your skills as an interviewer.

But turning it into a business or passing it off as something that will help the other person do something in their business or for their career would be disingenuous. So as long as your cards are out on the table, go for it. Just realize that it's a hobby and not the beginning of a career, probably. Life Pro Tip of the week, go start your car and drive it around for 15 to 20 minutes if it's been like a week. For a lot of us, we haven't driven in weeks, really. So I think Jen drove the car the other day. It doesn't matter. We have an electric car.

Your car is a battery. For many of you, you need to drive your car. This allows the alternator to recharge the battery, keep you from having to jump it. It's just good to run a car at least once a week for a little bit. Jason, what do you think? Yep, I ran into this a bit ago. I was running mine for about five minutes a day, just tooling around the neighborhood, but you need to do it 15 to 20 minutes a week. 20 is the best. And you want to get it up to speed and get it warm because you want the liquids to go around too and the belts to get lubricated.

And you just want everything to move, you know, it's just like kind of getting up and taking a jog for your car. And at 20 minutes, the alternator will kick in and get that battery up to snuff. I was doing it five minutes a week and I had to go take my car in for an oil change. And as soon as I dropped it off, I went to press the button to start. start it back up and it wouldn't start. And I'm like, well, guess that didn't make it. And the guy's like, well, it died at the right place because I was in the service bay at Ford. So that worked out. But yeah, keep it topped up. And because you need that in emergencies. If anything happens, you know, you have to get to the hospital in case, you know, God forbid something happens. You want your car to

work. On that note, I did go out and buy a portable jump starter that I keep in the back now. It's basically like, you know, a big cell phone battery, but with jumper cables on it so you can just clip it on and go. It was great because you're trying to find somebody with actual jumper cables and somebody that can jump your car. Nowadays, it's probably pretty tough because nobody wants to get close enough to you to grab the other end of those cables. That's a good point. And look, if you are having a problem and you do need to jump the car, you can also order those car starters on Amazon, which is like a battery that you plug into the garage and basically has enough juice to jump your car. You can throw it in the trunk.

So if your car won't start and if that's a routine kind of thing, you probably won't be able to call a neighbor and have them help you out. at least depends on your neighborhood. So you can grab one of those things and throw it in the trunk. Yeah, that's what I was just talking about that I bought. And it's size of a brick, but it's very light. It's just a big lithium ion battery with two jumper cables on it. It's small. You can keep it in the back. But nowadays, what's nice about it is you're going to run into your neighbors and friends who haven't heard this episode and haven't run their car for 20 minutes and are going to need to start their car. And you can just toss it to them and say, wipe it down and give it back to me when you're done. And that way you don't have to bring the cars together. You can automobilically

distance. You don't have to keep your cars together. Nice. Yeah, good call. Recommendation of the week, Operation, I'm not totally sure how to pronounce this, Operation Toussaint, T-O-U-S-S-A-I-N-T. It's French, but the movie's not French. It's about undercover activities of an elite team of former U.S. law enforcement officers whose sole mission is to track down human traffickers and put an end to child slavery and child prostitution. And it's really interesting. It's on Amazon Prime video. Jason, this guy, he was a Homeland Security officer, I think FBI, and a pastor's son got kidnapped in Haiti, and he was a U.S. citizen, so he called and said, I need help finding my son. And this guy decided to fly down to Haiti and look for his son. He quit his job as an FBI agent because he kept

looking for this guy's son, and every time he'd follow up a lead, he'd find like 28 kids working in some weird brothel or being sold. And he's like, every time I follow up a lead, I'm just finding more and more nightmare scenarios. So my work down here is really fruitful. And he's freed thousands of kids from being sold across overseas. It's crazy. There's whole orphanages there in Haiti and all over the world, honestly, where kids are just for sale. You can just buy them and smuggle on out of the country. And the people who are there, they just don't seem to care what the kids are used for. And I think it's pretty obvious what a lot of the kids are used for because if you want to adopt somebody, you just adopt them, right? I don't think you buy them for 10 grand. So

It's really, really sad, but it's a really interesting look at this underground industry and what a team of really good do-gooders are doing to combat it. And I think it's just a fascinating movie. Operation Dussent will link that in the show notes. It's on Amazon Prime Video. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com.

Quick shout out to Igor Pavich from Washington. He was the first to report bugs on our brand-new. website. We have a brand new website at Jordan Harbinger.com. If you find typos or things that don't work as expected, please do take some screenshots and or send them to us in an email. I'm Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. We're busy fixing up as much as we can. We've gone through, I don't know, what looks to be 90, 95% of it, but I have a feeling we're going to be squashing the last 5% of those bugs for the next 90 days. So if you find something, then please let us know. The best thing we can do is have everybody go through it and see what works and what doesn't. And then we can fix

those problems because to do it all ourselves is not really possible. Go back and check out the guests from this week, Julie Gerberting and David Epstein, if you haven't yet. If you want to know how I manage to book all these great people and manage my relationships using systems and tiny habits, check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. You've got to dig the well before you're thirsty. Once you need relationships, you're too late. Even if you have to start from scratch right now and you're like, I'm out of work, I don't have time. Do it now. Ignore this at your own peril. This is the stuff I wish I knew two decades ago.

Find it all for free at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. It's a great way to engage with me on the show. Videos of much of our interviews are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason? And check out grumpy old geeks. It's my seven-year-old tech podcast. We're still going.

We're not taking a break during the crisis. And we discuss what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame, along with cybersecurity apps, gadgets, books, and more. And some tips on how to get through this. since my host and I both have 20 years of working from home experience. That's grumpy old geeks. The show is created in association with podcast one, this episode produced by Jen Harbinger and edited by J. Sanderson.

Show notes for the episode by Robert Fogarty, music by Evan Viola. Keep sending in your questions to Friday atjordanharbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own, and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love, and if you found this episode useful,

please share it with somebody else who can use the advice that we gave here today. We've got 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.

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