The Jordan Harbinger Show - 352: My Spouse Controls My Online Life! | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Out of work since late last year, you were finally making progress on the job hunt until COVID-19 locked everything down. Now you've been making connections and finding opportunities on LinkedIn that seem promising. The problem is, your spouse is nervous that anything you post there will somehow hurt your chances for getting a job; it seems her resentment that you're not working -- added to the constant proximity of quarantining responsibly -- puts the world through a very negative lens and anything you say is stupid. So now she's monitoring your LinkedIn account from hers and picking fights with you every time you post anything there. Should you find another place to live for now while pursuing work, or should you just let your spouse control your online life and make that pursuit more difficult? We tackle 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/352. On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: How do you know if the work from home/side hustle guru you're following on Instagram is a scam artist or the real deal? Sadly, your spouse is simultaneously resentful that you don't have a job and embarrassed that you post to LinkedIn looking for one -- and it causes fights that last for days. Should you find your own space for a while or let them control your online life? Your significant other passed away in front of you at home, and now you're dealing with PTSD on top of grief in the very place where it happened. What can you do to move forward? With the biological clock ticking, are you selfish or stupid to try for a child in the middle of a pandemic? Laura Gassner Otting recommended cutting off toxic people in your life who don't support or "cheerlead" for you. Sadly, you've never been the cheerleading type -- should you worry that you've been a toxic person all along without knowing? You're a South Indian with a supposedly hard-to-pronounce name. You don't mind people mispronouncing it (because the effort is respectful), but you do mind the "cutesy" nicknames foisted upon you by people you barely know. How can you get people to take you seriously enough to use your actual name? When the family relies on you so much, how can you find the time to get a place of your own and become independent for the first time in your young life? Life Pro Tip: Buy domains for your name, your kids' names, and the names of any businesses or anything you own (for a discount at our sponsor hover.com/jordan). If you can, set up a small website (quickly and easily... 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 are new to the show on Fridays, we give advice to you and answer, list our 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 Dan Heath with his new project on solving problems upstream. I thought this is kind of interesting.

Dan and Chip Heath, they write all these business books, of course, but this upstream problem solving is particularly apropos and important right now in a pandemic when we know from the Dennis Carroll episode, which we aired, I think, in February, we know we could have prevented this disease with more upstream thinking, and we could have actually solved the problem.

Because they saw this thing coming. They saw it in the animal. Oh, we're going to get that eventually. And then everyone's like, well, that's going to suck. And then we did nothing about it. That's what happens with a lot of diseases. So we can expect more of that until we start more upstream thinking. So Dan Heath episode was legit, in my opinion.

And we had General Martin Dempsey on leadership. And yes, I know a leadership show with a general big surprise. But I found him actually quite interesting. And I think he brought in more than the usual lead with integrity. Be grateful for your subordinates. you know, the usual kind of leadership junk, I think we kind of avoided that and talked about some real stuff. So General Martin Dempsey and Dan Heath were on this week. Also, I write every so often on the blog, the latest post, or one of the latest posts is how to stay productive under quarantine.

A lot of people have been commenting on that, telling me how useful that is. It's more than just like put a shirt on, which by the way, a lot of people need to take heed of that one too. You see these guys getting caught in their underwear, Jason, on Zoom calls? That in itself is a Zoom. It's a Pants Demic on Zoom. Pants Demic. Yeah, it's like, look, I get it. I've done this show with no pants on. But for God's sake, close your laptop.

If you're on a Zoom call, here's the trick. You know, a lot of people, it's like, oh, but you forget you're on the video. Here is the trick. And Jason, tell me if you agree with this. Make sure you can see your own video in the window at all time. So if you've got Zoom, you've got to click gallery views so you can see everyone, including yourself, not just the who's talking view. Because if you're not used to this, and it's automatic.

going to the person that's talking, you will forget, if you are not talking, that the camera is on you. Eventually, over the course of the hour or whatever, you'll just forget, because it'll be like you're watching a video. And then you're going to get up and scratch your junk or whatever you got,

and everyone's going to be like, oh my God, you're still on camera. You know, because they might have gallery view. You think everyone's only looking at your boss who's talking, but everyone else is on gallery view and can see you picking your nose. You've got to be careful. So use gallery view and you won't make that mistake

because you'll be self-conscious about the way you look on camera, which is better than getting caught with your pants down, literally. Anyway, that article is not just about how to make sure you don't embarrass yourself. It's about productivity. And it's good because it's written by, well, with a cooperation of Jason, myself, and Gabriel, all of whom been working at home, I think if you add us all up, probably been working at home like 30 or 40 years combined. At least, yeah.

It's not written by a journalist who's like, I've been at home for three weeks. Let me write a blog about what's worked for me. This is like, these are workflows and routines and tips and software and things like that. This is the new normal you've heard. So hear it from people who is for whom it's the old normal. That's my tip. All right. Well, make sure you've had a look and listen to all that.

The articles are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles. And while you're there, let me know what you think of the brand new website with brand new branding and brand new bugs. Brand new things wrong with it. Of course, our primary mission here on the show is to pass along our guests and our own insights to you. So we want to place a brick in the structure that makes up your life. That's what this shows about. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. I notice a lot of people have been asking me about different gurus and other folks like that,

especially the ones purporting to teach people how to make money online or make money from home, et cetera. I think most of these, I know, most of these are scams. I think these scams have gotten more pervasive now because so many people are feeling the crunch in this down economy. Or they're like, well, if I'm at home, I can work on my side hustle, my boss won't know. well, if I'm going to work from home, I might as well keep all the money or whatever that's sort of like rationale that these sales guys, these hucksters, are giving for working from home or for starting their Forex trading, you know, workshop. A lot of these guys, they talk in very jargony and confusing language. And a lot of folks have been asking me like,

oh, well, do you think this guy's smart? And I'll look at the sales pitch. It's like, learn how to do this and learn from puts and calls and cover your calls with your puts and make money and ROI this and that. They're doing this on purpose. Some of them, most of them, they don't even know what the hell they're talking about. A lot of the time this vague language, this jargony language, makes it seem like the information they're giving you or want to sell you as otherwise inaccessible. Because if you're reading something and you go, oh, I don't even know what puts and calls are, this guy must know a lot about stock trading. I want to learn day trading from him. That's the idea. That's the idea. Somebody who's really a good communicator would know that the majority of the people

reading their sales copy don't know what that stuff is, so they should write simply. If they're writing in vague and jargony language, they don't know what that is and they want to confuse you because that's what they want in a customer, somebody who doesn't understand what is going on. That's not you if you're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show. It means that what they do is so cryptic that only they can unlock it for you. Also, if you then don't get what's going on, like let's say you buy that workshop and then you don't understand it, their fake system doesn't work for you, which is 99.9% of everyone. except for the people who succeed by accident,

then they can blame you for not getting it. Or, oh, you didn't understand it. Or, oh, you know, you signed up for something that was too advanced for you. This is your fault. For example, you also hear these guys say things like skate to where the puck is going. Now, that might make sense for the CEO of a company

to say something like this to the entire staff at some company annual meeting because he's talking about the company mission and everyone at every level has to hear that. But it doesn't make any sense from any learning or direct report. standpoint. Your manager should never be saying stuff like that to you. Your direct boss should be teaching you specific skills and showing you how to get better at your job or work better with

your team. Not that your manager shouldn't motivate you, but that should not be all that they do. So the more vague the language, the further you are away from that particular leader. So if you're picking someone to learn from who's supposed to help you in your life or your career, pick the person who can give you the most actionable next steps in the clearest way. If you pick someone spouting vague platitudes, you're not going to learn much of anything from that. You might even think that you are because what they're saying makes sense to you at some level, like, oh, skate to where the puck is going. That's good. Yeah, I've heard that somewhere. That's what smart people say. Maybe it sounds good. Maybe it rhymes. Maybe it seems true or clever. But just because

something feels motivating doesn't mean it's actually going to get you somewhere. I see this with podcasters, business mentor types, these coaches, Amazon writers, influencers. So be aware. Are you buying something aspirational that makes you feel good and that sounds good and that has cool branding on it? Or are you buying something that will actually help you? You have to get the difference here. You have to understand the difference here that's really, really key, or you will get scammed. You'll get ripped off by one of these fake gurus. I'm going to do a whole show on fake gurus and how their business models work as well in the next couple weeks here.

I'm sick of these scammers and the more you learn how to spot them in their tactics, the easier it'll be for you to avoid them and help other people avoid them as well. And I brought this up now just because I'm getting so many letters like, is this guy a scam? Is this guy a scam? Is this guy a scam? And of course, Jason, every single guy that they're sending me has been a, what I think is an obvious scam, except it's obviously not obvious enough because people are asking me. So it's rough out there. Yeah, it's crazy. The first episode of Grumpy Old Geeks over seven years ago, we went through How to Make Money on the Internet. And the best way on how to make money on the

internet is teach somebody how to make money on the internet. Or you make money on the internet teaching somebody how to make money on the internet from the class that you took on how to make money on the internet. Yep. It's just an orbis. It's scams all the way down. It's crazy. And you know, even after seven years, people still don't get it. Yeah, it's actually really sad because you will find, in fact, people who start off not wanting to just teach other people how to make money on the internet, they end up often using their platform to teach people how to make money on the internet because they find it's really effective. And look, if you're talking about a guy like Pat Flynn is like, here's stuff that's going on to my business. That guy's not a scammer. He's teaching you

most of the stuff for free. And again, a lot of these scammers will purport to do that. But you can try Pat Flynn stuff. You'll be like, oh, that makes sense and works. He's not like, find out the secrets in this course about this and the other thing. But when you find these people who are teaching you like, this is a business school, join my business school. You'll often find that when you quote unquote graduate in air quotes from their fake business school, but you. that your business opportunity that you get is to sell their online course, their business goal the next round to the next round of suckers.

So you just become an affiliate in their pyramid or Ponzi marketing scheme and you sucker other people because you need to make up the money that you paid for the course and now you're supposedly marketing people and helping them change their lives, but you're just selling them

something that turned into a business for you that is inevitably going to turn into either a loss or another scammy business for them. So don't be a cog in that machine, folks. Just stay away from you. from it entirely. Jason, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Jordan and team. I've been out of work since November 2019. I've been trying hard to get a new gig and saw some progress right up until COVID-19 locked everything down. My wife is nervous that

anything I post on social media, especially LinkedIn, will hurt my chances to get my next job. Her resentment that I'm not working puts the world through a very negative lens and anything I say is stupid. I've had some success making connections and starting good conversations with my LinkedIn postings and hate to stop. She monitors my LinkedIn account from hers and any posting starts a fight lasting for days. She's treating me like a child and I resent it. I care for her and imagine things might get better once I'm employed again. So do I find another place to live while I fight the good fight and maybe make up with her later? Or do I keep my mouth shut until I have a job and lose my LinkedIn voice? Signed, intensely frustrated, besieged husband. Well, which red flag should we

start with. There's so many to choose from. This is so telling right here. Let me just repeat part of this. Your wife monitors your LinkedIn is embarrassed by you looking for a job, but that is also resentful that you don't have a job. So you're between a rock and a hard place, and the choice is either move out or don't get a job using LinkedIn. Like, how is that your current choice right now? Like, how are those your options? Why would that be the choice? What this tells me is that living with your wife is, unless I'm misreading this slash miss listening, is unbearable, living with your wife is unbearable to the point where you have to do what she wants, no matter how unreasonable or kind of insane sounding, or you have to move out because she makes your life so miserable for not doing

what she wants that you can't stand each other. Like, what the actual hell is going on over there? That's what I want to know. This is weirdly controlling. It sounds a little abusive. It's different because it's a guy, and I think as a society, we're kind of conditioned to be like, oh, what a pain in the neck, but imagine a woman writing in and going, my husband monitors my social media accounts, and he yells at me when I post things that he finds embarrassing, but also he wants me to quit my job and live at home or go get another job and bring in more. People would be like, this guy's abusive, terrible, leave them, leave him right now, girl, that's what you'd be hearing. But since it's a woman doing it to a man, I think we have to be kind of careful to make sure that

we're giving the same kind of treatment here, because this is sort of weirdly abusive. I mean, there's just kind of no getting around it. I get having disagreements over things happens all the time, even over unreasonable things. It's normal. Married people fight over silly stuff, man. I'll tell you right now. But escalating them to where someone is thinking they need to move out

to get peace so they can get on with their lives and get a job, that's insane. Anyway, no one is judging the things you post on LinkedIn other than your resume. And even then, if I see somebody post something on LinkedIn, I'm not like, let me go look at this guy's resume right now. What a gap. He didn't do anything for three years. Here's this guy, I knew it, he's a loser. I'm never hiring him.

It's not really how this goes. People who are hiring are looking for qualified candidates and conversing with them. They don't care if you posted a SpaceX rocket video on there last week or something. It's not what you're doing or not doing, but the extent of your wife's control that actually worries me. She's worried, she feels insecure about the economy perhaps, but her seeking to then micromanage your activity and putting you down and making you feel stupid, I mean, that's actually just abusive. and maybe she feels a loss of control in the economy

or because there's money problems in your family, but the way you regain control over your life is not by controlling the people in your life. And I know that you think things might get better when you're employed, but do you want the conditions of your marriage to be that when times are good, your wife is nice to you and when times are not good,

she treats you like crap and you think about moving out? That doesn't seem very comfortable, if you ask me. And I think you guys could use some marriage counseling, barring that. I think you should go get some of your own space for a while if you can. I mean, you've got enough on your plate finding a job in this economy without your wife trying to control your behavior and breathing down your neck and giving you crap about posting on LinkedIn. And once you get a job, definitely make one of the conditions of you coming home that you and your wife go to therapy

together if you do decide to leave the house. You got to go to therapy together. Your relationship needs a foundation of mutual trust and respect. And it's definitely not what we are hearing. right now. So good luck with that. But I think you should get space if you need it. Being cooped up is bad enough. Being cooped up with somebody who wants to control you. No thanks. 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 jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to

do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Now let's hear some more of your questions here on Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Hello, Jordan and team. The reason I'm writing is that I feel so lost and sad. My partner, who was 36, died unexpectedly in our living room just over a month ago. I was there to provide CPR and call 911. I'm only 26, but I know he's the love of my life. We had our whole lives together planned, and I'm grieving him and the beautiful life we were living together. We both were such caring, passionate people about our work, and were always supportive of each other's goals and projects. Now there are many other complications that I won't go into, but lately I've been struggling with finding myself, getting motivated, finding purpose, making meaning,

rebuilding confidence, and letting this sadness go. I just can't find my will to do any of it. I'm doing so much to work through it, counseling, virtual support groups, reading, podcasts, which there aren't many for me. But I freak out when I try to get work done as we were working. from home together, and even my laptop has turned into a trigger. And the thought of continuing with my graduate program without him to debrief with, cheer me on, and be at my graduation in a year is just devastating. Is there an episode of the show or a guest who I might be able to listen to or read about grief coping with triggers, PTSD, or moving forward? I'm just trying to get as much information as I can to help myself heal and move forward in this world of social distancing

and sadness. Warmly, the widowed girlfriend. Well, I'm so sorry to hear about this. This is super sad. I think right now there's no good way to deal with this. I mean, you're 26, you went through this traumatic experience. I mean, imagine finding somebody that your spouse or close to spouse just dead in your apartment. I mean, that's horrible. I think you're doing so much right, the counseling, the virtual support groups, reading podcasts and things like that that you mentioned.

You want to speed up the process. It doesn't really sound like you can do that. I mean, I'm no expert on grief. but I would imagine that the only other ingredient is time, unfortunately. And I wish I had a better sort of magic formula for that, but I don't. I think counseling and support groups are where it's at. There's a reason that those things take time, and I think it's because purely the ingredient of time is what helps, you know, your brain and body have to get through the grief.

Don't try to do it on your own, especially right now that we're all cooped up. Normally, I'd say change your environment, but that obviously might be tough, especially right now. I do wonder, can you go stay with parents for a while? Can you go stay with other family? Can you go stay with your brothers and sisters or a cousin that has a family? Because being alone right now is a great way to ruminate and really go down a negative thought loop and make every hour seem like an entire day.

Whereas if you're with other people that love and care about you, not only will that help you distract yourself in a healthy way, but you can focus on other people, you can focus on yourself, but you don't have to spend every waking moment wondering and thinking about how quiet your house is or being reminded of everything, like finding one of his old socks under the couch. Like, you don't have to worry about that. You're going to be in a different environment. So if you can change your environment, please do that. Normally when you lose someone so close to you, you go through a lot and everything becomes a trigger. Like I said, that old sock under the couch. That will gradually fade over time, especially as you keep up with therapy and support from

the outside. But you do want to get away from that right now. you can. Again, so sorry to hear about this. It's such a sad thing to have happened to you at this juncture in life, but I know it sounds trite, but you will eventually be able to process this. You just shouldn't try to do it on your own. There's a lot of value in therapy. There's a lot of value in support groups. There's a lot of value in spending time with other people that love you like your family. So try to do as much of that as you can, even if it feels like it's not working. I think sticking with that process is going to be key. And I'm going to second what you said about changing the environment. Her boyfriend died in the living room and she has to go through that living room

every day. That whole apartment is a trigger. You know, there's nothing in there that's not going to be a trigger. Even like, you know, after she redecorates and moves stuff around, she's always going to remember, you know, the good times they had over in this part of the place and then the worst day of her life when she goes to watch TV. There's just no way around it. You have to get out of there. Yeah, exactly. What are you going to do? Sit in that empty living room and look around at everything that reminds you of this person and sit on the couch? I mean, I just, I can't imagine it. I understand why that would be so traumatizing. Yeah, such a terrible situation. All right, Jason, what's next? Hello to all the Jays. I'm a former home economics teacher from a rural area. After some years

as a professional cook working in my mother's bakery and a divorce, I went back to college and got my teaching endorsements. I substituted for several years before I landed my dream job as a home economics teacher across the state. I signed a three-year provincial contract and moved without a second thought. Immediately after moving, I met a wonderful man who lived in the next town over and hours drive away, and in two years we were married, a second marriage for both of us, but no kids from the previous marriages. I commuted from our home to work every day. In the spring of my third year, I found out we were expecting a child. It was a surprise, but a happy one. We'd talked about kids, and we had planned on me leaving work for the formative years and returning to teaching when our child

reached school age. I turned in my letter of resignation the last week of April. Everything was wonderful. It was 2018. Sometime in April, a rumor circulated among students that I'd supplied alcohol for a senior party. A reliable student heard the rumor and reported it to a trusted teacher. The trusted teacher went to the administration and her union rep. The acting principal told the teacher that they would take it from there. They had just received my resignation and didn't do anything with the report. The wheels were still moving from the union side and the school district office opened an investigation on both me and the trusted teacher for failure to report. The other teacher was written up for not properly reporting the incident.

I was put on administrative leave and escorted from the building before school on the day I was going to tell my students the good news and that I wouldn't be returning next year. I was confident that I could prove that I was not in the town on the night the party happened, if I could find out when the party happened, because I lived an hour away. I thought if they looked at the meticulous inventory I had in the kitchen, they would see that there was no alcohol for students to take and that none had been purchased with the school credit card. I thought they could just look through the security footage, because my room has a camera in it because there are knives in a kitchen. I was never given a chance to hear the accusations, refute them, or defend myself. I was completely cut off from any communications with the school, students, parents, administration, anyone who is not my immediate union representative or the HR director for the district. No lesson plans, no goodbyes, no follow-up interviews or questions for me. Worst, I felt betrayed because I thought I had a good, professional relationship with the student body, and couldn't imagine

why one or more of them would talk about me that way. I don't know what the school district did for the investigation, but it lasted for the remainder of the school year. My resignation was accepted while I was on leave. The district came to the conclusion that they didn't have evidence to terminate me, so I was allowed to collect my pay to the end of my contract in August. Procedure is also to report findings to the state for review, and until my review was complete, my teaching certificate was on hold and under investigation. I wouldn't be able to find a job teaching until the investigation was concluded. I had a miscarriage in June. I basically didn't do anything for a year. I was crushed. If it weren't for the compassion and support of my husband, I don't think I would have found the

strength to continue. I regularly went to counseling both on my own and with him. That was the rest of 2018 to the spring of 2019. In the summer, I started volunteering in a community kitchen through a friend of ours. I started a co-op with local farmers to pickle produce so they could sell it in the off-season. Even though my husband makes enough to support us well, volunteer work helped me out of my depression. We wanted to try again for a child, but the investigation was still ongoing. My legal advisor said that it was typical for low-level accusations to take longer because they weren't serious enough, like physical or sexual abuse. We decided to wait until the investigation ended before trying again. In late February, the investigation was closed and the accusations were

dismissed. One year and nine months later, I was finally done with the hold on my teaching certificate. March closures for COVID-19 suddenly rolled in. The community kitchen is busy, trying to convert fresh produce donated by closed restaurants into things we can give to the food banks as free lunches and dinners. The farmers who would sell at the farmers markets are all clamoring to get their wares pickled, jammed, and jarred. But that requires some state scrutiny, and they're busy. I'm not getting paid.

No farmers' markets until June, maybe. But I'm busier than I've ever been. I feel the pull of these other groups needing me, but I want to quit. I want a child. COVID-19 is scary, and I know my pregnancy would be more risky because, I've already had one miscarriage. I would likely need more doctor's visits, and that means going to places like clinics and hospitals where sick people gather.

My father thinks I lost the first one because of stress from the investigation, and he thinks that if I try while there is COVID-19 around, I will lose the second one too. If I leave, who will continue to work on the community and co-op projects I started? I'm turning 41 in October. I don't feel like I have time to wait until COVID-19 has passed, or until some other person wants to take over contacting farmers and jar distributors and food inspectors to keep the food co-op moving.

I lost a year of my life to depression, and I don't want what really matters to be pushed off again and again. Some people have already been telling me that maybe children just aren't in my future, and that I should accept that and pour my love into teaching again. I am burnt out on teaching. Those three years were good, but the ending months crushed me. Am I being selfish or stupid to want a child in the middle of a pandemic? Should I wait until I'm 42 in the pandemic has passed? I just want to be a mom, do community food work, and have a simple life. It seems like there's never a good time to do that.

You are a dad. Is it selfish to want children in bad times? Thanks for your time. Signed, Childless in a pandemic. Wow, this is such a saga, and I'm sorry you had to go through all that. I don't blame you for being burned out on teaching, especially after all this mess from just one A-hole student. I, you know, I understand kids do stupid stuff, but I got to tell you, kids just don't understand adult consequences. Actually, when I was in high school, we had one of the students,

she accused one of the teachers or said that one of the teachers and her had a same-sex relationship. And it was just not true. But since that teacher was gay and the student was gay, people were just like, well, and all this is like mandatory reporting and everything. So it was during a time when the school took that really seriously, which I think they still have to do that. But it just was so obviously unbelievable, and it ruined this teacher's career. She was out for like two or three years, and it turned out to be a big lie. She was cleared of everything, but she was like, to hell with this garbage. So I get it. She was an awesome teacher. So everyone missed out on being able to be around her and learn from her because of this kind of shenanigans. And I get that

people are confused and stuff like that at that age, but to say that a teacher bought you alcohol when it didn't happen. I don't know, man. It's just such a head scratcher. So I do understand being burned out on teaching. I really get that. I think sometimes schools are just tripping over themselves to screw up the lives of teachers who work for them. And I know that they have to protect the students. Of course, protecting students is extremely important, but teachers often get the shaft. It's really a shame. I just want to throw that out there. It is fortunate that your husband makes enough money to support you both. I know that you've got community projects going and you're busy. And I respect that you don't want to just leave your people hanging there.

That said, if I boil this down, it seems like you're deciding between having a child, something you've wanted so badly for so long, and pickles. Like, they're homemade pickles, but unless I'm missing something, they're still just pickles. I mean, how good? Just how good are these pickles? Maybe that's what we should be asking here. No, you're not selfish for wanting a child. Pandemic or not.

Plenty of people are still giving birth right now. They got pregnant beforehand, and hospitals and clinics are being careful. they possibly can because COVID-19 and everything, but you really can't have your whole life be hung up on this. Time is not in your favor. You are over 40, just real talk. Waiting till your 42 is not going to help anything. Besides, we don't know when this whole thing will be over with,

so you need to prioritize like this is the new normal, because it kind of is, at least for a while. So to those that say kids might not be in your future and go back to a job you don't want, I would just ignore those people. I mean, sorry, but those are the same people who go, don't take risks. Risks can end up poorly. Play it safe. Look at me. I regret most of my life. Like those are those people. They're not you. So they might go, I never really wanted kids anyway. So, you know,

you can't have kids. Just don't have kids. You're going to save lots of money. You can retire earlier. It's like, well, those are your priorities. Not mine. So to those that say kids might not be in your future, go back to the job. Just ignore them. Maybe punch them straight in the face. Maybe just ignore them. for now. Yeah, I think just ignore them. Yeah, let's go with ignore them. Maybe don't punch them straight in the face, right in their stupid face. It's social distancing. Yes, social distancing, exactly. It's true when people say there's never a right time. When we found out about Jaden, my son, I was in one of the most stressful times in my life with an ongoing lawsuit with nasty, nasty unreasonable person. Plus, we found out that there was a lot of con jobs going on around

some of our vendors and like the old company that I was with. We were busy restarting the podcast. So logically, it would have made sense to wait until all of that was settled and behind us, maybe travel some more. But I'm glad we didn't wait. Having Jaden is a lot of work, but it brings so much joy in all of the, oh, but we can't pick up and travel. That's just kind of fine. Oh, well, it was a worthy trait. Also, if you can't get pregnant, this is my little soapbox here, please consider adoption. I know sometimes it's tough to get your head around it, but there are so many kids all over the world who would do anything for a chance to live with parents who love them. To be one of those parents would be so amazing, I think. Seriously, if I had enough cash in time, I'd adopt like 10 kids. Jen would leave me

at that point, but I think it would be really amazing. There's nothing selfish about wanting kids, no matter when it happens. Go for it. Don't let the haters or the high schoolers get you down. It's not a zombie apocalypse. You can have a kid in this world and things are going to clear up and be more or less normal and fine. We're not living in Walking Dead where they're going to have to learn how to shoot a shotgun at age eight to protect themselves. Like this is more or less business as usual, we're just getting forced into the 21st century kicking and screaming. I got to say, though, I want some of those pickles. And just leave this whole farmer's market thing.

Like, I know you don't want to let people down. I respect that again, but these pickle people can pickle their pickles personally. What's next? Hello, Jay Team. I've recently just listened to your podcast with Laura Gassner-Odding, and she mentioned something about cutting off toxic people in your life who don't support or cheerlead for you. Sadly, I think I'm one of these people. I'm kind of shy, introverted, who more or less keeps to himself.

I do have decent connections with friends and family. I've never been the cheerleading type, and I'm concerned if I'm really a toxic person and don't know it. If there's any advice or possible guidance you or your team could give, it would be much appreciated. Thank you, not a cheerleader. So whenever people ask me stuff like this, I'm just like, look, if you're asking if you're toxic,

you're probably not toxic. I can't guarantee that, of course. Chances are, though. Yeah, chances are the people go, oh, no, I'm really worried and concerned that I'm toxic. It's like, well, if you're concerned and you're toxic because you're not getting something out of other people, you know, I get it. If I got a letter that was like, I'm worried, I'm toxic. I have no friends. Everyone says I'm toxic. Am I toxic? Maybe. But if you're one of those people who has an inkling that maybe you're toxic because you listen to a podcast and you're not as extroverted and therefore maybe you're not supportive enough of your friends and you're worried about this because you love your friends, you're probably. not toxic. You could be super needy. You could drive people nuts, but I'm really not getting that

from this short letter. I think we can clarify what Laura Gassner-a-a-a-a-a-tint by cutting toxic people out who don't cheerlead for you. She doesn't mean quiet friends who don't do 14 Instagram selfie videos about your new book. She means the people who talk smack behind your back, try to sabotage your projects, try to sabotage your career or your relationships because they're jealous or because they're afraid of what your success means about them and or their lack of success. So as long as you're not actively cutting down your friends to make yourself feel better, you're not the type of toxic person she's talking about.

And I think there's a lot of folks that worry about this. If you are doing that to your friends, it's not too late to knock it off and realize that the more you stand behind those that are doing amazing things in life, the better you will actually feel about yourself and where you are going. It's ironic, but trying to cut people down will make you miserable. I know this because I've worked with people who have been this way about others, and they are the most unhappy people that I know. The most unhappy people I know are the ones that are constantly trying to figure out why other people are less than them or why they are better than other people. Those folks that root for you, even if they wish they had your success,

but they currently don't, they feel great because they're your friend. And they stay motivated and inspired a lot of the time because they feel close to success themselves, and they can see the possibilities. So unless you're cutting down your friends and stuff like that and miserable in the process, you're probably not the type of toxic person that she's referring to. Again, I'm not getting the vibe that you're negative or competitive in some unhealthy way, but if you are, the best thing you can do is lean in the other direction instead and realize that the reason those around you stay around you is because they feel you're at the same. level approximately as they are. You're already at the table. So I'd say this to toxic people,

too. You're already at the table. You don't have to fight for your seat at that same table, especially not with the other people that are there to support you. So I'm not getting that vibe from you, but look, if you're doing something negative to cut your friends down, then just knock it off. Again, you've already earned your place, so now you just have to keep it. We'll be right back with more feedback Friday right after this. Thank you for supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

Now back to the show for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Hi, team. I'm a South Indian with a supposedly hard to pronounce name. I have no issues with people mispronouncing my name because to me, just trying to say it is giving me a basic level of respect, which I let people know. I inevitably get the, do you have a nickname question? And it's almost always followed by people still giving me nicknames when I say no. Classmates that I have barely ever spoken to

will refer to me by a cutesy nickname which makes me uncomfortable since it's coming from colleagues. It even comes from people that I don't associate with on a social level outside of our academic environment. This semester, one of my professors called me by that god-awful nickname. My jaw dropped and I realized that I need to address this. I let it go in college and grad school, but I'm fed up. I think this treatment is partly because I'm not very intimidating.

I'm five foot three, look younger than my 25 years, and am approachable. It might be because I live in Texas and southern people have a familiar culture. However, I'm a professional. I have a master's degree and I'm in medical school for crying out loud. All I'm asking for is the basic decency of people calling me by my name, which I love, by the way. I wanted to ask you for advice because I'm starting my clinical rotation soon and will be in a new environment. How can I get people to take me seriously enough to use my actual name? If you can pronounce telangycesthesia or trimethympathol, which I can't pronounce, then you can at least try to pronounce my name.

Thanks so much. Prathushia. Rhymes with fuchsia. Kind of, yeah. I would say, oh, yeah, names are hard, but these are doctors. So telangictasia, and what was it, trimetoprimed sulfamexazzo. Yeah. Sulfa mexoxysol.

Sulfomexazole. So yeah, you're right. They're just being a little bit lazy. I mean, this situation has different sides. You could just change your name and problem solved. But I don't think that's why you wrote in to the show. You're in the South and you're in the United States. So the culture is a little bit more familiar and informal and nicknames are pretty common.

I think in many cultures you get a nickname from your friends and colleagues pretty regularly. And it's not a sign of disrespect, but it's a friendship or love. And if you're Russian, you get like 10 nicknames for each of your. names, each of your five birth names, and at least one of them is Sasha, I think, or some variant on that. I think what you might be stuck doing here is speaking with the teacher and some of your colleagues individually and making sure that they can at least get close to your name. If you call it out in groups, it might come across as a bit aggressive and they might find it a bit nitpicky, even though you're fully within your right to be called whatever you want. What you want to

avoid is that whole like somebody looking to everyone else and going, awkward, like, oh, look at her, Oh, this is my name is Pratyrcia. You know, like, you want to kind of avoid that because people will do that to defuse the tension. They don't realize they're being dicks when they do that. I also really don't think it's because you're small and female. I know giant dudes that get nicknames because people can't pronounce words like Srinivassan or Mladen or Bogdanovich or whatever.

Or DePhilippo. Yeah, DeFilippo. DeFilippo. Yep. No. I get her frustration. I get her frustration. Yeah.

Harganberger is one that I'm like, dude, just it's not even, it's a dictionary word. There's no burger in there? Harburger, Harburger. That one I kind of understand. It's like a little, you're flipping the... Anyway, I don't think anyone is targeting you somehow because they think you won't fight back. I think it's more out of laziness or ignorance than malice here.

I do get wanting to be seen as a serious professional, though. Especially if people are like, hey, Prattie, that's not my name, and that sounds weird. You know, it sounds like Patty, don't whitatize my name. I get that, you know? I think you could come up with a mnemonic device, And when you called on by the nickname or spoken to directly before you answer, you can just say your name to the person

broken into three pieces or whatever device you use and just keep doing that until people get the message. Like you said above in your letter, you're like, oh, it's profusia. You can just do that in a friendly enough way and people will start to get the idea that, oh, I can't just call you whatever I want.

Is it a pain? Yeah, but that's kind of what you get for having a unique name that isn't Jordan or Jason or Jennifer. And I realize now that every cliche name that isn't Mike starts with a J. Anyway, you catch my drift. You got to beat it into them. But once you do, though, people will get it. It'll catch on. While a few folks might get your wrong forever, people will at least know that they can't get away with just calling you whatever

they want because they don't have to try your name because you don't mind. It'll be very clear that you do. But yeah, patience is going to be your friend here. Unfortunately, there's no easy fix for this. All right, last but not least. Hi, Jordan and the team. As a young man of 25, what is the right time for me to get a place of my own and be completely on my own. Also, what's the right way to do so, given that I currently have a lot of responsibilities? Here's a little bit of background. We immigrated to the U.S., and the start was extremely rough, both financially and emotionally. However, by supporting each other, within eight years, we went from unemployed and living on the top floor of a single family house

to each having a car and owning our first home. In 2014, I started my undergrad degree while working full-time. I went to a school close by to minimize cost and stay around for my family. All while my mom worked minimum wage jobs to get us through. My mother and I managed to save enough to buy a house together in 2016. At the time, I was 22 and relatively scared of the commitment. Yet I did it because I knew it would stabilize our family, and after years of moving from apartment to apartment and room to room, we would finally have a place to call home.

To this day, I don't regret this decision. In 2018, my sister got accepted at a great public school four hours away from us. Although I wanted her to stay, help around the house, and go to the same close by school to save money, she decided to move, which I supported regardless. She will graduate later this year and move back in with us, which is exactly where I could get the opportunity to move out of my own house. My mother has been divorced for more than 10 years now, and ever since the divorce, the three of us have been living together. So throughout all the ups and downs, we have become very close. I know after all this time, my mother longs for a companion,

but I feel like since I'm in the house, she doesn't really want or feel like putting herself out there. We're from the Middle East, and let's just say dating or remarrying at 50 for a woman isn't much of a thing. I want her to find someone because I feel like I can't be happy and figure out my future unless I'm certain of hers, which brings me to me wanting to move out of my own house. I'm currently 25 years old with a full-time job and an undergrad degree. Now that things are relatively more stable, I feel like I need to finally be on my own to figure out my next step in life. We currently live in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, so even a basement in Washington, D.C. would be ideal. for me. This isn't just for my own sake, but for my mother's sake as well. I've been the man of the

house for too long, and to be very honest, I'm exhausted. As a result, my mother has gotten used to having me around to take care of things. While I've gotten used to her being there for me, I want to experience living on my own. I want her to start figuring things out on her own. I think if I move out and if I'm not around, she'll start to pick things up on her own and get out of her bubble. I've brought up the topic to her, and while I can see her almost tear up at the idea, she's supportive of it, and says she knew the day would come. I'm just scared of leaving her on her own. So in conclusion, could you please explain the move-out culture to me in reference to my situation? Is there a time that a man must move out for the sake of moving out? Apart from the obvious,

what are the longer-term benefits of moving out? I haven't moved out yet because I was busy stabilizing our new life here in the absence of my dad. I feel like if I sit still and don't try to get out of my comfort zone, I can still live here for another three to four years. From what I've seen here, kids move out as soon as they're 18. I'm from a different culture and background, so I'm trying to navigate my way correctly. In my culture, children move out once they get married, and until then, they live with their parents. Last but not least, if and when I choose to do so, how do I move out gracefully? Meaning, how could I minimize the emotional aspects of this on my family? Should I take slow steps or just rip off the bandaid? Thanks for your time and stay safe. Signed, should I move out

or should I not? There's no hard and fast rule about this. 25 is good to move out if you haven't already, of course. But again, I totally get why you live with family, and I think reasonable people will also understand why you do as well. It's not a big deal. You shouldn't feel bad for living at home for so long. My brother-in-law, he lived at home past his 30s,

and because he saved on rent, he was able to travel, he was able to experience a lot of other things people his age were not able to do because they had bills and their jobs barely, covered their expenses because when you're 26, 27, 30 years old, your job is not going to be generally, it's not going to be that lucrative. And then you've got rent and you've got internet and you've got this, that, and the other thing, if you live with your parents, you can pay them a little bit, but most of that's taken care of. Plus, you know, many parents will just not care. Depends sort of where you are. I would imagine in your situation, you might be throwing some change

to your mom because she's a single mom. It's easier. It's like having a roommate that cooks really well, hopefully. Hopefully. Plus, my in-laws loved having my brother-in-law there, so it was a win-win. He even brought girls back, which is kind of funny for me to imagine. I don't really get how that works. I mean, whatever. That's so weird for me to imagine. In my opinion, you sound like a great son, and you know what you want to do, but you just feel bad about doing it. And I would love for Jaden, my son, to be so thoughtful when he grows up. As for the guilt you're feeling about this, it's natural. It doesn't sound like your mother's trying to talk you out of it or control you, it sounds like she gets it, actually, you know, saying, oh, I always knew

this day would come. You know, this transition doesn't have to be that dramatic, though. You and her can stop worrying. This doesn't have to be, I'm never going to see you again until Christmas. If you're getting a basement in D.C., you can go home once a month, twice a month, every other month, whatever frequency you want, and eat some good food. You can do laundry. I'd say don't have your mom do your laundry, but we both know you're going to bring your

laundry home and have your mom do your laundry. That's just, like, don't even try to convince me otherwise. That will happen. Plus, you're Armenian, given your name here. And if you're anything like my Armenian roommates from college, you're going to call your mom every single day at least once anyway. So I wouldn't sweat it too much. It's not going to be that tough of a break.

I think moving out on your own is an important part of growing up. But it doesn't mean you have to leave the nest and never look back and move to Argentina or something. It just means learning to handle things on your own. You've got to deal with real life stuff. Stay out late, making bad decisions, without worrying about what your mom is going to do, et cetera. I wouldn't worry about it too much, man. you can maintain close relationships and nobody's going to judge you

from moving out or not. It's totally up to you. It's your timeline. As for getting your mom to find and meet someone else, that is beyond your control. I would let that unfold however it's going to unfold. Just bear in mind that the second you leave,

your mom is going to start bugging you about getting married and having grandkids. Those are the rules, bro. I don't make them. Congrats on being a poster family for the American Dream, by the way. I always love hearing that. It's very cool to see your mom leaving

that situation in another country, raising two successful kids who are now doing their own thing. That's just awesome. Life Pro Tip of the Week, buy your name, your kids' names, and the names of any businesses or anything important that you own, the domain names, buy the domain names for these. I also recommend setting up a small website if it makes sense as well. You don't want someone else to get your or your kid's name domain. We don't know if it's going to matter at all in 10 years, 20 years, but people have also been saying that for 20 years.

Oh, it's not going to matter. are going away. Maybe they are, but they haven't yet, and it's going to be easy for someone to impersonate you or your business. So it's just consider it a little bit of insurance. Hostgator.com slash Jordan. That's a sponsor of the show. Hostgater.com slash Jordan. They have domains. They have websites. You get a nice discount. They're a sponsor. They're a sponsor. It's a great place to do that. If you're 100% sure you don't need a website yet, then you can go to hover.com slash Jordan. They're also, they were a sponsor. They're not anymore, but I think you still get the discount at hover.com slash Jordan. They only do domains.

This is a great gift for someone else as well. Their name, their business name as a domain, or set up a little website. I've actually got a buddy that created a really simple website for his friend's personal training business, and he gave it to him as a gift. And the dude was just blown away because he hadn't been moving his business online and he's like, oh, I got to figure this out, I don't even know how to do this. So if you're short on gift ideas, I do recommend host Gator and the website builder. You can create some simple, photo website, put a contact form up there for someone's restaurant, throw the menu up there, put some art up there. I've never had anyone not love this when they get it as a gift. And so

hostgator.com slash Jordan, that's where you can get that and support the show. Normally, I don't plug sponsors in the Life Pro Tip, but this one just made a ton of sense. Hat tip to my friend Andy who made the website for his friends. Such a good idea. Recommendation of the week, Jason, what do you got? I've got two links to basically help restaurant workers and frontline workers. The first one is the restaurant employee relief fund that's run by Guy Fieri and they've raised millions of dollars so far and they're doing good work there and the other one is called Off Their Plate and that's at off their plate.org and what they do is you basically donate to them and then they buy meals for frontline workers and also donate to out of work restaurant workers. So both of these have both raised

millions of dollars so far to help people get through what we're going through right now. So I recommend those highly. 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 Hans, who listened to episode 342 at David Epstein, the one about being a generalist and how that's better than being a specialist too early in the game. This guy is eclectic, Jason. A Malaysian Chinese born in Malaysia spent the first 35 years in Kuala Lumpur, currently residing in Australia, graduated with an IT degree in 2001, then went to tech support, payment solutions,

business development, event management, banking, PR, marketing, sold watches online, worked in hospitality and is a certified personal trainer. That is a guy with a lot of skills. So skill stacking. And yes, he's always been told, oh, this makes your resume look bad, you're going to come across as disloyal and fickle.

So not true, not true. If you can sell it well, it's a better skill set or a variety of skills or skill sets to have. Go back and check out the guests, Dan Heath and General Martin Dempsey, if you haven't yet. And if you want to know how we manage to book all these great people, it's all about the network. Check out six-minute networking. That is a free course over there on the think ethic platform. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

The problem with doing it later is you've got to dig the well before you're thirsty. So do this. It's just a few minutes a day. Ignore it at your own peril. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Jordan Harbinger. I'm also on LinkedIn. You can add me on LinkedIn. It's a great way to engage with the show and reach me there. Videos of our interviews are often at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. Jason?

You can check out my tech podcast, grumpy old geeks. We discuss what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame along with cybersecurity apps, gadgets, books, and more. That is grumpy old geeks wherever you get your favorite podcasts. This show is created in association with podcast one, and this episode is produced by Jen Harbinger, edited by Jay Sanderson. Show notes for the episode by Robert Fogarty, music by Evan Viola. those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own and yeah, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So please do your own research before implementing anything you hear on this show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please do share it with somebody else who can use the advice we gave

here today. Lots more in store for 2020. Very excited to bring it out. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next. time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like

why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested and what makes people like you or not, the through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts.

Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.