The Jordan Harbinger Show - 388: Should I Bail Out My In-Laws? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

Your in-laws need financial help to keep their business afloat, but they're historically terrible with finances. Should you bail out your in-laws or even co-sign for a loan knowing it could backfire on you? We'll tackle this and more here on Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) 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: jordanharbinger.com/388 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your in-laws need financial help to keep their business afloat, but they're historically terrible with finances. Should you bail out your in-laws or even co-sign for a loan knowing it could backfire on you? What are the secrets to writing a reference letter for someone in a way that showcases their attributes from a place of understanding how valuable these attributes really are? Should you suffer in an industry you've grown to hate for another 10-15 years until you can retire, or should you quit the dip now to find a new career in a city where you want to be, with a life that brings happiness over money and status? Should your multinational, publicly traded company pay you for something you've been informally doing for free? You want to be generous and supportive, but not taken advantage of. How do you negotiate this with your higher-ups? As a blind person, you’ve never been really good at understanding small talk and getting people to talk to you. How can you get better at being social when you can’t see facial expressions or body language? 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 Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi. And if you want to keep in touch with former co-host and JHS family Jason, find him on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, and check out his other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider leaving...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. As always, I'm here with Gabriel Mizrahi. 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. We want to help you see the Matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker so you can get a deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening, sometimes even in our own brain as it would turn out here on Feedback Friday. If you're new to the show 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, thinkers and performers, and for a selection of featured episodes to get you started with some of our favorite guests and popular topics, go to Jordan Harbinger.com and we'll hook you up. This week, we had Amanda Knox. She was amazing. She was, Gabriel, you've heard of Amanda Knox, I assume, yeah. Of course. How was that? She's great, first of all. She's so smart, self-aware. I mean, what a harrowing story. She was, for those of you who don't know, she was essentially framed or falsely accused, I guess you could say, of a murder in Italy and fought it for eight years, I think four of them in prison. So just a

horrifying saga. And she now does what's, I guess, ironic, a true crime show. But she wasn't interested in true crime, she told me. She's just interested now because, she lived one sort of, well, an untrue crime, I guess. Yeah. What a life that woman has lived. Amazing. And we had Tom Wainwright. This is one from the vault. He's an economist. He wrote a book essentially on the economics of drugs, drug cartels, drug warfare. Got a lot of interesting stories, as you might imagine from somebody who's investigating drug cartels and drug finance. That is what we did for you this week. Also, we write ever so often on the blog. The latest post is the types of people who become scam victims. So Gabriel, you and I were talking about this,

there's a certain personality type or maybe a blend of personality archetypes that make a good scam victim. And we, maybe all of us know someone like this and we outline the types of qualities or negative qualities that a scam victim has and what scammers do to take advantage of these. And it'll help you dissect scams. It'll help you dissect people who fall for scams. And it'll help you decide if you are the type of person who is due to fall for a scam. Do you fall into these categories and what to do about it? Make sure you've had a look and listen to everything we created for you this week. The articles, by the way, at Jordan Harbinger.com slash articles. You can always reach us here Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please keep your questions as concise as you can. Try to include

a descriptive subject line. That makes our job a whole lot easier because we can sit through these letters a lot easier. Gabriel, I'm excited for feedback Friday this week. I think we have fascinating questions. I got a little giddy writing these answers, so I'm stoked. We got some conundra this week. Canundra, yes, we did. Yes, we did. I've since done a mini deep dive into that word, and I think I've come around to it. You're convinced it now exists, actually? A hundred percent, yeah. Okay, fair enough. Gabriel, what's the first thing out of the mailback? Hey, team. My husband has recently joined the military, and our family has achieved financial stability. Woohoo. He is a legal, permanent resident, and we are working on his citizenship. His father has

a freelance business and a few rental properties here in the States and wants to put his business in my husband's name to apply for a $30,000 coronavirus relief fund with the help of my husband's military status. The in-laws are behind on their mortgage, which I'm sympathetic to, but they also have a history of poor money management. My husband and I both love his family and want to help them, but I'm thinking of the potentially catastrophic consequences of having my husband's name on a business that could tank and possibly might not even pay taxes. How can I help my husband? understand the consequences of this decision. He is hesitant to go against his family's wishes and wants more concrete examples of why this is a bad idea than my non-legal catastrophizing.

Okay. Signed a business by any other name. I'm itching on this one because every, this is a question that has so many implications that every time I read it, I find another problem with this idea that they should sign the business over. So first of all, that $30,000 coronavirus relief, this just occurred to me upon reading number three here, if that is dependent on veteran status, I don't know if veteran-owned businesses get a different type of, then this is definitely, at least approaching fraud, if not outright fraud, to transfer something into a veteran's name, take advantage of those funds if that veteran doesn't actually work in that business,

but is just pretending to be the owner. I mean, I'm not saying that you'd get in legal trouble because of that directly, because again, I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer, always hire an attorney, if you want competent legal advice that said, this is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea, and that is my personal opinion, I would not mingle your finances or bail your in-laws out unless you are very confident that they are handling their money and their business responsibly and legally. And it sounds like you already know that they're not doing that with their money. So the business, look, people who don't handle money well generally don't handle business well. So if they're running a business but their personal finances are a mess, I'm not saying that's

unheard of. I'm not saying people don't get into debt because they overspend or something like that. But if they seem clueless with money, they're also going to have problems running a business, which, I mean, look, I'm decent at what I do here, but I let Jen handle the bookkeeping and the accounting for a reason. You know, this is a delicate art. If no one is good at it in the business, you have a problem. I don't want to point out other more personal red flags because I don't want to insult your husband's family. and also I assume you've got that part covered with that. I think you're probably already in a personal spat with them or with your husband, because you've got to say this delicately, and that's basically impossible.

But legally, this is sketchy because not only is your husband on the hook for any debt from the coronavirus relief, most likely, he's also the only potential recipient of a lawsuit here in the United States. So even if, even if his dad's business is run properly, and even if they pay back the coronavirus relief funds, if they need to be repaid or whatever it is. Those funds could be misused. They could be used improperly. There could be a tax audit that then looks for improper use of that.

Or there could be other debt. There could be other liabilities on the business. And your husband would be responsible for those debts and liabilities. That means you are responsible for those debts and liabilities if you're married. I mean, that's going to affect you, of course, 100% chance of that. Also, depending on the business and how aggressive the plaintiffs are in a lawsuit and, of course, on the type of lawsuit, they could come after you personally. A lot of people go, I have a business, I'm sheltered.

Look, people can come after you personally. Even if they're wrong and they lose, it's going to cost you tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to get away from that. This means your house, your car, the car you get for your kid on her birthday, your savings account, so those can all be at risk. And for what? So your in-laws who don't manage money that well can get some cash to potentially misuse at your expense?

I mean, this is very risky. This is very, very risky. Even if your in-laws, let me try and become less emotional about this and less blame game on the in-laws here, even if your in-laws do nothing wrong. Someone in their country or here, if they're overseas, because it sounded like they were overseas, somebody could sue the business because you are attached to it and they think you have deeper pockets than your in-laws because you do. So let's say that they owe somebody in their country and someone's like, hey, I heard they have rich relatives that run a business in the United States. they can just figure out a way to sue that business. It's not unheard of. And look, while the chances of that might be lower, are you willing to take that risk? If you own the business, you have to control the business. That's what ownership means. You should never be liable for something if you

cannot control something. That is the worst possible situation that you can be in and is one of the reasons I left my last business. You cannot be liable for something if you don't have control over the situation, and here you do not, you will not have control. You are painting a big target on your back if you allow this to happen. Do not do this. Again, if you think I'm full of it, or even if you think I'm not, and your husband sort of does and thinks I'm exaggerating or being emotional, I recommend you do this. And you know what, even if you both agree with me, your best bet here, get a second opinion from legal counsel in your area. I know you think it's going to be pricey, but this is likely something a lawyer can tell you over the phone for free.

I can't tell you how many times I've called other attorneys, and I don't even say, I'm an attorney and I have a question. I might call the lawyer and just say, what do you think is going to happen in this particular situation? And they'll give me five, ten minutes of time, much of the time. I think for you, this could be either free and even if it's not, even if they charge you for an hour of their time, a couple hundred bucks is far less than you're going to be on the hook for if you end up with a problem in your business.

That's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars at minimum. and the hassle is just not worth it. Do not do this. It's going to take a lawyer all of five seconds to hear the even basic details of this and to say that this is a bad idea. I'm confident of that. Gabe, what do you think? I agree. Bad idea, stay away, draw the line and do not cross it. But in terms of helping your husband understand that, I would focus on the financial and emotional consequences that are lying in wait for you guys as a family. Explain how you see this affecting your relationship if things go south, and it sounds to me like they have a high probability of going south, even if you weren't messing around with coronavirus relief funds.

If you understand the nuances of his parents' business and the nuances of coronavirus relief funds, then you can pick apart the risks there and have a very technical discussion. But that's probably going to be much harder to wrap your head around and your husband could argue maybe or have a different stance on the technical details as opposed to the basic risk to you guys as a family if you make this move. if you don't end up commingling your finances, which I really have to agree, Jordan, is probably not the right way to go. I would find ways to help your in-laws without bailing them out entirely. Offer to talk to them, advise them, review options, maybe help them find experts who can help them.

See if you can get them on their feet without putting yourselves at risk. Maybe you'll decide to help them pay their mortgage or act as their informal advisors. I don't know. That's up to you. But if you take on their burden as your own, you're going to be going down a very dangerous path. So I think it's important to draw that boundary. It's important to protect your safety, but also to protect your relationship with your in-laws.

You're listening to Feedback Friday here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We'll be right back. And now, back to Feedback Friday on the Jordan Harbinger Show. What's next? Hey, Jordan. I'm trying to learn the best way to write a reference letter for someone I work with. I've owned an escape room for about five years, and I'm an active-duty Navy SEAL.

I'm not trying to humble brag about my role, but I do understand that it might help this person out a great deal. How do I write a letter for this person in a way that shows the incredible attributes they have? How do I show that it comes from someone who understands how important those attributes can be? Signed, Upping my reference game. I actually did a terrible job with recommendation letters in the past, so I am not somebody who should probably be giving advice on this one. I didn't even understand earlier in college what these meant,

and they were largely sort of meaningless at the University of Michigan in undergrad. They were actually almost totally annoying. And I remember professors that I would ask, they would say either no because they don't do that for anyone because they get too many requests, or they would do it begrudgingly, or they would say something like, these are so stupid, they're a huge waste of time. I wish that nobody needed these because they're meaningless. Like they would be extremely blunt about it. I always managed to get them from those professors because they were like fine.

And it wasn't due to a lack of relationship with the professors. The ones that really liked me were the ones that were most vocal about saying how much of a waste of time these things were. So, Gabe, I hope you have better advice than the whole thing is a shame. So it's true that a lot of recommendation letters are useless. But I think that's partly because a lot of recommendation letters are not good. And so people don't take them seriously. But in a stack of recommendation letters that are vague or just not that engaging or don't say that much about a candidate,

a really good one can stand out and it can make a huge difference. I love that this person cares so much about writing a great recommendation letter. It tells me that he cares a lot about the people he employs and helping them beyond their role in his company. Most people don't put that much thought into it, but people like you who do can make a huge difference in somebody's life. So you also have a chance here to deepen your relationship with this person for the long term. So it's really a win-win all around. I don't think there's any right way to do it, but here are some general tips that I've gathered over the years. First, and this will make your life a whole lot easier.

I would ask the candidate what job they're applying for and understand the role that they're going for inside and out. You can ask if there are any qualities or experiences or details that they think the hiring manager would want to hear about. That will help you have some stuff to work with before you just sit down and have to write. Talk about your background briefly. What makes you a good judge of this person's performance and character, what your standards are? I'm assuming they're pretty high given that you're a Navy SEAL. How your background is a seal and an entrepreneur make you a demanding boss and a good judge of people. I mean, that is going to go a long way and framing the letter. Along the way, and a lot of people don't do this,

take some time to explain your relationship with this person, not just what they did for you, but how you met them, what your working relationship was like, what they were like in the office, like how did you relate to this person above and beyond a normal employee? And get specific about what the person did, their responsibilities, their impact on your business, why you personally valued them in the company.

Layer in those details, the details make the impact. And that's where the letter, I think, will really come to life. And I would end it by saying why you recommend this person in a broader sense. Like, why do you feel that these people should hire this person? What do they add to the company? Why would you hire them if you were in their shoes? You can get big and aspirational here. And if you've done all the other stuff before then, you totally earn it.

And if you keep it to one or two pages, two pages max, most people don't want to go that far. Then I think you're good. But make it personal, make it detailed. be passionate, be confident, be specific. It's hard to lay it on too thick in a recommendation letter if you really mean what you're saying. And that's about it. I think that's how you come up with a great letter.

I definitely want to play Navy SEAL escape rooms immediately. I don't know about you. That sounds awesome. Like what kind of puzzles does this guy construct? Yeah, no, I cannot wait. In fact, I can't wait to leave my house in general. I can't wait to leave my house and enter another room. Enter a room where I'm locked in

until I solve puzzles. and I can't leave before that. Yeah, no, I would love to do anything like that. Anyway, great advice. So much better than what I was able to give there. So I appreciate that, Gabriel. What's next? Dear Jordan, I have an established career as a music producer for the last eight years.

I've had numerous gold and platinum records, and I've had medium to high level of success in this field, which I am very grateful for. Despite all of what I've worked for, however, I still think every single day about how I'm going to get out of this industry and move into something less demanding. I hate living in L.A., Los Angeles, where I have to make music, and the passion and recognition I once yearned for in my early 20s has now faded.

I turned 30 this year, and I'm beginning to think about doing things in life like having more friends, having a family, and spending more time outside of a music studio. I've accomplished a lot, but I've sacrificed almost all of my social life due to the high demands of the industry and my desire to outwork everyone. It's very depressing to think back on. I've dedicated my life to my dream of being a music producer only to achieve it and realize that it hasn't brought me the happiness I naively thought it would. I can either keep suffering, grind it out, and in 10 to 15 years be able to retire, or I can take my earnings from music

and quit the dip now to find a new career in a city I actually want to be in with a life that brings happiness over money and status. My question for you is, how do I know when to quit the dip? Am I crazy for giving up on everything I've worked for and all of the opportunity has brought me signed dipping in or dipping out. First of all, congrats on the accolades. I'm super stoked for you. To achieve that by age 30 must feel incredible. But here's the problem, right, Gabe?

It doesn't. And I think that's where the cognitive dissonance comes in, right? Like the whole like, wait, I should feel this way. But instead I feel this other way. And that seems like something's wrong with me because all reason says I should feel happy and accomplished. This feeling, by the way, is very common with high achievers. You hear about Olympians being the least happy shortly after they win a gold medal,

people getting super wealthy after selling a business or something and then becoming depressed. I mean, I remember the guy who sold Minecraft for like hundreds of millions of dollars. He started having all these crazy lavish parties where they'd like build a house out of candy or whatever. And then he like fell into a deep depression because he had nothing in part because he had nothing to do. he like had reached the pinnacle and he talks about this in an article about how he had just reached everything he ever could have wanted it more and he's like but oh no wherever i go there i am and he had like all this other work to do really brave peace this guy talking about this this often happens when our expectations of how we would feel at a certain point just don't match reality the reality of how we

thought we would feel doesn't match the reality we're we're feeling right now there's no shame in this i think a lot of people beat themselves up because they think they have no right not to be happy or that there's some sort of failure in them having gotten somewhere only to realize they're not happy. That is not a failure on your part. That is, were your expectations mismatched? Yeah, but so are literally everyone. Like, everyone is subject to that sort of bias, right,

that you'll be happier when you have done this thing that you're trying hard for. That's a lot of the reason why people achieve things in the first place. They feel like there's this feeling or this reward at the end. It doesn't matter if it's there or not. What we learned from Randolph Nessie this week is that our emotions often just exist to get our genes propagates. they do not have our interest in mind at all.

Survival and genetics, which are sometimes at odds with some of the higher faculties or feelings that we're chasing when we do things, especially when you do something artistic, because you're hoping for some bigger experience that might not always come. As for quitting the dip, my opinion, here's how I look at this.

If you're in a career and you have passion for it, but you're still struggling, you're wondering if you're going to make it, you know, you might be in a dip, especially if you're like 29, right? You can be in a dip right then. But if you're in a career and you don't like it anymore,

and you're unhappy doing it, and you want to move out of the town you're doing it in, I don't think you're in a dip. I think you're unhappy. And you can be unhappy and in a dip, but this to me doesn't sound like he still wants to pursue this if like, oh, if I were able to do this, but I were able to do it in Nashville, I'd be so much happier. It's like he hates the rat race. He's over it.

From what it sounds like to me, right? A dip is when you're not sure if things are going to work out, but you already, you've already had things work out for you, and you still aren't happy. To me, this means you're over and it's time to move on. It would be different if you were still chasing a dream. You achieve the dream. It didn't make you happy. There's a big difference there.

It also doesn't mean you can't work in music. But for me, this means you need to make some serious lifestyle changes to recover your sanity. Like, if podcasting ever started to drive me crazy and I hated doing it, I would certainly change the way that I do it or do less of it or quit. I have no plan to quit. I love it. But I also love it because I don't do things that I hate. I don't do like meaningless shows to make extra money.

I don't like overly monetize certain things. I don't sell live events to like squeeze every drop out of everyone. I don't want to do that because it will make me hate this business, but I love this business. And I think that's a gift in this day and age to do work that you love. So you loved the work you had and you don't anymore. And it's been a while. It sounds to me like you've made a decision and you need permission from me

and I'm giving you permission to do what you think you need to do to maintain the lifestyle. You have earned, man. You're not giving up anything if you leave music. You've earned the right to give up music. You have conquered. I'm not saying what action you have to take. If it were me, I'd move out of L.A. I definitely know what it's like to be in Hollywood and in L.A., that's for sure.

I'd get away from that scene ASAP. Also, not all of L.A. is Hollywood. That's important and tough to remember sometimes. Because when you live in Hollywood, you feel like all of L.A. is like that. But when you live where you live, Gabriel, there are normal people there. You know, believe it or not, a lot of them do yoga every day, need a lot of granola or whatever, or is granola out, whatever, it doesn't matter. But there's still normal people on the west side.

I will say the sum, but you do see the occasional naked jogger, so it's like that. But I will say that pushing through to retirement is almost never the answer, especially when you're not even halfway through your career. Like, let's say you started doing music when you were like 18 or 20. You've worked for 10 years, almost. You want to do 10 or 15 more and just tough through it. Oh, no, I'm miserable. you already. It's a miserable way to live, brother. Gabriel, I know you've got some input on this.

I find this guy's situation very interesting because he's operating at a very, very high level, and he's doing really well. And I don't think he could be operating at the level he's operating at if he were not really good at it. And it's hard for me to believe that he were really good at it if he hated the process of making music entirely. He might. I could be totally wrong. I've been writing for a while now, and there are days when I hate it. But at the end of the day and when I take a step back, I still love the process. And that's what allows me to deal with all of the horrible parts of doing something that you love. So my question for this guy is, are you truly over music and you want to do something different because you absolutely cannot stand the product and you don't enjoy the process?

Or are you still into music, but not into the trappings, the lifestyle, the hustle culture? the politics or whatever else surrounds the music. If you're totally over that and that is an inextricable part of making music and there's no way around it and you just don't want anything to do with it, then you have a pretty good reason for exploring something else. But if you still have a connection to the basic process, and I'm talking about showing up in the studio, pitching ideas, collaborating with people, if you get excited when a track is done or when you're in the middle of a track and you're trying to figure out a problem or

find a bridge or whatever it is. Like, if you still care about that, then I think there's still a little bit of like, there's a flicker of passion that is worth saving. And it means that the stuff that's surrounding it is what needs to change. You need to get out of the studio. You need to rent a house once a year for a couple months and be outside of LA or make friends outside of the industry or just be disciplined and carve out time to meet people and go on dates and have like a normal life or whatever it is you feel you're missing.

And if you do that, you might be able to rediscipline. discover your passion for music when it's not tied up in all the stuff that you're hating. So in other words, is this something that can be resolved with a mental shift or do you really have to escape in order to be happy? Sometimes we think we need to completely leave something or to make some huge dramatic change in order to be fulfilled. And I don't think that's entirely true. It might be true for you, but it doesn't mean that that's the only way to go about it.

And by the way, we've written an article about this topic on the website about what to do when your purpose is starting to make you miserable. So I think that might be a nice piece to read right now and see if it helps. you out. We're going to link to that article in the show notes. Yeah, there's a lot here. And I feel sympathy for you, but I'm also excited for you because you can now, the world is your oyster. You just have to give yourself permission to make different choices than before and not be dragged down by what you think you should want. This is the Jordan Harbinger show, and this is Feedback Friday. We'll be right back. After the close of the show, we've got a preview trailer

of our interview with Vince Beiser. It's all about sand. You heard me, sand. It's actually quite fascinating. There are even sand mafias killing people over sand. So stay tuned for that after the close of the show. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us going. Who doesn't love some good products and or services? You can always visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals for all the details on everybody that helps support the show. And now for the conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right. What's next? Hey, Jordan. My job is very unique and there are very few people at my site who know much about my area of expertise, which includes leadership. When the person who trained and supported us in that

area recently stepped down, I reached out to my company to explore ways that I could assist others who are new to their roles or need resources and guidance. The initial conversation went well, and I was asked to do some additional work that would help increase employee engagement. However, there was no mention of remuneration, and I am unsure as to whether this will be volunteer or paid work. At the same time, I've been informally helping other people both within and outside of my company. I'm happy to just provide value, but if I'm providing value for a multinational publicly traded company, I feel like I should be compensated, particularly if there are going to be expectations placed on my time and my work will become the company's intellectual property.

Doesn't make sense to want to be paid for something that I've been informally doing for free. How do I approach this topic with the company in a way that does not appear selfish? If the company does not expect to pay me, should I still participate in the development of this new training platform? Should I provide free support for one year? say, then negotiate next year. I want to be generous and supportive, but I don't want to be taken advantage of. Thank you for any advice that you can offer. I love helping, but I got to eat. So if you don't talk about what you're getting paid to do at work, you're doing that shit for free, 100% of the time, there's no way that they're going to be like, by the way, we found this extra

money that we're going to give you, even though you didn't ask. I would love to know a company that does that. I'm sure some small business owner is going to be like, I do this. I give little bonuses, not the same. This is a great question that I feel like it comes up a lot of. especially from people who get how powerful it is to share their value freely, which is great. I mean, obviously, I'm with you on that. We know we have to be of service, but at what point, at what point does being of service become exploitative or irresponsible? Does it make sense for you to want to be paid to do something that you were informally doing

for free? Yeah, it makes sense. But you might not get paid for it right away. There's going to be a period of investment. You got to prove the concept, whatever it is, and that's okay. You ask if you should provide free support for. a year and then negotiate or renegotiate, it's hard to say without knowing you in your company, but a year, Gabriel, that sounds like a long time to me, man. It sounds a little bit long,

yeah, yeah. I'd say more like four to six months in most cases, possibly less, depends on the company. But again, this really depends. If you're doing something for six months, the company wants to reward you but can't give you a raise yet, you might do it for another three months. But anything longer than six to nine months, or especially going on a year, if it's a slow-moving project fine a year. I would be very wary of that because that to me sounds like they're just going to do it until you demand payment and then they're going to stop. Because for me, let's say Gabriel, and this is a small business, obviously, but let's say that you started doing something for me for free. And I found it really integral to the company. I would eventually hire you to do

that thing. In fact, I can't believe I didn't think about this. Jason Sanderson, who edits this show, started off years ago. I mean like seven plus years ago, maybe even longer, editing the show for free. And I turned him down because I said, I like editing the show,

I like it. And he would very gently go, you made a little, this could have been a little bit better, and I could have fixed that other thing, let me edit it. Finally, I caved and I let him edit the show. And eventually,

he was doing a ton of work. And I said, I now insist on paying you because I want to formalize the relationship and, you know, how guilty do you feel giving somebody two hours a week or whatever it is of audio to do for free? And he's doing a kick-ass job. Like, you want to retain that person by offering them something that they find value in because

you don't want them to leave, right? And you want to formalize the relationship. I won't say control the relationship, but you want to formalize it so they're not like, I'm done doing this. I can't do it anymore, zero notice, right? Not that Sanderson would ever do that. Dude's been working with me for like a decade. but you have to decide what an appropriate period of time would be to invest freely, say three months

of support and then you've got to approach them about being compensated. I would write up a very brief overview of what you were doing. I don't know, Gabe, I feel like you're better at this than me. What would you do? You've got to write something up, right, to show what you've been doing. I like where you're going with that. I think it's sometimes companies don't even realize what people are doing fully and they definitely don't always realize the impact of what they're doing. So in this case, this person seems to be very conscientious about what they can offer and why it's worth investing the time, but the company needs to understand that. So I agree with you. Definitely write up a little overview of what you've been doing above and beyond your role. And this is

the important part, the impact that it's having on management on the company, ideally in dollars and cents if you can do it. But if you can't do that, just talk about the impact generally. This also could be a memo. It could be a deck. It could just be an email to your bosses that they can reflect on and share and discuss later. But I think you have to show. show that you invested generously to be of service to prove that there was a need for what you're doing. Then you can say, look, I'd love to keep doing this work, but I want to be compensated. Can we discuss carving out a new role? Can we talk about a raise? What do you think it's worth? Here's what I think it's worth. Make it a conversation. You don't have to walt in there and

demand anything outright. But if you spend three, six months doing this work and you figure out that it's actually necessary and useful for the company, and then you show what you've done and why the company should invest in it, that conversation is going to be way easier. And it'll also be a lot more fun. If they say yes, great. That's how you create opportunities for yourself. If they say no, then you'll only have invested a few months of your time into it and you can either stop or you can go somewhere else.

And by the way, that's actually great news. You can usually still win even if your company doesn't end up paying you because you can add the work you've done to your resume and apply it somewhere else where they do want it, where they do value it. So that's literally how you can invent experience for yourself that you wouldn't have otherwise had. And then, hopefully, the reward comes with the next position. But absolutely, there's always an element, I think, when you do something like this to sort of capture it and publicize it in a classy way, in an appropriate way, so that people can wrap their heads around what you've been

doing. A rule of thumb I might use here is make sure you're taken care of and that all of your basic needs are met before you offer your help to other people in a major way. You should always be helping other people. But if you're taking on what's essentially a unpaid pro bono part-time job, you need to make sure that you're not risking or putting other things on the back burner that are crucial to you. You know, I'm not saying don't do pro bono work. I'm just saying you need to have your basis covered.

Once that threshold is met, you can and should give freely to people and organizations that also value your help in the long run. The thing is, Gabriel, if I worked for a charity and they traded me kind of poorly and didn't give me any thanks, which is kind of what you get

when you work for a charity, if you're lucky and you match with a good one, I would eventually leave. So why work for a charity? a for-profit company that isn't giving you your remuneration, as it were, whether that's thanks or money, or even, you know, if they're like, look, you're awesome, you're an all-star, we can't give you a raise, but we're, you know, going to create a division where you do this and create a job for you. That's also a form of compensation. Get that ish in writing, though. Be careful. In other

words, don't give 20 extra hours per week with no pay to a company that isn't even paying you enough to live the life that you are, you know, supposed to be at that position in the company, and doesn't indicate that it values what you're offering. This is how you can be generous freely without being taken advantage of at the same time. All right, next up. Hey, Jordan, team. As a blind person, I've never been really good

at understanding small talk and getting people to talk to me. I find that people don't want to come up to me because of the cane and misconceptions around blindness and blind people. So I tend to just talk to friends through eye message and scroll through Facebook and Twitter. I want to be able to be a social butterfly, but I'm introverted to say the least.

How do I get over this when I can't see facial expressions or body language to judge a person's mood or what have you? Signed, caught in a double blind. First of all, this is such an interesting, dang question. Super interesting. I love that this person wrote in. Yes. Second of all, let's just acknowledge that you navigate the world in a different way from other

people, and that must be really hard sometimes. Even if you're a master conversationalist, there will always be certain challenges for you, like not having access to the same visual data as everyone else, not knowing where to look in a conversation, dealing with other people's uncertainty about how to interact with you, which, by the way, is like the majority. I don't think anybody cares where you're looking at a conversation. I think it's more like other people being weird around you,

and that's what it sounds like from the letter too. It's like also other people being weird. I just want to recognize these are real challenges for blind people and that we shouldn't waive these away because that would be absurd, disingenuous. So I don't want to be flippant when I say that, My advice on this is to ignore their nonverbal communication because you can't see them anyway. So why strain yourself trying to figure out what their body is doing? You have different channels of input that we don't have that you've developed over time.

You're missing a nonverbal communication element, but I guarantee you you're going to get really good at every other element of conversation. I think you being able to hear tension in someone's voice, you being able to be witty in a conversation if that's what you want to do or to really focus on other people's feelings, if that's what you want to do, there's all kinds of different skill sets that you can build that you are advantaged to build here. It's an advantage not to have to worry about it. No one's going to think, oh my gosh, he's looking in the wrong way in the conversation. It's so rude. What's their problem? I mean, it's so clear and apparent that you couldn't react to their nonverbal communication that I really don't think it's going to matter. So you should just ignore it, especially since there's nothing you can do about it.

This is the simplest way to leverage this honestly as a strength here, in my opinion, potentially. Gabe, what do you think? I think you're absolutely right. There are always ways to work with and around your circumstances. And in this case, the things that he perceives as limitations, which are in many social situations limitations, could actually also be huge advantages that you and I don't even have, increased sensitivity to vocal tonality, curiosity about the world that you can't access visually, but you want to access auditorially.

or that you perceive and navigate in a different way. I mean, Jordan touched on this. It's actually kind of liberating to not be so driven by visual information all of the time. I bet you're able to draw different conclusions from situations. You'll notice things that people don't notice. You might be able to approach people without fear of what they think of you or judgment about what they are doing. It's amazing.

Like, that's a gift in a certain way. So on a more practical level, you might have to make an extra effort to talk to and connect with people sometimes. You might have to go way out of your way to meet them sometimes. That will take you out of your comfort zone, and I know it is hard. But it is essential. It will force you to become a better conversationalist, a better friend, a better guest at a party. You know, while I was reading this letter, I was thinking about Sean Stevenson, whom we both

knew, right? Yeah, absolutely. A friend of mine. Who passed away about a year ago, a little less than a year ago. And I didn't know Sean super well. We had a couple cool conversations. What I remember about him is that he was a guy who was very obviously disabled and had probably more reasons than anybody to not go to a conference, to not go to a party, to not go up and chat with

people. I mean, obviously, he had done some extraordinary work over the course of his life long before I met him to reframe that and to deal with it. I think he had a whole physical and mental routine that he went through to make his life. He was three feet tall in a wheelchair and his bones were as fragile as chalk. That's right. So he could fall anywhere, any way or, you know, get a too strong of a handshake and he could break bones. And his disease was called osteogenesis imperfecta. And it's rare. And he wasn't supposed to live past childhood and he was well into his 30s and like got married and everything and he had a PhD. I mean, he was an awesome dude and he worked out every morning. There are videos of that. That's what you're talking about, right? Where he would like, he has like a medicine ball workout

where he would like roll over and throw the ball. I mean, the dude worked out every day. It's like, what's your excuse. You know, he works out every day. It's crazy. Totally. That's what I remember thinking when I met him. But more specifically, what I remember about him is how funny he was. And he went so far out of his way to call attention to his disability and had come up with almost like, I don't want to call it a routine or schick because it was so much more genuine than that. He had grown comfortable with acknowledging the obvious difference between him and the rest of the world. And it made him so funny and it made him so accessible. It made him incredibly human.

And there wasn't one person at this party where I would hang out with him where people didn't want to be around him. Always. And he was the last person, if you just took him at face value. you would expect to be that way. So look, this is a very personal thing. How do you present yourself to the world? To what extent do you have a sense of humor about it? Do you mock yourself openly? Do you walk up to people and say, hi, I'm blind? You know, like, these are all a matter of personal style. But there is a way of relating to people that's available to you that isn't available to everyone else. And the more you acknowledge it openly, the more people will feel comfortable moving

past it and then being able to get to know you as a human being, which I think is what you're really getting at. At the same time, I just want to say, it's okay to be an introvert, dude. This has nothing to do with your disability. Some people recover energy when they're alone, and that's totally fine. And you're wired that way. It might not ever go away. That doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. If the internet helps you meet people, great. Maybe build relationships there first, then take them into the real world. That might be your way of primarily connecting with people, just like it is for most people, frankly, these days. But what I think Jordan and I are both getting at is you don't need to feel like you are boxed into being a certain kind of person because you think

people will relate to you that way, just in virtue of this one limitation that you have. There's so much more to you. And the more you get comfortable sharing that, the more a lot of this other stuff will open up. Yeah, well said, Gabriel. You know, I got a little choked up about my friend because he was supposed to come and visit the month before he passed away and he couldn't make it. So we were like, oh, well, we'll just do it later. It's a really strong reminder that later sometimes never comes, man. Really? And I think a lot of people are feeling that right now now that they postponed, I don't know, a family vacation and said they would do it later in 2020. And it's like, now you're not leaving the house for anything. Nothing like that. Yeah. Yeah. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone

that wrote in this week. Go back and check out the guests, Amanda Knox and Tom Wainwright, if you haven't yet. If you want to know how I managed to book all these great guests, it's always about the network. I'm using systems, tiny habits. It's six minutes a day, six minute networking course, which is free on the think-ethic platform at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Don't kick the can down the road, dig the well before you get thirsty. You hear me say that all the time. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. The course is free.

You don't have to put your credit card in. It's just a gift if that still exists in this day and age. Find it all for free at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts in the show notes. There's a video of this interview. This feedback Friday is on our YouTube channel. Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube.

We don't always upload them at the same time as we do this show. So whatever, no one cares. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me on LinkedIn. This show is created in association with Podcast 1 in my amazing team, including Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Milio Campo, Sal Cotching, and you, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Keep sending in those questions to Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. I'm a lawyer, not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use the advice we gave here today.

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. As promised, here we go with a preview trailer of our interview with Vince Beiser. If anybody had told me three, four years ago, that I was going to be spending my every waking hour thinking and talking about sand, I would have just laughed. It's actually the most important solid substance on Earth. We use about 50 billion tons of sand every year. That's enough to cover the entire state of California every single year.

Every year, we use enough concrete to build a wall 90 feet high and 90 feet across right the way around the planet at the equator. A bunch of sand might get broken off of a mountaintop, washed down into a plane somewhere, and then that sand gets buried under subsequent geological layers and pushed down under the earth and compressed and turned into sandstone. And then that sandstone may get pushed up again by geologic forces over hundreds of thousands of years and worn away again and again broken down back into grains. So an individual grain of sand can be millions of years old. We're fully eclipsing the rate of creation here.

You're probably sitting in a building made of just a huge pile of sand. And all the roads connecting all those buildings also made out of sand. The glass, the windows in all those buildings also made a sand. The microchips, the power our computers, our cell phones, all of our other digital goodies, also made from sand. So without sand, there's no modern civilization. And the craziest thing about it is we are starting to run out. For more on why Sand is the next petroleum-like resource and some crazy stories about

sand pirates and the black market for sand, check out episode 97 with Vince Beiser right here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. 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 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.

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.