The Jordan Harbinger Show - 397: My Future vs. My Special Needs Sister | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

You've been helping your single mom care for your special needs sister for 19 years, but you're 24 now and need to set out on your own life. How do you cope with the guilt you're feeling for putting your needs first for perhaps the first time, ever? 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/397 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: You've been helping your single mom care for your special needs sister for 19 years, but you're 24 now and need to set out on your own life. How do you cope with the guilt you're feeling for putting your needs first for perhaps the first time, ever? As a skillful, reliable contractor who has worked on an as-needed basis with several companies for six years, how do you ask for a raise without making it seem like an ultimatum? Is it possible to maintain friendships with people you've known your whole life but who differ from you not only in matters of opinion and lifestyle choices, but core values? You're at a point in your career where you want to focus on your target market, but you don't want your peers to think you're brushing your rejects off on them. When you're in a small industry where word travels fast, how do you nicely decline to work with someone? You've applied for a job that seems like a great fit, but you're concerned your criminal record might be an issue during the interview in spite of having drastically turned your life around. Should you bring it up first, and if so, how? 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. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider leaving your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!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. Today, as always, 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 much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening, sometimes even inside of your own mind, as we see often here on Friday. If you're new to the show, on Fridays, we give advice to you and answer listener questions the rest of the week. We have

long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes to authors, to thinkers and performers. For a selection of featured episodes to get you started with some of our favorite guests and popular topics, go on over to Jordan Harbinger.com. We'll hook you up. This week, on the show, we had Anders Erickson talking about the science of deliberate practice, what he calls deliberate practice, debunking that nonsense 10,000 hour rule that everyone's talking about because it's not accurate and it has nothing to do with anything and it's non-scientific. People talk about, Gabe, you know what that is, right? Like, oh, it's going to take you 10,000 hours to master a skill and it's just based on,

it's like a pop science baloney thing. I mean, Malcolm Gladwell made that very popular, right? But it's not his idea. I don't think it's his idea. That's why I didn't say, like, thanks Gladwell, who's been on the show, disrespecting. But I think he just took that and it's just not a thing. not true. More about how you spend that time, not how much time you spend. Right. The deliberate practice idea is the idea that, well, you'll hear it on the episode, but that's the whole point, is that you can

master things more quickly by doing what's called deliberate practice. We also did a deep dive. Gabe and I did on how to avoid scams, MLM scams, guru scams, large group awareness training, which are those like self-helpie group training scams, cults, whatever you want to call it. All those shady groups they get their claws into people. We talked about the type of person that falls for a scam in what their psychological makeup might be. I use that word loosely

because we're not actually personality typing. But this is based on the article. We just wrote about the topic after getting a metric ton of males from people asking how to convince their friends and family that they were part of a scam. So it's super timely.

Hope you enjoy that. Make sure you've had a look and listen to everything that we created for you this week. You can reach us Friday atjordanharbinger.com. If you keep your emails concise, you get bonus points and you can include a subject line that doesn't just say feedback Friday, that always makes our job a lot easier. So I was thinking, Gabriel, about my grandma who used to

keep napkins in her purse. Did your grandma do that? Totally. Still does. Yeah, yeah, what's up with that? Is that an old lady thing? All grandmas. It's an old lady thing. All grandmas. It's not just Jewish grandmas. Nope. You're sure about that. I mean, I'm definitely biased because both my grandma's are Jewish, but they are not particularly Jewish and they both have Kleenex in all their purses. Yeah. So one of my grandmas is Jewish. Clean X for days. The other one, not Jewish, not a Kleenex in sight. Oh, interesting. I'm saying small sample size, but still. Does your grandma have Wothers by the front door? Or is she like a strawberry candy? Hell no. Are we work? Do I look like I grew up on Wothers? Hell no. No, my grandma was melted strawberry candy from a decade prior. That's

the go-to grandma's snack, I think. But that's not a Jewish thing, right? No, that was my Ukrainian grandma. And she was just like, there was a bowl of change in candy. She goes, that's for the paper boy. And I'm like, I'm sure the 40-year-old paper boy who's now like, you know, a Mexican guy who speaks fluent English and is not for, like, she's used to like

little Polish kids, not like the grown-ass Latino men who like come by and do all this stuff in her neighborhood. I'm sorry. Are you saying that she? still feeds the newspaper. First of all, there's still a newspaper. Well, I guess I guess the few newspapers. My grandma passed away a while ago, but I remember meeting the quote-unquote paper boy,

and his name was like Ronaldo, super nice guy, had like three kids, lived in the neighborhood, you know. Yeah. She was like, hello, and he's like, hi, you know? Like, grew up in Detroit. I don't need you to speak slower. And I don't need melted strawberry candy in a dime. But she made up for it with the candy, though, didn't she?

And like nickels and stuff. Anyway, I don't, this is a tangent. I hate when people do. this on podcast. I was going to say, I predict that the napkins in the purse like my grandma's had or my grandma had or the whole clean your plate of food that my parents had. I think that our generation's version of that is going to be disinfecting everything, your hands, everything you touch, and possibly having a mask. Oh, interesting. Yeah, like, not everyone's going to do it. I won't do it probably, but there's going to be people who you and I hang out with in 20 years and they're going

be spraying Purell everywhere, wiping down the restaurant table and possibly wearing a mask at like a football game. And we're going to be like, yo, why is Jimmy wearing a mask? Yeah, why is he? Oh, he just never got kind of over that whole COVID thing. What? That was in 2020. Why is he smothering his pancakes with Purell? What's that about? Yeah, why is he spraying Purell on everybody? Why won't he get close to the waitress? It's going to, yeah, like, we'll have like, sort of, we'll be conditioned by this whole thing. It was my grandfather, who also passed away many years ago, until the day he died would take, like when he ate a meal, if there were like crumbs on the table, he would take his thumb and he would individually, he would individually smash them on the little crumbs

and eat them because he grew up in the Great Depression and like the idea of wasting an single morsel of anything was so beyond, like he couldn't handle the idea of that. I think it's sort of like that, right? You're just like, you're a product of your time and you can't shake it. And he had a really, really strong immune system, I would imagine after all that non-crumbs he ate along with those crumbs. It would have been fun to see how that little ritual held up during COVID. Oh, God. Hey, you know what? I'm just going to leave that on the table. Oh, my goodness. We shouldn't be laughing about that. And speaking of things we shouldn't be laughing about, question one is a doozy. Let's jump right in.

Hey, Jordan, team. I've grown up in a single parent household with my mom and special needs little sister, who is a high-functioning autistic 19-year-old. My upbringing is a involved a fair amount of what I guess you would call trauma, although I don't choose to categorize it that way because I don't see that as productive. I'm going to put a pin in that. Yeah, let's come back to that sentence. As a result, I feel a heavy guilt or burden as if I need to end the stress and suffering that my mom is stuck with due to my little sister, who, if I'm being honest, is more of a pain

in the rear end than most can probably imagine. She's been violent with my aging mother from time to time and even recently forced her to call the neighbors for help after she snuck up on her in the house. Okay, that sounds really scary. Actually. Intense. She is. I do know my mom can physically handle my sister if, God forbid, it comes to that again.

I am now 24, and I'm going to boot camp to enter the Air Force Reserves near my hometown. I joined the reserves because I wanted to go active duty, but would feel terrible leaving my mom alone to care for my sister 100% of the time. So I have two questions. First, how do I avoid the stress of feeling a lot of responsibility and guilt about leaving my mom to take care of my sister while I'm in boot camp and just in general throughout life? Second, where do you think my responsibility ends in terms of being a pseudo-parent for my little sister? Thank you for all your insights. Sincerely, 24 go in on 44.

Okay. Well, first of all, it sounds like you've been through a lot in your life and you had a pretty complicated childhood. I'm very sorry that you've been going through all this. Sibling relationships are already complex and having a special needs sibling and a violent one that you've kind of had to parent on top of that. It's more than, anyone should have had to handle, especially at your age. And I can tell from your letter that you have a tremendous amount of anger and conflict about your situation. There are no easy answers here, but I do feel that one of the most important things you can do is recognize how obviously difficult and confusing this has been for you. I want to go back to this original point, though.

Where do you think my responsibility ends in terms of being a pseudo-parent from my little sister, you ask? I honor your sense of wanting to help your family and the compassion you have for your mom, But it's very important to note here, you are not the parent. It is not your responsibility to be the parent. You deserve to have your own life. You deserve to have your own happiness, your own path. It is not your responsibility to be the pseudo parent in this family. I'm not really feeling like my mom lays on the guilt kind of situation. I feel like he's just a nice person that feels responsible for it. I don't really get the feeling from the, from the slight letter that we had that his mother's like, you're not leaving us, are you? I don't really feel like that. If so, I think you would have indicated that my mom is terrified for her life. It would have been more dramatic. Yeah, and actually, it's interesting because we don't know from the letter exactly what the message he received in his household was. But in some ways, if his mom had thrust that position on him, in some ways, it might have been easier for him to deal with because he could have seen, oh, that's not fair. It is being put on me when I don't want it.

Right. I get the vibe that this was sort of more implied, that there was something implicit in this household. and in his childhood that he had to take on some of the roles. We don't know where dad is. It sounds like he's not in the picture right now or maybe ever. So that can actually be, I think, harder. I get the sense that that actually makes it harder for him to disentangle this stuff because he was sort of, it's just been part of his life for so long that he can't even, he doesn't even realize how deep that really goes.

I guess some of this also depends on culture. You know, if it's the whole, it takes a village. I know from families that are maybe not just sort of your standard white American. If you have different ethnicities, it's like, No, you're leaving, you're moving away. Why? You have to live in our basement until you're married with kids yourself. Like that kind of family. Sure, everybody kind of pitches in and it helps out.

And if you do end up with a special needs member of the family, then it's sort of a shared responsibility. And that's actually really good to note because we don't know what his background is, but it could be a little bit different. Also, that would add to the guilt and the anger. Like, I can't believe you're leaving. You're failing your mother, says every 13th cousin and uncle who calls and comes over and is all up in your business. right, like if it's a regular kind of Midwestern white family like I grew up in, nobody says anything to you about something that's not their business, generally. Yeah, they just keep the Kleenex and hand out the strawberry candies.

Yeah, they just keep that Kleenex around and then they complain about things. You know, that's my family, my extended family. They talk about it amongst themselves, for sure, but they never have the guts to say it to you. Depending on the culture, that might be the case. So you don't have to, and you should not sacrifice your future just so that you can help your mom. You can help. You are helping, but you don't need to be tied down permanently and sacrifice your career prospects just so that you can protect your mom from a violent person, even if that person is your sister. Use some of your salary if you want to get part-time in-home care for your sister,

give your mom a little bit of a break. You don't even have to do that, but if that makes you feel better, then go ahead. As far as enlisting in the military, first of all, thanks for your service, but people often join the military to escape something. Let's be sure we're not doing that. A lot of times the military is better than the environment that people grew up, especially if that environment was rough. But you cannot escape a feeling. You can distract yourself from a feeling, but if you're trying to join the reserves to avoid these feelings, they will come back down the road. So if joining the reserves is your calling, great, I'm all for it, follow your passion, whatever, but know that you're not going to outrun your feelings. I'm not trying to talk you out of

enlisting. I just want you to think about the reasons why you're doing this. Gabe. I also sense a lot of anger in this email and understandably so. I also get a sense that there's some resentment. I'm guessing toward his sister, even though it's not her fault, toward his mom, even though it's not her fault, and just toward this whole situation. I feel like his rage is kind of tamped down as soon as it bubbles up in the email. And in some ways, that's the most revealing part of it. I feel like this is a guy. We don't know if it's a guy or girl. I'm guessing it's a guy just from the email. But this is a person who was not allowed to express their feelings and still is not. And that's kind of the hardest thing. I'm also struck by this feeling of guilt because it's interesting he didn't actually do anything wrong here, right? He's just pursuing his life. He's a young man. He's stepping out of the world.

He's going after what he wants in the reserves. He clearly feels conflicted about leaving his family to chase what he wants. But that's partly because he has some misguided ideas about what he owes them, I think. My guess is that he probably feels guilty because he actually feels relieved. Ooh, that's insightful. I think you're on the right track. I think he feels relieved to be escaping this situation, even if he feels tremendous conflict about that. He's torn about whether he has a right to escape it, but the reality is he's getting out of a pretty

tough house. You don't know that you are allowed to carve out some space for yourself in this family, and that's really what the question is about. Before we wrap up, Jordan, I do think we should touch on this idea that it's unproductive to think about something as trauma. That really stood out to me when we were reading the letter. Yeah, I wanted to put it in, like, oh, I don't acknowledge my trauma because it's not productive. Cool. I'm stoked that you think you have to be productive and that you can put things to the side,

but ignoring feelings doesn't make him go away. No, it doesn't. We all kind of have learned the hard way at some point in our lives. There are so many misconceptions about what trauma is. In our culture, people think that trauma has to be something like sexual assault or, you know, surviving 9-11 or something huge and scary like that.

But trauma can actually be something as simple as a parent not meeting your emotional needs because you had a sibling who had bigger needs. And also, trauma is not about the event that happened. This is very important. It's not about the event that happened. It's about the way that you respond to that event. So that's what all the latest research and expertise is showing, that it's, you know, two people who are in the exact same situation. Let's just go back to the big example. Two people who survive 9-11, for example, could have radically different responses to it, and therefore they have different experiences of the trauma. So whether or not you want to believe that your childhood actually

constituted trauma is kind of irrelevant. It is what it is. So categorizing it as unproductive seems to me more of an avoidance strategy or a coping mechanism to allow him to kind of deal with it and just not have to feel the feelings. But that, to your point, Jordan, doesn't make the feelings go away. They'll just come out in other ways. But if he does choose to say, you know what, what I went through was pretty traumatic in its own way, that could actually allow him to process this effectively. So addressing your underlying feelings is the biggest part of this, I think. It sounds to me, me like there was little to no room for your feelings in your family. So now when you try to feel them, you probably get very overwhelmed and probably just shut down and stuff them down. So asking how to

avoid the guilt and the burden is really the wrong question. The right question, I think, is how to acknowledge them, have acceptance and compassion for how you feel, and learn to live your life even in the presence of those difficult emotions. And if you can do that and join the reserves and chase your dreams, then I think you'll be able to not make all this stuff go away and not change the situation that your sister and your mother are in, but be able to build a life around them and not have to sacrifice your own life because of them. All right. Well, we didn't start easy on this one.

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 and Gabe. I've been a contract physical therapist assistant for six years. I work with three different companies. One gives consistent raises to its employees. One claims that they don't do raises. And one, I haven't asked yet. I work on an as-needed basis, which means I'm not necessarily

consistent with any one company, and the longest I usually work with one company is maybe a week at a time, often only one day a week. I know I have value, as I am often requested by facilities when coverage is needed, and I'm liked by the facilities and patients who have left reviews about me. I've considered asking for a raise, but I'm not sure how to say, hey, I do my job when you ask, and I'm often available when you need me, I need some more money for it. I have thought of calculating hours or asking after a longer stint of work. Also, I'm not ready to say that I may leave without a raise. So how do I ensure that it'll work when I do ask the big question? Thank you, reaching for a raise. A lot of people can relate to your dilemma. You're good at what you do, people like you, you're a nice person,

but because of the nature of your job and your performance up till now, you're not really in a slam dunk position to land that raise. COVID might have something to do with it. It's not a great time for people to be like, I'm leaving otherwise. It's like, all right, well, we have a job. You feel a gap between the money you want and what you've done to earn it. At the same time, it sounds like you're not getting more money from one place than another. So you can't just be like, hey, this other place is offering me more money for more hours. Can you match or beat them? By the way, I do want to say one thing. The place that, quote unquote, doesn't do raises. Yes, they freaking do. Every place does raises, unless they want to lose their staff.

Now, maybe they're comfortable losing staff, and they offer a really low level of terrible service that just deals with whatever environment they're in. There's a lot of places that say, oh, we have a standard pay scale. Unless you're the government, your company can offer you something special. And you know what?

They might not do raises. I've heard this before. Oh, we don't do raises. So then we say, okay, cool, negotiate your vacation time. Well, yeah, I can give you two extra weeks of vacation, but I can't give you more money. Give me two extra weeks of vacation. vacation, and then that same person either does less work during the year or they get a,

if they have another part-time job, they work more during those two weeks. They work full-time, and that's a raise. That's essentially what it is. You can't leverage one place against another from the sound of it, but you're not ready to leave one of those companies without a raise, probably for that same reason, which, let's be honest, puts you at a slight disadvantage. There's no leverage like being able to walk from a job. Unfortunately, sometimes that's the only language that a company knows how to speak. It's always good to have that option in your back pocket. Since you don't, here's what I think you should do. You need to perform a couple notches above the level where the raise would be appropriate. Do that for a while, three months,

six months, then ask for the raise. In other words, prove you can work at or beyond the level that deserves the money. You might already feel you're working at that level, in which case now might be a great time to ask for that raise. But even if you are, it couldn't hurt to perform a little better just as a way to stack the deck. And I also think you should document what you're doing because you might be able to say, hey, look, everyone else is doing this, this, and this, but I'm doing that plus X. This might mean providing a higher level of care for your patients, advancing your education, your credentials, building strong relationships with the managers

at your companies, working on your connection with your patients. Whatever performing at the next level means for you, just do that. And that might be easier said than done, but that's how you get a raise or a bonus or a promotion. You're right, saying, well, I do my job when you ask and I'm often available when you need me and I need more money, that's a terrible pitch, not a good pitch. Plant the seed early. You don't need to ask for the raise right now, but you can and should ask for a little performance review, and that's where you can ask for the raise. Say, look, in a month, I'd love to meet with you, go over my performance,

make sure you do it a few weeks in advance. What you don't want to do is ambush your boss with this. Like, hey, Tom, can I talk to you for five minutes? So I need a raise where I'm leaving. It's like, whoa, this is awful. You're putting me between a rock and a hard place. I don't even have the power to do that. I got to call the owner. You don't want to do that. You want to say, in four weeks, I'd like a performance review. They might even think you're going to quit, which is great, because it gives them a chance to figure out how to retain you. And hint, more money is how they do that. Gabe, what about doing like a, I don't know, you look like the type of guy who might have had a PowerPoint together at some point about why they should be paid more? What do you think?

I don't know what you're trying to say, but you're absolutely correct. I spent four years in Microsoft PowerPoint. So I do. Powerpoint University. I know my way around a pivot table. Look, I think, first of all, Jordan, that is such good advice. I've never heard of somebody asking for a performance review in expectation of the conversation of a raise. Not only does it very elegantly put them on notice potentially a little bit to that you want to know where you stand and you might be making some moves.

But it's such a better way into that conversation because if you go into that performance review knowing that you're going to do well. And by the way, I think this guy is. is probably going to do pretty well because the patients love him. He has a good track record. It sounds like he's well liked. Then you're already basically greasing the skids for the conversation about the race, right? Like you basically are saying, hey, tell me how I'm doing. F. Y, I'm killing it. They tell you you're killing it. And you're like, sounds like you need to prove it to me. Sounds like you need to prove it. Put your money where your mouth is, Tom. Exactly. I'm so happy that I could be doing such a good job. I would love to continue working here. Here's what I would like to be paid for that. So to make that case

even stronger. He could also put together a little pitch. I mean, that could be as formal as PowerPoint, but it could also just be an email to his managers. And basically, he could explain, you know, what he's currently providing, why he's so valuable and what he wants, the raise. And in this case, he has a lot of data to work with, right? He could collect the best excerpts from those patient reviews. He could quantify his contributions a little bit, like hours worked, patient seen, scores earned or whatever, qualitative stuff too, patient feedback, anecdotal evidence, whatever it is, and reiterate why you really want to be working at this company and why you care about the work. And if you can show why you deserve the raise you're asking for specifically and show that you're

performing above your level currently, this conversation will be so much more fun and way more effective. All right. What's next? Hi, Jordan, Gabriel. I'm in my late 20s, and I feel like I've been growing apart from my oldest friends. While they're fun and interesting people, I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their views on life. I struggle mainly with them being okay with doing things that range from immoral to outright illegal. And I don't mean park it ticket illegal. I mean like fraud illegal, which they do not see as a big deal. I do sometimes find our differences insightful as they can look at

things in ways I would never have thought of, but more often than not, I'm left concerned and upset. I thought I could handle this by slowly distancing myself, but I was recently called out on it. I feel like I now either need to pull the trigger on ending the friendships, which I was trying to avoid, or go back to being close. My friends are keen to rebuild our connection and do not seem bothered by our differences. I know that it's important to have a wide variety of people in your life, but I'm not sure where to draw the line. I fully admit to being more straight-laced than most, and hanging out with them in high school and university helped me learn to be more adventurous and comfortable with risk. But the mindsets that seemed fun and edgy in my teens and early

20s are now rapidly looking short-sighted and childish as we cross into our 30s. Is there a way to know how different is too different for your social circle? Is there even such a thing as being too different if you want a strong and diverse network. When it comes to friends, how different is too different before it's okay to cut someone off? And finally, do you have any suggestions on how to handle significant differences with people you do want to still be close to? DeFriend, dilemma. This is a question that comes down to values. Is there a way to know how different is too different for your social circle? It's always, always, always about values. Differences in opinion, interests, hobbies, lifestyle. These are all things that don't make or break a friendship. I've got friends that are like,

unowning super right wing, but not like the racist kind, but like right up on that buffer that live in RVs and stuff like that. And we have little in common. We're still friends. You know, it's not a problem. But values, like the actual values that dictate how you live your life, like these are still honest people that work hard, that mean well, that want the best for their family, for their country, they just have a different opinion on how to do it. Views about right and wrong, fair and unfair, criminal and acceptable. These are These are value differences that cut a lot deeper. I don't have friends anymore that get by on fraud or that believe that some people are better

than others because of the way they look or anything. I don't have those friends anymore. I might have when I was younger. These types of beliefs, these value differences, they also have ramifications for you. If your friend wants to pick up parasailing as a hobby and you don't like parasailing, it's not that big of a deal. They can go parasailing. You stay on the beach, reading the book, you go surfing, whatever it is you want to do.

But if your friend brings you along to a lunch meeting where they're raising money for a fake company and you're sitting there validating what they're saying, that's more serious. You're orbiting something illegal, you're involved in something illegal, and you could even be implicated in those charges. If you were to introduce this friend to someone else, you'd be vouching for somebody who is straight up fraudulent, a scammer. There's a risk. I'm very careful about this now.

People go, hey, what do you think about this person? And I go, no, they made their money in multi-level marketing, or they sell this guru ruse scam thing. I don't care if they have a lot of followers. I don't care if they're the influencer du jour. I don't want to be associated with them. I don't want to be in a photo with them. I don't want them on the show. I don't want to be on their show. This is something that affects you even if you think it doesn't. You can't compartmentalize certain things. Of course, lifestyle choices also implies certain values. And this is an interesting gray area. For example, if your friend turns vegan and shames you publicly for eating meat, that's a pretty

significant difference to overcome. Yeah, it's a superficial choice, more or less, but the way they're going about it is veering into a question about values, not just about what to eat, but how to treat other people who disagree. Then the question becomes, can you have a conversation about it? Is there enough respect and awareness to openly discuss this difference in values? If so, your friendship can survive, it can even thrive. If not, it probably won't. Gabe, what do you think? As for your question, do you have any suggestions on how to handle those differences with people you do still want to be close with? I think the biggest part of that is learning to recognize those differences, knowing the difference between a lifestyle choice and a more like a deeper belief or a more profound value that actually affects your relationship and then confronting those problems head on and discussing them, you know, respectfully and rationally with the other person, if you can own your experience and know that if you feel weird when you hang out with this person, if you feel kind of off, if you feel vaguely concerned when you're you're hanging out with them and they're engaging in casual fraud, there's probably a good reason for that. At the same time, when you do bring it up, I do think you should give the other person a chance

to explain their behavior, right? Like, you can be open to being proven wrong or changing your mind. You honestly sound extremely open-minded as a person, so I'm not too concerned about that, but it is worth trying to understand why they're behaving the way they do and trying to understand what in you is causing that friction. Because there are so many variables that go into that, right, Jordan. Like someone could be doing something that isn't outright illegal and might not even be that bad, but because you were raised in a certain way, if you were raised in a household, like I was, frankly, where, you know, right and wrong are so clearly delineated at anything that looks like it could be even slightly shady is like scary and like you shouldn't do that. Like you need to stay far

away from that. When really, what they're really doing is just like skirting the rules a little bit. Like they're like filing paperwork in a sloppy way or whatever the, I don't know what it is. Although from her email, it does sound like it's not that stuff. But my point is just that the way you're raised will affect what you perceive as immoral, right? You're the guy who's like, I'm going to rip this tag off this pillow, even this is under penalty of law. Do not remove. Right. Like, is that kind of your danger zone? I mean, I regret putting my pillows within view of the camera. You're like the guy who pulls the USB drive out when it's like, do not eject. You're like, I'm just going to rip this thing out of there. Yo.

How did you know that? Too soon to eject? I'll. be the judge of that. Do you ever reject the USB properly, take it out, and it still tells you that you did it improperly? Yeah, and I'm like, you know what? I'm like, it's like Thug-vife. That's right. Do you ever pull it out and it says that you did it illegally and then you just sit by the door waiting for the feds to show up? I call 911 to preemptively turn myself in. I'm here to be picked up. I'm sorry, it was a USBA. Nerd alert. Okay, look, at that point, if you do confront these things with your friend. At that point, you guys will either come to a resolution, one of you will change or both of you will change, or you will change, and neither of you will change, and then you go your separate

ways. But at that point, I think you have two options. You can either negotiate your closeness. You can maintain a friendship with somebody that is not as intimate or as constant. You're just not as close as you used to be so that you're not orbiting some of the shady behavior. I'll give an example. I have a couple friends who drink too much, right? Like, they're not my best friends. They're not even my super Yeah, good to do. You might want to hold up as he drinks from a class. But because those people are interesting or they're funny or they're kind in some way, I'll stay connected. Like, we might jump on the phone every few months.

We might do a podcasting. I might have a podcast. Yeah, exactly. I care about them. I enjoy their friendship, but I wouldn't, you know, go on a three-hour dinner or on a vacation with them because their parting is at odds with how I prefer to spend my time, right? Yeah. So that's one option. The other option is that it's so irreconcilable.

that you just cut ties. And in that case, you have to explain why you feel that you can't be close anymore and you just move on, right? You find friends who share your values, who don't engage in that casual fraud over lunch or whatever, and you invest more deeply in those relationships and let those relationships bring you into a more fulfilling life full of people who share your values and are on the same frequency as you. To me, it sounds like you're heading more towards that second option with this group of friends, and I think that's more than okay. All right. What's next? Hey, team. I'm in the beauty industry and recently referred a would-be client to a peer of mine. I'm afraid I may have said the wrong thing, and now it's a bit awkward. I'm at a point in my career where I want to focus on my

target market, but I don't want my peers to think that I'm just brushing my rejects off on them, and I don't want anyone to feel rejected or lash out at me after connecting with me. I imagine that you have to politely decline people who aren't a good fit all the time. I'm especially concerned because in my industry, mean girls talk, and word travels fast. How do you nicely decline to work with somebody? signed accidental a-hole. Yeah, this is a high-quality problem. Gabe, you want to start off at this one? I really think that this is mostly about style.

It's about how she does it, not that she's doing it in the first place. If you pawn someone off like, sorry, I'm busy, but, you know, this random person can do it and you just, like, see-se them with a few words, yeah, it'll probably come across like you're bailing on a client, and it'll come across like you're just dropping your unwanted clients on your peers. But if you say, look, you sound like a great client. Unfortunately, I'm focused more on retail strategy. clients right now or whatever, but I know a great B2B person who might be an amazing fit for you

and you write a thoughtful little introduction, then you won't just sound diplomatic. You might even come across looking better. Plus, you're building relationships in both directions, which is awesome, right? Part of making that work is vetting the people you refer clients to and having strong relationships with them. So you want to know that you're putting a client in good hands, right? You don't want to just pawn somebody off to like the first person who pops up on your LinkedIn, who seems like they vaguely have the experience that would be helpful. That'll give you the confidence to know that you're taking care of a client even if you refer them out, and it'll also ensure that you're referring clients to the peers who actually deserve it. You're not an a-hole for declining

to work with somebody. You're only an a-hole if you do it thoughtlessly. So I would say, congrats on being in that enviable position. From a tactical perspective, I would tell them why you can't work with them, just as you suggested Gabe. Then I would do a double opt-in with both parties. This is part of six-minute networking. If you've been through that course, you know how to do this, but this way it's not you brushing rejects off onto someone else, but finding that person an even better fit while getting someone you know a new client. So it's all about the framing here. If you do it right, you're golden. Tact is key and going the extra mile, so checking in after you introduced to the other person, doing that double opt-in, maybe a month or so later, you check in again

to make sure they were taken care of. That goes a long way towards them feeling good about their interaction with you as opposed to feeling like they just weren't good enough to work with you in the first place? Done right, this should be a win-win where your colleague is stoked to have a new client and the prospect is grateful that you even took the time to send her elsewhere since you were too busy or focused on something else to take her business. This is a professional move and it shows that you're a class act. Gabe, I feel like we're edging on the art of saying no or some article or some deep dive here.

Boundaries, setting boundaries, maintaining boundaries, business, clients, friends, family. Maybe we should note that and do something with this. Because I think getting your time back is about saying no. Keeping your boundaries and setting them is about saying no. Successful relationships and friendships is about saying no. Having a work life balance is about saying no. There's probably an article in here. This is the Jordan Harpinger show and this is feedback Friday. We'll be right back. 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 Jordan harbinger.com slash deals for all the details on everybody that helps support the show. And now for the

conclusion of Feedback Friday. All right, last but not least. Dear Jordan, I'm a 23-year-old living in Florida. I moved down here about three years ago on a journey to better myself in all aspects of my life. I'm currently seeking out a career to replace the two full-time jobs that I currently hold and do not love. I applied and interviewed at a very reputable company that I feel like I would be a good fit for. The only problem is that I have a bad criminal background. I was told that if I, I brought this up, along with the fact that I'm almost two years sober and have had a complete turnaround in my perspective on life and in my impact on other people's lives, that I would be okay to move forward. But I could never get the topic to come up organically during the very strange and uncomfortable

Zoom interview. I feel like my past mistakes are nearly impossible to contend with. What advice, if any, do you have for someone in my position? Should I talk about my past at all? If so, how? With gratitude, Jekyll not hide. Well, this is a tough situation. and I have some thoughts on this. First, if these companies do background checks and they probably do, you have no choice but to disclose. If you don't, you're going to look like you're hiding your past. You're immediately going to get disqualified. At that point, it's all about the story that you tell. Working on this story is your main job right now. It has to be airtight. It has to be totally honest. It has to be meaningful, reflective, authentic, and most importantly, it has to actually address what you

did in the past, specifically. All the things you've done to become better should also be included in there and how all of that stuff will never happen again, not just because you say it won't, but because you have a different lifestyle, different circumstances, and a different support network than you did before. You said, I was told that if I brought this up, that it would be okay to move forward. By who? A recruiter, just some random person, who told you that? If you tell that story well, yes, it can be okay to move forward. But you need to stack the deck. in your favor. You have to have references that'll vouch for you. You need a great LinkedIn profile with endorsements from people that look normal, not this sort of blank thing with no profile photo.

You need stories that illustrate what kind of person you are now and how you've changed, not just the promise that you have changed. Also, and definitely not least here, relationships with people who can put a good word in and confirm your story that also have a good reputation, not just like my mom says that I'm a good boy now. We've all seen that on the news, right? Like the guy who shoots three people at a firework show, and the mom's like, he was a good boy. It's like, no, you're just a crazy person that raised a terrible kid who deserves to be in prison. I'm not saying that's you. Of course it's not you.

What I'm saying is you need to reaffirm that story so people don't assume that it is you. When I work with inmates on this and shout out to all my high desert folks who celebrated my 40th birthday with me volunteering in high desert maximum security prison, by the way, when I work on this with inmates, they're still in prison. And we discuss how their interviews are going to go when they're out, their job interviews, the job search, we do mock interviews. And whenever I sense that I get that slight hedge or they're shying away from telling their story or they're like, yeah, a lot of difficult things happen when I was a kid.

And then I just got out of prison and we're like, what? Hold on. I stop them because this is a major red flag. If I find out later that you were incarcerated or you had a rough past and you didn't tell me, I will not assume you didn't tell me because it was embarrassing. I will assume you didn't tell me because of some other reason, like it's still going on, and I will also assume that there is more that you're not telling me, which breaks any trust I might have had in you as an employee or somebody that I just met for that matter.

You don't have to lead with it, but it should definitely come up. If it doesn't come up organically, and why would it, caveat it, bring it up yourself, get ahead of it. Gabe, I know you've got some ideas on this. Yeah, I mean, it's not like most recruiter. are going to stop the interview and say, man, like, you really are the perfect candidate. You crush this interview. But, you know, just so I know, is there any criminal stuff in your past? Have you been in prison? I'm just throwing it out there just to make sure you've never been incarcerated. It's not going to happen. They're going to find out later.

So you have to be the one to bring it up. And by being the one to bring it up, you actually will probably come across as even more credible and trustworthy given your past circumstances. So basically, you would say some version of, look, I've really enjoyed talking to you. I would love to work at your company. I think I would be a great employee. I do want to tell you that a long time ago my life was very different. I was an addict. I did some things that I deeply regret. Here are the things. Be specific about them. Say that you've paid the price. And since then, I've gotten sober. I've been sober for two years now. I'm in recovery. I go to meetings. I take my life very seriously. I treat other people much more seriously. Again, be specific here.

Don't just say, I am a great guy now. Talk about the things that make you a better person. I'm sure that you have very concrete details about that. And then say that you're building a life that is very different from your old one. And in many ways, I think that all of that has made me a more responsible candidate, a more hardworking candidate, a more thoughtful person to work with. I just wanted you to know that up front because I want us to be, you know, totally on the same page. This story, telling the story and bringing it up yourself is going to take some practice. It will probably feel very scary in the beginning. I mean, why wouldn't it be? There's shame around the story. Most people don't want to know that or they, you know, you are anticipating a negative response or whatever, but it will get easier with time. And actually,

the more you tell the story, I think it could actually add to your profile as a candidate because you will be the person who has been through some stuff and can talk about it openly and can tell the story in a way that makes somebody want to hire you even more. I would say rehearse with some people, write out a little script for yourself, do mock interviews with friends. Those will go a very long way and take as many interviews as you can just so you can get those reps in so it becomes very natural. If you do all that, I think you'll dramatically increase your chances of landing your next job. So good luck, dude. It becomes a phenomenon.

And it comes a JJ Abrams show. That's great advice. I love the idea about doing mock interviews because everyone thinks, okay, when this comes up, I'm just going to cop to it. And then it happens. And you're like, well, I was, so in the beginning, what happened, you see what happened was. And then it's like, this interview is over, right? You need to be able to handle that. You need them, you need to be prepared for someone to say, and this is what I do in the prison.

You need to be prepared for someone to say, so what did you do that landed you in prison? And you just, you can't say, well, I had all these things and then these decisions happen and I had a rough. You need to go, I shot someone during a drug deal, but I am not the same person now. And that was a long time ago. And I think about it every day and it's my deepest regret. And it was the result of, you don't want to start off sort of hedging and slow. It will immediately raise flags. It's going to raise flags anyways.

What you want is it to be minimal and the lowest flags possible. So practice makes perfect here. creeping up on episode 400 here. I've been podcasting for something like 13 years. I keep thinking about which are my favorite episodes. Here's what you should check out next on the Jordan Harbinger show. There's a kind of sad reality of the blue-collar world and mentality, which is you get paid to physically do things. There's a very straight line on how to make money. That world never pauses and goes, who are you? And what are your ideas?

And what about all these other people that are composing songs or writing the theme song to the Tonight Show and going to the mailbox and getting a royalty check? Or this guy wrote a movie or at some point, you just buy into that program. Shut your mouth, pick up that shovel, and get going. What sort of triggered that for you? What sort of went, you know what, screw this. I'm not trading time for money. I have to figure something else out.

I sat around, and I've sat around and I went, what are you good at? And the answer was comedy. Podcasting is obviously on the way up. How did you spot an opportunity there and go, you know what, this is a safer or better or more lucrative bet? When I was doing morning radio, the program director would go, we need to get our ratings up in L.A. We're fifth in L.A. or whatever. Then some other guy would come in and he'd go, you guys had. 16 million minutes of streaming last month.

Then the program director would, like, come back in and he'd go, you guys got to get your shit together, you know? And I'd go, hey, we have 16 million minutes of streaming. And he'd go, like, so who cares? You're fifth in L.A. And then he'd just walk out of the studio. And I remember, we were just sort of looking around going, I don't know. It seems good.

Seems good. Then I got fired. And my buddy said, do a podcast. And I was like, let's just do it. For more with Adam Carolla, including why trading time for money is a losing proposition and how we can break the cycle, and how to tell if we're doing something for ourselves or doing something based on pressure from others, check out episode 69 right here on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Go back and check out Anders Erickson and the deep dive on what type of people fall for scams, is it you? If you want to know how we managed to book all these great guests, It is always about the network. Check out our six-minute networking course, which is free. It's over there on the Thinkithic platform,

jordanharbinger.com slash course. You can't make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. Dig the well before you get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you are too late. These take just a couple minutes today. That's why it's called six-minute networking. Ignore it at your own peril.

Jordanharbinger.com slash course. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes. There's a video of feedback Friday on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can hit me on LinkedIn.

This show is created in association with podcast one and my amazing team, including Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millie O'Campo, Josh Ballard, and of course, 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, but I'm not your lawyer. 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. 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. 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.